Smuggler's Gulch by Paul Lederer

Author:Paul Lederer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781480488212
Publisher: Open Road Media

SIX

Jake awoke in his hotel bed as the first silver light of dawn pierced the devil sky roofing the desert. He rose feeling weary, dejected and defeated as he had every right to feel. He dressed with a sullen anger coiled inside him. Where had everything gone wrong? He would have liked to go to the restaurant, flirt with Cathy Vance, laugh and later look around for honest work.

But he was a deputy marshal assigned to track down a bloody killer or risk having his own neck stretched.

What else could a notorious burro-killer expect out of life?

Still, there was nothing for it but to vacillate and wriggle, to try to convince both Sarah and the marshal that an assault on Smuggler’s Gulch was a recipe for disaster, because that was exactly what it was. Marshal Trouffant could possibly be persuaded of that, but Sarah … she was Sarah. Jake wasn’t sure if it was vengeance or gold-lust that drove her, but either way she had no apparent objection to men dying as long as she achieved her ends.

Jake’s stomach complained that it was hungry as he stepped out into the low silver light of the morning, but there was a bad taste in his mouth overriding the impulse to eat. He stalked the plankwalk toward Trouffant’s office, still wondering if the bed-ridden marshal had not decided that a liaison with Sarah Worthy was a path to his own financial security. Obviously he could not hold office for much longer, the shape he was in, and he must have deep concerns about his own seemingly doomed livelihood. He had certainly seemed over-eager to pin a badge on a man he knew nothing about except that he had been responsible for the deaths of three wanted men.

‘Me,’ Jake muttered to himself. ‘A real gun dog, dark angel of retribution. Gunfighter and bounty killer.’ Except he was none of those. All he wanted was out of Lewiston, out of Arizona and as far away as he could possibly get from Kit Blanchard and the Smugglers Gulch gang.

There were a dozen horses drawn up in front of the marshal’s office and the sick feeling in Jake’s belly deepened. He knew already.…

‘Good morning,’ Deputy Bostwick said in greeting. The young man was smirking with amusement. ‘The marshal is waiting for you – with news about your posse.’

Jake trudged down the short corridor toward the marshal’s bedroom. Several rough-appearing men in dirty range clothes lounged along the walls. Jake ignored their scornfully appraising glances and proceeded into Trouffant’s room, finding four or five other men gathered around the marshal’s bed. At least, he thought thankfully, Sarah Worthy was not there.

But Hutch Gleason was.

The big balding man wore a strip of adhesive tape across his nose. One nostril was packed with cotton, and both of his eyes were blackened.

‘Good morning, Staggs,’ the marshal said from his bed. He was propped up on a pair of pillows and seemed better than the last time Jake had visited him. ‘I was hoping you’d drop around.

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