The Only Saloon in Town by Reavis Z. Wortham

Author:Reavis Z. Wortham [Wortham, Reavis Z.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Westerns
ISBN: 9780786050451
Google: i4zrEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 2024-09-23T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 27

There was just enough glow from the rising sun for the defenders in the Moynahan station to see the surrounding area. What was left of the stage smoked in the dawn, and the Comanches had pulled back. Malachai studied the scene with a keen eye on what might come in the next few hours.

Cool air pulled through the open windows and door and over the adobe walls. On the distant northern horizon, a thin blue line told of a coming storm that promised relief from the hot, dry weather they’d endured for months. It wasn’t much of a surprise. Malachai expected the weather to change. Starlings and other birds had been gathering for weeks, filling the morning and evening skies with live, feathered clouds that whipped in a dizzying array of directions.

“Larry’s gone.” Doc wiped his hands on a bloody rag and pitched it on top of his open Gladstone bag, the kind doctors had been using for over fifty years. The only thing left inside were dirty tools, empty bottles, and the few bandages he’d brought. “I’m sorry, Garry.”

Kneeling beside the body and sheltered against the wall, Garry’s soft voice cracked. “It should have been me. The youngest should never die first. I always promised our mama I’d take care of him.”

“There ain’t no should or should nots in this.” The Ranger stared out at what remained of the smoking stage. “When people get to fighting, you never know who’ll get hurt or killed. I’ve seen men standing side by side when a bullet or arrow came in, and it was only a matter of inches that determined who would live or die.”

He turned to the young cowboy kneeling beside his brother. “Sometimes it’s only a matter of a slight breeze turning an arrow. Once I saw a bullet nick a man’s wrist and ricochet into another’s head, killing him dead as a steak while the first man’s wrist was only cut and bruised. We ain’t promised nothing after we’re born, other than we’ll die someday.”

He finished talking not to Garry, but in the direction of the burned stage. Most of it was consumed, but the heavy, thick wheel hubs continued to smoke. The wood inside the metal rims occasionally flickered to life before going out again. The odor of burned hair and charred horseflesh filled the still air with a nauseating stench.

Malachai wasn’t surprised. He figured they’d fire it at some point. That’s what he would have done to keep them hemmed up and in one place. He’d seen it done before too, but no white man knew how a Comanche thought, and sometimes they’d leave wagons alone after pilfering them, maybe because the smoke would draw curious Rangers, or the cavalry.

They weren’t necessarily afraid of the mounted soldiers, because the army’s slower horses carrying heavier men and equipment were easy to outdistance. The Rangers, however, were different. They learned from the Comanches and used their own tactics against them, riding lean and fast. They’d keep coming

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