The Loner 5 by Sheldon B. Cole

Author:Sheldon B. Cole
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gunslingers, piccadilly publishing, pulp westerns, ebook westerns, westerns ebook, westerns 1800s, land barons, sheldon b cole westerns, violence in the wild west
Publisher: Piccadilly

Sheriff Dobie Kramer stood with his hands tucked into his gunbelt and his shoulders wide under the blast of the street’s dust. Five of Jay Lucien’s men stood behind him, guns out, faces tight with bitterness.

“A thousand dollars. That’s the price Mr. Lucien has put on this scum’s head. He’s also promised to release some of the women in his ranch compound if you men give up Durant. Durant’s a stinkin’, back-shootin’ killer—a woman killer to boot. You gonna defend him against us?”

None of the town’s suppressed men, so closely bunched there, answered. Kramer’s stare savaged their faces, looking for one expression to tell him a man was in doubt, about to break.

But Doc Newbury spoke from the front porch of his little cottage. “He rode out, Kramer. Saddled his big black and headed off to the north. You want him, get out there and find him for yourself. And leave these men be.”

Kramer stepped to the little doctor and smashed a fist into his face. As the old man went down to the boards, Kramer snarled, “Shut up, Newbury. You always talked too much.”

Kramer spun about and glared at the others. “Come on now, Durant ain’t left town. If he had, we would’ve seen him. Mr. Lucien is offering a thousand dollars and releasin’ some of your precious womenfolk. You want to see them kept out there for Lucien’s men to tear apart? I’m tryin’ to help you, can’t you understand that? We’ll find him anyway. We’ll burn every damn house, one at a time, till we do. Then you’ll have nothin’, nothin’ at all.”

Kramer’s gaze swept across their faces. But still nobody spoke. He sucked in his breath, kicked Newbury out of his way and gestured for his men to enter the doctor’s house. While they searched, Kramer held his gun on the townsmen grouped in the yard. When his men came out and told him that only a dying Justin Prentiss was inside, Kramer drove his boot into Newbury’s ribs and stormed off to the gate. He put his men to searching the other rundown houses, sheds and barns. But a full hour’s searching didn’t reveal either Durant or the big stallion, Sundown, which Kramer wanted so much.

Finally, Harp Cashen said, “He’s gone, Kramer. There ain’t no place we ain’t looked.”

“He’s here, damn you,” Kramer growled. “We’ll search again.”

Cashen shook his head. “Nope. We done all we could, Kramer. It’s up to you now. We’ll check back on Fes Crabbe, get him home and see what Mr. Lucien wants done from there. If you want to do any burnin’, I suggest you start before night comes. Some of these poor jaspers mightn’t take kindly to being burned out.”

Kramer was on the verge of arguing heatedly when Dillen and Jay Lucien appeared on the saloon porch. They looked down at the group of men before they went for their horses. Harp Cashen and his companions started to walk off and Kramer’s curses blasted at their backs. But the Lucien men took no heed of him.

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