Wolf Stockburn, Railroad Detective by Max O'Hara

Author:Max O'Hara [O'Hara, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 2021-01-25T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 24

Stockburn and Hank passed a log cabin that appeared long abandoned, with moss growing on the badly slouching roof, and weeds growing tall around it and through the boardwalk fronting it. Beyond the cabin sat a small stone shack, also with weeds growing up around it. A sign over the front door read PARADISE TOWN CONSTABLE.

While the yard was untended around the building, the building itself did not appear abandoned. A half-filled stock tank fronted it, and a saddled paint horse was tied to the hitch rack next to the tank. The saddle’s latigo straps hung loose below the horse’s belly. The paint turned to see the two strangers and the three horses approaching it, and gave a curious whicker as well as a ripple of his right wither. It stomped its right rear hoof.

Stockburn’s bay gave an affable switch of his tail as the detective stopped the horse beside the paint and swung down from the saddle.

“What’re you going to do?” Hank asked, furrowing her brow curiously as she brought her dun to a halt beside the bay.

“Figured I’d check in with the local law. He might know something.”

“Funny,” Hank said, hipping around in her saddle to gaze back along the street down which they’d just ridden. “Those three must be here, somewhere. I figured we’d find three saddled horses—hard-ridden ones—tied to a hitchrail outside a saloon.”

“They might’ve stabled them,” Stockburn said. “They’ve come a long way.”

“Or maybe they rode right through town,” Hank opined. “And back to their lair.”

“Could be. Anyway, I’ll check with the local law. He might have his own suspicions about—” He stopped as the constable’s office door opened with a caterwauling of dry hinges.

A fetching young woman with long, straight, sandy-blonde hair stepped out onto the stoop, a steaming tin cup in her hand. She wore tight black denim trousers and a red-checked wool shirt a little too small for the size of the swells it had to cover. Two snakeskin suspenders holding the trousers up on her lean but nicely curved hips made that shirt look all the more inadequate.

“He might have his own suspicions about what?” the girl said. Woman, rather. She appeared roughly Hank’s age. Gray-eyed and pretty in a country sort of way, her expression was stonily disinterested. Pinned to the shirt was a five-pointed badge into which the single word CONSTABLE had been stamped. Around her lean waist was strapped a shell belt and holster. The holster was filled with a Schofield .44 revolver with worn walnut grips. She hiked her left hip onto the rail to the right of the door as she studied the two newcomers with a vague disdain. Her high-topped brown boots were worn nearly to the texture of Indian moccasins.

Stockburn returned her gaze. As soon as he’d seen her, a lump had grown in his throat. He hadn’t expected to see a woman this pretty in a town this size and this far out in the tall and uncut, let alone a woman this pretty wearing a badge.

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