Death Rides the Red by Jack LaFountain

Author:Jack LaFountain
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Raven and Owl Publishing

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Jason rose slowly. Thunder echoed between his ears. His stomach lurched with the sudden change of position and Jason moaned aloud. He and Sam had done more drinking than watching the night before. Jason could not remember whether or not the wayward undertaker returned. He did remember, that long after dark, Sam deposited him in an empty bunk and then staggered out the door. That was right before the jailhouse began to spin out of control.

Jason could see the sun was sitting atop the eastern horizon. Jason stretched the kinks from his muscles. His gait was still a bit unsteady, but he found his way out the back door to the well. A thin layer of frost covered the grass outside. He drew up a bucket of the clear, icy water and lifted the dipper to his lips. The cold water helped rinse away the swamp in his mouth. Jason ladled the rest of the bucket’s contents over his aching head. He sat on the edge of the well shivering and let the morning breeze blow away the cobwebs. Feeling almost alive again, he found his hat, saddled his horse and started slowly for the Lazy L.

The morning sun at his back, he let the sorrel mare have her head. The rising sun chased the frost into the shadows but neither its warmth nor its brightness could chase away last night’s lingering vision of Pete Seeley‘s corpse in the back of that wagon. Jason imagined Pete lurking behind every tree just beyond the edges of Jason’s vision. The vision rode hard on the deputy’s frayed nerves.

At the foot of Eight Mile Hill, his imagination ran wild. An eyeless horror leered at Jason from behind a large post oak. Jason’s mouth went dry and his hand flew to his gun. The Colt trembled in Jason’s hand. The gray skinned, blue lipped face of Pete Seely continued to stare back at him. Jason spurred his

sorrel toward the abomination and squeezed off a single round. His shot splintered the oak just below the demon’s face. When he reached the tree, Jason reined in and walked the mare slowly around the tree. He found the blasted bark and his slug buried in the wood but no sign of a walking corpse, no watery tracks or trail of gore. Only a gray squirrel in the uppermost branches remained to scold the trigger happy deputy.

“Yea, well, just let that be a warning, “ Jason told the chatterer.

He holstered his weapon and prepared to swing back into the saddle when he saw the blood in the middle of the road. Jason rolled the sticky paste between his fingers. No trick of the imagination this time; this was

real blood and a good deal of it. Jason followed the trail of blood on foot for nearly a mile. When the trail turned north towards the river; he mounted up. There was only one place for a wounded man to go in that

direction…the Lazy L.

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