Gun Boss of Tumbleweed by L. Ron Hubbard

Author:L. Ron Hubbard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, western
Publisher: Galaxy Press, L.L.C.
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Blood on His Spurs

CHAPTER ONE

War in His Whiskers

IRON JAW BATES took one hard look at the interloper and his quirt popped like a pistol shot. The startled roan went catapulting down the shale slide, across the wash, up the bank and sawed wind on the trail of the enemy. Belly almost touching the prickly pear, the black gelding ahead appeared to be leaving the country. His tall rider did not look back but pumped fury into the mount.

With mesquite whipping his tattered batwings, utterly careless of holes, rocks and gullies, Iron Jaw was on his way to get his man. And the only trouble with the chase was that Iron Jaw, old enough himself, was riding a horse past prime, paying penalty for ease in his declining years.

It would take wit, not speed, to cut down Larry McClean.

Ahead was a castle of rock, based with tumbles of giant stone. If Iron Jaw saw the other’s course aright, it would be possible to cut short on this curve and, by being merciless with quirt and spur, reach directly Rosarita Canyon and block the way with lead.

Oblivious of pursuit, Larry McClean rode hard and fast. Oblivious of boundaries, he did not see that he was far inside another man’s range.

Iron Jaw clove hot New Mexico air, risked his aging limbs in a final leap across a gully and drew up, guns flashing in the sunlight squarely in front of his enemy.

“Stand him up, McClean!”

Larry McClean, fifty and wise with years, already heard buzzards’ wings as he brought the black gelding to a halt. Carefully he kept his hands away from guns. He was a cold, hard man and he could be prudent.

“What the heck you doin’?” bellowed Iron Jaw. “Next Rocking Chair man crossed that line, I said I’d bury. Now I’m going to bury the boss. If you got any touching appeals, Larry McClean, make ’em, because the world ain’t goin’ to be gladdened by yore presence no more.”

McClean looked down the trail toward the gaping mouth of the Rosarita Canyon and then for the first time seemed to see the range where he had arrived. In plain sight, two thousand yards south, there among the poplars, was the main ranch house of Iron Jaw’s Spread Eagle.

“Git down!” ordered Iron Jaw. “Can’t shoot a man when his horse is champin’ and prancin’.”

“Must be gettin’ old,” said McClean. “Down on the Panhandle you’d never have admitted failin’ eyesight. But that was thirty years back. You really goin’ to shoot?”

“And what’s the matter with that? My stock is gone, my men has quit—them that’s still alive. And the Rocking Chair looks fat enough to account for it. I told you ‘No trespassin’’ and that didn’t mean excursions on my grass. Get down and be decent about it.”

“I’ll get down and be decent,” said McClean, “but you’re lettin’ a hell of a good chance go sailin’ off. See that trail? I followed it two hours from a warm brandin’ fire and eight mismatched calves and cows.

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