Peregrine Returns by Richard Prosch

Author:Richard Prosch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: western thriller books, old west fiction, old west historical fiction, old west gunfight, old west wyoming stories, old west short stories, western short stories
Publisher: Lohman Hills Creative LLC
Published: 2018-11-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

“Hold it right there,” the old man said again.

“You best think twice old man,” said Coburn.

“This here is Norm Grissom again,” said Margo. “He’s most likely the man poured fire down on us.”

“Is that right, Norm? You the ornery cuss that tried burning us out of the tunnel?”

The old man stood with his back to the crumbling rock foundation of Lohman House, unarmed, lips pursed and fists up in a warning stance.

Coburn walked forward, caught Norm’s hasty swing on his left forearm, then cranked a hard right into his breadbasket. With a hard grunt, Norm went down in a heap.

“I’ll be back with the horses,” said Coburn. “Maybe a wagon.”

He looked around the corner of Lohman House, and seeing nobody at the stoop, hurried down the board steps and into a brisk walk down the dirt street.

Coburn’s heart pounded in his chest. His hands, elbows and knees ached from the morning’s work.

For the first quarter-mile, he cussed himself.

He’d gone and let his guard down. He’d enjoyed the night with Margo, had too much to eat and drink, and now he was paying for it.

Well, that was old news.

The only thing that mattered now was what he did next.

People were beginning to gather outside the depot.

A man with a portable grill was cooking sausage and steaks. “Train will be along soon,” he told somebody.

For a second, Coburn considered making a try for the train. But then his eyes went to the little house across the street. A wood, painted sign in the window said “Sheriff.”

No, thought Coburn. Best thing to do was grab some saddle leather and high tail it to Booneville, board the train there.

If there was time.

Coburn continued on, drifting through back yards and hurdling fences, sticking to the shadows when possible. Eventually he stood in front of the livery stable, its shingled roof sloping under a spread of shag bark hickory branches. Nuts fell from the trees, bouncing off the roof with sharp raps, and a cow mooed behind the building. There, behind a board fence was his horse from the night before, the roan gelding he’d ridden in from Jefferson City. At first he didn’t see Sam’s mount, a sorrel mare. Then the mare joined the roan, and both horses stood together beside a twisted barbed wire gate. The closer Coburn got, the stronger the smell of hay and horse manure from the barn’s open bay doors.

Probably men were waiting for him inside those doors. How many? Or maybe they would follow him at a distance, waiting to gun him and Sam outside of town?

All he could do was wait and see. No sense making up stories about the future.

Coburn decided to take things one step at a time.

He was less than ten yards away from the horses’ gate when a black man with a limp and a shotgun came out of the barn. He was the manager, a man named Burris who Coburn had met the night before.

Then two lanky white gunnies walked from the shadows of the hickory trees, coyotes with six-shooters in their boney paws.

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