Raiders of Concho Flats by Matt Laidlaw

Author:Matt Laidlaw
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780719823923
Publisher: Robert Hale

EIGHT

‘Left town,’ Mick Reilly said. ‘Saw you two come out of Blue’s stable, hung around till you were over at the store then snuck over, got his mount and rode out the back way. Leastways, he never came out again.’

Charlie Rivers had asked what had happened to the tall man in denim who’d followed him in from the Running Irons. Rockwell Lane pulled a face at Reilly’s answer.

‘No more than I expected,’ he said ruefully. ‘Slaughter and Quatro have seen both of us, at different times. Now they’ll know we’re together. If Jake Arkle knows two rangers were hot on his heels at Sante Fe, it won’t take him too long to work out what us two bein’ here means.’

The two rangers, beer glasses in hands, were lounging with their backs to the bar in Reilly’s Pleasure Palace. The last of the afternoon’s sunlight slanted over a sleepy, three-man poker game. The piano’s yellowed keys were being tinkled with skill and sadness by an enormous fat man with lank black hair whose rolled up shirt sleeves exposed the powerful arms of a blacksmith. Lije Coombs stood in bowed, dejected solitude at the end of the bar, listening to the music and nursing a whiskey, a mournful, thin man in a black suit.

‘He offered his services,’ Lane told Reilly with a faint smile. ‘Didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so I told him in those clothes we’d lose him in the dark.’

‘My offer still stands,’ the big saloon owner said seriously. ‘Blackie Nelson tends bar when he ain’t playing piano or shoeing horses. I won’t be missed.’

‘Just the opposite, Mick,’ Lane said, ‘and that’s one reason why I can’t take you along. You’re so big nobody’d be able to miss you, and Lije has already buried one of his friends.’

‘And the other reason?’ Reilly asked resignedly.

‘This is official ranger business that’s got nothing to do with Sam Wallace. Jake Arkle was bad before he came to Concho Flats. Like Wallace he’s an easterner who came out West. Difference is, Arkle was already treading the outlaw trail long before the war. Left a trail of murder and robbery as he rode through Kentucky, Missouri and into the Nations, earned himself an ugly reputation in those bloody years after Fort Sumpter. In the twelve months since Appomatox he’s run wild with one bunch of jayhawkers or another. Most recently he’s thought to have led a band murdered a ranching family north of Amarillo. First time me and Charlie’ve got close to him is when we picked up his trail in Santa Fe.’

‘Blackie’s always been after old Blue’s stable,’ Reilly said as Lane finished his tale. ‘Blue’s told him if he gets what he most wants out of life, Blackie can have the whole shebang for a song – exceptin’, of course, those two thoroughbreds he keeps.’ Reilly looked keenly at Lane. ‘D’you know what it is Blue wants?’

‘I know,’ Lane said, recalling the pint-sized ostler’s remarks about his spell in Austin. He shook his head.

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