Ralph Compton Stagecoach Revenge by D. B. Pulliam & Ralph Compton

Author:D. B. Pulliam & Ralph Compton [Pulliam, D. B. & Compton, Ralph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-11-29T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

* * *

After breakfasting on the onions, Jasper smothered the fire with dirt and started west, Slip to his side and slightly in front of him.

“Don’t want your back to the outlaw,” Slip said after Jasper had stopped for a second time when Slip fell behind. “Insulting really. I thought we had an understanding.”

“Our understanding is that I’ll shoot you if I have to,” Jasper snapped back.

“Which is why you should trust me a little more. I don’t want to be shot far more than you don’t want to shoot me.”

But aside from that exchange, Slip didn’t complain much as they walked. He talked, rambling on, but he didn’t seem to require or even want Jasper’s participation. For a while, it set Jasper’s teeth on edge, the chatter, but soon it became like the roar of a river—background noise, always there in your ears but not demanding your attention.

Instead, he turned his attention to the question of who’d set up that ambush. He knew it had to be someone from Indigo; who else would have known they were heading down the mountain with Westin? Was it a coincidence that Slip Casey had set up shop in that cabin? Could Slip be working with whoever had wanted Westin dead? But Slip could have died just as easily in the ambush as Westin. There had to be something there, though. Too many coincidences, including the shot that spooked his horses a few days ago. That could have killed Westin too.

“Are you trying to work out who wanted the accountant dead?” Slip asked, jolting Jasper from his thoughts. Slip was still walking forward but his head was craned around, and almost immediately after Jasper looked at him, he tripped over a fallen branch and almost fell to the ground. Jasper stood back and let him catch and stabilize himself. Never a good idea to put yourself too close to a man you’re leading around; that was how you got your gun taken and your prisoner gone.

“The wanted bills never said you flailed about and joked like a circus clown,” Jasper said instead of answering.

Slip tripped again—this time on purpose—and turned his almost fall into a bow. “Slip Casey, unlikeliest clown and unluckiest man, here to entertain.”

“Unluckiest man?” Jasper asked. He could think of several other candidates for that title, not least of which were men who had stumbled upon Slip’s brother and ended up dead for it, or Westin himself, who’d been killed for a bundle of paper.

Slip shrugged. “Unluckiest outlaw, at least.”

That seemed true. The lawmen spoke of Alec Casey with a great deal of hate, but almost a little reverence too. Not so the other Casey brother. The wanted bills might not outwardly describe him as a clown, but it seemed like the lawmen might.

“No suspects in that attack, then?” Slip asked after a moment of silence. “We don’t know who we’re running from?”

“I don’t,” Jasper said pointedly.

“And you think I do? Let me tell you, jehu, that I do not fancy being shot at.

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