The Bodacious Kid by Stan Lynde

Author:Stan Lynde [Stan Lynde ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781428508552
Publisher: Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

It didn’t take Little Buck any time at all to savvy what I wanted of him; I pointed him south, touched his flanks with my hooks, and he took us through the painted hills and washes like a prairie fire in a gale. Once we’d crossed the river, I let the little horse run flat out until I felt him start to labor, then pulled him back to an easy lope that covered the country but allowed him to catch his breath.

The day was not as hot as when we’d come this way before, but I sure never saw no igloos neither. It wasn’t long before we were both sweating free. Dust rose up in a plume behind us, and I scanned the country for some sign of the boys, but they were nowhere in sight. I had hoped I might catch up to them at Ten Mile, and I remembered the good grass and water there, but when I rode in all I found was their tracks. They had come and gone, and they were traveling faster than I ever thought they would.

We didn’t tarry long ourselves. I waited ‘til Buck got his wind and then rode him out at a high lope on the road to Shenanigan once again. Before long, I left the road and took to the ridges, straining to see dust from the boys’ horses off in the distance, but saw none. The boys had left the road, too, and I could see by their tracks they were riding hell-for-leather and devil take the hindmost.

I pushed the little horse still harder then, and he gave me all he had, but I knew with a sinking feeling we were too late. By the time we thundered across the bridge outside town I could already hear the first gunshots from over at the bank.

My heart was hammering louder than the gunfire as I spurred Buck up the street past Cherokee Bob’s and on toward Main. People were running out of the buildings and along the boardwalks like bees from a hive, and most of them were carrying guns. I seen one feller with soap on his face and a barber’s cloth still around his neck trying to run and load a shotgun at the same time. I also seen a barefoot kid of maybe nine or ten cut across the street in front of me with a rusty old flintlock that was bigger than he was.

When I turned the corner onto the square it looked like the last minutes at the Alamo. People were shooting from the windows of the hotel and on top of the roof. It seemed to me that everyone in town except invalid grandmas and babies in their cribs had come to join in the bloodletting.

Over at the bank I saw that Jigger’s ill-favored pony was down in the street kicking and dying, and through the smoke I could see Poddy Medford at the hitchrack struggling to hold the other horses. They were

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