The Death Riders by Jackson Cole

Author:Jackson Cole [Cole, Jackson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781440555558
Publisher: Prologue Books
Published: 1999-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

MURDER

Goldy had lost some patches of hair and Hatfield part of his clothes. He also had a few blisters on his hands. The Running W riders were smoke-blackened and red-eyed and some had sustained slight burns from flying brands. But aside from these minor discomforts, nobody was the worse for their harrowing experience. Hatfield grinned as he surveyed his grimy crew.

‘I’ve a notion we can make it along the rimrock to the south and reach the slope above the camp,’ he said. ‘Let’s get going. I could do with a drink of water about now.’

It was long past dark, however, when after an exhausting scramble along the rimrock and down the long southern slopes of the hills they reached the construction camp. Hatfield at once repaired to the office of the stockyard superintendent where he found old Stiffy anxiously awaiting him.

‘Didn’t have a mite of trouble the rest of the way,’ Stiffy told him. ‘Son, yuh shore give them hellions a bellyful. We looked over the three that were downed there in the canyon mouth. Mean lookin’ cusses, but nobody recognized any of ‘em. Death Riders, all right, or at least they wore them damn painted masks. I brung the masks along in case yuh’d like to have ‘em.’

The stockyard superintendent was glad to get the herd.

‘Prime steers, all of ‘em,’ he said. ‘We needed ‘em. These rockbusters won’t work without plenty of whisky and meat. I got ‘em all weighed up and here’s a voucher made out for yuh. Yuh can cash it at the office in Creston. Say, you must have a stand with the Old Man — Jaggers Dunn, the General Manager. We got word from him the other day to buy every head yuh brought in. That’s the fust time he agreed to accept stuff in small lots without any guarantee of further shipments. Do yuh know him puhsonal?’

‘I worked with him once,’ Hatfield replied, not considering it necessary to add that the great General Manager of the C & P looked upon him as one of his closest personal friends.

The Running W outfit, somewhat burned and battered, but otherwise none the worse for the day’s adventures, headed back to camp early the following morning. Hatfield, after pausing at the spread for food and a change of clothing, proceeded to Creston where he cashed the voucher received for the herd and deposited it to Teri Wright’s account. Late in the evening, he entered the Dust Layer in search of something to eat and found Wade Hansford regarding his new dealer, Bart Cole, with a dissatisfied eye.

‘Look at the hellion,’ he told Hatfield.

Observing the dealer, Hatfield noted that Cole’s face was pasty coloured, his hands shook and he manipulated the cards in a clumsy fashion decidedly in contrast to his former smooth dealing.

‘The sidewinder took the day off yesterday, and like all of ‘em he went on a bat,’ Hansford declared in disgusted tones. ‘He was sober, all right, when he showed up for work this evening, but he’s got the jerks.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.