Violence of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 2008-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

As Van Arndt started riding back toward the edge of town, Keno called out to him.

“Hey! Where are you goin’?”

Van Arndt neither answered, nor looked back. Instead, he kept riding toward the edge of town.

The others looked at each other for a moment, then started after him.

Keno caught up to Van Arndt.

“Are you just going to ride away and leave all this money?”

“You heard the fella,” Van Arndt said. “There is no money. There is nothing but a worthless piece of paper. It wouldn’t do us no good if we did take it. We couldn’t spend it.”

“Yeah? What if I told you I know a way we could get the money?”

Van Arndt looked over at Keno. “How?”

“It’s simple,” Keno said. “We find something that Jensen will pay forty-five thousand dollars for.”

“You aren’t making any sense,” Van Arndt said.

“If you knew Jensen as well as I know him, you would know that I’m making a lot of sense,” Keno said. “Do you want to hear the idea or not?”

“Yeah,” Van Arndt said. “I want to hear the idea.”

“It’s simple really,” Keno said. “All we have to do is snatch his wife. Jensen will do anything to get her back. You want the forty five thousand dollars? Tell Jensen to cash that bank draft and bring the money to us.”

“Where is his wife now?”

“Like as not she’s at Sugarloaf, Jensen’s ranch,” Keno said.

“How many are on the ranch?”

“Ah, that’s the good part of it,” Keno said. “Just before Jensen left on the cattle drive, he fired all the cowboys he had workin’ for him. And since he took Pearlie and Cal with him, that don’t leave nobody back at the ranch but a bunch of Mexicans, most of ’em too old to do anything. Hell, we can walk in there and take her without no trouble a’tall. Onliest thing is, if we’re goin’ to do this, we need to do it right now. We need to get back to Sugarloaf before Jensen does.”

“All right, Keno, I’ll go along with your plan,” Van Arndt said. “But there better be no surprises.”

“There won’t be none if we can get to Sugarloaf afore Jensen does,” Keno said.

Turning in his saddle, Van Arndt saw the others riding behind him. The men were dispirited over not being able to steal either the herd or the money.

“Gather round, boys,” Van Arndt said. “Keno has come up with a plan that I think may work.”

“What plan is that?” Peters asked.

“Tell them,” Van Arndt said.

Smiling at his newfound sense of importance, Keno explained his idea of going to Sugarloaf to take Sally Jensen prisoner and hold her for ransom.

“Yeah!” Jeeter said. “And maybe we can have a little fun with her! I’m tellin’ you the truth, boys, Jensen’s wife is one of the best lookin’ women I’ve ever seen. Yeah, that is a great idea.”

“We’re not taking her to have fun with her,” Keno said.

“What do you mean? You plan to let that just go to waste?”

“Keno is right,” Van Arndt said.

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