Ralph Compton Ride the Hard Trail

by Ralph Compton

Lin scoured the slope above for the shooter. He had an idea who it might be.

  The stock of a Winchester Cody Dixon had lent him jutted from his saddle scabbard. Lin fought an impulse to try for it. The ambusher was probably waiting for him to do just that.

  Lin glanced at his hip and frowned. When would he learn? he asked himself. He still had not taken what he needed out of his saddlebag. Chancy would call him an idiot, and Chancy would be right.

  Suddenly a rifle boomed and slivers of bark stung Lin’s face. The bushwhacker had changed position. Lin flattened and crawled to a log.

  A taunting laugh confirmed his hunch. “Did that one nick you?” Lassiter hollered.

  Lin wanted to keep him talking. “I expected you to be back at the Bar M by now!”

  “We have unfinished business, you and me!” Lassiter’s voice came from a different spot. He was on the move. “You shot my pards!”

  Peeking over the log, Lin shouted, “Liar!”

  “What?”

  “I know the real reason you want me dead!”

  “Is that so?” Lassiter had stopped moving. “I am curious to hear it.”

  Lin suspected he was in a stand of spruce eight feet away. “You think if you kill me, Seth Montfort won’t find out what you did to Pat and Sue Dixon.”

  “Are you saying he will?”

  “I am not the only one who knows. So do Cody Dixon and his sons.”

  “I figured you would tell them.” Lassiter was moving again, but slowly. “I will deal with them after you are out of the way.”

  “You will try.” Lin was bluffing. He was unarmed. He needed that rifle, or better yet, his six-shooter.

  “I am going to enjoy killing you more than I have ever enjoyed killing anyone!” Lassiter shouted.

  Lin crawled toward a thicket. For a few harrowing seconds he was in the open and his skin crawled with the expectation of being shot. But he made it unscathed, and crouched. He began to work toward the buttermilk, and the rifle in his scabbard.

  That no more shots rang out puzzled him. Lin paused every few yards to scan the vegetation. Lassiter was there somewhere, but where?

  The buttermilk began nipping grass.

  Lin came to a large bush. Another fifteen feet and he would have the Winchester. He sought sign of movement above him, but there was none. Balancing on the balls of his feet, he hurtled forward. Two, three, four strides he took, his hand rising toward the scabbard.

  The undergrowth near the buttermilk parted and Lassiter stepped out, his rifle jammed to his shoulder. “Stop or die!” he commanded.

  Lin stopped, his fingertips tantalizingly close to the saddle.

  “You make it too easy,” Lassiter said. “Spread your arms wide.”

  Scowling, Lin held them out from his sides. “Damn me for a fool,” he complained.

  Smirking, Lassiter said, “You took the words right out of my month.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Temper, temper,” Lassiter said, and laughed.

  “Tell that to your friends who wound up in an early grave at the Dixon ranch,” Lin responded.

  Lassiter sighted down the barrel. “I would not remind me of that again, were I you.”

  “So, what now?” Lin asked, squaring his shoulders. “You finish me off and go your merry way?”

  “I am in no hurry,” Lassiter said. “I am like a cat. I like to play with my prey before I kill it.”

  “I know,” Lin said. “I saw what you did to Sue Dixon.”

  “She was fine, that one. Fought like a wildcat, just like I like them to do. I still have the scratches to prove it.”

  “You are a miserable bastard,” Lin said.

  “It was too bad I had to shoot the mother. I would have liked to do the same to her as I did to her girl.”

  “A miserable, rotten bastard.”

  “You are repeating yourself,” Lassiter mocked him. “Forget about me and start thinking about yourself. Which leg? Which knee? That sort of thing.”

  “Which what?”

  “You will die slow,” Lassiter said. “A piece at a time. I will shoot you in the knee or an elbow and then maybe in the hip, and when you are down and helpless I will go on shooting until you are dead or I am bored.”

  “If you think I will beg for my life, you are mistaken.”

  “They all say that, but only a few have the grit not to,” Lassiter replied. “Not that it matters. I go on shooting them anyway.”

  “What about my horse?” Lin asked.

  “It is a fine palomino,” Lassiter said. “But I am partial to my own animal. I will sell yours and use the money to stake me in a poker game.”

  A glimmer of hope rose in Lin. He knew something Lassiter did not—something that might save his life. “Be sure you get what my horse is worth. He is no hammerhead.”

  “Can he fetch sticks?” Lassiter asked, and cackled.

  “No, but he knows other tricks,” Lin said.

  Lassiter glanced at the buttermilk. “Suppose you show me? But be careful. This rifle has a hair trigger.”

  “Watch,” Lin said. He whistled and made a fist and pumped it three times, as if striking the ground, and the buttermilk proceeded to stamp a front hoof three times. Lin whistled again, then bobbed his chin up and down, and the buttermilk bobbed its head.

  “Will you look at that?” Lassiter said by way of praise. “You sure have trained him good.” He took a step toward the horse. “What else can he do?”

  “There is one trick that is better than the rest,” Lin said. “It took a week before he could do it right.”

  “I would like to see it.” Lassiter took another step.

  Lin recalled the day his father gave the buttermilk to him—recalled how proud he had been. He remembered the hours and days he spent afterward teaching it to stamp and bob its head, and one other trick.

  “What are you waiting for? Show me.”

  Lin pursed his lips to whistle. The next few moments would determine whether he lived or died.

  Chapter 25

  The smells confused him.

  Chancy figured he would wake up in the place that was all fire and brimstone and reeked of sulfur. But he smelled tobacco and a lilac fragrance and a tart odor that made him think of pickles in a pickle barrel.

  The fog that shrouded his mind faded. Chancy opened his eyes and was more confused than ever. Instead of stars or the daytime sky, he was staring at rafters in a low ceiling. Glass tinkled, and Chancy turned his head.

  Abe Tucker was filling a jar with hard candy. The store owner had an apron on and wore a frown. He was muttering under his breath as he worked.

  Chancy had to try twice to talk. Moistening his mouth, he croaked, “Am I in your store?”

  “Land sakes!” Abe bleated, and nearly dropped the jar. “Don’t scare a body like that! I didn’t know you had come around.”

  Chancy was on his back on the counter, a blanket covering him to his chest. He tried to sit up but lacked the strength. “What in God’s name am I doing here? Help me down.”

  The store owner scooted to his side. “Nothing doing, son. You lie there and take it easy. You lost an awful lot of blood. It is a wonder you are alive.”

  “But how did I get here?” Chancy wanted to know. The last he remembered was being shot and running off across the prairie.

  “They brought you,” Abe said sourly.

  “They who?”

  “Who do you think? The three assassins that banker hired to find you and your brother.”

  “You know about that?”

  “Everyone does by now. They did not make a secret of it.” Abe paused. “Somehow they heard I have mended a few folks, so when that buffalo hunter tracked drops of blood to where you were passed out, they brought you here.”

  Chancy looked down at himself. His shirt was gone and his shoulder had been bandaged. “I am surprised I am still alive.”

  “You are not the only one,” Abe Tucker declared. “It is my understanding they are be
ing paid a lot of money to turn you and your brother into worm food.”

  Chancy looked anxiously around. “Where are they now?”

  “Where else? They went to the saloon for a drink. I expect them back anytime now.”

  Once more Chancy attempted to rise, but all he could do was raise his shoulders. “What on earth is the matter with me?”

  “Didn’t you hear me say you lost a lot of blood?” Abe replied. “And when I say a lot, I mean if you had lost another drop, you would be buzzard bait. That you are still breathing is the closest thing to a miracle I have ever come across.”

  “Help me to a horse,” Chancy said. He would have Tucker tie him on if need be.

  “No.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me. Where would you go? You can’t ride—the shape you are in. And there is no place I can hide you that they wouldn’t find you. Your best bet is to lie there and regain your strength.” Abe lightly patted Chancy’s good shoulder.

  “Damn you, old man. They are out to kill me. If you do not help, I am as good as a goner and my brother, besides.”

  “If I do help and they catch us, I am a goner, too.” Abe shook his head. “I am sorry. But I will do what is best for you whether you think it is best or not.”

  The front door opened, and in strolled Lute Bass and his companions. Bass swaggered along the aisle as if he owned the world. He chuckled when he saw that Chancy was awake. “Have a nice nap, did you, boy?”

  “Give me my Colt so I have a fighting chance,” Chancy said. “I would rather die a wolf than a sheep.”

  Lute Bass folded his arms across his chest. “You are getting ahead of yourself. We want you alive for the time being. So long as you don’t give us cause to regret it, alive is how you will stay.”

  “Why so generous?” Chancy asked suspiciously.

  “You are more use to us alive than dead. For the time being, anyhow,” Bass amended.

  “You aim to use me for target practice?”

  Lute Bass chortled. “Now, there’s a notion. But no. We aim to use you as bait.”

  Chancy did not like the sound of that. “Bait for who?” The answer came to him on its own, and shock brought him up on an elbow. “No! You can’t.”

  “Who is to stop us?” Lute Bass asked.

  Mort and Rufus laughed.

  “Your brother will not ride in of his own accord,” Lute Bass said. “He must be persuaded, and there is no better persuasion than the life of someone he cares about. We expect him by the end of the week.”

  “One of you is going to fetch him?” Chancy asked. That would whittle the odds for him.

  “How dumb do you take us to be?” Lute Bass rejoined. “I have already sent the saloon owner’s son.”

  “My brother won’t believe him,” Chancy predicted. “He will think it is a trap.”

  “It is,” Lute said, smiling. “But to make sure your brother believes we have you, we sent your shirt along. The bullet hole and the blood will convince him where words could not.”

  Chancy was horrified. His brother would come racing to his rescue and be met by a hailstorm of lead.

  Lute Bass had turned to Abe Tucker. “That reminds me. Friday morning we are closing this fleapit down.”

  “My store?”

  “No, jackass. The entire damn town. Everyone is to stay indoors or go for a picnic up in the mountains. We don’t care which, so long as no one is on the street.”

  Abe sputtered, found his voice and exclaimed in outrage, “See here! You can’t tell us what to do. We won’t stand for it.”

  Lute stepped to the jar Abe had been filling and helped himself to a piece of hard candy. “You do not exactly scare us with your bluster, old man. Nor do the good people of Mason. Three are women, withered prunes who could not harm a fly, and the men are like you, rabbits who have crawled into a hole and pulled the dirt in after them so the world will leave them be.”

  “If I were twenty years younger—” Abe shook a bony fist.

  “You would still be a rabbit,” Lute said. “The thing for you to keep in mind—the thing for you to hope—is that me and my pards do not decide to go rabbit hunting after we are done with the Bryces.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  Rufus was rubbing a dirty hand over a corset on display. “There is not a creature west of the Mississippi I have not killed. If Lute says we rub you out, then by God you will be rubbed.”

  “Do not provoke us, old man,” Mort threw in.

  Abe Tucker subsided and walked toward the back, muttering. He slammed the door after him.

  “Feisty cuss.” Lute Bass grinned and faced Chancy. “Now, then. Back to you. We have rounded up all the horses, so don’t get any fool notion about riding off on one.”

  “We didn’t round up yours,” Mort corrected. “It is still lying over by the saloon. The biggest mound of flies you ever did see.”

  “And it is commencing to stink,” Rufus said. “Give it another day or two and the people in this town will want to kill you their own selves.”

  “You shot my animal,” Chancy said. He yearned to have a pistol in his hand so he could avenge the zebra dun.

  Lute Bass grinned. “That he did. And you and your brother are next on our list.”

  It was a common enough trick. Once, in Cheyenne, Lin saw a man perform it with four horses at once.

  Lin whistled and raised an arm over his head. The buttermilk obediently reared, its forelegs swinging out and up.

  Lassiter was standing so close, he had to jump back to avoid being struck. In doing so, he forgot to keep his rifle trained on Lin. It was the opening Lin needed. Springing, he grabbed the rifle with both hands and tried to tear it from Lassiter’s grasp. But Lassiter clung on, cursing furiously, and kicked viciously at Lin’s knee. Lin sidestepped, shifted and swung the rifle in a half circle. Lassiter, caught off guard, held on, but stumbled and almost fell. Instantly, Lin drove forward, bowling the sadistic monster over. They both went down, Lin on top. His full weight smashed onto Lassiter’s chest even as Lin drove a knee into his gut.

  Lassiter’s grip weakened. With a powerful wrench, Lin tore the shotgun free, then brought its stock down on Lassiter’s head. Once, twice, three times, he struck, and at the third blow, Lassiter went limp.

  Lin slowly stood. He stared at the rifle, a Henry with a shiny brass receiver, then threw it aside. Turning, he walked to the buttermilk. For a moment he hesitated, but only for a moment. Opening a saddlebag, he reached in and slid out a bundle wrapped in a towel. He unwrapped the towel and placed it in the saddlebag.

  “So it has come to this,” Lin said softly to the object he was holding, a coiled gun belt with a holster and a Colt. A perfectly ordinary belt, a perfectly ordinary holster. No fancy studs or conchas, no etching. Nothing distinguished it from thousands of others of its kind.

  The Colt in the holster was the most common model available. It did not have nickel plating and was not engraved. The grips were plain wood, not pearl or ivory. The only difference between this Colt and others was that the barrel had been shortened from seven and a half inches to four and three-quarters. It was a .45-caliber.

  Lin thought back to when he turned sixteen and his parents let him order the Colt and holster through the mail. It took forever. Thereafter, he spent every spare minute practicing: shooting, twirling, loading as fast as he could. He discovered he had a talent he never suspected. Even his father had been impressed, so much so that he had sat Lin down and warned him about the dangers of resorting to a revolver in the heat of anger, or to show off. Lin never forgot some of that advice.

  “Those who live by the gun die by the gun, son. Don’t ever kill if you can help it. Once you do, it is hard to stop. You have the power of life and death in your hand. Use that power wisely.”

  Lin strapped the belt around his waist and secured the buckle. He adjusted the holster so it was high on his right hip, the grips even with his elbow. Sliding the Colt out, he ran a hand over
it, then verified the cylinder was loaded. He gave it a few tentative spins, forward, then backward, then flipped it into the air and caught it by the grips, thumbing back the hammer as he did. He let down the hammer, spun it a few more times and twirled the Colt into his holster and patted it.

  “I can avoid you no longer.”

  Lassiter groaned.

  Lin turned to the buttermilk, and his canteen. He opened it and stood over the killer. “Time to die,” he said, and upended the canteen.

  The water got into Lassiter’s nose, into his mouth. Sputtering and coughing and flailing his arms, he sat up. “What the hell?”

  Lin stepped back and let the canteen drop at his feet. “Rise and shine,” he said.

  Blinking and wiping his face with a sleeve, Lassiter growled, “You knocked me out, didn’t you, you son of a bitch?”

  “Your head is not as hard as I thought it would be.”

  Lassiter touched a bump and winced. “You about caved my skull in.”

  “I wasn’t trying to kill you,” Lin said.

  “What now?” Lassiter snapped. “You shoot me with my own—” He stopped, looking puzzled, and glanced about them. “Wait. What did you do with my rifle?” He spotted the Henry gleaming brightly in the grass. “Why is it over there?”

  “I don’t need it to do what I have to do.”

  Lassiter looked at Lin—at his waist—and his eyes widened. “I’ll be damned. I must be seeing things.”

  “You aren’t,” Lin said.

  “And here I thought you didn’t even own a six-shooter.” Lassiter began to rub the bump, then stopped. “Why haven’t you drawn your pistol?”

  “I am waiting for you.”

  “You are what?” Lassiter glanced down at his own holsters, at the Merwin and Hulbert revolvers. His face mirrored amazement. “I do not believe it. You have not disarmed me.”

  “I would never shoot an unarmed man,” Lin said quietly, “or murder a defenseless woman.”

  Lassiter looked up. He had it, then. “Do I get to stand?”

  “You do.”

  Chuckling, Lassiter rose and shook himself. “Of all the boneheaded stunts, this beats all. I will be telling this one for years.”

  “No, you won’t,” Lin said.