muscles underneath its hide drove it on still faster.
Robby Coles paid no attention to the long-beaked roadrunner skittering its weaving path on the trail ahead. He rode close-seated, his knees clamped against the roan’s flanks, his booted feet braced forward and out against the stirrups. Beneath the broad brim of his Stetson, his dark eyes peered straight ahead at the out fences of the small ranch he approached.
The driving hooves came too close and the chaparral bird lunged off the trail, racing into the brush. The roan thundered on, following the twists of the trail, a thin froth blowing from its muzzle. Spur rowels scratched again, the horse leaped forward obediently, past the tall and spiny-branched cholla cactus, galloping past the first fence line of the ranch.
Now the rider’s eyes focused on the far-off cluster of buildings that comprised the ranch layout. His thin lips pressed together into a blood-pinched line and there was a strained movement in his throat. Was he there? The question drifted like smoke across his mind and he felt sweat dripping down beneath his shirt collar and realized, abruptly, how thirsty he was.
Cold resolve forced itself into his eyes again and his slender hands tightened on the sweat-slick reins. He could feel the rhythmic pounding inside his body as the hooves of his roan pistoned against the hard earth. He could feel the arid bluntness of the wind buffeting across his cheeks and against his forehead; the abrasive rubbing of his legs against the horse’s flanks.
There were other things he felt, too.
As the hooves of his mount drummed along the trail, Robby Coles noticed, from the corners of his eyes, the aimless wandering of cattle beyond the fences. He swallowed hot air and coughed once as the dustiness tickled in his throat. The ranch was a half mile distant now. Robby Coles reached down nervously and touched the smooth walnut of his gun stock. He wondered if he should be wearing it.
Merv Linken was coming out of the barn, carrying a pitchfork, when the big black roan came charging into the open area between the barn and the main house.
At first, the horse headed for the main house. Then the rider saw Merv and pulled his mount around sharply. Merv stood watching as the roan cantered over and stopped before him, its flanks heaving, hot breath steaming from its nostrils.
“Hello there, Robby,” Merv said, smiling up at the grim-faced young rider. “What brings you out in sech a rush?”
Robby Coles drew in a quick breath and forced it out.
“Benton here?” he asked breathlessly, his dark-eyed gaze drifting toward the main house.
“No, he ain’t,” Merv said. “Matter o’ fact, he’s to town gettin’ supplies.”
He saw how the skin tightened across Robby’s cheeks and how his mouth pressed suddenly into a line.
“Guess you rode out fer nothin’,” Merv said, then shrugged. “Unless you want to set and wait.”
“How long’s he been gone?” Robby’s voice sounded thin and disturbed above the shuddering pants of his roan. He drew out a bandanna and mopped at his face.
“Oh . . . I reckon, since about eight,” Merv said. “Said he was—”
He stopped talking abruptly as Robby jerked the horse around and kicked his spur rowels in. The sweat- flecked roan started forward, breaking into a hard gallop before it passed the bunk house.
Merv Linken stood there a while, leaning on the pitchfork, watching Robby Coles ride away toward town. Then he shrugged and turned toward the house.
Julia Benton came walking in quick strides across the yard, drying her hands. She was a tall woman, slender and softly curved, her hair a light blond.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“Young Robby Coles,” Merv answered.
“What did he want?”
“Got no notion, ma’m,” Merv told her. “Just came in, tight-leggin’ and asked for the old man.”
“Is that all?”
“That’s all, ma’m. Reckon he’s headed for Kellville to see Mr. Benton now.”
They stood silent for a moment, watching from beneath the shading of their palms, the roan and its rider dwindle into the distance of the brush country.
“He’s sure bakin’ that hoss,” Merv said. “Must be anxious to see yore husband.”
Julia Benton stood motionless in the hot sunlight, a look of uneasy curiosity in her eyes. She watched until she couldn’t see the horse any longer.
Then she went back to her dishes.
Chapter Two
“Well, I don’t know,” John Benton said, with a slow shake of his head. “They may scratch Hardin’s name from the black book for now.” He grinned briefly. “But I think they’ll have to put it back in again.”
He raked a sulfur match across his boot heel and held the flare to the end of the cigarette he’d just rolled. He grimaced slightly at the acrid sulfur smell in his nostrils, then blew out a puff of smoke from the corner of his mouth. He shook out the match and tossed it into the sand-filled tobacco box on the floor.
“No,” he said to the three men at the bar with him. “Writin’ off Wes Hardin because he’s in Rusk Prison now —that’s a bet I wouldn’t take.”
“You think he’ll bust out?” asked Henry Oliver, the portly owner of one of Kellville’s dry goods stores.
“Well, I . . . wouldn’t think that either,” Benton said, picking the cigarette from his lips and blowing out a cloud of smoke. “He’ll try bustin’ out, sure enough, but that’s quite a place to bust out of. I used to go there quite a few times takin’ in prisoners.” He fingered his glass of whiskey. “Pretty stiff,” he said, nodding once. “I wouldn’t think he’d bust out.”
“How else can he get out then?” Bill Fisher asked him. “He’s in for twenty-five years, ain’t he?”
Benton thumped down his glass and smacked his lips as the whiskey threaded its heat down his throat.
“Well,” he said, “twenty-five years is the sentence, all right. But there’s always paroles. Even pardons.”
“Damn right,” Fisher replied, nodding purse-lipped and staring into the amber depths of his drink. “They’s plenty of folks think Wes Hardin got a bum deal for doin’ what he had to do. Ain’t that right, Benton?”
John Benton twisted his broad-muscled shoulders a little and scratched once at his crop of darkly blond hair.
“Couldn’t say, Fisher,” he answered, shaking his head. “They never put me on the case. You know as much about Hardin as I do.”
“If they
“He’d a been in the boneyard long ago,” John Sutton added hurriedly, his young voice eager to please.
John Benton only chuckled softly and gestured toward Pat, the bartender, for another drink. He put the cigarette between his lips again and listened amusedly as the men went on discussing the imprisonment of Hardin and the possibilities of his escaping. He nodded once to Pat as the glass was filled, then touched the smooth sides of the glass with his long, sure fingers, a mild expression on his strongly cut face.
“Isn’t that so, Benton?” said Joe Sutton, with the tone of a novice seeking ultimate authority.
“What’s that, Sutton?” Benton asked.
“I say Wes Hardin killed more men with his border roll than any other way.”
The beginning of a smile twitched at the corners of Benton’s wide mouth. “As I said,” he answered, “what I know about Hardin you could put in a pea shell and rattle.”
He stiffened suddenly, his legs going rigid, the amiable expression wiped from his face as Joe Sutton reached down for his pistol. Instinctively, his right hand shot across his body to the spot on his left where his pistol would have been if he’d worn one.
