Desperate Hearts Read Free Page B

probably always been the butt of
harassment and torment from older, bigger kids.
    Rankin could empathize with that.
    “ Shouldn’t you quit while
you’re ahead, kid?” grumbled. He glanced ahead at the hotel in the
distance, where yellow lamplight gleamed from the windows, and he
kept walking. The boy trotted to keep up with the pace Rankin
set.
    “ My name is Kyle Springer. And I’ve got
business you. You’re the reason I was waitin’ outside the Magnolia
in the first place. I’ve been lookin’ for you for more than a
month.”
    Oh, damn it, Rankin thought, consumed with
bitter weariness. He’d probably just saved the kid’s skinny neck so
that he could challenge him to a draw here in the street.
    It didn’t happen often, but once in a while
some hothead got a yen for the kind of reputation that outgunning
Jace Rankin would bring. And this one was just a drip of a boy,
with pale skin and a few freckles to go with that red hair. Well,
he had to hand it to him—the kid might not have common sense, or
the brawn to make up for its lack, but he had grit.
    “ Yeah? What do you want
with me, Kyle?” He went along with the steps of this dance, but he
knew where it was headed.
    “ I want to hire you to kill
a man.” The young voice was cold, flat—devoid of anger or any other
emotion. His eyes matched his tone.
    Rankin stopped in his tracks and glared at
him. That sure as hell wasn’t what he’d been expecting. He tossed
away the cheroot. “Not interested.” He turned and walked on.
    “ I can pay you,” Kyle
called after him. “Isn’t that what you want?" He could hear Kyle’s
steps and the horse’s on the hard-packed dirt as they trotted along
behind him.
    Rankin had his standards, and his anger
flared at the insulting question. “You’d better get your facts
straight, kid. I’m a bounty hunter, not a hired gun.” He
sidestepped a mule skinner who came staggering out of a noisy
saloon.
    “ You’ve killed men.
Everybody knows that, and I saw you shoot that drifter today. I saw
it through the window.”
    Rankin’s hand tightened on the Henry. “If
you were watching, then you saw it was self-defense. It always has
been self-defense. Anyway, I guess you don’t know why I was after
Clark.”
    “ It don’t matter to me.
Some people need killin’.”
    Rankin stopped again and faced the kid. His
curiosity got the best of him. “Like who?”
    As if a grim memory cut across his mind,
Kyle let his gaze drift to the mountains that embraced Silver City.
The horse whickered and nudged his shoulder. Catching his balance,
the boy wiped his nose on his shirt cuff; then tucked his hair
behind his ears.
    “ His name’s Tom Hardesty.
He murdered a man over in Blakely, Oregon, and stole a ranch there
that rightfully belongs to me.”
    “ What makes it
yours?”
    A sharp autumn wind rushed down the street.
Keeping one fist clamped on the horse’s reins, Kyle hunched his
thin shoulders and shivered. "My pa left it to me. But Tom—he’s one
of Luke Jory’s bootlicks. Jory heads up the Vigilance Union. He
arranged for Tom and the Union to come and force me off the ranch
so’s Tom could take it."
    Rankin hadn’t been to Blakely in several
years; vigilantes there were news to him. “So? Tell the
sheriff.”
    The boy hitched up the waist of his jeans
with his free hand, then absently stroked the dun’s nose. “I did
tell the sheriff, but it didn’t do no good. The Vigilance Union
owns Blakely. They can make the law do whatever they want. They’re
just a bunch of lyin’, thievin’ bastards who murder men so they can
steal their cattle and land. There’s been a lot of that goin’ on.
That’s why I set out to find you. The Vigilance Union has to be
wiped out.”
    Rankin had never been a defender of widows
and orphans, and he wasn’t about to take up the chore now. “Forget
it. Too messy. I’m only interested in bounties. And this isn’t my
fight.” He looked up and saw that he’d stopped in front