Quiet Town Read Free Page A

was already a legend in his own lifetime. In the War between the States he had been a Cavalry Captain at seventeen and as a raider built a name equalled only by the old Dixie masters, Mosby and Turner Ashby. Dusty Fog was the man who after the War went into Mexico to bring back General Bushrod Sheldon in face of Maximillian’s French army. 1 Since then Dusty was fast carving himself a name in the annals of border gunplay and as a cowhand par-excellence. He was no man for a bunch of shotgun armed dudes to fool with or try to arrest.
    Mark Counter was also a name in his own right. His skill with any or all branches of cattlework was as high if not higher than Dusty’s. In the war he had been the Beau Brummel of Sheldon’s army, his sartorial taste much copied. Now he was a cow country fashion plate and cowhands from the Rio Grande to the Indian Nations copied Mark Counter’s dress style. Yet there was more than a dandy to Mark. He was a fist fighter of note with the strength of a giant combined with speed. His ability with his gun was not so well known even though reliable witnesses of such things ranked him among the five fastest men in Texas.
    The Ysabel Kid was also a legend in his own lifetime and an exciting, eventful lifetime it had been. Down on the Rio Grande there would have been no such folly as this arrest attempt tried, for they knew the way of the Ysabel Kid down there. He was the product of a union between a wild Irish-Kentuckian fighting man and a French Creole-Comanche woman, each of the bloods giving some talent. From his father he got a love of fighting coupled with caution and wisdom while fighting. It gave him also the sighting eye of an eagle and an ability to handle his Winchester rifle with the skill of the legendary backwoodsmen. From his mother’s side the Comanche strain showed in his wolf-keen nerves and senses, in his ability to ride anything with hair. From the French Creole he got a love of cold steel as a fighting weapon and the inborn prowess with his Bowie knife that would not have shamed the men who designed the knife. Add to that a knowledge of six Indian languages, the ability to follow a track where a buck Apache would be beaten, the ability to move as silently as a ghost. That was the Ysabel Kid. These dudes with their shotguns held awkwardly were going to try the Ysabel Kid and his friends, put them under arrest.
    Even the other men were out of place in this company. Rusty Willis and Doc Leroy worked as trail hands for Stone Hart’s Wedge, an outfit of contract drivers. The Wedge took cattle north from Texas to whatever market they could find, handling cattle for the small ranchers who could not afford to make up their own herds. It was Stone Hart’s Wedge which smashed the stranglehold of Jethro Kliddoe, an ex-Union Army officer who was stopping the trail drives and taking head tax on the cattle. To work for the Wedge a man needed to be a tophand with cattle, and he was also likely to be good with a gun.
    These then were the five men the dudes, full of their Eastern ideals, were going to match against with shotguns. They did not know that the Ysabel Kid, who did not account himself fast with a gun, could draw and shoot in about one second. At least two of the men facing the dudes could draw and shoot in half that time and guarantee putting a .44 ball where it would do most good at the end of the half second.
    Kennet glanced back at his friends again, making what could have been a fatal mistake. In the time Kennet was looking away, Dusty and his friends could have laid at least half of them dead on the floor. Kennet and his friends were all well educated, fresh out of Eastern colleges and full of theories on life, conduct and morals. They were banded together here in an attempt to clean up Quiet Town as they had banded together back East in their colleges when they believed something needed altering. By prodding the marshal they had hoped to make a start at cleaning up the town; now