Renegades Read Free Page B

Black Scorpion.”
    â€œThe Black Scorpion?” Frank repeated. “What’s that?”
    â€œYou mean who’s that. You recollect what I said about the Rangers huntin’ for a gang of owlhoots? Well, the Black Scorpion is the boss outlaw, the son of a bitch who heads up that gang.”
    Ben laughed. “Now you’re talking like the one who’s been reading dime novels, Pa.”
    â€œThe Black Scorpion’s real, damn it,” Tolliver said with a scowl. “Folks have seen him, dressed all in black and wearin’ a mask, leadin’ that bloodthirsty bunch o’ desperadoes.”
    That sounded pretty far-fetched to Frank, too, like the creation of one of those ink-stained wretches who made up stories about him. There might be some truth to it, though. The West had seen mysterious masked bandits before, such as Black Bart out in California. Frank was going to have to see this so-called Black Scorpion for himself, though, before he would really believe in such an individual.
    Ben was equally skeptical, saying, “I’ll believe it when I see it. It seems to me that Captain Wedge and the Rangers are wasting their time looking for phantoms when they ought to be hunting down rustlers.”
    â€œWell, I ain’t gonna argue about that,” his father said. “I wish they’d do something about the damn rustlers, too.”
    Frank sat in the back of the buckboard and mulled over what he had heard. He had come down here to the border country looking for someplace warm and peaceful. It was warm, all right, but evidently far from peaceful, what with the feud between Cecil Tolliver and Don Felipe Almanzar, the rustlers plaguing the Rocking T, and another gang of bandits led by a mysterious masked figure. With all that going on, it seemed like trouble could crop up from any direction with little or no warning—or from several directions at once.
    â€œIs it possible the Black Scorpion could be responsible for the rustling?” Frank asked.
    â€œFolks have thought about that,” Tolliver replied, “but me and some o’ the other ranchers around here have lost stock on the same nights that the Black Scorpion’s gang was reported to be maraudin’ on the other side of the border. The varmint can’t be in two places at the same time.”
    â€œNo, I reckon not,” Frank said, but he wasn’t completely convinced. His instincts told him that there was even more going on around here than was readily apparent.
    His instincts also told him that the smart thing to do would be to unhitch Stormy from the team, mount up, and light a shuck out of here. The troubles had nothing to do with him, and if he stayed around and was drawn deeper into them, his hopes for a quiet, relaxing winter might well be shattered.
    On the other hand, he had never turned his back on trouble just to make it easier on himself, and he was a mite too old to start now. A leopard couldn’t change its spots, nor a tiger its stripes.
    The sun was low in the sky by the time the buckboard reached the headquarters of the Rocking T. Frank saw a large, whitewashed house sitting in the shade of several cottonwood trees. Behind it were a couple of barns, several corrals, a bunkhouse, a cookshack, a blacksmith shop, a chicken coop, and some storage buildings. There was a vegetable garden off to one side of the house, and beyond it a small orchard filled with fruit trees. It was a mighty nice layout, Frank thought, the sort of spread that required years of hard work and dedication to build. He admired a man like Cecil Tolliver who could put down roots and create something lasting and worthwhile like this. For all of his accomplishments, Frank had never been able to achieve that. True, he had quite a few business interests scattered across the West, business interests that had made him a wealthy man, at least on paper, but he had inherited those things, not worked for them and built