Riders From Long Pines Read Free Page A

said, Tadpole,” Mackenzie answered patiently.
    â€œSo, do you believe a man can be so crooked he turns straight?” Harper asked.
    Brewer cut in, saying, “Tadpole, why do you always want to know what Mac believes? Look at him. Do you see any golden halo above his hat?”
    â€œHe was our trail boss,” Harper replied.
    â€œWas ,” said Brewer. He reached his arm out and gave Mackenzie a little shove. “Now he’s as broke and down in the mouth as the rest of us.”
    Mackenzie shook his head slightly and said, “Jock is right, Tadpole. It turns out I don’t know nothing after all. If it takes a man like Grissin to get ahead in the world, I don’t know what’s to become of the rest of us.”
    â€œWe all end up eating dust and driving cattle if you ask me,” said Holly Thorpe, adjusting his spectacles up on the bridge of his nose. The four rode on into Albertson.

Chapter 2
    For more than a week Stanton “Buckshot” Parks had followed back trails and game paths, until he’d located the hideout of two small-time thieves, Henry Moore and his cousin Benson Carnes. For the next week and a half the three had lain low, made plans and lived on bottles of sarsaparilla, cured hog jowl and airtights of beans and sugar beats that Carnes and Moore had stolen out the back door of a trading post nine miles away.
    By the end of the second week, Parks had busted a bottle of sarsaparilla on the plank wall and said, gun in hand, “I don’t know about you two, but if I don’t steal something soon I’m going to go dung-dipping crazy. Have you boys got any jobs worth doing, or is talking about it as far you jakes go?”
    Henry Moore and Carnes looked at each other knowingly. Finally Moore turned a sharp gaze to Parks and said, “We thought you’d never ask.”
    That had been four days ago. Now Parks sat atop his horse, a flour sack with eyeholes cut in it lying on his lap. “What’s going on down there, Hank?” he asked Moore. He drummed his restless fingertips on the butt of the Colt he’d stolen in broad daylight from the same trading post where Moore and Carnes had stolen the food staples.
    â€œThere’s plenty going on,” Moore said without turning toward him. A moment later, at first sight of the stagecoach rolling around a bend below, Moore turned, facing the other two as he pulled his bandanna up over the bridge of his nose. “Gentlemen, here she comes, right on time,” he said. “Let’s skin down there and make ourselves some spending money.”
    Each of the three wore long riding dusters and wide-brimmed plainsmen hats.
    Benson Carnes, as he also pulled up his bandanna to cover his face, said, “I’ve got the shotgun rider. I’ve owed greedy Jim Blanton a blasting for a long time now.”
    Parks took off his hat, laid it on his lap, picked up the flour sack and pulled it down over his head. The other two watched him adjust the flour sack until the eyeholes matched his eyes. Then Parks pulled his hat down over it tightly and adjusted the flour sack again.
    â€œDamn, Buckshot,” said Carnes, “why don’t you wear a bandanna like everybody else? By the time you get yourself primed and proper, the dance will be over.” He chuckled at his little joke and looked to Moore for support. “Right, Hank?” he asked.
    But Moore didn’t answer. He shook his head and tapped his horse forward onto the steep hillside leading down to the dusty basin below.
    â€œBecause I ain’t like everybody else,” Parks replied to Carnes in a stiff tone of voice. “So, mind your own business. I’ve listened to you flap your mouth nigh three weeks now.”
    Carnes only smiled to himself behind his bandanna. He waited until Parks put his horse forward behind Moore, then let his animal fall in behind him. “I expect that flour sack is something you learned