Six-Gun Gallows Read Free Page A

it’s just her family recipes, eh? But she gave it to Skye Fargo. And that tells me it’s likely to be trouble—the worst kind in the world. The kind that leaves men dancing on air.”
    Shanghai paled under the dust coating his face. “You don’t mean . . . the senator?”
    Rafe nodded. “I have no idea, mind you, but that’s what I suspect.”
    â€œMr. Belloch,” Jake put in, “speaking of that deal with the senator, there’s something I don’t quite savvy. You work for the Kansas Pacific, ain’t that right?”
    Belloch kept a poker face. “I draw pay from them, Jake, yes.”
    â€œThen how’s come we’re raising hell in these parts? Ain’t this close to the route they favor?”
    â€œJake, you flap your gums too much,” Shanghai cut in. “You got some problem with your pay?”
    â€œHell no.”
    â€œGood. Just shut your gob and carry out orders.”
    â€œSorry for nosing in, Mr. Belloch,” Jake said in a contrite voice. “You’re the rainmaker in these parts.”
    Belloch flashed his thin-lipped smile. “Rain, sleet, snow, and sunshine. But, boys, never mind me,” he said. “Don’t you realize there’s been a horrifying massacre here today?”
    Shanghai’s eyes narrowed. “You been grazing locoweed? We done the massacre.”
    â€œShush.” Belloch touched a finger to his lips. “Boys, it was shocking and we all saw it. Skye Fargo, dressed like a border ruffian, led a band of desperadoes against those poor defenseless Quakers and killed their menfolk. Even violated their girls. Then he had the brazen effrontery to slip off, change back into buckskins, and pretend to help them.”
    â€œWhat’s brazen frunnery?” Jake asked.
    â€œGall, Jake, gall. The murdering bastard is widely known as a railroad hater. That must be why he did it. And we, being only four in number, were helpless to prevent it.”
    Shanghai grinned, revealing a few stumps of tobacco-stained teeth. “Boss, you are some pumpkins. That’s pure genius.”
    â€œI’ll write up a report for the dispatch rider, and we’ll all sign it,” Belloch added. “Under territorial law, and with my credentials, that’ll be excuse enough to shoot him down like a rabid wolf.”
    â€œThere’s still that pouch,” Moss pointed out.
    Belloch nodded. “From now until we kill him, Skye Fargo is the man of the hour. Since he’s known to work for the U.S. Army, I suspect he intends to deliver that pouch to a military man. Come hell or high water, we’re going to prevent him.”
    Â 
    Fargo knew he was being watched, but out on the Great Plains that never worried him much.
    He never felt as relaxed, anywhere in the West, as he did on the open plains—still foolishly known as Zebulon Pike’s Great American Desert in geography books back east. There were dangers, to be sure. In some places rattlesnakes bred unchecked, and he had seen horse and rider suddenly consumed by them as if in flames, a writhing mass that brought death in seconds.
    And up from deep Texas there were wild herds of man-killing longhorns and equally lethal mustangs. The mustangs “liberated” saddle horses, stranding men to die in the vast lonesome. Fargo had encountered prairie-dog towns that stretched for miles, where grass knee-high to a tall man hid the holes so well a rider could lame his horse without warning.
    But human enemies were at a serious disadvantage out here. Ambush was nearly impossible, except in the growth near water, and the only real danger was large groups of attackers—and with a good Henry rifle like his, even they could be discouraged.
    Still, especially after the brutal massacre he’d witnessed yesterday, Fargo kept his sun-crimped eyes in constant motion while he formed balls of cornmeal and water and tossed them into the hot ashes