Read Online Blood Valley by William W. Johnstone - Free Book Online Page A

think you’ll do to ride the river with. If,” she added drily, “you live that long.”
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    Them gals personal loaded Marie into the buckboard, and none of us men standin’ around was too unhappy ’bout that. Rusty had joined me and Ben, and then some Quartermoon punchers come ridin’ up. Lookin’ them over, I seen what Rolf Baker had meant the other night. They wasn’t none of them no slick-backed gunhawks, but they was rough through and through, and I’ll take that kind of man over a gunsharp any time, hands down.
    All of ’em give me the once-over, takin’ in my butt-forward, left-hand .44.
    They done some low cussin’ and growlin’ about what had happened, and one of them said he made a damn dandy noose.
    â€œIt’ll be done legal-like,” I heard the words come out of my mouth. “They’ll be no gawddamn vigilantes ridin’. Sometimes, they’re just as bad as nightriders.”
    Kinda surprised me, but after I said that, they all just quieted down.
    While waitin’, I’d done some circlin’ on foot, tryin’ to come up with just one track that stood out. About my fifth try, I found one.
    A horseshoe had been worn or chipped to form a V on the left side of the shoe.
    â€œRusty, Ben, you Quartermoon boys!” I called. “Come over here and look at this.”
    I pointed out the track to them.
    But none of them had never seen it before.
    I glanced at Ben. “You busy?”
    â€œNot to speak of. What’s on your mind, Sheriff?”
    â€œYou know two ol’ boys name of De Graff and Burtell?”
    â€œHell, Sheriff!” he protested. “They couldn’t have done this. They . . .”
    I waved him quiet. “I never said they done nothin’. I want to talk to them ’bout bein’ deputies. Can you find ’em and have ’em meet me in town?”
    â€œConsider it done, Sheriff.” He was on his horse and gone.
    I mounted up.
    â€œWhere are we goin’, Sheriff?” Rusty asked.
    â€œTo wherever this track leads, Rusty. Let’s ride.”
    We was on Circle L range, and we all knew it. And no one amongst us would have bet against where that track was gonna lead. And it done it, sure as shootin’.
    It was mid-morning when we rode up to the great house. House! It was a damned mansion. Looked as out of place on the range as a turd in a punch bowl.
    And it made me mad. It was some unreasonable, and I knew it, but it done it anyways. I was thinkin’ about them poor nesters back yonder, burned out with not even a pot left to piss in—the nightriders had even burned the privy—and here was this palace . . . where the tracks of the nightriders led straight for.
    All that was mingled in with the sight of that dead girl, raped, and neck broke.
    I just got mad!
    I rode straight up to the front of that house and looped Critter’s reins around the hitchrail and stomped up the steps onto the porch. I commenced to poundin’ on the front door.
    One of the Mex servants seen me and run back into the rear of the house. I kept on hammerin’ on that door until ol’ A.J. hisself jerked open the door.
    â€œWhat is the meaning of this . . . outrage?” he yelled at me.
    â€œGit out here!”
    â€œI beg your pardon, you . . . you saddle bum!”
    Jerkin’ open the outside door, I grabbed mister bigshot by the shirtfront and hauled him out, then I shook him like a hound dog with a rabbit in its mouth.
    Wanda Mills must have been visiting over, ’cause she and Joy run to the door, looked out, and then started squallin’ and jumpin’ up and down and makin’ more noise than a fire drill at a loony house.
    Ol’ A.J.’s head was bouncin’ back and forth like a puppet.
    I shoved Mister Hotsy-Totsy down in a porch chair and told him, very quickly, what had happened.
    Big Mike and about a dozen other hands come