Read Online Desert of the Damned by Nelson Nye - Free Book Online Page A

him to claw for his gun and drop fighting. But the soft part of him, that careful part which did not like violence and had all its hopes wrapped up in reform, kept his hands tightly clamped to the horn of his saddle.
    The sheriff’s gray mare moved up alongside and stopped. The stab of Lafe’s glance was bright and hard now as Chefs.
    “Well?” He stared at Ben bleakly. “You heard the questions.”
    Reifel managed to nod though he wished that he hadn’t. When the vibrant dance of those roundabout faces jerkily subsided into complete immobility he searched his mind for something to say — just anything at all which might tend to stave off for a few breaths longer the ugliness he saw taking shape behind the dark glitter of hostile eyes.
    But that was his trouble. He’d talked too much already. These men hadn’t come along with Lafe for the ride. They had come to implement the Law’s retribution and were anxious to be done with it and rejoin their families.
    They were anxious, he thought, to get at the fall planting; to round up their beef and trail their yearlings to market. They had come with Lafe because they’d put him in office, not because they shared or gave a damn about his problems. They had come because they felt they owed him that much allegiance. They had come to catch a bunch of marshal-killing crooks and saw in this lone stranger a fitting subject for example.
    One of them took something off his saddle and the warning of that movement roared all through Ben’s arteries.
    A voice cried harshly, “What the hell are we waitin’ on?” and a growl ran through those stiff black shapes like the snarl of a wolf pack scenting blood.
    “Lafe,” Chet said, “get that polecat’s gun. We passed a tree back yonder that’s — ”
    “Let’s keep our heads, boys …” The sheriff’s voice buckled and he stared uncertainly at Chet across a shoulder. He licked at dry lips. “Two wrongs won’t make a right. This gent’s got a right to explain — ”
    “Why ain’t he doin’ it then?”
    “If he ain’t mixed up with that stage-robbin’ crew — ”
    The sheriff said nervously to Ben, “You better talk, boy. You better talk quick if you got anythin’ to say.”
    And that was God’s truth.
    But he had told them one story and to attempt to change it now would only be to dig himself in that much deeper. Nor would the actual facts of the matter help him — even an edited part of them. Anything he said now would have to be geared to fit what he’d already told them.
    When he had led this bunch to believe he’d met Bo Breen on the trail he had committed himself and would have to stay with it. When he had shaped that story he had not intended to let them know he had been wounded, so the changed shirt hadn’t entered into his figuring. He’d been too intent then on directing their interest to a bastard who had earned the entire sum of their attentions.
    It was big Chet’s talk which had sidetracked him into imagining that wound could get him out of this. He’d misread for a fool the sharpest thinker in this outfit.
    Chet’s bull voice jumped out of the silence. “Whereabouts were you at when you caught that slug?”
    “Silver Creek Canyon. A little west of Paradise — ”
    “I thought you claimed the guy was
goin’
to Paradise!”
    “He was when he left me. But he was coming from there when I — ”
    “You told us
you
were comin’ from Paradise!”
    “You want to tell this story?” Reifel said in the tone of a man hard tried.
    The sheriff said to Chet, “You can’t be judge an’ jury, too — ”
    Another voice cut in. “Got that rope handy, Curly?”
    Lafe whirled his mare. “Next one of you boys makes a crack like that can hand in his badge an’ get the hell outa here!” He glowered a moment. He nodded curtly at Ben. “Go ahead.”
    Ben tried to marshal his thoughts. “I ran into him just a little west of town, perhaps a quarter of a mile beyond the Squabble O Cafe. He was