Read Online Devil's Manhunt (Stories from the Golden Age) by L. Ron Hubbard - Free Book Online Page A

had kept the trail open, not closed it. Les Harmon had not given up.
    Zeke tried to think of how he could have given his whereabouts away, but all Zeke could think about was the trail which had stayed open.
    I t had started innocently enough: a fight in a saloon where a bartender had tried to take all Zeke’s money at once with knockout drops.
    Zeke had felt young and free then. He hadn’t killed a man. He was just a good-looking, go-to-hell puncher with a summer’s wages to spend, a crooked grin on his face and his blond hair standing straight up with devilment. He hadn’t meant anybody any harm.
    The bartender had put too many in the slug and Zeke had tasted it. That had begun the long trail. It stood like yesterday between Zeke and the street, a painful haze of circumstance out of which a few details moved clear.
    Mesa was a crooked town. It had sprung up with a railroad and it fought its fights from ambush. It was a cloud of wickedness on the clean range. That was what the preacher had said and he had been right. Gamblers, women, toughs had settled at this final end-of-line which stopped two spans of railroad tracks head-on to span a continent. Few punchers had been there. Zeke had been drifting south from Wyoming. He had not intended to stay beyond the night. But he had tasted the Mickey Finn and he had thrown the glass straight into the bartender’s face.
    The fight had been brief. Zeke had gone half over the bar to punish his man, when a loafing tough, anxious for a drink, took sides and a chair from behind. Zeke Tomlin was stretched out in the sawdust.
    Les Harmon had come in and his star looked big. He had taken Zeke’s gun and with some help had dragged him to the nearby calabozo where the cell door had clanged.
    Zeke lay for some time in the dark. He had had a little to drink and he had swallowed some of the Mickey. He did not immediately become aware of the voices in the sheriff’s office. Then: “All right,” he heard one say. “They’re too sore about their payroll for us to take chances. But it sounds kind of crazy just the same.”
    “Take him and do like I said!” said Harmon with a strange eagerness.
    A blustering big man, black-booted and frock-coated with a yard of string tie, opened the door. “Hey, sonny,” the big man had said. “If you want to get out of here, you can give us a hand.”
    “I’m stayin’,” said Zeke.
    One of the hard cases with the big man said, “Shall we persuade him, Big George?”
    Big George nodded and they stood Zeke up, three of them, and shoved him out to his horse. Zeke saw Les Harmon’s hard, cold face under the kerosene lamp in the office. Les Harmon was faintly amused.
    They put Zeke on a horse and tied his legs to the cinch and led him out of town through the shadows. The yellow squares of light lay behind them in the desert when they halted at last.
    “Gag him,” said Big George.
    Zeke glared but they gagged him, tight so that it was hard to breathe. Then they passed the bridle off his horse and let Zeke have his hands.
    “It’s about ten,” said Big George, looking at the stars. “She won’t be along for another half-hour.”
    Zeke saw then they were beside a faint road. The group was looking back at the town, sitting tensely, fussing with their reins.
    “Hope nobody starts in from the mine,” said somebody.
    “They won’t,” said Big George. “The boss won’t let them off until they get their full week’s work out. They don’t think they’ll get their pay and nobody is liable to quit without it.”
    One of the owl-hoots snickered nervously. “They’ll have to wait longer than that.”
    “Shut up,” said Big George.
    It was cold and the desert wind was sharp through Zeke’s shirt. The stars snapped brilliantly in their countless millions. The horses moved restively back and forth around the boulder which Big George had taken for his station.
    “All right,” said Big George, looking for his clock amongst the stars. “You and