Read Online Golden Riders by Ralph Cotton - Free Book Online Page B

be the only way I can flush Braxton out and take him down.”
    Schaffer shook his head warily at the Ranger’s methods.
    â€œThat’s playing too fast and loose for my blood anymore,” he said. “I expect I’ve lost my stomach for that kind of hard killing.” He turned as he spoke and gestured his walking cane toward the side door to the doctor’s building. “Come on, I’ll question John Garlet withyou,” he said. “I’ll wear this stick out on him—make him cooperate, if you want me to.”
    â€œLet’s see how it goes,” Sam said, walking in front of the sheriff and opening the door for him. “What is Dr. Croft saying about this one?”
    â€œSays he’s lost his mind,” Schaffer said. “Says the blast didn’t help any, but he thinks he was poisoned from the mescal and it’s boiled his brain. Aside from the peyote, cocaine and God knows what else is in it, Doc says it might be full of metal from up around the mines where it was made. Metal poison alone can eat a man’s brain plumb out of his skull.”
    Sam just stared at him, listening.
    â€œAnyway,” said Schaffer, “I’m glad we’ve seen the last of that stuff around here. No telling how many it’s sent into raving madness. Still they like to drink it, seeing how strong it is. The more they hear about it, the more they have to try it.”
    As the two stepped inside and saw John Garlet stretched out in a corner, his arms out spread-eagle, thickly bandaged and strapped down on splint boards to keep his broken bones in place. His legs were also strapped to boards and bandaged. His feet rested in slings that hung from thin cables on pulleys attached to a metal frame that stood over the bed. A wooden frame mantled his shoulders and held his head in place on a round board, held there by rigid wires screwed in place. His head was covered with thick bandage, his face partially concealed by gauze.
    â€œDid you . . . think to bring me . . . a gun?” he asked from within a dazed laudanum stupor.
    â€œNo gun, Garlet, you can’t hold one anyway,” the sheriff said. “It’s me, Sheriff Schaffer, and the Ranger, Sam Burrack. The Ranger wants to ask you some questions.”
    â€œI don’t know . . . anything about it,” Garlet said groggily.
    â€œAbout what?” the sheriff asked.
    â€œAbout . . . nothing,” said Garlet. His mouth hung gapping in a crazy half smile.
    â€œSee?” Schaffer said to the Ranger. “Still doesn’t have the sense God gave a goose.” He shook his head and said to Garlet, “All the same, talk to him, Garlet. It might make you feel better.”
    â€œCan I . . . have a gun . . . one bullet?” John Garlet asked, adrift on the laudanum. His dark eyes swirled in madness. Saliva ran from his mouth down his chin.
    Sam stopped short before walking any closer.
    â€œIt’s useless talking to him,” he said. “Dr. Croft is right. He’s lost his mind.” He stepped back to the door. “I’m leaving come morning.”
    â€œI’m holding him here and putting him on the jail wagon from Yuma when it gets here,” said Sheriff. “He’s a danger to himself. They’ll stick him in a lunatic cell.”
    Sam looked at John Garlet again and shook his head. Then he and the sheriff stepped out the door and closed it behind them.
•   •   •
    After the first two weeks of riding northwest through a succession of frontier mining settlements and hill towns, the three Garlets, Bluebird, Cutthroat Teddy Bonsell andJake Cleary stopped at every opportunity to search for arms and ammunition. One of the first had been Poco Fuego. In the wispy first light of dawn they had ridden scorched, singed and blistered into the high border town and spilled into a small cantina owned by