Read Online Hard Ride to Wichita by Ralph Compton, Marcus Galloway - Free Book Online

lugged away from the place that used to be home. Instead of hopping onto her back and riding away, he led her out to the shed behind the Croft home and tethered her there.
    â€œDon’t you worry, Missy,” Luke said to the horse. “I won’t leave you here for long. When I come back, you’ll get to stretch your legs for a good long while.”
    The horse nuzzled him gently and looked at him with eyes that seemed to know more than they possibly could. He rubbed her neck for a bit longer and then headed back to the house. Rather than go inside, he ran around to the street where a small herd of folks was gathering.
    â€œLuke!” one of his neighbors said. “Where’s your ma and pa? Was there a shooting?’
    More of his neighbors swarmed toward him, each of them asking question after question.
    â€œWas anyone hurt?”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œWhat was that noise?”
    â€œWho was that man that rode up to your house?”
    â€œWhere did that blood come from?”
    When he heard that last question, Luke looked down at himself to find dark red stains on his hands, shirt, pants, and boots. His vision had been so clouded by smoke that he hadn’t noticed the gruesome filth until that moment.
    The neighbor lady who’d started the cascade of questions grabbed hold of him and looked him in the eye when she asked, “Are you all right?”
    â€œYeah,” he said in a meek tone. “I wasn’t shot or nothing.”
    â€œSo those were gunshots?”
    â€œOf course they were gunshots!” the lady’s husband snapped. “What else could they be? What happened, son? Where’s Kyle and Virginia?”
    â€œThey’re . . . inside,” Luke said.
    â€œAre they all right? Were they shot?”
    Luke knew the answers and meant to say them, but suddenly he couldn’t form the words. It was as if his brain was a machine that had just popped a spring and ground to a halt. Some of the other men who lived nearby were approaching the front door, and when Luke tried to stop them, he was held back and wrapped up in the neighbor lady’s arms.
    Luke had lived in the house next to her for as long as he’d been in Maconville, and just now he couldn’t recall her name. He recognized all the faces surrounding him, but only as familiar shapes from another life. One of those shapes was a star made of dented tin.
    â€œI heard there was a shooting here,” the sheriff said as he and two deputies approached the house. “What happened?”
    â€œI think the Crofts are hurt,” the neighbor lady said. “Except for Luke Croft here. I’ll keep an eye on him.”
    The sheriff nodded and looked over to Luke. He was only an inch or so taller than the young man, but he looked down at him as if he were speaking to a child. “Anything we should know before going in there, son?”
    Absently, Luke shook his head.
    The lawmen drew their weapons. “Stay put and don’t worry,” the sheriff said. “Everything’s gonna be all right.”

Chapter 6
    The narrow ribbon of water that wound its way through the weeds southwest of town was called Double Bend Creek. After a long string of summer nights spent catching tadpoles and their kin when he was too young to go to school, Red took to calling it Froggy Crick. He and Luke might have grown too old to draw much pleasure from scooping up tadpoles, but they still visited Froggy Crick whenever they could. Usually it was a place to escape from chores and the people intent on making the young men do them. Today, it offered much simpler pleasures.
    It was quiet.
    â€œHere,” Red said as he handed over a bottle that was less than a quarter full. “I swiped it from my old man.”
    Luke took the bottle from him and sniffed its contents. It wasn’t the first time he’d tasted whiskey in his seventeen years on this earth, but it was the first