PROSPERITY
Jack Drummond
There was no law in that town.
Only the law of the gun.
Prosperity was ruled by two types of men. The men that did the killing, and the men that did the dying.
Terry Mulqueen was one of those men who did the killing. Not the actual killing, rather, but one who put out the bounties and ordered specific individuals to do the dying at the hands of other, more experienced killers.
He was a big, bulky man, barrel-chested and burly. His face was chiseled and mean-looking, and Terry Mulqueen had the look of a tough man about him. And he was tough, a tough card to shuffle when the hand was already in play.
And somehow, when his card was played, it was always by a sleight of hand.
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HUSH
Jack Drummond
He rode into that little town somewhere in the Powder River Country on an old appaloosa dappled with gray.
He picketed the appaloosa in front of the saloon, and slowly made his way inside.
Jonah Hush was an old man.
His hoary posture and the worn-out spring in his nearly crippled step made the fact all the more obvious. Nonetheless, he wore a six-gun tied down on his hip, doubtful that, should he ever have to draw his gun, he would walk away from the encounter. But it was his gun that he wore with pride, a symbol of his vanity; the only thing he had left to boast about in his fifty-eight years of age.
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ON A STRANGE TIDE WEST
Jack Drummond
“Pa,” came his son’s voice from the other side of the campfire when they were somewhere up Montana way, “ain’t you ever gonna show me how to shoot a gun?”
Colburn Pike looked up and across the campfire and smiled at the twinkle in his son’s eyes. “Not jus’ yet, Ty. But I will. I will.”
“When, pa?”
“Soon, son. Soon.”
Ty Pike looked mighty thoughtful for a long moment. “I hear’d some men talkin’ ‘bout guns in the last town we stopped at. They was sayin’ all you gotta do is point it an’ shoot it.”
Pike smiled at his 8-year-old son. “Well, it ain’t as simple as that.
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The Man in the Red Vest
Jack Drummond
There were two of them.
Big, ugly men.
They rode into Deadwood at dusk, and they had a third horse with them.
The first man was the biggest, and he wore two guns tied down. The second man had only one gun, and he had two fingers missing from his gun hand.
When they came swaggering into the saloon, the thongs were already loosed from the hammers of their shooting irons.
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With A Fair Hand
Jack Drummond
“Alright, boys,” Bucky Garland said, “show yer hands.”
Orn Bisby glanced over at Jim Tucker, who shot him a nasty look.
“You heard him, Bisby,” Tucker said quietly. “Show ‘em.”
Bisby tossed his cards nonchalantly onto the surface of the table.
Tucker looked at them, and the smug look on his face turned into an expression of utter astonishment. “They ain’t no way!” he exclaimed. “You cheated!”
“Easy, Jim,” Hal Mercer said from his seat on Bisby’s left. “He played that hand fair an’ you know’t!”
Tucker stood so quickly that his chair toppled over backward and clattered to the floor. The saloon they were playing in fell silent, and an invisible thread of tension fell upon the place. Tucker’s hand hovered over his shooting iron, but Bisby stared at him calmly from the other end of the table.
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Skyliner
Jack Drummond
Milt Grable looked out over the vast plains and studied the terrain.
More than two hundred head of cattle had been driven over that piece of land. On the skyline of a distant plain, he could see the outline of the cattle.
His cattle.
He sat a little straighter in the saddle and tugged his Winchester from its sheath. He checked the cartridges loaded into the rifle and returned it to the sheath. He did the same with the Colt that was nestled in the holster tied down on his hip.
Somewhere in the distance, lightning flashed, and thunder rumbled.
There was going to be a storm on the plains.
He holstered the Colt and looked back out at the distant herd of cattle that had been driven from his land by a half dozen cattle rustlers. His black gelding shifted beneath him.
“I know,” he uttered under his breath. “I don’t like the looks of it either.”
Ace Graeme led the outfit that was rustling his cattle.
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Contention
Jack Drummond
He came riding into Contention with the chill of the desert night.
A cold, hard-looking man up in his years and down on his luck. The deep lines in his face were worn and aggravated, much like his demeanor as he swung down from the saddle and picketed his horse at the hitch-rail across the street from the saloon. His horse looked equally as old and worn out, and offered no struggle when he tied the reins to the rail and left the horse there when he started for the saloon.
As he walked, he glanced either way down the street. As far as he could tell, no one had seen him ride into town.
With luck, he thought, he could keep a low profile long enough to grab a warm meal for himself and restock on supplies.
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The Walking Man
Jack Drummond
He didn’t look like a western man, yet at the same time, he did.
Ange Letterman was standing on her front porch the first time she saw him. He was coming down the way from the dead hills on the other side of nowhere, and Ange just wasn’t quite sure what to make of him. He didn’t have the heavy swagger that Ange was accustomed to seeing with western men, but he had instead the deliberate foot-fall and posture of a man from back east.
It was odd, she thought, that he should not come from the direction of town, or follow any known roadway along the beaten path. Yet there he was, coming down through the long grass toward her home. He was without a horse, yet he seemed to be in no particular rush.
It was a surreal occurrence.
He drew nearer, and by then Ange was sure he had spotted her. He stopped just short of the front porch, and Ange looked him over.
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Morrow's Grove
Jack Drummond
Con Sunderland was sitting in the rocker within the shade of his front porch when he first saw the dust cloud in the distance. He rose slowly, squinting past the mirage reflecting off the surface of the sun-blasted sand dunes. For a moment he stood there on his porch, staring out beyond the dunes at the dust cloud growing closer to his homestead. When the four riders topped the dune nearest his home, he turned and went inside.
Alice looked up from the bread she was making as he came through the open doorway. He glanced at her, but said nothing. She caught the look in his eye, and as he moved to the opposite wall, she looked through the doorway at the riders coming down the dune toward their home.
“Con,” he heard her say sharply from somewhere behind him as he took up the Spencer rifle resting against the wall.
“I know,” he said softly, cocking the Spencer. He turned and started past her. “It’s Latham’s boys.”
She caught him by the arm as he passed. “What’re you gonna do?” she asked.
“Their not gonna run us off our land, Alice. I’m takin’ a stand.”
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