Free Between Hell and Texas by Ralph Cotton

back to Somos Santos with a string of shootings following you. You know how crazy these drovers get over something like that. Pretty soon they’re all thinking they can do the same.”
    “Then what is it?” Dawson asked, sipping his coffee.
    “I’m short of work and long on hands.” Bouchard shrugged. “We just pushed a herd to Missouri for the army. Right now there’s nothing else in sight. I can make a spot for you, but I know you don’t want that.”
    “No,” said Dawson, “I’ve never been hand-fed. I wouldn’t know how to act.”
    “I knew that was how you’d feel,” said Bouchard, settling back in his chair.
    “Sonny Wells told me there’s been more rustling going on than usual,” said Dawson. “What’s causing it?”
    “More
people
, is what’s causing it,” said Bouchard. “It’s no great surprise that where there’s more people there’s more stealing, is it?”
    “I reckon not,” said Dawson. “I was just curious, is all.”
    Realizing that Sonny Wells had said more on the matter, Bouchard gave Dawson a narrowed look and said, “But missing cattle ain’t what’s been bothering me. What’s bothering me is seeing a good town like Somos Santos go to hell, and nobody there lifting a hand to stop it.”
    “Sonny never mentioned Somos Santos,” said Dawson.
    “He would have, if you’d gave him time,” Bouchard replied. “Right after you left here, the town had an election and voted Sheriff Bratcher out of office.” He sucked on the pipe, blew out a stream and said, “They voted in a fellow by the name of Martin Lematte. Since he took office the town has been turning into one big cesspool of crooked gambling, whoring, drinking, and opium smoking. Lematte is slicker than a bucket of eels. You watch your back if you spend any time in town. I figure he’ll have to pin you down right away. He’ll have to know right off whether you’re with him or against him now that you’re tied down at the hip.”
    “More gun trouble,” said Dawson, shaking his head slowly. “That’s exactly what I came back here to get away from.”
    “Good luck getting away from it.” Bouchard smiled knowingly. “I just thought I better warn youbefore you ride in there and find you’re not welcome anymore.”
    “I’m finding that most places I go,” said Dawson. He sipped his coffee, ignoring the remaining food on his plate.

Chapter 5

    Dawson rode out early the next morning, after scraping half of his breakfast off into the dirt for a couple of yard dogs to growl over. Shaney the cook looked at the dogs eating the discarded food and scratched his head. Then he watched the big bay trot out of sight onto the main trail toward Somos Santos as he said to his helper, “I reckon once a man gets himself a reputation he ain’t required to eat the way the rest of us do, eh, Frenchy?”
    Frenchy gave his boss a look and said, “I was giving it some thought this morning, and you know what? I believe I’ve known Crayton Dawson longer than
you
have.”
    “Like hell you have!” said Shaney, taken aback by such a claim. “Now get the rest of these drovers fed. We ain’t letting them sit around all day doing nothing!”
    Cray Dawson rode the main trail until mid-morning, then turned off onto a weed-grown path and followed it to a clearing between two upthrusts of rock. In front of a sun-bleached plank line shack, he stepped down from his saddle at the hitch rail and shouldered his saddlebags and the poke bag Shaney had prepared for him. He drew his rifle fromits boot and said under his breath, “Welcome home, Cray Dawson,” as if his voice belonged to someone speaking to him from the rickety front porch. Then he walked up onto the porch and nudged the door open as it swung back and forth slowly on a hot breeze.
    Inside, he saw the tail of a lizard disappear down off the top of an oaken table, then shoot down through a crack in the floor a second later. In the dust on the plank floor he saw where a snake