Free Sidewinders by William W. Johnstone

said. He had drawn his revolver, and he gestured to Bo with it. “Come on.”
    Bo heeled his horse into motion. The members of the posse closed in around him as he rode away from the ranch. He looked back over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of Hank standing there forlornly. Over at the house, Idabelle Fisher had come out onto the front porch and looked upset, too, as the men rode away.
    Surrounded and unarmed like this, Bo felt helpless, and he didn’t like the feeling, not one bit.
    His best chance now was the hope that Scratch would understand the message Hank would deliver to him and be able to find the actual murderer of those saloon girls.
    It was a pretty slim chance, especially when Bo knew that his life was probably riding on it.
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    Not much had changed in these parts, Scratch thought as he rode across Bear Creek at one of the places where the stream was easy to ford. About half a mile downstream was the old swimming hole where he had persuaded Betsy Hanrahan to go skinny-dipping with him when they were both sixteen.
    Truth to tell, he hadn’t had to try very hard to convince her. She’d been just about as eager as he was. The memory put a wistful smile on his face. The last he had heard of her, Betsy was married to a fella over at Hallettsville and had six kids and twenty grandchildren. Scratch doubted if she even remembered that hot summer day so long ago . . . but he did.
    On the other side of the creek, he spotted the grove of trees where he and Bo had hidden one time when they were out hunting and almost ran smack-dab into a Comanche war party, back in the days when Texas was still a republic. They had made it to the trees barely in time to crouch down out of sight and hope that the Comanches hadn’t seen them.
    They didn’t have any horses, so there wasn’t any chance they could outrun the war party. If the Indians came after them, they’d have to make a fight of it. Armed only with single-shot rifles, they had known they likely wouldn’t survive a battle. There were a dozen warriors in that bunch. They would be able to overrun the two young Texicans.
    But Bo and Scratch were both confident that they would give a good account of themselves and kill some of the Comanches before they went down fighting. That was scant comfort when they considered how their hair would wind up decorating some warrior’s lance, but on the frontier you took what consolation you could when it came to dying.
    Of course, the Comanches had ridden on without ever noticing them, and when the war party was gone, the two youngsters had lain down on the ground and laughed at their close call, both of them pretending not to see the tears of relief they were crying. They still had a lot of living to do.
    And they had done it, Scratch thought now. By God if they hadn’t.
    He came in sight of a frame farmhouse, built in the early Texas style with the two parts of the house separated by a covered dogtrot. The thick planks were unpainted, gray with age, and slightly warped in places but still sturdy. It was the old Morton home place. Scratch rode toward it with a warm feeling inside him and the tightness of nostalgia in his throat.
    A man was plowing in the fields near the house. That was his brother-in-law, Eben McCoy, Scratch thought, recognizing him. Eben saw him coming and left the plow and the mule where they were. He trotted toward the house and called, “Dorothy! Dorothy!”
    Scratch’s sister came out of the house, drying her hands on the apron she wore. As Scratch reined in and dismounted, she hurried forward.
    â€œBaby brother!” she cried. She threw her arms around him and hugged him.
    â€œYou’re only a year older than me,” Scratch reminded her as he returned the embrace.
    â€œThat’s enough to make you the baby of the family,” Dorothy said. She stepped back and put her hands on Scratch’s shoulders. “Let me take a look at you.