Free Riders From Long Pines by Ralph Cotton

himself in the darkness. “I expect you’d best ask her, not me.”
    â€œI wouldn’t ask her,” said Black. “Once Burrack’s dead, I’ll take what I want. She’ll have no say in the matter. I’m just asking you if it’s all right, me taking her. After all, you are the sheriff.”
    â€œThat’s right, I am the sheriff,” said Quinn, “and don’t you ever forget it.”
    After another quiet pause, Black said, “So? Is it all right—with you, that is?”
    â€œIs what all right?” Quinn asked, still playing Black along.
    â€œ Damn it ,” said Black under his breath. “Is it all right that I take the woman,” he said to Quinn, “after I kill the ranger?”
    â€œLook at you, Deputy,” said Quinn. “We don’t even know if Burrack has come upon the money. You’ve already got him lying dead on the ground and the woman spread beneath you like a spring mare.” He shook his head with a dark chuckle and said, “I’m not telling you any more naked-woman stories if this is what it does to you.”
    â€œNaked-woman stories?” Black gave him a skeptical look.
    â€œDon’t worry,” said Quinn, “it’s all true. Maybe someday you’ll see her that way yourself. Then you’ll know what I’m talking about.” He nudged his horse forward to a tall aspen standing at the edge of a narrow path, and stepped down from his saddle.
    Stepping down beside him, Black began hitching his reins and the team horses’ lead rope to the tree beside Quinn’s big dun. “That day might come quicker than you think, Sheriff,” Black said.
    â€œWhere the hell is Fellows?” Quinn asked in a lowered voice as he drew a Spencer rifle from his saddle boot and checked it.
    â€œI don’t know,” said Black, stoked with nervous energy at the thought of the same woman Quinn had seen bathing naked in a stream being only a short distance in front of him on the rocky hillside. “He said you’re going to make him a deputy too,” he added, also drawing a Spencer rifle from his own saddle boot. “Is that true?”
    â€œNot based on what he’s showing me tonight,” Quinn whispered. “I’m starting to wonder if he’s gotten himself lost.”
    â€œThey say a Ute never gets lost,” Black whispered, rifle in hand.
    â€œFellows is only half Ute,” Quinn reminded him. He stepped forward quietly, walking along the path through knee-high brush. He held his Spencer rifle up and ready at port arms.

Chapter 7
    Maria had heard a thrashing, then the quick, strange sound of a muffled yell followed by total silence in the endless darkness surrounding the campsite. What was the sound? How close had it been to the camp? She couldn’t answer either question with any certainty. The sound had come and gone too quickly to be identified or pinpointed.
    â€œSam?” she ventured warily, her hand setting her second cup of coffee aside and wrapping around the stock of her rifle. “Sam . . . ?” she repeated as she rose from her blanket and stepped out of the flickering firelight.
    After a moment when she received no reply from the rocky hillside, she went back to her blanket, laid her rifle down against her saddle long enough to pick up her coat and slip it on. She had started to reach down for her weapon and hat, but the jacking of a rifle lever caused her to freeze.
    â€œHuh-uh, little lady, just leave that big ole Winchester where it lies,” said Peyton Quinn. As he spoke, he and Grady Black stepped into the firelight and stood at its edge. Both men held their rifles pointed at her.
    â€œRaise your hands so we can see them,” Black added, his voice sounding strained and harried.
    Maria did as she was told, her empty hands raising slowly chest high as she stayed calm and looked the two up and down appraisingly. “You are