Free the Rider Of Lost Creek (1976) by Louis - Kilkenny 02 L'amour

married a doctor in Joplin. At nineteen, Rusty rode away west to find what fortune might offer. He wanted land of his own, a few head of horses and cattle. Along the way west, then up and down the cattle and stagecoach trails, he began hearing stories of Wild Bill Hickok and John Wesley Hardin, of Billy Brooks and Jack Bridges, of Mysterious Dave Mather, Bill Longley and Cullen Baker.
    There were other stories, too, of Cochise and Crazy Horse, of Satanta and Mangas Colorado, of the death of Jedediah Smith and of Lieutenant Harrison, killed by Indians with whom he was trying to be friendly.
    There were stories about Ben Thompson and King Fisher, who hailed from this country where he now rode.
    But there were few stories about Lance Kilkenny.
    There might be trouble, a gun battle, a manor men dead ... and Kilkenny gone. Some thugs tried to rob him in a gambling den in Abilene. Two of them died very quickly. The others had backed off, wanting no further trouble.
    He had been cornered by Kiowas in a buffalo wallow and left three dead, one wounded, and took the gun from the last man and set him afoot to tell the story to his people. Two weeks later he had stopped three tough white men from abusing a Kiowa boy, bought him a horse and sent him to his people carrying the rifle he had taken from the fight at the wallow.
    But the true stories were few, the man himself elusive. Many talked of him, but descriptions varied. None seemed to be altogether accurate. Before the shooting started, he attracted little attention. And after it was over, when men would have been able to take a good look at him, he was gone.
    Some said he had killed eighteen men. The cattle buyer in Dodge claimed the actual figure was twenty-nine. But all of it was talk and nobody knew for sure. Not being a tinhorn, Kilkenny filed no notches on his guns.
    "You know ... Rusty said suddenly, "the Brockmans hang out at Apple Canyon."
    "I know ... Kilkenny agreed. "And we may run into them."
    Rusty Gates bit "off a chew of tobacco.
    "There's better places to tangle with them than in Apple Canyon. There'll be fifty men there, maybe a hundred, and all of them friends of the Brockmans."
    Kilkenny grinned at him, whimsically. "What are you worried about? You've got fifty rounds, haven't you?"
    "Fifty rounds"..."... Rusty rolled the tobacco in his jaws and spat "Shucks, man, I miss once in awhile."... He threw a speculative glance at Kilkenny. "You seen the Brockmans? You're a big man ... must weigh one ninety or better, and either of the Brockmans will outweigh you by forty pounds!
    And I seen Cain Brockman shoot a crow on the wing!"
    "Did the crow have a gun"..."... Kilkenny asked, slyly.
    That, Rusty decided, was a good question, a mighty good question. It was one thing to shoot at a flying target, another when the moving target was shooting back.
    They circled a stand of brush and drew up in the shade. "Let's let him catch up ... Kilkenny said.
    "Catch up? Who?"
    "Steve Lord. I picked him up a few miles back."
    "You mean to say you can see that well"..."... Rusty stared back over the way they had come. "I can barely make out it's a man!"
    "Look again. Lord has a hatband made of polished silver disks that catch the sun, and he rides straight up like a military man..."
    Rusty rolled his quid and spat again. Easy enough, he reflected, when you know how. Now that it was mentioned he remembered that hatband. He had seen it so many times it no longer left an impression.
    "By the way ... Kilkenny said, "I want the Brockmans myself."
    "Both of them? Listen, I"
    "Both of them ... Kilkenny replied. "You can keep the sidewinders off my back."
    The distant horseman was closing the gap.
    Kilkenny took off his hat and ran his fingers through his damp hair. He glanced again at the clouds. Broken here and there, but a promise of rain.
    "About that Mendoza deal. I was in Sonora right after you took him They said he was the fastest man in the world with a gun, yet you beat him. Did you get