Free Dead Trouble by Jake Douglas Page B

hammered again and Deke saw the flash to his left and slightly ahead. He lifted the rifle as he reared up in the saddle and fired.
    He could just make out the man falling in there and then he heard the swish of a low-swinging branch. He ducked flat but not quite fast enough. It raked his back and thrust him sideways in the saddle. The horse stumbled as it swerved with the unexpected transfer of weight and cannoned off a tree, adding to the momentum of Cutler’s falling body.
    He struck the ground heavily, losing the rifle, bounced and rolled. Then the night exploded in a fountain of stars as his head struck the same tree that had sent his horse floundering.
    He fell into spinning darkness.

     
    ‘Goddammit, I told you he wasn’t to be killed! Or even shot at!’
    The familiar angry voice filtered through Cutler’s returning consciousness and he lay wherever he was, trying to recover his senses fully.
    ‘Thing is, Durango, you don’t have as much to say around here as you think you do.’
    Cutler didn’t recognize that voice at first: it was tough and cold and menacing.
    ‘You could be wrong, Flash.’ That could be Flash Bill Danton! An outlaw long supposed dead along the Rio … ‘That trail across my land is the best one available to you.’
    A harsh, wet-sounding laugh. By hell! It was Flash Bill! He was always troubled by a cough!
    ‘Now you wouldn’t be threatenin’ me, Durango, ol’ hoss, would you?’
    ‘Me? Hell, no. But if the trail was closed to you, you’d have to run the gauntlet of crossing the Red in the open and the Federals are getting more and more patrols along the unsettled stretches – using the army, too, I hear.’
    The wet cough came, followed by some hawking, then a brief silence.
    ‘Durango, when you gonna admit you’re no longer a Ranger, no longer the boss, and you don’t get your own way just because of a couple of stupid threats?’
    ‘Flash, I don’t want Cutler hurt. He’s had it rough and I can ease him along, but not if someone’s trying to blow his head off every time he leaves Shoestring’spastures. You ’re the one ought to be learning a lesson. You counted your dead men lately? And that one he just shot down in the timber. He’ll be lucky if he’s walking without crutches a month from now. You oughta realize just who it is you’re dealing with.’
    Cutler opened his eyes and took in his situation. It did little to make him feel any better and it sure didn’t help his throbbing head.
    There was some kind of a temporary camp, a small fire burning, and he could smell coffee and beans. He could recognize Durango and Hal Tripp and there were three other dark shapes, all bearded as far as he could tell. At first he thought his hands were bound but it was just that he had been lying on them. His right arm was painful but nothing he couldn’t bear. He fought to sit up and the movement got the attention of the men around the fire.
    They said nothing, let him struggle up, holding one side of his head which was swollen. He felt a crust of dried blood where the skin had broken. Cutler swayed, surprised that he was still wearing his own six-gun. His rifle lay only a couple of feet away, scratched and stone-dented on the butt-stock from its fall. He started to stoop – carefully – to pick it up, but Flash Bill spat and shook his head.
    ‘Nope. Just leave it, Cutler.’
    ‘You’re about the healthiest looking ghost I’ve ever seen, Flash,’ Deke grated, but he was looking at Durango who kept his face carefully blank.
    ‘What the hell’re you doing here, Deke?’ Spain asked and there was an edge of concern in his voice. ‘D’you have to poke your nose into every blamed thing?’
    ‘That’s the way you taught me, Durango.’ Cutler’s words were short and cutting, his eyes bleak. ‘Anyway, if my pardner keeps sending our men on night rides, or goes himself, I reckon I’ve a right to know what’s going on.’
    There was more silence, broken only by the