Free Ride the Dark Trail (1972) by Louis - Sackett's 18 L'amour Page B

hundred feet higher, and the place lay in a meadow with a trail running past the gate and aspen spilling down the mountainside opposite. Circling around, I came up through the aspen and sat there five minutes or so, studying the house. Finally I decided whoever was there it certainly wasn't the posse. So I rode on in.
    I walked my horse up to the house and gave a call and after a bit a door opened. The man in the door had a gun on, and he yelled, "Put up your horse and come in."
    I took my horse to the stables and stepped inside. There were four horses there, three of them dry, one wet. I took the roan to a stall and rubbed him down with a handful of hay, then forked some hay into the manger for him. Prying around with a lighted lantern, I found a sack of oats and put a good bait of that in the bin for my horse.
    Studying on the situation, I commenced to feel uneasy, but my roan surely needed the grub, and so did I. Slipping the thong from my pistol butt, I went inside the house. The door opened as I walked up.
    There was a red-haired girl there, of maybe seventeen years. She had a sprinkling of freckles over her nose and I grinned at her. She looked shy, but she smiled back.
    There were three men in the place, all of them armed. One of them, a tall, thin galoot, stooped in the shoulders, had wet boots and the knees of his pants above the boots were wet. He'd been riding in the rain under a slicker.
    "Travelin'," I said. "I ran short of grub."
    "Set up to the table. There's beef and there's coffee."
    The other men bobbed their heads at me, the man with the wet boots slowest of all.
    Now excepting that red-headed girl there was nothing about this here setup that I liked. Of course, any man might have been riding this day, but it was uncommon for men to be wearin' guns in the house with a woman - I mean, unless they were fixing to go out again.
    The man who seemed to own the place was a stocky gent with rusty hair, darker than the girl's, but they favored and were likely some kin. There was that tall galoot with the wet boots whom the others called Jerk-Line.
    "I'm Will Scanlan," the rusty-haired one said. "This here's Jerk-Line Miller and that gent over yonder with the seegar is Benton Hayes."
    Scanlan nor Miller I'd not heard tell of. Benton Hayes a man in my line of business would know. He was a scalp-hunter ... a bounty hunter, if you will. He had a reputation for being good with a gun and not being very particular on how he used it.
    "And the lady?" I asked.
    "Her?" Scanlan seemed surprised. "Oh, that there's Zelda. She's my sister."
    "Favors you," I said. And then added, "My name's Logan. I ride for an outfit over east of here."
    The coffee tasted almighty good, but already I was thinking of an excuse for getting out. No traveler in his right mind is going to pick up and leave a warm, dry place for the out-of-doors on a rainy night, and if I did that they'd been bound to get suspicious.
    Meanwhile I was putting that beef where it would do the most good. Zelda brought me a healthy chunk of corn pone and a glass of milk to go with it.
    "Lots of outfits east of here," Hayes commented. "Any pa'tic'lar one?"
    I decided I did not like Mr. Hayes. "The Empty," I said. "I ride for Em Talon."
    "Talon?" Benton Hayes frowned. "I've heard that name. Oh, yes! Milo Talon. He's on the list."
    "List?" I acted mighty innocent.
    "He's a wanted man," Hayes replied.
    "Milo? He'd never break no law."
    "He's on my list, anyways. Somebody wants him and wants him dead."
    "Well," I said, smiling friendly-like, "don't try to collect it. Seems to me Milo Talon was kind of quick on the shoot."
    "Makes no dif'rence," Hayes said. "They can be had. All of them."
    "I'm sure he's not the kind to break the law," I said, still smiling. "Milo was a nice boy. Could it be somebody else wants him?"
    "How do I know? He's wanted, somewhere. There's five hundred dollars on him." He shuffled through some notes from an inside pocket. "There it is ... Jake Flanner,