Free The Smoking Iron by Brett Halliday

“Sounds right int’restin’.”
    â€œDad thinks maybe it’s rustlers. He says the Big Bend is full of them. I’ve got his old six-gun with me in case it’s something like that.”
    â€œYou a purty good hand with a gun?”
    â€œI haven’t had much practice,” Ben Thurston admitted. “But I guess I’ll do all right if I have to. I’ve heard that most of these so-called badmen are really cowards when it comes to a gunfight.”
    â€œThat so?” Dusty had his cigarette rolled. He lit a match and looked at his companion in the opposite seat in the tiny light. He saw a young, peaked face under the brim of a white Panama hat, and a striped shirt and tie and a city coat. He lit his cigarette and blew the match out. The coach was still rolling along at a fast clip and there was so sign of a pursuing posse as yet.
    â€œIf the Rollins girl is as pretty as her picture, I may decide to marry her and stay here to run the ranch,” Ben told him.
    â€œShe’s purty, huh?”
    â€œHer picture is. She sent it in her letter. I’ve got it right here. I’ll show it to you if you want to hold another match.”
    Dusty didn’t particularly care to look at a girl’s picture right then. He’d had his fill of girls back in Marfa. But he got out a match and struck it, leaned sideways to look at the picture Ben Thurston held out for him.
    His fingers shook as he looked at Katie’s likeness. It was like her eyes were looking right at him, begging him to help her; like her lips were parted to speak to him. He knew right away she wasn’t the kind of girl to call for help unless she needed it bad.
    He darted another look at Ben Thurston as the match flickered out and felt sorry for Katie Rollins. She was sure due to be bad disappointed when she saw what her letter had brought to the Big Bend from Colorado. Of course, there hadn’t been any way for her to know what the son of her daddy’s old partner would be like.
    Ben said eagerly, “Wouldn’t you marry a pretty girl like that if you had the chance?”
    â€œWhat makes you think she’ll have you?”
    Ben laughed self-consciously. “I guess she will, all right. It was a sort of joke when we were little … between our fathers. They always said we’d get married when we grew up. I guess maybe she’s been wondering why I didn’t come to see her. Maybe that’s the real reason why she wrote the letter, not because of any trouble at all. You know how girls are. Not wanting to come right out and ask a man.”
    Dusty was conscious of an intense feeling of dislike for his coach companion. He asked, “Has she seen a picture of you?”
    â€œNot since I was five years old. She’ll be surprised, all right, when she sees me tomorrow morning.”
    Dusty said, “Yeh. I reckon she will.” It made him sort of sick to think about it: to think about a girl waiting eagerly and hopefully for a man to help her—and then drawing something like Ben Thurston. It was a downright shame. But she was a girl after all. The same sex as Rosa. He was a damn fool to be feeling sorry for her. She probably wasn’t any better than Rosa. Writing letters to a man she’d never seen!
    But he knew in his heart that she was different from Rosa. No girl could look like the one in the picture without being pretty much all right. He’d bet she was on the square. If he wasn’t ridin’ for the Border with a posse behind him, by God, he might stop off in Hermosa his ownself to see what kinda fix she was in. If she needed a gun-hand …
    But it wasn’t any good thinking about that. He couldn’t stop this side of the Rio Grande. No decent girl like Katie Rollins would ever look at him again. One mistake in Marfa had ended all that for him. Forever. By running away like this he’d practically admitted his guilt.
    He began to wish