Free Devil's Manhunt (Stories from the Golden Age) by L. Ron Hubbard

He thought he could hear hoofbeats off somewhere. He would have no defense. Les Harmon was riding up to kill him and solve a robbery.
    Zeke felt under the cinch. The implanted bills were gone, strewn back to make a trail. How far he had come and just where the holdup lay, Zeke did not know. He knew he had to have a gun. There were guns back there with the dead men.
    He skirted his dead horse and climbed over hard rock to a ridge. He stood and looked and found the lights of Mesa. He was not sure of his landmarks but he had some vague recollection of where north had been at the holdup and where the town had lain.
    He wondered if he dared approach the town. He could try to tell them about Harmon and Big George. But it came to him suddenly that he was a stranger in town. Who would know him or believe him? He was just a puncher on the loose with his summer’s pay. A stranger in town.
    Zeke walked the ridge, listening over his heartbeats to the sigh of the desert wind. Pursuit would come to him sooner or later.
    Then he recalled that there might be a horse at the holdup and he walked faster.
    About an hour later he crossed the trail. He looked intently at the lights of the town and tried to judge whether they were further or nearer than the holdup. They seemed smaller but distance was deceptive in this clear air and he had gone almost a mile before he knew that he had guessed wrong. He was well off the trail, staying on rocks where he could. He went back. He was getting nervous. By this time several people would be around the wreck. He was certain of this. If they’d left a gun—
    He had guessed right about the people. There were lanterns bobbing and even at a distance one could see the bodies under the blankets, beside the broken wheels of the coach. There were lots of legs around the lanterns, throwing long, thick shadows outward from the scene.
    Zeke kept to the sage and watched. Once he heard somebody shout to an approaching rider, “You get him, Harmon?”
    “This ain’t Harmon. I come back with my horse lame. They got his trail.”
    “Funny, just one man.”
    “There mighta been more. Harmon says it was probably just one. They’ll have him before mornin’! Harmon says it mighta been that waddy that tried to bust up Sloppy Joe. He heered about the coach load and got hisself out of jail. Sawed the bars.”
    “Young, tow-headed kid in a red shirt?”
    “That’s him. Harmon says to kill him on sight. He’s wanted in ten states and five territories.”
    “Seems funny, just one man. Ground looks like it’s been dragged around here.”
    “You ain’t got no Apache in you, Blucher. Shut up.”
    “Still, seems funny.”
    “Harmon says to shoot him on sight.”
    “I think he had friends.”
    “He ain’t got no friends. He’s just some owl-hoot stranger.”
    “Let’s get back to town. I’m dry. Harmon’s got five men with him.”
    “I’m sticking around to see what happens.”
    They continued to remain around the coach. Somebody built a fire. The night wind stiffened.
    Zeke gave it up. He was shivering with nervousness and cold, and he knew it would be daylight before long. Suddenly he felt himself getting mad.
    Zeke got up and walked to the dry riverbed. He cast up and down it for some time, feeling rocks, not daring to strike a light. Suddenly he became interested. His questing fingers had found a rough place on a stone where the riverbed narrowed, upstream from the holdup. He walked rapidly then, sure of the distance of Big George from the scene of the murders. He got madder as he walked. He had no slightest notion of what he would do. He kept on walking.
    Somewhere ahead would be Big George.
    It was dawn and Zeke was still walking. It was easier now to catch these occasional chips from the stone and the very rare prints in the sand patches, but it was terribly dangerous now that Big George might look back.
    Zeke kept on walking. At noon he found a muddied pool and drank heavily from it, sure now that Big