Free the Outlaws Of Mesquite (Ss) (1990) by Louis L'amour Page A

clowns dove in and one of them flicked the big bull across the nose and the maddened animal came around and went for the clown. Marty walked off the tanbark to the scattered cheers of the crowd.
    "Quiet today, Marty," Carver said, hesitantly.
    Mahan looked up, a queer half-smile on his face. "They are waiting, Red. They want to see ."
    "Stoper's riding him. I lost out."
    "You're lucky," Mahan said dryly. "That's no ordinary bad horse, Red. Take it from me."
    Suddenly he saw Jeff Alien before him and he turned abruptly and walked toward him.
    "Jeff," he said abruptly, "I want to be in the arena when Stoper rides Ghost Maker."
    The older man hesitated, looking coldly at Mahan. "You had your chance to ride him," he said briefly. "Now let Stoper doit."
    "I aim to," Mahan replied. "However, I don't want to see him killed!"
    Alien jerked his head impatiently. "You leave that to Stoper. He ain't yellow!"
    "Am I?" Marty asked quietly.
    For a moment the eyes of the two men held. The hardbitten oldster was suddenly conscious that he was wearing a gun. It was only part of the rodeo trappings, but it was loaded, and so was the gun on Mahan's hip. The days of gunfighting were past, and yet ... Marty's eyes met his, cold and bleak.
    "Why, I don't reckon you are," Jeff said suddenly. "It just seemed sort of funny, you backin' out on that horse, that's all!"
    Mahan looked at him with hard eyes. "The next time something seems funny to you, Jeff, you just laugh!
    Hear me? Don't insinuate a man is yellow.
    Just laugh!" He turned on his heel and walked away.
    Dick Graham looked after him thoughtfully, then said, "Jeff, I thought for a minute you were goin' to fill that long-time vacant space up in Boot Hill!"
    Alien swallowed and mopped the sweat from his face.
    "Darned if I didn't myself!" he said, relieved. "That hombre would have drawed iron!"
    "You're not just a-woofin'!" Graham said dryly.
    "That boy may be a lot of things, but he isn't yellow! Look what he did to Yannell last night!"
    Yannell Stoper walked down to Chute Five. The Ghost Maker, a strapping big zebra dun, stood quietly waiting in the chute. He was saddled and bridled, and he made no fuss awaiting the saddle, having taken the bit calmly. Now he knew what was coming, and he waited, knowing his time was soon. Deep within his equine heart and mind something was twisted and hot, something with a slow fuse that was burning down, close to the dynamite within him.
    At one side of the arena, white-faced and ready, astride his black roping horse, sat Marty Mahan. Time and again eyes strayed to him wonderingly, and one pair of those eyes belonged to Peg Graham. Yannell, despite himself, was nervous. He climbed up on the chute, waved a gloved hand, and settled in the saddle. He felt the horse bunch his muscles, then relax.
    "All right," Stoper said. Then he yelled, "Cut her loose!" And then the lid blew off.
    Ghost Maker left the chute with a lunge, sandwiched his head between his forelegs, and went to bucking like a horse gone mad. He was leaving the ground thirty inches at each jump and exploding with such force that blood gushed from Yannell's mouth with his third jump.
    He buck-jumped wickedly in a tight circle, and then, when Yannell's head was spinning like a top, the maddened horse began to swap ends with such speed that he was almost a blur. Caught up in the insane rhythm of the pounding hoofs, Yannell was betrayed by a sudden change as the horse sprang sideways.
    He left the saddle and hit the ground, jarred in every vertebra.
    Drunken with the pounding he had taken, he lunged to his feet, to see the horse charging him, eyes white and glaring, teeth bared. The crowd came off its seats in one long scream of horror as the maddened horse charged down on the dazed and helpless rider.
    In some blind half-awareness of danger, Yannell stumbled aside. At the instant, Mahan's black horse swept down upon the maddened beast and Mahan's rope darted for the killer's head.
    Distracted, Ghost