Shawn Starbuck Double Western 4 Read online

  SHAWN STARBUCK DOUBLE EDITION

  7: BRANDON’S POSSE

  8: THE DEVIL’S GUNHAND

  By Ray Hogan

  First published by Signet Books in 1971 and 1972

  Copyright © renewed 2000 by Gwynn Hogan Henline.

  First Edition: July 2018

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law. This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Our cover features a detail from Wild Bill Hickok vs Dave Tutt, painted by Andy Thomas, and used by permission. Andy Thomas Artist, Carthage Missouri

  Series Editor: Ben Bridges

  Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Published by Arrangement with The Golden West Literary Agency.

  BRANDON’S POSSE

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  THE DEVIL’S GUNHAND

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  About the Author

  Copyright

  The Series so far

  About Piccadilly Publishing

  BRANDON’S POSSE

  Shawn Starbuck had searched for his brother Ben across the whole southwest—and now the gap seemed to be narrowing. That was why Shawn couldn’t refuse to join the rag-tag posse that Sheriff Harry Brandon was raising to hunt down a thieving crew of outlaw killers. Because there was a hard-luck chance that Ben was among the ones Brandon vowed to bring back, perhaps alive but preferably dead. So Starbuck rode out toward the high country with Brandon, and a bitter black cowboy named Rome, and a fall-down drunk named Glider, and a yellow belly named Moody. And Starbuck had to decide when the showdown came which way to point his gun ...

  One

  It had been one hell of a day so far. Starbuck had risen early after an uncomfortable night in a dry camp, scraped together a breakfast of coffee, fried meat and grease-soaked bread that was as hard as a stonemason’s chisel. Then, just as he was about to down the mess, an erratic gust of the persistent wind that had plagued him for three days garnished it all with a generous topping of sand. Disgusted, he had dumped the spider’s contents, gulped the coffee and ridden on.

  Right in keeping with that inauspicious beginning, the sorrel had been contrary and hard-mouthed and was earning the spurs and the harsh hand on the leathers he was getting as they moved, teeth to the wind, steadily southwest across a vast, rolling mesa.

  It was no consoling thought that Santa Fe, his planned destination where he hoped to find or else learn something of value concerning his brother Ben, for whom he’d searched so long, was still many days away—on the yonder side and opposite end of the dark, towering mountains he could see dimly in the dust-hazed distance.

  The ashes and charred remnants of Babylon where he had served briefly as marshal of that riotous colony of gambling and women were behind him, as were Dodge City, Cheyenne, Las Cruces, El Paso, Tucson—all the other places he’d visited in his ceaseless quest for the brother, who in anger had fled the family home in Ohio a decade ago.

  He had found only cold trails wherever he went and very possibly he would fare no better in the ancient capital of the Conquistadores, but as always he must try, must know. Ben was somewhere, and someday he would find him—and then the search would end. Until that moment, however, he led the life of a wanderer, a drifter, one dedicated to hunting for a man he hadn’t seen since boyhood and likely would not recognize should they come face to face.

  A blast of fine sand whipped at him. Shawn swore irritably, brushed at his eyes and lips, spat. The gelding, stung also by the dry particles, jerked his head nervously, shied off the faint trail they were following.

  Starbuck brought the sorrel back into line, glanced ahead. They were breaking off the mesa and dropping into a wide area of buttes and arroyos littered with rabbit brush, cactus and other rank growth. Dust devils stirred into frantic motion by the capricious wind, spun across the more open flats, leaped intervening obstacles and spiraled on toward the limitless prairie. He sighed. Matters were not going to get any better.

  Guiding the sorrel to a break in the low wall of the arroyo, he swung the big red horse into it. The gelding started down, felt the soil give way under his front hooves. He tried to pull back. Instantly a ten-foot-long section of the bank broke off. The sorrel bunched, sprang, eyes rolling wildly, ears laid flat. He struck on bent knees, went down on his left side. Starbuck, barely able to throw himself clear of the thrashing horse, went full length into a mass of brittle-stalked snakeweed.

  Cursing, wrists and face smarting from the scratches he’d received, Starbuck scrambled to his feet and whirled to the sorrel. Relief moved through him. The horse was up, appeared to be unhurt by the fall. Dusting himself with his hat, he crossed to where the gelding waited.

  Shawn swore again. A steady dripping sound told him that his canteen had been caught under the sorrel and crushed by his weight. It had emptied itself quickly through a burst seam and now contained only a few drops.

  Unhooking the container from the saddle, he held it overhead to catch the small amount yet remaining, and then tossing it aside, took up the sorrel’s reins. He moved forward leading the gelding, eyes watching closely for any indication of a limp. The horse showed no signs of having lamed himself. Grunting in satisfaction, Shawn stepped back into the saddle.

  He remained motionless, staring out across the windy landscape. There should be a stream, or at least a spring, somewhere along the hills that he could see in the distance—but it would take the remainder of the day to reach that point and by then he would be plenty thirsty. He shrugged, a tall, gray-eyed man not long out of boyhood in years but well into that phase by the reckoning of trouble and experience, and lifted the reins. He’d live through it, he’d make it. Hell, he had to. There was no other choice.

  Roweling the sorrel lightly, he moved on into the arroyo, his mood blacker now from one more irritating incident, his impatience heightened by another of the needless, uncalled-for tribulations that were riding him ... There were days when a man should just stay in his blankets.

  Near noon the wind finally died, and with a show of dark clouds gathering in the west, he halted to rest the sorrel. He decided against eating; with no water it would only increase the thirst that was making itself felt. Restless, he stalled out a full hour for the sake of the gelding, and then climbing back onto his hull, pressed on.

  Shortly he was out of the arroyo and again on a broad, rolling mesa sparsely covered with a thin grass that showe
d gray in its need for rain. But that was due to end, he guessed, once more eyeing the thickening clouds; a storm was in the offing, and with good luck, should strike sometime during the night.

  He hoped the hell he’d have reached a town or a ranch by then; he was in no mood to get soaking wet and besides, the way things were going, he’d like as not get struck by lightning or come a-cropper from some other bit of misfortune.

  A time later he pulled in the sorrel. A quarter-mile on, squatted along the first hint of rising land that lifted gracefully to the mountains beyond, was a homesteader’s holdings—a sagging, slanted roof shack, two or three dilapidated sheds, a corral, a small stretch of cultivated ground and a water well.

  Brushing at his cracked lips, Starbuck urged the gelding on, pointing for the circle of stones and water bucket at the side of the bleak little structures. A door banged in the warm hush. A figure appeared and the afternoon’s quiet was further shattered by the deafening blast of a shotgun.

  Starbuck hauled up short as pellets spurted dust only a stride in front of the sorrel. Anger rocking through him, he raised both hands, palms forward and stared. It was a woman. She was wearing a ragged and soiled housedress of sleazy gray, and her hair, unkempt and tangled, straggled down over her leathery face and neck, but it did not conceal the fierceness and the fright that filled her eyes.

  “Hold on! Just looking for a drink of water,” he called.

  “You ain’t getting it here—’cause you ain’t stopping!” the woman yelled, waving the shotgun menacingly.

  The cocked hammer of the as yet unfired barrel of the old ten-gauge looked as big as a man’s thumb. Starbuck forced a thin smile.

  “Mean you no harm, ma’am,” he said, trying to keep the edge from his tone. “Horse of mine fell, busted my canteen. Been most of the day without water.”

  “Ain’t a damn whit to me—keep moving!”

  Starbuck shrugged. No one in his right mind would argue with a frightened woman holding a cocked scattergun in her hands—thirsty or not.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, lowering his arms. “I’m going. Sure would appreciate a little of that water, however.”

  “You’ll find some—about an hour down the way … Wolf Crossing.”

  Shawn paused. “That a town?”

  “Now, what do you think it is—a Sunday sociable?”

  “No, ma’am,” Starbuck muttered, and simmering under his hat, doubled back to the trail.

  Once out of the shotgun’s range, he relaxed, took a deep breath. Anger still plucked at him, but the moments were tempered now by the thought that he was coming into a settlement where he could satisfy his needs and find comfort for the night.

  It was a fair-sized town he noted with further pleasure as he rounded a shoulder of rock and caught sight of the structures nestled in the cove of a steeply rising mountain. He could see three or four two-storied buildings, the steeple of a church, as well as a short main street along which business houses stood shoulder to shoulder on either side. Residences were scattered about it all in a loose circle.

  A splash of silver behind the structures marked a stream and for a time he was tempted to cut off from the road be was following and go first to the creek and satisfy his thirst, but he decided against it. Better to pull up to the first saloon he came to, get his fill of water and then treat himself to a drink of rye whiskey. Afterwards he’d see to the sorrel, get a room at the hotel and think about a good meal.

  Shortly he turned into the end of the street, noted curiously the number of persons gathered in front of a low-roofed, sprawling, building that bore the sign SQUARE DOLLAR SALOON, and slanted toward its hitch rack.

  Several men, listening to a dark, thickset individual wearing the town marshal’s star, turned to glance at him as he rode the gelding up to the rack and then returned their attention to the lawman. Some sort of trouble in Wolf Crossing, Shawn concluded as he swung from the saddle—trouble he aimed to stay clear of. Brushing at the dust stiffening his face, he glanced idly along the street … GRAND CENTRAL HOTEL Wm. Gooch, Prop … ORY JONES GENERAL MERCHANDISE … STRATTON DRY GOODS & SUPPLIES … L. A. MARBERRY, M.D … JOSHUA WILLIS LAWYER … THE ANTELOPE CAFE ...

  “Be a cold day in hell when them Paradise jaspers gets any help from this town!”

  At the sound of the words coming from a man close by, Starbuck turned. They had been directed to the lawman, who wagged his head slowly while he stroked the thick mustache that covered his lip.

  “I’m the law around here. I’m obliged to do my duty.”

  “You ain’t always felt that way about this here duty of yours, Brandon,” another voice in the crowd said. “How’s it come you’re thinking so strong about it now? Been a few times when folks needed—”

  “Always done what I figured was right—”

  “Sure—right for you!”

  “Makes no difference now. I’m asking for a posse—for volunteers.”

  “You got yourself three,” the speaker said, and laughed.

  Brandon half turned, cast an indifferent look at the men standing behind him—a Negro clad in ordinary cowhand garb, a slumped puncher with the drawn, haggard features of a sobering alcoholic, and a slightly built, pale individual whose checked suit and small hat marked him as a newcomer from somewhere east of the Mississippi.

  “Need more’n them.”

  Shawn wrapped the sorrel’s reins around the crossbar of the rack and turned to make his way to the saloon’s porch. The gelding shied to one side. Instantly a man cursed.

  “What the hell you doing? Goddam jughead of yours stepped on my foot!”

  Shawn rounded the hindquarters of the gelding, faced the two punchers standing there. His mood had improved little since early morning and the edge of his temper was sharp.

  “Reckon my horse is begging your pardon,” he said drily.

  “The hell you say!” the taller of the pair snapped. “How about the jackass that’s riding him?”

  It was the ultimate, crowning episode of an arduous day. The balled fist of Starbuck’s left arm lashed out, caught the puncher flush on the nose. A fraction of a second later his right scored with deadly precision on the jaw. The man staggered, began to sink as his knees buckled. His partner yelled, reached for the pistol on his hip. Starbuck’s left hand swept down, came up smoothly. Sunlight glinted off the barrel of his leveled forty-five.

  “My advice—forget it,” he said quietly.

  The rider, half bent, palm wrapped around the weapon still in its holster, glanced about at the hushed crowd and then straightened slowly. His fingers relaxed their grip, slid away.

  “Sure,” he murmured almost inaudibly, “sure,” and shifted his eyes to his partner. “Whatever you say.”

  Shawn jammed his pistol back into its leather, shrugged and, ignoring the man, moved on toward the porch of the Square Dollar. Wolf Crossing was about as unfriendly a town as he’d ever ridden into—but he guessed maybe it was him; he wasn’t feeling particularly neighborly himself.

  Two

  The bartender, a paunchy, balding man with round eyes and a trailing mustache, was standing inside the doorway. He turned as Shawn entered, hurried to get in behind the counter which was immediately adjacent to the batwings.

  “What’ll it be?”

  From habit, Starbuck glanced around the semi dark room. It was deserted. Leaning against the bar, he nodded, pushed his hat to the back of his head. The edge had not faded entirely from his voice.

  “Rye ... some water first.”

  The balding man set a stone pitcher and a tumbler on the counter before Shawn, reached for a shot glass and a bottle, covertly studying him all the while. It was as if he were calculating the wisdom of launching into his usual companionable conversation with strangers.

  Starbuck solved the problem for him. Downing a second glass of water, he jerked his thumb in the direction of the street.

  “What’s going on out there?”

  The bartender’s brow pulled into a
frown. “Been a killing,” he said, filling the shot glass with liquor and placing it in front of Shawn. “Four men. The marshal’s trying to make up a posse and go after the outlaws that done it.”

  “Not having much luck, seems.”

  “He won’t around here.”

  Starbuck’s brows lifted. “I figured he was the local lawman.”

  “He is—but he won’t be after next month. Folks just plain ain’t got no use for Harry Brandon. Election’s coming up and he won’t get another term.”

  Shawn stirred. “It’s still the law. If he needs help people ought to give it to him.”

  The bartender’s shoulders twitched. “Well, it ain’t only that it’s Brandon asking, it’s the fact that the gold them outlaws took off with belonged to the Paradise Mine, and there ain’t nobody going to turn a hand to help that outfit.”

  “I heard something about that when I rode up. What’s everybody got against the Paradise Mine?”

  “They had a chance to set up their office here, and do their buying of supplies from the local merchants. Instead they picked a town on the other side of the mountain. Can’t nobody forget that.”

  Voices in the street rose briefly, fell again to a murmur. Starbuck said, “They probably had a good reason.”

  “Maybe, but they’re going to find out right quick that it’d been smart—and a powerful lot cheaper—to’ve settled here in Wolf Crossing … A hundred thousand dollars cheaper.”

  Shawn whistled softly. “Lot of money. What happened?”

  “They was sending it to Dodge City—some special deal. Usually all the gold goes the other way, to Denver, but this was different, and it was all real secret like. The gold was on two pack mules and they had four guards with them. Was passing themselves off as engineers. Only it didn’t work. Somehow the outlaws, was three of them, got wind of the truth about it.”

  “They pull the holdup here in town?”

  “Nope, about a mile east of here. Ambushed them. Brandon heard the shooting, got out there fast as he could, but the outlaws were already gone. One of the guards was still alive, barely. Told the marshal what had happened.”