Maverick Marshall Read Online Free PDF

grimly shifting to box Frank.
    It occurred to Frank that Tularosa fully deserved anything these people were able to do to him. But he was a prisoner of the law now, Frank’s responsibility, and to turn loose of the man would be to admit he couldn’t cope with this. Frank said with the wind away down in his belly, “I’m drilling the first guy that gets in my way,” and was about to start into them when hoof sound climbed above the growls coming at him. Wood screamed harshly against the gouge of a wheel rim as the wagon came around in a shrieking half circle driven by the girl straight into the crush of angry men.
    There were startled shouts and oaths as the men jumped back to avoid being trampled. One, moving too late, was struck by the wood and knocked over. The vibrations of his frightened cry were lost in the wagon’s racket as the girl braced herself against the pull of the wild-eyed horses.
    “Hurry!” she called impatiently, shaking the hair back out of her face.
    Frank heaved his prisoner into the wagonbed, catching hold of the tailgate as she let the team go. Several guns barked behind them as Frank vaulted up. The girl swung the excited horses past the Chuckwagon’s shine and cramped them into a careening run across the trash-littered open between the cook’s dutch ovens and Fentriss’ livery. Climbing over Tularosa’s jouncing shape — the man was trying to get up now — Frank cuffed him down and, ducking the battered brass-cornered trunk, jarred onto the seat beside her. Breathing hard he reached for the lines. The girl wouldn’t yield them.
    “County seat’s Vega, isn’t it?” she yelled in his ear.
    “We’re not heading for Vega!” Frank scowled over a shoulder. “Cut around back of the jail.”
    “Are you crazy?” She kept the team pointed south and reached for the whip. “That crowd — ”
    Frank closed his hands on the lines ahead of her hands, sawing the horses around into the east and bringing them back through the grass toward the street again. Fentriss’ railed pens came out of the dust and he drove to the right of them, fetching the team up behind the dark jail.
    He got the animals stopped and jumped down. “Obliged,” he mumbled, hurrying toward the back door. He got the keys from his pocket and pushed the door open. With bent head he stood listening, then came back for Tularosa.
    “I suppose,” the girl said, “you’ve got your mind set on a halo. Just watch out you don’t wind up with a harp. Some of those fellows — ”
    “They’ll get over it.” Frank grabbed Tularosa’s feet and pulled. The man was conscious but he certainly wasn’t himself by considerable. He was able to stand with Frank hanging onto him. Frank steered him toward the door.
    Angry shouts interlarded with hoof sound came from the street where mounted men were milling in cursing confusion. “Wait — ” the girl cried — “I’ll help you.”
    “You can do that best by — ”
    “Maybe I can pull that bunch off your neck.”
    Frank twisted to look up at her. “Now who’s reaching for a harp! You want to get yourself killed?”
    She untangled the lines. There was the flash of her teeth. “I’m used to risk.” She shook out the lines and clucked her tongue at the team. “Ever turned a herd with a lighted match?” With a laugh drifting back to put a catch in Frank’s throat, she fingered the horses into a run. Before Frank could say “Damn!” she was whipping them around the back end of the hotel. Past the dark barn of the stage company she put the team at the street, bouncing east on two wheels as she went out of Frank’s sight.
    The crowd yelled. Riders tore after her, streaking across the mouth of the alley. Frank, swearing, shoved Tularosa ahead of him. He slammed the door and bolted it.
    There was a light in the office and a man in the corridor with a gun in his hand.

CHAPTER THREE
    Frank, frozenly staring, stood unable to move for the better part of a second, hearing