Midnight Rider (Ralph Cotton Western Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

short stretch of dried grassland. In the center of the grass stood a stone and weathered-plank shack, badly tilted to one side. Thirty yards from the shack, a flock of vultures were feasting and bickering on the carcass of a dead cow. Spiller drew his rifle from his saddle boot, checked it and stood it on his thigh.
    “I’ll be damned,” he said to himself, seeing smoke curl from the chimney of the weathered shack.
    Rochenbach and Casings eased their horses up on either side of Spiller.
    “Here’s the deal,” Spiller said. “The man living there is Edmund Bell. He owes Grolin over three hundred dollars in old gambling markers. Grolin said if we can’t collect payment, do whatever we think needsdoing. Make an example of him. He’s tired of fooling with this beefer.”
    “Meaning?” said Rock.
    “Meaning kill him, far as Grolin cares. He holds the marker against this shack and acreage,” said Spiller. He turned his face to Rochenbach. “He can go to court, take this place and resell it if he’s a mind to. Do you have any qualms with killing a losing beefer?”
    “Yes, I do,” said Rock. “I wasn’t hired to kill a man over a gambling debt. That’s not where I saw my future headed.”
    “Your future, huh?” Spiller said with contempt. “Then you best lag back out of our way. If we don’t get the money, I’d rather kill him than have to ride back out here.” He nudged his horse forward at a loose gallop.
    “Don’t worry about it, Rock,” said Casings, the two falling in behind Spiller. “Most times we put a scare into these beefers and miners, they usually offer up some money—enough to buy themselves more time. That’s all Grolin is after anyway.”
    Rochenbach didn’t reply. They galloped along in the afternoon gloom.
    From the front window of the shack, a young dark-haired woman named Mira Bell looked out and saw three men ride down onto the grassland. Cupping both hands beneath a belly heavy with child, she turned from the window and looked at her husband, who was roasting a slab of beef on an iron rod over an open-hearth fire.
    “Sonny, there’s riders coming!” she said, her dark eyes showing her fear. “It looks like the same men as last time—from the Lucky Nut!”
    “Oh no! It’s too soon for them to be coming back here!” said the young man, standing, laying the sizzling meat in a tin pan on the stone hearth. “Pa said they’d be coming back, but I figured we’d have time to clear out!”
    “What are we going to do, Sonny?” she cried out, near tears. “We don’t have any money for them.”
    “I don’t know, Mira,” said Sonny. He jerked up a shotgun that stood leaning against a wall beside the hearth and hurried to the front door. He turned around toward her and leaned back against the door for a moment as if preparing himself to face an impossible task. “Whatever happens out there, you keep this door locked. Don’t come outside for nothing.”
    Slowing their horses into an easy lope the last twenty yards toward the weathered shack, the three riders looked over at the feasting buzzards, then toward the scent of roasted beef wafting in the gray smoke from the chimney.
    “Looks like we’ve caught ol’ Edmund sitting down to supper,” said Spiller with a laugh.
    “Hey, what do we have here?” Casings asked, veering his horse over toward a grave marker standing in fresh-turned soil.
    Rochenbach and Spiller turned their horses with him, rode over, jerked their horses to a halt and looked down.
    “I’ll be damned,” said Spiller, reading the nameEdmund Bell carved on the grave board. “This sumbitch has gone and died on us.”
    Spiller turned his horse back toward the house and booted it forward as Sonny Bell stepped out the door, shotgun in hand. Rochenbach and Casings followed, booting their horses up, flanking him.
    Sonny Bell took a stand between the coming riders and the shack, gripping the shotgun with both hands.
    “That’s close enough,” he called