Novel 1954 - Utah Blaine (As Jim Mayo) (v5.0) Read Online Free PDF

the rest. If the thing breaks up, he’ll come in grabbin’ for his chunk of it.”
    “And the rest?”
    “Fuller, Miller and Nevers are the worst.”
    “What about Lee Fox?”
    Coker hesitated. “I don’t figure him. He’s poison mean, killed two of his hands about a year ago. Nobody figured him for a gun-slick, but when they braced him he came loose like a wildcat and he spit lead all over.”
    “Any others?”
    “Uh huh. There’s Rink Witter. He’s Nevers’ right hand.”
    “Heard of him.”
    “Figured you had. He’s hell on wheels.”
    “How about these men to the north? Who’s the big man up there?”
    “Ortmann, and he’s a hard man.”
    Blaine chuckled suddenly. “Sounds like I’m buckin’ a stacked deck. You still want in?”
    “You forget, I’ve known this all the time. Sure, I want in. I wouldn’t miss it for the world!”
    Chapter 4
----
    M ARY BLAKE SWUNG down from her mare, stripped off the saddle and bridle, as she turned the horse into the corral. There was no one in sight when she started toward the house and she reflected bitterly that for all her father’s training, she was not showing up so well as owner of a ranch. Not with a foreman like Clell Miller. But how could you fire such a man? She knew he would not go and she had no desire for a showdown until she was ready. Right now she had nothing to back her play. All she could do if he refused to go would be to shoot him from the house, and that went against the grain.
    She felt lost, trapped. Two or three of the old hands would stand by her, she knew that. Kelsey and Timm would not fail her, and both were good men. But they were only two against so many, and she was too shrewd to risk them in a pointless struggle. They provided backing she had to keep in reserve until the likely moment came.
    As she went up the steps, Miller came around the corner of the house. He was a tall, well-built man and good looking. He had a deep scar, all of three inches long, on one cheekbone. It was his brag that he had killed the man who put it there, and he liked to be asked about the incident.
    “Back so soon?” His manner was elaborately polite. “Did Otten offer to send his men over to help?”
    “I need no help.”
    He looked up at her impudently. “No? Well, maybe not. Looks to me like you’re out on a limb.”
    She could see the danger of this sort of talk and swiftly changed the subject. “Joe Neal’s alive.”
    Clell Miller had looked away. Now he swung his head back, swift passion flushing his face. “What was that? What did you say?”
    “I said Joe Neal is alive.”
    “He’s back in town?” Miller was incredulous, but had a lurking suspicion that she was telling the truth. Fury welled up within him. That damned Lud! Couldn’t he do anything right?
    “No, he’s not back. He’s in El Paso. He sent a manager down here. A man named Blaine.”
    “Blaine!” Miller’s dark features sharpened suddenly and his eyes were those of an animal at bay. “What was his other name? What did they call him?”
    Surprised at his excitement, she shrugged it off. “Why, his first name is Michael, I think. Do you know him?”
    “Tall man? Broad shoulders? Green eyes?” Miller was tense with excitement.
    “Why, yes. that sounds like him. Why, who is he?”
    Miller stared at her, all his animosity toward her forgotten with this information. “Who?” he laughed shortly. “He’s Utah Blaine, that’s who he is, that hell-on-wheels gunman from the Nueces, the man who tamed Alta. He’s killed twenty men, maybe thirty. Where did Neal round
him
up?”
    Utah Blaine! She had heard her father talk of him so much that his name had been a legend to her. Mary remembered her father had been driving north right ahead of Shanghai Pierce’s big herd when Utah was trail boss. Gid Blake had been stopped by herd cutters and she knew every word of that story from memory, how Blaine had faced them down, killed their fastest gunfighter, and told them to