Ralph Compton Death Along the Cimarron Read Online Free PDF Page A

turned a cold gaze to Frisco Bonham. “What about you, Frisco? Any holes in your foot? Any wounds you want to show us?”
    Frisco’s jaw twitched nervously. “Uh, Boss, you had to be there to understand how this all come about. She—the woman that is—shot poor Billy Boy. Then Ronald went crazy all at once, didn’t give me a chance to back his play or nothing else! Once he was dead, there was two guns pointed at me.... Damn it, I was in a tight spot, had nobody siding with me.”
    â€œYeah, I can see how that could unnerve a man all right,” said Earl, “caught between a woman and an old drunken bar swamper.”
    â€œBoss, he didn’t handle that Colt like a bar swamper.” Frisco tried to come up with something to help himself. “Fact is, I believe he might have been some kind of gunslinger. You know, one of them hardcore killers from the old days, back before our time?”
    â€œShut your mouth right now, Frisco,” Earl hissed, “and you might keep me from killing you.” He turned his gaze to Billy Boy Harper. “You and Ronald was good friends, Billy Boy. Is there any truth at all to what Frisco’s telling me?”
    â€œYep, it’s the truth, Earl,” said Billy Boy, “bad as I hate admitting it. A woman in a gingham dress and old man who was sweeping out the saloon did all this.”
    â€œA woman in a gingham dress,” Earl growled to himself. “And that’s all I get to go on for who killed my poor brother?”
    â€œI heard her say her name is Strange,” Billy Boy offered meekly.
    â€œStrange how?” asked Earl. “Strange-sounding? Strange for a woman? What ?”
    â€œNo, Boss,” said Frisco. “He means that is her name. S-t-r-a—”
    â€œI can spell! Damn it!” Earl shouted. He swung his hard gaze toward Dave Waddell.
    â€œDanielle Strange is who they’re talking about, Earl,” said Waddell. “I know her, or I should say I know of her. She keeps a one-hand spread over somewhere past the mesa.” He nodded off toward a distant upthrust of dark rocky land. Behind it stood a long stretch of hills. “But you’d play hell finding it unless you knew where to start looking.”
    â€œShe’s got perfect ambush country protecting her,” said Cherokee Earl. “Reckon she was smart enough to know that when she picked the place?”
    â€œI wouldn’t be surprised,” Dave replied.
    â€œFigures,” Cherokee Earl grumbled. He seemed to dismiss the idea of searching the hills. “Do any of the townsfolk know the way to her place?”
    â€œI’m sure they would,” said Dave Waddell. “She deals horses. There’s plenty of folks from town probably been out there.”
    â€œThen they’ll tell me how to get there,” said Earl with a slight shrug. “Now, who’s this old man they’re talking about?”
    â€œBeats me,” said Waddell. “Probably just some drifter passing through, swamping the bar for a meal and a cot in the back.”
    â€œThese don’t sound like hardened gunslingers to me,” Earl said, narrowing his gaze back coldly in Frisco Bonham’s eyes.
    â€œWell ... the fact is, this Danielle Strange is known to be pretty good with a gun,” said Waddell.
    â€œYeah, I bet she is,” said Earl skeptically.
    Dave Waddell shrugged. “I’m just telling you what I’ve heard, Earl. I ain’t saying it’s true.”
    â€œShe never hesitated a second before putting a bullet through Billy Boy’s foot,” said Frisco Bonham. “I reckon that’s what took us all by surprise. You don’t expect a woman to just up and start shooting hell out of you.”
    â€œIs she one of those women goes around wishing she was born a man?” Earl asked Dave Waddell.
    â€œFar as I know she’s not,” Waddell responded, shaking his