Ralph Compton Straight Shooter Read online

  STRAIGHT SHOOTER

  Hayes eased a finger beneath the rifle’s trigger guard. The Sharps was resting against the wall with its barrel keeping the upper crate from moving. When he angled his eyes downward, he had a difficult time seeing his own chest, legs, or feet, thanks to the shadows and the dark clothes he wore. As much as he wanted to ease his other hand toward the pistol at his side, he was certain that much movement would give away his position.

  “Take a look around the corner,” Mose said. “Could be someone heard us out here.”

  Wes drew his pistol and stalked toward the corner. Actually he drew Hayes’s pistol. The nickel-plated .45 filled his hand, causing Hayes to choke back the impulse to rush forward and reclaim it. As Wes approached the corner, he moved dangerously close to the crates where Hayes was hiding. So close, in fact, that Hayes thought it impossible the outlaw hadn’t seen him yet.

  A few more steps took Wes past the salesman’s position. Hayes got a good enough look at Wes’s face to see that his eyes were fixed on the front portion of the building. There were more scraping steps, followed by the brush of a shoulder against the wall.

  The next several seconds passed in silence.

  Both outlaws held their ground with guns drawn.

  Ralph Compton

  STRAIGHT SHOOTER

  A Ralph Compton Novel by Marcus Galloway

  SIGNET

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  For more information about the Penguin Group visit penguin.com.

  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Copyright © The Estate of Ralph Compton, 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  ISBN 978-1-101-61377-1

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  Contents

  Straight Shooter

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Excerpt from Ralph Compton The Hunted

  THE IMMORTAL COWBOY

  This is respectfully dedicated to the “American Cowboy.” His was the saga sparked by the turmoil that followed the Civil War, and the passing of more than a century has by no means diminished the flame.

  True, the old days and the old ways are but treasured memories, and the old trails have grown dim with the ravages of time, but the spirit of the cowboy lives on.

  In my travels—to Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Arizona—I always find something that reminds me of the Old West. While I am walking these plains and mountains for the first time, there is this feeling that a part of me is eternal, that I have known these old trails before. I believe it is the undying spirit of the frontier calling me, through the mind’s eye, to step back into time. What is the appeal of the Old West of the American frontier?

  It has been epitomized by some as the dark and bloody period in American history. Its heroes—Crockett, Bowie, Hickok, Earp—have been reviled and criticized. Yet the Old West lives on, larger than life.

  It has become a symbol of freedom, when there was always another mountain to climb and another river to cross; when a dispute between two men was settled not with expensive lawyers, but with fists, knives, or guns. Barbaric? Maybe. But some things never change. When the cowboy rode into the pages of American history, he left behind a legacy that lives within the hearts of us all.

  —Ralph Compton

  Chapter 1

  Iowa, 1887

  Wes Cavanaugh robbed banks.

  Even when he was a child, that was all he’d ever wanted to do. When his cousins would pretend to be soldiers fighting great battles or knights from fairy tales slaying dragons, he was always pretending to force innocents to reach for the sky as he held them at gunpoint and took all of their hard-earned imaginary cash. While growing up, he was a likeable enough young man. That changed once all of the hard work in his daddy’s field and barn granted him the muscular bulk that allowed him to truly assert himself. When he was able to knock Larry Drangle onto his back with one punch to the jaw, Wes realized his dream to become a bad man.

  After that, he learned to shoot, honed his riding skills, and listened to everything his uncle had to say about tracking. His family didn’t much appreciate the turn their boy had taken, which was why so many of them tried to steer him in another direction. But none of them were a match for the one true skill Wes was given at birth. He was a natural-born liar. Wes’s ability to appear earnest as he was taught how to ride gave his father hope when, in actuality, Wes was planning on riding away from the law in a rush. When his uncle taught him the fine art of tracking, Wes stored the knowledge away so he wouldn’t slip up when he was the one being tracked by a posse or two. When he was being taught to shoot . . . well . . . there was no way even he could hide the joy that rushed through him when firing a pistol.

  Once he had what he thought he needed to put his childhood dreams into motion, Wes stole his father’s .38, saddled his horse, and struck out on his own. He was seventeen and full of beans, but that didn’t stop him from attempting to rob the first general store he could find.

  It was a disastrous affair that began with Wes storming in and talking tough. The shopkeeper played along until he could get to his shotgun, and when he fired a barrel at Wes, the young man’s true education began. He barely escaped with his life, but his thieving instincts were strong enough for him to snatch a blanket and a handful of stick candy on his way out simply because they were the only things he could reach.

  On that day, Wes learned what it felt like to truly have his neck on the chopping block. He also learned what happened when a man left the comfort of his family’s land and strayed from the light of the law. It was cold in those shadows, which was why he quickly learned the value of gathering other like-minded souls as partners. Although the small group immediately thought of themselves as a gang, it took some time to prove themselves as such.
>
  A string of botched robberies and a handful of small successes funded their ride. But even if he hadn’t stolen a penny in those days, Wes would never have looked back. It was too late for that. His course was set and he took too much pride in his chosen profession to abandon it so easily.

  And so, after putting eleven years of theft under his belt, Wes Cavanaugh might not have been as notorious as some but he was prosperous enough to keep riding the trail he’d set himself upon when he first galloped away from his daddy’s barn. However, riding in a large gang wasn’t necessarily a good idea. More men meant more loose ends when things took a turn for the worse. On those occasions when a gang had to scatter and lie low, more men meant better odds for the law to find one and make him talk about the others. Also, having fewer men meant splitting the profits of a job into fewer shares. Any one of those things was a good enough reason for Wes to trim down the gang and be more selective in his company.

  When he rode across Iowa in the fall of 1887, Wes did so with a man who called himself Mose Robins. Wes never asked if Mose was his proper name or if it was short for something else because he didn’t care. Mose was tough enough to stand firm in a fight, he could shoot straight, and he wasn’t smart enough to double-cross his partner with any degree of subtlety. Most important, Mose was as loyal as a dog. He also had the same number of fleas living in the thick mass of coarse whiskers sprouting from his chin and upper lip. Although Wes didn’t exactly tend to his appearance by doing any more than running an occasional hand over his close-cropped brown hair or splash some water on his face to keep the thick sideburns in place, he looked like a dandy compared to Mose.

  Where Wes was lean and muscular, Mose was thick as a bear preparing for hibernation. Where Wes looked as if his sturdy frame and scarred face had been chiseled by the harshness of life spent on the trail, Mose looked as if he’d been put together like a hastily thrown pile of clay. Mose had it where it counted, however, and could throw a punch or fire his pistols without fail. Together, the two of them had cobbled together a nice little partnership.

  It had been days since the men had seen a hint of civilization. Being that they were riding across the thick belly of Iowa, that was no surprise to anyone. It was early in the fall, which meant the winds were becoming a comfort rather than a hot blast against sweaty brows. As one cool breeze rolled across a field of corn, causing hundreds of stalks to sway to and fro, Wes lifted his nose to it and drew a deep breath.

  “Feels good!” he declared.

  Never one for excessive expression, Mose looked around and shrugged. “Feels the same as yesterday,” he grunted. “And the day before.”

  “What’s got into you?” Wes asked. His voice reflected a touch of the Irish brogue from his mother’s side that he’d never been able to shake.

  Mose’s voice, on the other hand, was a dull, grunting baritone dredged up from the backwoods of the Appalachians. “Ain’t nothin’ got into me. Nothin’ but the last of that jerked beef and chicory coffee.”

  “You going soft on me?” Wes asked as he leaned over to give the bigger man a good-natured swat. “A few nights sleeping under the stars and your soft little rump is aching?”

  “You best watch yerself.”

  Wes sat easy in his saddle and placed both hands on the horn in front of him. “You’re right. I take it back.”

  “Good.”

  “I was completely wrong. There’s nothing little about your rump.”

  Anger flashed in Mose’s eyes but quickly died down. Shifting uncomfortably to find a better position, he grunted, “If ye’re studying me from that angle so much, I’d say you need to get to a saloon more than I do.”

  “You want a drink? I have some whiskey from that bottle left. Enough for a swallow or two, anyway.”

  “I ain’t talkin’ about goin’ to a saloon for drinkin’. I’m talkin’ about finding me some company other than you. Somethin’ wrapped up in a fine dress with long hair and a sweet smile.”

  “Still the ladies’ man, eh?”

  “Born and bred!” Mose said with a wide, yellowed smile.

  “You should have plenty of soiled doves to choose from when we get where we’re going.”

  “And where is that, exactly?”

  That was another thing Wes liked about Mose. After days of riding across some of the flattest land he’d seen in a long while, Mose was just now getting around to asking why they were trudging across so many fields.

  “Ever been to Cedar Rapids?”

  Mose scrunched his face into a fleshy mess. He pondered for almost half a minute, mulling the question over as if it pertained to one of the mysteries of the universe. Finally he grunted, “Can’t say as I have.”

  “You’ll like it just fine. Plenty of saloons. There’s even a mighty big theater where you can catch a show with some pretty dancing girls.”

  “I like saloon girls better. Besides, there was plenty of saloons in Illinois. Why’d we have to leave there?”

  “We had to leave on account of the two posses that were chasing us.”

  “Oh yeah.” Letting out a huffing breath, Mose said, “We could’a gave them the slip without crossing the state line. They weren’t so tough, anyways. I bet we could’a made our stand and burned them down.”

  “What would have happened when those posses met up and decided to ride together?” Wes asked. “It was only a matter of time before that happened, and I doubt taking a stand against all of them boys would have been so easy.”

  “I guess that’s right. Still, I don’t like ridin’ across this damn state. Ain’t nothin’ but tall grass and corn. This trail is so flat and dull I could tie off my reins and go to sleep all day without missing a thing.”

  “Perhaps you should do just that. It’d give my ears a rest.”

  After a few quiet moments passed, Mose shifted again and asked, “Where did you say we was headed?”

  “Cedar Rapids.”

  “What’s in Cedar Rapids?”

  “Man I know lives there,” Wes replied. “We spent some time locked up across the state line in Nebraska.”

  Mose shuddered. “More cornfields and flat plains.”

  Ignoring the other man’s grumbling, Wes said, “He went out that way to scout out some train stations, stagecoach stopovers, and the like. All around the border near Omaha is all kinds of places like that that’re ripe for the picking. Folks coming through bound for Oregon, Colorado, not to mention rich folks going California way.”

  Mose gazed about as if he could see the lines of a map etched into the terrain spread out in front of him. “Are we getting close to Omaha? I hear there’s lots going on there.”

  “Cedar Rapids is a ways off from Omaha, but the man I’m looking to meet up with can tell us the best way to get there and all the plum spots to hit once we arrive.”

  “Train stations?” Mose asked.

  Wes nodded.

  “What about banks?” the big man asked.

  “Could be places better than banks,” Wes told him. “That whole area has people comin’ and going, day and night. This time of year should be the best because folks will be making the mad dash to cover as much ground as they can before the snow starts to fall. There will be valuables being shipped, payrolls going out to all them workers. Plenty for us to pick from, and this friend of mine scouted it all out.”

  “What’s this friend’s name?”

  “Jimmy Stock.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “That’s what makes him a good scout,” Wes replied. “Nobody knows who he is and they don’t notice him poking around to see what’s what.”

  “He must be a real good friend if he’s going to part with so much valuable information. Will he be riding with us?”

  Shrugging as he swatted at a fly that had landed upon his neck, Wes said, “Perhaps calling him a friend is a bit of
a stretch. More of a friendly acquaintance. As for him parting with that valuable information, that’s how he makes his living. We’ll be paying for the information we get, and he won’t be riding with us.”

  Mose made a face as if he’d just accidentally swallowed the fly that the other man had shooed away. “Why couldn’t we do our own scouting?” he asked.

  “Because Jimmy knows where to look and he knows who to ask for things like when certain shipments are coming through or what route a stagecoach carrying a fat lockbox is taking. Trust me, I’ve worked with him before and Jimmy’s never led me astray.”

  “Then how come I ain’t never heard you mention him before?”

  “Because his ain’t the kind of work that a man can do very often. He’s got to disappear for months at a time, scrounging around for whatever it is he looks for, hunting down the men he talks to, and then finding ways to get them to say the sorts of things men like us need to hear. Last time I met up with Jimmy was two winters ago, and the spring that followed was one of the most profitable I’ve ever had.”

  Despite the gleam of greed that shone in one of Mose’s eyes, the big man still scowled. “Wish you would’a told me about this sooner.”

  “I’m telling you now.”

  “And what if I didn’t wanna work with this Jimmy?”

  “Then you’d be a fool,” Wes snapped. “You’d also be a man who don’t like money, and I know you’re not that sort of man at all.”

  The aforementioned gleam returned to Mose’s eye. “How much money are you talking about?”

  “Enough to pay for the company of all the soiled doves you can handle for the next year.”

  “That’s a tall order,” Mose said wistfully.

  “Well, I can’t say for certain how much money we’re talking about, but I did get word that Jimmy is in Cedar Rapids. If he’s stuck his head up and is letting men know about it, that means he’s got information to sell.”

  Suddenly Mose did some thinking. Wes could tell as much because the big man got a vaguely pained expression on his face before asking, “How much does he sell his information for?”