Ralph Compton Texas Hills Read online

  “Thrilling stories of Western legend.”

  —The Huntsville Times (AL)

  “Very seldom in literature have the legends of the Old West been so vividly painted.”

  —The Tombstone Epitaph

  TROUBLE IN THE TEXAS HILLS

  “Ma!” Mandy whispered. “Look!” And she pointed.

  The latch was moving. Slowly, quietly, as someone outside tried to open the door.

  Blue let out a whuff and a loud growl. He pawed at the bottom of the door, his claws digging into the wood.

  The latch became still. Then the door itself moved slightly as pressure was applied to the outside.

  “They’re pushing on it!” Mandy whispered.

  “If they get in, shoot at their heads,” Philomena instructed. A head shot to man or beast, her grandfather always told her, was the surest way to put something down. “We’ll retreat down the hall, and if we have to, barricade ourselves in an upstairs bedroom.”

  “Listen,” Estelle whispered.

  Now there was a scratching sound, as if a fingernail were being run over the outside of the door.

  “What are they up to?” Mandy whispered.

  “If they want in, they’ll have to batter it down,” Philomena said grimly.

  The next moment, the door shook violently.

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library,

  an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  This book is an original publication of New American Library.

  First Printing, November 2015

  Copyright © The Estate of Ralph Compton, 2015

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Signet and the Signet colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  For more information about Penguin Random House, visit penguinrandomhouse.com.

  ISBN 978-0-698-18406-0

  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.

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  Contents

  Trouble in the Texas Hills

  Title Page

  Copyright

  The Immortal Cowboy

  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

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Postscript

  Excerpt from Outlaw Town

  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

  A beanpole with hair the color of ripe corn ambled into the Crooked Wheel Saloon in Kerrville early on Saturday night. His high-crowned hat, his clothes, and his jangling spurs told everyone what he did for a living. Cowhands were as common as horses in some parts of Texas.

  Smiling, the stranger jangled to the bar, paid for a drink, and brought it over to the table where Owen Burnett, Gareth Kurst, and Jasper Weaver were playing poker. Once every month or so, the three settlers came down out of the hill country to indulge in a few drinks and a sociable game of cards.

  Owen Burnett came up with the idea. He’d thought it would be nice to get better acquainted. They were neighbors, after all. So what if they lived ten miles apart, or more? In the West, “neighbors” didn’t mean the same thing it did back east.

  Owen was from Kentucky. He wasn’t all that big, but he was solid. He had short, sandy hair, a rugged complexion, and pale blue eyes. When the cowboy came to their table and asked if he could sit in, Owen smiled and gestured at an empty chair. “Help yourself, mister.”

  Jasper Weaver grinned like a cat about to pounce on a sparrow. “If you won’t mind us taking your money,” he remarked. Which was a funny thing for Jasper to say given that he was the poorest card player west of the Mississippi River. Everyone thereabouts knew it. So did he, but
Jasper never let it discourage him from playing. He was lean and gangly, with a face like a ferret’s and a neck like a buzzard’s. His brown hair stuck out from under his hat like so many porcupine quills.

  Gareth Kurst grunted and eyed the cowboy with suspicion. He and most of his sons had the same features: black hair, blunt jaws, and eyes like shiny pieces of coal. “Why’d you pick our table, boy?”

  About to set his drink down, the cowboy scowled. “First off, I’m not no infant. I’m eighteen, I’ll have you know. And second, you three looked friendly, although I might have been wrong about that.”

  “We’re friendly,” Owen said.

  “Speak for yourself,” Gareth said. “I never trust anybody until they prove they deserve it.”

  “It’s not as if I’m out to rob you,” the cowboy said.

  “You couldn’t if you tried,” Gareth said. “I give a holler, and three of my brood will be on you like hawks on a prairie dog.” He nodded at three of his sons over at the bar.

  “What’s all this talk of robbing?” Jasper said. “We’re here to play cards.”

  “Me, too,” the cowboy said. He took a sip and sighed with contentment. “They call me Shoe, by the way.”

  “Peculiar handle,” Jasper said.

  “Not really,” Shoe said. “I got hit by a horseshoe back when I was a sprout, and everyone took to calling me Horseshoe. Later that became just Shoe.”

  “I should reckon you’d want to use your real name,” Jasper said.

  “My folks named me Abimelech Ezekiel Moses. All three are from the Bible.”

  “Maybe not, then,” Jasper said.

  “Are we here to jabber or play?” Gareth Kurst said.

  “You’re awful cantankerous tonight,” Owen said. He was in the process of shuffling the deck. “We’ll deal you in, Shoe. Jacks or better to open. The limit is ten cents.”

  “That much, huh?” Shoe said.

  “Ain’t none of us rich,” Jasper said.

  Taking another swallow, Shoe offhandedly said, “You could be if you wanted to bad enough. Most anyone can these days.”

  Jasper chuckled. “How does that work, exactly? We wish for money and it falls into our laps?”

  Gareth uttered a rare laugh.

  Pushing his hat back on his head, Shoe said, “Any of you gents know where to find longhorns?”

  Owen nodded. “The hill country is crawling with them.” It was a rare day when he didn’t spot some off in the brush as he went about turning his homestead into what he hoped would become a prosperous farm.

  “There you go,” Shoe said.

  “You’re talking nonsense,” Gareth said.

  Shoe looked at each of them. “You haven’t heard, then? How valuable they’ve become?”

  “Longhorns?” Jasper said, and cackled.

  Owen couldn’t help joining in. The notion was plumb ridiculous. Longhorns had been around since the days when Texas belonged to Spain. Left on their own in the wild, they’d bred like rabbits. To a lot of people, they were a nuisance more than anything. They were good to eat but not much else.

  “We don’t like being ribbed,” Gareth said.

  “Ribbed, hell,” Shoe said indignantly. “You’re behind the times. Cattle drives will be the next big thing. Everybody thinks so.”

  Owen thought he knew what Shoe meant. “You mean those gents who took some longhorns up to Missouri to sell?”

  “And now can’t anymore because the folks in Missouri are worried about diseases the longhorns might carry,” Jasper said.

  “That’s a lot of trouble to go to for nothing,” Gareth said.

  Jasper bobbed his chin. “Rounding up a bunch of contrary longhorns can’t be easy. And for what? Four dollars a head, if that?”

  Shoe sat back. “Shows how much you know. How about if you sold them for ten times that much?”

  “Forty dollars a head?” Jasper said in astonishment.

  “That’s right,” Shoe said. “And not in Missouri, either. You’d take them to Kansas. The people back east are so beef-hungry, they’ll pay anything to have steak on their table.”

  “You’re making this up,” Gareth said.

  “As God is my witness,” Shoe said. “I left the ranch where I’ve been working to sign up with an outfit planning a drive.” He chuckled. “I can’t believe you haven’t heard about it. Last year a fella named Wheeler took the first herd up to Abilene. They say he made over ninety thousand dollars.”

  Jasper’s jaw fell, Gareth’s coal eyes glittered, and Owen set down the deck he was about to deal. “You’re not joshing us?”

  “As God is my witness,” Shoe said again.

  “If that’s true,” Gareth said, “why aren’t you out rounding up a herd of your own?”

  “By my lonesome?” Shoe said. “Might be I could collect a couple of dozen head, sure, but where would I keep them until I start the drive? I don’t own any land. The smart thing for me is to join a drive going north and learn how it’s done.” He grinned. “Besides, the pay is better.”

  “Ninety thousand dollars,” Jasper said, and whistled. “Think of what a man could do with a fortune like that.”

  “I’m thinking,” Gareth said.

  “Sounds like too much risk for my taste,” Owen said. “Longhorns aren’t kittens.”

  “It’s not too much risk for me,” Gareth said.

  “I bet my missus would like me to,” Jasper said.

  “You can’t be serious.” Owen couldn’t begin to imagine the work involved. And then there was all the time they’d be away from their families. The cowboy drained his glass and grinned. “Looks as if I’ve started something here.”

  “You sure as blazes have,” Gareth said.

  Chapter 2

  Harland Kurst took after his ma more than his pa. Tell him that, and he’d wallop you. Harland’s pa was tall and muscular, his ma as broad as a barn door. Harland was tall and bulky. Truth was, he liked being big. He liked throwing his weight around and squashing anyone who made him mad.

  Harland was the oldest of the five Kurst boys. On this particular night, he and the second oldest, Thaxter, had gone into town with their pa and their brothers but parted company to go to a different saloon. Harland told his pa he hankered to see a dove, but he really just wanted the freedom to do as he pleased.

  His pa had a habit of reining Harland in when Harland didn’t want to be reined in.

  Once Harland had enough whiskey in him, he liked to pick fights. Because he was so big, he nearly always got the upper hand. And he made sure to have Thaxter close by to back his play in case the person Harland picked on resorted to a six-gun. Thaxter was quick on the shoot. So much so, folks fought shy of him.

  The Kurst Terrors, people called them behind their backs. Which tickled Harland to no end.

  So now, while their pa was off playing cards at the Crooked Wheel, Harland leaned on the bar at the Brass Spittoon. The Spittoon wasn’t much as saloons went: a bar, tables, and a roulette wheel. The doves were dumpy and not all that friendly. Not to Harland, anyway. He liked it there anyhow.

  “I see how you’re looking around, big brother,” Thaxter said after taking a swallow of bug juice. “You’re in one of your moods.”

  “I’m always in a mood,” Harland said.

  “Who will it be tonight? That gambler yonder? Him with that frilly shirt and those big buttons on his vest?”

  For reasons Harland had never understood, Thaxter was always critical of others’ clothes. Harland didn’t give a damn what people wore. Thaxter, though, took it as an affront if he saw clothes he didn’t like. “Gamblers usually have hideouts up their sleeves.”

  “So?” Thaxter patted the Colt he wore high on his hip.

  “We don’t want you shooting anybody. The marshal won’t take kindly to that.”

 
“So?” Thaxter said again.

  Harland chuckled. He wouldn’t put it past his brother to gun the lawdog, should it come to that. But then they’d be on the run. “I don’t aim to spend the rest of my days dodging tin stars.”

  “Wouldn’t bother me any.”

  Just then the owner of the saloon, Rufus Calloway, came down the bar, wearing his apron. “You boys need a refill?”

  “When we do, you’ll know it,” Harland said.

  Rufus was well into his middle years and had a balding pate and bulging belly. “I don’t like the sound of that. No trouble tonight, Harland, you hear me?”

  “Or what? You’ll hit me with your towel?”

  Thaxter laughed.

  “I mean it, boys,” Rufus said. “I can’t have you causing trouble all the time. It scares the customers off.”

  “Oh, hell,” Harland said. “It’s not as if I ever really hurt anybody.”

  “My brother does as he pleases,” Thaxter said.

  “Your pa won’t like it if you do,” Rufus told them.

  Bending toward him, Harland growled, “Anyone tells him, they better light out for the hills.”

  Rufus swallowed and made a show of running his towel over the counter. “Just behave, is all I ask.”

  “Behaving ain’t fun,” Harland said.

  “Go bother somebody else,” Thaxter said.

  Rufus went.

  “I swear,” Thaxter said in derision. “He’s got as much backbone as a bowl of butter.”

  Harland thought that was funny. He tilted his glass to his lips, then narrowed his dark eyes as someone new came strolling in. “Well, lookee there. What is it the parson is always saying? Ask and you’ll get what you want.”

  The newcomer was about their age and wore city clothes: a bowler, a suit, polished boots, but no spurs. He had a ruddy complexion and red hair, and smiled at everybody.

  “It’s Mr. Perfect,” Thaxter said.

  “He sure thinks he is,” Harland said. Nudging Thaxter, he drained his glass, set it down, and moved toward where the man in the bowler was joshing with several men at a card table. Coming up behind him, Harland said, “As I live and breathe. If it isn’t Timothy Pattimore.”

  Pattimore turned, his smile becoming a frown. “Hell in a basket. Leave me alone, you two.”