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  TWO AGAINST ONE

  Like a giant spring uncoiling, Clay launched himself at the outlaw on the right. The man had his hand on his revolver and went to jerk it even as Clay was in midair. Clay was quicker. With a swift thrust he buried his knife in the man’s ribs. The outlaw stiffened and cried out and sought to use his spurs, but Clay, grabbing the man’s shirt, gave a fierce pull.

  Down they went. Clay alighted on his feet but the outlaw hit on his side and cried out a second time.

  Clay spun. The other outlaw had reined toward them and was in the act of drawing a revolver. Clay could not possibly reach the man before the revolver went off, so he did the only thing he could; he threw the knife….

  Ralph Compton

  Bluff City

  A Ralph Compton Novel by David Robbins

  A SIGNET BOOK

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

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

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

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-1984-3

  Copyright © The Estate of Ralph Compton, 2007

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  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.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  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, allowing 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

  Contents

  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 1

  The rider and his claybank were covered with dust. They came down the middle of Fremont Street, the man slouched in his saddle, the wide brim of his black hat pulled low. He appeared to be in his early twenties. His sun-bronzed face was fringed by a shoulder-length mane of raven hair. He wore buckskins, and knee-high moccasins instead of boots. He did not wear spurs.

  Those who saw him noticed a pearl-handled Colt in a black leather holster on his right hip.

  Only a few noticed something else. Only those near the rider when he raised his head to scan the street. They saw that he had piercing eyes the color of a mountain lake, and that he would be judged attractive by those of the female persuasion were it not for his disfigurement. At some point in the past his nose had been broken. Normally that was not a calamity. But in the rider’s case his nose had not mended as it should. Instead of being straight and smooth, it bent sharply in the middle. At first glance it appeared he had a horizontal V in the center of his face. Below it grew a thick, bushy mustache.

  The rider seemed self-conscious of his deformity, for no sooner did he scan the street than he quickly lowered his head and pulled on his hat brim.

  The owner of the feed and grain was sweeping the boardwalk in front of his store when the rider came to a stop at the hitch rail. “Welcome to Whistler’s Flat, mister.”

  “Strange handle for a town,” the rider commented as he stiffly dismounted. He did not look directly at the store owner.

  “In case you haven’t noticed,” the townsman said good-naturedly, “flat is one thing Kansas has plenty of. As for the whistling, old Eb Wilcox, who founded the town, had a gap in his upper front teeth.”

  “So?” the rider said with little interest.

  “So every time Eb breathed with his mouth open, he whistled.” The store owner grinned. “The name doesn’t seem so strange once you know the story.” He paused. “I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Probably because I didn’t give it.” The rider removed his hat and swatted at his buckskins, raising swirls of dust.

  “Appears to
me you and your clothes could use a cleaning,” the store owner said. “The barber has a tub out back. For two bits he’ll have your clothes washed and wrung out while you bathe.”

  “There’s something I need more.” The rider replaced his hat and walked past the feed and grain to the saloon. Hooking his right hand in his belt so it was close to his pearl-handled Colt, he shouldered inside. The murky interior gave him pause. He waited for his eyes to adjust, then strolled to the bar.

  The Cocklebur was nearly deserted. It was early afternoon and, other than the bartender and the rider with the bent nose, five men were seated at a corner table playing poker.

  “What’s your poison, mister?” the bartender asked. He resembled a wad of bread dough poured into an apron.

  “Bug juice.”

  “You particular about the brand?”

  “So long as it burns going down and kicks like a mule, I’ll be happy.” The rider turned so his elbows rested on the bar. Coincidentally, he no longer had his back to the batwings or the corner table, where one of the five players was dealing cards.

  “You’re an easy gent to please,” the bartender complimented him. “I wish all my customers were as agreeable.”

  The rider was given a glass but he chugged straight from the bottle, using his left hand although his revolver was on his right side. He took three long swigs that ended with him smacking his lips and smiling. “This red-eye of yours would grow hair on a rock.”

  The five poker players were examining their cards. They were a quiet bunch. They had not said a word since the rider came in.

  Lowering his voice, the man with the bent nose asked, “Are they locals?”

  “Never saw them before today,” the bartender revealed. “Waltzed in here about an hour ago, set right down, and commenced to playing. They’re not very friendly. But hell, why should they be when they don’t know me from Adam?”

  The rider took another long swallow while peering intently at the corner table from under his hat brim. “This town of yours have a law-dog?”

  “We’ve got a marshal, but he’s taking a prisoner over to the county seat,” the bartender said. “Why? Do you need a tin star?”

  “Just curious, is all,” the rider said. Gripping the bottle by the neck with his left hand, he walked to a table at the opposite corner from the cardplayers and straddled a chair with his back to the wall. No sooner did he sit down than one of the players stood and came over to his table.

  “I thought I recognized you.”

  The rider did not look up. “I recognized you, too.”

  Without being invited, the cardplayer pulled out a chair. He wasn’t much more than an inch over five feet tall. Bushy eyebrows and glittering dark eyes lent him a sinister aspect. “It’s been a while, Crooked Nose.”

  “Don’t call me that,” the rider said.

  “Why the hell not? It’s what everyone else calls you. The newspapers. The law. Crooked Nose Neville Baine. The scourge of the cow towns. Isn’t that what they wrote about you after that shooting affray over to Salina?”

  Baine set down the bottle. As he did, his other hand drifted under the table. “I won’t tell you again.”

  “I don’t see why you’re so prickly,” the cardplayer complained. “You have a bent nose. Me, I lost a toe once. I accidentally cut it off when I was chopping firewood. But you don’t hear me gripe. At least we still have our fingers and hair, which is more than Beanpole Charlie could say after the Blackfeet were done with him.”

  “What I don’t savvy is why you are being so friendly, Stark. I have never been your favorite person and you have never been mine.”

  Jesse Stark’s laugh was more like a growl. “Same old Baine. You always speak your piece and don’t care who you offend. But I reckon you can afford to be uppity, as many hombres as you have bucked out in gore.”

  “Go away,” Baine said.

  “What is gnawing at you? I pay you a compliment and you bristle like a cactus. You should be friendlier. In case you have forgotten, we are a lot alike, you and me.”

  “You must be drunk.”

  “I haven’t had a sip, believe it or not,” Stark replied. “I have to stay sober. Me and the boys have something special planned.” He glanced at the bartender, who was arranging bottles, then leaned across the table. “As for being alike, we both have a string of killings to our credit. Granted, your tally is higher, but it won’t always be. I have plans. Big plans. Before I’m done, I’ll be as famous as that other Jesse, Jesse James. Maybe more so.”

  “You misjudge me.”

  “Are you denying you have a string of shootings as long as my arm?” Stark snorted.

  “I am not denying anything,” Baine said. “But you are the one wanted by every lawman in Kansas and Missouri. Texas, too, I hear tell. I’m not wanted anywhere that I know of.”

  “You make it sound as if that makes you better than me,” Jesse Stark said. “But when folks talk about gun-sharks, they mention you in the same breath as Ben Thompson, Jim Courtright and John Ringo.”

  “What’s that brown coming out your ears?” Baine said.

  Stark sat back and drummed his fingers on the table. “I was thinking of asking you to join us, but not now. Your trouble is that you always look down your nose at the rest of us. One day someone is going to shoot that ugly nose right off.”

  “Anyone who wants to try is welcome to.”

  “There you go again. You are one smug bastard.” Stark spread his hands on the table. “But I didn’t walk over here to sling affronts. Fact is, I want to be sociable and give you a friendly warning.”

  “How is that again?”

  Just then a townsman in a bowler entered. Jesse Stark tensed and eyed the man suspiciously. When the townsman went to the bar and asked for a drink, Stark visibly relaxed. “A friendly warning,” he repeated. “No one here has recognized you yet, other than me. Once they do, it wouldn’t surprise me if they ask you to skedaddle, same as they did to you in Topeka.” His grin was as cold as an icicle. “Out of the goodness of my heart I will spare you the inconvenience.”

  “Is there a point to this?”

  “I told you. The boys and me have something planned. Once we light the fuse, hell will seem like a church picnic compared to Whistler’s Flat. The people will be as riled as hornets. You might not want the attention.”

  Crooked Nose Baine did not say anything.

  “Well? Don’t I rate a thanks? Warning you is right neighborly of me, don’t you think?”

  “The bank,” Baine guessed.

  “Not hard to figure, was it? And a little fun, after.”

  “How soon before you light the fuse?” Crooked Nose Baine asked.

  Stark took a badly scratched and battered pocket watch from a pocket and consulted the timepiece. “It is a little before two. We aim to start the festivities at six, just as the bank is fixing to close. We hear tell their marshal is out of town, but some of the good citizens are bound to come down with a dose of brave. They won’t catch us, though. Not that close to dark. And if me and my men ride hell bent for leather all night, they never will.” He chuckled. “I have it worked out in detail.”

  Crooked Nose Baine said, “All right. You have done your good deed for the year. Now scat. I do my drinking alone.”

  Stark pushed his chair back and rose. “I don’t know why I bothered. I should have known better.”

  “You must be hankering to bed down with the sawdust.”

  The flinty edge in Baine’s tone caused Jesse Stark to back up a step and to anxiously say, “Now just you hold on. I did you a favor. You can’t blow out my wick here in the saloon.”

  “You mentioned Salina,” Baine reminded him. “I put windows in the noggins of three polecats in a saloon there.”

  Without another word Jesse Stark returned to his friends. The other four leaned over the table to hear what he had to say, then all five glared at Baine. But only until Baine raised his head and returned their glares. Then they became inter
ested in their cards again.

  For the next half hour Crooked Nose Baine nursed his bottle. A great sadness seemed to be upon him. Several more locals came in to wet their throats, but he did not notice them. They noticed him, however, especially after he stood and came around the table, kicking over a chair in his path. Crossing to the bar, he smacked down the empty bottle and growled, “Give me another, barkeep.”

  “Maybe you have had enough, sonny,” the bartender suggested with a friendly smile.

  “You are not my pa,” Baine said. “I will decide when I am saturated.” He pounded the bar. “Another bottle, and be quick about it.” The bartender hurriedly complied, and Baine paid and crossed to the batwings. Pushing on out, he stopped in the shade of the overhang and tilted the bottle to his lips.

  An elderly woman walking by tilted her nose in the air and sniffed.

  Crooked Nose Baine finished chugging and grinned after her. He turned toward the window and his grin evaporated. He stared at his reflection; at the hideous mockery of a nose that once had been straight and smooth. Upending the bottle, he swallowed while continuing to stare. A low sound escaped him. Suddenly he stepped back and raised his arm as if to throw the bottle at the window. But then his arm dropped, his shoulders drooped and he walked from under the overhang into the hot glare of the sun.

  Baine walked to the hitch rail in front of the feed and grain. He corked the whiskey bottle, opened a saddlebag and slid the bottle inside, neck up. He reached for the saddle horn to fork leather.

  Squealing with glee, a small boy and girl came skipping down the street. The boy had a hoop and was pushing it with a forked stick. He passed the hoop to the girl, who also held a stick, and she laughed and kept the hoop rolling.