LITMIR.BIZ

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sprawling in the trail. A larger boulder rolled over the lower half of his body. His head and shoulders jerked up involuntarily, and his mouth opened wide in an agonized scream that was swallowed up by the avalanche’s roar. More rocks crashed around him, and dust and dirt threatened to cover him up completely.

      No more than two minutes had passed since the first warning rumble. That was how little time it took for devastation to occur. That was how quick calamity could pass, too, because as the rock slide reached the more level terrain west of the trail, it ground to a halt. Dust hung thickly in the air, billowing and swirling, but the roar diminished to a rattle as smaller rocks clattered down the slope in the wake of the avalanche.

      Bo said, “Let’s see if there’s anything we can do for him!” and heeled his horse into a run toward the man who had been caught in the cataclysm. Scratch and Reilly were right behind him.

      A breeze began to disperse the dust clouds, carrying them away from the trail. Bo spotted the man lying half-buried in the rubble that now covered the trail. He swung down from the dun while the horse was still moving and ran toward the man. When he reached the spot where the man had fallen, he began tossing rocks aside, trying to uncover him. Scratch and Reilly dismounted and hurried to help.

      The man had a gash on his head where the rock that had knocked him out of the saddle struck him, and blood from the injury covered the right side of his face. Despite that, Bo could tell that the man was fairly young, and the hair that hadn’t been stained crimson was the color of straw. Somewhat surprisingly, the man was still alive. A groan came from him as the Texans and their companion shifted rocks away from him and uncovered him.

      Scratch stopped working suddenly and reached over to touch Bo’s arm. He nodded grimly toward the man’s lower body. Bo’s jaw tightened as he saw the damage that giant boulder had done when it rolled over the man. Everything from just above the waist on down was crushed almost flat. The luckless hombre’s legs appeared to be broken in dozens of places, and there was no telling what had happened to his insides. He was still alive, but he was doomed.

      “Get that bottle from your saddlebags, Scratch,” Bo said as he knelt beside the injured man’s head. “We’ll try to make him comfortable, maybe find out who he is. That’s all we can do.”

      “Bottle?” Reilly repeated as Scratch trotted off toward the horses. “You’ve got a bottle of whiskey, and you didn’t tell me?”

      “Strictly for medicinal purposes,” Bo said.

      Reilly snorted. “I’ll bet.”

      Actually, it was true, although Bo didn’t waste any breath trying to convince Reilly of that. Whiskey worked about as well as anything else for cleaning bullet wounds, and you never knew when you might have to patch up an injury like that.

      Bo got an arm under the man’s head and shoulders and lifted him slightly while Scratch fetched the bottle. When he came back with it, Scratch knelt on the other side of the man and pulled the cork with his teeth, then put the neck of the bottle to the man’s lips and tilted it up just enough to spill some of the liquor into his mouth.

      The man coughed and choked, but he swallowed most of the fiery whiskey. His eyelids fluttered for a few seconds, and then he opened his eyes as the liquor’s bracing effects took hold.

      “Wha…what h-happened?” he managed to gasp.

      “You got caught in a rock slide, mister,” Bo told him. “But you’re going to be all right. Just lay there and rest for a few minutes, before you try to get up and move around again.”

      It was a lie, of course, but Bo hoped it would be of some small comfort as the man slipped out of this life and into the next.

      “W-whiskey…”

      Scratch held the bottle to the man’s lips again, but the man somehow found the strength to raise a hand and push it away.

      “Whiskey…Flats,” he went on. “Got to get to…Whiskey Flats…supposed to…be there…”

      “What the hell’s Whiskey Flats?” Reilly asked as he leaned over the injured man, hands on his knees.

      “Sounds like the name of a town,” Scratch said. “Don’t reckon I’ve ever heard of it, though.”

      “Take another drink, fella,” Bo urged the man. “It’ll help you feel better.”

      “Got to…get there…” the man said again. “Whiskey Flats…”

      “He’s determined, isn’t he?” Reilly said.

      Scratch managed to get some more of the whiskey in the man’s mouth. His throat worked convulsively as he swallowed. He looked up at Bo and said, “Reckon I’ll…be all right now…nothing hurts any—”

      His eyes glazed over, and the breath came out of him in one long, last, despairing sigh. He was gone.

      Bo sighed, too, and shook his head as he reached up to close the sightlessly staring eyes. “I reckon we can start digging a grave now,” he said.

      “With what?” Reilly asked.

      “I’ve got a shovel that folds up wrapped in my bedroll,” Scratch said. “Come on, Reilly. You can lend a hand with the diggin’.”

      Reilly didn’t look too enthused about the idea, but he followed Scratch. The silver-haired Texan got the shovel from his gear and selected a nice, pine-shaded site on the far side of the trail for the grave. He and Reilly took turns digging while Bo went through the dead man’s clothing in search of something that might tell them who he was.

      The ground was hard and a little rocky, so it took time to scoop out a big enough hole. Reilly was down inside the grave when Bo walked over carrying a piece of paper in one hand. He appeared to be clutching something else in his other hand, something small enough that it couldn’t be seen as long as Bo’s hand was closed.

      “Well, I found out who he was, and found out about Whiskey Flats, too,” Bo announced.

      “Is this deep enough?” Reilly asked. He had taken off his hat and coat, and his shirt was dark with sweat from his unaccustomed efforts.

      Scratch told him, “Yeah, that’ll do fine,” and reached down to offer him a hand climbing out. Reilly took it and clambered from the hole in the earth. He brushed himself off and frowned at the palms of his hands.

      “I’m gonna have blisters,” he complained.

      Bo and Scratch ignored him. Scratch pointed at the paper in Bo’s hand and asked, “What’s that?”

      “It’s a letter from the mayor of a settlement called Whiskey Flats,” Bo said. “Must be somewhere south of here, since that’s the direction the fella was going. The letter is addressed to John Henry Braddock.”

      Scratch frowned. “Say, that name sounds familiar. Ain’t he…”

      Bo held his other hand out to reveal the gold-plated star that lay in his palm. “A lawman,” he said. “Making quite a name for himself as a town tamer, like Bill Hickok. I guess this is his badge.”

      “Lawman, eh?” Reilly grunted. “Maybe I don’t feel as sorry for him as I thought I did.”

      “I ain’t overfond o’ star packers myself,” Scratch snapped, “but nobody deserves to go out like that hombre just did. Just like a certain four-flushin’, swindlin’ con man didn’t deserve to be tarred and feathered and run outta town on a rail, I reckon.”

      Reilly grimaced and shrugged in acknowledgment of that point.

      Bo went on. “This letter from Mayor Jonas McHale makes it clear that the town council of Whiskey Flats hired Braddock to come in and clean up the settlement. It doesn’t say exactly what sort of trouble they’re having there, but it must be something bad enough to need a tough, gun-handy marshal like Braddock to take care of it.”

      “Reckon they’ll have to find somebody else now,” Scratch

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