LITMIR.BIZ

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pure bred Shorthorns, north of here,” the girl continued. “Clay and the riders spotted them, and there was a running fight. Clay, Curly Hurd and Rick Veale all got slight leg wounds. They came in for fresh horses and are going back to scour the hills for those bandits.”

      “So Clay Foley got a leg wound, eh?” Long Sam droned. “Well, that ties it up, neat and sure.”

      “Ties what up?” Nina asked sharply. “Sam, you sound so grim!”

      “Clay Foley is your El Diabolo Blanco, Nina,” Long Sam said flatly. “Sisco Denton, Rick Veale and Curly Hurd are the men who have followed the murderin’ devil in all his raids.”

      “Sam, what are you saying?” Nina gasped. “Surely, you must be mistaken. Clay Foley and three of Dad’s own riders—”

      Her voice trailed off into a stammer. Quietly, Long Sam told her of his run-in with El Diabolo Blanco and the three Rocking R riders earlier in the evening.

      “That’s how I know Clay Foley is El Diabolo Blanco, Nina,” he finished. “Sisco Denton, Curly Hurd and Rick Veale weren’t even masked. But I knocked El Diabolo down with a bullet, and if Clay Foley has a leg wound he claims he got fightin’ bandits off Rockin’ R cattle, that clinches the deal. He’s El Diabolo Blanco, for sure.… We’d better get goin’, girl. If Foley and those other three get fresh hosses under them, they’ll split the Rio, gettin’ to Mexico. Joe Fry jumped down into that grave before they could shoot him, and they know he’ll be here to arrest Sisco Denton, Curly Hurd and Rick Veale.”

      “Sam, this is horrible,” Nina said shakily. “Poor Dad! I just don’t know how he’ll ever stand this. He worships Clay Foley, and when he finds out—”

      “The old fool need not find it out, my dear,” a cold voice purred. “No, don’t move, Littlejohn. We’ve got a bead on you, and on Nina, too.”

      “Clay!” Nina gasped. “What are you doing here?”

      Clay Foley said thinly, “Fortunately, I saw you get your saddle and bridle when you thought no one was looking, and start down here to your private horse pasture. I suspected that you might have a notion of following us. And since we were heading for Mexico, we couldn’t have that.”

      “I was going for my horse, and I did intend to follow you, Clay,” Nina said sharply. “But I heard Sam coming, shinnied up this tree, and—”

      “The details don’t matter, my dear,” Foley interrupted. “Littlejohn, I have Sisco and Curly and Rick here with me. You and Nina head south down this swale.”

      “Sam, I’m scared,” Nina gasped. “Clay and these other three fiends will kill us, won’t they?”

      “Not right away, at least,” Long Sam said and chuckled drily. “Yuh see, Nina, there’s a forty-thousand-dollar question they’ll want me to answer before they harm either of us.”

      “Hear that, Clay?” Sisco Denton’s voice ripped out. “That long-legged son got our money.”

      “Want Rick and me to slide in and get the gal’s rifle and take whatever kind of weapons Littlejohn is packin’, Clay?” Curly Hurd’s thick voice asked.

      “No time for it, here,” Foley gritted. “Old Rowland may come huntin’ us. We’ll march ’em to that shed Nina had built in her horse pasture.”

      “Sam, can’t we do something?” Nina whispered shakily.

      “We’d get shot to rags if we made a break or showed fight,” Long Sam droned. “Head south, down this swale, Littlejohn,” Clay Foley ordered. “Nina can keep you traveling in the right direction. Move, both of you.”

      Long Sam reached, caught Nina’s arm. His fingers tightened, warning the girl to obey the bandit’s orders. Nina whimpered but moved off along the swale, and soon Long Sam felt a grassless path under his feet. They came to a gate and went through, and Long Sam saw the low shed Nina had had built as a shelter for her private saddle horses.

      “Hold these two here, boys,” Clay Foley said nervously. “I’ll go ahead, get the lantern going in the grain room. When you see the light, bring Littlejohn and the girl on.”

      Long Sam and Nina stopped, watching Clay Foley’s shadowy figure merge with the darkness. A few moments later faint light showed at one end of the shed, and Sisco Denton’s surly order sent Long Sam and the girl forward. They walked past the open front of the shed to the west end, where a small space had been boxed off to make a grain and hay room. As they approached the lighted doorway of the feed room, Long Sam glanced over his shoulder. Sisco Denton, Rick Veale and Curly Hurd were about three paces behind him, stalking along with drawn guns.

      “Ladies first,” Long Sam droned as he and Nina reached the doorway.

      Long Sam hesitated, as if he meant to let the girl step through the narrow doorway and into the lighted room where Clay Foley stood beside a lantern. The gaunt outlaw’s right hand came up, touched Nina’s shoulder as if he meant to reassure the white-faced girl. But suddenly Long Sam’s gaunt body flexed like a steel spring, and the hand he had put on Nina’s shoulder sent her plummeting down against the wall of the grain room.

      “Look out, Clay!” Curly Hurd bawled. “Littlejohn is makin’—”

      The stocky, barrel-chested bandit’s voice was drowned in the booming roar of six-shooters as Sisco Denton and Rick Veale opened up with their drawn weapons. Curly Hurd’s guns chimed in, and the night throbbed to the pounding explosions.

      But those three had an elusive target. Log Sam’s black garments blended with the shadows as he leaped beyond the weak light that was coming through the doorway. And now the gaunt outlaw’s own guns were out, their muzzles tipped with flame that licked out towards the three frantically shooting Rocking R men.

      There was no nervous haste in Long Sam’s shooting, no frantic cap-busting in the hope he could score a hit by sheer luck.

      Fat Rick Veale suddenly squealed like a shoat, dropped smoking guns, and clamped both thick hands to his middle. He staggered into the path of Sisco Denton, who had suddenly leaped towards the open feed room door. They both fell, Denton cursing and Rick Veale’s voice lifted in a shuddering moan.

      Long Sam’s right-hand Colt bucked against his palm, and Curly Hurd’s beefy face went slack as a bullet ripped through his brain. A bullet bit Long Sam’s left thigh, knocking him off his feet. He saw Sisco Denton rearing up, hunting him with bugged-out eyes and the smoking snout of a cocked gun. Long Sam’s left-hand Colt thundered, then the right boomed an echo. Sisco Denton fell back across Rick Veale, screaming in agony, both arms broken.

      * * * *

      But Long Sam wasted only a glance on Sisco Denton, knowing shock would keep the cutthroat anchored for some time. Clay Foley had not once shown his handsome face at the doorway, yet Long Sam could hear him in the grain room, cursing and shouting. The lantern was still going, and as Long Sam got on his feet and edged towards the doorway he glimpsed Clay Foley’s black-thatched head, poking cautiously around the sill. Foley’s face turned so white his blue eyes looked black when he saw his three men lying there in the swath of lanternlight.

      “Up with ’em, Foley!” Long Sam barked, leaping through the doorway as he delivered the command.

      Long Sam’s guns were out and cocked. Clay Foley had fallen back, stark terror in his eyes. It was over then and there, and Foley’s hands opened, letting the six-shooters spill to the floor even as Long Sam braced his tall legs, braking for a halt. Then it was not over at all, for instead of braking him to a halt, Long Sam’s boot heels began to skid faster and faster.

      “Loose hay on the floor,” he realized and tried desperately to shift his weight and break the skidding, stumbling rush.

      But his left foot skidded completely out of control, and suddenly he was down on the hay littered floor, with Clay Foley’s squall of vicious delight ringing in his ears. Long Sam butted the wall, flopped over sidewise, and

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