Read Death Rides Alone for Free Online Page A

with a bullet.”
    * * *
    Full night had fallen by the time Luke was fully dressed and ready to go out again. The rain had tapered off to an intermittent mist that created a soft halo around the lighted windows of the businesses that were still open.
    Luke was glad to see that the Keystone Café was one of them. He stepped through the café’s door into warmth and the appealing smells of stew, coffee, fresh-baked bread, and . . . was it pie? Yes, he decided, some sort of fruit pie.
    The place wasn’t busy on a damp night like this. A couple of men sat at the counter, but all the tables with their blue-checked tablecloths were empty.
    An attractive woman with dark brown hair stood behind the counter talking to one of the customers as she topped off his coffee cup from a tin pot. She looked at Luke and smiled.
    â€œCome on in,” she told him. “Still enough stew in the pot for a few more servings.”
    â€œJudging by the aroma, that’s good news,” Luke said as he took off his hat.
    â€œJudging from your use of the word ‘aroma,’ you’re not from Bent Creek.”
    â€œHey, Mary, you shouldn’t oughta say things like that,” the customer objected. “We can talk good.”
    â€œOf course you can, Bert,” the woman said. “I was just being polite to the stranger, you know.”
    â€œOh. That’s all right, then.”
    While Bert turned his attention back to the piece of pie on a saucer in front of him, Mary looked at Luke, smiled, and mouthed Not really.
    He managed not to laugh as he slid onto one of the stools in front of the counter and placed his hat on the empty one beside him.
    â€œWhat can I get for you, Mister . . . ?”
    â€œJensen,” he said. “Luke Jensen. A bowl of that stew would be fine, along with a cup of coffee and . . . is that fresh-baked bread I smell?”
    â€œIt certainly is.”
    â€œA nice, large hunk of bread, then, and we’ll follow it all with a slice of peach pie like our friend Bert is enjoying.”
    â€œI’m afraid they’re actually canned peaches, not fresh,” Mary said.
    â€œBut she fixes ’em up mighty nice,” Bert added.
    â€œI never doubted it for a moment,” Luke said.
    She told him, “I’ll be right back.”
    The other customer, a dour-faced, older man sitting farther along the counter, waited until Mary had gone through a door into the kitchen before he looked at Luke and said, “You’re the bounty hunter, ain’t you?”
    â€œI am,” Luke said.
    â€œThe one who killed Tate Winslow.” The words didn’t come out as a question.
    â€œThat’s right,” Luke said. The old-timer didn’t look like the sort to start trouble, but you never knew.
    â€œThat’s one killin’ that was long overdue, if you ask me.”
    â€œThat seems to be the consensus.”
    Bert said, “You do talk a little funny, Mr. Jensen. Like a schoolteacher. You ever teach school, sort of on the side, I mean, to go with your bounty huntin’?”
    Luke had to laugh this time as he shook his head.
    â€œNo, Bert, I’ve never been a schoolteacher. I was well acquainted with one once, though. A beautiful young woman named Lettie. That was long ago and far away, though, before the war. Practically a different lifetime. Since then, I’ve ridden a lot of lonely trails. It didn’t take me long to discover that a solitary man’s best friend is often a book. I make sure to carry several with me all the time.”
    â€œOh. Reckon that makes sense. I like to read, too. I send off to New York for them yellow-backed novels from Beadle and Adams. Got one right here.” Bert reached to his hip pocket and pulled out a small book bound in yellow paper. “It’s about a gunfighter named Smoke Jen—Hey, you and him got the same last name! How about that?”
    â€œYes,” Luke said, still