Read Once a Ranger for Free Online

wife’ll be fine,” Ralston said to him. “My teenage boys will take her home. That place is north and it will take a few hours for us to get up there.”
    â€œYou know them?” Guthrey asked, trying to think who the victims were. He didn’t recall meeting them.
    â€œI’ve been there before,” the man said.
    â€œWhat did they do?”
    â€œGeorge worked for people, did odd jobs. They were pretty poor, and folks around there fed them for him doing some work when they were out of money. That’s being too poor to move on, but they never hurt anyone. It could be Apaches done it.”
    â€œBefore we get everyone in a lynching mood, let’s not share any ideas like that. I’m not holding up for them, but so far as we know, they’ve only stolen horses going back and forth to Mexico. There were some killings a few years ago south of this county, and the Apaches were blamed. But I don’t want an uncalled-for war started.”
    â€œI savvy and you’re right. We’re all too vulnerable to attacks by them if we stir them up.”
    â€œWe need the killers, and I want to see the murder area as undisturbed as I can. Maybe they left some sign for us, Erv.”
    The big rancher agreed.
    â€œWho is the lady came to tell me?”
    â€œClaudia Haynes. Her husband is Ralph Haynes. They’re good folks, have a spread up there close by to the Carlsons.”
    â€œI will stop by their place and explain what we find when we get through.”
    Erv agreed.
    They pushed on hard northward in the night under a thousand stars. Their saddle leather complained and horseshoes struck rocks exposed on the road surface as they kept their course. Desert owls hooted in the night, bats swooped in the sky, and coyotes lent their voices to the sounds of the night.
    The trip proved long and dawn was pinking the New Mexico horizon far in the east. They entered a deep chasm and the dry wash was the only way up the deep, shadowy gorge. Erv led the way in on his good horse, and up on a small shelf, a dark hovel sat backed to a huge sandstone bluff wall behind it.
    â€œI want this area as untouched as can be so we can search it in the daylight. Criminals drop things. Once, we found an old letter from his girlfriend that a killer dropped at the scene. He denied doing the murder. But we had the letter with his name on it that could not have gotten up there except it fell out of his pocket.”
    Erv looked serious enough peering inside the house in the dim light. He nodded. “I never thought about that but I do see what you mean.”
    â€œSince we have no suspects so far, any evidence we can find will help us arrest the guilty ones.”
    â€œI guess being a lawman all your life makes that job easier.”
    Guthrey shook his head. “You need to be lucky too.”
    Erv agreed and they both squatted down on their heels at the open doorway.
    â€œIs there any other way in or out of this canyon?” Guthrey looked around at the still-dark surrounding bluffs.
    â€œYou could, if you were part goat, go out over that back range. Some men and kids have done it just to say they had.”
    â€œIt gets to be daylight, you search that dry wash we rode in on. See if we and the nice lady who came to get us did not wipe out their tracks and try to learn which way they went when they came out of the canyon, if you can.”
    â€œOh yes. That might be hard.”
    â€œLook close where they went out at the opening.”
    Erv said, “I can do that. Are the bodies inside?”
    â€œLet’s go peek.” Guthrey had a knot behind his tongue to swallow. He’d seen lots of dead folks. None were ever pretty to look at. With just enough light to see by, they peered in from the doorway. A naked body, perhaps that of a teenager, was on the bed.
    â€œThat was their daughter, Casey. My God, she never harmed anyone. She’s tied there, ain’t