Read the Outlaws Of Mesquite (Ss) (1990) for Free Online

it out!" Red said angrily. "What's the matter, Joe? You lettin' him get your goat?
    Forget it." The red-haired man turned his cold gray eyes on the Kid. "Who's with you?"
    "Nobody! I come up here alone, and like I said, I'm after flowers."
    "Flowers!" Joe sneered. "He's after flowers!
    Now, wouldn't that kill you? The Cactus Kid, gunfighter and manhunter, after flowers!"
    The Kid glared. "I'll peel your hide for this, you buttonheaded maverick!"
    "Shut up!" Red spoke harshly. "Get along toward that dead fir. Right over there! Joe"-Red's voice was sharp-"bring that piebald. We can use a good horse."
    "You aiming to set me afoot?" The Kid spoke more quietly. "Look, Red Whatever-your-name-is, I'm on the level about this flower business. My gal down to Helper, she's giving a party. You know how women are."
    "How are they?" Red questioned. "I ain't talked to a woman in three months. You keep movin', an' watch your talk to Joe an' Benny.
    They get mighty touchy."
    Joe and Benny ... and Red.
    The Herring brothers!
    He was so startled he almost missed his footing and fell, but caught himself in time. Of course! What had he been thinking of not to guess at once who they were? Joe and Benny Herring, killers both of them, wanted for bank and train holdups, but nothing at all to the deadly Red Herring, the gunman from the Gila. A cold-blooded and vicious killer with a flashing speed that had sent more than one marshal and sheriff to boot hill.
    The Herrings ... and they had him cold turkey. The boys who had forced a banker to open the bank safe, then escort them from town, and on the outskirts had coolly shot him dead.
    And Jenny had warned him against getting into a fight.
    He groaned, and Red Herring prodded him with a rifle barrel.
    "What's that for?" he demanded.
    "Aw, Jenny ... she's my girl. She warned me not to get in any fights."
    Red chuckled without humor. "Don't worry, cowhand, you ain't in no fight, nor liable to be. You lost this one afore it started. Frankly, we'd as soon hang your hide on the cabin wall as rob a bank. We heard of you."
    The Kid decided nothing was to be gained by conversation.
    He had no doubt Red meant just what he said. They might have had friends, if such men ever had friends, whom he had gunned down or helped send over the road to the pen. Anyway, in outlaw hangouts the killing of the Cactus Kid would be something to boast about.
    Suddenly the earth broke sharply off in a thick grove of aspen where a steep, rocky trail wound downward through the trees. It was a one-man-at-a-time trail, and when they reached the bottom they were in a nest of boulders mingled with ancient trees, huge white-limbed deadfalls, and the sound of running water.
    Benny Herring was a thin, saturnine man with a scar on his chin. He looked up at them, staring at the Kid.
    "He the one followed us?" He stared evilly at the Kid. "How'd you spot our trail? Who else knows about it?"
    "He says he come up here huntin' flowers!"
    Joe sneered.
    Benny eyed him without humor or interest. "What did you bring him back for? Why didn't you shoot him an' leave him lay?"
    "Buzzards." Red's voice was casual. "Tie him up, Joe."
    "Sure." Joe shambled up to him, grinning out of his narrow eyes. Then he smashed the Kid across the face, over and back, caught him before he fell, and shoved him against a stunted tree scarcely taller than the Kid himself.
    The Cactus Kid felt blood trickling down his chin, and he glared at Joe, taking a deep breath.
    Joe tied him tightly and thoroughly. Then he stared at the Kid, who stared back at him. Setting himself, Joe hooked a right to his wind and the Kid felt his breath leave him with a gasp.
    Without a backward glance, Joe Herring slouched to the fire and the three began eating, talking in a low-voiced, desultory fashion. Despite their questions about who else knew of their trail, they seemed unworried, so the Kid deduced they had actually seen him behind them on the previous day, and knew he was alone.
    He was no