Death Rides the Night by Brett Halliday

his offer open and if we don’t want the money there’s others here in the Valley that do.”
    â€œLittle credit to them,” said his mother tartly. “You tell Mr. Harlow I said for him to go on and do anything he wants to with his money because we don’t want to borrow it and the Lazy K isn’t for sale either. Not for ten times eight thousand dollars.”
    â€œYou’re just a stick-in-the-mud,” George groaned. “I don’t know what Manda’s going to say when I tell her.”
    â€œShe’ll come around,” Mrs. Kincaid assured him. “After you’re married you’ll be glad you’ve got a home to bring her to.”
    â€œShe just won’t do it, Mr. Harlow,” said George Kincaid an hour later in Dutch Springs. “I’ve talked till I’m blue in the face without getting anywhere.”
    â€œThat’s too bad … for you.” Eustis Harlow shrugged his heavy shoulders. “As I told you, I can’t hold my offer open forever. I’ll take my money where it’s wanted.” He turned away abruptly to go toward a group of men loitering on the courthouse lawn, and George Kincaid stared after him miserably. There went his last chance to get away from Powder Valley to the city where he could be a gentleman. A furious sense of frustration took hold of him. He didn’t see why his mother had to be so stubborn about it. It wouldn’t hurt anybody to borrow a little money. What was so terrible about putting a mortgage on the ranch? Lots of other people did it and the world didn’t come to an end.
    His shoulders slumped wretchedly and he felt very sorry for himself. He went over to one of the kegs of beer and stayed there until the men filed inside the courthouse to open the meeting that resulted in Pat Stevens’ resignation as sheriff of Powder Valley.
    He went in behind the others and slumped down on a bench in the last row, and paid little attention to what went on. He left when the others did, and silently followed a group of them to the Gold Eagle where he drank numerous glasses of whisky on top of the free beer he’d poured down before the meeting. He witnessed Pat’s capitulation to Harlow and Tripo, and the subsequent jailing of big, one-eyed Ezra.
    He stayed on in the Gold Eagle, slumped laxly against the bar with his hat pulled low over his sullen eyes while he grew angrier and angrier at his mother and her refusal to help him get away to the city.
    After midnight the bartender refused to sell him any more whisky because of his youth and because he had had enough, but George was too miserable to care and he stayed on at the saloon until the new sheriff’s ’two deputies came into the saloon cursing luridly about Ezra’s escape from jail.
    George stumbled out and mounted his horse to ride home soon after that. He was sober enough to stay in the saddle with a loose rein and let his horse pick his own way home, but he was drunk enough to feel utterly and completely sorry for himself. He was dozing in the saddle in a wretched state of self-pity when he reached the Lazy K ranch some time after midnight.
    A couple of hundred yards from the dark ranch house the road led through a wire gate that was always kept closed. George roused himself enough at that point to note with some curiosity that the gate was now open.
    He knew he had closed it when he rode out to Dutch Springs earlier in the evening. None of the other Lazy K hands had followed him to town and he didn’t understand why it was open.
    He checked his horse subconsciously as he rode through the gate, instinctively meaning to get down and close it behind him.
    Just as he started to swing his right leg back over the saddle he heard the loud clear crash of a .45 up ahead at the dark ranch house where his mother was sleeping.
    His horse tensed and pricked his ears forward. George remained as though petrified, half out of the saddle, his