Death Rides the Night by Brett Halliday Page A

weight resting on his left foot in the stirrup, hands tightly on the pommel, while he stared ahead through the night and tried to think what the sound could have been other than a gun-shot. For he knew it couldn’t be a gun-shot. He knew his mother was up there in the house alone, and she had a deadly fear of guns.
    Then he heard the loud drumming of a horse’s galloping hooves rapidly drawing toward him.
    He slid back into the saddle and gripped the reins and stared through the night with blurred eyes.
    A horseman emerged from the darkness and thundered toward him. George’s horse pranced nervously and the boy tightened the reins.
    The galloping figure dashed past him and through the open gate and continued on away from the ranch with undiminished speed.
    George caught only a fleeting glimpse of the rider in the faint moonlight, but that single glimpse was enough. He saw a bulky figure and red whiskers and a single eye that glared at him menacingly as it sped past. He saw enough to swear it was Ezra who had killed his mother after he rode on up to the house and found her body lying in her blood-soaked bed.
    When his testimony was added to that of Ethan Junior and of Jose it was quite enough to convince the strongest doubters that Ezra was the victim of a homicidal mania that had taken four lives in the span of a few hours.

10
    Pat Stevens hesitated briefly after walking out from Sally to his saddled horse. The gray had been ridden to Dutch Springs and back, and Pat decided it might be a good idea to change him for a fresher horse. He didn’t know how far he’d be riding, nor how fast. His plans were vague but he knew he likely wouldn’t be back to the Lazy Mare before matters were definitely settled with Eustis Harlow.
    Instead of mounting the gray, he picked up the trailing reins and led him out to the corral. He pulled saddle and sweaty blanket off and dumped them on the ground, unbarred the gate and swung it open, then slipped the bridle off the gray’s head. The horse snorted gleefully and trotted toward the other saddle horses bunched in one corner of the pen watching the man curiously.
    Pat stepped back and unhooked his coiled lariat from its leather thong over the saddlehorn, then entered the corral and closed the gate behind him. He shook out a small loop as he walked toward the horses in the corral corner, let it trail along the ground behind him while he held the rest of the coiled rope in his left hand.
    The horses tossed their heads and scattered at Pat’s approach. They milled around and then began to circle warily around him as he stopped in the center of the corral. They pretended to be very wild and quite frightened, tossing their heads and snorting as they circled the corral at a gallop, but it was only a game they played each time a man entered the corral with a rope in his hand. As soon as a loop tightened about the neck of any one of them, that horse would instantly quiet down and become docile.
    Pat pivoted slowly, studying the circling horses in the moonlight with narrowed eyes while he waited for a short-coupled dun to separate from the others so he’d be a fair target for Pat’s throw.
    The dun was wily. He had been roped out of the corral hundreds of times and he knew all the tricks of the game. He pressed close on the heels of the horses in front of him, managing all the time to keep another horse’s rump between his head and the man in the center of the corral.
    Pat had a vast amount of patience and he knew the tricks of the game also. He kept turning, always with the small loop spread out behind him ready for an instant throw and with his eyes glued on the dun.
    After a dozen circles around the corral the horses began to tire of the fun. They slowed to a lope, and then some of them began to trot. Pat gave a sudden shout and made a feint toward the horse in front of the dun. He jumped forward, and for an instant the dun’s head was clear. Pat’s