High Wild Desert by Ralph Cotton Page A

toward him in the middle of the now-empty street, each with a battered derby hat cocked jauntily to the side atop his head.
    â€œRanger Sam Burrack,” said the same man, spotting the Ranger and the woman. “You can run, but you can’t hide.” He grinned. “You best stop and face us. We’re trouble that’s not going away.”
    Sam ignored the two and led Adele over to the doorway of a shop, where a woman rushed out, took her hand and quickly led her inside.
    The two men stopped twenty feet from Sam and stepped away from each other, putting ten feet between them.
    Still standing to the side, Winchester hanging in his left hand, Sam eased his big Colt from his holster and leisurely cocked it, as if it were something he did every day at this same time. Letting the cocked Colt hang down at his side, he stepped out into the street.
    â€œThe Derby Brothers, I take it?” the Ranger said calmly.
    â€œWhat tipped you off?” said the gunman on the right. He was still grinning, a big beefy man with a red face and watery whiskey-swollen eyes.
    Sam just stared at him, ready to swing the big Colt up and start firing. This big one would be the one to knock down first, he told himself. The other one was strictly the big man’s backup.
    â€œManning,” the one to the left said, trying to talk quietly, “he’s already drawn and pulled back.”
    â€œI see that, Earl,” the big gunman, Manning Childe, whispered sidelong. He raised his voice for the Ranger to hear. “But it won’t matter. I’ve got a rifleman on a rooftop, just over there.” He gave a nod and got ready to draw as soon as the Ranger turned his eyes toward the roofline. But the Ranger didn’t fall for it.
    â€œYou’re lying, mister,” Sam said without batting an eye.
    Sheriff Rattler’s voice called out from behind the Ranger, to his left by the walk planks.
    â€œAnybody shows their face up there, Ranger, I’ll stop their clock for them,” he said. Sam heard the sound of the sheriff’s rifle lever a round.
    The big gunman took a deep breath; Sam saw he was ready to make his move in spite of his failed bluff. He might have something else he wanted to try, but Sam wasn’t going to give him the chance.
    â€œAll right, Ranger,” the gunman said. “In case you’re wondering, this is all about the bounty that’s—”
    â€œI’m not,” Sam said quietly, raising the big Colt, leveling it at the gunman’s chest, causing him to cut his words short. Manning’s face twisted and turned in confusion. He made a grab for his holstered gun, but it was too late.
    The Ranger’s first shot hit him dead center and sent him backward to the dirt in a red mist of blood. His derby hat appeared to hang suspended in the air for a second, then fell to the ground.
    Seeing his partner go down without even getting a shot off, the other man threw his hands up as Sam swung the big Colt toward him.
    â€œNo! Wait!” he shouted.
    But there was no hope. The Ranger had already cocked, leveled and squeezed the trigger of the big Colt. It bucked in his hand beneath a streaming rise of gun smoke.
    The gunman, Earl Hyde, flipped backward with the impact of the shot and landed facedown in the dirt beneath a gout of blood jetting up from the exit hole in his back.
    The dying gunman raised his head from the dirt and looked up at the Ranger. Sam stepped forward, his smoking Colt extended for another shot should one be needed.
    â€œI—I had quit,” the man said in a weak, trembling voice.
    â€œShould have quit sooner,” the Ranger said. He uncocked the Colt and stood watching as the man’s face bobbed, then fell back to the hard rocky dirt and relaxed there as if he were sleeping on a thick, soft pillow.
    Sheriff Rattler ventured forward, followed by a gathering group of onlookers. Adele Simpson stepped out of the shop where she’d