The Smoking Iron by Brett Halliday

met his outburst with a wan smile. “I’m not going to marry him,” she assured him. “Not even to save the Katie.”
    â€œLet me take a hand in the game, ma’m.”
    â€œYou haven’t explained how you came to be in Hermosa this morning … afoot.”
    â€œOh, that? My hawse had a accident down the road a piece. Rattler got him.”
    â€œYou’re a fugitive, aren’t you? Riding what men call the owlhoot trail?”
    Dusty’s jaw hardened. “Why do you guess that?”
    â€œMost men are who come to Hermosa. And you … you seemed awfully ready with your gun. You would have killed Lon, wouldn’t you? If I hadn’t called out and stopped you?”
    â€œHe deserved killin’. Shootin’ from behind.”
    â€œHe was crazy mad,” Katie conceded. “You’d knocked him down in front of me and it front of his men.”
    â€œHe had it comin’.”
    â€œYou frighten me,” said Katie simply, “when you look like you do now. As you looked when you drew on Lon. I don’t see why men have to fight … kill each other,” she cried out wildly. “There’s a lust for killing that gets into their blood. I’ve seen it here on the Border. Too much of it. That’s why I forbade my riders to go armed.”
    â€œAn’ got overrun by rustlers,” Dusty reminded her.
    â€œAll right. Sometimes I’m sorry. I avoided bloodshed that way. Perhaps I saved some man from turning into a killer.”
    â€œBut now there’s bound to be killin’. No matter who takes over the ranch. The rustlers won’t quit without bein’ persuaded by lead now that they’ve got started.”
    â€œOh, I don’t know,” Katie cried brokenly. “I just don’t know. I wanted to do what was right. I wanted to run the ranch peacefully.”
    â€œYou picked the wrong place for that, I reckon. You’d best trade the K T for a farm back in Kansas.” There was lashing scorn in Dusty’s voice.
    Katie looked at him wonderingly. “You sound like all the other men who quit me.”
    â€œShore. I’d quit too.”
    â€œBut you offered to help me.”
    â€œBecause I thought you wanted a man that’d use his guns.”
    â€œI do,” she said suddenly. “I’m through being fainthearted. I’ll fight those rustlers back. I won’t let them ruin the Katie.”
    The sharp line of the rimrocks swung sharply to the left in front of them. At the same time, the line of cottonwoods marking the bank of the river swerved to the right in a great sweeping arc to form a wide spread between the river and the cliffs.
    Katie Rollins said, “There it is,” quietly but with a tremor of pride in her young voice.
    Dusty stared speechlessly ahead at the wide sweep of flat land lying before them. It was a rich, alluvial plain, perfectly flat and stretching ahead as far as the eye could see. Covered with luxuriant green grass and dotted with mesquite and catclaw, it looked more like pictures of an English meadow than anything Dusty Morgan had ever seen or dreamed of seeing hi the West. The road cut straight ahead through the rich grass, and the palominos lifted their heads and snorted as though to welcome the sight and smell of the unbelievably rich pasture land.
    Dusty said, “It’s like ridin’ into paradise outta hell, beggin’ yore pardon, Miss Katie.” His voice was low and awed.
    Katie nodded, her brown eyes shining mistily. “I feel the same way. Even now. After living here all my life. Do you see why I don’t want to give up the Katie?” she demanded fiercely.
    â€œAny man’d sell his soul for a place like this, ma’m.” Dusty’s eyes were going hungrily from side to side, feasting themselves on the sight of sleek, stocky, steers grazing knee-deep in the rich herbage.
    â€œIt’s a strip eighteen miles