The Range Detectives

Genres: Westerns

Synopsis

Johnstone Country: The good die young. The bad die younger.

From the best-selling masters of Western fiction comes two tough frontier detectives who solve the bloodiest crimes with bravado, brains, and bullets blazing....

Homicide on the range

A killer is on the loose in the Arizona Territory. One by one, Tonto Basin ranchers are being murdered for their livestock - and the Cattle Raisers' Association has hired two range detectives to catch the culprit.

From the looks of them, Stovepipe Stewart and Wilbur Coleman are just another pair of high-plains drifters. But with their razor-sharp detective skills and rare talent for trouble, they're the last remaining hope for one young cowboy who's been arrested for the murders. Stovepipe and Wilbur believe the boy is innocent.

In short order, the trail of clues leads to a secret canyon hideout, and the duo find themselves in the middle of an all-out range war - with the dirtiest gang of cutthroats, thieves, and outlaws the West has ever known....

There's just one mystery left to solve: How will they get out of this alive?

Release date: November 27, 2018

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 386

Sample

The rider who brought his horse to a stop at the edge of a pine-covered bluff so he could look out over the verdant Tonto Basin country was young, with clean-cut features and dark hair under a thumbed-back Stetson. He sat his saddle with the easy grace of a born horseman, but a certain tenseness gripped him as well, a readiness for trouble.

Lord knew he had ridden into plenty of it here in this corner of Arizona Territory.

The basin rolled away to the northeast. On the far side of it was a dark line marking the Mogollon Rim. The country below the rim was good rangeland for the most part, although in some areas the grass was a little sparse. There were a number of successful ranches in the basin, including the Box D, the spread Dan Hartford rode for.

He was on Box D range now and was supposed to be looking for some cattle that might have strayed in this direction. The herd was bunched in the higher pastures, but for some reason a few cows always got it into their heads to drift back down to the lower reaches of the basin where they had spent the winter.

Dan’s eyes searched the landscape below him but didn’t spot any of the stock he was looking for. He stiffened in his saddle and turned his horse as he heard hoofbeats approaching from behind him.

A rider emerged from the pines and headed for the edge of the rocky bluff. Dan recognized her instantly. She sat a saddle with the ease and grace of a Western gal, born and bred. Her long brown hair was pulled into a ponytail that hung down her back. She wore a soft flannel shirt, a split riding skirt, and a flat-crowned black hat with a cord pulled snug under her chin.

A sheath strapped to the young woman’s saddle carried a short-barreled Winchester carbine. It had been a good while since there had been any Indian trouble around here, but there were always four-legged varmints to think about—and plenty of two-legged ones as well.

The young woman rode up to Dan and reined in. He gave her a curt nod and said, “Mrs. Dempsey.”

“Hello, Mr. Hartford,” the wife of his employer said, her voice cool but not unfriendly. “What are you doing up here this morning?”

“Looking for stray stock, as usual.”

“Have you found any?”

“Not yet. The day’s young, though.”

Dan heard other horses moving through the trees. Three men rode into view and came straight toward Dan and Mrs. Dempsey.

The rider in the lead had a crisp, military bearing, an impression that his neatly trimmed gray mustache reinforced. His clothes weren’t fancy, but they were functional and of high quality, from the boots to the gray Stetson that matched his hair and mustache.

The other two men were clearly ranch hands, one of them lean and middle-aged, the other younger and burlier, with a thatch of blond hair under his sweat-stained hat. His face was either flushed or had a permanent sunburn.

The leader of the group said to the young woman in an annoyed voice, “You shouldn’t have galloped off from us like that, Laura. You know there’s no telling what you might run into out here.”

“I didn’t run into anything except Mr. Hartford,” Laura Dempsey said. “I don’t think he represents any sort of threat, Abel.”

Dempsey grunted and seemed unconvinced of that. He said, “What are you doing over here, Hartford?”

Dan was getting a little tired of people asking him that question, but he said, “Just looking for some cows that might have strayed down from the higher pastures.”

“I told Dan to do that, Mr. Dempsey,” the older of the two cowhands said. “Figured I could spare him from any other chores this mornin’.”

Dempsey nodded and said, “All right, then, that’s fine. You know I trust your judgment, Lew. That’s why you’re my foreman.” The rancher looked at Dan and made a brusque motion with his head. “Get on with your work, Hartford.”

“Sure, boss,” Dan said, even though the words tasted a little bitter in his mouth. He lifted his reins and nudged his horse into motion toward the head of the trail that led down into the basin.

He heard Dempsey say behind him, “Come along, Laura, and don’t run off like that again. I know you’re young and impulsive, but you’re too reckless. You’re going to ride right into trouble one of these days.”

“I’m sure I won’t as long as I have you around to look after me, Abel,” Laura said.

Dan looked back to see her turning her horse and falling in alongside her husband as Dempsey rode away. Lew Martin, who ramrodded the Box D for Dempsey, and the stocky cowboy, Jube Connolly, followed them back into the trees.

They had been quick to ask him what he was doing, thought Dan, but none of them had offered any explanations for their presence here. Of course, that wasn’t surprising. This was Dempsey’s range, and he had a right to go wherever he wanted. And as a rich man, he wasn’t in the habit of explaining himself to any of the hombres who worked for him.

As a rich man’s wife, Laura was the same way, Dan supposed. Martin and Connolly were employees, and it wasn’t their place to speak up.

Dan told himself to concentrate on the chore that had brought him to this part of the ranch and not waste time brooding over situations he couldn’t do anything about.

He had been riding through the basin for another fifteen minutes or so, still without spotting any strays, when he heard hoofbeats drumming rapidly behind him. He reined in and turned his horse, moving his hand to the well-worn butt of the gun on his hip as he did so.

Even though this was a basin, the elevation was still high enough that the air didn’t get as hot as it did farther south, closer to the border, but the day was still warm enough that no Westerner worth his salt would run a horse that hard unless there was a good reason.

Dan spotted the rider and recognized him, but that didn’t make him relax. If anything, the tension inside him increased. He didn’t particularly like Jube Connolly, and since Jube had been with Dempsey, Laura, and Lew Martin just a short time earlier, his presence here made Dan think something might have happened to one of those three.

“Something wrong, Jube?” Dan called to the florid-faced puncher as Connolly reined in.

“The boss sent me to talk to you,” Connolly replied. He swung down from the saddle and added, “Light down from that horse.”

A puzzled frown creased Dan’s face, but he did as Connolly said. As he stood there holding his mount’s reins, he asked, “When you say the boss, do you mean Lew or Mr. Dempsey?”

“Mr. Dempsey,” Connolly replied. He moved closer. “He’s got a message he wants me to give you.”

Dan was more confused than ever. He said, “What sort of message?”

“This,” Connolly said.

He uncorked a sudden punch that took Dan by surprise. Connolly’s blocky fist crashed into Dan’s jaw and sent him reeling back as his hat flew off his head. He lost his balance and sat down hard, thankfully not landing on any of the cactus plants that were scattered around here.

He was stunned, and pain from the blow filled his head, but he was able to exclaim, “What the hell!”

Instinctively, his hand went to his gun again. Connolly rushed him, and just as Dan cleared leather, the toe of Connolly’s boot smacked into the wrist of his gun hand. The revolver went flying from Dan’s fingers and landed in the dirt several yards away.

“Damn it! Jube, what—”

Connolly reached down, grabbed hold of Dan’s shirt, and hauled him to his feet. Connolly’s fist sunk into his gut. Dan doubled over as sickness filled his belly.

“Mr. Dempsey don’t like you hangin’ around his wife,” Connolly said. “It ain’t fittin’ for the two of you to be out here alone together, talkin’.”

Dan was able to straighten up some as he pressed his hands to his aching belly. He said angrily, “It wasn’t my idea! I was just doing my job when she rode up. And talking is all we were doing. Not much of that, either. She’d been there less than a minute when the rest of you rode up.”

That much talking exhausted him, as bad as he felt at the moment. He stood there gasping for breath while Connolly leered at him.

“Mr. Dempsey saw the way you was lookin’ at her. You can’t blame him for gettin’ a mite hot under the collar. Fella his age, married to a gal as young and easy on the eyes as Mrs. Dempsey, he’s gotta be worried all the time about no-account saddle tramps sniffin’ around her, makin’ eyes at her—”

“I wasn’t doing any of that!” Dan protested. “And I’m not a damned saddle tramp, either.”

“No? You was ridin’ the grub line, that’s for sure, when you drifted in and talked Lew into hirin’ you. I thought it was a bad idea then, and I still do. I don’t trust you, Hartford. Might be a good idea for you to just draw your time and ride on. Then you wouldn’t be tempted to bother Mrs. Dempsey again.”

“I wasn’t—” Dan stopped short and glared at Connolly. He said through clenched teeth, “You can go back to Mr. Dempsey and tell him I’m not going anywhere, Jube. Or you can just go to hell. I don’t care.”

That leering grin spread even wider across Connolly’s beefy face. He balled his hands into fists and stepped closer as he said, “I was hopin’ you’d take more convincin’—”

Dan didn’t let him get any farther than that. The young cowboy lowered his head and launched himself into a diving tackle.

The counterattack seemed to surprise Connolly as much as Dan had been surprised by that sucker punch. Dan rammed a shoulder into the bigger man’s solar plexus and pushed hard with his legs, forcing Connolly backward. Even though Connolly outweighed him, Dan was muscular and possessed plenty of wiry strength. He drove Connolly off his feet.

Dan landed on top of him and hooked a right and a left into Connolly’s midsection. Connolly might look a little soft, but he wasn’t. Hitting him in the belly was like punching a side of beef. He didn’t even grunt in pain.

Instead he grabbed Dan’s bib-front shirt and slung him off. Dan rolled over a couple of times before he came to a stop on his stomach. He looked up to see Connolly scrambling to his feet.

“This ain’t just a chore for the boss anymore,” Connolly said. “I’m gonna stomp the guts outta you and enjoy it!”

He charged like a maddened bull. Desperately, Dan flung himself out of the way as Connolly’s boots pounded the ground where he had been a heartbeat earlier. Dan rolled again, came up and wrapped both arms around one of Connolly’s legs, and heaved. Once again the big man came crashing to earth.

This time when Dan went after him, he swung his fists at Connolly’s face. He connected with the cowboy’s squarish jaw and rocked Connolly’s head to the side. That seemed to have a little more effect than punching him in the belly, but not much. Connolly roared and lashed out with an arm. It slammed into Dan’s chest and knocked him away.

Both men made it to their feet at the same time. Connolly fumbled at the holster on his hip, but it was empty, the gun he normally carried there having fallen out during the fracas. Dan thought about making a diving leap for his gun, but Connolly didn’t give him time. The big man charged again, windmilling punches.

Dan was quick enough to block most of the blows, but a few of them got through and jolted him to his core. At the same time, Connolly was attacking, not trying to defend himself, so Dan was able to land some punches of his own, mostly jabs that landed cleanly on his opponent’s face. Connolly’s head rocked back with each punch. Blood began trailing from his nostrils as his nose swelled.

More blood spurted when Dan smashed a hard left to Connolly’s mouth. Connolly bellowed in pain and rage and renewed his attack, flailing even more wildly than before. He was big and strong and could take a lot of punishment, but he was stupid, thought Dan. Connolly was out of control now, and he proved it with another ill-advised charge.

Dan ducked out of the way, thrust out his leg, and swept Connolly’s legs from under him. Connolly pitched forward and yelled as he realized he was about to land face-first in a clump of cactus. He got his hands down enough to partially catch himself, but dozens of the wicked spines lanced into his palms and some stuck in his face despite his best efforts.

Connolly bucked and twisted away from the cactus. His bellows turned into screams as he writhed on the ground. Dan almost felt sorry for the brute—almost.

“Stop squirming around, Jube,” he said. “I’ll help you. Lord knows, you don’t deserve it after the way you sucker-punched me like that, but—”

Connolly interrupted by spewing curses at him. As the profanity became even more vile, Dan turned away and scooped up his fallen gun. A quick glance down the barrel told him it wasn’t fouled. He swung back toward Connolly, raised the gun, and eared back the hammer.

The metallic ratcheting of a gun being cocked was enough to shut up most men, no matter how they were carrying on. It worked on Connolly, who fell silent and lay there glaring up at Dan. His face and hands were already swelling from the cactus needles embedded in them.

“Just settle down,” Dan told him. “I’ll get those needles out of you, but you’ve got to give me your word this fight is over.”

“I’ll kill you,” Connolly grated. “You don’t know how bad an enemy you made today, Hartford.”

“This is ridiculous,” Dan snapped. “You attacked me for no reason. I didn’t do a damned thing to act improperly toward Mrs. Dempsey. She’s the boss’s wife, for God’s sake! You think I’d risk my job that way?”

Connolly didn’t answer. Instead he started cursing again. Dan blew out his breath in an exasperated sigh and shook his head.

“All right, I’ll just ride away and leave you like this,” he said. “How about that?”

“No! . . . Damn it, all right. I won’t try anything else.”

“Do I need to bend a gun barrel over your head to make sure of that?”

Connolly shook his head, grimacing because evidently that made his face hurt even more.

“No. Just get the blasted things outta me.”

Dan holstered his gun and said, “Sit up where I can reach you.”

He hunkered on his heels in front of Connolly, off to the side a little so it would be more difficult for the man to attack him if Connolly changed his mind. Dan was alert for trouble, but Connolly didn’t do anything except cuss a blue streak as Dan plucked the cactus needles from his cheeks, chin, and forehead. Connolly couldn’t very well throw any punches when his hands looked like pincushions.

“You look a little like a porcupine,” Dan said with a wry smile.

“Shut up and get on with it,” Connolly growled.

When Dan had all the spines out of the burly puncher’s face, he straightened to his feet and backed off.

“You can pull the ones out of your hands yourself,” he said. “Use your teeth if you have to. Just be careful you don’t get any stuck in your tongue.”

“That’ll take a long time,” Connolly protested.

“Yeah, I know, and I plan to be a long way from here by the time you finish. Don’t try and jump me when we’re both back in the bunkhouse tonight, either.”

“You’re gonna be sorry you ever met me, mister.”

“I already am,” Dan said.

He picked up his hat, slapped it against his thigh to knock some of the dust off it, and swung up into the saddle. He turned his horse and rode off, leaving Jube Connolly sitting there carefully picking cactus needles out of his palms.

Anger and disgust filled Dan, and a good chunk of those emotions was directed at himself. He was mad at Abel Dempsey for sending Connolly to give him a thrashing, and he was mad at Connolly for following that order so eagerly. But a lot of the trouble was his own fault because he should have known better than to come here to the Tonto Basin, to the Box D, where Abel Dempsey lived with his beautiful young wife.

Dan shoved those thoughts out of his head. Despite everything that had happened, he still had work to do, so he set about scouring the rangeland for those strays.

He found the wandering cattle, but working alone, it took him most of the day to do it. It was late afternoon before he was satisfied he had located all the missing stock and started driving the jag back toward the higher pastures.

His muscles were stiff and sore from the fight with Connolly, and his belly growled. He’d had a couple of biscuits left over from breakfast wrapped up in a cloth in one of his saddlebags, along with some jerky, so he’d made a midday meal out of that and washed it down with water from his canteen. He was looking forward to getting back to the bunkhouse and putting himself on the outside of some real grub as well as a few cups of coffee.

When Dan reached the higher pastures, he turned the cattle over to Hamp Jones and Charley Bartlett, the cowboys who were staying in the line shack up here.

“Don’t lose ’em this time,” Dan told them with a smile that took any sting out of the words.

“We’ll try not to, but you know how damn muleheaded these critters can be,” Hamp said.

“They’re cows,” Charley pointed out. “I don’t see how they can be muleheaded.”

“Yeah, well, cowheaded ain’t a word, as far as I know,” Hamp responded.

Dan left them to their good-hearted wrangling and headed for the ranch headquarters.

Night had fallen by the time he got there. By now supper was over, but he knew the stove-up old cowboy turned cook Willie Hill would have saved him some. He rode into the barn and started to unsaddle his horse in the dark, not needing a light to carry out a task he had performed thousands of times.

He wondered as he did so how Jube Connolly had explained the scores of little puncture wounds on his hands and face. Any seasoned range rider could guess that Connolly had landed in some cactus, but he wouldn’t know the reason why.

Dan had just slung his saddle on one of the stands when he heard a soft step behind him. He turned quickly, his hand going to his gun, in case Connolly was about to try settling that score.

Instead he heard a gasp in the darkness of the barn and knew it wasn’t Connolly sneaking up on him.

“Dan, don’t . . . It’s me . . .”

A lantern was burning on the front porch of the main house. Dan saw her silhouetted against the glow from it as she moved deeper into the barn.

“Hello, Mrs. Dempsey,” he said stiffly.

“You don’t have to be like that,” Laura said. “Not now.”

As if he hadn’t heard her, he said, “You probably shouldn’t be wandering around out here in the dark. There might be a rattler—”

“You’re not worried about snakes. You’re worried that somebody might see us.” She was close enough now that he could smell the faint scent of lilac water that clung to her. “But it’s all right. No one’s around. I made sure of that. Abel is in his office, going over the books. He won’t come out for hours. Lew has gone to his cabin, Willie is in the cook shack, and all the other hands are in the bunkhouse. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Damn it, Laura . . .” The name came out of his mouth before he could stop it. “It was a mistake me ever coming here. We both know that. If I had a lick of sense, I’d put that saddle back on my horse, ride out, and never look back.”

She reached out with her right hand, rested the fingertips on his chest, and whispered, “Is that what you’re going to do, Dan?”

“You know good and well it’s not,” he rasped, then he closed his hands around her upper arms, pulled her tight against him, and brought his mouth down on hers in a kiss with enough hunger in it to jolt him more than Jube Connolly’s fists ever could.

A week later, buggies, buckboards, and wagons began converging on the Box D from the other ranches in the Tonto Basin as well as from the town of Hat Creek, the only major settlement in the area. It was Laura Dempsey’s birthday, and her husband was throwing her a party.

Dan would have just as soon avoided the celebration. In fact, he had approached Lew Martin the day before and asked the foreman if he could ride up to the line shack and let either Hamp or Charley come back in for a few days.

“No, those two old pelicans are fine right where they are,” Lew had said. “They got no use for fancy parties.”

“Well, neither do I,” Dan had insisted.

Lew had been adamant, though. Abel Dempsey had declared the occasion a holiday, and everybody would participate, no exceptions.

“So I reckon you’re just gonna have to drink punch, eat barbecue, and dance to the fiddle-playin’ like the rest of us,” Lew had decreed. “Just don’t go startin’ any more trouble with Jube Connolly.”

This was the first time Dan had had a chance to talk to the foreman alone since the fracas with Connolly. He said sharply, “I didn’t start the trouble last time. Jube jumped me without any warning. Did you know the boss set him on me like that?”

Lew looked like the question made him uncomfortable. He scratched at his grizzled jaw, then said, “Not exactly. Mr. Dempsey got Jube aside and said somethin’ to him that I couldn’t hear. Then Jube rode off. When I asked the boss about it, he just said he sent Jube on an errand. You know the boss. He ain’t one for explainin’ himself.” Lew shrugged. “But when Jube come back lookin’ like he’d run into a buzz saw and you showed up that night with some scrapes and bruises of your own, it was pretty obvious what’d happened. You want to tell me about it?”

“No,” Dan had replied, his voice flat and hard.

“I’ve noticed the way you and Jube been avoidin’ each other. My advice’d be to keep on doin’ it.”

“That’s my plan,” Dan had said.

He wasn’t sure that was going to be possible today, though, he thought as he stood in the open door of the bunkhouse with a shoulder propped against the jamb and watched the visitors arrive. All the cowboys would be on hand for the party. Liquor would flow, even though the punch wasn’t supposed to be spiked. Willie Hill had given strict orders about that, and no puncher with any sense crossed the cook. The men would leave the punch alone and instead sneak drinks from the flasks they carried.

Dan wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Connolly came looking for him before the day was over, eager to resume their battle.

Abel and Laura Dempsey were on the covered porch of the big house, greeting their guests. A buggy with silver trim, being pulled by a pair of magnificent black horses, stopped in front of the house, and a craggy-faced man with a thick mane of white hair under his black hat climbed down from the seat.

He turned back to the vehicle to help the woman who had been beside him climb down. She was considerably younger than he was, probably around thirty, with honey blond hair artfully arranged under a blue hat. The hat matched the dress that managed to reveal the fine lines of her body without being too blatant about it.

The gap between the ages of this couple was similar to that of the Dempseys’, although Dan figured the difference wasn’t as great since this woman was obviously older than Laura. The white-haired man took the blonde’s arm and they went up onto the porch, where the man shook hands with Dempsey, and the blonde and Laura embraced like old friends.

It wasn’t surprising that Laura had formed a friendship with the woman. They had something in common, after all.

The two couples were still talking in an animated fashion on the porch when Lew Martin walked up to where Dan was standing. Dan nodded toward the house and asked, “Who’s that?”

Lew looked at the visitors and then said, “Yeah, I reckon they haven’t been around since you rode in and signed on with us. That’s Henry Stafford and his wife. Stafford owns the HS Bar spread, up at the north end of the basin.”

“They look mighty friendly,” Dan commented.

“Well, sure,” the foreman said. “The boss and Mr. Stafford were some of the first cattlemen here in the basin. They fought the Utes and the Apaches together, as well as rustlers and the weather.”

“That was before either of them was married, I guess.”

“Well, not exactly. Stafford had a wife then, just not this one. She died of a fever about fifteen years back. The boss, now, he was an old bachelor until Miss Laura come along. To be honest, I figured he’d stay that way, but shoot, you can’t blame a fella for fallin’ for a gal like her.”

“No,” Dan said quietly, “you can’t.” He paused. “How did they meet. Do you know?”

“Mr. Dempsey and Miss Laura, you mean? I ain’t exactly sure. The boss had gone to Saint Louis on business. Reckon that’s where he met her, because she came back to the ranch with him to visit. They wasn’t married y. . .