Ride the Man Down

Ride the Man Down by Luke; Short

Book: Ride the Man Down by Luke; Short Read Free Book Online
Authors: Luke; Short
Ads: Link
“He was pullin’ his gun on me! I had to do it!”
    Kennedy looked at him and said without spirit, “He wasn’t goin’ for his gun.”
    â€œListen,” Cavanaugh pled hoarsely. “He was goin’ for his gun. I saw him!”
    Kennedy just looked at him, the honor still in his eyes.
    Cavanaugh fought for a grip on himself. Like a small snake creeping experimentally, from under a stone, an idea, furtive and guileful, was coming to life in his sick brain. The rain beat down through his sandy hair, cooling the fever in him.
    â€œListen, Wes,” he said. His voice had lost its panic and now had an ugliness to it. “You’re in this too.”
    Kennedy raised both hands and took a step backward. “Oh no,” he said quickly. “Not me. I never shot him. I never had a gun. I never even saw it.”
    â€œI’ll tell Ballard you did.”
    Kennedy just stared at him. Then he turned and raced for the porch. Scooping up the rifle, he trained it on Cavanaugh and came slowly and uncertainly toward him in the steady rain. “You ain’t dragging me into this, Ray. No sir.”
    Cavanaugh said tauntingly, “Go ahead and shoot.”
    Kennedy licked his lips and regarded Cavanaugh with helpless horror in which there was no anger even.
    â€œLever a shell in. You forgot that,” Cavanaugh taunted.
    Kennedy’s gun slacked off then, and he almost wailed. “What’ll we do, Ray? What’ll we do?”
    Cavanaugh knew he had his man now. Wes Kennedy was a trifling man without the courage to protect himself. “Get out of the rain first,” Cavanaugh said.
    â€œBut—”
    â€œHe’s dead, ain’t he?” Cavanaugh snarled.
    He shouldered past Kennedy and went up to the porch and into the shack. He wrenched a dirty blanket from the bunk and threw it around him and came out onto the porch. Kennedy was standing there, his gaze intent and afraid and somehow begging.
    Cavanaugh smothered his shivering and said, “How they goin’ to know he’s dead if they can’t find him?”
    Kennedy shook his head, didn’t answer.
    â€œWe got to bury him up in the timber,” Cavanaugh said. “This rain’ll hide the hole. It’ll hide his tracks comin’ up here.”
    Kennedy licked his lips and said, “No, Ray. No. Not on my place. Ballard’ll kill me if he finds out.”
    â€œHow’s he goin’ to find out?” Cavanaugh snarled. He coughed then, gagging on the violence of it. Afterward, he steadied himself against the wall and said to Kennedy, with a confidence he did not feel himself, “Get a shovel.”
    Kennedy didn’t move. Cavanaugh, afraid and desperate now, walked up to him and cuffed him across the face with the flat of his palm.
    Then he reached out and grasped the lapels of Kennedy’s vest and shook him violently. The blanket fell off Cavanaugh’s shoulders.
    â€œYou damn jughead, we’re in this together, don’t you see that! You’re goin’ to bury him up there and I’m goin’ to watch you. Then I’m goin’ home. And you ain’t goin’ to light out from here; you can’t! Will Ballard will hunt you to China!”
    He paused and let go Kennedy’s lapels, and Kennedy just looked at him with naked fear.
    â€œBluff it out!” Cavanaugh snarled. “Nobody can prove anythin’. Now get a shovel!”

Chapter 5
    Sam left D cross early and dropped down through the timbered foothills toward Alkali Flats. The ground mist was so thick on the flats after the rain that it seemed a pearl-gray sea. Sam rode briskly, for he had ground to cover this morning.
    Around nine o’clock Sam crossed Bandoleer Creek and was presently off his own grass and onto Hatchet range, which adjoined it to the west. This was a waterless stretch, dry in the summer months, and it marked the boundary beyond which his cattle could not

Similar Books

The Shadow Maker

Robert Sims

What Price Paradise

Katherine Allred

If You Follow Me

Malena Watrous

The Lady's Tutor

Robin Schone

Extraordinary

Amanda McGee

Fresh Blood

Jennifer Colgan

Brandy and Bullets

Jessica Fletcher

Capri Nights

Cara Marsi

Spells

Aprilynne Pike