PINNACLE BOOKS

       Kensington Publishing Corp.

       www.kensingtonbooks.com

      He who would avoid trouble

      should learn to recognize it

      when it walks up and introduces itself.

      —Ling Yuan, ancient Chinese warrior-philosopher

      Howdy. I’m Scratch, he’s Bo.

      —Scratch Morton

      Contents

      CHAPTER 1

      CHAPTER 2

      CHAPTER 3

      CHAPTER 4

      CHAPTER 5

      CHAPTER 6

      CHAPTER 7

      CHAPTER 8

      CHAPTER 9

      CHAPTER 10

      CHAPTER 11

      CHAPTER 12

      CHAPTER 13

      CHAPTER 14

      CHAPTER 15

      CHAPTER 16

      CHAPTER 17

      CHAPTER 18

      CHAPTER 19

      CHAPTER 20

      CHAPTER 21

      CHAPTER 22

      CHAPTER 23

      CHAPTER 24

      CHAPTER 25

      CHAPTER 26

      CHAPTER 27

      CHAPTER 28

      CHAPTER 29

      CHAPTER 1

      “Sounds like a ruckus brewin’ out there.”

      Bo Creel tried to ignore his trail partner’s comment, as well as the elbow that Scratch Morton prodded insistently into his side. The two Texans had spent a long, hot, dusty day in the saddle, and all Bo wanted to concentrate on at the moment was the cold beer in front of him on the bar. Condensation ran down the sides of the mug to form a puddle on the hardwood. It was a moment of delicious anticipation.

      But then someone in the street outside, where a commotion had erupted in the past few minutes, shouted, “Somebody find a bucket of tar and some feathers!”

      Bo sighed. He was an easygoing hombre, but some things stuck in his craw.

      Tarring and feathering some luckless bastard was one of them.

      “Think we ought to go see what’s goin’ on?” Scratch prodded.

      “Might as well,” Bo said. “You won’t be satisfied until we do.”

      He turned toward the batwinged entrance of the Buffalo Bar, casting a look of regret over his shoulder at that mug of cold beer as he did.

      The Texans walked side by side, a pair of tough frontiersmen who had wandered the West from the Rio Grande to the Milk River, from the Mississippi to the Pacific Coast, for nigh on to forty years now. They had first met as youngsters, back when their homeland was still part of Mexico and General Santa Anna’s army had sent the Texican settlers fleeing in the great exodus known as the Runaway Scrape, in those dark days after the fall of the Alamo.

      Bo’s father and Scratch’s pa had both been members of Sam Houston’s ragtag army, and the newfound friends had run away to join up, too, arriving just in time to swap lead with the Mexicans during the Battle of San Jacinto, the clash that had won freedom for Texas and Texans. Scratch had saved Bo’s life that day, the first time among many that each of them had risked his hide for the other, and they had been best friends ever since. Through tragedy and triumph, they had ridden together, and even though they never went looking for trouble, the acrid scent of powder smoke always seemed to follow them.

      They were both tall, muscular men, but that was where the resemblance ended. Scratch’s hair had turned silver at an early age, but he was still handsome, with a ready grin that the ladies found quite appealing. He was something of a dandy, too, sporting a cream-colored Stetson and a fringed buckskin jacket over whipcord trousers tucked into high-topped boots. An elaborately tooled leather gunbelt was strapped around his waist, and in its holsters rode twin, long-barreled Remington revolvers with ivory grips on their handles.

      Where Scratch had a touch of flamboyance about him, Bo was more restrained and sober, in a dusty black suit with a long coat that made him look a little like a reverend. He wore a white shirt and a string tie, and his flat-crowned black hat rested on thick brown hair with gray threaded through it. Bo carried only one gun, a Colt .45 with well-worn walnut grips.

      The faces of both men had been weathered by the long years of wandering…tanned by countless desert suns and seamed by the frigid winds of the high country, living maps of the frontier and all its harsh beauty. Their deep-set eyes, framed by perpetual squints, had witnessed just about everything there was to witness.

      In other words, they had been to see the elephant, and more than once at that.

      So as they pushed past the curious customers in the Buffalo Bar who had congregated at the entrance and front windows of the saloon, slapped aside the batwings, and stepped out onto the boardwalk, Bo and Scratch didn’t see anything they hadn’t seen before. An angry mob of more than a dozen men clustered in the street, shoving their hapless victim back and forth as they jeered and taunted him about what they were fixing to do to him.

      In the fading light of day, Bo and Scratch saw that the man was young, no more than twenty-five or so. He wore a dark suit and a black hat. His duds were fancier and more expensive than Bo’s similar outfit. As one of the members of the mob gave him a hard shove, his hat fell off, revealing a shock of blond hair. He looked scared, Bo thought…as well he might be.

      “Here comes Ralston,” one of the men bellowed. He was the biggest man in the crowd, with powerful, slab-muscled shoulders and a prominent gut. “Did you get it?” he called to the four or five men who approached the scene in the middle of the street.

      One of them waved something in the air and replied, “Here’s a couple o’ my wife’s feather pillows, and Duncan’s got a bucket o’tar! That’ll fix that four-flusher up mighty fine!”

      “What’d your wife say about you takin’ them pillows, Ralston,” a man called with a jeering tone in his voice, “or did you sneak ’em out without her knowin’?”

      “Damn it,” Ralston said. “I’ll have you know I wear the pants in my family!”

      “Leave it alone,” snapped the big-gutted man. “We got more important things to deal with, like teaching this no-good swindler a lesson he’ll never forget!”

      The mob’s victim spoke up, trying to sound reasonable. But the quaver in his voice betrayed his fear as he said, “Now, Mr. Harding, there’s no need for this to get out of hand. I’m sure if you’ll just let me explain, you’ll see that this is all just a big misunderstanding—”

      “Misunderstanding, hell!” the man called Harding bellowed. “You tried to gyp everybody around here out of what they got comin’ to them! You’ll be sorry you ever set foot in these parts, mister!”

      It looked to Bo like the gent was already