Kill or Hang!

By Des Dunn

Des Dunn authored over 500 short Western novels over four decades of creative work.

Each story captures the essence of the Wild West - a tumultuous and romanticised era in Am

• Language: English
• Publisher: Echo Books
• Release date: Jun 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9781922603418

Book preview

Kill or Hang!

by

Sheldon B. Cole

A black and red logo Description automatically generated

Originally Published by Cleveland Publishing.

Republished in 2024 by Echo Books.

Echo Books is an imprint of Superscript Publishing Pty Ltd.

ABN 76 644 812 395.

Registered Office: PO Box 669, Woodend, Victoria, 3442.

www.echobooks.com.au

Copyright © The Estate of Desmond Robert Dunn.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry.

Creator: Desmond Robert Dunn, author.

Title: Kill or Hang!

ISBN: 978-1-922603-41-8 (ePub)

Book design by Jason McGregor.

Any resemblance between any character appearing in this novel and any person living or dead is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

CHAPTER ONE

Gentle Creek

Blake Durant came across the trampled grass of the trail herds in the heat of the late afternoon. Beneath him, Sundown, his blue-black stallion, walked wearily, head bowed against the incessant drive of the wind. Apart from the wind there was no sound in the wide expanse of country but the occasional grunting call of a prairie dog. Earlier a buzzard had circled overhead, but it had gone, leaving nothing in the emptiness but the man and the horse.

Durant’s face showed no expression. He was a tall man, wide in the shoulders. His rough-hewn face had high-boned cheeks, sharp features. His hide range coat hung loose on his trail-trim frame, and the yellow bandanna about his neck gleamed in the late sunlight. He sat his horse easily, despite the long miles behind him, and this in a way was a reflection of his character. He was a man on the move, always riding away from the past.

He removed his bandanna and wiped his neck, then went on for several miles over rolling country, at the end of which he found the terrain flattening out again; then, in the distance appeared the heat-screened outline of a town. Gentle Creek. He had been told to expect a cattle town, bigger than Lusc, not as big as Cheyenne. There was work for a trail herder in Gentle Creek, and for months now Blake Durant had been a trail herder.

Sundown lifted his head and pricked his ears. New smells came across the country to him, smells which belonged to shaded yards, hay bins, street troughs, boardwalks and mud walls. For the horse town meant food and rest, for the man Gentle Creek was nothing more than another town, different faces, saloons in which to forget. The horse went on with new purpose and within half an hour the town was immediately before them.

Durant looked calmly about him, his eyes veiled with memories of other places, his mind haunted by the ghosts of a past which was his alone, a past he could share with no one alive.

Durant drew rein. Across the dust-covered head of the big black he studied the beginning of the town with a sort of curious indifference. He had never known any town so rundown, so foul-smelling, so beset with decay. The men sitting on the porches of the old cottages seemed to merge into the mean background, unmoving, disheveled, despairing. Sunlight was still filtering through the side lanes but it seemed reluctant to reach out to these men. Durant felt alien to them as he noted the misery in their faces, their old tattered clothes flapping in the drive of the hot wind, and the background of hopelessness which was their world.

He moved on. Not a man stirred. Nobody made a comment. But all eyes followed him, taking in his size, his lean body, the sheen of the black’s coat, the war bag on the back of the saddle, the rifle in the boot and the gun in the holster.

Blake looked ahead. In the distance the early lights of a saloon shafted their glow invitingly onto the main street’s dust. A line of six houses, bright in the dying light, stood west of the saloon; east of it, closest to Blake Durant, was another building, bigger than the rest, with a smaller structure at its side showing barred windows and a narrow porch. In front of the saloon the street was chopped and wheel-rutted; only there and past the saloon were there signs of heavy travel. It was, he thought, as if somebody had drawn a line through the middle of the town to keep the lower portion’s misery from encroaching on the higher section’s affluence.

Blake had another long look at the weary faces peering at him from the gloom. Then Durant gave Sundown his head and ran the gauntlet of stares. He reined in at the hitch rack outside the saloon and immediately became aware of the cleaner smelling air at this end of town. The wind seemed less hot, too. The neat gardens, newly painted fences and general air of opulence here made him wonder. He had known a lot of Mexican settlements where the citizens had suffered from the oppression of overlords or from droughts, bringing a general decline in living standards until the people there had given up hope. He had known mountain families who for reasons of their own shunned outside contact and struggled to grow crops in poor, rocky soil, looking for neither assistance nor pity from anyone. In every town he had passed through in the last year he had come into contact with poverty-stricken people who fought to better themselves but had neither the talents nor the backing needed to climb above their stations.

But here there didn’t seem to be any reason for the division of the town. He patted dust from Sundown’s shoulders and let him drink from the trough near the saloon’s porch. Then, walking up the steps, he crossed new boards and pushed open the swing doors. The first person he saw was a fat man in an apron, a cigar between his thick lips, his face agleam with sweat. Piggish eyes took Blake in shrewdly as the man swabbed at the counter.

Blake went across to him, his casual-appearing gaze moving over the saloon customers. In a quick series of glances he noted that all were well clothed and seemingly in high spirits. They studied him blandly and offered no greeting. Taking a shot of whisky from the obese barkeep, Blake lodged an elbow on the counter and continued his study of the big room. The card tables lining the wall were well polished, the chairs newly varnished. The floor was clean.

Name’s Colly Merriwether, the fat barkeep said. By the look of you, stranger, you’ve come a long way. Is there a special reason maybe for you visiting us?

Blake shook his head. Nothing special.

The dark little eyes went over Blake again. Well, you didn’t need no directin’ to where to stable down, eh? Any man with pride would just naturally come up here and get himself some comfort. Did you see the other section?

I saw it.

Damn disgrace. I been at Mr. Lucien—he’s the top man in these parts—to do somethin’ about them hovels and them who live in ’em. But he don’t seem to give a damn. Hell, maybe it’s all right for him, comin’ and goin’ and mostly out of town. But he don’t have to smell that stink or look at them scabbed, fly-brown jaspers who don’t hardly come up for air.

Blake Durant held the fat man’s look, making no comment. The rest of the customers seemed content, laughing, talking and drinking. Durant straightened at the counter and refilled his glass from the bottle Merriwether had left at his elbow. He pushed forward some money and then, as he turned his back on Merriwether, the fat barkeep shifted his position along the bar so he could get a profile view of his customer.

By the cut of you, stranger, you’ve seen some hard work lately. You’re as fit as can be and as brown as a berry. Lookin’ for a job?

Blake sipped his drink slowly. He had already formed the opinion that Merriwether would be a good source of information, if he decided he wanted to know more about Gentle Creek. But he hadn’t made up his mind to stay here. There were other towns, other trails, and so far what he had seen of this place didn’t impress him much.

If I was looking for work, would I have to go through this Mr. Lucien? Durant asked.

Damn right. Mr. Lucien owns just about every blade of grass in this territory. He’s got the best grazin’ ground, the fattest beeves, the deepest waterholes, you name it. Hell, take my word for it, you couldn’t link up with a finer man, or get work on a better place. Mr. Lucien, he’s a real nice gent, you ask anybody about that.

What if I asked those at the bottom end of town? Blake said.

Merriwether’s eyebrows arched and his smile waned, then he shook his head and a chuckle worked at his big belly.

"Ask them, stranger? You joshin’? Hell, nobody asks them nothin’. Wouldn’t do any damn good anyhow. Them jaspers are just plain lazy sour-bellies, who spend their days feelin’ sorry for themselves. Them that gets work don’t sweat much at it