Ralph Compton Double-Cross Ranch Read online

  DOUBLE CROSS RANCH

  Ty narrowed his eyes. “You’re a liar, Duggins.”

  The man smiled, and with a black cheroot smoldering between two yellow-stained fingers, he patted the air, as if feeling the back of a beef. “Easy, boys, easy. I’m sure what Mr. Farraday meant was that I am mistaken. Perhaps I heard Mr. Winstead incorrectly.”

  “Nope,” said Ty. “I called you a liar.” It was a calculated choice of words—and the truth.

  “What makes you say such a thing, Mr. Farraday?” said the man.

  “Because it’s the truth. Me and Winstead, we got along about as well as two rabid marmots in a sack. If you knew Winstead, he’d surely have mentioned that. Maybe even warned you about me.”

  “Warned? Hmm, that sounds as though you have the potential to be . . . dangerous, Mr. Farraday. Could that be a thinly veiled threat you are offering me?”

  “Nothing could be further from the truth,” said Ty. Then he leaned forward, the saddle leather creaking. “Unless there’s some reason I should be threatening you. Is there, Mr. Duggins?”

  Ralph Compton

  DOUBLE CROSS RANCH

  A Ralph Compton Novel by Matthew P. Mayo

  SIGNET

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014

  USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  Copyright © The Estate of Ralph Compton, 2014

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  ISBN 978-0-698-14497-2

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Title page

  Copyright page

  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 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Excerpt from DEMON’S PASS

  THE IMMORTAL COWBOY

  This is respectfully dedicated to the “American Cowboy.” His was the saga sparked by the turmoil that followed the Civil War, and the passing of more than a century has by no means diminished the flame.

  True, the old days and the old ways are but treasured memories, and the old trails have grown dim with the ravages of time, but the spirit of the cowboy lives on.

  In my travels—to Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Arizona—I always find something that reminds me of the Old West. While I am walking these plains and mountains for the first time, there is this feeling that a part of me is eternal, that I have known these old trails before. I believe it is the undying spirit of the frontier calling me, through the mind’s eye, to step back into time. What is the appeal of the Old West of the American frontier?

  It has been epitomized by some as the dark and bloody period in American history. Its heroes—Crockett, Bowie, Hickok, Earp—have been reviled and criticized. Yet the Old West lives on, larger than life.

  It has become a symbol of freedom, when there was always another mountain to climb and another river to cross; when a dispute between two men was settled not with expensive lawyers, but with fists, knives, or guns. Barbaric? Maybe. But some things never change. When the cowboy rode into the pages of American history, he left behind a legacy that lives within the hearts of us all.

  —Ralph Compton

  Chapter 1

  It was the yips, snarls, and growls of the coyotes that first drew Ty’s attention to the little draw. Otherwise he’d have ridden right by, never having seen the bloating corpse of Alton Winstead, his closest neighbor and a man he held in no great regard.

  Such was the deceiving terrain of the foothill country of the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, laid out like a rumpled blanket. Ty Farraday, mounted atop Stub, his sure-footed Morgan gelding, rode close and caught sight of the three cur coyotes, which looked up from their recent discovery. The three yippers sported thickening fur, though in mange-riddled clumps, the clinging sign of a hard summer and sure sign of a harder winter to come.

  It appeared to Ty they weren’t quite sure what to make of what they’d found, circling and snapping at one another as they were. No doubt they were lured by the stink of decomposition, something about the stench of death triggering the ever-present impulse to feed that he’d never seen a wild creature without. Only man and anything man had domesticated could afford to pass up the opportunity of a meal.

  Breath left Ty’s solid frame in a quick sigh of shock once he recognized the green worsted-wool waistcoat with its gold buttons, and the outer gray wool coat over it, the entire ensemble stretched tight and fixing to grow tighter with every hour the day’s heat increased; then he knew for certain who the dead man was. And despite how he felt, seeing the man, once so powerful, self-confident, and cocky, so full of swagger in his various local dealings, Ty felt a twinge of sadness.

  That the man was dead, and had been for at least a day, was apparent from the bloating and the drawn, pasty look of his face, despite the lateness of the season and thus the coolness of the air. And, reasoned Ty, anything bothered so by coyotes would surely flinch. Nonetheless as soon as he saw the ragged creatures slinking and darting in on the dead man, he slid his rifle from its boot beneath his right leg and levered a round. The smooth, clean “tang” sound of steel sliding over steel sliced the still air and the three curs, as one, jerked their narrow heads toward the sound. It proved all they needed to hear, and they kicked up trails of dust thinner than their own flicking feet.

  Maybe it was the effect of seeing the man astride a mount, perhaps the same man who had drawn down on them in the past for chasing his calves? Ty suspected it was the critters’ deep sense of mistrust and fear of man—in them since birth—that caused them to scamper away with
such vigor.

  He stepped down from Stub, keeping the rifle leveled toward the direction the coyotes had scampered. If they were as hungry as they appeared, they might dart back in and lunge at him. He’d seen it happen before.

  Only when he stepped cautiously around the body to the far side did he see the blackened, dried clot of bloodied hair on the back of Winstead’s head. Since he lay faceup, it almost didn’t catch Ty’s attention.

  “Did you tumble from your mount, Winstead?” said Ty in a low voice, squinting and hunkering down close to the man. He’d not yet begun to smell too bad, though Ty knew that if he could detect even a slight smell, the coyotes could surely detect the scent of the body from a long way off. And if coyotes could, other critters would soon be along as well.

  Ty sighed and eased the hammer back down, then laid the rifle at his side—still close at hand. “Let’s flip you over, see if I can hoist you up and take you back to . . . Mrs. Winstead.” The taste of that name on his tongue curdled and stung like flecks of salt. Through the fabric of the man’s clothes, Ty felt the stiffness of the body, the flesh flattened on the bottom. A day? More, he guessed.

  Ty Farraday was a tall, lean man who looked almost as if he were hewn from a block of rocky bone. He bore a perpetual haggard but determined look about him, common to hard-laboring men—as if no matter his pursuits, he would let nothing stop him from making it a success. Sandy hair, cut short and trimmed neatly about the edges, could barely be seen from under his low-crown, funnel-brim fawn rancher’s hat, slight sweat stains ringing the leather band.

  His clear green eyes had taken on a natural squint from years of range riding, and they scanned everything before him from under sun-bleached brows. His angled jawlines were clean-shaven, save for moderate sideburns that defined the sides of his lean face. His tall, lean frame had been bedecked in worn but well-tended rancher’s gear since after the war.

  He’d seen much death in the war, on the range, and on his own small spread, the Rocking T, which lay not far to the south. But there was no way a man could ever fully grow comfortable with the presence of that one sure thing in the world, the inevitable that everyone could expect, sooner or later. He skinned his clean-shaven lips tight to his teeth, gritting them against the grisly edge of the task. As he lifted the man, he caught movement in the husky gray scrub brush off to his left. A fawn gray face peered at him, a pink-and-black mottled tongue wagging with a panting effort.

  “Get outta here,” barked Ty. “Git!”

  The cur retreated without sound, though not far. Not far at all. Good thing it wasn’t a big cat. Might be one along soon, though. He had to get a move on.

  As he shifted his gaze back to the task at hand, he saw more of the clotted, bloodied mess the back of Winstead’s head had become. Ty glanced quickly once again at the earth around the body, saw as he had before he dismounted that there were the hoofprints of at least one horse. They were difficult to read in the graveled surface. Maybe Winstead had fallen? He’d never struck Ty as the sort of man to become unseated, but it could happen to the best of riders, especially if a horse got spooked by a rattler, or even its own shadow. Horses could be fickle creatures. Then again, Ty recalled that he’d rarely seen the man ride, remembering instead that Winstead often favored that fancy barouche.

  Ty cursed himself for stomping all over the place with his own boots. Might be he’d have discovered more footprints than just his own. As if to verify his budding suspicion that maybe Winstead met his end by means other than a horse-throwing, Ty felt with a fingertip beneath the man something crusty, close by a hole in the back of his dead neighbor’s coat. A bullet hole?

  “Well, hellfire, Alton Winstead. You and me, we never did get along in life, but I’ll be darned if I ever wanted anything such as this to befall you.”

  Ty grunted as he moved the body of the portly dead man higher onto its left side and nodded his head at what he saw—several close-bunched ragged holes punched in the gray wool fabric, an expensive coat doing its owner no good at all. And now he knew for sure this was no accidental fall from a spooked mount. This was a killing, a back-shooting, at that.

  Ty shifted his weight onto his right knee, looked over the man’s right side and glanced at the swelling belly, but there didn’t appear to be exit wounds. He didn’t think there would be. Those holes looked to be made close-in and from a small-caliber weapon, maybe a .22. But they had been close enough to have ignited the fabric, causing it to singe the puckered threads. What blood had leaked out had hardened and crusted on the surface, but Ty felt the softening wetness sticking beneath his fingertips. He lowered Winstead to his accustomed spot.

  Then a sudden thought jerked his head upright, eyes wide, scanning northeastward, as if he could see through the landscape, straight to the very image in his mind’s eye. “Sue Ellen!” he said, rising to his feet and snatching up the rifle at the same time. He mounted up on Stub, then glanced back once at the dead man.

  As he reined Stub northeastward he said, “Sorry, Winstead, but I’ve no time to keep those critters from gnawing your stubborn hide. I’ll do for you what I can, when I can. Right now I have to see to your widow.”

  Ty set Stub off at a lope in that direction, and for the somewhat hidden spot that he knew would put him within glassing distance of the ranch house of the Double Cross, Winstead’s spread. He let Stub have his head and they thundered down the steep embankment of an arroyo, then switchbacked up the other side, which was equally steep. The late-fall air marked their breaths, man’s and beast’s, as plumes of dissipating smoke as they rode.

  Clumps of dried grasses, like phantom heads poking from the knobby earth, rattled and scratched as they rode by, the brown stalks’ slender, harmless fingers caressing Stub’s legs as he ran through. Stub only ever balked when he saw a snake, and once on a bull thistle, just about this time of year, mused Ty, scanning the terrain ahead for the hard, brown tell-tale sign of the sticking culprits.

  One more slight valley, down then up, and there was the Winstead spread, the Double Cross, an impressive, if hollow, set of buildings that fit in out here no better than had their owner. What exactly had Alton Winstead had in mind when he came into the region ten years before? He’d promptly bought up the land that Ty had a handshake deal on with the previous owner, old Regis Horkins. Bad enough that Winstead had made Horkins an offer the scrimy old buzzard couldn’t refuse, but that land had been Ty’s ace in the hole.

  He’d been counting on buying it and expanding his own small spread. But just like that, one day he was headed in that very direction, lifewise, with thoughts of marriage on his mind and a vast spread on which he could ranch right, and the next thing he knew, Alton Winstead, in his slick black barouche, rolled in and bought all manner of local land, including the very acreage that Horkins had promised to Ty.

  But it had been the theft of his intended, his one and only girl, Sue Ellen, that had stung Ty the hardest. Even after all this time, the memory still set his teeth to grinding.

  Ty reined up and had to jerk the reins hard once to keep Stub from fidgeting while he scanned. There was always something moving on that horse, an ear flicking, a swish of the tail, hooves dancing, a shake of the head. Ty had never quite gotten used to it and mostly found it annoying, but he also knew it was as much a part of Stub’s nature as was Ty’s perpetual hard stare.

  He’d been told often enough that people found it off-putting, enough so that he’d been approached a time or two in the nearest town, Ripley Flats, by men who thought he’d been trying, as one scarred character had called it, to “put the fear” into them. He’d laughed then, walked away shaking his head, but he knew what they meant. And he didn’t much care what people thought.

  “Why don’t you smile?” Sue Ellen had said more than once.

  “Why would I?”

  “You seem so serious, maybe unhappy.”

  That had made him smile. “But
I’m not.”

  She sighed. “I know, but you . . . oh, Ty. You look as if you are always angry.”

  “Nope. Just thinking. I can’t imagine anyone would make a stink about that, now would they?”

  He’d winked at her and she’d finally smiled, her eyes crinkling like they did when she’d give in to his way of thinking, even if she didn’t buy what he was selling. That look on her face used to make it downright impossible to look away from her.

  Even after all these years, he could still recall that look, which made it more difficult than ever to put her out of his mind. He thought he’d succeeded. Heck, he’d have bet that he’d succeeded, but then he’d come across old Alton Winstead dead, already being savaged by critters who didn’t know any better. If they’d bothered to ask Ty his opinion, he’d have told those fool creatures that pecking and nipping flesh off that particular man would only lead to gut ache.

  As he crested a rise, the last before Winstead’s Double Cross Ranch, and the one that would give him a sightline on down to the buildings, Ty reined up and rummaged in a saddlebag for his telescoping spyglass. He worked the focusing rings on it, zeroing in left, then right, on the impressive main house, and there was Sue Ellen Winstead, lugging a galvanized pail from what must be the kitchen of the house over to the well. She looked a little tired, wisps of hair hung in her face, her cheeks were in high color and her dress, skirt, and work apron wrinkled and soiled. Beyond stood and sat several men in the yard and on the porch, looking to be doing little more than ogling Sue Ellen and loafing.

  As Ty spied on them, one man planted in a rocking chair on the porch swung his mustached face in Ty’s direction. Ty immediately lowered his spyglass, but knew the effort was too late—men had already begun bustling into action. He’d been seen, probably because of light glinting off the glass.

  “Curse the sun,” he muttered, sighing. He collapsed the brass spyglass and slipped it back into his saddlebag. Then he nudged Stub higher upslope so he’d be fully skylined. In for a penny, he thought as he pulled out his makings and built himself a smoke. He’d wait them out, not run like a child, since it was obvious that two riders had been dispatched to his direction.