by Ray Hogan
A tremor passed through Starbuck. It was not difficult to imagine the holocaust—the roaring flames leaping through the dry wood, the cries of the trapped women so deeply hated by Bessie because of their youth and beauty and the supplanting part they had played in her life with Amos McGraw.
“I see you got your man,” Pete said, “not that it matters much now ... Who’s them other two?”
Shawn brought himself back to the moment. “Hake Dallman and one of his bunch. They jumped us. We had to shoot it out with them.”
Pete nodded. “Then you didn’t—”
“No, it was one of them that killed him. He stood by me—again.” Starbuck motioned toward the clearing. “What about them? Can’t stay here.”
“Don’t aim to. Soon’s everybody’s able to travel—Doc’s having to fix some of them up—we’re headed for Dodge. We got plenty of horses, and we was able to save a couple of wagons and Amos’s buggy.”
“Did Jenny make it all right?”
“Yeah—Doc got her out of the hotel in time.”
“Glad to hear that ... I see my sorrel standing over there. I’ll swap this buckskin for him after I’m through with the burying.”
Dison nodded soberly. “Be pleased to help you. Reckon a fellow could say the graveyard’s the only thing in Babylon that didn’t go up in smoke ... You riding on to Dodge with us?”
Starbuck looked off across the sea of buffalo grass. It stretched clean and fresh to the far horizon, undisturbed by the contingencies that alter the lives of men.
“No reason to. I’ll head on to Santa Fe. Maybe I’ll find out something about my brother there.”
SHAWN STARBUCK DOUBLE EDITION
5: A BULLET FOR MR. TEXAS
6: THE MARSHAL OF BABYLON
By Ray Hogan
First Published by Signet Books in 1971
Copyright © renewed 2000 by Gwynn Hogan Henline
First Smashwords Edition: May 2018
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book
Our cover features a detail from You Played That Card, painted by Andy Thomas, and used by permission.
Andy Thomas Artist, Carthage Missouri
Andy is known for his action westerns and storytelling paintings and documenting historical events through history.
Series Editor: Ben Bridges
Text © Piccadilly Publishing
Published by Arrangement with The Golden West Literary Agency.
About the Author
Ray Hogan is an author who has inspired a loyal following ever since he published his first Western novel Ex-marshal in 1956. Hogan was born in Willow Springs, Missouri, where his father was town marshal. At five the Hogan family moved to Albuquerque where Ray Hogan lived in the foothills of the Sandia and Manzano mountains. His father was on the Albuquerque police force and, in later years, owned the Overland Hotel. It was while listening to his father and other old-timers tell tales from the past that Ray was inspired to recast these tales in fiction. From the beginning he did exhaustive research into the history and the people of the Old West and the walls of his study were lined with various firearms, spurs, pictures, books, and memorabilia, about all of which he could talk in dramatic detail. Among his most popular works are the series of books about Shawn Starbuck, a searcher in a quest for a lost brother, who has a clear sense of right and wrong and who is willing to stand up and be counted when it is a question of fairness or justice. His other major series is about lawman John Rye, whose reputation has earned him the sobriquet The Doomsday Marshal. ‘I’ve attempted to capture the courage and bravery of those men and women that lived out west and the dangers and problems they had to overcome,” Hogan once remarked. If his lawmen protagonists seem sometimes larger than life, it is because they are men of integrity, heroes who through grit, character and common sense are able to overcome the obstacles they encounter despite often overwhelming odds. This same grit of character can also be found in Hogan’s heroines and, in The Vengeance of Fortuna West, Hogan wrote a gripping and totally believable account of a woman who takes up the badge and tracks the men who killed her lawman husband by ambush. No less intriguing in her way is Nellie Dupray, convicted of rustling in The Glory Trail. Above all, what is most impressive about Hogan’s Western novels is the consistent quality with which each is crafted, the compelling depth of his characters, and his ability to juxtapose the complexities of human conflict into narratives always as intensely interesting as they are emotionally involving.
The Shawn Starbuck Series by Ray Hogan
The Rimrocker
The Outlawed
Three Cross
Deputy of Violence
A Bullet for Mr. Texas
The Marshal of Babylon
… and more to come every other month!
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