Sharpshooter

by Dusty Richards

  To my readers,

  I certainly enjoy your e-mails. I hope by the time this book is published you have found my new site at dustyrichards.com. That is going to be the place to check on my new books coming out.

  The West rides on. I am doing what I have loved all my life to do: read and write westerns. I have met so many western fiction writers—the list is a mile long—and many are not here any longer. Jory Sherman handed me a membership for Western Writers in February 1985 at Branson, Missouri. I went to my first WWA convention in San Antonio in July of that year.

  That was my lucky day, when I also met book editor Frank Reuter, and he made a salable writer out of me. Through time I met and was helped by many greats. I am very proud of my Spur Awards, my Wrangler Award from the Cowboy Hall, my Will Roger Medallion Award, and others.

  But most of all, many thanks to my readers.

  Keep up the good work. It helps me sell more.

  Till the next novel, keep that horse’s head up so he don’t buck you off.

  DUSTY RICHARDS

  A lifetime member of

  Western Writers of America

  Pinnacle Westerns by Dusty Richards

  The O’Malleys of Texas

  THE O’MALLEYS OF TEXAS

  DEAD AIM

  The Byrnes Family Ranch

  SHARPSHOOTER

  VALLEY OF BONES

  DEADLY IS THE NIGHT

  PRAY FOR THE DEAD

  ARIZONA TERRITORY

  A GOOD DAY TO KILL

  AMBUSH VALLEY

  BROTHERS IN BLOOD

  BLOOD ON THE VERDE RIVER

  BETWEEN HELL AND TEXAS

  TEXAS BLOOD FEUD

  DUSTY RICHARDS

  SHARPSHOOTER

  A BYRNES FAMILY RANCH WESTERN

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Also by

  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

  Teaser chapter

  PINNACLE BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2018 Dusty Richards

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  PINNACLE BOOKS and the Pinnacle logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-0-7860-3925-8

  First electronic edition: April 2018

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-3926-5

  ISBN-10: 0-7860-3926-4

  CHAPTER 1

  On one of those Sunday afternoons when they were caught up on the ranch, work-wise, Chet Byrnes was seated in his spacious living room in the new morris chair that his wife, Lisa, had recently bought for him. The slender woman in her early twenties who had taken on the job of being Chet’s wife only months before, was in the kitchen busy making coffee and slicing her sweet raisin bread for the gathered company of some of his top men. They were in the living room, discussing ranch matters and other things that came up.

  The lanky Cole Emerson was slumped on the leather sofa with his dusty boots stretched way out, and Jesus Martinez was seated on the other end of the sofa.

  “I know we have heard lots of rumors about some real remains of the first pure Spanish horses, but do you reckon there are any left?” Jesus asked.

  Cole shook his head to dismiss the idea. “If there had been, they’d’ve been found and reported.”

  “Hell, Cole, they haven’t looked in every back canyon for them.”

  “Then where are they hiding?”

  “Maybe on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.”

  Cole drew up his lanky legs when Lisa, a tray of coffee cups in her hands, came into the room. He said, “Smells great to me, Lisa. Yes, Jesus, if there is one place undiscovered it has to be that land north of the great hole.”

  “How did that land get cut off from Utah, anyway?” Jesus asked.

  “Well,” Chet began, “the story goes that Washington, DC, was angry with the Mormons in Utah over their bitching and fussing and ran the survey straight west instead of making the Grand Canyon the border between the two territories.”

  “That’s why people have to go out of state through Nevada to come to Preskitt to their county seat.” Jesus took his coffee cup off Lisa’s tray and thanked her.

  “It wasn’t drawn to be easy.”

  “It really is the lost land for the Arizona Territory.”

  “I overheard someone say, while I was out in the kitchen, there might be real wild horses up there?” Lisa asked.

  Chet shook his head. “Lisa, no one knows much about what is up there.”

  “I say, since we have the cattle all worked and the hay up, that we go up there and explore it,” Cole said.

  Lisa set the tray down. “I’d like to tag along. I’ve never been up there.”

  “Jesus, would your wife let you go along?” Chet asked.

  “If I went with you, she would.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “So would mine.” Cole chuckled

  “Several years ago, Lisa, Jesus, along with Cole and me, nearly froze to death coming off of there with some criminals we were bringing back from Utah.”

  “That was midwinter then,” Cole said. “We are just going exploring in the summertime. We are not staying up there that long.”

  “Who else do we need to go with us?” Jesus asked.

  “Me?” Lisa pointed at herself.

  “You sure can tag along. But it is not a peaches-and-cream place to explore,” Chet said. “There are no hotels or cafés.”

  “That doesn’t matter. I’d just love to see it.”

  Chet agreed. Lisa had come a long way since he laid his orders out to the snobby girl who’d been living with outlaws. After they had captured the gang of marauders who’d attacked one of his stage stations on the Marcy Road, this tough-acting girl told him she had no means or way to get out of that desolate Four Corners country now that her ex-boyfriend was Chet’s prisoner and faced several years in prison. Chet let her know right off she was not his responsibility, but i
f she would work hard with the cook and do her part in camp, he’d find her a packhorse to ride back with them. She had bowed her head and thanked him.

  From that time on, that girl carried her share of the load. On the second day, without saying a word to Chet, Jesus found her a saddle to ride. Back at the ranch she worked even harder and married one of Chet’s foremen. Then she took over the job of running the big house when his wife’s majordomo, Monica, suddenly died from a heart attack. Lisa taught the Mexican ranch children English so they could attend the Cherry School. Then her husband was killed in range war shoot-out over east at the Wagon Wheel Ranch, and terminal cancer swept Chet’s wife, Elizabeth, away as well. Lost in their own personal sorrow the two soon found each other to lean on, and he married her. Ten years or more his junior, he never noticed the difference except when their ages were mentioned.

  “Can we get Hampt to go along?” Cole asked.

  “May might not let him go with you all,” Lisa said.

  Jesus shook his head. “She would if Chet asked for him. She’d do anything for him.”

  Lisa quickly agreed. May was Chet’s widowed sister-in-law who’d later married Hampt, one of his original ranch hands, and the two were raising a second family. She nearly didn’t come along when he packed them up to go from Texas to Arizona. His second wife, Elizabeth, once said his sister-in-law probably expected Chet to marry her out there—but she settled for Hampt and they were very happy.

  “I am sure Hampt would love to join us and he’s a good backup. He saved many lives arming the black cowboys in the lost herd deal in Texas. Plus, he’s the greatest expert at growing alfalfa in the Territory.”

  “Will you ask her, then? Thanks for the coffee, Lisa. I better get home and ask my wife if I can go, too.”

  “Cole, as well as you two get along you’re going north with us,” Lisa said, gathering up the empty cups.

  “When are we leaving?” she asked Chet.

  “Oh, three days or four. I want Tom and Millie to stay up here while we are gone.”

  She agreed and headed for the kitchen with her tray full of empty cups.

  He stopped her by clearing his throat. With a head toss toward the stairs and a smile, he waited for her answer.

  “As soon as I get these dishes on the sink I am coming up there. I thought you’d never think of doing that.”

  They both laughed.

  Being married to her had brought lots of things back to his life. Their sessions at making love were just a portion as sweet as the other intimate things they shared, like swimming naked in the Verde River when they were alone together, checking on things, taking showers with each other under the sheepherder fixture out back before bedtime. They had settled into a good life together with few restrictions on things that they enjoyed.

  Climbing the stairs, he smiled. What would they find on the north side of that big gorge? No matter. It would be mostly new country and he looked forward to going up there. Maybe his back would complain some, sleeping on the ground, but Lisa could get those kinks out with her powerful hands. Not much his missus couldn’t do—though she wanted children or said she did. They were trying.

  Those would come along, he felt certain. Raised by her father, he’d spoiled her when her mother died young, and Chet learned that when she was still a teen, she’d left home with an outlaw who’d promised to marry her. In their flight to escape Chet and his persistent posse, she discovered she was simply the outlaw’s whore, but it was too late, too dangerous for her to leave him and strike out alone in the vast, tough land she did not know a thing about. And she had no money.

  * * *

  The next day Chet and Lisa drove down to the Verde Ranch to talk to Tom and Millie. The women were left at the house while the two men walked about the ranch pens to talk.

  “We’re going looking at the North Rim country in a few days.”

  Tom nodded. “Any particular purpose?”

  “Jesus wants to find some pure Spanish horses.”

  They laughed.

  “No, we’ll just look. We’re caught up with things and want to see some new country.”

  “Say, I have a top hand for you to take along. His name’s Salty Meeker and he’s a real sharp guy.”

  “Where’s he out of?” Chet asked.

  “Texas, but he is a guy who sees things and fixes them right there.”

  “I have to clear him with the guys, but sure, send him up. You and Millie willing to watch things from our place?”

  “Aw hell, Chet, you know me. I’ll do anything you need done. It ain’t no big trick.”

  “Lisa will feel better with you and Millie looking over things up there.”

  “I understand. What will you find up there, do you think?”

  “Oh, who knows? I think it is just a boy’s-night-out deal. Lisa is a tomboy and of course wants to tag along.”

  “More than that. She makes a good woman for you.”

  “I agree. When I first found her in Colorado, I never expected her to amount to a hill of beans.”

  Tom shook his head. “She’s taught school to those Mexican children until they knew enough English to attend that Cherry School. She took over that house when Monica died like she’d done it all her life. I hated when her husband got shot over there in that range war. He’d made a great foreman to replace the old man who’d retired.”

  “He was a real dedicated person. We all hated it when he was killed. But Lisa is a great wife, too.”

  “Oh, Millie and I both agree. She was the right one for you, and you needed a wife.”

  “Be sure to send this Salty up. I have to go see May and Hampt when I get back. We want him to go along, too.”

  Tom agreed. “I wish the railroad would get done up there. I need some new Hereford bulls to use in our purebred herd, and they’d need to be shipped out here, not driven from Kansas.”

  “You better get them hauled out here in a wagon. That track, at the rate it is coming, will be several years getting to Flagstaff.”

  “What is stalling them so much?”

  “Money. They run out and don’t have the business on the rest of their tracks to build it fast enough. I think freight is not coming on it like they first thought it would. The country they are coming through has not been developed. You and I know cattle ranching without the Navajo sales would be tough on us. Other ranchers on this dry land couldn’t exist for long out here with no markets.”

  “I know you are right. But it won’t get any better until they get tracks, pens, and cars to haul the cattle out of here.”

  “Tom, you and I have talked about markets since we took the Quarter Circle Z away from those bandits who had it. JD and the brothers down south are making cattle sales down there but it isn’t that good and the Tucson Ring still has hold on lots of things, like the army and Indian sales. In time those rails at Flagstaff will make us rich but they are a long way off still. While I am gone I want you to handle all business like it was your own.”

  “Been a long time since you fed those starving Indians down on the Verde and had to get General Crook to straighten the agency out.”

  Chet laughed. “We’ve sure had some times.”

  “Cole shot his Apache prisoner you gave him, on that first cattle drive you made, and he feared you’d fire him over it.”

  “That was our first and last Apache war until we had to stop those wild ones over at Rustler’s Ranch.”

  “How are Toby and Talley making it?”

  “He’s fenced more of those homesteads that Bo’s bought for us. He’ll have several hundred calves to wean this year from the cattle we got him. He expects to be at five hundred mother cows in two years and he’ll have the feed to do it.”

  “Talley was one of those strays you brought back, too?”

  Chet nodded. “And when Toby married her I thought she’d never straighten out of her sullen self. But she lent him a hand and their operation is going great.”

  “It started with Cole’s woman
. You sent her up here to help in Jenn’s restaurant. Valerie didn’t like that dove business after she got down there.”

  “Right. We brought the hardware-mercantile man Ben Ivor and his wife, Kathrin, back with us from Utah.”

  “And you rescued JD’s wife-to-be, Bonnie, then down in Mexico.”

  Chet agreed. “You know, Tanner at the bank married the woman who about ruined JD. And they’re looking for number two child. He must be twenty years older than her but he brags on her.”

  “And your land man Bo’s building a family, too.”

  Chet laughed. “That woman was married to her first husband ten years and never had a child with him.”

  Tom agreed. “I know. Over the years we all talked about you and that tall Navajo woman.”

  “Blue Bell. Jesus even asked me about her. No, we never had an affair. She is so busy helping her people she didn’t need a white man to court her.”

  “You went to Washington, DC, once to help them?”

  Chet shrugged. “I went. Tried, but they gave the Navajo coal to some company to sell to the railroad. I sure lost that fight.”

  “You’ve won a lot of battles against outlaws and made Arizona a better place to live.”

  “We tried.”

  “Hell no. You led all those battles and we did stop lots of crimes.”

  “Enough of that. Tom, I am damn proud of that Hereford herd and what you’ve accomplished.”

  “We did that right. I never believed we could accomplish that, but now we are a large breeder of purebred cattle and we have good ones.”

  They stopped at the corral and watched a young wrangler sacking down a wall-eyed bronc tied to a post. The horse was having a fit every time the wrangler waved the sack at him, but he’d get over that.