Maverick Marshall Read Online Free Page B

fury might shoot, there was not the slightest question about Tularosa. The moment that sidewinder got any leverage he’d latch onto a gun and he would damn sure use it.
    The strain of keeping his grip, of holding the fellow off balance, was beginning to play hell with the muscles of Frank’s arm. He could hear Church coming up and, made hollow by the torture of this impasse, he rammed a knee into Tularosa’s chest. It fetched a grunt from the redhead, but too much of Frank’s strength was concentrated on holding him. The blow did nothing to ease the deadlock that was pushing Frank toward the brink of disaster.
    He sensed the girl was in motion. He made a desperate attempt to reach Tularosa’s holstered pistol, but the grip that kept Tularosa from trying also balked Frank. The saddle-horn prevented Frank from reaching his own.
    The girl cried: “Keep out of this!” and snatched up her whip. Frank heard the snarl of Church’s breath. The thump of his stride broke around the near end of the wagon.
    “I’m goin’ to cut you down to size!” Church sheezed.
    Frank’s left hand, fisting, hit Tularosa on the side of the face. He struck once more but he couldn’t get steam enough into the punches.
    The gunfighter grated, “I’ll remember you, mister,” and tried again to get a boot braced against his saddle.
    With the flat of his hand Frank cracked Tularosa across the bridge of the nose. The man yelled. Church fired. Tularosa’s horse squealed and, flinging its head down, went to pitching. The gun-fighter’s legs lost contact and the dropped sprawl of his weight dragged Frank off the dun.
    They fell into a dust-streaked haze of flying hoofs. Frank lost the man. The smothery stench of powdered earth enveloped them and through this fog Frank glimpsed the hobbling approach of a lantern. The dim grumble of Church’s steady cursing was lost in the racket of hoofs and shouts. Frank’s need to relocate the killer became more acute with each passing instant. It was then, as Frank came onto his knees, that he discovered the full meaning of the word ‘desperation’. In the fall or the rolling he had lost his gun.
    He swayed aside, barely avoiding the lashing hoof of a horse. The dust was so thick he couldn’t see two yards in front of him. His face and clothing were gritty with the stuff, his burning eyes were filled with tears. He faintly heard the girl cry out, and he was groping blindly toward her when hardly beyond the stretch of his hand a man sharply screamed. Frank’s legs crashed into something yielding, upending him. Back of him someplace a gun’s report bludgeoned out of the uproar.
    The dust started clearing in an updraft of air. Horses and men materialized out of it and patches of oil-yellow light from the store fronts. He caught the shape of the wagon with the girl standing in it. Someone yelled,
“There he is!”
and Frank flung himself around just as Church fired again.
    Frank came out of that crouch with a wildly furious swing that took Church full in the wind. Frank gave the big ranchman no time to recover but tore into him with a ferocity that drove Church back into the crowd. Frank jerked the gun from Church’s grip and whacked him across the neck with the butt of it. Church yelled and Frank hit him again. Still yelling, Church fell.
    Coughing, wheezing from dust and exertion, Frank saw the lantern throw its shine on Church’s face. The crowd stood silent. One cheek showed a welt like a brand burn where Frank had struck him and there was a red streak of blood against the side of his neck. Church wasn’t out but he was considerably more cautious. He finally squirmed over and was helped to his feet by some of the crowd.
    Nothing Will Church did would have surprised Frank much. Old Sam, Will’s sire, was a tight-fisted miser, and Will’s mother was a cowed little wisp of a woman who never opened her mouth unless spoken to. In the five years Frank had ridden for Circle C (doing the work of a foreman