Trigger Fast Read Online Free Page A

house. He stood with empty hands but that meant little for rumour had it that Mark Counter could draw and throw lead almost as fast as Dusty Fog. In his own right that handsome blond giant had a name himself.
    If anything Mark’s reputation as a cowhand stood higher than Dusty’s. He had a name for being somewhat of a range country Beau Brummel who helped set cowhand fashions now as he had once done amongst the bloods of the Southern army. A rich man in his own right, son of a prosperous Big Bend rancher, Mark still rode as a hand for the OD Connected, working as a member of the floating outfit and siding Dusty in any trouble to come along. His strength was a legend, his skill in a rough-house brawl spoken of with awe and admiration wherever it was seen. How fast he could handle his gun was not so well known. He rode in the shadow of the Rio Hondo gun wizard for all that he stood a good six feet three inches tall.
    Small wonder the hired guns from Double K looked uneasy when they saw Mark Counter all set to back his amigo against them.
    Slowly Tring lowered the hands which had hung like curved talons over the butts of his Navy Colts. He’d been set to chance taking Dusty Fog with odds of eight to one in his favour. Eight to two were far from being bad odds, even eight to those two — then the odds dropped to a level where Tring did not intend bucking against them.
    A sinister double click announced another man stood at the side of the house opposite Mark Counter. Not one of the assembled gunhands thought it to be a trick of their ears, or imagination. That showed in the way they looked towards the dark boy, noting the twin barrel ten gauge in his hands.
    Freda also looked and felt surprise. This was not the innocent looking boy who talked and joked with her inside the house. The clothes might be the same, but the face was a mean, cold, slit-eyed Comanche Dog Soldier’s mask, alert, wolf-cautious and watching every move.
    They called him Loncey Dalton Ysabel, the Ysabel Kid, Cabrito depending on how well folks knew him. Three names, but they all added up to one thing — a real dangerous man. His father had been a wild Irish-Kentuckian border smuggler, his mother the daughter of Chief Long Walker of the Comanche and his French-Creole squaw. That marriage brought a mixing of bloods which produced a deadly efficient fighting man with an innocent face and a power of danger inside him. He had the sighting eye of a backwoodsman of the legendary past and the same ability to handle a rifle. He could use his Dragoon Colt well enough when needed. From his French-Creole strain he gained an inborn love of cold steel as a weapon and an ability to use that James Black bowie knife which would not have shamed old Jim Bowie himself. Tied in with that came the skill of a Comanche Dog Soldier at riding anything with hair, ability to follow tracks where a buck Apache might falter and the keen eyes which came in so useful when riding scout. He could move through thick brush as silent as a shadow, speak seven languages and fluent Spanish. All in all it made the Kid a real good friend — or right bad enemy.
    From the way he stood and watched the Double K men he was no friend.
    ‘Don’t see how all this comes to be your concern, Cap’n Fog,’ Tring said, in a much milder tone than he usually adopted. ‘These here nesters—’
    ‘Stop handing us that bull-droppings, hombre !’ growled Mark Counter, moving forward to flank Dusty and face the men. ‘These folk don’t plough. They run a brand and keep cattle. That makes them ranch folks.’
    The youngster in Tring’s bunch thought he was real fast with a gun. He had come through a couple of cowhand backing-down sessions and didn’t reckon this trio would prove harder to handle than the others.
    He swung down from his saddle to step by Tring and face the two Texans in his toughest and most belligerent manner, even though he wasn’t showing good sense.
    ‘Who asked you to bill in?’ he