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  THE SHOOTOUT

  England Dan got to his feet and worked his way back into the forest, hunting for any trace of Poke Jensen. A flash of movement set him off. Firing steadily, he chopped a bush to ribbons. Another quick move ejected the spent brass. He hunted for more ammo, then grabbed the one resting atop his ear and slid it home. The Webley snapped shut. With one round. As he faced Poke Jensen.

  “I wanted to see who I was going to gun down,” the outlaw said. He came from behind a tree to the left of the bush England Dan had “killed.” With a contemptuous move, he holstered his piece. He began walking forward. His hand hovered over his pistol, ready to draw.

  England Dan had no doubt the man’s draw was spectacular. Not a hint of fear showed on Jensen’s face. If anything, he was enjoying himself as he anticipated making another kill. If he had notched the handle of his six-gun, it’d look like a colony of termites had enjoyed a buffet.

  “Come on out and let’s shoot it out. You and me. Like men. Or is that asking too much of you?” Poke Jensen stopped when he came within ten yards.

  England Dan backed away. Any showdown with Jensen would end badly for him. Worse, he had a single round in his gun, not that he’d need more. Jensen had to have been fast and accurate to have survived as long as he had.

  He stared at the outlaw and realized he was talking himself into a grave. If he thought he’d lose any contest, he was half beaten.

  Jensen’s hand twitched. England Dan lifted his pistol and fired. Poke Jensen cleared leather and fired. England Dan staggered and fell, but not from lead ripping through his heart. His involuntary retreat had caused him to catch his heel and lose his balance. Whether that saved his life was a fact to be debated around many campfires.

  BERKLEY

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2020 by The Estate of Ralph Compton

  Penguin Random House 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 Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN: 9780593100684

  First Edition: July 2020

  Cover art by Chris McGrath

  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.

  pid_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  The Shootout

  Title Page

  Copyright

  The Immortal Cowboy

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  About the Author

  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 ONE

  SOMETHING MORE THAN grinding hunger tied England Dan Rutledge’s stomach in a tight knot. Hunting had been terrible. Summer this year in the Superstition Mountains had been drier than usual, making the deer and rabbits that bothered to stay in the high country skittish. Most of the forage the animals usually ate was dried and sparse, forcing them to go lower in the mountains. That made every hunt more difficult if he wanted to follow all those possible meals on the hoof.

  Worse, England Dan hated to leave his partner in their mine alone.

  It wasn’t because of any danger, but John Cooley slacked off when he didn’t have his partner constantly urging him to work harder or even to work at all. England Dan hardly blamed him. The Trafalgar Mine was playing out, and they both knew it. The amount of gold they pulled from the tons of ore they moved decreased monthly. Getting a single ounce for that work amounted to reason for celebration. Mostly there wasn’t that much and hadn’t been since last fall.

  He tramped up the trail toward their mine, not paying attention to where he stepped. A low-hanging branch knocked off his bowler as he failed to duck in time. Cursing, he put down the two scrawny rabbits he had bagged and picked up the hat. A quick swipe of his forearm brushed off dirt. Or most of it. The hat had seen better days since he bought it in London, and his British Army officer’s jacket had been patched so many times, it was more repair than original cloth. The epaulets had been ripped off when he was cashiered, and the gold braid had long since turned black from oxidation and filth. His cavalry boots needed polishing, and the gun belt strapped around his waist, carrying a well-used Webley-Pryse, showed empty loops where spare ammunition normally rode. He wore a bandolier slung across his left shoulder, but the cartridge loops in it were as vacant as those in his gun belt. Ammo cost money.

  There wasn’t anything about him that didn’t have the “rode hard, put away wet” look.

  England Dan sank to a rock and worked more on the bowler. His collision with the tree limb left a sticky patch of pinesap. Using his thumbnail, he flicked it off. The gob landed in the dirt, perfectly domed and mocking. Detritus survived. His future was less well formed and murky. />
  He looked up suddenly when strange voices drifted downslope. Cooley often talked to himself and sang off-key when he worked. Answering himself in a different tone was brand-new. This turned Dan wary. Perching his bowler securely on his head and brushing his unkempt gray-streaked sandy hair out of his eyes, he drew his six-gun and came to his feet slowly. Every sense strained. He made out two distinct voices rumbling from off the trail. He took a deep whiff of the air and caught the scent of tobacco. Someone with enough money to buy fixings for a smoke moved through the undergrowth.

  Choosing to rummage about in the dried bush rather than take the trail sent a new thrill through him. His feeling of impending disaster proved accurate. The only men who crept up on the mine like this were claim jumpers.

  A shot in their direction would solve a couple problems. It spooked men too cowardly to present themselves at the mine, and it warned his partner. Unless Cooley was actually working deep in the Trafalgar, he’d hear and know something was wrong.

  England Dan carefully broke open the Webley and saw four of the six chambers carried live rounds. Four bullets to fight off an unknown number of would-be thieves and murderers. An astute claim jumper had no reason to leave the miner alive. For the first time, he wished his hunting hadn’t been so successful, if two rabbits merited such a label. His marksmanship was far better than his partner’s, but he had taken a dozen shots to bring down this pitiful bounty.

  He had to do better with the claim jumpers.

  Slipping through the brush as quietly as possible, he found a deep footprint in the soft ground under a tree. He measured it against his own. He stood six feet tall. If the footprint was to be believed, the man making it was at least a head taller and a hundred pounds heavier. To verify his guess, he found a second print and tried to put his feet in each. He held back a moan as he strained his crotch. The stride, even if the man was running, showed him to be a giant.

  England Dan ran his finger over the six-shooter’s trigger. Four rounds, even of the potent .455 slugs, might not be enough to bring down a man this size.

  A brief thought flittered across his brain. Turn around. Leave his partner to his fate. He heaved a deep sigh and continued up the slope. John Cooley might do that. England Dan Rutledge wouldn’t. He was made of sterner stuff, even if his father, the earl, thought otherwise. Cooley was his partner, and partners watched out for each other.

  He crouched low when he caught sight of their cabin. No smoke puffed up from the chimney. Wherever Cooley was, he had abandoned the cabin to go there. Working around the cabin, he chanced a quick glance inside. Empty. He moved past a small mountain of black tailings to get a better look at the mouth of their mine. It was fifty feet upslope. The ore cart wasn’t at the end of the track running into the mine. That told him what he needed to know. Cooley was working to fill that rusty bucket deep inside where they had found a new vein.

  If his partner dug like a badger a hundred feet into the mine, he’d never hear anyone moving around outside.

  But England Dan did. The crunch of feet against gravel alerted him to a man darting to keep from silhouetting himself at the mouth. Moving like a marmot, England Dan popped up, took in the situation and dropped back. One man armed with a rifle had dashed across the front of the mine while another tried to position himself above the opening.

  That one physically matched the tracks he had found. A guess of six feet six was shy of the truth by three or four inches. The only thing he lacked to be completely intimidating was a gun. He didn’t sport iron at his waist or carry a rifle like his partner. England Dan stroked his Webley’s hammer, appreciating the worn crosshatch there intended to keep a thumb from slipping. It was a double action, but he had been trained to cock it and fire like a single action to keep from pulling the trigger repeatedly in the heat of battle and unexpectedly finding the cylinder empty. It was his only advantage in this fight.

  The man with the rifle pressed into the rock beside the mine opening signaled his partner. The behemoth above made an impatient gesture with a hand the size of a ham hock. As if that was the order he’d waited for, the rifleman swung around and began firing into the mine shaft. Bullets whined off the walls, tearing deep into the mine. The sparks from a few ricochets leaped backward past the gunman, causing him to duck.

  “Go in!” The giant’s voice rumbled like thunder among the tall peaks.

  “I don’t know if I got him.”

  “Is he still digging?”

  The rifleman shoved a finger in his ear and wiggled it around. He shook his head and peered up. “I can’t tell. The report deafened me.”

  “Go find out. Get in there!”

  The man stared at his rifle, jacked in another round and plunged into the mine. From where he hid, England Dan couldn’t hear any sound in the mine. The fusillade had been short and intense. Cooley could have been cut down before he knew what happened.

  “Please, be taking a break like you always do. Sit down and—” He hadn’t realized he was speaking aloud.

  The giant let out a deep-throated bull roar and reared up. He held his arms out at shoulder level, fists clenched, eyes searching wildly. England Dan reacted without realizing what he did.

  Four shots tore through the air in the man’s direction. A fifth tug on the trigger landed on a spent chamber.

  England Dan cursed as he looked up. His marksmanship was good. Graduating from Sandhurst had taught him not to panic in battle. Nothing had been said of hitting his target four times and so much lead having no effect. The giant of a claim jumper roared and pounded on his chest, then jumped down. The only hint that the four .455 caliber rounds in his chest bothered him appeared when he landed hard off-balance and collapsed to one knee. He shook himself like a wet dog and got to his feet.

  The snarl on his face chilled the miner to the core of his being. As crazy as it was, England Dan might have stood his ground and fought. Those bullets in the man’s chest had to wear him down eventually, but the claim jumper’s partner came rushing from the mine, waving his rifle around.

  “Who fired? I knew there was a second one of them varmints.”

  The giant grunted incoherently and pointed downhill in England Dan’s direction. It was time to retreat. This had never been covered in any of his military studies. To retreat meant failure. The British Army never lost a fight except for that bloody fool, Cornwallis. Their forces might be cut down to the last man, but they never lost. England Dan had developed his own set of more pragmatic tactics while stationed in India. He turned and bolted. Rifle slugs danced around him, adding speed to his “advance to the rear.”

  He came across a game trail and feinted left, as if heading farther downhill. Footprints in the dry dirt showed his direction. With a powerful jump, he reached up and caught a tree limb. A hard kick swung him around in a circle so his belly pressed into the branch. He pushed himself to a squatting position, hidden among the foliage.

  “He came this way. There’s his footprint. Come on!” England Dan felt like a hound on the hunt.

  “You go. I don’t feel so good.” The giant turned this way and that, as if looking for a way to escape.

  England Dan hoped the monster’s innards had been ripped apart by his bullets and he slowly bled to death. The two claim jumpers had intended to flush Cooley from the mine if they didn’t plug him by firing wildly into the shaft. They hadn’t given him a chance. For all Dan knew, his partner was bleeding to death in the mine—or was mercifully dead already.

  He slipped the Webley into his holster, slid the leather thong over the hammer and drew a wickedly sharp knife sheathed at his left hip. If either of the thieves passed beneath him, he’d drop down and slit their throat. Hiding like a coward galled him, but he intended to stay alive. The mine still had a few ounces of gold waiting to fall under his pick. Defending his property and his partner—and himself—was a matter of honor.

  Killing the clai
m jumpers was a matter of survival.

  Scooting along the limb, he positioned himself directly over the game trail and waited. And waited. Straining his every sense, he tried to locate his attackers. The rising wind in the treetops drowned out small noises along the ground. From the way the clouds were gathering, a rare thunderstorm was preparing to dump tons of water on him.

  Taking a deep breath, he sought the hint of tobacco. Nothing. A trace of moisture replaced any distinctive scent. Thunder sounded in the distance. The knife hilt turned damp as his hand sweat with strain. His fingers began to knot.

  Stretching his body along the limb, he chanced a look along the trail in both directions. An incurious fox danced about on the path. England Dan dropped and startled the fox, but the animal would never have poked his nose out of hiding if the claim jumpers had been nearby. A few quick wiggles got England Dan into the undergrowth, where he could burrow open a small tunnel through the brush to peer at the mine uphill.

  The claim jumpers were nowhere to be seen. Neither was John Cooley. Digging in his toes, England Dan began creeping up the hill until he reached a spot a few yards from the mouth of the mine. No sound came from inside, but he heard crashing and glass breaking from the direction of the cabin.

  He gritted his teeth, got his feet under him and let his fury explode. Legs pumping hard, he ran to the cabin. The door had been ripped off its hinges. Inside lay total destruction. The claim jumpers had destroyed everything. The larder had been dumped out. All the food—what little there had been—was gone.

  Rage built and he loosed a roar that echoed from the mountaintops. England Dan brought his anger under control and searched the ground for tracks. Only one set showed. The giant could have never hidden his tracks. He was too heavy. Stride long and alert for any trap, Dan set off along the trail curving eastward around the mountainside.

  “Got you,” he snarled when he came upon the huge man sitting on a rock, holding his chest. “Give back everything you stole!”