LOOT – Four Navajo Tom Raine Stories by Jackson Cole

Book Details

LOOT – Four stories of Navajo Tom Raine, Arizona Ranger, as he outsmarts and outguns bank robbers and murderers in the Arizona Territory.

Rangers Laugh Last (1949) – A fighting scout rides to protect Loma Azul!

Ranger Riding In (1949) – Three stage holdups have Sheriff Dunn mystified until a lawman’s six-guns blast out a solution!

Long Night for a Ranger (1949) – Following a killer’s trail to an old line cabin in the middle of the night is dangerous for a Ranger!

Loot of the Lobo Legion (1947) – Navajo Raine Rides into Little Pine Ready for a Gun Showdown with Lynching Hombres!
Chapter I – Not by the Rope
Chapter II – Three Visitors
Chapter III – The Watching Man
Chapter IV – Proof of Prophecy
Chapter V – Lobo Loot

Jackson Cole was a pseudonym of Peter B. Germano (1913-1983).

LOOT – Four Navajo Tom Raine Stories has 9 illustrations.

Files:

1. loot.epub

Excerpt: Loot of the Lobo Legion

Chapter I

Not by the Rope

THE voice came out of the mountain silence, just as “Navajo Tom” Raine, Arizona Ranger, topped a tall ridge. Raine was already pulling back on his reins, intending to halt his magnificent blue roan gelding, Wampum, for a breather. But he halted more abruptly than he had meant to when he heard that voice somewhere behind him-

“Don’t look around, Tom!” The voice came again. “Make out that there’s somethin’ wrong with your cinches. Listen to what I’ve got to say, but don’t let on anybody’s talkin’ to yuh, because yuh’re bein’ watched.”

Raine was alert, but not alarmed. Obviously the hidden speaker meant him no harm, since the fellow could have sent a bullet into his back instead of calling out to him. He leaned sideward from the saddle, pretending to be studying his latigo strap, then swung down to the stony earth.

On or off a horse, Navajo Tom Raine was a striking figure. Tall and long-limbed, he had the flat stomach and lean hips of a man who spent much time in the saddle. His chest was deep, his shoulders broad and square. His features were hawkish, lean-cheeked and dark, and his heavy black hair hung, Navajo Indian fashion, almost to his shoulders.

The matched Colt .45s that swung against the Ranger’s thighs in pliant holsters had turquoise-mounted grips, and a band of hand-hammered silver ornaments set with matched turquoise stones circled the crown of his black Stetson.

Yet despite his long hair and Navajo trappings, there was no Indian blood in Raine. His eyes, slightly narrowed now as they searched the crooked, bushy ridge about him without appearing to do so told that, for they were calm and green—the bright, alert eyes of a man accustomed to rubbing elbows with danger.

RAINE looped the left stirrup of his saddle over the saddle-horn, and loosened the latigo strap, head bent as if nothing else interested him.

“Thanks for playin’ along, Tom.” The hidden man spoke again. His voice was thin, raw-edged from nervous strain. There was desperation in that voice, too, as he went on: “I’ve been watchin’ this trail four days, knowin’ an Arizona Territorial Ranger would be comin’ along. I’m shore glad they sent you, because mebbe yuh’ll help me. Yuh figgered me out yet, Tom?”

“Yuh sound a heap like a little rooster I knew when we were gangly kids.” Raine smiled faintly. “He was an ornery little squirt, who nibbled moonshine whisky, used cuss words he didn’t even understand, and bragged that he’d be the toughest, slickest buscadero in Arizona when he growed up. His name was Sime Benge. Last I heard of him he was supposed to be a member of Ike Sisco’s lobo legion.”

“Yuh couldn’t prove that this Sime Benge gent belonged to Sisco’s bunch, could yuh, Tom?” the thin voice asked tensely.

“I couldn’t prove it,” Raine admitted, busy with the latigo strap. “So if that’s what’s wartin’ yuh, Sime, forget it. Ike Sisco scattered his men and went out of the bandit business when the Rangers got on his trail a couple of years back. Ike headed for the Border, but a couple of Rangers caught that big, tow-headed, yellow-eyed hellion this side of Nogales, and had to kill him. As long as Sisco’s lobos don’t try to operate again, the Rangers will let ’em alone.”

“Yuh’ve taken a load off my mind by tellin’ me that, Tom,” Sime Benge said wearily. “But I’ll have to have yore help, or somethin’ll happen to me.”

“What?” Raine asked.

“The same thing that happened to them three gents who was found hangin’ to that bull pine on the south rim of Cemetery Hill at Little Pine,” Sime Benge said grimly. “Yuh’ve been sent here to investigate them lynchin’s, Tom. Only they wasn’t lynchin’s, because each one of them fellers was dead before he was ever left danglin’ on a rope.”

“What in blazes yuh talkin’ about?” Raine said sharply.

“Yuh did come here to look into them three deaths, didn’t you?” Sime Benge countered.

“Yeah,” Raine admitted. “Burt Mossman —he’s the captain and the organizer of the Rangers—heard that three men had been mysteriously lynched at Little Pine, and that the sheriff hadn’t made any arrests. So he sent me to look into them deaths. Now, what’s this about the three men bein’ dead before they were hanged, Sime?”

“It’s the truth, Tom!” Benge insisted. “I seen the bodies of them three men—Bart Murphy, Roy Fleer and Ott Shope. They got hung about eight or ten days apart, Bart first, Ray second, and Ott last. I seen each body while it was still danglin’ to that bull pine on Cemetery Hill, and I sneaked into Elmer Grant’s undertakin’ parlor to look at ’em after they was laid out.”

“How had they been killed, if not by hangin’, Sime?” Raine wanted to know.

“A thin cord, or mebbe a wire had been used to choke ’em to death,” Benge said gravely. “I’ve seen a feller or two strung up in my time, and knowed somethin’ was wrong somewheres when I seen Bart Murphy hangin’ from that bull pine. His neck wasn’t broke, and the rope hadn’t cut into his skin like it would if he had been hung by it”

Excerpt From: Jackson Cole. “LOOT – Four Navajo Tom Raine Stories.”