Maid of Mustang Mesa by Syl MacDowell

Book Details

Maid of Mustang Mesa – two Western novelettes of vengeance and justice by Syl MacDowell (1892-1980).

No Gals In Nogales (1936) – When the law deals a marked deck, Silverado Smith blasts the Dusty Frog and takes the owlhoot trail to vengeance!
Chapter I – Border Boss
Chapter II – Full Moon
Chapter III – On to Nogales
Chapter IV – A Deal in Lead

Maid of Mustang Mesa (1937) – When Jake Kane Sashays Into the Loop M Ranch, He Brings Quick Gun Justice! Marfa Lamar Sides an Outlaw Maverick and Works a Miracle with Faith and Trust!
Chapter I – Night Rider
Chapter II – Petticoat Range
Chapter III – Out of the Past
Chapter IV – Blood and Tears
Chapter V – Seared Flesh
Chapter VI – Price of Freedom
Chapter VII – Dead or Alive
Chapter VIII – Manhunters
Chapter IX – Righting Wrongs
Chapter X – Hibbs’ Hideout
Chapter XI – Shooting it Out

Sylvester “Syl” MacDowell (1892–1980) was a prolific author of Western stories.

Maid of Mustang Mesa contains 23 illustrations.

Files:

1. MaidOfMustangMesa.epub

Excerpt: No Gals in Nogales

Chapter I

Border Boss

SILVERADO SMITH pityingly watched the thin, pale man with fever-bright eyes turn away from the roulette wheel as the dealer raked in his last dollar. His thoughts, whatever they may have been, were interrupted by a foot jarring onto the footrail of the Dusty Frog bar beside his own.

Silverado turned to see Kreeda regarding him with a fixed stare—Kreeda, boss of the gambling house, owner of the Dusty Frog, overlord of every ill-famed enterprise in the three Border counties.

“Lots of folks come to Arizona nowadays for their health,” Kreeda remarked, jerking his head toward the stooped, sick man, but his hard, dark eyes clung to Silverado’s face.

Silverado, watching the dupe finger his pockets, then stray aimlessly toward the street, made no answer.

Kreeda leaned closer. “And certain folks better leave Arizona for their health, Mr. Deputy Sheriff,” he added in a low, insinuating voice.

Silverado shoved his glass toward the bartender and asked for another beer.

“Yeah?” he drawled. “Who?”

“You’re one,” Kreeda stated flatly.

Silverado yawned and drew patterns with the wet bottom of his glass. “Me and you, we never did see things alike, Kreeda,” he said.

“Well, me and Sheriff Webb see things alike! We settled it tonight. Another thing we settled was that he don’t need yuh any more as his deputy. My word to you is vamoose. Pronto!”

Silverado lifted one eyebrow. “And if I don’t—”

Kreeda’s anvil jaw was thrust a little closer. “There’s a gun pokin’ out from one of them doors up on the balcony. It’s poked at you. All I got to do is lift one hand, savvy?”

Silverado set the glass down and turned, keeping both hands in plain sight on the bar before him. “I savvy Kreeda.” He nodded grimly. “You win this time.”

“I always win.”

“Not always, you won’t. Cheatin’ and bribin’ and rustlin’ and murder—those things ain’t winnin’, Kreeda, you polecat! One of these days—”

KREEDA’S oil face darkened. One pudgy hand started to lift until only the stubby fingertips touched the bar. His smoldering eyes and Silverado’s steady, gray gaze met, locked and clung for a long, uncertain instant.

Then Kreeda’s eyes wavered and his hand went flat. “I must be gettin’ soft!” he growled.

“Not soft,” Silverado told him. “Just careful. The decent citizens of Nogales, they’re mighty disgusted. It wouldn’t take much to start a vigilante movement. They’d unravel yore dirty neck on the first cottonwood they came to, and you know it. Well, Kreeda, reckon I’ll move along now. But this isn’t good-by.”

A creepy feeling between his shoulder blades told Silverado that the hidden, upstairs gun still had him covered as he crossed unhurriedly to the swinging doors and went out into the night.

The thin, sick man was standing on the edge of the sidewalk, looking up at the stars as though to cleanse his mind of the foulness of the Dusty Frog.

Silverado scooped the money out of his pocket—some silver and several crumpled bills.

“Here,” he said, thrusting it all into the other’s hand. “My pay. Not till just now did I know it was dirty.”

The sick man looked at him with amazement, his bird-like claw closing over the cash.

“Keep out of Kreeda’s and it’ll last longer,” Silverado advised him.

At the sheriff’s office, he laid his star on Webb’s desk. He got his few personal belongings out of a locker. At the livery stable in the next block he packed them in a pair of saddle-bags. He saddled and mounted his blaze-faced sorrel and as he jogged past the Dusty Frog, the sick stranger rushed out into the street and cried out hoarsely for him to stop.

“I’m Jack Ridley,” he croaked. “In the days that are left to me, I hope I’ll have a chance to show you how—how a fellow feels when—”

Silverado, smiled down at the man’s moistly shining eyes. “Maybe yuh’re longer for this world than yuh think,” he said. “Longer than me, maybe. Quien sabe?”

He kneed the sorrel along, then, past the smoky glare that rayed out above the Dusty Frog’s swing doors. The false gaiety died as he put Nogales behind him and headed for a Border pass that led down into Sonora.

Excerpt From: Syl MacDowell. “Maid of Mustang Mesa.”