Outcast’s Doom Patrol by L.P. Holmes

Book Details

Outcast’s Doom Patrol (1937) – Hired guns and paid juries ruled the Twin Buttes range. They railroaded Buck Comstock to twenty-five years of prison hell. . . . But he had three death-sealed debts to pay before the cell door clanged shut behind him— one to himself and his ruined ranch . . . one to the beleaguered neighbors who called him friend . . . and one to the girl whose terrified scream rang in his heart!

Chapter I – To Hell For Twenty-five Years
Chapter II – A Fugitive Finds A Friend
Chapter III – Prowlers At The Wineglass
Chapter IV – Tiger Man
Chapter V – Killer’s Confession
Chapter VI – War On Women
Chapter VII – A Gun In The Dark
Chapter VIII – A Woman’s Choice
Chapter IX – Fugitive’s Lesson In Law
Chapter X – Treacherous Lead
Chapter XI – When Vigilantes Ride
Chapter XII – Embattled Range
Chapter XIII – Fort For Two
Chapter XIV – Fighting Man’s Showdown
Chapter XV – The Trail To Heaven

Llewellyn (Lew) Perry Holmes (1895-1988) was born in a log cabin at Breckenridge, Colorado, atop the Rocky Mountains. After graduating high school Holmes began to write for pulp magazines and was a major contributor for Leo Margulies’ Standard Magazines, known also as Thrilling Publications or The Thrilling Group. Beginning in the 1950s he concentrated on writing western fiction and moved away from pulp writing. Holmes wrote westerns under his own name and the pseudonyms Matt Stuart, Dave Hardin and Perry Westwood.

Outcast’s Doom Patrol contains 2 illustrations.

Files:

1. OutcastsDoomPatrol.epub

Excerpt: Outcast’s Doom Patrol

Chapter I

To Hell For Twenty-five Years

JUDGE HENNING finished speaking. Buck Comstock, standing up to receive his sentence, surveyed the judge with cool, sardonic, contemptuous eyes. Judge Henning would not meet Buck’s eyes. At no time during the trial had he met Buck’s glance. And as he had rendered the sentence, he had looked past Buck, over Buck’s head.

For a long second after the droning voice of the judge died away, the courtroom was dead still, so still that when old Bill Morgan cleared his throat wrathfully, the sound was like a thunderclap.

Sheriff Brood Shotwell stepped up and took Buck by the right arm. Spike St. Ives, Shotwell’s number one deputy, moved up on the other side.

“That’s all,” growled Brood Shotwell. “Come on, Comstock.”

Buck shrugged, turned and walked between them toward the side door of the courtroom, which led across some forty feet of yard before reaching the jail.

Buck twisted his head and looked out over the crowd in the courtroom. He saw Bill Morgan, Johnny Frazier and Bud Tharp pushing their way along as though to intercept Buck and his two guardians before they could reach that side door. The intention of these three was plain in their eyes and attitudes.

“No go, Bill,” called Buck sharply. “It wouldn’t work, anyhow. Don’t start anything.”

“I’ll do my best,” Buck,” answered Bill Morgan. “But I want to state here and now that of all the cheap, crooked, low-down farces ever pulled under the name of law, this is the worst. I thought that damned, squint-eyed rooster up there was a judge.”

Everybody in the room heard Bill. He spoke as he usually did, in rumbling tones which would carry a hundred yard’s in the teeth of a high wind. Judge Henning’s pursed mouth tightened. He whanged his gavel on his desk.

“There will be no remarks against the dignity of this court,” he shrilled. “I’ll have you cited for contempt.”

“That’s the right word,” bellowed Bill Morgan. “Contempt—I got plenty of that for you and all the rest of the mealy-mouthed crowd connected with this travesty . . . . Just try and cite me for anything, you weasel-eyed buzzard! Try and have me arrested. I’m in a shootin’ frame of mind right now, and the first hombre that touches me gets blowed in half at the belt-buckle. That’s cold turkey. Eat it or choke over it, whichever you please.”

“Bill!” yelled Buck. “Will you shut up?”

Bill Morgan subsided with a growl. A lot of people in the courtroom were talking now. Some were angry at Bill; others were nodding their heads in approval.

A tipsy puncher, standing just inside the main door of the courtroom, yipped shrilly: “That’s tellin’ ’em, ol’ lobo! That’s tellin’ ’em, yuh ol’ tarantula. An’ if yuh need help at smoke-rollin’; jest you call on lil’ Smoky Rawlins. He’ll be with yuh— till hell freezes. Yes sir—that’s me—Smoky Rawlins. An’ I don’t like, judges or sheriffs any better than you do.”

This brought a laugh. The tension lessened. Buck, realizing that neither Bill-nor Johnny Frazier or Bud Tharp would do anything foolish, let his eyes fix on Leek Jaeger and Frank Cutts, who stood near that side door.

Leek Jaeger, squat and burly, was rocking back and forth on his heels and toes, a habit of his when pleased. His block-jowled face, perennially unshaven, was drawn to a mocking grin, while his eyes, little and deep set and of the dull, brutal color of old lead; were squinted with triumph.

Frank Cutts once a gambler, still affected the immaculate dress of his former calling. His thin, pale face was a graven mask, but in his black eyes also glinted triumph.

Buck Comstock’s eyes went over the two men swiftly and came to a startled halt on the girl who stood between them. It was the first time in his life Buck had ever seen her. Yet, for some reason, sight of her gave him a distinct, shock.

She was a pretty girl, not over twenty, a girl with wide, grave, dusky eyes, crisp black hair and a softly crimson, mouth. The color of her skin was that of remarkably pure, richly-tinted old ivory. She was slim and trig and dainty in a close fitting traveling suit of dark brown material. Just before Buck and his two guards came opposite, the little group, Leek Jaeger leaned over and murmured something in the girl’s ear. The girl’s eyes sought Buck’s face and she seemed to shrink slightly.

Buck looked at her coolly, met her glance squarely. Then Brood Shotwell kicked the side door open, and Buck was outside, under the shade of a clump of cottonwoods.

Buck would have liked to linger under those cottonwoods. Where he was going, there wouldn’t be any trees. On a nodding branch tip, gay in black and gold, an oriole piped its rich notes . . . .

“Hurry up!” rasped Brood Shotwell: “I want to get you safe behind bars again, Comstock. Some of those salty pals of yours might get wild notions if we stand out here in the open too long.”

Two more steps and the jail door clanged behind Buck . . . .”

Excerpt From: L.P. Holmes. “Outcast’s Doom Patrol.”