Rawhide Vengeance -Six Stories by Gunnison Steele

Book Details

From desiccating desert heat to bone crushing blizzard cold, the six stories in Rawhide Vengeance by Gunnison Steele tell of honor, treachery, vengeance and fate in the Old West.

Water From Hades (1943) – Human life was cheaper than water in Hell’s Half Acre—until Johnny Wing made his bid against a double-crosser’s crew of lead-slamming toughs

Killer, Watch Your Back! (1949) – Bounty hunter Kirby Jance played ’em four ways from the ace — but, one day, he got his cards mixed!

Desert Doom (1938) – “Play straight with the desert and she’ll play straight with you,” old Pecos Lund always said—but his gold greedy pardner wasn’t listening to advice.

Tinhorn Traitor (1942) – Treacherous as Apache Drue and his gunnies were, Sheriff Tim Shane faced even greater danger—from the hombre who had once been his saddlemate!

Rawhide Revenge (1947) – The tricky drygulcher who killed Greenriver Abbot reckoned that Sheriff Johnny Turk would serve to provide a good alibi for him!

The Blizzard Traitor (1947) – In a blinding snowstorm, Sheriff Bill Norbec must pursue and capture his best friend—a man marked as an owlhoot!

Gunnison Steele was the pseudonym of B.W. Gardner who actively wrote from the 1920s to the 1950s.

Rawhide Vengeance has 9 illustrations.

Files:

1. RawhideVengeance.epub

Excerpt: Desert Doom

THE desert is like a panther . . . or a siren,” old Pecos Lund had once said. “Beautiful, but dangerous. She’ll lure you on and on with her golden promises. Then, if you’re not careful, she’ll kill you!” Bart Lash grinned contemptuously, and with callous indifference kicked aside the sun-bleached skeleton and knelt at the edge of the small waterhole. Unslinging one of the four empty canteens that dangled from his massive shoulders, he submerged the can and watched with cunning satisfaction as the green-scummed water filled the container. That full canteen, the big, hooknosed gold hunter knew, held quick death for whoever drank of it. The human skeleton, and the rotting bones of small animals and birds bordering this tiny pocket of water lying at the bottom of a cuplike sink in the desert, testified to its deadliness. That was why Bart Lash’s dull little eyes held greedy triumph as he screwed the top onto the can. Soon Pecos Lund would drink from that can—and die.”

“The desert is good to them who play straight with her,” Pecos had said. “She kills them who try to double-cross her!”

Lash grinned again, slung the canteen on his shoulder and strode across the desert. Thirty minutes later he came to a second waterhole, a deep, clear hole cradled by granite boulders. Here Lash drank deep, and slowly filled the other three cans. With a knife he marked the poisoned can with a tiny X. Then he set out toward the camp he shared with old Pecos Lund, four miles away.

The sun had set and purple shadows were racing across the desert when he reached camp. Wiry, gray-bearded Pecos Lund had everything packed, ready for their departure for the outside just as soon as a moon came up. Bacon, almost their last, was frying on a campfire of mesquite roots.

“I’m danged glad you offered to go after that water,” Pecos said. “Ain’t as spry as I used to be. Ol’ desert’s ’bout got me.”

“Yuh got to use your brains to lick the desert,” Lash boasted. “If you can’t do it one way, try another.”

“Just one way,” old Pecos said earnestly. “You got to play the game straight. We played straight, and what happened? We’ve got enough gold to last us till we die!”

“You have, mebbe,” his partner murmured. “But I expect to live longer than you do!”

“Enough,” Pecos went on, a satisfied glow in his squinty eyes, “to buy me that little cow outfit over on the edge of the green hills. With plenty left over to fix up a certain little tyke’s busted leg. … I told you ’bout that, didn’t I?”

“Seems like you did,” Lash said, hiding a grin behind his hand. “Your grandson, ain’t he?”

Old Pecos nodded proudly. “Fell offa a pony last year, Johnny did. The bones in his leg got all twisted. A medico back East could fix him up good as new, but it’d take a lot of money. Now that we made this strike, the button’ll ride and run and play again, just like other kids. Won’t that be fine?”

“Swell,” Lash agreed, glancing at the cross-marked canteen on the ground nearby. “Lucky we made this strike so close to a hole of good water.”

“Yeah! Them four cans’ll last us till we reach Tule Springs. We’ll start soon as the moon comes up.”

SOON, like a huge yellow torch, the moon soared into the sky, bathing the Sunol Desert in a silvery spray of light. Old Pecos and Bart Lash started the trek as soon as it was light enough. A shaggy, long-eared burro carried their equipment and the gold they’d dug from the desert.

Slung over their shoulders, each of the men carried two canteens of water. One of the cans Pecos Lund carried was marked with a tiny X. Without arousing suspicion, Lash had seen that the oldster got the poisoned can.

A cooling wind blew over the moon-painted desert. But they’d gone only a couple of miles when Lash stopped and tilted one of his canteens. He watched furtively, fierce triumph rioting through him, as old Pecos followed his example. Then, gradually, the triumph died, and Lash cursed under his breath.

Lund had swigged from the can of good water!”

Excerpt From: Gunnison Steele. “Rawhide Vengeance.”