Tombstones For Tejanos and Other Stories by Harry F. Olmsted

Book details

Four Western stories of blood feuds, cattle rustlers, murder, revenge and faith by Harry F. Olmsted (1889-1970).

Badge Of A Gunman (1938) – The Bearpaw range knuckled to a ruthless hand until at last a devastating hymn of hate turned the country into a bloody shambles.
Chapter I – Murder Charge
Chapter II – Doubtful Warrior
Chapter III – Gathering Storm
Chapter IV – Flame Of Treachery
Chapter V – Deal In Murder
Chapter VI – Peace Comes To The Bearpaw

Ghost Town Guns (1939) – Phantom killers of the old roaring West stalked Felicity’s silent streets. But in that ghost town of the dead, one lived—a white-haired old ranny who still kept faith with a tarnished star.

Tombstones for Tejanos (1937) – They weaned him on a straight feud diet, lulled him to sleep with the song of whispering lead. But even the Kid’s rare gun-savvy was faded on that raw Tejano-range—it took the red badge of courage to buck the play of renegade guns!
An eight chapter novelette.

Gunsmoke Thanksgiving (1940) – Would death take a holiday while a grizzled man hunter met two battle-scarred gun ghosts for a strange Thanksgiving reunion?

Tombstones For Tejanos has 8 illustrations.

Files:

1. TombstonesTejanos.epub

Excerpt: Badge Of A Gunman

Chapter I

Murder Charge

THE downbearing heat lay heavily on the wind and it was hard to endure, even underneath the vine-laden wooden awning of the porch. But the discomfort of the unseasonable hot spell was not what drew down the corners of Chart Cutting’s wide mouth and filled his eyes with dull fire. During past meetings of the Bearpaw Grange, he had listened with detached interest to some member’s plaint about the persecutions of the arrogant Walking M cattle outfit. He had even lifted his voice in a plea for patience and restraint. That had been easy enough when the shoe was pinching another’s foot. But he was wearing it now and the agony of it made his veins a battleground of warring emotions.

The rattle of buggy wheels and the clang of his mail box door roused him from his bitterness. He answered the mail carrier’s hail with a halfhearted toss of his hand and watched the man drive away, poignantly aware of the extended appraisal he made of Chart’s fields.

Chart drew his gaunt form upward then and walked out to the road. Tall, straight and wide of shoulders, he moved with the quiet dignity that bids the world beware unless it leans toward legitimate business. From the mailbox he drew a letter, grimacing as he tore it open. And for long moments he stood reading the missive, staring through the smoke of his cigarette with fixed and speculative absorption.

The letter was from a big cattle buyer, making Chart a nice offer to pasture range beef and fatten them on his grain prior to shipping. It was the connection Chart had built toward. It meant money in his pocket and means of developing his four quarter sections to a state where he could buy and fatten cattle on his own. But now—

His eyes lifted from the sheet to sweep his fields. Wheat and oats, heads filled and almost ready for thrashing, lay crushed and beaten to the ground. Indian corn, tall and lush and earing big in the sticky heat, was broken down and trampled. Wire fence had been cut at either end of his holding to permit the ingress and egress of stampeded cattle. The promise of yesterday, brightly glowing, was but loose ash today, blown by the hot wind.

Into Chart’s brooding struck the rattle of wheels. Out of a drifting pall of dust flashed a buckboard, drawn by a spanking team of zebra duns. It was a familiar rig in Bear-paw Valley, belonging to Matt Huffaker, district deputy sheriff, and seen when any lawlessness was afoot. Huffaker was driving. On the nigh side sat a square faced stranger. Between the two was Elija Hayes, master of the Bearpaw Grange.

As he stepped into the roadway to intercept the buckboard, Chart couldn’t help wondering what Hayes was doing with Huffaker—an admitted tool of the Walking M. But, more particularly, he couldn’t resist loosing his spleen upon this hireling of the cattle interests before the grange master.

“Whoa! Whoa, boys!” Huffaker reined the swinging team down, scowling. “What is it, Cutting? We’re in a hurry and—”

“So were your friends who went through me last night,” broke in Chart, and swept his arm to indicate his vandalized fields.

The three men in the rig glanced at the destruction, Elija Hayes muttering a curse into his beard, Huffaker flushing to the roots of his hair.

“I take that unkindly, Cutting,” said the deputy, bristling. “In the first place no night rider who takes the law into his own hands is my friend. If the truth is known, you’re probably like a lot of farmers who skimp your fencin’. Squawkin’ because cattle bust down your wire to get at the grain. You should have thought of that before you lit in a cattle country to bust sod.”

“That as near to the truth as you aim to get, Huffaker?” demanded Chart quietly.

“I haven’t time to take up with you!” snapped the deputy, and kicked off the brake. “Get out of the road. I’ve a prisoner to deliver to the jailhouse!”

Chart started, his eyes flashing to Elija Hayes. Not until that moment had he noticed the steel handcuffs about the grange master’s wrists. Hayes, trying vainly to hide his shame between his knees, jerked his head toward the man at his left and blurted: “High Sheriff, Chart, from the county seat. Name of John Champion. He’s arresting me for —murder.”

Excerpt From: Harry F. Olmstead. “Tombstones For Tejanos and Other Stories.”