Massacre at Whiskey Flats. William W. Johnstone

      Instead, he said, “You hombres can go on back about your business. We’ll take care of this matter from here.”

      The gray-bearded man frowned. “Mr. Bascomb ain’t gonna like it. Around here we stomp our own snakes. We don’t depend on no lawdogs to do it.”

      “Things are different now,” Bo said, his voice and his gaze firm. “You can start spreading the word, friend. Law and order have come to these parts.”

      Graybeard grumbled some more, but then he turned his horse and profanely told the men with him to get back to work. They rode off, casting a few hostile glares back over their shoulders as they did so.

      “I thought for sure they were going to start shooting again,” Reilly said.

      Bo shook his head. “Not cowboys like that. They may be pretty rough around the edges, but they’re generally law-abiding. They respected that badge you’re wearing, Jake.”

      “People really do that?” Reilly sounded like he couldn’t quite grasp that concept.

      “Honest ones do,” Scratch said. “I don’t reckon you’d know.”

      Reilly grinned as they turned their horses toward the buckskin-clad rider. “Honesty’s like beauty, boys,” he said. “It’s only skin-deep. Put enough temptation in anybody’s way, and they’ll forget all about being honest fast enough.”

      Bo didn’t agree with that, and he hoped that in time Reilly would come to realize that it wasn’t true, too. For now, though, he wanted to find out more about what was going on around Whiskey Flats, and the “rustler” seemed as good a place as any to start.

      As they rode toward the man, Scratch said, “From the sound o’ what that varmint with the beard was sayin’, there’s a range war brewin’ in these parts, too, Bo, to go along with the other trouble the mayor o’ Whiskey Flats told Braddock about in that letter.”

      Bo nodded. “Yeah, I’d say you’re right. Get a couple of fellas who fancy themselves cattle barons locking horns and you can have a real problem on your hands.”

      “But not me, right?” Reilly said. “I mean, I’m the town marshal. I don’t have anything to do with what happens outside of the settlement.”

      “According to the letter of the law, you’re probably right. But a good lawman will poke his nose into anything that has an effect on what goes on in his town, and if a range war breaks out this close to Whiskey Flats, it’s bound to spill over into the settlement, too.”

      Reilly grimaced. “I think you’re taking this whole marshal business too seriously. I’m not really John Henry Braddock.”

      “But you’ve got to act like him for a while,” Bo said. “Otherwise, people won’t believe what we want them to believe. From what I’ve heard about Braddock, he wouldn’t allow a shooting war to break out so close to any town where he was the marshal.”

      Reilly sighed and shook his head. “All right, all right. We’ll get to the bottom of the rustling. Or try anyway.”

      Bo nodded and said, “I think that would be best.”

      They had almost reached the rider who had been fleeing from the Rocking B hands. His shoulders slumped and his head hung low, just like his horse’s. Both of them were clearly exhausted.

      Even so, Reilly and the Texans were taken slightly by surprise when the buckskin-clad figure suddenly swayed in the saddle for a moment and then pitched loosely to the ground to lie there motionless.

      “Good Lord!” Scratch exclaimed. “Maybe he was hit after all!”

      Bo was already moving, swinging down from the saddle and hurrying forward. He knelt at the side of the senseless figure, grasped his shoulders, and rolled him onto his back. As Bo lifted the man’s head, the battered old hat fell off.

      Long, red, luxuriously thick hair spilled out. Bo found himself staring down into the unconscious, unmistakably female face of a young woman…. and an undeniably beautiful one at that.