Bar 10 #12, page 1
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A group of mysterious riders are racing along the western border of the infamous Bar 10 spread, determined to fulfil their mission: to kill Johnny Puma. With time running out, Johnny will need to rely on more than his wits if he is to face this pack of murderous strangers and survive. It’s time to take matters into his own hands and call upon old friends, the famed and dangerous riders of the Bar 10.
BAR 10 12: WEST OF THE BAR 10
By Boyd Cassidy
First published by Robert Hale Limited in 2014
Copyright © 2013, 2021 by Boyd Cassidy
First Electronic Edition: October 2021
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by means (electronic, digital, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book
Series Editor: Ben Bridges
Text © Piccadilly Publishing
Published by Arrangement with the Author.
Dedicated to my cousin, Nick George.
Keep cooking, cuz.
Prologue
THE FAMED BAR 10 cattle spread had many unanswered mysteries but one of the most intriguing concerned the young man who had become like a son to rancher Gene Lon Adams. Johnny Puma had yet to reach his thirtieth birthday and had spent more than a decade on the vast Texas ranch but even so he had never truly been a cowboy like those he worked with. Every inch of the young man told a different tale. The pair of matched Colt .45’s in their hand-tooled shooting rig bespoke of another life which had gone before his arrival at the legendary Bar 10 ranch.
A life which had been very different to that of the humble cowpuncher he eluded to be. The speed and accuracy with which Johnny Puma could use his guns was also something rare in cowboys. Most cowboys had never even fired their guns in anger but tended to use them as a tool.
In total contrast Johnny Puma could not only use his guns but had proven his ability with them on numerous occasions. To him his guns were a vital part of his being. They had contributed to his survival and helped him protect those who surrounded him. Like Adams himself he was a renowned shot and never spoke of how he had learned his often lethal skill.
It was well known amongst his fellow riders of the Bar 10 that Adams had given him the name he now used. The rancher had also given the youngster a new life and protected him as though Johnny were the son Adams had never been blessed with.
A score of theories of why Johnny had needed a new identity had come and gone over the years but Adams had never spoken of it. Only he and his ancient pal Tomahawk knew the truth and they were not telling.
There was an unwritten code on the Bar 10. They were a family of strangers who had little but their own gritty courage and resolve to protect them. It was said that when you were accepted into the Bar 10 fold you remained forever.
Gene Lon Adams would protect his cowboys whatever the cost. They were his sons and a real man was always willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for his children.
But sometimes fate moves its great hand and the past returns to haunt the present with a vengeance. Sometimes even men like Gene Adams cannot hold back the tide of a tempest no matter how hard he tried.
Sometimes even ten years is not long enough for all of the demons which linger in the shadows of a man’s soul to be vanquished permanently.
There were indeed many mysteries on the Bar 10.
Johnny Puma was just one of them.
This past was riding toward the vast ranch with bloody spurs. Soon the youngster would have to face his demons and all those around him would learn the truth. Every question would be answered.
None of the riders of the Bar 10 knew it but death was coming. The past was returning to haunt them.
Chapter One
THE SANDSTORM WAS blinding as it swept from out on the desolate prairie and across the vast grasslands and into streets of Sutter’s Corner. It was like a living creature more monstrous than any nightmare. A sheer wall of sand which nearly blotted out the sun continued to roll unchecked over everything in its path. The residents of the normally bustling town had taken refuge in the multitude of stores and saloons to wait for the seasonal storm to subside. Yet the wind continued to whip up the fine sand as though the Devil himself wanted to conceal the arrival of his most black hearted of disciples.
The dozen horsemen steered their way down the middle of the wide main street through the choking cloud of sand. Not even the keenest of eyes saw the arrival of the most dangerous gang ever to have entered its unmarked boundaries and there would have been little they could have done even if they had. Each of the horsemen had their bandannas raised up and the brims of their Stetson pulled down. Their cold-blooded eyes squinted against the biting sand storm as each of the outlaws stared out ahead.
As always the outlaws were ready to kill anyone who even hinted at slowing their deadly progress. They were on a path of lethal retribution with only one collective thought filling their minds.
They had the scent of their prey in their nostrils. They knew that the man they sought was closer now than he had been for the previous decade. Even the storm of sand which tormented them and their horses could not deter them from the man they sought.
They had ridden a hundred miles to achieve their unholy goal and finish their slaughtering. To find and kill the one man who had managed to survive their vicious and brutal attack on a small settlement ten years earlier.
Most killers would have been satisfied with having made the lone survivor a man who was wanted dead or alive. They would have been happy that the innocent youngster had been branded with their crimes and forced to flee for his very life, but not the horsemen who steered their mounts deeper into the heart of Sutter’s Corner.
They had unfinished business.
It would only be finished when blood was spilled.
His blood.
Nothing else would satisfy them.
For years they had not heard anything of Johnny Mason. He had somehow vanished and each of the brutal outlaws had assumed that he had fallen victim of a lawman’s bullet or rope.
The gang had recalled the last time they had seen Mason after he had been cornered by a posse. He had been covered in his own blood and carrying the lead of those who hunted him in his youthful body.
It had been easy to assume that he had died of his injuries all those years before. The gang had destroyed an entire town and its inhabitants and filled their pockets with each of the victim’s loot. They had also managed to pin the blame on the innocent youngster to divert attention from them-selves.
It had all worked perfectly.
Only the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle had eluded them and that had always been a thorn in their hides. They had wanted to make sure that Johnny Mason was dead but they had failed in the final part of their sickening scheme.
Weeks had become years. After so many other equally horrific crimes the memory of the wronged Mason had faded.
Then ten days earlier as the gang were enjoying the spoils of yet another successful bank robbery a drunken man in a tobacco smoke filled saloon had told them that he had seen Johnny Mason only a month before. After the gang had poured even more whiskey into the old timer they became convinced that he was telling the truth.
Johnny Mason was alive but strangely not answering to his name. Now he had another name. Now he was Johnny Puma and one of many cowboys working for the famed Bar 10 cattle ranch.
The drunken man swore that he was an old friend of the youngster and knew that he was not mistaken. He had seen and spoken to Johnny Mason.
Suddenly the memories of those long gone days had returned to the gang. Normally they would not have even bothered to resume their hunt for the man who they had managed to turn into a wanted outlaw like themselves.
But Johnny Mason had been good with his guns and unlike so many of their victims he had fought back like a cornered tiger.
They wanted revenge.
For there had once been eighteen members of the Savage gang and Johnny Mason had managed to kill six of them before he himself had become the hunted and no longer the hunter when the law was steered after him.
For years Bart Savage had thought that the youngster that they had managed to get blamed for their hideous crimes had to be dead. Now they knew that he was alive and that burned in each of their craws.
Mason still lived.
That had to be rectified.
Bart Savage led his lethal followers silently through the sand storm down the long street. They were like dust caked ghosts. Every stride of his lathered up mount reminded him that Johnny Mason had killed his three brothers after they in turn had murdered every other living soul in the distant town of Rio Maria. Two other members of his gang had also lost kin but that did not matter to Savage.
He wanted revenge.
Savage drew rein and looped a long leg over the cantle of his mount. His spurs rang out in the gloom as he leaned over the barely visible hitching rail and looped his long leathers over it. He tied his reins tightly.
One by one each of his followers duplicated his actions and stepped away from their mou
The blinding sand storm made it impossible for any of the gang to read the words painted on the long wooden boards above the porch but the smell of stale liquor was unmistakable. They had found a saloon and they were thirsty.
Their spurs rang out as one by one the outlaws stepped up on to the boardwalk and moved to the swing doors. Savage led the way into the crowded saloon. The swing doors rocked on their hinges after the last of the gunmen had entered.
A hushed silence greeted them.
Twelve sand covered men with their bandannas raised up over their noses was the last thing any of the saloons patrons had expected to see. Savage tugged on his bandanna to reveal his scarred features. He walked across the sawdust covered floor to the bar counter. His men moved to either side of him as the rest of the saloons patrons spread wide and clear of the strangers.
‘Whiskey, barkeep. A bottle apiece.’ Savage drawled as he tossed a golden fifty dollar coin at the nervous man stood before a long mirror.
The bartender nodded. His shaking hands pulled black glass bottles from under the counter and sat them down in front each of the dust-caked outlaws.
‘You boys looking for work?’ the bartender asked as he moved to his cash register and started to withdraw Savage’s change. ‘I hear the Lazy M are taking on hands for the cattle drive.’
Savage raised the bottle to his mouth. His teeth pulled the cork from the bottles neck. Savage spat it at the spittoon next to his boots.
‘We’re here looking for a long lost friend.’ Savage lied as he drank from his bottle. ‘Maybe you know him?’
‘What’s his handle?’ The bartender asked as he placed the coins and bills before the outlaw leader. ‘I know most of the cowpokes in these parts.’
‘His names Johnny.’ Savage continued as his men began to down their fiery liquor around him. ‘I’m told he rides a pinto pony nowadays.’
The bartender smiled. ‘I surely do. There’s only one critter that fits that description in these parts. You mean Johnny Puma. He rides for the Bar 10. Am I right?’
Savage nodded. ‘That’s him.’
The bartender rested his hands on the wet counter. ‘The Bar 10 boys don’t come into town much this close to a cattle drive. It would take something mighty important to bring them off the ranch.’
‘Something important, huh?’ Savage sucked on the neck of his bottle again and then placed it down on the counter. He looked thoughtful as his left hand went to his holstered Remington and drew it from his holster. He cocked its hammer as his men smiled and the bartender backed off. He looked around the saloon at the faces of its others patrons until he saw a female huddled close to a few burly men.
He cocked its hammer and then levelled the barrel of his gun at the bar room girl.
‘What you doing?’ the bartender fearfully asked.
Savage squeezed his trigger. The deafening sound of the shot echoed around the inside of the saloon. The female fell into a heap in the midst of the crowd. Blood suddenly encircled her dead body. The blood splattered patrons backed up to a wall and stared in disbelief at the stranger with the smoking six-shooter in his hand.
The cold-blooded eyes of the deadly outlaw glanced at the bartender as a cruel smile etched his face.
‘Get a horse and ride to the Bar 10. Tell Johnny that his old friend Bart Savage wants to talk with him.’ Savage snarled at the shaking bartender. ‘Tell him me and my boys will keep killing until he shows. Savvy?’
‘I’ll tell him.’ The bartender removed his apron and started to walk around the counter. He had barely reached the swing doors when he heard the gun firing again. He heard another body hit the sawdust covered floor as he raced out into the sandstorm.
Chapter Two
SHERIFF HARDY WILLIS was a burly man who had gut which hung over the buckle of his gunbelt. He had been up since just before daybreak and had wrongly imagined that the sandstorm would mean that Sutter’s Corner would be quiet for another day. He stared at the blotter on his desk and the coffee which he had spilled when the first shot had echoed around the small community. When a second shot had erupted out in the street the lawman realized that something was wrong. It was quite common to hear shots in any town west of the Pecos as men celebrated their various vices, but years of experience as a lawman told Willis that this was different.
This was no drunken reveler trying to shoot crows out of the sky. Every instinct told Willis that the shots he had just heard had more than likely been deadly.
The sheriff rose from his chair and dried his hands on his vest front. Willis had barely reached the solitary window of the weathered structure when he caught a fleeting glimpse of a rider spurring hard passed the main street office. The sandstorm had hidden most of the horseman from the eyes of the rotund lawman but for a few confused seconds Willis had thought it had been Bob Charles the bartender from the Longhorn Saloon.
That confused him. He had never seen the bartender even close to a horse let alone riding one.
Sheriff Willis gritted what was left of his teeth and then raised an arm and plucked his hat from the stand near the door. There was a blizzard blowing outside the window and door of his small office.
A blizzard of sand.
It was finding every way it could to enter the office around the ill-fitting door. Sheriff Willis placed the hat on his balding head and then secured its drawstring under his multitude of chins and tightened it.
He had battled against the storm to reach his office a few hours earlier and did not relish venturing out into it again yet men who wore tin stars often had to do the very thing their better judgement warned them against.
There was no let-up in the storm. In fact it seemed to Willis to be even worse than it had been at sunup. His whiskered features were still raw from his earlier walk through the brutal windblown sand. It had cut through his flesh like barb-wire.
Suddenly another shot rang out.
Willis jolted in surprise. A bead of sweat traced down his face. He was no coward but he was not a man who ever went looking for trouble either. Something was happening out there beyond the blanket of sand and no matter how much he wanted to ignore it, he could not. Willis had been a lawman too long to do nothing. It was his job to protect the people who paid his salary. A million questions flashed through the sheriff’s mind.
Only two of them managed to stick.
Who was shooting and who was being shot?
The lawman picked his top coat off the wooden hook of the stand and slid it on. He had no sooner started to button it when he heard the sound of boots echoing on the boardwalk to his left. Someone was running toward his office.
Willis pushed his nose against the pane of glass just as a figure emerged from the sand and twisted the handle of his door. The sheriff stepped back and watched Joel Harker enter his office and close the door behind him.
The lawman looked at the blacksmith long and hard. He had never seen the well-constructed man look so terrified before. It troubled him. When men like Harker were frightened there had to be something to be frightened of.
‘What’s wrong, Joel?’ Willis asked as the man spat sand from his mouth and coughed. ‘What’s eating at you? Did you see who has been firing that gun?’
The muscular man straightened up. He was well over six feet in height but he was shaking with fear.
‘Nope, I didn’t see the critter that’s firing that hogleg, Sheriff. But Bob sure did.’ Harker managed to say. ‘He told me about it when he hired one of my saddle horses.’
‘So it was Bob I saw riding passed here.’ Willis nodded to himself. ‘I’ve never seen him riding before. What did he tell you, Joel? What?’
‘He said that a varmint called Savage gunned down Maisie Hooper in the saloon, Sheriff.’ Harker croaked as he rested a hip on the desk and cupped his face in his massive hands. ‘Bob said he heard him shoot someone else just as he left the Longhorn but Bob didn’t look back. He started running and didn’t stop until he reached my livery.’
Willis moved close to the shaking blacksmith.
