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  Mess with the Bull and You Get the Horns

  While he was crouched down low, Clint drove a few quick punches into Westin’s midsection. The big man’s stomach felt more like a slab of beef wrapped around a post. Clint was still doing his best to chop that post down when a pair of beefy forearms dropped onto his shoulder like a sledgehammer. The impact stole some of the breath from Clint’s lungs and dropped him to one knee.

  Leering down at him, Westin hunched over a bit as he asked, “Did that hurt?”

  Clint’s reply to the taunt was to reach up with one hand, take a firm grip on Westin’s beard, and pull him down sharply. The big man’s chin thumped against the edge of the bar, and he staggered back while letting out a pained roar. Clint pulled himself to his feet and put every bit of strength he could muster behind a right cross to the head.

  Although Westin was hurt by the last blow, he had enough of his wits about him to catch Clint’s incoming punch. The sound of knuckles slapping against his left palm still hung in the air when Westin tightened his grip around Clint’s fist. “You made a whole lot of mistakes here, boy,” he snarled into Clint’s face.

  When Clint tried to pull his hand free, he only felt Westin’s grip become even tighter. Already, sharp jolts of pain shot up through his arm.

  “You picked the wrong saloon to come into,” Westin said. “You opened your mouth when you should’a kept it shut. And you raised a hand to a man who can put you six feet under anytime he chooses.”

  Clint balled up his other fist and took a swing at Westin. That punch bounced off the big man’s side, and before Clint could follow up, the bones in his trapped hand were mercilessly ground together. Even though Clint was able to stand up in front of the bigger man, he couldn’t do much else at that moment.

  DON’T MISS THESE

  ALL-ACTION WESTERN SERIES

  FROM THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  THE GUNSMITH by J. R. Roberts

  Clint Adams was a legend among lawmen, outlaws, and ladies. They called him . . . the Gunsmith.

  LONGARM by Tabor Evans

  The popular long-running series about Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long—his life, his loves, his fight for justice.

  SLOCUM by Jake Logan

  Today’s longest-running action Western. John Slocum rides a deadly trail of hot blood and cold steel.

  BUSHWHACKERS by B. J. Lanagan

  An action-packed series by the creators of Longarm! The rousing adventures of the most brutal gang of cutthroats ever assembled—Quantrill’s Raiders.

  DIAMONDBACK by Guy Brewer

  Dex Yancey is Diamondback, a Southern gentleman turned con man when his brother cheats him out of the family fortune. Ladies love him. Gamblers hate him. But nobody pulls one over on Dex . . .

  WILDGUN by Jack Hanson

  The blazing adventures of mountain man Will Barlow—from the creators of Longarm!

  TEXAS TRACKER by Tom Calhoun

  J.T. Law: the most relentless—and dangerous—manhunter in all Texas. Where sheriffs and posses fail, he’s the best man to bring in the most vicious outlaws—for a price.

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

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  A DIFFERENT TRADE

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2014 by Robert J. Randisi.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Jove® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

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  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-14538-2

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Jove mass-market edition / December 2014

  Cover illustration by Sergio Giovine.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Contents

  All-Action Western Series

  Title Page

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  ONE

  LARGA NOCHE, NEW MEXICO

  Most towns had a story that could be read in the way they were laid out, where they were located, or what sorts of business were run within its boundaries. Some towns had played host to well-known events or even legendary ones. Others simply . . . were. As far as Clint could tell, Larga Noche was one of the latter.

  Located close enough to the desert for the winds to carry a harsh warmth along with the gritty texture of sunbaked sand, it wasn’t trapped within the scorched rocks like so many other settlements. There was a meandering stream on the town’s northern edge and some vistas to the southwest that were downright breathtaking when the sun hit them in the morning. None of these things was reason enough for a town to be built, however. There were no major trade routes passing through. The closest railroad station was a day and a half’s ride away. Even getting there by stagecoach required a five-mile ride to meet a driver who only bothered to come along every other week. Clint didn’t need to know why every town had come to be, but he usually could get a sense for such a thing after spending a minimal amount of time there. Larga Noche might as well have sprung up from the arid dirt like an old tortoise that didn’t have the good sense to draw its head straight back into its shell again.

  As far as he could tell, there was barely any organization to the town at a
ll. Its crooked streets were irregularly spaced. Some buildings looked to have burned down years ago and been left to rot while others were immaculately maintained by their owners. But beyond any of that or anything else that could be seen or heard, Clint simply felt as if Larga Noche wasn’t going to be there for very long. It was similar to crossing a bridge that creaked and moaned with every step. A man in that spot didn’t need to know why the bridge had been built or how long it had been there. He simply knew he had to finish his walk to the other side before that shoddy structure inevitably fell apart.

  Scowling at the town as he rode through it, Clint patted the neck of his Darley Arabian stallion, Eclipse. “I know you’re thirsty, boy. We’ll get you something to drink and put a roof over your head for the night. Hopefully we won’t be here much longer than that.”

  When he looked up again, Clint saw a couple who looked to be somewhere in their late fifties. Judging by the near-lifeless stares they wore, neither the old man nor his wife was surprised to hear such words coming from a stranger. In fact, they seemed just as ready as Clint to get the hell out of that place. Even though it didn’t look like he’d hurt any feelings, Clint tipped his hat to them and smiled in a casual apology. The old man grunted under his breath and pulled the woman across the street toward a store with shoes displayed in its front window.

  “Might warn me next time,” Clint grumbled to Eclipse. “We’ve got business to conduct here, and the better it goes, the faster we can leave.”

  Clint continued riding down a street that had been called Linden at the south end of town and, for some unknown reason, changed into Preston Avenue farther north. Before long, he spotted a street that branched off to the right. If not for the ruckus coming from that direction, Clint might have overlooked the street altogether. As it was, a man would have had to be blind and deaf to move past it without noticing the cloud of dust being kicked up less than sixty yards away.

  Normally, hearing a whinnying horse wasn’t enough to catch Clint’s undivided attention. Since there wasn’t much else to look at apart from a shoddy town, he was all too eager to investigate what had made the animal so unhappy. It didn’t take him long to spot the woman dressed in dirty jeans and a dusty flannel shirt trying to grab hold of the anxious horse’s reins. When the horse turned its eyes toward her, it reared up and started churning its front hooves in the air. The woman in the dusty clothes was smart and fast enough to dive to one side before those angry hooves came down again.

  “Easy, girl!” the woman said as soon as she hit the ground. “Just let me—”

  Before the woman could finish what she’d been saying, the angry horse pounded its hooves against the dirt and then turned away from her while shaking its head as though a bee were trapped in its ear. Clint didn’t like the erratic way the horse was bucking and kicking, so he snapped his reins to get his own stallion moving a bit faster. He arrived just in time to lean over and scoop the woman up in one arm before the angry horse’s rear legs snapped back in a powerful kick.

  The woman was much prettier up close, even when she pinched her features into an expression of angry surprise. “Let go of me,” she said. She had the strength to back up her request and nearly wriggled loose from Clint’s grasp. When he tightened his arm around her waist, Clint was pulled from his saddle and barely managed to break his fall before breaking his neck.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Clint snapped as he rolled on top of her. “I’m trying to . . . look out!”

  The angry horse’s rump was so close to Clint and the woman that it blocked the sunlight from their eyes. Wrapping both arms around the woman, Clint rolled away from a water trough as the horse’s rear legs lashed out to smash through the long wooden container. Wooden planks cracked and broke into splinters. Water sprayed in every direction and ran onto the ground. When he felt the impact of those hooves thumping against the ground again, Clint was just as nervous as he’d been when shots were fired at him.

  If either one of them caught even a glancing blow from those raging kicks, Clint or the woman would be pulverized. He wrapped his arms around her even tighter, covered her with his body, and waited for the longest couple of seconds he’d suffered through in a long while. After those seconds had passed, Clint twisted his head around to get a look at the wild horse. He let out the breath he’d been holding once he saw the animal point its nose away from them and start running down the street.

  “Stay here,” he said to the woman. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “To fetch that horse before it kicks someone’s head off their shoulders!”

  TWO

  Clint swung up into his saddle and snapped his reins within the space of a few heartbeats. In that short span of time, the wild horse had continued farther down the street to scatter several small groups of folks who’d been watching the commotion from what had once been a safe distance. Fortunately for them, they were all able to dive through a doorway or duck into an alley before being trampled by the rampaging animal.

  Now that there was some distance between him and the other horse, Clint could pick a side from which to approach without being knocked into next week. Keeping one hand on his reins, he reached down with his other hand to snatch the length of rope hanging from the side of his saddle. By the time he got a lasso spinning, the horse had set its sights on a tall man and two children. Both young ones were pressed against the side of a clothier, boxed in between an outhouse and a stack of crates positioned next to the shop’s side entrance. With nowhere else to go in the short time that remained, the tall man spread his arms and stood in front of the children to shield them from what was charging straight at them.

  Although this wasn’t the first time Clint had held a rope in his hand, he wasn’t about to gamble anyone’s life on his skill with it unless there was no other choice. Quickly gripping his reins between his teeth, he used that hand to draw the modified Colt from his holster and fire a shot into the air well above the runaway horse’s head. Hearing the explosive sound, the wild horse reared up once again.

  Now that the horse had stopped and was even stretching its neck while lifting its head to the sky, Clint was given the best target he could hope for. He quickly got the lasso spinning again, raised it high, and sent it flying toward the other horse as he rode by. The lasso dropped around the wild horse’s neck and Clint cinched it tight with a few sharp tugs. After wrapping his end of the rope around his saddle horn, he rode down the street toward the edge of town.

  Although Clint had his sights set on the wide-open terrain beyond Larga Noche’s eastern border, he didn’t have to ride that far before the horse he’d roped began to slow its pace. As soon as he heard a few tired breaths come from the horse’s mouth, Clint turned around to smirk at the pretty young woman who’d almost been trampled, and he tipped his hat. Naturally, that was the moment when the horse within Clint’s noose caught its second wind.

  Without a hint of warning, the horse lurched forward sharply enough to loosen the other end of the rope from Clint’s saddle horn. As soon as it had enough slack, it broke into a gallop. Clint was lucky to hang on to his rope, but his luck ran out when he was yanked clean from his saddle. One moment he was trying to get a better look at the horse’s pretty owner and the next, he was about to land belly-first onto the ground. Clint reflexively twisted around before he hit, somehow managing to land on one side and a leg. The impact hurt like hell, but no bones were busted in the process.

  Perhaps inspired by the sight of open ground not too far ahead of its nose, the horse moved toward the edge of town with Clint skidding behind it. Buildings, wagons, and barrels rushed past Clint on both sides. Before long, he knew he wouldn’t see much of anything unless he let go of that rope. Stubbornness won out over common sense when Clint tightened his grip rather than let go after hanging on for this long. He was getting ready to swallow his pride when the horse slowed to a
walk while breathing in heavy, tired gulps. Even at that less vigorous pace, Clint’s boots were still creating a pair of shallow ruts as he was dragged down the street.

  To his left was a hitching post in front of a short row of storefronts, so he maneuvered himself in that direction. Once there, he braced a foot against the post and pulled back on the rope. Despite the extra leverage he’d gained, Clint was still convinced he would be forced to let the horse go before being dragged all the way into the next town. At that moment, however, the horse lost its last bit of steam and gave up on its attempt to flee. Its head hung low as it gave a few parting tugs on Clint’s rope in a final show of defiance.

  Removing his foot from the side of the post, Clint walked toward the horse while reeling in the rope. “It’s all right, folks,” he said to the scattered locals, who were already losing interest in the show. “I’ve got this under control.”

  The people who were still watching him were now even less interested than they’d been a moment ago. The only exception to that was the man who’d been protecting the two children when the horse had reared. He ran up to Clint and slapped him on the shoulder. “Thanks, mister!” he said. “Thought we were gonna be put through that wall back there.”

  “I should be able to keep that from happening but you might want to tend to those two before things get out of hand again.”

  The grateful man was about to say something else when he glanced back at the spot where he’d left the two children. Rather than staying put, the two young ones were already wandering into the street to get a closer look at the animal that had almost done them in. “Aw, fer Christ’s sake,” the man said. “The both of you won’t be happy until you get your necks broke! Then your ma would skin me alive!”

  With that, the man hurried to gather the children in such a rush that the winded horse being led by Clint almost worked itself into a lather again. It was calmed by a hand that reached out to gently rub the horse’s head close to its ear.

  “You’ve got a real knack with horses,” the pretty young woman said.