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  With yelps of triumph, the two surviving Comanches appeared on opposite sides of the staggering figure as Savage burst from the trees.

  He was so dazed he was unaware that the riders had been able to accurately trace his progress through the woods.

  He waited for the bullets to hit, but the Comanches weren’t shooting. Instead they came charging down on him, screaming and brandishing their rifles, and an even more fearful thought than that of death hit him hard.

  They wanted to take him alive!

  And that would be worse than any death known to man.

  SAVAGE 13: JAGGED SPUR

  By E. Jefferson Clay

  First published by Cleveland Publishing Co. Pty Ltd, New South Wales, Australia

  © 2022 by Piccadilly Publishing

  This Electronic Edition August 2022

  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

  Published by Arrangement with The Cleveland Publishing Pty Ltd.

  Series Editor: Ben Bridges

  Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Visit www.piccadillypublishing.org to read more about our books

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One – Welcome to Waco Flats

  Chapter Two – Dark Sun Rising

  Chapter Three – High Iron West

  Chapter Four – Red Shadows

  Chapter Five – Crimson Tracks

  Chapter Six – The Horse-Thievin’ Kind

  Chapter Seven – Blood Sisters

  Chapter Eight – What Ransom Money?

  Chapter Nine – Stalking Moon

  Chapter Ten – Sometimes a Hero

  About the Author

  Chapter One – Welcome to Waco Flats

  FIVE CIGAR-SMOKING women in Presbyterian missionary rig watched Savage ride into Waco Flats. They were dressed in full regalia and were lining the upstairs balcony of a seedy-looking place called The Cloister.

  But after a few catcalls and the odd whistle, Savage knew they were as much Christian as the Flats was a town. But to Clinton Dylan Savage, the scatter of tents and half-erected clapboard buildings was still a welcome sight at the end of his long ride from Black Mesa Jail.

  Savage was so different from the usual run of cowboy finding his way to the Flats and eventually to the doors of The Cloister, the ladies couldn’t believe their luck. He was taller than most, wide of shoulder and narrow of hip. He sported twin six-guns thonged low in cutaway holsters with the polished stock of a Winchester .32 repeater jutting from a leather-fringed saddle scabbard. Nothing peculiar about that around Waco Flats, where men wore guns as women donned bonnets against the sun.

  Savage did his best to ignore them. The chore became easy when he noticed the sign above the batwing doors of the Bullhorn Saloon.

  The ladies were disappointed at the snub but they had no way of knowing that at the moment the stranger was going through one of his ‘dude moods.’ This meant that he’d forsaken regular trail rig for a full-sleeved white silk shirt, striped twill pants and highly-polished Mexican boots.

  In his warbag were the black shirt and moleskins he usually wore, but after delivering another killer to Black Mesa at the end of a month-long search, he felt like a change.

  Wasn’t his fault that a group of women in the employ of Brother Willy Shelton should find his stylish wardrobe perfectly in keeping with the swashbuckling picture he presented. The sun gleamed from the oiled bronze of his powerful face and his white teeth contrasted with the heavy black mustache as he reined-in at the hitchrail of the Bullhorn and spoke to a kid keen to earn some money horse-minding.

  He took a coin from his shirt pocket and flipped it to the kid who caught it deftly. He took off his hat and mopped his dust-grimed brow, his curly black hair and handsome face bringing sighs from the balcony across the street.

  “By God and by glory,” drooled Sister Kate, “and here was I thinkin’ they’d stopped makin’ that breed.”

  “Well, isn’t someone going to go down there and volunteer?” wondered dark and tempestuous Sister Lucretia, the voluptuous ideal of men from Red River to the Brazos.

  “Who’s got that sort of energy to waste on such a hot day?” sighed world-weary Sister Dolly, a real live kewpie doll with golden ringlets and eyes as innocent as a field of Texas bluebonnets.

  “My thoughts exactly,” said the youngest and by far the most attractive of Brother Willy’s ‘sacred sisters,’ soft-skinned and smoky-eyed Sister Angela.

  “Since when is offering a customer a little encouragement a waste, eh girls?” Lucretia asked.

  The others looked thoughtfully at Dolly. She’d been in this game a long time, a game that regrettably had nothing to do with religion, going to church on the Sabbath, or kindly deeds. To these five sisters, Faith, Hope and Charity were names their boss could have given them when he realized that dressing up his bordello and his fallen doves in spiritual garb brought the paying customers flocking in.

  Sister Angela, plain Angela Smith to those who knew her in Dallas, had been especially imported by Brother Willy because of her stunning beauty and ladylike demeanor. Indeed, she played her role so convincingly that clients tended to treat her like the angel she was. They refused to cuss in her company and kept hidden the red-eyed lust that brought them to The Cloister in the first place.

  Under normal circumstances, Angela’s comment would have seen her fired on the spot. But Brother Willy, who had the soul of an ax-murderer and a face to go with it, was in love with her, as were most males between six and sixty in Waco Flats and its sagebrush surrounds.

  Angela believed she was a cut above the rest, but her sisters in spirituality and sin accepted her obvious innocence.

  “He ain’t customer material, honey,” Sister Dolly said bluntly. “It’s that simple.”

  “How many honest-to-god Greek gods pass beneath Willy’s crummy red light, Angie baby?” supported Kate, re-lighting her cheroot. “Come on, be honest.” She exhaled a cloud of blue tobacco smoke. “None is close to the figure. Why, you ask? Plain as your perky nose. The good-lookers don’t have to pay.”

  “Won’t pay,” chimed in another.

  “Never paid and never will,” Lucretia finished, gesturing at the man in the street as he stepped down from his horse. “So much for daydreaming, little sister. That hunky breed never was and never will be for the likes of us, and that’s the plain honest truth of it.”

  Down on the street, unaware of the attention he had created, Savage was idly yarning to a couple of porch loafers before moving towards the Bullhorn’s cool and shady interior. He was dry as a lime-burner’s boot and found the locals just as dull and dim-witted. Yet he continued to kill time there on the porch, denying himself the shot he so badly needed.

  Why?

  Savage was anything but the self-denying type. Indeed, it was his huge appetite for strong liquor and hot-blooded women that kept his engines ticking over.

  But not today—or so he was telling himself as he licked dry lips and inhaled the heady scents of beer and whiskey, and kept reminding himself of a word for which he customarily had little time.

  Duty.
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  He’d given his word. He would wait for a man to show up at the Flats and would remain on the alert till he arrived. No brawls, no women, nothing more than a medicinal drink. Hard, but Savage liked to keep his word.

  He was feeling righteous as he finally turned to look over the sun-blasted townscape, this time touching briefly on the row of strangely-garbed women on the balcony across the street. Three of the five gave him an enthusiastic wave and blew him kisses before he shouldered his way through the batwings.

  Savage performed his best swagger as he left, which drew a farewell clutch of sighs from Waco Flat’s ladies of the night. Then they were interrupted by the sudden appearance of a runt of a man in a striped yellow suit who sported a diamond stickpin and three gold fillings right in the middle of his mouth.

  “So, what’s this then?” Brother Willy challenged. “We takin’ our breaks in the middle of the afternoon now? Are you forgettin’ the boys from the mine are due in tonight and the joint looks a mess?”

  For some reason, the ladies were all feeling a little winsome and in no mood to protest or argue. All filed inside with the exception of Sister Angela. She seemed a million miles away as she gazed down upon the battered false front and the rusted iron roof of the Bullhorn Saloon, acting as though she had not heard a word that was said.

  This type of defiance would normally guarantee some verbal or physical abuse from flashy little Willy—but Angela was his prize possession.

  “Sugar plum,” he said, placing an arm around her shoulders. “You look kinda glum. You got somethin’ you want to talk to Willy about?”

  Sister Angela did have a problem, but it was not of the kind she wanted to discuss with her gold-toothed pimp or anyone else. Since her arrival in Waco Flats, The Cloister’s drawcard had been missing something in her life. She’d been largely unaware of it until the black-mustached stranger had ridden in on that sorrel.

  Quite suddenly, Sister Angela wanted to prove to herself that she could get any man she set her sights on. So she kissed Willy’s sallow cheek and went quickly to her room.

  For an hour she experimented with her hair, her makeup and her wardrobe. Staring at her perfect reflection in the flyspecked mirror, she quickly realized she had been involved in sex for so long she had almost forgotten what romance was.

  She left her room and headed for the Bullhorn.

  “Water?” queried the barkeep.

  “That’s what I said,” growled his newest customer. “Water.”

  “Again?”

  Savage lowered his hand to the bar top, his eyes narrowing to slits.

  “Somethin’ wrong with water, you—?” He broke off. He’d been about to call the man a ‘cloth-eared, beady-eyed, brainless son of a motherless whore’, but plainly that would be excessive under the circumstances. This was, after all, a place which traded in hard liquor, and here he was lining up for his fourth jug of water after just one blissful whiskey. He had nothing against the barkeep; it was the self-denial that was eating at his liver. “Just another water,” he said, forcing a smile. “Pal.”

  That smile had ice in it. The barkeep filled another jug and one edgy customer was left to his own devices.

  He didn’t see her enter.

  His mind was wandering back over events of the last few weeks that ended with him making the acquaintance of a big man of the region who’d impressed this sometime-drifter and government agent, who, by and large, was a difficult man to impress.

  Tate Bonnadeen was the reason a dust-dry Savage was sipping water and gazing moodily at his reflection in the mirror, while a slender figure in gray and what looked like a nun’s habit, stopped by a table occupied by a quartet of hairy-faced miners. She calmly took a full glass from the scarred hand of the largest bruiser and downed four fingers of redeye without so much as a flinch, or without so much as a grunt of protest from the miner.

  Savage wondered how long his association with Bonnadeen would last.

  For one thing, Tate Bonnadeen bossed the high-country T Eight spread which was both anti-Railroad and anti-Comanche. Savage was simply anti-Comanche.

  He sighed as his eyes strayed to the golden bottles of whiskey lining the Bullhorn’s shelves and experienced that old struggle of conscience versus natural inclinations.

  Savage and Bonnadeen had ridden together like old pals from Black Mesa to the Tipi Waters cross trail, a stranger to this county and its two-fisted pioneer citizen.

  That was when Bonnadeen told him he had business at the Waters that couldn’t wait. He told him he was taking off to handle it while insisting Savage wait for him at the Flats. “If I don’t show up inside twenty-four hours, I’d be obliged if you’d come look for me in case I’ve run into something I can’t handle. I sure wouldn’t ask this of just anybody, couldn’t ask it unless I knew you were a man to count on.”

  Savage grimaced. Sure, he was tough and reliable, even if he said so himself. But he had reservations. He could always be stung by that old familiar feeling ... like now ...

  She was standing at his shoulder, a lady of the cloth with hands modestly folded across her bosom and the loveliest eyes that met his in the mirror.

  Savage’s jaw sagged. Was this a vision from heaven? Until now, Waco Flats had the look, smell and taste of a town no better than rat poison. This apparition changed all that.

  And there was no mistaking the change. That old familiar feeling hit him with a solid roundhouse—but followed it up with an uppercut of conscience.

  “Disappear, Sister,” he growled.

  “Angela.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m Sister Angela of The Holy Cloister.”

  Savage rolled his eyes. Drunks and saddlebums sat staring at him, blank looks on their faces. The foolish bartender was rattling his glasses, avoiding eye contact. Savage gave the woman his hardest stare that had little effect.

  “This some kind of joke, honey? If it is, you’re lookin’ to play it on the wrong geezer at the wrong time. Hightail before I paddle your prayer-bustin’ ass for you.”

  Such language would surely have fazed a genuine daughter of the church, but didn’t even cause luscious Sister Angela to bat a dusky eyelid. She was on a mission, not to spread the Word or save the soul of this would-be sinner, but to show both herself and her hard-boiled sisters across the way that the former Miss Angela Smith from Frog Hollow still had what it took to rope them in from anywhere, when and if she chose.

  And on this stranger, Angela really chose ... big time.

  If Savage looked good at a distance, up close he was quite breathtaking.

  She saw something in Savage’s eyes that made her certain she could win this one well before Savage knew he was lost.

  She leaned back against the bar and ignored him, knowing that her perfume would soon have its effect.

  Savage wanted to deck her.

  He was desperate to take her by her pretty neck and show her the door. Wanted to show everyone that Clint Savage was not a man who could be diverted from the golden pathway of duty and responsibility by a piece of skirt togged in gray cloth which enhanced rather than concealed the full, firm and youthful lines of the perfect body beneath.

  Savage groaned.

  An image of Tate Bonnadeen flashed before his eyes, a totally impressive and likable image of a man who made Savage promise he’d remain vigilant and sober until his return.

  He’d given the man his word.

  “You know, Sister Angela,” he said, reaching out to close a large hand around her slender upper arm, “there ought to be a law against nuns like you.”

  She shrugged his hand away easily, straightened, smiled straight into his face.

  “Would you be kind enough to escort me back to The Cloister, mister ... ah, I don’t even know your name.”

  Savage was hooked. A man’s conscience could only stand so much temptation. Had any Waco Flats citizen mentioned the name Tate Bonnadeen, as the striking and unlikely couple q
uit the saloon, Savage would have stared glassy-eyed and replied, “Who’s Bonnadeen?”

  He was gone ... and he didn’t give a damn.

  It was four-thirty in the morning and all was quiet in Waco Flats with the exception of Room 22 on the first floor of The Cloister.

  Time had no meaning for Savage as Sister Angela straddled him and ran her tongue around his ear, kissed his neck, then bit into the thick, curved muscles of his shoulder.

  Brother Willy dressed this place of sin up to imitate a place of worship, the better to titillate the jaded appetites of cowboys, miners, drifters, tycoons, cattle barons and cold-eyed gun sharks who beat a path to The Cloister’s crimson door. Although just as world-weary as her evil little pimp, Angela Smith felt she was undeniably living out a truly religious experience as she shuddered violently and almost lost consciousness. She still wasn’t sure she hadn’t when Savage rose from the bed to pour himself another double.

  Sister Angela had successfully taken him to heaven and back, helping him dismiss all thoughts of conscience, duty and lingering guilt. He could barely remember anything beyond climbing the stairs toting her and a fifth of Old Grandfather Whiskey, now reduced to barely a single shot.

  So he was drunk ... so what?

  He had succeeded in ridding himself of all the knots and twitches associated with the long chase after Comanche Billy Lang, tonight awaiting the hangman in a Black Mesa cell.

  Who was to deny him a little reward after another successful mission ...? Tate What’s-his-name ...?

  He stared at Sister Angela kneeling on the bed, drained the bottle and went to her without so much as a flicker of conscience.

  Savage was floating in another world where time held no meaning. The only sound he could hear was her silken skin brushing against his own as she glided across his body ... and the faint ticking of the clock in the corner.

  What clock ...? He hadn’t noticed any clock!

  Savage didn’t want to leave this mystical wonderland. But old habits die hard and can clamor like all of Satan’s black angels even when a man is trying desperately to deny them.