2 Gun Western, May 1957 — page 90: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

90 - 2-GUN WESTERN Silence held the big room. The boy and girl sat tense, seemingly be- wildered by what was happening. A triumphant sneer curled Nick Scar- leti’s thin lips as he looked at Flash Hayden. ened girl swimming in his mind, leav-, ing that girl in the evil, merciless: clutches of a human wolf—Nick Scar-' lett. Flash Hayden grinned sardonically in the darkness. Satan’s Segundo.... : 4 . s . 4 a “You put that spider up to this, Scarlett,’ the gunman ripped out harshly. “Didn’t have the guts to face me fair, even with your wolves at your back, did you? Well, all the cards ain’t out in this game yet. Some day, I’ll kill you for this!” Stiff-legged, gun in one hand and money sack in the other, Flash Hay- den backed to the door. The deadly drug in the whiskey was clutching with black fingers at his brain. The room reeled crazily before his eyes. Only one thing stood out clearly— the white, terror-haunted face of the girl. | Flash Hayden turned, staggered in- to the night. Dazedly, he reeled to the big gelding pulled himself into the saddle, and the night swallowed him as he spurred wildly away. After riding furiously for a mile. Flash slowed the big gelding. He rode stiff in the saddle, clutching the saddlehorn for support. Fiercely he fought the drug that was trying to pull him from the saddle. Chaos gripped his mind. Clashing emotions roiled in his heart. Memory of the young girl’s white face and wide, pleading eyes fought with the knowledge that somewhere in the night, not far away now, a law posse was closing in on him. Already, per- haps, others had whipped in between him and the hills. Flash Hayden cursed bitterly, and rode on. He was alternately hot and cold. Nausea tore at his stomach. A dark mist, agitated by fierce winds, seemed to swirl in his brain. But he never lost consciousness. A chill night wind washed against his face, driving out some of the mist. But bleak, bitter reverie still moul- ded his hard face into a somber mask. NCE FLASH HAYDEN had killed a drunken miner for an in- sulting word spoken to a dance hall flossie. And yet he was riding away, the picture of a bewildered, fright- _ The words beat in his tired brain.’ Flash thought of the men he had killed. | But he could remember no time when he failed to drag his guns in de- fense of a woman.... Flash Hayden stopped the gelding suddenly. Abruptly his brain was clear, cold, calculating. He knew he. should be racing on toward the hills.. He knew that it meant almost certain death to return to Tarn’s place—if not from Nick Scarlett’s wolves, then from the posses that were hemming in, Only in the dark hills lay safety. But now indecision no longer tor- mented Flash Hayden’s mind. He whirled the gelding suddenly, sent him pounding back through the night.... His gaunt, sinister, figure filled the doorway of the barroom. He stood hunched forward as his cold eyes probed about the room. Already Nick Scarlett had drooped his mask of suavity, bared his fangs. Young Jim Morgan sat with head and shoulders draped limply across the table, blood streaming from a gash on his forehead. The youth was unconscious. Nick Scarlett and his three hench- men stood at the bar, talking and laughing with ribald glee, glasses of raw whiskey upraised in their filthy hands. The dudish Nick Scarlett was holding the girl in his arms. The girl, terror-stricken, fought desperately, despairingly. She fast- ened her white teeth in Scarlett’s shoulder. Nick Scarlett squalled.,with pain, swung his open palm ae ist the girl’s face. Flash Hayden’s voice, ragged with unchained passions, lashed across the room; “Scarlett, a gent that'll do that ain’t fit to live!” The four men at the bar whirled, stark surprise wiping the evil merri- ment from their faces. The girl twist- ed from Scarlett’s grasp, ran toward the renegade. As her fiercel Flash Hayden flung her fiercely _