Cotton’s Inferno by Phil Dunlap Read Free Book Online

take off one pound. Don’t know if that’s true or not, but if it is, Melody can manage to survive for quite a spell.”
    * * *
    Melody was still upstairs when Jack entered the saloon, shaking his head again over Cotton’s remark about her. Arlo nodded to him on his way through, and he wasted no time hiking up the stairs. When he opened the door, there she was sitting in front of her mirror applying some bright red rouge to her lips. She looked around at his entrance. She was stark naked. Jack’s empty stomach could wait.
    She rose slowly from her satin-covered stool, lowering her eyes seductively and holding out her hand to him. He smiled as he took it, and they fell onto the feather bed. Her eagerness suggested to him that there might be more to her overtly amorous moves than met the eye. But he wasn’t going to question her motives. Enjoy the moment; that was Jack’s motto. And he did.
    Thirty minutes later, Melody rose up on one elbow and, tracing squiggly lines on an exhausted Jack’s chest with her long fingernails, said, “Jack, I have something to tell you.”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œI think you’re going to be very happy about it.”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œWell, don’t you want to know what it is? Aren’t you the least bit curious?”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œHmm, well, I’m going to tell you, anyway, whether you’re interested or not.
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œI’m going to buy Pick Wheeler’s silver mine.”
    Jack’s eyes popped open. He was wide awake now. He sat up in a shot.
    â€œWh-what did you say? Pick Wheeler’s silver mine? You?”
    â€œYes. Isn’t it exciting? He wants to retire from working so hard so he can go back East to live off all the money he’s made. The old fool was just going to walk away and put an ad in the paper to sell it. I talked him into selling it to me. Isn’t that grand?”
    Jack was having trouble containing his emotions. His words seemed to be coming to him in a jumble of nonsense and curses. He swallowed hard in an attempt to get control of himself before he spoke.
    â€œJust what in the hell makes you think you can run a silver mine, Melody? Damn! And how could you make a deal before having an expert look it over? How do you know there’s any silver left in it?”
    â€œOh, I’m going to ride out there with him in the morning to see for myself. He wouldn’t dare try putting something over on me. He knows I’d cut off his manhood and shove it down his throat.”
    â€œMelody! This, this is insane! You’ll end—”
    â€œJack, calm down. You know I’m a very good businesswoman. There’s not a chance of my making a mistake here.”
    â€œBut . . . but . . . ,” he sputtered, completely out of anything logical to say. He had long been aware that when Melody got something in her mind, a stick of dynamite couldn’t dislodge it. All he could do was fall back on the damp tangle of sheets and groan.

Chapter 8

    J ohnny Monk was in a state of near collapse. He’d been stumbling, almost to a fall, for the last several miles, trudging across the rocky desert for two days now, and he was near tuckered out. His water bottles were empty. He’d all but given up hope of finding another soul, when a trickle of smoke rose in the distance. Campfire? Chimney? It didn’t make a darned bit of difference. It signaled another human being, and that spelled hope, something of which he was sorely in need. So that’s the direction he headed.
    * * *
    Dehydrated and exhausted, Johnny Monk stumbled to grasp the fence post twenty yards from the front of the run-down ranch cabin. There were no signs of life—no horses, no cattle, no voices. But he didn’t dare approach without a warning. That kind of thing could get a man shot.
    â€œHello, the house. Is anyone home?” he shouted.