10 Short Novels Magazine — page 71: what you’re looking at

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

e Western Mystery Range By Cliff Howe “Big Plenty” Ruff found himself the gun-target of warring ranch- ers seeking the answer to a pistol puzzle. Big Plenty decided to find out all about it—and stuck his neck into a hemp noose. HE Green River brakes of south- western Utah made hot, lonely riding in August. Hardly a thing moved but the heat waves. So when undersized Oscar “Big Plenty” Ruff slid off his buckskin bronc to get a drink at a waterhole, trouble was the last thing he expected. It gave Ruff a shock to have a man jump from the concealment of a sage- brush clump and land feet-first on the small of his back. The ‘impact mashed Ruff into shallow water and gray mud like a stepped-on frog. His enraged, surprised squawk was a bubbling explosion. He drove his right 69 hand hipward—did not complete the ges- ture when he felt his Frontier .45 stripped from the leather. He rolled, flopping like a half-landed catfish. His fists flailed. One struck some part of a man—his eyes were too full of mud to tell what part. Cursing in a loud, braying voice, the assailant leaped clear. “Cut it out, banty!” he snarled. Ruff dropped to all fours, jammed his head into the water, shook it violently to wash mud out of his eyes. He glared at his attacker. “C’mon out of your puddle, froggy!” directed the man. He was big and solidly fat, one of the COmmiclooolks (C (E@)