Contract in Cartridges

"Beneath his thighs, he could feel the sorrel's flanks pumping like bellows as the animal fought to crest the ridge with the last of its flagging strength. The horse was dead-beat, finished, after two fiercely cruel days of flight through the heat-blasted nightmare of the low border country with the posse always just a little behind. And because his mount was finished, Clell Yates knew now that he was finished, too."
That was the story of Clell Yates—a man with a rep, a man always on the run from somewhere, a man who seemed to draw posses like vultures to a rotting carcass. Now they had him cornered and it appeared that Clell would do no more running. In another minute, the posse would open up, and, this time there was no way out. ...