As he walked outside, Clint looked around to see if anyone else was on the way to stand against him. What he found was enough to make him wonder if he hadn’t misjudged his situation in a big way.
Outside the cabin, every Indian in the camp was lined up and staring straight at him. Clint felt his hand clench around his pistol, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to take all of them if they decided to move at once.
The strange thing about them was that the Indians stared at him calmly. Even the children looked as if they were simply watching the sun rise. Just looking at them was enough to make Clint feel a bit calmer himself.
“You folks might want to find someplace to hide,” Clint said.
One of the Indians stepped forward. He was an old man with a stooped back and silver hair that hung almost to his waist in two neat braids. “We want to help,” he said.
“You can help by making sure you’re out of the line of fire.”
“That will be done, but that will not be all you need us to do. You do not have time to argue with me,” the old man added. “I will not sit and hide when the chance we have been waiting for has finally arrived.”
“All right then. The first thing I need is for this place to look just the way Coltraine is expecting it to look.”
“And then what?”
Clint had to smile at the old man’s determination to deal himself into this hand. “How many guns do you think you can scrounge up?”
Now, it was the old man’s turn to smile.
FORTY-FOUR
The old Indian was right. They didn’t have a moment to spare before the rumble of horses could be heard approaching the small village. Even so, there had been more than enough time for the unconscious gunmen to be tied up, stripped of their weapons and dumped into the same shack that Rachel had been kept in when she’d first arrived.
By the time Coltraine and his men rode into the village, they found it to be just as sleepy as when they’d left it. There was one small difference however. This time, Clint Adams stood in the middle of the village waiting for them. He had his rifle propped on his left shoulder and his right hand hanging loosely at his side.
Coltraine rode forward and signaled for the others to stop. He flipped his hat off so it hung around his neck and revealed his full head of curly, dark hair. Nine horses were clustered around and behind him. Three of those were ridden by dirty-faced gunmen. Two were ridden by Indians and four had women riding sidesaddle with their ankles bound and their wrists tied to their saddle horns by a thick knot of rope.
“Who the hell might you be?” Coltraine asked.
“I’m the one who’ll be escorting these good folks back to their homes,” Clint said.
Coltraine smiled and looked around. As he did so, his gunmen and the Indians moved forward to form a firing line.
“We’re all good folks, mister,” Coltraine said. “And this here’s our home. You must be mistaken.”
Clint shook his head. “No mistake.”
Narrowing his eyes, Coltraine studied Clint carefully as if he didn’t quite know what to make of him. Finally, he looked over to his right where a gunman with a scruffy beard was leaning forward in his saddle to get a better look for himself.
“Anyone know who the fuck this is?” Coltraine asked.
The bearded gunman shook his head. “Probably just some bounty hunter.”
“Or maybe he knows one of our lady friends,” another gunman offered. This one was younger and had close-cropped hair that was so blond that it looked more like peach fuzz sprouting from his scalp.
“He was at Fort Marsden,” one of the two Indians said. His face and chest were both painted with a jagged design that looked like a combination of animal claws and shards of broken glass.
“You sure about that?” Coltraine asked.
The painted Indian nodded. “I saw his face there.”
That seemed to be enough for Coltraine, because he shrugged and looked back to Clint. “So you were at the fort and decided to see what kind of business proposal I was offering to the girls I collected?”
“You heard me the first time. I came to escort them home.” As he spoke, Clint made sure to speak slowly and not to say anything to spark a fight right away. He mainly wanted to draw Coltraine’s attention as well as his men away from the women who were tied to the horses behind them.
Clint couldn’t see much of Rachel, apart from a shadow moving behind the group and toward the horses at the rear. As he’d been talking, Clint could see her shadowy figure moving to each of the captive women and helping them down. No matter how many times he’d seen how well Rachel could move without making a sound, it was still impressive to see her in action.
“You men can ride away and never come back,” Clint said. “I’ll give you that chance. But you’re leaving the women and the rest of these people to go where they please.”
Coltraine sat up and put his hand on his gun. When he did, he saw Clint do the same. When he stopped, Clint stopped. Keeping his hand in place, Coltraine said, “These Injuns can go wherever they damn well please!”
“We’re captives!” the old Indian shouted from one of the nearby teepees. He stepped forward with a rifle in his hands. “Captives forced to stay here to clean your clothes, cook your food and help hide the other captives you bring back. Not anymore.”
“Fine,” Coltraine grunted. “Have it your own damn way. Kill this prick!”
The gunmen to Coltraine’s right and left both went for their guns. Clint drew his Colt and fired in one fluid motion to blast one of the gunmen from his saddle. He fired again to hit the man while he was still falling, so the gunman was dead before his back touched the ground.
The bearded gunman managed to clear leather, but was caught in the side by a shot from the old Indian’s rifle. He gritted his teeth and fired a quick shot toward the Indian, but only managed to blow a hole through the teepee.
Clint was about to finish the bearded gunman when he saw one of the Indians on horseback raise a rifle to his shoulder. Reflexively dropping to one knee, Clint aimed at the Indian and pulled his trigger.
There was a spray of blood as the Indian fell from his saddle and landed in a heap. Holding a bloody hand to his neck, the Indian scrambled to his feet as the other painted Indian dropped from his own horse to join him.
From one of the other teepees, an Indian woman started firing one of the guns taken from the men who were currently tied up and locked away in a cabin. She and two other women unleashed a barrage of lead, which not only hit the Indian with the wounded neck but also took out the gunman who was moving up to Coltraine’s side.
The surviving painted Indian landed with both feet squarely on the ground, took a tomahawk from his belt and fearlessly charged Clint.
Clint fired one shot, but missed because he’d been forced to rush after shifting his aim. He fired again and caught the painted Indian in the ribs, but that still wasn’t enough to stop him.
Before Clint could fire again, the tomahawk was cutting through the air and coming straight toward his head. He rolled to one side and heard the tomahawk slice through the air before thumping into the dirt less than a foot away from him.
When Clint righted himself, he saw Coltraine aiming a pistol directly at him.
The painted Indian had already retrieved his tomahawk and was snarling as he prepared to swing again.
Clint held his ground, watched Coltraine’s eyes and then jumped aside the instant he knew Coltraine was going to pull his trigger.
Coltraine’s gun barked once. His round hissed through the air, missed its target by less than an inch and punched a hole through the chest of the painted Indian who was about to attack Clint from behind.
The painted Indian stood dazed for a moment and then dropped over.
Clint stood up and saw a similar dazed look on Coltraine’s face.
Suddenly, Coltraine pointed his gun at the Indian women. “I’m gonna shoot these bitches and it’ll be your fault!”
&nb
sp; “Go ahead and try,” Clint said.
Coltraine backed his horse up while keeping his gun aimed at them. “You think I won’t? You’d better let me go or these women will die!”
Clint shrugged, but didn’t lower his gun.
While bringing his horse around, Coltraine turned to take aim at the closest prisoner he had. All he found was a bunch of horses wearing empty saddles and one woman standing to the side.
Rachel had a gun in her hand and a smile on her face as she took aim. She kept that smile on her face as she pulled the trigger and blew a hole through Coltraine’s heart.
FORTY-FIVE
The Indian women and children were busy tending to the captive women and seeing to any wounds they had. Clint walked from teepee to teepee to make sure the women were all right. He also asked each of them one question.
“What’s your name?”
He didn’t get the answer he wanted until he got to the next to last woman to be released.
“Alicia,” she said.
Clint bent down to eye level and studied the woman who sat nursing her bloodied wrists. “Do you have a sister?” he asked.
She nodded weakly. “Yes. Her name’s Kaylee.”
“I’m riding back to Markton,” he said with a smile. “Perhaps you’d like to come along with me?”
The woman stared at him as if she wasn’t sure she’d truly heard him say those words. When she saw him nod, she lunged at him and wrapped both arms tightly around Clint’s neck. “Oh, thank you,” she said in a breathless rush. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Rachel watched from the side, but couldn’t watch for very long before leaving.
Once Clint was able to break free from Alicia’s grasp, he went outside to find Rachel standing at the edge of the village.
“I think there’s going to be other women wanting to come with us,” Clint said.
“After the show you put on, I wouldn’t be surprised if all of them wanted you to escort them.”
“And they might also like it if you came along. After all, they haven’t had very good luck with men lately.”
Rachel hung her head and laughed. “I don’t know. The ride shouldn’t be anything you can’t handle.”
“It might do you some good, too. Your sister may be gone, but a lot of these women aren’t much more than frightened girls. They could use a sister right about now, too.”
Looking up, Rachel nodded. “That sounds nice.”
“Good. We can leave in the morning. Actually, we’ll have to leave in the morning,” Clint added. “The Indians are planning on packing up their camp and burning the cabins down to the ground.”
“Yeah,” Rachel said. “Dyani told me Shadow Walker cursed this land.”
With that, she grabbed Clint’s hand and pulled him behind her as she walked away from the village.
“What are you doing?” he asked as she led him to a little spot near a small, trickling river.
Rachel pushed him down and stood over him while unbuttoning her shirt. “I never got a chance to make up for hitting you on the head.”
“You don’t have to make up for anything,” Clint said. “In fact, you did a better job than I—”
“I know I don’t have to do anything,” she whispered.
When Clint saw her unbuckle her belt and slide her pants over her hips, he quickly did the same. As soon as he kicked off his jeans, Rachel was straddling him and lowering herself down. The smooth skin of her thighs brushed against Clint’s hips and she used one hand to stroke his cock to a full erection.
“This,” she whispered while guiding him into her, “is because I want to.”
Clint let out a sigh as he felt her wet lips slide all the way down the length of his penis. When he was fully inside of her, she leaned down so her hair brushed his face and her breath could be felt against his neck and ear. Clint wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. When his hands drifted to cup her tight backside, he could feel her start to rock gently back and forth.
After she’d ridden him for a few quiet minutes, Clint rolled her onto her back and buried himself inside of her again. Rachel let out a satisfied breath, smiled broadly and wrapped her legs around him.
“You look like you’ve been thinking about this for a while,” Clint said.
In fact, Rachel was thinking about the performance she’d put on with Rice and how pathetic it was that Rice had responded to it. “Actually, I’m just glad to know there’s still at least one man in this world who knows how to treat a woman.”
Watch for
THE SAPPHIRE GUN
305th novel in the exciting GUNSMITH series from Jove
Coming in May!
Shadow Walker Page 15
