The Winchester held fifteen rounds, so I figured I could spare one. I put it into the ground near their feet, making them jump. They had made the mistake of all standing close together instead of spreading out, which told me they were pure amateurs when it came to being ambushed. I didn’t want to give them a chance to realize that mistake, so I yelled, “Stand right where you are! I’ll kill the first man who moves!”
Well, they moved, of course. They twisted around toward the sound of my voice. One of them even started to reach under his coat. He stopped when I worked the Winchester’s lever and he heard that sinister, metallic clack-clack.
It was a dramatic touch and I shouldn’t have done it. I should have already had a fresh round chambered. I have a liking for those little flourishes, though, and even though I’ve been told that they’ll get me killed someday, a man’s got to entertain himself from time to time.
Still coughing from the smoke that followed them out the door, one of the men shouted, “Who in blazes . . . are you?”
“Never mind about who I am,” I yelled back at him. “Is your name Daughtry?”
“What the hell business is that of yours?”
I pointed the rifle at him and said, “Just answer the question.” I tried to make my voice as cold and deadly as the wind.
“I’m Ned Daughtry,” the man admitted. “These are my brothers Clete and Otto. You satisfied now, you son of a bitch?”
“Anybody else inside?”
A wracking cough bent the man forward. When it was over he said, “No, just the three of us.”
“In that case,” I told him, “Abner Tillotson says you should all go to hell.”
That threw them. One of the others said, “Who’s Tillotson to you?”
“A friend,” I said. What else could you call somebody who was giving you a ranch?
That decided it. They knew they’d gunned Abner, and they knew I’d come gunning for them in return. Wasn’t nothin’ left but to get to it.
So that’s what they did.
I already had the Winchester pointed at one of them, so I went ahead and shot him as soon as they started to reach. The slug bored through him at a downward angle, bent him back, and dropped him to his knees. I worked the lever as I swung the rifle and fired two more rounds as fast as I could crank them off. Muzzle flashes lit up the night, but despite them I still couldn’t see much. They returned fire. I went to one knee as a bullet whistled over my head.
For a couple of heartbeats the night was filled with fire and lead from both sides of the fight. A second Daughtry brother stumbled and fell. I tried to locate the third one so I could shoot at him some more, but he was gone.
I couldn’t see him, but he might be able to see me. I flattened out on top of the bluff.
A part of my mind kept up with the shots even though I wasn’t really thinking about it. So I knew I’d fired nine times and had six rounds left. That ought to be plenty, I thought, but first I had to have something to shoot at.
I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t hear anything except the wind. But I knew somewhere out there was a fella who wanted to kill me, and I didn’t like the feeling. Not one bit.
He was a slick bastard. Got around behind me somehow. If he hadn’t stumbled a little in the dark and made a tiny noise, he might’ve plugged me. As it was, I rolled over just in time to feel his shot whip past my ear and hit the ground instead of blowing off the back of my head.
A Winchester’s not real good for close work. I got a shot off, but it must’ve gone wild because he was on me, kicking me in the side and screaming curses at me. I dropped the rifle, grabbed his leg, and heaved on it. He fell and landed on top of me, and we both went off the edge of the bluff and dropped two feet to crash onto the shack’s roof.
It was just as flimsy as it looked. We broke through it and fell another few feet, landing on a table this time. He was still on top of me, and the impact was enough to knock the breath out of me for the second time tonight. I was half stunned and my muscles didn’t want to work, but I forced them to anyway. I shoved him off the table onto the floor.
The smoke had cleared out some with the door open, but there was still enough of it in the air to sting my mouth and nose and eyes as I rolled off the table the other way. I put one hand on the table to steady myself as I looked around for a weapon of some sort. My rifle was still up on the bluff, and I didn’t know if the last Daughtry had managed to hang on to his pistol when we fell through the roof.
He had. The damned thing blasted again as he rose up on the other side of the table. But he hurried his shot and it went into the wall behind me. I didn’t give him a chance to get off another one. I grabbed the handiest thing I could and flung it at him.
That was a kerosene lantern sitting on a shelf against the wall. It hit him and broke, and fire leaped up on his chest and set his beard on fire. He got so worked up about that, yelling and jumping around, that he forgot about trying to shoot me again. I leaped onto the table and pushed off of it into a diving tackle that took him off his feet. The back of his head hit the hard-packed dirt floor with a sound sort of like what you hear when you drop a watermelon. He didn’t move after that, just lay there with the fire consuming his buffalo-hide coat, his beard, and his face.
I knew that was really going to stink, so I picked up the revolver he’d dropped, tucked it behind my belt, and grabbed his ankles so I could drag him outside.
I hadn’t forgotten about the other two brothers, so as soon as I had the burning one out of the shack, I dropped his legs and drew the gun, even though I didn’t know whether it still had any bullets in it. Turned out it didn’t matter, because neither of the other Daughtrys were moving and never would again unless somebody picked them up and carried them. I didn’t intend to waste that much effort.
From the corner of my eye I saw some other flames and looked up to see that the heat from the stovepipe had finally set my coat on fire. I let out a heartfelt, “Son of a bitch !” That coat was a good one, and without something to break the wind I might still freeze before morning.
Stay here tonight, I told myself. The shack was pretty drafty, but there was a fire in the stove. I could make my way back to the gully in the morning.
But by then coyotes and maybe even wolves would’ve been at Abner’s body for sure, and they might have gone after my packhorse and supplies, too. Sighing, I looked around the inside of the shack for something I could wear.
I found another buffalo-hide coat. It stunk to high heaven when I shrugged into it, but it was better than nothing. I found a box of cartridges, too, and reloaded the Colt I had picked up.
I stood by the stove for a few minutes to warm up as much as I could before venturing out into the night again. When I knew I couldn’t postpone it any longer, I climbed up onto the ridge, got my rifle, and then went in search of my horse.
He had wandered off but hadn’t gone far with his reins dangling like that. The whole affair had spooked him some. I hadn’t had him long enough for him to be used to such violent ruckuses. Hell, I wasn’t used to such ruckuses, and I’d been in the middle of plenty of them over the years. I had to whistle a little tune and talk soft to him for a few minutes before he settled down enough for me to catch him.
Maybe he just didn’t want somebody wearing a coat that stunk that bad on his back.
Soon I was riding south again, hoping I could find the gully where I’d left Abner Tillotson and my other horse.
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2015 J. A. Johnstone
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
Following the death of William W. Johnstone, the Johnstone family is working with a carefully selected writer to organize and complete
Mr. Johnstone’s outlines and many unfinished manuscripts to create additional novels in all of his series like The Last Gunfighter, Mountain Man, and Eagles, among others. This novel was inspired by Mr. Johnstone’s superb storytelling.
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
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ISBN: 978-0-7860-3557-1
First electronic edition: January 2015
ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-3558-8
ISBN-10: 0-7860-3558-7
Preacher's Slaughter Page 26
