The little man’s eyes widened when he saw the Colt in O’Brien’s fist. “What the hell are you going to do?”
O’Brien ignored him, thumbed back the hammer, and passed the heavy revolver to Nellie. “Shoot him.”
Dinwiddie’s expression went from fear to disbelief and back again. He glared at the girl. “Pull that trigger and I’ll see you hang, missy.”
The girl held the Colt in both hands. She started to lift the revolver, hesitated, and looked at O’Brien, her brown eyes afraid.
“Go ahead,” O’Brien said. “He can’t hurt you now.”
Dinwiddie made an appeal to the crowd. “Stop this!” he screamed. “Are you going to stand there and see a white man get shot?”
No one moved or said a word, their collective stares on Nellie and the wavering blue Colt.
Goodnight stepped beside O’Brien. “This ain’t gonna work, Shamus. Damn it, we’ll put cotton in our ears and string him up.”
But Nellie surprised them.
She raised the Colt in both hands and pointed it at Dinwiddie’s head.
The man screeched and tried to break free, his eyes wild. The punchers held tight to his arms, strong men who quickly subdued his puny struggles.
The muzzle of the revolver trembled, then Nellie let it lower slowly, her skirt slapping against her legs in the hot desert wind.
O’Brien thought she was done. That she couldn’t go through with it. He heard Goodnight curse under his breath and a collective sigh raise from the crowd.
The girl stopped the Colt’s descent when it pointed at Dinwiddie’s crotch, and pulled the trigger.
The ball slammed into the little man’s groin and he screamed in pain, his mouth a startled O of shock.
Nellie fired again. Same place.
Stunned, the punchers dropped Dinwiddie’s arms. The man’s knees buckled and he sank slowly to the ground.
“All right, he’s had enough,” O’Brien said. Almost gently, he took the Colt from the girl’s shaking hands. “Go home now, girl.”
She buried her face in her white apron and stumbled away. The fat lady stopped the girl, put her massive arm around her shoulders and led her toward home.
“You done good, girl,” she said as they walked away.
Dinwiddie was traumatized, his pinched, narrow face white. But, no matter how shocked a groin-shot man may be, he’ll always rip open his pants and check on his jewels.
Dinwiddie did—and what he saw made him shriek in horror.
Unbelieving, he looked around the crowd, then at O’Brien and Goodnight. “It’s gone,” he wailed. He looked down at his groin again. “All of it.”
“Then you’ll never again rape another woman,” O’Brien said.
“Help me,” Dinwiddie wailed. “Get me a doctor.”
O’Brien deliberately turned his back on the man. He said to Goodnight, “I’ve got a bottle of Old Crow in the cabin if you want to get the bad taste of Dinwiddie out of your mouth.”
“Shamus, we should’ve hung him,” Goodnight said.
O’Brien smiled. “Well now, all things considered, I’d say he’s suffered a fate worse than death.”
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
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Copyright © 2013 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: 978-0-7860-3130-6
First electronic edition: August 2013
ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-3131-3
ISBN-10: 0-7860-3131-X
Defiance of Eagles Page 25
