He dipped his bandanna into the bracing water and pressed it to the fierce exit wound the bullet had left in his upper right shoulder. When he heard the breaking of brush across the narrow stream, he looked up, but was unable to draw his Colt with his right hand. By the time he’d gotten the gun u...
“What the hell has happened to them?” Lematte asked idly under his breath. “Where’s Jewel?” “I don’t know,” said Nolly, standing beside him, “but I’ve got a feeling the news ain’t good.” Poole’s horse limped along on its bruised hoof. Both riders wore sweat-streaked layers of trail dust on their ...
Some of the stitches on Tillis’ forehead had popped open. Pink-red blood ran down his face in the rain. His hair was plastered to his bare head. But he still managed to let out a chuckle of delight when he saw the bank bags piled under the rock where Orez and his two men had buried them. &n...
Three of the riders were on horseback. The fourth, Ben Kirkpatrick, rode in the open-top buggy that sat low to the ground. The other three men had stayed in Rusty Nail to see if Soto had been followed and to keep watch on any other comings and goings. ‘‘It’s about time,’’ Beck said to the men sea...
When they did stop, it was at a water station where an old man and his German wife operated a waterwheel with the aid of a button-backed donkey. After watering the horses and the four mules, the party took shade beneath a large cottonwood tree at the edge of a low adobe-and-stone wall. As the oth...
Many of the items they unloaded and stacked in the sand on the hillside. For the time being Sam laid the blanketed body of the woman’s father on the sand beside the stacked items. Sam noted a clear difference in the steadiness of the wagon once the load was rearranged. As they’d lowered the items...
Over their business clothes, they both wore tan trail dusters that hung down to their scuffed bootheels. One wore a stylish but battered bowler hat cocked at a rake above his right eye. The other wore a black wide-brimmed Stetson. Both stood filling out deposit receipts. They looked up at each ot...
The animals were rested, saddled and ready to ride. “Holy Moses,” said the Giant, “there’s a posse on the train. They were aiming to ambush us! How’d they know about this job?” The two stood staring, stunned for a moment at their discovery. Finally Casings pushed his hat brim up and grinned at th...
They had hurriedly set the fires at three random locations with no regard to the direction of the wind or to the structure of the buildings. Then the gang had left town quickly, without giving the fires adequate time to completely destroy the three large buildings. In spite of the overwhelming bl...
Behind John Garlet, Foz and Tillman lay sleeping beneath a steady rise and fall of snoring and mindless babble. Behind Bonsell and Cleary, Casey Stans, the prospector, lay on the plank floor, using his wadded-up hat for a pillow. The sheriff had placed him in the cell to keep him from sleeping on...
Maybe more, Knapp calculated to himself. Both Iggy’s Colt and his rifle lay in the dirt. So did Lyle Cady, for trying to jump in and help his brother moments ago when Gore first started smacking Iggy around. Two gunmen, Coco Bour and Tulsa Jake Testa, stood over Lyle with their guns drawn. They w...
Returning to the horses and the mule, he watered and grained the animals. When a young boy came from the Mockingbird carrying a wooden plate filled with roasted pig and flatbread, Sam sat down on an empty crate beside the horses and ate his fill. As he finished, Turner Pridemore stepped inside th...
They looked down on a small Mexican town where only moments earlier three gunshots had split the midmorning quietness. A man sat bleeding in the middle of the street below, his hand limp on the ground beside him, yet still holding a gun. Guitar and accordion music spilled from the open doors of a...
As Sam reined his stallion down, Lang sidled in close. Dankett reined his horse down too, but he pulled away from the Ranger, taking a position for himself with his long shotgun. “There’s the Coyle brothers,” Lang said to Sam under his breath, gazing away from the two as h...
Spotting Anson, Foley waved his hat back and forth above his head and kicked his horse up into a gallop. Anson sat his horse at the head of his riders and rested his gloved hands atop his saddle horn. “Now I suppose I’ll be saddled with this idiot all day,” he said to Ape ...