.45-Caliber Firebrand Read Free Page A

blanket to pile up in the rocks and brush, unmoving.
    Two more Indians were milling in the tall shrubs thirty yards west of the Conestogas. They were still howling above the blasts of Serenity and Dallas Snowberger’s rifle fire, but without their previous fervor.
    Serenity was hunkered beneath the end of his Conestoga while Snowberger was shooting from amongst the jumbled black rocks on the other side of the wagons, no doubt trying to detract fire from the bellowing mules.
    Cuno leapt down from Renegade’s back. Racking a live round into his Winchester, he ran crouching behind a low shelf of sand, rock, and spindly cedars toward the wagons. As the dusty Philadelphia sheeting of the first wagon rose on his right, he dashed up from behind the shelf and ran toward the wagon beneath which Serenity was still triggering his Winchester.
    He dove beneath the high bed in a spray of dust and gravel, pushed up on his elbows, and raised his Winchester toward one of the painted figures still jostling around behind their screen of shagbark and cedars.
    Serenity whipped his wizened, gray-bearded face toward him, deep-set gray-blue eyes bright with surprise as he began whipping his rifle around. “Cuno . . . jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!”
    Cuno triggered a shot. His bullet clipped a rock and ricocheted into the scrub, trimming limbs.
    â€œI seen a long blond scalp hangin’ from one o’ them red devil’s loincloths and thought it was yours!”
    â€œNot yet.” Cuno triggered another round. He jerked his cocking lever down, and the smoking shell arced over his right shoulder. “You see what happened to Dutch?”
    â€œTook an arrow.” Lying belly flat, Serenity was sighting down the Winchester. “I seen him tumble outta the driver’s box. You get a fix on how many’re out here?”
    Serenity fired, his rifle screeching. An enraged cry rose from behind the screening brush. “ Got you, you son of a bitch !”
    Snowberger’s rifle roared twice from the rocks on the other side of his wagon, and there was another groan and the thud of a brave hitting the ground.
    â€œDallas, hold your fire!”
    Cuno scrambled out from under Serenity’s wagon, leapt a rock, and holding his cocked rifle up high across his chest, bulled through the scrub cedars. On the other side, he aimed the Winchester straight out from his shoulder and looked around.
    To his left, one of the braves was down on one knee behind a boulder, clutching his shoulder and groaning. Blood dribbled from a gash in his forehead. His horse was galloping off to the south, trailing its hemp reins.
    Another horse trotted southeast from the wagons, the brave on its back crouched forward over the animal’s neck and holding both arms across his belly.
    â€œI hit this son of a bitch.” It was Snowberger, walking up on Cuno’s right and angling toward the groaning Indian whose hand kept swiping feebly at the war club thonged on his hip. His tightly wrapped and feather-trimmed braids were caked with sand-colored dust and bristling with cactus thorns.
    The thirty-year-old freighter—clad in checked wool trousers and suspenders and a blue wool shirt under a shabby suit coat—aimed his Henry repeater at the Indian’s forehead and gritted his teeth. “Bastard damn near took my eye out.”
    The brave glanced up, saw the barrel aimed at his head, and screamed. Snowberger calmly clipped the scream with a round through the brave’s temple.
    Cuno saw the brave slump down, quivering, in the periphery of his vision as he stole forward, swinging his rifle from right to left, looking for more warriors. Serenity came up through the cedars behind him, breathing hard and thumbing fresh shells from the bandoliers crossed on his scrawny chest clad in twenty-year-old, fringed buckskin.
    â€œThey get any of the mules?”
    Serenity had a raspy voice as pinched up as his bearded face. “One took an