Backwoods Bloodbath Read Free

crashed into shards. Chairs had been hurled against them. Through the windows scrambled the occupants. Shots were exchanged. Shouts added to the bedlam.
    Colter had been right. There were more than six, and they were making a frantic break for the woods. He ran to the end of the porch in time to see several fleeing shadows. One man turned and fired. Colter returned lead for lead. The man missed. Colter did not.
    The white suit gave Colter a clue who it was. Vaulting over the rail, Colter ran and covered him. “Don’t try anything.”
    The white-haired man coughed and spat blood. His eyes opened and could not seem to focus, but finally they did. His face twisted in a hateful grimace. “You have murdered me, you son of a bitch.”
    “What are you planning?” Captain Colter asked. “What is the Secessionist League up to?”
    A contemptuous laugh gurgled from the man’s throat and with it, a copious amount of blood. “You would like that, wouldn’t you? For me to turn traitor against the cause I believe in?” He had more to say, but a violent coughing fit interfered.
    Colter squatted and took hold of the man’s shoulders. “Don’t die on me, damn it! I need to know.”
    A smirk curled the man’s mouth. “It’s too late for me. I feel my life ebbing. But maybe I will give you a clue.”
    Suspecting the clue would be worthless, Captain Colter said, “I’m listening.”
    “We don’t have far to go,” the man said, and cackled as if it were the funniest utterance ever made. More blood flowed from both his mouth and his nose. He choked. He sputtered. Then he was still.
    “Is he gone?” Sergeant Pearson asked.
    “Yes.”
    “What was that he said about not having far to go?”
    “I wish to heaven I knew,” Captain Colter said in frustration. The raid had not worked out as planned. He was no closer to the truth, and countless lives were at stake. He summed up his sentiments with a simple “Damn.”

1
    Skye Fargo was having one of those nights when Lady Luck sat on his shoulder. He had won two hundred dollars at poker, bucked the tiger at faro and won sixty-seven dollars more, and was now back at the poker table facing a stack of chips in the pot that promised to add five hundred to his poke if he won.
    The only thing better than a winning streak was a willing woman, and Fargo’s luck had held in that regard, too. A dove by the name of Saucy had taken a shine to him earlier that night when he strolled in through the batwings. She was like a she-bear drawn to honey—and he was the honey.
    Miss Saucy McBride was quite an eyeful. Red hair cascaded in curls to bare white shoulders as smooth as alabaster. She had an oval face distinguished by full, upturned lips that appeared as succulent as ripe cherries. A scarlet dress clung to her full figure as if painted on. But it was her eyes that most interested Fargo—hazel pools of desire mixed with a healthy sense of humor.
    At the moment, Saucy was perched on Fargo’s lap with one arm around his neck and the other resting on his thigh. She was making small circles on his leg with the tips of her fingers. Fargo wanted to throw her to the sawdust-covered floor and have her right there, but there was the matter of winning the five hundred dollars.
    Four other players were at the same table. One had already folded. Another was a mousey store clerk who bet only when he had a sure hand, which always turned out to be an especially good one.
    The third player, a chunky bank teller partial to cheap, foul-smelling cigars, played like a bull in a china shop. He bet practically every hand and bluffed as often as he held good cards. There was no predicting him, although Fargo had noticed that the last two times the teller had bluffed, he removed his cigar from his mouth and tapped it in the ashtray before betting.
    The fourth player was cut from a whole different cloth. Hale Tilton was a gambler by profession. He favored a black jacket and pants, with a frilled white shirt. A