Forty Times a Killer Read Free Page B

and tried to ignore the pain gnawing at my leg.
    Night birds fluttered in and out of the pines making a rustling noise and a puzzled owl asked its question of the night. A pair of hunting coyotes yipped back and forth in the distance and then fell silent.
    I closed my eyes and entered that gray, misty realm between wakefulness and sleep . . . then jolted back to consciousness when a shout rang through the hallowed quiet.
    â€œHello the camp!”
    I sat upright and saw that Wes was already on his feet. He wasn’t wearing his guns, but stood tense and alert, his eyes reaching into the darkness.
    Even as a teenager, John Wesley’s voice was a soft baritone, but to my surprise he pitched it near an octave higher and broke it a little as he called out, “Come on in. There’s coffee on the bile.”
    I wondered at that, but didn’t dwell on it because the darkness parted and two men rode into the clearing.
    Men made a living any way they could in Texas when Wes and I were young, and those two strangers looked as though they were no exception. They were hard-faced men, lean as wolves. I’d seen enough of their kind to figure that they were on the scout.
    Astride mouse-colored mustangs that couldn’t have gone more than eight hundred pounds, they wore belted revolvers and carried Springfield rifles across their saddle horns. As for clothing, their duds were any kind of rags they could patch together. The effect, coupled with their dirty, bare feet, was neither pleasant nor reassuring.
    But the Springfields were clean and gleamed with a sheen of oil.
    Whoever those men were, they were not pilgrims.
    One of the riders, bearded and grim, was a man who’d long since lost the habit of smiling. “You got grub?”
    â€œNo, sir,” Wes said, using that strange, boy’s voice. “Sorry, but we’re all out.”
    The man’s eyes moved to our horses. “Where did you get them mounts?”
    Wes didn’t hesitate. “We stole them, sir. But we’re taking them back to Longview to square ourselves with the law.”
    The man turned to his companion, “Lem, how much you figure the paint is worth?”
    â€œTwo hundred in any man’s money,” the man called Lem said. He looked at Wes. “You stole a lot of horse there, boy.”
    Wes nodded. “I know, sir. And that’s why we’re taking him back to his rightful owner.”
    â€œWho is his rightful owner?” Lem asked.
    â€œWe don’t rightly know,” I said. “But we aim to find out, like.”
    â€œWell, you don’t have to worry about that, sonny,” Lem said. “We’ll take the paint off your hands, and the buckskin as well. Ain’t that so, Dave?”
    The bearded man nodded. “Sure thing. Pleased to do it. And, being decent folks, we’ll set things right with the law for you.”
    â€œWe’ll do it ourselves,” Wes said . . . in his normal voice.
    And those two white trash idiots didn’t notice the change! They sat their ponies and heard what they wanted to hear, saw what they wanted to see.
    What they heard was the scared voice of a half-grown boy, and what they saw was a pair of raw kids, one of them a crippled, sickly-looking runt.
    Beyond that they saw nothing . . . an oversight that would prove their downfall.
    It was a lethal mistake, and they made it.
    They’d underestimated John Wesley Hardin, and as I said earlier, you couldn’t make mistakes around Wes. Not if you wanted to go on living, you couldn’t.
    â€œLem, go git them horses and saddles,” Dave said. “Now, you boys just set and take it easy while Uncle Lem does what I told him.”
    â€œLeave the horses the hell alone,” Wes said.
    Lem was halfway out of the saddle, but something in Wes’s tone froze him in place. He looked at Dave.
    â€œGo do what I told you, Lem,” the bearded man said. Then to Wes, “Boy, I had it in