Gunman's Song Read Free Page A

here and his deputy are going to be pulling iron too. When the smoke clears it won’t matter what kind of showing you made against me…you’ll never know about it.”
    â€œI ain’t going to be talked out of this, Shaw!” the gunman shouted. “I’m here to kill you, and nothing’s going to stop me.” He cut a quick glance to where Freddie the deputy had hunkered down behind a wooden barrel. “You’ve got no right shooting at me…that’s like you’re taking his side!”
    Freddie rose up with the shotgun hanging slack in his hands and looked along the boardwalk at Sheriff Bratcher. “Is that right, Sheriff?” he asked, looking confused. “Are we taking sides?”
    â€œNo, it ain’t right, Freddie!” Bratcher barked at him. “Now get down and stay put!” The sheriff directed his next words to the young gunman. “I’m on the side of whoever is defending himself. I know Shaw here ain’t going to draw first…so you’re starting off in the wrong. If you was to kill him, which I know you won’t, then I’ll see to it you get tried for murder and hanged, or else you’ll make a move on me, and we’ll kill you where you stand. Now that’s where you’ve put yourself today. It ain’t working out quite like you had it figured, is it?”
    The young gunman bristled. “I’m doing it! Shaw, come on, you ready?”
    Shaw didn’t answer. He only stared.
    â€œI mean it, Shaw! It’s time!” he shouted.
    Shaw stood silent.
    â€œDon’t you want to know my name first?” the gunman asked.
    Shaw only shook his head slowly.
    â€œSon of a…” the gunman raged. His hand moved fast, as fast as any Shaw had seen lately. But not fast enough. Shaw’s shot hit him dead center of his forehead before the young man got his pistol up level enough to get an aim. The gunman’s shot went straight down in front of his boot. Shaw’s Colt didn’t stop even for a split second. It cocked toward the man in the bowler hat.
    â€œDon’t shoot!” the man pleaded, throwing his hands up. He backed away, stumbling a bit.
    At the hitch rail a spooked horse had reared, causing its tied reins to snap the crossbar from the rail. Shaw’s pistol swung toward the horse, then lowered and uncocked as someone appeared with his hand raised in a show of peace and settled the animal.
    â€œMy God, Shaw!” Cray Dawson said, stunned by Shaw’s speed, “that ain’t like nothing human!”
    Shaw didn’t answer. He looked down at the gun. Gray smoke curled upward around his hand as if being caressed by a serpent’s tongue. He raised the gun and let the spent smoking cartridge shell fall to the street. He replaced it with a fresh round from his holster belt, keeping his eyes searching back and forth along the empty dirt street.
    â€œThis happens everywhere I go. Are you sure youwant to ride with me, Cray Dawson?” he asked sidelong in a solemn tone of voice, clicking the Colt chamber shut and out of habit giving it a spin.
    â€œYeah, I still want to ride with you,” said Cray Dawson gravely, “right up until I see Rosa’s murderers dead.”

Chapter 2

    It was past midnight when Lawrence Shaw walked through the door of the hacienda and placed his Stetson on one of the hat pegs along the wall. He carried a newly opened bottle of rye in his right hand, having already emptied a bottle drinking shot after shot in the Ace High Saloon while talking to Sheriff Bratcher, Cray Dawson, and Freddie the deputy. There were a couple of others there but Shaw couldn’t recall who they were in his present condition. Shaw was drunk, but not nearly as drunk as a man should be given the amount of raw rye he had poured down himself. He was still in control of his faculties, he thought. Yet, in the flickering glow of a candle Carmelita had left burning