Savage Thunder Read Free Page A

now the husband she loved with all her heart.
    “Don’t…kill…anyone.”
    “Shhh, all right, all right, anything you say, but don’t talk anymore.” And then, “Dammit, Chase, hurry up with those ropes! We’ve got to stop the bleeding.”
    Colt didn’t move his arms when they were freed. Chase stood in front of him now. His voice was gentle as he explained, “Jessie, honey, that whip was trailed through the dirt time and again. His back is going to have to be cleaned first if infection isn’t to kill him.”
    There was a heavy silence. Colt would have tensed if he wasn’t already holding himself so rigid.
    “Do it, Chase,” Jessie said quietly.
    “Christ, Jessie—”
    “You have to,” she insisted.
    The three knew each other well enough that both men understood she wasn’t talking about cleaning wounds or even moving him yet. Colt’s body almost sighed with relief. It was about time she had thought of something sensible.
    “We’ll need a mattress first, and a couple men to hold him so he doesn’t fall.”
    Jessie was in her element, issuing orders, but when she sent two men into the house for a mattress, WalterCallan recollected whose property they were on and stepped in front of the door to block their way.
    “You ain’t wastin’ one of my mattresses on that dirty…”
    He didn’t finish. Jessie had whirled around at the sound of his objection, and he now had her full attention, and every bit of the fury she had felt earlier. She mounted the porch steps, and before anyone realized her intent, she had hefted the gun from one of the men Callan was blocking. Chase wasn’t there to take it away this time. No one else would dare try.
    “You ever been shot before, Callan?” she said conversationally as she motioned the two men into the house and casually caressed the barrel of the old Colt .44 Dragoon. “There are parts on the body that can be shot off that won’t bleed too seriously, but will sure hurt like hell. A toe, for instance, or a finger…or what makes a man a man. How many bullets do you think it would take to shoot off an inch at a time? Three, maybe? Not even that many? Would that equal your own savagery, do you think?”
    “You’re crazy,” Walter said in a horrified whisper.
    His hand had gone to his gun in a protective gesture. Jessie did nothing to stop him, just stared at his hand, hoping he would draw the gun. He saw that hope in her eyes and slowly took his hand away.
    “Coward,” she hissed, done playing with him. “Pack your gear and be gone by sundown, Callan, you and your men. Ignore my warning and I’ll make your life a living hell. There won’t be anywhere in the territory you can hide from my vengeance.”
    He wasn’t expecting that. “You got no call—”
    “The hell I don’t!”
    He looked beseechingly to her husband. “Summers, can’t you control your wife?”
    “I already did you one favor, you son of a bitch,” Chase shouted up at him. “I kept her from blowing your head off. Whatever else she has a mind to do is the least of what you deserve, so don’t press it. It’s lucky for you one of your men who overheard what you were planning is a drinking buddy of my foreman. And it’s damn lucky for you he didn’t have to ride all the way to the Rocky Valley, but found us out on the range. But that’s where your luck runs out. What you did here is the lowest kind of savagery, fit only for animals.”
    “I had every right,” Walter protested. “He defiled my daughter.”
    “That cold bitch you got for a daughter encouraged him,” Jessie spat, moving to the side as the mattress was pushed out the door. A wagon had already been confiscated from the barn. “All I got left to say to you is, if he dies, you die, Callan. You better do some powerful praying on your way out of the territory.”
    “The sheriff will hear about this.”
    “Oh, I hope you’re that stupid, I really do. If I didn’t suspect you’d get no more than a slap on the wrist,