The Gunslinger Read Free

you—notch your gun belt, I mean?”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œBut how will you remember?”
    â€œBoy, I do my damnedest to forget.”
    â€œThen how do you keep count?”
    Wilder ignored the question. Lillian wanted to explain to him that she couldn’t abide anyone ignoring a child, no matter how bothersome he became. But she had no desire to engage him in conversation. He may have saved her from a horrible fate, but he left death in his wake, and seemed not to be the least bit bothered by it. He was a cold, hard man. Toby had given the man his dearest possessions, and Wilder had dropped the treasured gifts into his duster pocket as though they were less valuable than dirt.
    â€œYou ever been to Houston?” Toby asked. “Me and Lil used to live in Houston.”
    Silence.
    â€œWhat about Austin? You ever been there? Me and Lil got to spend the night in a hotel there when we was moving here. It’s only a day’s ride away. I bet you come through there on your way here.”
    Silence stretched between the man and the boy. Toby rolled his tiny shoulders forward, and Lillian knew Wilder’s disinterest had hurt her brother’s feelings. She wanted to slap the man. She’d spare Toby from all the hurt in the world if she could. It was the reason she had accepted the land and the house that Jack Ward offered her.
    If only she’d realized all the trouble that bit of foolishness would cause.
    Toby gave her a lopsided grin that revealed his latest missing tooth. “Don’t think he likes to talk.”
    â€œSeems not.” She slipped her arm around him and drew him up against her side, hugging him fiercely. “But you need to know: he didn’t save me. You did.”
    The only one in this world who loved her, never judged her.
    She drew the horses to a halt in front of the white clapboard house. After climbing down from the wagon, she trudged over to Wilder. She peered up at his cold, implacable face. “We’re home now—safe. I’d appreciate it if you’d head back to town.”
    Only his silver eyes moved as he slid his gaze to her. “The boy paid me . . . everything . Never had everything before . . .”
    Slowly he lowered his eyelids, slumped forward and tumbled off his horse. With a small startled screech, Lillian jumped back as he landed with a thud near her feet.
    â€œGawd Almighty!” Toby cried, scrambling down from the wagon and skidding to his knees beside Wilder, whose duster had parted to reveal a white shirt soaked in bright crimson blood. Lillian thought she might be ill.
    Toby snapped his head around, fear reflected in his blue eyes. “He got shot. Why didn’t he say something when we was at the doctor’s?”
    Shaking her head, she knelt beside Wilder and gingerly unbuttoned his shirt. Carefully lifting the material and peering beneath it, she saw the ragged, gaping hole still oozing blood from his shoulder.
    â€œHe’s bleedin’ something awful,” Toby said. “You gotta help him, Lil.”
    Lillian hesitated. If she helped a man who made a living killing others, would she, in effect, become an accomplice to future killings? If she left him as he was, perhaps he would not survive, and no one else would die. But could her conscience live with that? Let one man die to save others, allow others to be killed to save one man? What was her debt to him?
    He had come to Lonesome for a reason—to kill someone. As much as she hoped Wade had been his intended prey, she thought it highly unlikely. So someone else’s name was etched on one of his bullets.
    Toby slipped his small hands beneath the man’s shoulders and struggled to lift him. “Come on, Lil. We gotta get him into the house.” He raised his troubled gaze to hers. “He saved you!”
    She considered what Wade might have done to her if this gunslinger hadn’t shown up. No one would have stopped