Bannerman the Enforcer 41 by Kirk Hamilton

Author:Kirk Hamilton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Piccadilly

There was someone out there. Yancey was sure of it and he signed to Cato to freeze. The smaller Enforcer did so instantly, crouching by a fallen tree, rifle in hands, looking quizzically at his pard through the dim light.

Yancey sank to one knee behind the thick trunk of a tree, slowly and silently working the lever of his own rifle. He pointed to the right, in thicker timber. Cato cocked an ear, frowning, concentrating his attention over there. Slowly, he nodded, agreeing that someone was there.

Ahead of them, the timber thinned and they would be in open country in the next few paces. Then it would be a clear run to the Houston trail. It had taken them several days to get this far from the place where Morgan Purdy had left them tied up in the foothills of the Anvils. They had lived off the land all the way, even made an attempt to find their way back to the Buckskinners’ camp but gave up because of the nature of the rugged hills they had been dumped in. Now they were almost on the home-run, for once they hit the trail to Houston it wouldn’t take long to get back to the town.

But it seemed as if someone was stalking them, had other ideas about them returning safely.

Cato nodded again as Yancey silently pointed to the fallen tree and made a ‘down’ motion with his hand. Cato sank from sight behind the trunk. Yancey made a run from his tree to the next, a distance of several feet. Nothing happened. He pressed against the tree, expecting a bullet to scream off the bark, but there was nothing. The big Enforcer frowned, beginning to wonder if he had imagined that sound in the dimness of the forest.

He figured maybe it could be one of the mountain men, likely Morg Purdy. The man wanted to kill them both, that had been obvious back at the Buckskinners’ camp. Asa had said ‘no’ and Morg had obeyed. But here, on the edge of the Houston trail, maybe he figured he could get away with killing the Enforcers. If their bodies were found here, backshot, pockets rifled, no one would think too much about it. The same thing had happened to a hundred other men over the years.

Maybe—just maybe—Morg figured he could get away with it and his father wouldn’t know he had had a hand in it.

Anyway, someone was stalking them, Yancey was sure of that now as he heard another small sound there, like a twig snapping. Then, just as his straining ears picked up a faint tinkling, a shot blasted and he ducked as pieces of bark rained down on his hunched shoulders and pattered onto his hat brim.

The first shot was followed swiftly by another, and two more ricocheted from Cato’s tree trunk. Yancey knew right away he wasn’t up against mountain men. They were Winchesters doing the shooting and that faint tinkling he had heard had sounded like a spur rowel.

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