Benedict and Brazos 20 by E. Jefferson Clay

Author:E. Jefferson Clay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: action heroes, piccadilly publishing, craig johnson, pulp fiction ebook, colt 45 and winchester rifle, fiction of the old west, best western ebooks, gunmen of the wild west
Publisher: Piccadilly

Climbing stiffly to his feet, Elroy Smart moved onto the shelf of stone fronting his cave and scratched his belly. The hangman was still rotund, but not nearly as much as he had been. His pants were beginning to hang and his shirt was getting floppy. His stomach rumbled, not with hunger, but resentfully. He fingered his mid-section tenderly as his eyes played over the gaunt stone walls and the tops of the barely visible trees swaying in a breeze he couldn’t even feel down here in his accursed stone prison.

Resentment stirred in the hangman’s breast and grew stronger. It was the third day. Three days of living on spring water, dried meat and stale bread. Three days of being afraid to light a fire for fear of attracting renegades, and of keeping silent for the same reason. Three days of loneliness, of fear and solitude for a man whose only crime had been ... what? There had been no crime. Perhaps, if there had been, he might have been able to endure his punishment more stoically. But what had he ever done other than his duty? What sin had he committed to warrant such treatment?

He simply refused to believe this could be retribution for springing the trap under twenty-seven convicted killers. It was nothing but massive injustice, and by God and by Judas he wasn’t going to tolerate it a moment longer!

He was going to light a fire. If he didn’t have hot food and coffee tonight, he doubted if he would see another sunrise.

Feeling braver by the minute, the hangman collected an armful of dried sticks, brought them to the cavern mouth, and in minutes had a merry blaze going. Filling a pot at the spring, he thrust it over the flames and was reaching for the jerky when the pebble came clattering down from above to bounce off the hard stone not six feet away.

“No!”

The hangman vanished, crawling to the very rear of the cave, his heart in his mouth, scarcely daring to breathe. Frozen with fear, he watched the flames begin to die, and the evening shadows deepening into darkness across his tiny canyon.

Sixty feet above, the curious coyote that had been drawn by the smell of the smoke backed away from the cliff edge, then sped off to hunt as the first bright stars winked into life over the Big Horn Mountains.

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