Blade 2 by Matt Chisholm

Author:Matt Chisholm
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: law and order, colt 45, peter watts, piccadilly publishing, matt chisholm, blade western series, frontier pioneer usa west, southwest wild west
Publisher: Piccadilly

Twelve

Don Sebastian was so ashamed that he could have wept tears of pure rage.

He had handed over half his land to that man Draper because Draper had threatened his life and he knew that Draper would not hesitate to take it. That was being a realist. He had handed over the poor country to the south and east. There was nothing there for man or beast. Or so the don had thought. He must have been wrong or a man like Draper would not have wanted it. So Don Sebastian had sold for a pittance and kept some of his pride, for nobody knew for how small a sum he had sold out.

Then had come the events of last night …

First his nephew, José, had asked him to join against the Ring and he had refused, for it would have been madness to fight so powerful an organisation. Then that same nephew had brought him the daughter of the murdered marshal for protection. Then had come George McMasters, and in José’s name McMasters had left the girl Charity Clayton in his care.

Easier said than done.

Last night the men had come riding out of the night. There must have been a dozen or more, their faces hidden by their bandannas, rifles and revolvers in their hands. They had thundered in like lords of the whole world. One of the younger vaqueros had been foolish enough to draw a gun. He had been knocked down and dragged to his death on the end of a rope. Don Sebastian shuddered now as he remembered it. A terrible way to die. But then any way to die was terrible.

The more he thought about last night, the greater was his shame.

The riders had taken the two girls with them, thrown them across horses and ridden away with them into the night. And with them had gone all of the old man’s pride. This was a final defeat, to have two fine young women taken from his care without him selling his life for them.

When Don Sebastian came to his decision, he did it so suddenly that he might have been young again. He was sitting in the cool of his patio sipping Californian wine. Some vaquero sat in the far corner of the patio playing a sad Sonoran air on the guitar. He stopped playing when the old man leapt to his feet and shouted ‘Por Dios, I shall do it.’

‘Do what, patrón?’ the astonished man asked.

The old man turned and glared at him balefully.

‘Do what, you fool?’ he cried. ‘I shall get the two young gringos back, that’s what. Luis, Luis – where is that idiot Donoso who boastfully claims to be my caporal?’

Somebody in the house heard the demand and the cry for Luis Donoso went up. Soon every man, woman and child on Espada was yelling for the don’s foreman. Presently, the unfortunate Luis came running.

‘What is it, Don Sebastian?’ he asked.

‘Are you deaf or lazy, hombre?’ the don demanded of him.

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