Blood on the Hills by Matt Chisholm

Author:Matt Chisholm
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: the old west, cattlemen, piccadilly publishing, the wild west, matt chisholm, western pulp fiction, the storm family, us ranch war
Publisher: Piccadilly Publishing

Chapter Eleven

An hour must have passed.

He could see Charlie lying dead, Shawn hanging from a tree on the edge of town.

His eyes were becoming more accustomed to the dark. A silver beam of moon cut softly across the room.

If Charlie and Froud were dead, Shawn hanged, then he must start thinking solely of himself. If they were dead, they would be coming back here. Some would argue to keep him alive and scare him out of the country. Others would want to be sure. That meant killing him.

He turned himself and found himself staring at the table. It was a Mexican affair, primitive. There were two legs only, upright planks of wood with another piece of wood a couple of feet long to make it stable. People put things on tables. After a terrible and painful struggle, he managed to gain his knees.

Then he saw it—a knife lying on the table beside a plate. It was a domestic article and possibly blunt, but it was worth a try.

He shuffled agonizingly on his knees toward the table, until his chest was pressed against the edge of it. He thought of throwing himself against it, but he knew that wouldn’t work and he would only strangle himself. With great difficulty, he managed to get one shoulder under it and to heave upward, at the same time throwing himself forward.

He hurt himself, knocking his face badly. And he was somehow all caught up inside the legs and top of the table. The knife, he decided, must be on the other side of the top. And that meant extricating himself and somehow crawling around to the far side.

He succeeded in rolling out from the table and this showed him the best way of progression. It was painful, but he gritted his teeth and stuck at it. Finally, he gained the far side of the table and there, right in front of him, was the knife. He rolled on his side and backed up to it, searching blindly with his hands. At last his fingers closed on it and he fiddled around for a few minutes trying for the best grip. He found it between the fingers of both hands which allowed him about an inch of action.

He sighed with relief as he found that the knife was sharp. Just the same, it wasn’t easy work. The rawhide was tough and his fingers were soon almost powerless. But he drove himself on.

When a strand suddenly gave, it was like gaining the inaccessible peak of a high mountain. He gave himself a short rest and then started again.

A few seconds later another strand gave. He could have shouted with joy.

Inside a couple of minutes, his hands were free.

He heard a sound. Cocking his head, he listened. A horse.

Desperately, he strained back and attacked the rawhide binding his ankles. A rider could be that damned cowman with the smooth-handled Colt’s gun at his hip. Bret. That was one who would want him dead. They’d done the job at the jail.

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