Born to Hang by Terrence McCauley

Author:Terrence McCauley [McCauley, Terrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 2023-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

The sound of his pistol firing still rang in his ears when Sandborne heard the jailhouse door burst open. He saw Sheriff Langham and Petite, the trapper, in the doorway.

Langham held his pistol low as he stepped into the jail, looking down at the two bodies in the cell. “What happened?”

Sandborne slowly lowered his pistol. “A new prisoner named Keane snuck a gun into his cell. I shot him when he tried to kill me. Fremont grabbed for it, so I had to shoot him, too.”

Petite punched the open door. “I didn’t think to check him before I brought him to you. Sorry about that. Guess I’m stupid after all.”

“There wasn’t time for that,” Sandborne said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Langham slowly knelt beside the cell as he looked over Fremont’s body. He reached through the bars, picked up the small Remington on the floor, and began to examine it. “A hideout gun. This is one of those five-shot numbers. You’re lucky they didn’t kill you, Sandborne.”

The deputy opened his pistol and removed the spent bullets from the cylinder. “Luck had nothing to do with it.” He pulled two new bullets from the loops on his belt and fed them into the cylinder. “Guess I don’t have to worry about you letting Fremont go free anymore, do I?”

Langham stood up and pocketed the gun. “You never did, but you’ve got bigger things to worry about than that, deputy. Halstead almost got himself beaten to death just now.”

Sandborne knew that had to be an exaggeration. He had never seen anyone come close to getting over on Jeremiah. “How?”

“Glenda’s man Joe went after him at the livery. He knocked out Moses and rang Halstead’s bell pretty hard from the looks of it. He’s alive, but he’s in a bad way. You’d better go look him over for yourself. Red and Buster are with him now. I came running as soon as I heard the shots in here.”

Sandborne flicked the cylinder shut and slid his Colt back into his holster as he pushed past Petite to run along the boardwalk to the livery. He saw townspeople had already begun to form a knot around the entrance as Sandborne cut through them and dashed inside.

Buster was standing over a large Chinese man splayed on the floor near a bale of hay. The handle of Halstead’s Bowie knife still protruded from his chest.

Buster said, “We heard the shots. You hurt?”

Sandborne shook his head. “The same can’t be said for Fremont. He tried to kill me. Looks like you had some action of your own here.”

“Not us.” Buster gestured down toward the dead man. “Halstead had already killed this fella before we got here. Red’s inside with him now. He doesn’t look too good.”

Knowing how much the blade meant to his partner, Sandborne went over to the corpse to retrieve it. It was sunk deep into the big man’s heart to the hilt. It took him three good tugs before he managed to pry it free. He wiped the blade clean on the dead man’s shirt as Red stepped out of the livery office.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.