Shadow of a Dead Man by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 2023-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

“Oh my God!” Starrett said again but no louder than before. It came out as a wheezy raking sound.

He stared in wide-eyed exasperation at Shotgun Johnny, riding toward him on his big cream stallion. A big, olive-skinned, dark-eyed man, Johnny wore a black slouch hat and a thick buckskin coat. The twin tails of his customary long red bandanna buffeted down his chest in the chill, late-afternoon breeze. His savage shotguns were holstered on his thighs, securely thonged to his legs.

Starrett’s gaze drifted back behind the man and yet another hoarse exclamation raked out of his throat though with no more coherence than the previous one.

A dozen or so horses were lined out behind Johnny, the first one’s bridle reins tied to the tail of Johnny’s cream. Over the dozen horses, dead men were slouched over their saddle horns. Their wrists were tied to the horns, their ankles were tied beneath the horses’ bellies. Starrett recognized the jostling but inanimate and blood-splattered figures of Marshals Whaley and Skinner, Milo Channing, Rollie Ryan, and Jonah Flagg and every other damn man in Starrett’s posse.

Dead!

As Johnny and the dead men approached from a hundred feet away and closing at a slow, thumping walk, Johnny, gazing without expression at Starrett as he rode easily in his saddle, Starrett glanced at his Sharps rifle snugged down in the saddle boot strapped to the Morgan.

Too far away. He’d never make it.

He tried to lift the flap of his buffalo coat to reach for the handle of the old-model Colt holstered on his right hip. But he couldn’t get his hand to move. It was frozen against his side. He tried to move his left hand toward the LeMat wedged behind the buckle of his cartridge belt, its handle poking out through a gap in his coat.

That hand wouldn’t move, either. It was raw and sore and throbbing with the pain radiating up out of his chest from his strangling heart. His left, gloved hand had taken the form of a claw. For the life of him, he could not straighten his fingers.

He sweated from every pore.

He shuttled his exasperated gaze to Shotgun Johnny.

The man who’d killed his son drew rein and stared down at Garth from beneath the brim of his black hat. His longish, dark brown hair was mussed by the breeze where it curved down behind his ears. The twin tails of his red neckerchief billowed in the chill breeze. His raptor’s gaze pinned Starrett back against the tree—frozen, helpless, sweating, enraged . . . terrified.

“Johnny . . . !” he wheezed, the word fluttering like a dying moth on his lips.

Johnny swung lithely down from his saddle. He dropped the reins of his cream horse and smoothly, cleanly shucked his savage Twins from their black leather holsters on his thighs clad in black whipcord, and clicked the heavy hammers back.

“Johnny,” Starrett wheezed again, his heart leaping around in his chest like a mad rat in a cage, “spare . . .

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