The Bloody Trail by Ralph Compton

Author:Ralph Compton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Jeremiah had plenty of time to think things over once he was hog-tied and dropped against a wagon wheel. Although only a few minutes had passed, it felt like an eternity since that first shot had been fired. He could think of everything that had happened in that short stretch of time, but he couldn’t think of anything he could have done differently that would have made a lick of difference. Finally, he had to close his eyes and force the thoughts from his head before the bile rose any higher in his throat.

‘‘They all here?’’ the one called Sam asked.

Jeremiah opened his eyes and got a look at the man who appeared to be the leader. Sam was a bit shorter than the rest and had light sandy hair. He wore a holster around his waist, which remained mostly hidden by a fringed buckskin jacket. There were no scars on Sam’s face. In fact, he was the sort of fellow who looked as if he had no problem convincing a woman to spend time with him. Of course, the women in the immediate vicinity weren’t included in that assumption.

Horse Mane was dead. Jeremiah knew that for certain when he saw one of the others drag the body farther off the trail and dump it into some bushes.

Dave, the one-eyed gunman, hadn’t stopped swearing under his breath since his scuffle with Emmett. Blood had soaked through the shoulder of his shirt and he favored that arm as if it was constantly giving him trouble. Jeremiah thought back to the fight at the pier, since that was when Dave got that shoulder wound. The wounds he got earlier today seemed to bother him less.

Another of the gunmen was a large Indian who wore clothes from several different sources. His pants looked like the jeans any cowboy wore. His shirt was a Mexican design and the coat he wore was standard army issue. Although the Indian didn’t look like a Cheyenne or Crow, Jeremiah wouldn’t have sworn on it. The only Indians he’d ever dealt with had been honest traders or quiet craftsmen. This one was neither.

The Indian lugged the Inglebrechts like sacks of grain and dumped them against their own wagon not far from Jeremiah. He then pulled Anne from her wagon without feeling any of the blows she rained down upon him using her tightly balled fists. On a somewhat more promising note, the Indian had also not been able to find Claire or hear anything that would make him look any deeper into Anne’s wagon.

The final member of the group was tall and lanky. He wore a dented bowler hat and had a formal vest underneath his battered duster. A gold watch chain crossed his belly and caught Jeremiah’s eye because that watch might have been stolen from Harold Inglebrecht. Before Jeremiah could be certain of that, he saw the lanky man stare at him as if he were watching a lizard try to crawl up and lick his boots.

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