Wild Lands by Smith Nicholas Sansbury & Melchiorri Anthony J

Author:Smith, Nicholas Sansbury & Melchiorri, Anthony J.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2022-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

-14-

Jay was in bad shape when Eddy, Robert, and Kitcheyan found him. Kitcheyan had been waiting in the forest closer to the mayor’s house, ready to stop Raven and Lily if they escaped Jay. But Lily and Raven had evidently disappeared. So Kitcheyan had joined Eddy and Robert as they had taken their horses and followed the slope up to a rundown mining facility where the crack of the shotgun had sounded. Clayton met them seconds later with his entourage of three cowboys.

Raven had killed the fourth cowboy who was supposed to be shadowing Jay, keeping an eye on him, Raven, and Lily for Eddy and Clayton. The man had failed his job, and now he wasn’t even alive for Eddy to punish him.

“He’s not here,” Robert said. “Must have escaped with that bitch.”

Eddy went back to Jay, who lay groaning on the ground.

“The hell happened?” Eddy asked.

Jay writhed in pain, his arm covered in blood. A piece of flesh seemed to be missing from his neck. He gripped the wound. It looked painful. Bad. But if it were fatal, he’d already be dead.

“Animal,” he muttered. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t stop him.”

At first Eddy thought Jay was calling Raven an animal, but then he saw the bite marks. These wounds were from a beast, not a man.

Eddy looked back toward the forest where the footprints of Raven and Lily had gone. Not far away were pawprints.

A dog.

Another few moments of examining the scene helped Eddy come up with a mental image of what had happened. He saw the blast from the shotgun in a tree where Jay must have tried to shoot Raven.

He remembered that damn dog Raven had brought to Montezuma Creek.

Shit.

“Clayton, organize a few of your best hunters to find Raven and Lily,” Eddy said. “They couldn’t have gotten far.”

“Boys, you heard him,” Clayton said. “Get the hounds.”

Clayton went to follow them, but Eddy grabbed his arm.

“Not you,” he said. “I need your militia up north.”

“I’ve already got the vehicles loaded and ready. Even with the hunting teams out, I can send a good twenty men with your Rattlesnakes immediately,” Clayton said.

“Twenty men?” Eddy said. “You have fifty-five men in your militia. You can afford to send more.”

Robert snorted and Kitcheyan stepped forward. The Apache men looked ready to enforce Eddy’s request.

“Well, I do need some people to hold back and defend my compound,” said the mayor.

“You don’t need thirty-five people to defend your shitty castle.”

Clayton reared back at that and looked like he was about to respond until he looked down at Eddy’s fingers on the handle of his tomahawk. His eyes then flitted to Kitcheyan and Robert.

“Okay, you’re the boss,” Clayton said. “You got whatever you need from me.”

He whistled for his people to join him and ran off.

Eddy watched them go, resisting the urge to toss his tomahawk into the man’s back. He was a coward. Clayton took pleasure in hunting men that stood no chance of fighting back.

Hunting had always been something Eddy did to provide food for his family.

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