A Bullet for Billy by Bill Brooks

Author:Bill Brooks [Bill Brooks]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061739767
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2007-11-23T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

He waited till the old man had placed himself in a vulnerable position, then brought his manacled hands down hard, using the heavy cuffs to knock the guard senseless. The old man let out a hard groan after the first blow but did not make a sound when Billy struck him a second time, splitting open his head.

“You dirty son of a bitch!” Billy muttered, then took from around the man’s neck the key that he’d used to unlock Billy’s cell and rushed back inside. But the key would not fit or would not work the lock on Sam’s cell. It was either the wrong key or the lock was jammed.

“Hurry up,” Sam pleaded.

“I’m trying, goddamn it.”

Sam was so frightened, his hands shook and his body trembled as Billy fumbled with the lock.

“It don’t want to work,” Billy said. “Goddamn it.”

“Maybe there’s another key somewhere.”

Billy ran out into the jailer’s room and searched through the drawers of the desk but could find no other keys. There was a shotgun sitting in the corner of the room and this he grabbed up, broke it open, saw that it was unloaded but held on to it anyway. He ran back into the cell area and tried the same key again, only in forcing it to try and open the lock he broke it off.

“Son of a bitch!” he yelped.

Sam looked at him through the bars with the saddest eyes Billy had ever seen on anyone.

They could hear approaching voices through a small open window there in the back.

“I’ll have to come back for you,” Billy said.

“No use to it,” Sam said. “They’ll kill me sure.”

“No they won’t. I won’t let them.” Billy touched Sam’s hands that gripped the bars of his cage. “I’ll come back.”

Billy burned with guilt at having to leave Sam. He wanted to stay and fight but he had nothing to fight with. Two Ruales entered the jail through the front door. Both had been drinking heavily, and Billy could hear them talking loudly to each other. Billy fled out the back door, stepping over the prone body of the old guard, and ran down the darkened alley into the night.

Stealing a horse should be easy enough, he told himself as he ran away and came out at the far end, where he rounded a corner and stood in the shadows of the main street again. He could not tarry, he told himself. The Ruales would discover soon enough he’d escaped and sound the alarm. There were several saddle horses tied up on the street in front of a cantina. Billy was already formulating a plan in his head. The river was a good fifty miles north, but if he chose a good sound horse and rode like hell, he could make the river by daybreak, cross it, find the nearest town, and sent a wire to his granddaddy.

He chose a big roan mare and knocked his heels into its flanks and rode it fast out of town

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