Brannigan's Land by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 2022-06-08T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

“Could just ride for home,” Buford Parmelee muttered half to himself as he and his brother, Carlisle, approached the town of Warknife.

On this dark night weakly lit by a quarter-moon obscured by high, thin clouds, the town was little more than a ragged shadow spread across several low prairie swells before them. The moon glinted off of slanting, shake-shingled roofs and off the leaves of cottonwood trees pushing up close to the trail now as it became a street upon entering the town’s southern outskirts.

Buford had muttered the statement half to himself, but his brother, riding ahead of him, had heard. Carlisle turned his head to one side, the brim of his hat casting a shadow across his face, blotting it out. That was just as well. Carlisle looked so much like Shep—a beardless Shep, that was—that he scared Buford a little. Buford knew he’d inherited the likenesses of each brother, but he wasn’t nearly as big and strong, and he didn’t think his eyes were as hard as either man’s. At least, he didn’t feel they were hard, though he thought he could use a dose of that hardness down deep in his soul, just so he could stand up to Shep, if for no other reason.

“What’s that?”

Buford cleared his throat, hesitated. “I said we could just turn for home—you know, Carlisle!” He’d said the words louder than he’d intended, in a rush of desperation.

Carlisle halted his horse abruptly now and glanced around at the low-slung log shacks and stock pens that populated this end of the town on both sides of the street, some nearly overtaken by brush. A sprawling lumberyard sat up the street a hundred feet away, a large but uncertain shape in the darkness. The wan moonlight glinted dully off of the dark windows of the shacks facing east, to Buford’s left. As he, too, looked around, he spied a cat hunkered low beside a rain barrel, watching the two men warily, eyes glowing copper in the darkness.

From somewhere in the buttes to the north, a nightbird hooted.

“Will you keep your damn voice down?” Carlisle admonished his brother, raspily. Again, he glanced around then returned his peevish gaze to his younger brother. “You wanna wake the whole damn town?”

“I’m just sayin’ . . .” Buford said, just above a whisper now. He shrugged a shoulder, weakly. “That man we left back there in that shack . . .” he continued, a little guiltily, “. . . I’m startin’ to wonder if he really is Shep Parmelee. He’s mean an’ ornery and downright nasty, Carlisle. Always climbin’ my hump. Why are we riskin’ our necks for him, anyways? All he does is call us girlish and stupid, gives us hell every time we turn around. He was even pinchin’ Lisa’s butt before Jeoffords died! Hell, I hardly even remember him from back before he went to prison. I don’t know why we’re riskin’ our necks just so he can get revenge.”

Carlisle put his coyote dun up close beside Buford’s sorrel.

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