Deadly Day in Tombstone by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2017-11-03T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Stonewall kept his horse in a corral behind the boarding house, so he didn’t have to go very far to saddle up. He tied the bag of sandwiches Mrs. Mumford had made to the saddle and swung up.

As he started to ride along the back alley, he realized it might be a good idea to buy more cartridges for his Winchester. He didn’t expect to have a big fight on his hands when he caught up to Dallin Williams, but it was impossible to predict what would happen.

A desperate man was capable of almost anything.

He left his horse ground-hitched beside the general store instead of tied up at the hitch rack out front and kept his head down with his hat shielding his face as he went inside. He wasn’t sure Sheriff Slaughter would forbid him from going after the escaped prisoner, but he didn’t want to take a chance on that.

The store wasn’t busy. Roy Corbett stood behind the counter at the rear. “What can I do for you, Stonewall?”

“Box of .45s, Roy.”

“Going hunting?” Corbett asked as he got the box of cartridges off a shelf and set it on the counter.

“You could say that,” Stonewall replied without offering any further explanation. He paid for the cartridges and walked back to the front of the store.

As he went out, he thought he felt Corbett’s eyes on him, watching him. He supposed the clerk was curious. As a deputy, the county usually paid for Stonewall’s cartridges, but the cost had come out of his own pocket.

He stowed them away in one of his saddlebags and mounted up again. He stuck to the alleys as he made his way out of Tombstone and maintained a slow, careful pace until he put the town behind him.

It was impossible to know which direction Dallin had gone when he left Tombstone, so Stonewall played his hunch and headed for the McCabe ranch. He heeled his horse into a ground-eating lope toward the northeast. If he discovered that the fugitive hadn’t been there, he would have wasted time and would have to start over, but he didn’t see any other way to proceed.

As he rode, Stonewall kept an eye on his back trail out of habit, and after he had gone a couple miles he thought he spotted something moving behind him. Reining in, he waited to see if he could get a better look.

A moment later, a rider came into view, cresting a rise about half a mile behind him. Stonewall’s keen young eyes had been right. Somebody was trailing him.

The rider went out of sight again as he followed the rolling, semi-arid terrain. Stonewall figured that Sheriff Slaughter had somehow found out what he was doing and had sent somebody after him. Slaughter might have even come himself, intending to rein in his impulsive brother-in-law.

Stonewall didn’t intend to let that happen. He wasn’t going to be swayed from his goal. He decided he might as well wait and have the confrontation, rather than postponing it.

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