Longarm and the One-Armed Bandit by Tabor Evans

Author:Tabor Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-05-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 31

The plan went to shit with a rattle of gunfire and the blossoming of bright yellow muzzle flashes. From the south side of the damned river.

Longarm heard shrieks of terror from the Chinese, most of whom were still in the water. One of the rangers—he hoped it was not Dan Congdon—shouted, “Help me, I’m hit.”

In the dim starlight he saw Chinese begin to drop, shot down by their own escorts. Probably they had paid every cent they had or could borrow for those bastards to mule them across into the land of promise and now they were being murdered by their own helpers.

Longarm spurred the brown forward. Leaning low in the saddle he stopped behind the tall sides of the bull wagon where both the contingent of rangers and the bullwhackers were huddled.

One of the rangers—Longarm could not see who it was—lay on the ground beside the off rear wheel of the ponderous wagon. Another knelt beneath the wagon and fired round after round toward the Mexican side, cranking his Henry rifle as fast as he could spit the slugs out.

The shooters on the other side shifted their aim, firing into the oxen instead of trying to hit the well-protected rangers.

One sharpshooter, who must have had eyes like a cat to be able to see so well in the dark, took a bead on the ranger under the wagon. It took two shot to nail the ranger and put him down.

“Damnit, we’re sitting ducks here.” Longarm thought that was Dan Congdon’s voice, although he could not be sure.

Sweat beaded under the brow of Longarm’s Stetson. It trickled down his face and neck, leaving a sticky feeling behind.

He was not accomplishing anything sitting back here behind the wagon. No one was. And unless somebody did something the entire ranger patrol was likely to be wiped out.

“Fuck it,” Longarm mumbled aloud.

He tied the ends of his reins together and dropped them on the brown’s skinny neck, hoping the horse learned enough while in service to know what that meant.

Automatically, without conscious thought, he reached down for the butt of his Winchester, which he always carried in a scabbard slung beside his saddle.

Except . . . this was not his saddle. And his carbine was back in his rented room in Denver.

That did not make things better, but it certainly did make them simpler.

He picked the reins up again and drew his Colt.

Longarm gave a shout and jabbed the brown in the flanks with his spurs.

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