Longarm Giant 27 by Tabor Evans

Author:Tabor Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Longarm had been shot at often enough during his adventurous career that he knew to let his instincts take over. In this case, that meant leaning forward over the horse’s neck to make himself a smaller target and jabbing his boot heels into the animal’s flanks. The horse leaped ahead into a gallop, its hooves drumming against the road.

Several more shots blasted out, coming from both sides of the trail now. The riflemen were concealed in the smaller boulders clustered at the bases of those big, skull-like formations.

Even though quite a bit of light spilled down from the moon and stars, accurate shooting at night was a tricky proposition at best. Longarm didn’t know where the bushwhackers’ bullets went, but they didn’t hit him or his mount, and that was all that mattered. As he left the big rocks behind, he pulled the Winchester from its sheath, slipped his feet out of the stirrups, and left the saddle in a rolling dive that carried him several yards across the ground.

In a continuation of that motion, he came up on his feet and ran into some brush a short distance off the road. As he dropped to a knee, he heard the hoofbeats of his horse as the bay continued running toward the settlement. Most horses, once they get going, will head for home, and that’s just what the bay was doing.

Longarm knelt there in the brush and waited, and his patience was rewarded a few minutes later as two men emerged from the rocks and trotted along the road on foot for a short distance. They stopped not too far from the brush where Longarm was hidden and spoke to each other in low voices. Even this close, Longarm couldn’t make out the words, only that the men were talking.

He didn’t have to hear them clearly to know what they were talking about. The disgusted tone of their voices meant they were discussing the fact that he had gotten away, even though they’d had him trapped in a cross fire.

Longarm stepped out of the brush, leveled the rifle at the bushwhackers, and called out to them in a loud, clear voice. “Hold it right there, boys! Drop your guns and get your hands in the air!”

He didn’t really expect them to do as he said, and he was right. Both men whirled toward him, bringing around the rifles they carried. They opened fire as Longarm went to one knee again and snapped the butt of the Winchester to his shoulder.

He sprayed lead toward them as fast as he could work the rifle’s lever. At the same time, he felt as much as heard the wind-rip of several bullets as they passed close beside his ears.

Longarm aimed low, because he didn’t want to kill the two men who had tried to ambush him. He would much prefer to knock their legs out from under them and take them prisoner so he could question them.

One of the men cried out, spun around, and dropped to the road.

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