The Killing Trail (Jubal Cade Western #01) by Charles R. Pike

Author:Charles R. Pike [Pike, Charles R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: action hero, American Frontier, Colt.45, ebook, fiction, Gunfighters, Piccadilly cowboys, Pulp fiction writing, the Old West, Western series
Publisher: Piccadilly
Published: 2022-05-31T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

‘DON’T SHOOT!’

The heap of supplies on the counter top was exploded across the floor by the rifle barrel as Jubal whirled, levelling the Spencer. The old man in the doorway of the back room thrust his scrawny arms high into the air as his slack mouth hung open. Jubal swallowed hard and felt the warm dampness of sweat holding his shirt to his back. The knuckle of his index finger ached with the strain of keeping it from squeezing the trigger. He knew he was within a split-second of killing the man. Mary looked at his frozen stance and knew it, too.

‘Where’d you come from?’ Jubal asked hoarsely, still not moving a muscle.

The old man, who was about seventy, with heavily wrinkled skin, watery eyes and a straggly beard, folded his right hand into a fist but left the thumb extended. ‘Upstairs, mister. I live up there. I bin sleeping. Woke up and heard voices. Figured it might have bin the gunslingers come back. Or help.’

Jubal relaxed from his stooped posture and eased his finger forward from the trigger. ‘What happened here?’

The old man swallowed hard and his Adam’s apple, very prominent in his narrow throat, bobbed uncontrollably for long moments. Although he could see that the initial bolt of tension had left Jubal, the grim expression was still firmly in place. He wasn’t about to kill on impulse, but he looked like a man ready to squeeze the trigger at the slightest provocation. And—although he despised himself for it—Jubal knew it, too. He had never fired a shot in anger until the gun-fight at the hollow. But since that night he had felt not the slightest prick of conscience that men had died in front of his blazing gun. It was this lack of any kind of regret which had kept him awake for long night hours, examining a facet of his character which he had previously never suspected.

‘Trouble,’ the old man answered tremulously. ‘These three gunslingers rode in and stuck up the whole town. Calm as you please.’

‘One of them have a scar, here?’ Jubal asked, drawing a finger across his forehead.

The old man pumped his head. ‘You know ’em, mister. Three of the McCabe Boys.’

Mary gasped.

‘Hear the rest of the bunch got wiped out. That’s what made these three so murderin’ mean.’

‘How’d they get the drop on a whole town?’ Jubal demanded.

‘Went into Mrs. Harmon’s house. All the women were there. Hen party, you know? Reckoned they’d shoot all the women ’less the men come to the Harmon house with their hands high. Men had to do like they was told. Soon as they was inside, they was shot. Them gunslingers just blasted at them like they was apples in a barrel. Couple of the women got hit, too.’

The old man’s tone was casual, as if he were explaining the details of some minor disturbance which had occurred.

‘Just like that?’ Jubal asked.

‘That’s right.’ Suddenly he was perturbed, and leaned to the side, to look around Jubal at Mary and Andy.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.