Whiplash! (A Peacemaker Western #3) by William S. Brady

Author:William S. Brady [Brady, William S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: action heroes, American Old West, American westerns, Angus Wells, Comanche Indians, Gunfighters, Piccadilly cowboys
Publisher: Piccadilly
Published: 2022-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

MCLAIN SAT ON the chair that he’d pulled out into the air. He had already set fresh powder into the chamber gate of the pistol and now he dropped in a ball and used the rod to tamp it into position. That process finished, he repeated it for the second empty chamber. Not hurrying, knowing only too well that slipshod work at this stage could prove dangerous, he set caps over the nipples of the rear-mounted sections of the chamber.

Once—it had been his second raid with Butcher Harvey—a sour-faced soldier named Wells had aimed his pistol at a Union trooper and when he’d squeezed carefully back on the trigger, the weapon had exploded plumb in his face.

‘Let that be a lesson,’ Harvey had said, wiping the grisly remnants of Wells off his sleeve and the side of his coat. ‘Whatever else you do in a hurry, don’t let loadin’ that Dragoon be one of ’em.’

McLain had listened well, learned well.

Now, standing up, the pistol primed on all six cylinders, he wondered how well the youngster who’d ridden in with the Circle Z bunch had learned his lesson.

What lesson he’d learned.

Jake was leaning over the top fence of the pig pen, his head resting on his arms. He’d some time back stopped vomiting, ceased to cry and shake; he no longer wanted to jump on his mount and gallop as far and as long as he could. Ride until the animal dropped under him.

He straightened up when he heard McLain coming up behind him; didn’t turn. He had no need to; he knew well enough who it was approaching.

McLain stood just back of the kid and to one side, for several moments, waiting to see if Jake would speak first. When he didn’t, McLain said quietly, ‘Feelin’ better?’

‘I’m okay,’ said Jake, talking too fast, hating the high young sound of his voice.

‘Sure you are,’ said McLain.

Jake gripped the fence hard. ‘No thanks to you.’

‘They went for their guns first, both of ’em. You saw that.’ Jake rounded on him, his face red and swollen. ‘They went for their guns because you pushed ’em into it. They didn’t have no choice.’

‘Like they didn’t give that French Seven rider no choice.’

‘You weren’t there.’

‘I didn’t need to be. I know the way it was as well as you do. Moffat’s been ordering his hands to ride as close to French’s men as they can, get ’em rattled till they break. That ain’t no secret.’

Jake didn’t say anything; there was nothing he could say, no refutation he could make.

‘You still didn’t have to kill them. Shorty and Eddie.’

‘They maybe didn’t have to kill the man whose body they dragged back on a wagon.’

‘But not like that.’ Jake all but shouted.

‘Son,’ McLain laid his hand on Jake’s shoulder, ‘it’s always like that. Messy an’ stupid. It’s blood an’ guts and the stink of death so strong it makes you choke. That’s what it is. It just don’t get told that way. Not often.’

Jake looked into McLain’s face, then pulled himself away from the man’s hand.

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