.45-Caliber Desperado Read Online Free PDF Page A

. . and kill so easily!”
    â€œYou’ll kill us anyway!”
    â€œMaybe,” the girl returned. “But you’ll die in one more second if you don’t give the order, mi amigo!”
    The warden stared back at the girl for two more beats then threw an arm up suddenly. “Do as she says! Throw your guns down!” He shook his head, overcome with emotion. His voice turned thick and crackly as he added, “Release the prisoners!”
    That seemed to be just the order the two guards flanking Cuno and the other prisoners were waiting for. The platform creaked and clattered as they bolted forward and began loosening the knots and lifting the nooses off Cuno’s and the other condemned men’s heads. When all four were free of the ropes, the guards began unlocking the cuffs and padlocked chains. Their hands were shaking. Cuno could almost smell their fear lacing their rancid sweat, and it lifted his spirits though he still had no idea who in the hell had ordered him freed.
    He suspected that Skinner’s men had come to their notorious gang leader’s rescue. Or maybe it was Zimmerman’s men, though Cuno didn’t know what the giant’s profession had been before prison.
    No, since they were Mexicans, they were more likely aligned with Arguello, though when he glanced at the wiry Mex beside him, the man looked as befuddled as the others.
    When the chains were removed from Arguello’s wrists, he fell hard on his rump to the gallows floor. Cuno turned to him as his own chains fell away, and dropped to one knee beside him.
    The Mexican bandit, whose face was long, bony, haggard, and framed by lice-flecked locks of wavy, curly black hair, looked as though he’d have preferred the hanging to the confusion around him now. His cracked and swollen lips moved as he muttered incoherently beneath his breath.
    The girl had shouted some new orders though Cuno hadn’t heard them above the clanking of the chains, but now he saw movement near the front gates on his right, fifty yards away. The unarmed, blue-uniformed guards with the red stripes on the legs of their wool slacks were busy removing the locking bar from the steel brackets on either side of the arched, timbered doors.
    In moments, the doors were drawn wide and at least a dozen riders charged into the yard on sweat-lathered horses. They dispersed at once to gallop around the yard between the barracks, bearing down on the guards, who threw their hands up and backed quickly against the barrack walls.
    The prisoners, too, moved away from the riders, most of whom were Mexicans but with several Anglos in the group, as well. They all wielded Winchesters or Henry repeaters, with sidearms showing in several holsters per man, knives protruding from high-topped, mule-eared boots. They were a rough-looking lot in grubby, dusty trail clothes, and whatever their purpose here was, they went about it with the boldness of seasoned renegades.
    Now, Cuno thought as he knelt beside Arguello, they’ll start looking for the man or men they’d come to free, take him, and ride the hell out of here. The reflection had no sooner swept across his brain than he shot his angry gaze toward the warden, slumped in a twisted heap before the gallows, blood dribbling into the dust beneath his bent left leg.
    Cuno was free of his chains. He could grab one of the rifles or shotguns the guards had tossed away and kill the man. Blow his savage head off. Then he’d bolt out through the open doors. He doubted he’d make it far in his battered condition, but what the hell? It was worth a shot. Here, he’d die for sure.
    His heart thudded with grim purpose. He’d just poised himself to drop over the side of the gallows when a rider galloped toward him from the gaping prison doors. The rider was trailing a saddled horse by its reins. As the rider reached the gallows, he turned his own horse sharply, giving the reins of his second horse a