A Lust For Lead Read Online Free PDF Page B

certain breed loved to foster. To him, killing was less a vice and more a pleasure. He was a brutal and sadistic man whose fondness of torture and rape bordered on the demonic. He was also a very talented gunfighter, almost as good as Shane in fact. ‘I wouldn’t have reckoned on you having heard of me, a big shot like you,’ he said.
‘I keep my ear to the ground.’
‘Like a fucking Apache.’ Buchanan laughed. ‘Hey white man, heap many men want you dead.’
‘Very funny.’
They rode on in silence for a time. Presently, Shane began wondering if they had rode far enough that a gunshot would not be heard at the Babson Ranch and contemplated killing his rival before Buchanan got the drop on him instead. He was just about to reach for his gun when Buchanan spoke: ‘It could get messy.’
Shane stayed his hand. He could not be sure if Buchanan had read his intention or not, but if the man wanted to talk, Shane was of a mood to let him.
‘The two of us being hired for the same job like this; we can’t both get paid, now can we?’ Buchanan grinned like he had said something funny. ‘So we kill each other now and get it over with, but what does that solve, right? We still got all those men back at the ranch to contend with and that’s not likely to be easy, not for just one of us on his own. So whaddya say we team up? We can settle our differences afterward. Partner?’
Shane would later regret not killing him when he had the chance, but at the time he had weighed his options and foolishly answered: ‘Sure.’
    It was getting late in Covenant and the daylight was beginning to fade when Buchanan came to collect Shane from his cell. He was taken across the road to O’Malley’s Saloon.
Shane saw other men go in ahead of them. ‘Nathaniel’s drawing lots tonight to decide who fights who in the first round.’ Buchanan explained. ‘No prizes for guessing who’s already asked to fight against you.’
‘What did Nathaniel tell him?’
‘Refused him of course. The matches are picked at random, those are the rules.’
‘The Fastest Guns never used to care much for rules.’
‘No.’ Buchanan agreed. ‘But you’ll find there’ve been a few changes made since you knew them last.’ He stepped up to the saloon’s butterfly-wing doors and pushed them open.
The atmosphere in the saloon was tense and fragile as glass. Shane counted about a dozen men spread throughout the room, each with at least the space of a table separating him from his closest neighbour. A flight of stairs climbed to a gallery on the first floor, where whores had used to ply their trade in small private rooms. Three of Nathaniel’s invigilators occupied the gallery now, armed with Winchester repeating rifles and standing vigilantly over the men below.
Everybody had turned to face the new arrivals and Shane felt the weight of their scrutiny bear down upon him. Buchanan shrugged it off and strode across the room to the untended bar, where he poured himself a drink. Shane joined him.
‘Did you ever see such a mean bunch of desperadoes all crammed into one place?’ Buchanan said loudly. He slid a shot glass full of whisky into Shane’s waiting hand. Shane did not drink it but slowly turned to sweep his gaze across the room.
He recognised most of the contestants gathered there, by reputation if not by face. Among them was John Devlin, the insane mass-murderer; Daniel Blaine from Canada; and Escoban Cadero, an outlaw king from the desert wastes of northern Mexico. They had come from all over the continent to compete, not for money, but to be recognised as the best of the best.
Seated with his back to an old piano was Nanache, also known as Nathan Sanders, a renegade Apache spiritwalker. He wore a faded blue US Army jacket and a grisly necklace made of finger bones, each of them supposedly cut from the hand of a gunslinger he had killed.
Across the room was a man with a star-shaped scar on his face that identified him as Evan Drager. He had been shot