Bullets Over Bedlam Read Online Free PDF Page A

behind him. Ten minutes later, the door flew wide and Hawk reappeared from the barn’s inner shadows, leading his saddled grulla. His rifle was in his saddle boot, and his oilskin was wrapped around his bedroll.
    The fiery grulla pranced and tossed its head, eager to hit the trail.
    The barman was still standing on the porch, one hand on an awning post. “There’s been a man around, lookin’ fer you.”
    Hawk had grabbed the saddle horn and had turned out a stirrup. He stopped and stretched a glance toward the roadhouse, the bulky barman silhouetted against the open front door.
    â€œThat ain’t news to me.”
    â€œThis one wasn’t no bounty hunter. A lawman, he was.” The barman traced a small circle on his chest and stretched his lips back from his teeth. “Big copper star, just like yours.”
    â€œHe have a handle?”
    â€œFlagg. Had six others with him, all wearin’ stars. Said they had a warrant from four Territorial governors. A death warrant. Made out just for you.” The barman rose up on the toes of his worn, low-heeled boots, his grin showing wider. “Said it was my duty as a U.S. citizen to report any encounter I might have with this man they was lookin’ for . . . this Gideon Henry Hawk. Vigilante lawman from the Plains.”
    Hawk turned, grabbed his saddle horn, toed a stirrup, and swung into the saddle. He neck-reined the grulla toward the roadhouse. The barman stared at Hawk riding toward him, the smile slowly fading from the Irishman’s thin, chapped lips. He removed his hand from the awning post and took a single, slow step back.
    Hawk turned the grulla sideways to the porch and favored the man with a level stare. “If Flagg comes through here again, tell him to go home.” He shook his head. “I don’t cotton to killing lawmen, but any man running up my backside dies, lawman or no.”
    Hawk slapped his holster, a blur of fluid movement. Then the Colt was in his hand, cocked and shoulder high, aimed at the roadhouse.
    The barman screamed, crossing his arms in front of his face and bolting straight back.
    The Colt barked, echoing around the morning-quiet yard.
    The barman tripped over his own feet, falling hard on his rump. Rolling his fear-bright eyes around in their sockets, he slowly lowered his hands. To his right, in the far corner of the open roadhouse door, a large rat lay in two bloody halves.
    He turned to Hawk. The big lawman was riding away from him, heading for the eastern trail and the saddleback ridge, broad shoulders sloping under the sheepskin vest.
    â€œBest not leave your door open,” Hawk called over his right shoulder. “Or next thing, you’ll be giving sanctuary to rats.”
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    Three days later, under cover of darkness, Hawk rode into the foothills town of Cartridge Springs, a ranching burg in the central Territory. It was Saturday, and ranch hands were whooping it up along the main street, gas lamps and fire-brands illuminating the false-fronted saloons and hotels like dance halls in hell.
    Hawk asked one of the pie-eyed drovers stumbling across the street where he would find the bank president’s home. Five minutes later, he dismounted his grulla at the dark south end of the village, under a sprawling cottonwood.
    The breeze rustled the leaves, and crickets chirped. In the distance, a dog yipped at coyotes yammering in the hills.
    Ground-tying the horse, Hawk slung the saddlebags stuffed with greenbacks over his shoulder and crept through the shadows before a large stone house with a well-tended yard surrounded by a white picket fence.
    Several windows were lit, and a piano pattered inside. It didn’t sound like the banker was pining overmuch for his daughter.
    Quietly, eyeing the curtained first-story windows, Hawk turned through the gate, strode up the brick walk, and mounted the porch. He dropped the saddlebags on a wicker rocking chair, rapped twice on the door, then