Dead Men's Dust Read Online Free PDF

take a look at your car for you? I know a thing or two about engines.”
    A shake of the head toward his abandoned vehicle. With its hood raised to the star-filled heavens, it looked like a lizard attempting to swallow the distant moon. “It’s done. Blown a cylinder, I think.”
    “Let’s take a look.” Cain brushed past. Shoulders touched briefly. There was strength hidden beneath the man’s denim shirt. Reasonably young, fit, and apparently strong. Could be trouble. Cain slipped his hand inside his sports jacket, caressing the hilt of the scaling knife.
    “There’s really no need,” the man said. “A lift out of here’ll be fine.”
    Cain turned around slowly. Was that a demand? Am I supposed to be obliged? “Let me take a look at the car first. If I can’t get it going, then fine, I’ll give you a ride.”
    “You’re wasting your time.” The man shifted his hands to his hips, inclined his chin at the broken-down vehicle. “Piece of crap won’t be going anywhere.”
    “Let me take a look,” Cain said again.
    “Suit yourself…but it won’t go,” the driver said. Subtle words concealing an equally subtle action. His scratch at an itch on his side wasn’t as mechanical as it seemed.
    “I insist,” said Cain.
    Practice makes perfect. Cain had practiced this maneuver a thousand times. He pulled the blade free of his pocket, held it braced along his wrist, took a quick step forward…
    And met the barrel of a semiautomatic pistol aimed directly at his face.
    A short laugh broke unbidden from his throat. It was neither shock nor fear. His laughter was self-deprecating. Looked like a little more practice could be in order. Not least, the resheathing of his knife. Hidden from the man’s view, he slipped the blade into an outer pocket of his jacket.
    “No,” the man said. “I insist.”
    Cain shook his head sadly. “You know, I can’t believe you’ve gone and pulled a gun on me, when all I want to do is help.”
    “I appreciate your concern, mister, but I don’t need your help. All I need is your car.” A jerk of the gun was an invitation for a walk in the desert.
    Casting his eye over the terrain, Cain saw a deep arroyo. It was steep-sided, the bottom choked with rocks and stunted sagebrush. A good place to hide a crime after all.
    “So…you’re going to shoot me?”
    The driver sucked air through his teeth.
    “You’re going to put me down in that hole for the coyotes to find?” Cain shrugged his shoulders. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t done the very same thing to many others.
    “I’ll only shoot you if I have to,” said the driver.
    Was that so? BIG MISTAKE. Rule one: Never show weakness to your enemy.
    “You’re no killer.”
    “I will be a killer if I have to be,” the man said. The new edge to his voice held a tremor. Fear or anticipation—either could cause a nervous man to pull the trigger. “Climb down in that ditch and kneel down. I’m warning you, mister, if you don’t do as I say, I will use this gun.”
    Cain lifted his hands in supplication.
    “Come on, man. You can’t do this to a Good Samaritan.”
    “I can and I will.” The man jerked the gun again. “Get moving. Down in the ditch.”
    “I’m not dressed for climbing.”
    “Well, jump.”
    Cain started toward the arroyo. “You think you could let me get something from my car? You’re going to leave me out here in the middle of nowhere; at least let me get a bottle of water.”
    “In the ditch.”
    “It’s called an arroyo.”
    “Well, get in the damn arroyo . If you don’t, I’ll put a bullet in your head and then throw you the hell in.”
    Cain shook his head again. No urgency to his tread. “Easy now, I’m going.”
    The man watched him clamber down the embankment. Cain turned and peered up at him. His face was a spectral gray in the starlight. A blob of silver that would prove an easy target for a gunman. “Turn around and face away from me, kneel down, and put your hands on your