Dust of the Damned (9781101554005)

Dust of the Damned (9781101554005) Read Online Free PDF

Book: Dust of the Damned (9781101554005) Read Online Free PDF
Author: Peter Brandvold
hideouts—one of hobgobbies, the other of werebeasts, of which there were several known varieties including bobcats and pumas—there was the ever-present and generally unheeled bounty-hunting crowd as well.
    A couple of pianos were being hammered in saloons up and down the street. Cutting through the patter as well as the rumble of conversations rising fromclumps of waddies and frontiersmen of all shapes and sizes all over the street, a man’s angry voice shouted, “Goddamn your vermin hide, McCreedy! I want you outta here
now
!”
    Boots clomped. A man yelled. Spurs rang. The batwings of the Wolf’s Howl Saloon on the street’s left side belched out a burly gent in a short bearskin coat, duck trousers, and brown bowler hat. He stumbled across the gallery, arms akimbo, and continued on down the three steps to the street where he fell and rolled, kicking up a sand-colored dust cloud, and lost his hat.
    A dapper-dressed, mustached gent wearing a five-pointed copper star and a ten-gallon Stetson stomped out the batwings, descended the gallery steps, and drove the point of his right, black, hand-tooled boot into the ass of the man in the street. His victim yowled and leapfrogged forward, cursing bitterly and holding one hand against his ass. The badge toter kicked the pilgrim’s ass again, through his hand, and again his victim leapfrogged forward and twisted around, red-faced, blond hair hanging in his pain- and fury-pinched eyes. One hand flew to the six-shooter on his right hip.
    The mustached badge toter laughed and stood with his boots spread, both hands on his hips shoving back the tails of his charcoal-colored frock coat. “Go ahead, McCreedy. Jerk that toad, if you’ve a mind. Never know; you just might be as fast as you
think
you are!”
    McCreedy stayed his hand but kept it on his pistol butt, glaring up at the tall gent with the badge who dared him with his mocking blue eyes. Men had come out of the saloon behind the town marshal, holding beer mugs or shot glasses, some smoking, eyes glittering their appreciation of the show before them. McCreedy cut his wounded gaze to the onlookers, thenshuttled them back to the town marshal, veins bulging in his forehead as he jerked his Schofield out of its holster.
    The lawman slapped leather, his hand a blur as the steel-blue Colt came up in a flash, and roared, smoke and flames stabbing from the barrel. McCreedy’s head jerked back as the. 44 round drilled through his temple and plunked into the dust about two feet behind him, spraying blood, brains, and bone into the grit.
    McCreedy’s quivering hand opened. His six-shooter tumbled into the street by his right knee, and he sagged back in the dirt, shivering as though he’d been struck by lightning.
    The crowd fell silent.
    Zane and Junius Webb had stopped in the street about thirty feet before the saloon from which the ruckus had erupted. Zane clucked as the lawman, whose name was Wayne Lomax, strode toward the still-shaking carcass.
    “That’s a mighty fast draw you got there, Marshal,” the ghoul hunter said.
    Lomax stood over McCreedy but turned his head toward Zane and Junius and grimaced. “Oh, Christ. Not you, Uriah. As if I don’t have enough trouble.” He picked up McCreedy’s gun and turned to Zane once more. “This son of a sow been leadin’ up a gang sellin’ busthead to the hobgobbies out on Eagle River. You ever confront a drunken hobgobbie, Uriah?”
    “A time or two. Like takin’ down a bear with a slingshot. I see now why you were so contrary, Wayne.”
    Lomax beckoned toward the saloon veranda, and three men came down and started to pick up the dead McCreedy and haul him off to the undertaker’s. The lawman shoved the dead man’s pistol behind his black cartridge belt and sauntered over to Zaneand Junius, canting a skeptical eye to appraise the wheeled casket behind the bounty man.
    “That’s some outfit you got there, Uriah.”
    “Thanks.”
    “What’s in the
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