Dust of the Damned (9781101554005) Read Online Free PDF Page B

sacks?”
    “Swiller heads. Ran into a cave teemin’ with the vermin, like bedbugs in a Mexican brothel, about ten miles up canyon.” Zane arched an admonishing brow. “Ain’t that your jurisdiction, Marshal Lomax?”
    Lomax’s nostrils flared, and he hardened his jaws. “Sundown.”
    “What’s that?”
    “That’s your deadline for hauling your crazy ass, your crazy friend, and your ghastly casket the hell out of my town, Zane. Sundown!”
    Zane’s broad, bearded face darkened. His voice was pitched low with an almost affable menace. Darkly, he smiled. “Now, you know better than to tell
me
what to do, Wayne.” He splayed his right hand across his thigh, near the Colt Navy jutting on his right hip.

Chapter 4
    
    U.S. BOUNTY OFFICE
    Town Marshal Wayne Lomax looked pained and frustrated.
    He cut his eyes from side to side to see who, if anyone, was witnessing his confrontation with the notorious ghoul hunter Uriah Zane. Since most of the onlookers had drifted off after Lomax had killed McCreedy, Lomax looked vaguely relieved.
    But he kept his voice low as he said in defeat, “Goddamnit, Uriah. You bust up any more saloons in my town, I’m liable to get voted out of office. Now, will you”—he paused to look around once more, then stepped up so close to General Lee that the horse nickered nervously, and through gritted teeth Lomax said quietly—“kindly finish whatever business you have here, stock up on the supplies you need, and all the firewater you can hold, and move on out? Plenty of ghouls up in them mountains yonder. You have a way, Uriah, every time you’re here, of makin’me look bad. Weak. And it ain’t a good thing for a lawman to look weak in the eyes of those he serves.”
    “Ah, shit, Wayne—you’re fast enough. Why don’t you just go ahead and shoot me? You been wantin’ to since we was six years old.”
    Lomax ran a frustrated hand across his mouth and rattled a sigh. “You know I can’t shoot my own blood. ’Specially since there’s so few of us Lomaxes and Zanes left in the world. But believe me, if we weren’t kin, they’d be hauling you off to where they’re taking Lyle McCreedy even as we speak.”
    “I’ll be damned,” Junius said with awe, raking a hand across his patch-bearded face. “I didn’t know you two was kin.”
    Lomax turned his agonized eyes on the wizened prospector. “Hold your tongue, Mr. Webb, or I will fabricate a reason for incarcerating your rock-breaking ass!”
    “Double cousins,” Zane told the prospector. “We’re
real
close, Wayne an’ me. Least we were till I won a turkey shoot when we was tit-high to a sow’s belly, and Wayne had to take my turns in the tobacco barn that summer ’stead o’ sparkin’ Constance Summerfield, who ended up my brother’s betrothed.”
    “So help me, Uriah, if this ever gets out…”
    “Ah, don’t worry. I won’t ruin your reputation,” Zane said, touching heels to General Lee’s flanks and starting forward, his indignant cousin scrambling aside. “Just don’t go thinkin’ you can tell me what to do. Gravels me, and you know how we Zanes get when we’re graveled.”
    As he and Junius rode forward through the blood splotch that Lyle McCreedy had left in the street, Lomax called behind him, “Marshal Angel Coffin was in town earlier…inquiring about you.” His voice owned a faintly mocking tone.
    Zane sawed back on General Lee’s reins and looked over his shoulder. The marshal stood grinning at him, a fist on his hip, one boot cocked with self-satisfaction. Zane worked a corner of his broad mouth pensively and said with a wolfish growl, “Have I ever been tied to lace panties or apron strings, cousin?”
    Undefeated, Lomax chuckled. “Just passin’ along a little news, is all.”
    The marshal turned and started to stroll away.
    Zane burned. “What’d she want?”
    Lomax stopped, turned back toward him, his cheeks above the upswept ends of his mustache dimpling in delight. “She