Last Ride of Jed Strange (9781101559635) Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Or thinkin’ you might have a chance, as ludicrous as that would be.”
    Colter chuckled at the absurdity of the situation. Also, possibly, to cover his own chagrin of knowing that there was a kernel of truth in what the lieutenant had said. Part of him had indeed fallen for the girl, and that part of him made the rest of him feel like a damn fool.
    He glanced at Hobart and McKnight behind him. “Three against one?”
    â€œNo, no.” Belden removed his hat and gloves and set them on the tailgate beside the whiskey bottle. “I fight like this, kid.”
    Colter didn’t see the straight left jab hammering toward him through the darkness before it smacked him in the mouth. It seemed to shove his lower jaw back into his skull though he didn’t feel a thing until the ground came up to smack him hard from behind.
    Suddenly, he was sitting in the gravel, his hat tumbling off his shoulder, hair in his eyes. Warm blood oozed from his bottom lip. His head began pounding in earnest though only for about three beats before the pounding dulled and the two images of Belden standing in front of him, slamming his right fist into his left palm, merged into one.
    Fury burned hot and wild in Colter Farrow.
    He glowered up at the lieutenant as, chuckling, the other two men climbed the corral fence behind Colter, hooking their heels over the bottom rail, McKnight removing the cap from a flask and settling in for the show.
    Colter brushed his fist across his lip and spat a gob of blood on the ground. “That was a sucker punch, you son of a bitch.”
    â€œWhat’d you call me, shit-kicker?”
    â€œA son of a bitch. A cheap, yellow-livered bitch.”
    Hobart chuckled but broke it off sharply when Belden flicked his cold gaze at him. Holding his fists out in the bare-knuckle style, Belden shuffled sideways around Colter. “Get up.”
    Colter got his boots under him and heaved himself to his feet. Quickly, he appraised his opponent. Colter had little chance. Dripping wet, Colter weighed a hundred and fifty pounds. He stood an inch shy of six feet. Belden had two inches and a good thirty pounds on him, and, judging by the deftness of that first punch, he’d obviously boxed a few times in the past, and hadn’t let the rules fetter him. Colter had heard rumors about him using the feckless enlisted men as punching bags, and now he believed them.
    Just the same, Colter had no intention of turning tail. He’d get in a lick or two before the lieutenant beat him into a miserable night’s sleep.
    Raising his own fists, mimicking fighters he’d watched in the past, he crouched and shuffled sideways, bobbing and weaving to avoid a sudden strike from his opponent.
    Belden grinned savagely, mockingly. He came at Colter hard and lightning fast.
    Colter tried to duck the first slashing right, but the more experienced fighter had anticipated the move, and the man’s bulging right fist clipped Colter on the nub of his scarred right cheek. The blow punched Colter’s face into the man’s other fist, which caught Colter on the left side of his mouth. Suddenly, he was stumbling backward once more. Either McKnight or Hobart stuck out a boot and Colter pushed off it, regaining his balance and spreading his feet.
    He didn’t wait for Belden but stepped forward quickly and landed a lucky punch on the lieutenant’s chin. The blow did not faze the lieutenant but only evoked a sneer before Belden came forward once more, and Colter felt like a punching bag that the slashing rights and hammering lefts pummeled with merciless speed and force until Colter lowered his spinning, ringing head, feeling both eyes swelling shut and blood dribbling down from his split lips and across his lower jaw and chin.
    Then Belden punched him hard in the belly—once, twice, three times—before the ground came up with the force of a runaway freight train.
    The wind exploded from Colter’s