Mobley's Law, A Mobley Meadows Novel Read Online Free PDF

could scatter out of the killing zone.
    One of the fallen was mortally wounded but cried out for help as he struggled to get to his feet, blood pouring from the walnut sized hole in his chest. The leader, a pock-faced, dark haired fellow with feathers sprouting from his headband and red paint on his arms and cheeks, was clearly wild with anger. He circled recklessly back to his fallen comrade, casually took aim with a pistol and shot the pleading man through the head.
    Bile rose into Mobley’s throat, competing with the massive infusion of adrenaline and its immediate after effect for control of his stomach. As he stared at the furious, murderous leader, Mobley’s mood returned to anger. He could feel his teeth clench, jaw muscles flexing into tight knots. He would not let these rotten vermin win. His blood seemed to burn as his temper flared. He would fight to his last breath.
    Rising boldly from behind the protection of his rock, Mobley raised his arm and gave them his best imitation of a lewd Italian street gesture, arm bent and shoving upward . “HEY, WHAT’S THE MATTER YA ROTTEN PECKERNECKS? YA LOST YOUR TESTICULARS? COME ON BACK, LET’S PLAY SOME MORE.”
    Now the riders whooped and screamed. They galloped back and forth firing wildly, waving their arms, yelling at one another until the feather-haired leader managed to restore order. They gathered for a moment, and then two bare-chested Indians rode off in opposite directions along the cliff base. Obviously, they were looking for ways to get above and fire down on him.
    “WELL, FOOT!”
    Mobley was still blind with anger, but he could feel it fading away, as it usually did. When very angry, his grandmother, who could never have brought herself to use a profanity, created her own vocabulary. “Oh, FOOT!” she would say, and you knew, if you had a brain, to be somewhere else before she came out with a green hickory switch and striped your bottom. Mobley might have said something of a more colorful nature, had he thought hard about it, but he had long ago adopted grandmother Featherheart’s method, rather than be judged a nasty mouthed lout by his more prudish colleagues. Except of course, when someone insulted him or his court, then all pretense of following the rules disappeared.
    He dropped back behind the rock to replace the expended cartridges in his rifle. He’d pissed them good, but now they were starting to think. The next attack would be coordinated, with men in front and above. As his mind raced, there was only one thing he could think to do. Reduce the odds even more before they all got into position.
    Mobley quickly raised the sight on his rifle to 300 yards. The survivors of the first attack were milling around at about that distance, waving their arms and screaming at one another.
    “You boys’d better step back a teensy bit,” he whispered as he once again snugged his cheek tightly against the rifle stock. “It ain’t safe out here.”
    Carefully gauging the light breeze out of the southwest, he caressed the sensitive trigger of the brand new rifle, allowing the feel of the weapon and the gentle odors of polished wood and gun oil flow through his senses. Angus Meadows, also an accomplished gunsmith, had delicately filed the sear to reduce the rifle’s trigger pull to slightly less than three pounds. Not so light as to be unsafe, but enough to help an average shooter become a dangerous marksman.
    Mobley picked out the largest of the group, focused his attention on the man and the sight, and relaxed as best he could. The key to good shooting was to concentrate on the sight picture without thought as to when the weapon would fire. Just start squeezing and let it happen. Like as not, your target would drop like a stone.
    The large man stopped moving laterally long enough for Mobley to settle the sight on the center of his chest. A soft straight back stroke on the trigger, a firm recoil, a comforting, KA-POCK . It was a long shot, one easily