Shadow River Read Online Free PDF Page A

down across black shadowy darkness.
    â€œWell, I’m glad they worked everything out between them,” Burke joked. The three other gunmen laughed until Sam raised a hand, hushing them.
    â€œDid you feel that?” Sam asked almost in a whisper. He listened in every direction. The men sat in a tense silence.
    â€œHear what?” Burke whispered.
    No sooner had he spoken than a small powerful tremor bored through the stony hillside beneath them, the rumble akin to that of an oncoming train.
    â€œJesus, what’s that?” Black asked.
    â€œGet off your horses, quick,” Sam said.
    The men didn’t question his order. They slid down from their saddles just in time to feel another rumbling quake down deep under the hillside. The horses spooked and whinnied, but they didn’t attempt to bolt away, their legs feeling too wobbly and unsteady to support such an effort. They stood their ground, trembling along with the hillside, and struggled to remain upright.
    Sam grabbed the dun’s saddle horn and stood with his feet spread shoulder width apart. Burke collapsed against the side of his horse and held on as the trembling earth jarred through him. Childers jumped farther away from the wall on the inside of the trail as small stones and gravel sprayed down like heavy rain. Stanley Black and the Montana Kid pawed and grabbed at each other, and fell to the ground like impassioned lovers no longer able to resist.
    â€œDa-da-da-damn!” Burke stuttered. He fell the rest of the way down his horse’s side, caught on to its stirrup and hung there.
    The sound of loosened rock and dirt shuffled and rattled and slid. Brush and sparse timber rustled. Sam tried to look all around in the darkness, but his eyes would not focus just right. The night, the sky and the hill itself seemed to try to rise as if suddenly intent on relocating themselves. Sam felt his hat tremble loosely atop his head.
    Then, as if having changed its mind, the earth fell into place with a bone-shattering thump, the feeling of some gigantic underground ledge slipping and falling and settling onto some lower level.
    The calmness set in so fast Sam turned loose of his saddle horn and steadied himself in place, his arms out on either side as if to test his balance.
    â€œThat was . . . an earthquake,” Burke said unsteadily.
    â€œI noticed,” said the Montana Kid, turning loose of Black and jumping to his feet. He brushed him off and straightened his clothes and gun belt. He drew his Colt and checked it nervously.
    Sam didn’t waste any time. He pulled the dun forward by its reins with one hand and pulled the spare horse along by its lead rope. The two horses needed little coaxing.
    â€œGet up over this hilltop, find us a wide spot,” Sam said, dirt and rock still raining in spite of the earth having settled back into place.
    Managing to stay single file, the men and horses moved upward the short distance to the top of the hill. Once on wider, flatter ground, with no rocks to fall from above them, they stopped and looked back in relief.
    â€œThat was close,” Burke remarked.
    Almost before he’d finished his words, the four turned their heads toward what sounded like angry waves breaking on a rocky shoreline.
    â€œWhat the hell?” Childers said, his hand clasped to his wounded shoulder.
    A roiling brown-black cloud rose on the darkness and spread down along the sky and trail side as far as the men could see. The sound of ocean waves revealed itself to be a shifting, sliding bed of loose scree, unseated stone and boulder. The men watched as if transfixed. In slices of purple moonlight, they witnessed and felt a new rumbling beneath them as the top layer of hillside tumbled and bounced and flung its stone and sparse fauna mantling downward toward the distant desert floor.
    â€œLandslide . . . ,” Burke whispered, staring as if in awe. “Damnedest place I’ve ever