The Devil's Badland: The Loner Read Online Free PDF Page A

a simple latch on it. Conrad unfastened it and pushed the door open several inches. The rain was falling straight down now, since the wind had died away, and the barn’s eaves kept it from coming in the opening.
    Conrad’s eyes narrowed as he peered through the wet, murky gloom. He saw several figures moving around near the dugout, but they were just deeper patches of darkness. He couldn’t make out any details. Given the fact that he had heard a horse, though, he was fairly sure they were men on horseback. He leaned forward to watch them.
    Suddenly, despite the rain, a match flared to life. They had to be shielding it somehow. Conrad saw hands moving in the harsh glare, holding something toward the flame…
    Sparks spurted. Conrad’s hand tightened on the Colt as he realized what he was seeing. One of the men had just lit a fuse. The powder-laced length of cord would burn in spite of the rain.
    At the other end of that fuse was a stick of dynamite!

Chapter 4

    Conrad didn’t waste any time wondering who the men were or what they intended to do. His keen brain understood instantly what was going on. Devil Dave Whitfield, or at least, some of his men, had returned to the MacTavish ranch with the intention of blowing the dugout to kingdom come.
    The Colt in Conrad’s hand leveled and fired in the blink of an eye, as the man with the dynamite drew back his arm to hurl the explosive at the dugout. The man yelled in pain and stiffened in the saddle.
    “Throw it!” one of the other men yelled. “Throw it, you damned fool!”
    Instead, the dynamite slipped from the wounded man’s hand and fell to the ground at his horse’s feet. Conrad hoped the mud would put out the fuse, but it continued spitting sparks as it burned.
    The men stampeded, mud flying under the hooves of their horses as they tried to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the dynamite.
    The wounded man had the presence of mind to try to get away, too, but he was too late. With a booming crack and a blinding flash, the dynamite went off. The explosion sent man and horse flying through the air.
    “In the barn!” a man shouted. “The son of a bitch is in the hayloft!”
    Conrad threw himself down as gun flame bloomed in the stormy night. He guessed there were three or four of the raiders left, and they were all doing their damnedest to kill him by blazing away at the hayloft door. He heard slugs thudding into the door and the wall around it. The lead chewed splinters from the wood.
    Conrad poked the Colt through the opening and returned the fire. At the same time, shots roared from inside the dugout. The explosion had roused the MacTavishes from sleep, and they were joining the fight.
    That put the raiders in a crossfire. A couple of them sagged in their saddles as if they were hit, even as they turned and fired back toward the dugout. After a moment, they realized they were in a bad spot, wheeled their horses and put the spurs to the animals, galloping out of the muddy yard between the dugout and the barn.
    They left behind the man and the horse that had been caught in the blast. Neither dark shape on the ground was moving. Conrad figured both of them were dead.
    Working easily by feel, because he’d had plenty of practice these past few months, he thumbed fresh cartridges into the Colt to replace the ones he had fired. Then he climbed down from the hayloft and lit the lantern. Draping the oilcloth over his head and his left arm, he carried the lantern in that hand and the revolver in the other as he walked out of the barn.
    The dugout door opened. Hamish and James came out of the dwelling, wearing slickers and hooded ponchos. Hamish had the shotgun, James his Remington. They stopped on the other side of the bodies from Conrad, who held the lantern high enough for its yellow glow to spread over the gruesome sight.
    The man and the horse were torn up pretty bad. The man’s face was unmarked, though, and James said, “That’s another