The Guns of Santa Sangre Read Online Free PDF Page B

another step.
    The wolfman drops in its tracks, instantly dead.
    As the lifeless body hits the floor, there is a flurry of movement as immediately the monster’s physiognomy twists and reforms back into the crumpled figure of a dead naked human being on the ground.  
    The old man rises at last.
    Everyone in the jail is dead but him.
    His cell door is open, broken off the hinges.
    He walks through it a free man.
    The luck of the drunk. Tonight, he vows to say a prayer to the moon, the patron saint of werewolves, for the good fortune she bestowed on him.
    Stopping just long enough to do a few things before his departure, the old manis soon on his way. He rummages through the pockets of the Federales’ remains and takes their wallets. Selecting two fresh rifles and two pistols from the gun rack in the office, he takes enough ammo to last him awhile. Three bottles of whisky are now his. The last thing the borracho takes from the police station is the pouch of silver on the table that he stuffs in his pocket with the bullets. Then, selecting the strongest horse from the corral outside, he saddles up and rides west.

Chapter Three
    The one called Tucker leaned back in the chair, put his dusty boots up, spurs clinking, and squinted out at the harsh Durango desert that lay beyond the porch of the rundown cantina. One big empty. The sun was just rising, already blinding, and he dipped his hat brim to shadow his face. It was going to be another hot damn day. The man was tall and lean, the shag of beard bare by the scar on his jaw but thick across the rest of his sunburned leathery face. He rolled a cigarette and lit it between thick fingers, with cauliflower knuckles broken several times on others’ faces, and sucked in the good hurt of the bad tobacco. His Colts hung heavy in his holsters. Flies buzzed in the air.  
    He didn’t like the way the peasant was staring at him.  
    The Mexican had been there for an hour standing across the street, sizing him up. Usually these villagers kept their distance, keeping their eyes and heads down, avoiding trouble, but this little brown man had been looking at him with interest for a while now. Maybe they didn’t get too many gunfighters around here, the bunghole of the earth.
    Slapping an annoying fly on his cheek stubble, the gunfighter wiped the crushed insect off his palm on the wooden post, settling back in his chair with a creak of leather as he shifted his boots.
    The dismal outpost was nestled in the desert flats one hundred twenty miles from Villahidalgo for travelers passing through on the Santa Maria Del Oro trail. It wasn’t much, just a cantina, feed store, barn and a ramshackle corral. Tucker had his horse tethered there along with those his compatriots rode. The gunfighter had been here a week, lying low with the other two, planning their next move. He wondered how the hell he’d ended up here. The only other human beings he’d seen were the occasional Mexican farmers who rode through to purchase supplies for the few poor scattered villages throughout the area. None of the peasants had given him so much as a passing glance.
    Until this one.  
    The brown man stood across the street from the cowboy, watching him sitting on the porch smoking his cigarette.  
    And this way they killed a few more minutes.
    It was just a harmless peasant, Tucker decided, who didn’t appear to be armed, though he didn’t know that for sure. Unwashed wretch was covered with filth, his face smeared with caked mud, grime and sweat. The cowboy wondered if these people bathed, and this one was the dirtiest he had ever seen. By habit, the shootist gauged the possible threat this stranger might pose to him on this barren morning and how he would handle it. The peasant was alone. Impoverished as he clearly was, he may have recognized Tucker from the wanted posters and thought he would try for the reward to feed his family. He had no rifle but could possibly have a pistol under his baggy clothes. Might