The Gunsmith 386

No Witnesses

“Everybody just take it easy!” Clint called.

They all turned and stared. Gunner was the only one on his feet, and he did what his gut told him to do. He went for his gun.

Clint drew and fired. The bullet hit Gunner in the midsection and folded him up.

Cain fired, too, and despite what he'd told Clint, his first bullet hit Gunner.

The others, realizing they were in a cross fire, reacted badly. They all jumped to their feet, going for their guns.

“Damn it!” Clint swore. As the four men leveled their guns to fire, he doubted he and Cain would be able to keep any of them alive.

He was right.

THE GUNSMITH by J. R. Roberts

Clint Adams was a legend among lawmen, outlaws, and ladies. They called him . . . the Gunsmith.

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The popular long-running series about Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long—his life, his loves, his fight for justice.

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Today's longest-running action Western. John Slocum rides a deadly trail of hot blood and cold steel.

BUSHWHACKERS by B. J. Lanagan

An action-packed series by the creators of Longarm! The rousing adventures of the most brutal gang of cutthroats ever assembled—Quantrill's Raiders.

DIAMONDBACK by Guy Brewer

Dex Yancey is Diamondback, a Southern gentleman turned con man when his brother cheats him out of the family fortune. Ladies love him. Gamblers hate him. But nobody pulls one over on Dex . . .

WILDGUN by Jack Hanson

The blazing adventures of mountain man Will Barlow—from the creators of Longarm!

TEXAS TRACKER by Tom Calhoun

J.T. Law: the most relentless—and dangerous—manhunter in all Texas. Where sheriffs and posses fail, he's the best man to bring in the most vicious outlaws—for a price.

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VENGEANCE RIDE

A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

Copyright © 2014 by Robert J. Randisi.

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ISBN: 978-0-515-15443-6

eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-63508-7

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Jove mass-market edition / February 2014

Cover illustration by Sergio Giovine.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Clint Adams always hated when somebody tried to shoot him from an ambush, and this time was no exception.

For a man with a reputation, this was not as rare an occurrence as he might wish. Although he hadn't counted, he felt that he was launching himself out of his saddle for the hundredth time. One of these days he was likely to land on his head and kill himself that way.

He landed as well as he could, although it was always bone-jarring. Rolling on impact was meant to minimize that impact, but he wasn't sure it worked all that well. His teeth rattled and his bones threatened to crack as he landed, rolled, and came up with his Colt in his hand.

Lead bit into the dirt around him, and he quickly looked around for cover.

Eclipse, his Darley Arabian, had been through this almost as much as he had. The horse did the right thing, galloped off far enough to be out of the way of flying lead, but not so far that Clint wouldn't be able to collect him when it was all over.

As Clint ran for cover to a copse of trees, he realized the lead was coming at him from more than one direction. He took cover, ducked low, and waited while they got tired of shooting at the trees. This time helped him to hear the different guns that were firing. He counted three.

The shooting stopped. Nobody called out to him, but he was sure they knew where he was. They could have been moving in on him, getting closer by the second. He had to move.

He worked his way through the trees to come out the other side. If he had been with three men, trying to kill one, and he knew the one was in among the trees, he would have left a man to cover the three. As he came out, nobody fired at him. Apparently, all three were moving in on him.

They knew enough to keep quiet while they were doing it. But they allowed him to slip out the back, find new cover. They were used to working together, but they were not used to doing this.

He found his way to a ravine, slid down into it, and waited, listening. They were bound to talk to one another sooner or later.

He remained still, gun in hand, listening . . .

 • • • 

“Where'd he go?” Derrick Sands asked.

“Quiet!” Adam Dunn snapped.

“What's the difference?” Sands asked. “He's out here, he's on foot. What's the difference if he hears us?”

“He went into those trees,” Larry Allen said. “I saw him.”

“Then he's still in there,” Sands said.

“No.”

They both turned and looked at Dunn.

“Whataya mean?”

“I mean we made a mistake,” Dunn said.

“What mistake?” Sands asked.

“Other than we missed,” Allen added.

“One of us should have stayed up on the ridge, watching. We could have seen if he came out of the trees. Now we don't know for sure.”

“Well,” Sands said, “I'm goin' in after him.”

“Larry, you cover him.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“Wait out there,” Dunn said, “in case he comes out when you go in.”

“He ain't comin' out of there,” Sands said. “Not alive anyway.”

“Well, go ahead, then,” Dunn said.

As the other two moved in on the copse of trees, Dunn backed away. He and his partners were new to this manhunting game, but he never should have made that mistake.

The Gunsmith was out there, somewhere.

 • • • 

Clint turned over onto his belly, peered up out of the ravine. He could see the trees from there, kept his gun ready. If they went in there, they'd have to come out. If they didn't come out the same way they went in, he'd have them.

 • • • 

Dunn looked off in the near distance, saw the Gunsmith's horse standing there. Could the animal be that well trained? He wondered what it would do if he walked to it.

He had taken his eyes off Sands and Allen to look at the horse. When he looked back, they were gone, having entered the thicket of trees.

 • • • 

Sands poked in among the trees with his rifle barrel. Allen came up behind him.

“Nothin',” Sands said. “He ain't in here.”

“Then where is he?” Allen asked.

“He musta gone all the way through.”

“I'll check,” Allen said, and strode past Sands, who shouted, “Wait!”

Too late.

As the man stepped out from the trees, Clint fired. He had no qualms about doing it. The man was holding his rifle like he intended to use it. The bullet struck him in the chest, dropping him so that he fell back into the trees. His rifle slipped from his hands, and lay just outside the tree line.

Clint waited to see what would happen next . . .

 • • • 

Sands saw Allen stagger as the bullet struck him, and then fall.

“Damn it!” he snapped.

He turned to run back out of the trees the other way.

 • • • 

Dunn heard the shot, just one, wondered what it meant. He watched the trees, waiting for his men to come back out, but only Sands did.

“What happened?” Dunn demanded.

“Adams got Larry,” Sands said.

“Damn it,” Dunn said. “We lost our advantage. Let's get out of here.”

“There's still two of us,” Sands said. “We can still take 'im.”

“He's the Gunsmith, and he knows we're here,” Dunn said. “We need to get out of here, regroup, get some more help, and try again.”

“What about his horse?”

They both looked over at the big Darley Arabian, standing calmly.

“Kill it,” Dunn said.

Sands raised his rifle, but just as he fired, the horse moved. He tried to get it with a second shot, but the animal wouldn't stand still.

“Forget it!” Dunn told him. “Let's just get the hell out of here before he comes lookin' for us.”

Sands, ten years younger than the forty-year-old Dunn, asked, “Are you afraid of him?”

“You bet I am!” Dunn said. “If you're smart, you'll be scared, too.”

Dunn turned and ran back toward their own horses. Reluctantly, Sands followed him.

 • • • 

Clint waited a little longer. He thought he heard voices, but he didn't see anyone for the next few minutes. He also couldn't see Eclipse, but he suddenly heard two shots and they weren't directed at him.

He broke his cover, left the ravine, and ran to the fallen man's rifle. Picking it up, he circled around the stand of trees rather than going through again.

As he came around the trees, he saw Eclipse standing off in the near distance, but rather than standing calmly, the horse seemed agitated. He continued around until he came to the point where he had first been shot at. There was nobody around, and nobody took a shot at him. Apparently, the other men decided to run when they lost their advantage.

He walked to Eclipse and grabbed his reins.

“Easy, big fella,” he said. He checked the big horse, found a wound on his neck where a bullet had grazed him. It had happened either during the original ambush, or as a result of the two shots Clint had heard later. They'd tried to shoot Eclipse in order to leave Clint on foot. That made Clint even angrier than being shot at himself.

He held the reins tightly and walked the horse back to where he'd left the fallen man. He put the rifle down, grabbed the dead man's boots, and pulled him from the trees. He then went through his pockets, but found nothing. He looked at the man's face. Fairly young, probably in his thirties, but it was not a face that Clint recognized.

The town he'd left behind him was Wells, Arizona. These three had probably spotted him there and decided to come after him. Normally, he would have taken the dead man back there with him to try and have him identified. But Eclipse had a wound, and he wasn't going to ride the Darley himself, so he certainly wasn't going to throw the dead man over his saddle.

No, his only play was to continue on to the next town. He'd seen a signpost about a mile back that said he was approaching a town called Hastings. He decided to walk Eclipse there, have the wound treated, and then talk to the law there to see what he could find out about three men riding together.

He took the man by the boots again, and this time dragged him deeper into the trees. Maybe that would keep him safe from varmints until somebody could come out and pick him up. He also dropped the dead man's rifle next to him.

He checked Eclipse's neck again. The wound was bleeding, and while the animal stood calmly while he examined him, he knew it hurt. He used a dirty shirt from his saddlebags to try to stanch the flow of blood. He hoped he'd come to a water hole or stream between here and town so he could wash the wound out.

“Okay, big guy, let's go,” he said, grabbing the reins. “We'll walk at your pace and get you some help.” They started walking together.