Nazareth
Page 17
‘You put a hole in my foot,’ Burk said bitterly, staring Billy Lee in the face. ‘I would have been long gone but for that.’
‘That a fact,’ Billy Lee replied.
He lowered his arm, bunched his fist and delivered a blow from down at his waist that hooked up and smashed Burk under the chin. Burk’s head rocked, he took a step back and blinked his eyes several times. Then he spat blood from between his lips, his voice a gargle when he spoke.
‘I think you made me bite my damned tongue near off, you bastard.’
‘Then now you know how it feels.’
Billy Lee stepped forward and hit him again, another punch that hit hard and was delivered upwards from low down. The urge was on him to kill Burk with his bare hands and his whole body was tense with unforgiving anger. He slugged at Burk, who made no defensive moves but took each punch with his stocky body apparently sucking it up.
Burk smiled derisively, the blood showing on his teeth.
Billy Lee did not relent, even when Burk dropped to his knees he continued to strike. Blow after blow fell, the sound a continuous wet smacking sound in the still night air. Relentlessly, Billy Lee continued his awful battering, each blow laced with a memory of the things he and Minnie had suffered at Burk’s hand.
The others stood and watched, silently awestruck at the vicious demolition of the man.
Burk knelt there, slumped on his heels his head bruised and slick with blood, one eye swollen to billiard ball size, the lip gashed and nose broken.
Billy Lee stepped back panting and looked down at him.
Burk slowly raised his head, a sneer on his battered face, ‘That the best you can do, Billy Lee? You hit like a girl, my wife could hit harder, she had more balls than you or this gang of losers.’
The gunshot that cracked through the night took them all by surprise.
A dark hole appeared in Burk’s forehead just above his star-shaped scar and his head swayed on his shoulders a moment as his eyes glazed over. He fell forward to lie face down in the grass.
They all turned to see Minnie standing calmly at the top of the cliff path. She worked another shell into the chamber of her rifle and ejected the smoking casing far out away down towards the sea.
Epilogue
Jethro was dead.
It left a pall of gloom over their small victory.
They stood aside from the three sad figures of Freddie, Les and Barnaby where they stood gathered with the preacher over the freshly turned mound of earth in the Old Town cemetery.
Billy Lee studied Minnie’s tear-stained face.
He wondered why she felt so distressed over Jethro’s passing and what the man had meant to her.
‘What ails you girl?’ he asked her softly. ‘What was that fellow to you? He was about to offer you up to Burk for reward.’
She shook her head negatively hanging it down as she took his arm in her hand and squeezed it affectionately.
‘Tell me,’ Billy Lee pressed gently. ‘What is it?’
She half turned to Doctor Jack who leaned against the graveyard wall beside them and began to make rapid finger talk.
‘She says it is nothing, Billy Lee,’ Doctor Jack translated. ‘He was not always as he ended up, at first he helped her and they were friends.’
Billy Lee watched the swift movements of the sign language, ‘You’re have to teach me how to do that, Doctor Jack. Be nice if Minnie and I could talk to each other.’
Minnie pulled him down to her and kissed him sweetly on the cheek and he smiled at her.
‘So what do we do now?’ he asked.
She shrugged and gave him a small cheeky smile, her eyes took on an impudent gleam and she placed her two forefingers side by side in a symbol of togetherness.
‘No doubt,’ he said. ‘But I meant long term? How about you, Doctor Jack?’
‘Me?’ said Doctor Jack blandly. ‘I am as the leaf blown by the wind from place to place, I go where the Earth Mother takes me.’
Billy Lee looked skywards, ‘I should have known better than to ask.’
Minnie glanced over at the three men by the grave and jerked her head in query.
‘What about those three? I don’t know. Myself, I have a yen to head west, I thought back here in the east I would find some peace and tranquility but I guess where you get people gathered you always find aggravation, it’s a fact of nature. So maybe in the big beyond it gets simpler. I fancy the empty spaces of Montana or Oregon, there’s money to be made in cattle and lumber, and either one will do me. If you and Doctor Jack will come along, I’d be pleased of your company and if those three want to make a go of it and quit the outlaw path then I guess we can bring them with us too. What do you say?’
They all agreed to the proposition, even Jethro’s three bereft partners and so a week later they packed their possibles and left Nazareth behind taking the trail west. Their adventures would be many on the journey out and even more when they arrived at their destination. Some of them would prosper and some would not but like all pioneers, together they would build something out of nothing with no more than their wit and courage.
IF YOU ENJOYED THIS BOOK SEE THESE OTHER TITLES BY
TONY MASERO
WESTERN NOVELS
HARD RAIN MUST FALL * BAD DON’T MEAN WRONG * GRINGO WADE * IN THE DEVIL’S GRIP * SLASHED STAR * WAR RIDER * THE KILLING DESERT * JAKE RAINS * THE RIFLEMEN * THE PURSUED * DIRTY SHIRT BLUES * DEEP WATER RISING * DEATH RIDES ON THE HEELS OF TROUBLE * THE RAID * THE WIDOWMAKER * THE VENGEANCE OF ENDER SMITH * DAMN FOOLS GOLD * BLOOD LEGACY * JOHNNY DOLLAR * MISTER D’EATH AND THE JUDGE * DEADLY MANHUNT * FULLBLOOD BOYD OVERMOUNTAIN MAN * BLOOD MOON TRAIL * CROSS BORDER KILLERS * PEACE AT WAR * TULANE * MOSE GOES WEST * GO LIGHTLY RIDER * THE HEART OF DARK PASSAGE * HARD EDGED * BLOOD RIDDEN * BIG WIN * THE DEAD CUT * TWENTY DOLLAR DEAD MAN * GONE ROGUE * GILDED RAGE * WINTERTIME * THE RESCUERS * DIEHARD * THE THIRTY SIX HUNDREDS * BORDERLINE GRINGO * NAZARETH
WESTERN SERIES
MISTY BLUE
No.1 Misty Blue The Last Mountain Man
No.2 Loaded for Bear
No.3 A Dog called Kill
No.4 Wild in the Woods
No.5 Down and Dirty
No.6 End of the Road
BELLE SLAUGHTER
No.1 Over Your Dead Body
No.2 Lamb to Slaughter
No.3 Five Belles to Hell
No.4 Cut to the Quick
TEARS OF APACHE STONE
No.1 Season of the Killing Moon
No.2 Time of Apache Tears
No.3 Hunt for a Stone Killer
THRILLERS
DEAD FALL BACK
THE GARDENER A John Chayne novel
BLACK EYE
THE BITTER STONES OF INTENTION
FEED THE CROW
I WENT DOWN TO THE VALLEY
BABYCHAIN BLUES
CENTROBLIS
(Writing as MICHAEL D’ASTI)
A WEB FOR ALL GOD’S ANGELS
THE KHANDA KILLINGS
IN THE FRAME
Drama
THE DECEPTIVE EYE
MOMENTS OF RECURRENCE