He thumbed three fast shots and all three men went down, hit hard. He scored two headshots, killing the convicts instantly. The face of the third crashed into the fire, erupting flame, sparks, and a scream of sudden agony. Then silence. His booted feet gouged the ground as he cringed away from the visitation from hell. He had taken Shawn’s bullet in the throat. The side of his neck between earlobe and shoulder was a mass of red, mangled meat that pumped blood.
Sir James, gun in hand, stepped beside Shawn and looked into the smoke-streaked hideout.
In a wet, gurgling voice the wounded convict screamed to the older man, “Help me! I’m hurt bad and I need a doctor!”
Sir James, in shock, turned to Shawn. “He says he needs a doctor.”
Shawn nodded, thumbed back the hammer of his Colt, and shot the man between the eyes. “He just got one.”
Shawn spent the rest of the long night with his dead wife in his arms, holding her close to his chest as the slanting sleet bladed around him.
Come the dawn, Sir James, his face gray as ash, gently tried to take his daughter from Shawn’s arms. “I’ll bring the horses.”
“No. I don’t want the horses.” Shawn lifted Judith’s body, her face as beautiful in death as it had been in life. “I’ll carry her. I’ll carry my wife home.”
He turned his face to the black, uncaring sky and called out in terrible agony, “Judith! Judith! Judith!”
* * *
“It’s all right, Shawn. I’m with you.”
Shawn pried open his swollen eyes. The dark-eyed woman bent over him. A lamp burned somewhere in darkness and spread a dim orange light. “I . . . it was a dream. . . .”
“Yes. It was a bad dream. Banish those visions of the past from your mind and sleep now. Sleep, Shawn. Sleep.”
Shawn O’Brien closed his eyes and knew no more.
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 1997 William W. Johnstone
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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ISBN: 978-0-7860-3872-5
15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7
First electronic edition: March 2016
ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-3873-2
ISBN-10: 0-7860-3873-X
Notes
1 Trail of the Mountain Man
2 The Last Mountain Man
3 Return of the Mountain Man
4 Trail of the Mountain Man
5 The Last Mountain Man
6 The Last Mountain Man
7 The Last Mountain Man
8 Return of the Mountain Man
Vengeance of the Mountain Man Page 28