Read Online .45-Caliber Deathtrap by Peter Brandvold - Free Book Online Page B

his head. It sifted down near the squared toes of his low-heeled boots.
    He lifted his eyes to the ledge, the hair on the back of his neck prickling. A cunning light entered his eyes, and he almost sneered. He took a breath, squeezed the rifle in his hands, then took one step away from the cleft, moving toward the river before swinging around toward the bank, raising his rifle.
    Another bushwhacker stood atop the cleft, one boot resting on a thickly knotted root jutting from the ledge—a tall, latigo-tough hombre with pale hair falling down from his coffee-colored Stetson, a Winchester carbine in his beringed hands.
    He saw Cuno too late. His eyes snapped wide, and he began moving his carbine down. Cuno’s Winchester barked. The man dropped his rifle to grab his lower chest with both hands, his cheeks bulging, eyes pinching.
    Cuno reached up with his left hand, gave the man’s right leg a tug. The man tumbled off the ledge and hit the ground in a cloud of puffing dust and falling stones. Cuno picked him up by his collar, feeling the man’s death spasms through his wrist, and threw him into the stream.
    The body skidded off a couple of water-polished rocks, then turned onto its back, the boots still kicking, the water roiling red. The body turned this way and that before the current caught it and hauled it, bobbing and rocking, hands flung out, palms up, downstream.

    Rip Webber was hunkered in the cottonwoods near the wagon, his rifle resting across his thighs, when he saw something floating down creek. He squinted his eyes. A deer maybe—a small doe or fawn that had fallen and drowned when trying to cross the stream.
    Then he saw the man’s body—Liddy Lewis—twisting and turning, the water red-tinged around it before it swept over a small beaver dam and shot headfirst downstream. It turned a semicircle before disappearing around a bend.
    â€œChrist,” Webber said, running his eyes upriver. Seeing no more signs of the driver, he rose and walked up the road.
    Donny Simms was still writhing around in the middle of the trail, trying to knot a neckerchief around his thigh. Joe Zorn was making his way down the ridge on the other side of the trail, cupping a bloody hand to his shoulder, holding his rifle low along his fringed right chap. His hatchet face was set grimly beneath the broad brim of his hat.
    Stopping near Simms, Webber looked up the road. Fletcher Updike was hunkered behind a boulder, peering into the river cut, squeezing his Spencer rifle as though trying to ring water from a soaked towel.
    â€œYou see him?” Webber called.
    Updike turned his round face toward him, shook his head.
    Webber glanced at the river, ran a hand across his jaw, feeling foolish at having been hornswoggled by a mere freighter—the freighter he and his four partners had themselves intended to hornswoggle—then turned again to Updike.
    â€œLet’s get the wagon and light a shuck.”
    â€œWhat about that son of a bitch down there?” Updike called. “I think he killed Liddy.”
    â€œHe did kill Liddy, you tinhorn.” Webber’s thick nostrils swelled. “We go after him, he’ll kill us too. I know when I’m beat, and when to light a shuck, and I been beat here, so I’m lightin’ a shuck.”
    Joe Zorn leapt from a rock to the road, grunting painfully. “At least we got the wagon. Who was that son of a bitch anyway?”
    â€œSome freighter that don’t like givin’ up his load,” Webber said as, walking toward the wagon, he ran his gloved hand over one of the mule’s backs, appraising the beast. He could get a hundred and fifty for the mule over at Lyons. “Help me get the wagon unstuck, and let’s get the hell out of here.”
    Trying to push himself up on his good leg, Donny Simms shouted, “Give me a hand, goddamnit!”
    Ignoring him, Webber walked to the rear of the wagon. He cast his glance over the