Read Online A Lust For Lead by Robert Davis - Free Book Online Page A

and Chris had gotten wind that Shane was coming. He had known that he hadn’t stood a chance of survival but he had stayed anyway and faced Shane like a man. David had not been so courageous. He had skipped town and had not heard of his brother’s death until three days after it had happened.
‘I bet you wish it had been you.’ Buchanan whispered in his ear. ‘Wouldn’t you have rather been the one who killed him?’
Shane did not want to think about it. Of course he wished it had been him. To Shane’s way of thinking, David’s mission of vengeance had been an affront to his brother’s memory. Chris Sullivan had been a man of principle and Shane had respected him. David, meanwhile, was a coward who had waited five years – until long after Shane had laid down his guns and sworn never to shoot again – before finding the courage to avenge his brother’s death. Shane would have loved to have been the one to kill him, and he would not have shown him the mercy that he had shown his brother by making it quick.
But that was not the sole reason that Shane would have liked to have taken Matt Nesbitt’s place. A part of him longed just to fire a gun again, to handle the power that had once been his to command. He yearned for it, but at the same time he was afraid of it. For Shane knew the secret of the Fastest Guns and he had barely escaped from them the last time.

The second match drew the contestants back to the crossroads. It was Chastity’s turn to fight and so far the enigmatic gunfighter had yet to be seen by any of the contestants. Shane was eager to catch a glimpse of her and learn her measure, as was her opponent, Escoban Cadero.
The Mexican bandit leader swaggered from O’Malley’s and drained the last of a bottle of beer before tossing it aside and letting it break against the saloon wall. Hands on his hips, he searched about for his opponent, then strode boldly out into the crossroads to wait for her.
He was a singularly foul-looking man. In the deserts where he lived, the springtime winds blew up sandstorms so violent that they were known to strip the flesh from a man’s bones. Cadero had weathered countless such storms, often using them as cover when he raided the villages and ranches of that land, and his face and arms were covered with scars where the sands had bitten deep. His beard and moustache were thick and matted with grease, his hair long and wild. His eyes were as black as the night and narrow from squinting into the ravenous winds.
He took advantage of Chastity’s absence to choose to stand on the northern side of the crossroads, superstitiously avoiding the spot where David Sullivan had died. Having taken his place, he heaved at his shirts with meaty hands and tore them apart, exposing a muscled chest that was coarse with thick, black hair. The sunlight glimmered on half a dozen gold chains that hung around his neck.
He roared, flecking spittle from his rotten gums. ‘Where is she then? Where is this little puta who would fight me?’
There was no answer and Cadero laughed contemptuously. ‘Perhaps she has dresses to mend, or is too busy cooking dinner, no?’
He raised his voice in a sing-song: ‘Come out, senora. Don’t be shy. Escoban has something for you.’ He gestured obscenely.
His challenges echoed desolately through Covenant’s abandoned streets and a long moment passed in which nobody moved. Then, the door of the Grande hotel creaked slowly open.
Nathaniel emerged, followed by Whisperer, and they were not alone. They were accompanied by a thin, pale woman. She was in her mid-thirties with long brown hair that hung straight and without style. She moved timidly, her eyes pointed down at the ground and by her manner Shane judged that she was used to being beaten.
She led a child by the hand: a young girl who could not have been more than seven or eight years old; who wore a pink dress and had ribbons in her hair. Incongruously, she also wore a gun belt fastened around her waist,