Read Online Destined to Die by George G. Gilman - Free Book Online

backs closer to Will’s age than his son’s.
    These were not the only riders Barnaby Gold could see from the natural arch at the top of the trail that sloped down and ran between the house and the river to continue northward. For eight more were out on this trail, galloping their mounts toward the house, dust from the pumping hooves streaming out behind them. Rising higher into the sunlit air than the spray erupted by the horses in the river.
    For a moment, Barnaby Gold thought the reason for the men’s frantic haste was that he had been spotted. But, although he was perhaps more than a quarter mile from the house, he realised that this was the objective of both groups of riders. Just a simple frame house with a stoop at the front and shade trees in the yard out back. With a horse hitched to the stoop rail.
    A black gelding. Flicking his tail at the flies that were bothering him.
    Gold slid from his saddle and murmured: ‘Goddamnit it to hell.’
    This as the men crossing the river drew rifles and shotguns from their boots. And a woman ran out of the house. Waving her arms and shouting. Whatever she was yelling was lost against the splashing of water and thudding of hooves. The men on the trail drew guns. Will and Jesse Gershel ran their mounts on to dry land, both of them shouting at the tops of their voices. The other four men came out of the river, flanking the Gershels.
    The woman turned suddenly to veer away from the line of galloping animals.
    Jesse Gershel exploded a rifle and his father let loose both barrels of the Purdey.
    Two more shotguns and rifles showered a hail of death across the screaming, writhing woman toward the front of the house. The horse hitched to the rail reared and snorted.
    The six horses with men in the saddles were reined to dust-billowing halts, this dust clinging to the wet coats of the animals, and the boots and pants of the men who flung themselves from the saddles.
    The eight men on the trail slowed to a halt with less fanatical zeal: with the exception of one who leapt from his saddle and raced to crouch beside the hysterically screaming woman.
    All guns were back in their boots and holsters now.
    The woman was placated and two of the men who had been in the Gershels’ group went up on to the stoop of the house. For a moment or so they were beyond Barnaby Gold’s range of vision. Then they backed into sight again. In stooped attitudes, each one holding the ankle of a bullet-riddled, blood-trailing corpse.
    ‘Pa, it ain’t him!’ Jesse Gershel shrieked.
    The sniper was face-down when he was dragged to the Gershels. Hatless. Enough of his hair and clothing not splashed by blood to show that both were the wrong colour.
    ‘That’s what I was tryin’ to tell you!’ the woman screamed, wrenching free of the man who helped her to her feet. ‘You trigger-happy, crazy fools! He come here to tell you! The man you want got loose from Martha! Killed JL Larkin! Maybe even killed Martha and the girl as well!’
    ‘Frig it, we seen the horse and figured you was runnin’ scared from that guy, Gertrude!’ one of the sniper’s killers yelled.
    ‘You fools never do think anythin’ right!’ the woman countered. ‘Get back on your horses and ride for the Gershel place! See if Martha and the Engel girl have come to harm!’
    By the time the men streamed through the natural arch and galloped their mounts south down the trail, Barnaby Gold and his gelding were concealed in the wooded gully.
     

CHAPTER NINE
     
    THE woman had been shaken and then hard-slapped out of her hysteria by the man who went to her. Then there had been some more heated exchanges. But low voiced, so that the black-clad man at the top of the slope could not hear what was being said. Part of the talk had seemed to be about whether or not somebody should stay with the woman. But nobody did. A blanket was brought from the house to drape the blood-run corpse where it lay. Then, as Barnaby Gold led his gelding deep into the