Read Online Gut-Shot by William W. Johnstone - Free Book Online

black eye of a .50 caliber muzzle is not an experience a man relishes or soon forgets.
    McCord tensed. The big rancher was not afraid, but all at once he was caught flat-footed and that made him wary.
    A silence stretched taut between him and Flintlock.
    Lithgow, the peacemaker, broke it. “Sam Flintlock, trigger that long rifle and right afterward I’ll drop you where you stand,” he said.
    â€œI told you no once, McCord,” Flintlock said, ignoring the marshal. “No deal. And I won’t repeat myself.”
    The rancher’s anger flared. “Why, you sorry piece of white trash, I’ll—”
    â€œYou’ll what?” Flintlock said. His voice had the honed edge of a steel blade.
    For the first time since they met, McCord recognized Sam Flintlock for what he was, not the ignorant frontier thug as he’d first pegged him but a fighting man who would not admit to being second best to any.
    He was a man to be reckoned with.
    But then, so was Trace McCord.
    â€œLithgow, I’ll waste no more breath here,” he said.
    â€œI’m all talked out myself,” Flintlock said.
    â€œFrom this day forward, consider yourself a dead man, Flintlock,” the rancher said. “Prepare your winding sheet.”
    McCord swung his horse away, and after a last, despairing look at Flintlock, Lithgow followed.
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    â€œYou make some mighty powerful enemies, Sammy.”
    Old Barnabas sat on the porch rocker, needle and yellow thread in hand as he repaired a tear in the sleeve of a Cheyenne war shirt.
    â€œSeems like I do,” Flintlock said.
    â€œOf course, that’s because you’re an idiot.”
    â€œI guess so,” Flintlock said.
    â€œDidn’t I teach you that you don’t jaw with an enemy? You kill him. End the argument right there and then and save all them fancy words.”
    â€œTrace McCord is not my enemy,” Flintlock said.
    â€œHe is now. The worst one you ever had.”
    Barnabas tied off his thread then held up the war shirt and studied it with a critical eye.
    â€œWell, that’s the best I can do,” he said. “Even dead, them Cheyenne dog soldiers get up to all kinds of mischief an’ tear up their duds.” Then, “Go to the Louisiana swamps, Sam. Swim with the alligators and find your mother.”
    â€œWhen my job here is done.”
    â€œI raised an idiot,” Barnabas said.
    The empty chair rocked back and forth in the wind.
    That’s all it had been, Flintlock told himself. Just a restless chair stirred by a warm south wind . . .

CHAPTER TEN
    â€œYou’ll be a man, Steve, even if I have to beat it into you,” Trace McCord said.
    â€œI try, Pa,” the young man said.
    â€œâ€˜I try, Pa,’” McCord said, mimicking his son’s high-pitched voice. “That’s the trouble. You don’t try. You’ve never tried and that’s why you’ve failed at everything, you useless whelp.”
    The big rancher sprawled in a heavy leather chair studded with brass tacks. He refilled the glass in his hand from the whiskey decanter, then said, “Frisco?”
    â€œDon’t mind if I do, boss,” Frisco Maddox said.
    Scowling, McCord poured whiskey into his foreman’s glass.
    â€œHow could I have spawned that, Frisco?” he said, jabbing his cigar in his son’s direction. “Just . . . tell me how. Hell, he doesn’t even look like me.”
    The big foreman hesitated for a moment, then said, “He’s shaping up, boss.”
    â€œDamn it, man, he writes poetry,” McCord said. “Who the hell writes poetry and shapes up?”
    â€œI don’t know, boss.”
    â€œMe neither.”
    Something mean stabbed in McCord’s belly and something mean twisted his handsome face.
    â€œSay us one of your poems, boy. Let Frisco hear it.” Steve McCord was twenty years old but he still looked like an undersized boy with