Read Online Shotgun by Courtney Joyner - Free Book Online Page A

tracing its edges. He fit the mask onto his own face, drawing deep.
    Bishop said, “Turn the crank.”
    Hector turned the crank, as Creed continued with the mask; then the captain took it off, saying, “I feel my blood pumping.”
    Bishop said, “Pure oxygen. The crank draws the air into the device which filters it through a cell filled with purified water, and the bellows pumps it out through the mask.”
    â€œHow’d you come to this?”
    â€œRemember the fire at Lynchburg? Our men choking to death, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.”
    â€œSo, you’re still a soldier.”
    â€œStill a doctor.”
    â€œAnd you carry your weapons with you.”
    â€œYou never know when you’ll need them, Captain.”
    â€œYou were an officer, and proud to display your rank on your field kit. Maybe I can’t see, but my vision’s clear.”
    Coming up out of some bloody slush, Fat Gut screamed, “What about the bitch with the arrows? She killed near half of us! And me!”
    â€œYou survived.” Creed handed White Fox the breather. “Be grateful for that.”
    Bishop said, “I remember you saying that before, after a skirmish on the other side of the Shenandoah.”
    â€œBecause we have history.”
    Bishop looked at all the guns ready for him, and the men behind them. “I might even recognize some of these faces, under the scars.”
    â€œScars you left them after our battles. These men have stayed loyal, all these years. Unlike you.”
    â€œRevenge?” Bishop let the word hang in the air before asking, “How long have you been tracking me?”
    Creed said, “Not long after you struck out on your own. You’re wanted for killing the gunsmith who made your rig. He was married to the squaw? That’s reward money, and who better to collect? Obviously, I can’t read signs the way I used to, but you weren’t hard to find. Not if you keep using that rig.”
    â€œAnd when are you going to kill us?”
    Creed took off his glasses, to wipe them with a handkerchief from his pocket. His eyelids were heavily corrupted with raised tissue, and the eyes themselves seemed solid black, but were actually blood-flecked purple. Blinking was a slow impossibility.
    Creed faced Bishop’s voice and said, “No one has more cause than I do.”
    Bishop said, “But you’re holding back.”
    â€œYou know me, Doctor. You know there’s a strategy.”
    â€œHell, yes.”
    Creed let his words go flat. “I have some planning to do yet.”
    â€œYou’re still riding Pride. He’s about the finest animal I’ve ever seen.”
    Creed said, “Of course, I haven’t seen him in years, but Pride’s the one thing I value from my days in command.”
    White Fox helped Bishop sit up against the tree, and he gestured toward the smoldering piles of cloth with the right hand that wasn’t there. “Those fires to smoke us out, they’re old flags. You took that Bonnie Blue when we fought those guerillas out of Baton Rouge.”
    Creed stood at attention. “Damn right. I captured them, so they’re mine to keep or burn. I can’t see them anymore, so they’re nothing but shitty rags.”
    â€œNo, they have meaning. Every battle you won, and every man you lost. I know your feelings about them.”
    Creed dropped to one knee. “Tell me, Doctor, that you’re not using a bedside manner with me. Who do you think you’re talking to? The only thing that’s keeping you and the dog-eater alive is I haven’t given the final order. You’ve got a lot of tricks in that bag of yours—you have my eyes?”
    Bishop said, “I did my best.”
    Creed pulled himself to his feet on Hector’s arm. “You know how I lost my sight? What a fine field medic Dr. Bishop was? He was with the Virginia Volunteers. He