Read Online The Road to Ratchet Creek by J. T. Edson - Free Book Online

feet, she crouched slightly and measured the distance with her eyes. Around whirled the whiskey jug, aimed at her head with enough force to crush it like an eggshell. With the skill gained in barroom brawls she jumped clear of the jug’s arc and allowed it to hiss by her harmlessly. Before the brave could catch his balance or halt his forward rush, he blundered by the girl. Spinning on her heel, she swung up the Winchester and smashed its metal-shod butt plate between his shoulders. A howl of pain burst from the brave as the force of the blow sent him reeling on. However he neither dropped the jug nor went down, much to Calamity’s disappointment. Snarling Arapaho obscenities and spitting like a gut-shot bobcat, he brought himself to a halt and started to turn.
    â€œSolly!” Calamity yelled as she struck the brave. “My gun’s bust!”
    Already the other braves had untangled themselves and showed signs of launching a determined attack. For all that Cole did not hesitate.One glance told him of the need for immediate action to relieve Calamity’s embarrassment and he wasted no time in acting.
    â€œHere!” he snapped and tossed the rifle.
    Dropping her carbine, Calamity caught the rifle with her left hand curling around the foregrip and her right closing on the butt to slip its forefinger through the triggerguard. While taking hold, she swivelled herself around to meet the attacking brave. There was neither the time nor need for her to raise the rifle shoulder high and take careful aim. Held at hip-level, the rifle cracked in her hands. Its bullet travelled less than four feet to strike the brave’s chest, Calamity thought she heard the crack of his breast bone as the bullet arrived. Jerking backward, he spun around, let the jug drop from his fingers and measured his length on the gravel.
    After tossing his rifle to Calamity, Cole’s left hand swooped down to the Rogers & Spencer’s butt. Drawing from such a holster as he wore took a different technique from that employed on the more conventional rig. Instead of lifting the gun so its barrel cleared the lip of the holster, he pivoted it forward from the grip of the retaining spring and downward until the muzzle left the slot in the bottom plug. Then he swung it up smoothly to point in the required direction. As he drew, Cole went into the gun-fighter’s crouch. From waist high, with the revolver held centrallyin the rectangle of his body, using instinctive alignment instead of taking sight, Cole turned his first bullet loose slightly less than a second after beginning his draw. Lead ripped into the body of the nearest brave and he splashed down into the stream.
    Levering another bullet into the rifle’s chamber, Calamity turned and cradled the butt against her shoulder. Although it was some four inches longer and two pounds heavier than the carbine, she found no difficulty in handling the rifle. Carbine and rifle had been designed to take the same type of bullet and, if anything, the extra weight of the latter tended to ease the recoil kick. Besides which, Calamity had no desire to make super-accurate shots, like an Eastern sportsman popping holes in a paper target at long range. She merely took rough sight along the barrel at the nearest Indian and did not care where she hit him, figuring that two hundred grains of carefully shaped lead ought to take at least some of the fight out of him when it drove home.
    Guns spoke from the slope behind Calamity and Cole. The deep, authoritative boom of a ten-gauge shotgun almost drowned the lighter note of a Navy Colt which in turn helped to swamp an even more pip-squeak crack. Yet another brave made an involuntary dismount as nine .34 caliber buckshot balls slashed among the attackers. However he struggled to his feet and swung aboard a companion’s pony.
    Already demoralized by the unexpected reversal to their plans, discouraged by the losses inflicted on them by Calamity and