LITMIR.BIZ

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he thrust the Greener’s twin barrels at the man and tripped both triggers. With an awesome roar, the shotgun erupted and sent both charges of buckshot smashing into the outlaw. At this range, it almost blew him in half. What fell from the horse and landed in the street near Sam barely looked human anymore.

      Sam pulled two more shells from his pocket as he scrambled to his feet. He broke the shotgun, shucked the empties, crammed the fresh shells into the barrels.

      “The vengeance of the Lord will be upon you!” someone screamed nearby.

      Sam whirled and saw another man on horseback charging toward him, the hatless, long-haired, black-suited hombre who had led the charge into the settlement. Sam raised the shotgun and fired, but at the last second the rider hauled back hard on the reins and caused his mount to rear up on its hind legs. The horse took the blast, not the man riding it. With a shrill scream of agony, the mortally wounded animal toppled over backward, taking its rider with it.

      The man sprang agilely out of the saddle, though, and avoided being crushed. As he caught his balance, he jerked two guns from their holsters and raised them toward Sam, who hadn’t had time to reload the shotgun.

      The black-coated outlaw wasn’t going to give him the time either. When Sam saw that, he did the only thing he could. He threw the Greener at the man as hard as he could.

      The shotgun hit the outlaw in the arms and threw his aim off as the pistols exploded. The bullets whined past Sam as he followed the shotgun. He crashed into the man and bore him over backward, knocking him off his feet. Both men went down.

      But Sam landed on top, and as he dug a knee into the man’s belly, he sledged a left and a right to the face. The outlaw went limp, stunned by the powerful blows. Sam plucked the guns from his hands.

      He surged to his feet and spun toward the sound of more footsteps running toward him. His fingers were taut on the triggers.

      He stopped without firing, though, as he recognized Matt’s face, now grimy from smoke. Behind him, smoke still came from inside the hardware store, but no flames were visible anymore.

      “You all right?” Matt asked.

      “Yeah,” Sam said. “How about you?”

      “Burned my hands a little using a blanket I found to slap out that fire, but other than that I’m fine.”

      The shooting had started to die away, and as the blood brothers looked around they saw that the raiders were fleeing, having encountered a lot fiercer resistance in Arrowhead than they must have been expecting. Several bodies were scattered around the street, so not all of the varmints had gotten away.

      The one sprawled senseless at Sam’s feet certainly hadn’t. Matt looked down at him and said, “You know who you’ve got there?”

      “Joshua Shade?” Sam said.

      “That’d be my guess. He’s dressed like a preacher, and he sure had a crazy look about him when he was leadin’ the charge into town.”

      Clouds of powder smoke still drifted through the street. Sheriff Cyrus Flagg emerged from one of them and ran up to Matt and Sam, the long nightshirt still flapping around his legs. He was wearing his plug hat now, too.

      “You boys all ri—” he started to ask, then stopped short as he stared down at the stunned man. “Son of a bitch! You know who that is?”

      “Joshua Shade?” Matt and Sam said in unison.

      Flagg swallowed hard and nodded. “It sure is.” He blinked in amazement. “You boys not only saved our town, you just captured the most notorious owlhoot in the whole territory!”

      Chapter 9

      Matt and Sam each took an arm and hauled Joshua Shade to his feet. They half carried, half dragged the outlaw down the street to the sheriff’s office and jail.

      They wanted to make sure that Shade was locked up securely before they did anything else.

      Shade began to regain his senses as they entered the squat, solidly constructed stone building. He groaned and shook his head, causing the long brown hair to flop in front of his narrow face.

      Then he jerked his head back so that the cords stood out on his neck, and cried, “Unhand me, foul demons! How dare you lay hands on the Lord’s servant?”

      Matt and Sam just tightened their grips on him, and Matt growled, “A lobo wolf is more the Lord’s servant than you are, you crazy son of a bitch.”

      Shade jerked and flailed and began to spew curses, spittle flying from his mouth as he did so. He was no match for the blood brothers’ strength, though, and they were able to manhandle him across the room to the cell block door that Sheriff Flagg hurried ahead to throw open.

      The cell block itself was small, with two cells on each side of a short corridor. The doors were made of thick beams, with a small barred window in each one.

      All the doors were open, indicating that the cells were empty at the moment. Matt and Sam wrestled Shade into the first one on the left. The walls were solid stone and appeared to be thick and massive, like the door. There was only one window, also small and barred.

      Matt and Sam threw Shade onto the cot attached to the wall. The cot was the cell’s only furnishing other than a chamber pot shoved underneath it.

      Shade sprang to his feet as Matt and Sam backed out of the cell. He was frothing at the mouth like a rabid dog.

      As Flagg slammed the door, Shade threw himself against it on the other side and clawed at the bars in the little window. He pressed his face against the bars as if trying to force his whole head through them. That distorted his crazed features even more.

      “You can’t lock me up!” Shade screamed. “I’ve come to do God’s work! Release me, you filthy heathens!”

      “Shut up or I’ll toss a bucket o’ water through that window,” Flagg said.

      “You can’t silence the voice of the Lord! You foul abomination! All of you will burn in Hell for your sins!”

      “Maybe, but you’ll be there before us,” Flagg said. He turned to Matt and Sam. “I’m much obliged for your help, fellas. The whole town is. You’ve done enough already, capturin’ Shade like that, but you reckon you could help me take a look around town so I can see just how bad the damage really is?”

      “Sure, Sheriff,” Matt said.

      “Sinners! Unholy sinners!” Shade screeched from the cell as they went into the sheriff’s office again.

      “Grab a couple o’ Greeners,” Flagg said as he waved toward a rack of shotguns on the wall. “Liable to need ’em if any o’ those wounded owlhoots are still alive.”

      “We can’t just finish them off,” Sam said.

      Flagg shook his head. “No, that ain’t what I meant. Just in case they don’t give us a choice, though.”

      “Never hurts to be prepared,” Matt said as he went to the rack and took down one of the double-barreled weapons.

      Sam had left the hotel keeper’s shotgun in the street, but he still had several shells in his pocket. He used two of them to load the Greener he took down from the rack, while Matt picked up a handful of the shells that Flagg dumped onto the desk from a box.

      Well armed again and ready for trouble, the three men left the sheriff’s office. A gun popped from down the street, causing them to swing in that direction and raise their weapons, but a man called, “Don’t worry, Sheriff! One of these snakes was still alive and reached for his gun, but he won’t trouble nobody no more.”

      Flagg’s mouth tightened in a grimace. “Damn it, Kincaid, you better be tellin’ the truth,” he said. “I won’t have anybody takin’ the law into their own hands in my town.”

      For the next fifteen minutes, Matt, Sam, and Flagg made the

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