Free Alone, Book 3: The Journey by Darrell Maloney Page A

blind spot over his left shoulder.
         The cowboy was named Mason by his mother, but nobody called him that.
         Virtually all of Mason’s friends called him “Shadow,” but most of them didn’t know why.
         Shadow earned his nickname when he was a kid, because his friends considered him sneaky.
         He preferred the term “stealthy,” but it all boiled down to the same thing.
         He once played pranks on them by sneaking up behind them as they walked, keeping pace with them and getting so close he could almost reach out and touch them.
         Then he’d pounce, scaring the bejeezus out of them.
         Some said he could get as close to them as their shadow before they knew he was there.
         And the nickname stuck.
         And, to be sure, he’d shadowed Dave’s Explorer for the better part of two miles, and Dave still didn’t know he was there.
         On his hip, he wore a long barreled six shot revolver made by the Colt Arms Manufacturing Company, in an open leather holster.
         Just like generations of cowboys before him.
         All of his fellow wranglers were armed too. Most of them carried nine millimeter pistols manufactured overseas somewhere, but not Shadow. The old fashioned Colt suited his personality just fine.
         Shadow was something else besides stealthy and a bit old school.
         He was also a very patient man.
         He followed alongside the vehicle, on the soft shoulder so the driver wouldn’t hear his bay’s hoof steps on the hard pavement. Just behind and to the left of the driver’s left shoulder, and about twenty feet away.
         Shadow waited patiently until the vehicle was within two hundred yards from Screaming Woman’s Creek.
         Dave didn’t know that the creek, the subject of old local lore, was about two more bends in the road.
         But Shadow did.
         Shadow also knew that his friends, Dakota and Stan, were waiting at the narrow bridge crossing the creek.
         Dave heard two shrill whistles, but couldn’t tell where they were coming from.
         At first he thought he split a tire. He’d heard tires scream in pain when picking up a nail or driving over a broken bottle, as their air started to escape them.
         But no, he decided. It wasn’t a flat. The whistles were too short for that.
         Cowboys use whistles on cattle drives and while working the range to communicate with each other. They can be heard at greater distances than yells and are easier on the throat.
         And all range riders know that a shrill whistle, followed immediately by another, shorter whistle, means “heads up” or “danger.”
         Dave didn’t know where the whistle came from or what it meant.
         But Dakota and Stan did.
         And when Dave rounded the final turn before Screaming Woman’s Creek, he came to a screeching stop.
         Before him, on the narrow two lane bridge, were two men on horseback, their rifles both raised and pointed directly at Dave’s chest.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 18
     
         Before Dave could respond in any way, Shadow was at his driver’s door, his own rifle already taken from its saddle sheathe and pointed at Dave’s head.
         “Put your hands up, mister, or die.”
         Dave put his hands up.
         “Very slowly… put your vehicle in park and unlock the doors.”
         Dave left his left hand above his head. With his right hand, he placed the transmission in park.
         Unlocking the doors wasn’t so easy, since the electric locks didn’t work.
         But he thought it unwise to argue or refuse. Instead, he raised his right hand above his head. He moved his left hand very slowly to the driver’s side door, and with two fingers lifted the manual lock.
         The door popped open, and only then, when he saw Shadow’s face, he knew he’d