Free Butch Cassidy the Lost Years by William W. Johnstone Page B

sheriff that they’d been here or which way they went when they rode off. I knew there was a better than even chance if I opened that door, they’d shoot me down.
    Besides which, some other thoughts were percolating around inside my brain. When the kid stopped by here before, he sure hadn’t acted like he was part of a gang. Instead he had given the impression that he was on his own, without any friends or family within a hundred miles, at least.
    So if my suspicions were right and he had fallen in with this bunch during the time since he’d been here, they likely weren’t the good friends to him the spokesman was making them out to be. I didn’t have any real reason not to trust them, other than what my gut was telling me, but that was enough.
    â€œI told you, the fella you’re looking for ain’t here, and I’m not in the mood for company. So turn around and ride off.”
    They were just shadows in the dark to me. I couldn’t see their faces. But I could tell from their attitudes they were torn about what to do. The air held a sense of menace that told me they wanted to yank out their guns and start blasting.
    Then something tipped the scale. The third man hadn’t gone around to the back after all. He was over at the barn. I heard his voice come from there as he yelled, “Hey, Steve, Randy’s horse is in one of those stalls! The yellow bastard’s here, all right.”
    The one called Steve ripped out a curse and told the man with him, “Scatter!” At the same time, both of them jerked guns from their holsters.
    There was no point in waiting any longer. I stuck the barrel of that Winchester through the window and cut loose my wolf.

CHAPTER 9
    T he two men in front of the house were already moving, but I was pretty sure I winged one of them. He let out a yelp, and I saw him twist sideways in the saddle.
    About then bullets smashed the window and sent glass flying, and I had to duck. I hoped none of the slugs whipping around the room hit the kid where he lay on the sofa, but there was nothing I could do about that now except try to end the fight as quickly as possible.
    I rolled across the floor to the window on the other side of the door and came up on my knees. Instead of taking the time to open the window, I broke out the glass with my rifle barrel. One of the men was right in front of me, trying to get his horse back under control. The shooting had caused the animal to spook, and it was crowhopping around so that the rider had his hands full just staying in the saddle.
    I solved that problem for him by blowing him off the horse’s back.
    He threw his arms in the air and screamed as he fell. As I shifted my aim and searched for the other men, I heard something smash through the rear window. I twisted around so that my back was against the wall. The man at the window opened fire, spraying bullets across the adobe wall above me as he triggered wildly. I went flat on my belly, staying low, and aimed just above his muzzle flashes, firing three shots of my own as fast as I could work the Winchester’s lever. The man stopped shooting and disappeared from the window.
    The door crashed open then, but the third man had sense enough not to just charge in blindly. Instead he threw something in ahead of him.
    My eyes widened as I saw a stick of dynamite go bouncing across the floor with sparks flying from its burning fuse.
    There was no time to think about what to do. I moved, diving toward the dynamite as it started to roll under the sofa where the wounded youngster still sprawled. I couldn’t reach it in time with my hand, but I stuck out the Winchester and used the barrel to bat the red cylinder away from the sofa.
    I’d like to claim credit for what happened next and say that it was because of my quick thinking and hair-trigger reflexes, but to tell you the truth it was just pure dumb luck. The dynamite went spinning back through the open door onto