Free The Forge of Darkness (Darkness After Series Book 3) by Scott B. Williams Page A

or meet them before they got back so he could head them off. But that would leave Tommy and David vulnerable. It was a choice Benny had to make, but Tommy was his boy . He had to see what was going on. Maybe… just maybe… if David could keep his composure and remain quiet… the strangers wouldn’t discover the two of them immediately. Then he might have a chance of somehow diverting their attention, drawing them away. He considered doing that even now, firing into the air or something to lure them back the other way, but the problem with that was that there were enough of them that they might split up. Then, some of them would still find Tommy and he wouldn’t be able to help, being occupied with evading those who were looking for him. At any rate, it was probably already too late for that. They’d had time to reach the spot of the shooting already, and Benny was half expecting at any moment to hear David fire Tommy’s rifle and then all hell to break loose. But that didn’t happen. Instead, what he heard was something else, a sound completely and totally unexpected, coming down the road behind him from the west, just as the six men had.  
    Benny turned at this new sound, peering through the branches to see. He had no doubt about what he was hearing; the sound was unmistakable. His eyes proved him right when the first of the horses appeared around the bend. Benny counted eight riders and at least as many more saddled animals on a string behind the one bringing up the rear. The horses were approaching at a trot when he’d first heard the sound of their hooves, now the lead rider raised his hand and the riders slowed their mounts to a quiet walk. Benny was absolutely stunned. Where in the hell had all these men come from and what was he going to do now? He’d thought it couldn’t get any worse when he saw that the cattle rustlers had six more companions. But now it was clear that there were more than twice as many yet again! This explained why the first two had been brazen enough to shoot into Doug Henley’s herd inside a fence on private property. There were enough of them that they felt they could do what they wanted with complete impunity.

Twelve  

    D AVID WORKED QUICKLY TO pile leaves over Tommy as quietly as he could. He didn’t know what else to do. He had to retreat farther into the shadows before the men were on top of him. There was no possibility of moving Tommy by himself. To drag him, he would have to stand up and they would immediately see him even if they didn’t hear all the noise that would make. All he could hope for is that they wouldn’t look too closely and wouldn’t spot Tommy lying there under the leaves in the darkening woods. When he had done the best he could, he crawled backwards, working his way into some low-growing bushes another ten yards away. The men were crowded around the dead one now and he could hear everything they said:  
    “I’m sorry they got Ken Jr., Kenneth. Did you see how many of them there were?”
    “I saw three in all, but I think there was at least one more. First, there was the one that slipped up along that fence line and got the drop on Kenny. He was saying something to him, probably about the cattle, and he was pointing a rifle at him. I decided I’d better take him out before it went too far. I hit him dead center and he went down, but then this other one comes running out of the woods all crazy-like and throws a spear at Kenny! It missed him and Kenny moved in on the lunatic with his blade. I was gonna let him have at it, because I could see that the fool didn’t have a weapon, other than that stick spear he’d already thrown. Kenny would have gutted him easily, but then I hear a shotgun blast from out of nowhere and see Kenny go down hard. He never had a chance because some other son of a bitchneither one of us knew was there ambushed him! I tried to shoot the one that had been carrying the spear, but he dove into cover with his buddy somewhere