Free William W. Johnstone by Savage Texas

behind to clean up the massacre site. The explosion and gunfire had spooked them but the rope had held, preventing them from running away as the team pulling the corpse wagon had done. The animals were anxious, spooky, sidling and pawing the ground.
    “You see what I see, Luke?”
    “That’s some mighty fine horseflesh.”
    “My thoughts exactly. They ain’t doing those dead men back at the creek no good, neither,” Johnny said. He swung down from the saddle. “You stay on my horse, Luke. Keep an eye out for that Yank.”
    “I’ll do better than that.” Luke shucked the carbine out of the saddle-scabbard and turned the chestnut to face back along the trail the way they came, toward the creek bank hidden behind the trees. “Sure you don’t want to take that Billy Yank?” he asked.
    “This is no time to go looking a gift horse in the mouth,” Johnny said. A veteran horse thief, he got right down to business. Taking a clasp knife from his pocket, he unfolded a blade and began cutting loose the hitching-rope to which the line of horses was tied.
    He mounted up on a fast-looking roan with good lines, securing one end of the rope to the saddle horn. The line stretched behind him, trailing a string of seven horses.
    “We can switch horses later, Luke. Something damned funny happened here. Something big. Best we clear out of here pronto.”
    “Let’s ride, Johnny.”
    They rode, taking the string of stolen horses with them, and were soon out of sight.
     
     
    Sam Heller struggled to his feet, holding on to the gray’s saddle for support.
    Somewhere along the way he had holstered the mule’s-leg and stuck the pistol in his waistband.
    The gray turned its head toward him, regarding him with moist, dark, expressive eyes. Sam Heller stroked the gray’s muzzle. “Good boy, Dusty. Didn’t run out on me, did you? You’re a good horse,” he said.
    It nuzzled him with its snout, almost knocking him down. Sam was shaky on his pins. His shirt stuck to his shoulder and chest due to dried blood. Blood that was not so dry trickled in warm rivulets down his front. The wound in his left shoulder was bleeding again. The shoulder was stiff, numb. His left side where a slug had creased it felt like a hot iron had been laid across it.
    It had taken plenty for him to rise. Without Dusty standing there beside him to give him something to hold onto, he wouldn’t have been able to stay upright. He might fall on his face yet. If he did, he might not get up. What strength he had left was pouring out of him fast.
    Experimentally, he wriggled the fingers of his left hand. They seemed to work okay. He made a fist, opening and closing it. The bullet in his shoulder hadn’t cut any nerves or tendons.
    Something nagged at him, a sense of incompleteness. Something was missing—what?
    His hand went to his head and he realized he was without his hat. It must have fallen off during the action. He looked around for it, spotting it a half-dozen paces away.
    He guided the horse to it, walking beside the animal, holding on to the saddle. Clutching the stirrup, he hunkered down and picked up the hat.
    He straightened up, a wave of dizziness washing over him, a torrent of darkness glittering with little colored lights. He held on to the saddle while the darkness passed, fading away as the scene faded in.
    Sam pulled the hat down on his head. The Texas sun could be cruel to a bareheaded man. Besides, it was his hat and he wanted it. It had seen him through a lot of scrapes and across a lot of ground.
    He had things to do, important things, but his top priority was to get back up on the horse while he still had the strength to do so. He climbed up into the saddle; a long, hard climb. It left him breathless and trembling. After a time the worst of it went away, but he was still weak.
    Taking the mule’s-leg in hand, he reloaded it with cartridges from the bandoliers criss-crossing his torso. Now he was ready for whatever might come at him. As ready