Free William W. Johnstone by Savage Texas Page B

of every shred of flesh, leaving only gleaming white bones.
    “Eat hearty, boys,” Sam muttered.
    He meandered southwest across the plains. This was the open range; no fences here to mark property lines. Streams and rivulets spilled south out of the hills to lace the prairie with winding silver veins. It was well-watered country, prime grazing land.
    Clusters of quadrupeds dotted the landscape. Longhorn cattle by the hundreds, running free and wild. Weird-looking creatures with long faces and narrow sides. Sam kept his distance from them; they were ornery critters with no fear of man. The bulls sported horns spanning four feet across and more, with wickedly pointed tips.
    In this land of vast vistas, distances seemed endless. No sign of town yet. The westering sun was bright and and blazing, but curling around the edges of the big sky lay boiling, bubbling darkness. The darkness was in Sam, light-headed from loss of blood.
    His awareness drifted, fading in and out. A lurch of the horse jarred him, shaking him awake. He realized he’d been semi-conscious. That scared him.
    In the distance, several hundred yards away, a many-legged black blur of motion swarmed down a long, low ride toward him.
    Sam’s eyes stung from sweat in them; he rubbed them to clear his vision. The many-legged blur resolved itself into a group of riders. About a dozen of them, maybe more.
    The newcomers were ahead and to one side of him. They halted when they saw him. His course would take him past them so that they’d be fifty yards to the right.
    They started downhill, swinging left to intercept him. Some of them shucked rifles out of scabbards. One shouldered a rifle to fire but was forestalled by a shouted command from another of the group.
    Sam rode on, seemingly unconcerned, oblivious. Pounding hoofbeats neared.
    The riders spread out in a wide arc to bar his way. They formed an inverted crescent, shaped like the horns of a bull.
    Sam sighed, hoping he wouldn’t have to fight his way through this bunch. He didn’t have much left. It was all he could do just to stay in the saddle.
    Nearing, he was able to make them out. They were Mexican-style vaqueros, decked out in widebrimmed sombreros, white shirts, bell-bottomed pants, brown leather chaps. Armed with six-guns and rifles. They reined in hard, their horses’ hooves kicking up dirt as they halted a stone’s throw away.
    At the center of the crescent was the trim figure of a woman. She was flanked by a shaggy-headed ogre and a gypsy with a gold earring.
    The woman filled the field of Sam’s vision. She was a beauty, with dark, flashing eyes and vivid red mouth. Full-bodied and long-legged. A black bolero hat was worn tilted rakishly to one side. Masses of inky blue-black hair were pinned up at the back of her head.
    She wore a long-sleeved white blouse, black vest, black wrist-length gloves, black jeans and black leather riding boots. Vest and gun belt were trimmed with decorative silver conchos that sparkled and glinted in the sun.
    The scene pulsed with shadows and light, the pulsing synchronized to the labored beating of Sam’s heart. Was it love?
    No. He’d run out of everything that had kept him going up to now. With his last flickering reserves of energy, he managed to lift an arm to courteously touch thumb and forefinger to his hat brim.
    “Howdy, ma’am,” he said. Her face was as impassive as that of a carved stone idol.
    Sam slid sideways off his horse. The ground rushed up to meet him, fetching him a terrific jarring blow.
    He lay on his back on the ground, as if at the bottom of a deep well. At the top was a blue disk of sky.
    The well shaft resolved itself into a circle of bodies surrounding him, hemming him in. Looking down at him. Faces were featureless orbs floating high above, impossibly distant.
    Blackness returned, swallowing up Sam Heller.

E IGHT
     
    Long shadows of late afternoon were falling across the landscape when Johnny Cross came in sight of the Cross