Blood and Gold

BLOOD AND GOLD

I swung out of the saddle and kneeled beside the man’s body. Kennedy had been shot three times, once by me, and twice more by a person—or persons—unknown. One shot had merely grazed his neck, but the second, deadlier bullet had crashed smack into the middle of his forehead.

Clem Kennedy was an ill-natured man who had made his share of enemies. But why kill him all the way out here, in the middle of nowhere in a pounding rainstorm?

Unless . . .

Had his killer heard the gunshots from back at the cave and believed Kennedy had already robbed me of the money I was carrying? That was a real possibility. And since the bushwhacker hadn’t found the saddlebags on Kennedy’s horse, he must know I still had them.

I held my Winchester in both hands at the high port as I prepared to walk back to my paint, the hairs at the back of my neck rising.

Was the killer still here? And was I already in his sights?

I had no time to answer that question . . . because I’d not taken three steps when the sky fell on me.