Bandit's Embrace (The Durango Family) Read Online Free Page A

penny in his mouth.
    Bandit felt apprehension twist his gut, but he grinned lopsidedly, trying to appear as cocky and arrogant as ever. Chances were, he couldn’t take the Kid if the gunfighter was as fast as everyone said.
    He glanced from the Kid’s hands to the three men almost behind him at the bar. The biggest one was actually licking his lips in anticipation. Bandit was good, but he hadn’t a chance against the four.
    He had survived all these years by watching people, gauging their reactions. So now he didn’t look at the gunslinger’s hands, he watched his eyes. saw the little pinpoints of light reflecting in them from the big chandelier overhead.
    “Apologize, Bandit. Say you was wrong and I’ll forget it.” In the dead silence, the words seemed to echo and reecho through the saloon.
    “No. You see, Kid, I’ve already got the queen of spades.” Very slowly, Bandit reached out, turned his hole card over on the table, and heard the shocked murmur around him.
    He watched the Kid’s eyes, knew almost to the split second when the Kid would scramble to his feet, the death hand of cards fluttering as his left hand reached down. But Bandit was ready. He came to his feet like swift justice, his chair going over backward, loud and clattering. Bandit barely cleared leather as the Kid fanned the Colt hard with the heel of his right hand.
    In that instant, as his ears rang with the deafening roar of the Kid’s gun, he smelled burnt powder. The slug grazed him, plowed into the mirror behind the bar with a shower of tinkling glass. In that split second, Bandit fired almost instinctively, not even aiming, fanning twice. Never would he forget the surprised, horrified look on the Kid’s face as the man stumbled backward from the impact of the forty-four bullets.
    The first plowed a scarlet furrow through the hair light as Bandit’s own. The second blew a bloody hole in the Kid’s chest. The Oklahoma Kid staggered backward into the piano. Discordant notes tinkled as he slammed into the keyboard. Fresh blood scent drifted to Bandit on the stale, smoky air. The Oklahoma Kid was dead even as he slid toward the floor.
    A girl screamed. Bandit swung around to cover the trio at the bar, started backing toward the swinging doors, his gun still smoking.
    The Kid’s gang moved toward him.
    “Get him!”
    “He’s killed the Kid!”
    It wasn’t going to matter that it was a fair fight, Bandit thought, the trio would kill him anyway. Against three desperadoes, he had no chance. Bandit stood alone as he always had, no one in the gawking crowd making any move to help him. But all these years, he’d survived like a solitary lobo wolf by sheer guts and reflex. In that split second, he shot down the wagon-wheel chandelier, plunging the room into blackness as guns roared and women shrieked and ran in all directions.
    He tasted real terror as he whirled on his boot heel and ran through the darkness, crashing into people. Behind him, gunfire flashed orange as the trio drew, fired.
    Outside it was cool, the late April night fresh on his sweating face. He ran down the wooden steps. Damn! He was flat broke, hadn’t even managed to grab any of that big pot off the table. What to do?
    In a couple of hours, it would be daylight. Bandit’s bay gelding was slow as Christmas. The outlaws would overtake him before he’d gone five miles. He hesitated, looked around.
    From inside, he heard screaming, shouts, and curses as people stumbled over furniture, pushed into each other. Another minute and that crowd would be outside. Dammit! What in blue blazes was he gonna do now? Stealing a horse was a hanging offense anywhere in the West.
    Might as well get hung for a sheep as a lamb, he thought, looking down the row of horses tied to the hitching rail. The finest overo pinto stud he’d ever seen nickered and jerked at its reins. Instinctively, Bandit ran to it. The flashy sorrel paint was a big stallion, more than sixteen hands. It tried to fling