Comanche Heart Read Online Free Page A

away. Only a fool would get himself killed over a female he didn’t know. She’d been asking to get her legs spread, wearing clothes like that. He finished tightening the saddle cinch, doing a fair job of blocking out the girl’s screaming. Did she think anyone could hear her way out here? No one who gave a damn, anyway.
    Chink grunted as if he had been kicked. The next instant Swift heard the sickening thud of a fist against flesh. The girl screamed again. “Hold the little bitch still,” Chink rasped. “Grab her ankles, you two. Not too tight. I like ’em with a little fight. You gonna fight me, sweet thing? You gonna buck and give me a ride to remember?”
    Several men laughed and whooped encouragement. Swift knew without looking that Chink was getting into position. He turned his attention to his saddlebags, tightening the straps. The men’s laughter nearly drowned out the girl’s weakening cries. Even so, Swift’s ears began to home in on the sobbing. Sweat popped out on his face. He gave one of the saddlebag straps a vicious jerk. Since there was little he could do, it seemed futile to stay and listen.
    Grabbing his saddle horn, he stuck a boot in his stirrup. The girl screamed, “Oh, please, God!” Swift froze. Memories of Amy spun through his mind. This girl had no connection whatsoever with Amy, of course, except that she was blond and female. He closed his eyes, telling himself he would be ten times a fool if he interfered.
    Then, before he could talk himself out of it, he removed his foot from the stirrup and took off his hat, looping the bonnet strings around the saddle horn. It was Sunday. Though Swift didn’t hold with tosi religion, he didn’t figure anybody who did ought to get raped on the Sabbath. He slapped his stallion on the rump so it would run off to safety, relieved when Chink’s mount followed. There was no point in the horses getting hurt.
    Swift slowly turned, heartened by the sight of Chink’s bare butt shining in the sun. A man couldn’t draw too fast with his britches down. “Chink!”
    Sudden silence fell. Even the girl grew quiet. All eyes shifted to Swift, who stood with his long, black-clad legs spread, elbows bent and slightly behind him, his hands poised over his holsters. Chink’s blue eyes narrowed. “You ain’t plannin’ to draw on twenty men,” he said. “Not even a leather slapper like you would be that crazy.”
    Swift didn’t need Chink to tell him what he was about to do was insane. He’d end up dead, and the girl would get raped anyway. It was mostly a question of how low a man wanted to sink, and he’d sunk as low as he could comfortably go and still live with himself.
    “I’m taking you out first,” Swift told Chink softly.
    The girl sobbed and took advantage of the distraction to slither her hips away from the man who had nearly impaled her. Swift registered everything with sharpened senses, acutely aware of the breeze tossing his shortly cropped hair, the abrasiveness of his shirt collar against his neck, the weight of his guns where they rode his hips. For an instant he envisioned Amy’s face, comforted by the knowledge that she waited for him in the Great Beyond, and that by doing this he could join her there with a clean heart.
    Chink’s eyes narrowed even more. “I’ll see you in hell, then, you turncoat bastard.” As the comanchero spoke, he went for his gun.
    With the speed that had made his name legend, Swift drew, cocking the hammer of his gun with his thumb, bringing his left hand across his midriff to fan the hammer spur. Some of the others around Chink reacted, grabbing for their weapons. To Swift, they became faceless blurs of movement, targets that would kill him unless he killed them first. Six shots rang out from his gun in such rapid succession that they sounded like one explosion. Chink fell backward across the girl. Five other men sprawled, dead before they cleared leather. The girl began to scream, trying to pull her leg from