Comanche Heart Read Online Free Page B

under Chink’s body. The horses, accustomed to gunfire, sidestepped and whinnied.
    Swift threw himself to the grass and rolled. A slight rise to the ground provided him meager cover. Dirt geysered around him as the remaining fourteen men came to their senses and started firing. He drew his other single-action and, in a second blur of movement, fired three more shots. Three men went down.
    In a lull between shots, Swift came up on one elbow, adrenaline numbing him to the fear, his palm poised over the hammer spur. “Which of you bastards wants it next?”
    Between them, the remaining eleven men had at least a hundred cartridges, ready to fire. When no one ventured another shot, Swift said, “I’m as good as dead, and you all know it. But if I go, I’m taking three more of you with me.” Well aware that Jos’ was the closest thing to a leader the men had left, Swift sighted in on him. “Rodriguez, you’re going to be first.”
    A spasm of fear contorted the Mexican’s swarthy face. Pupils dilating, he stared at the barrel of Swift’s .45. After a moment he holstered his revolver and lifted his hands. “Ain’t no woman alive worth gettin’ plugged over.”
    Swift saw several of the other men cast bewildered glances at Chink. Without their leader spouting orders, Swift guessed they weren’t quite sure what to do. Taking Rodriguez’s lead, they all retreated a step, holstering their guns.
    “You want her that bad, you can have her,” one said.
    “I don’t want no trouble with you, Lopez.”
    Bull spat and shot Swift a murderous glare. “I knowed you was trouble the first time I set eyes on ya. You ain’t seen the last of this. I promise you that.”
    “Shut up, Bull, and git on yer goddamn horse,” Rodriguez ordered.
    Swift remained prone on the grass until all eleven men had ridden off. Then he turned his gaze to the girl, who had gone strangely silent. She sat hunched over, buck naked and shivering, her blue eyes riveted to Chink’s bare lower torso. Swift guessed she had never seen a nude man. There was no help for that. Seeing was far better than what had almost happened.
    He rose and holstered his guns, his hands stricken with the uncontrollable quivering that always followed a gunfight. His gaze slid over the scattered bodies, and his guts twisted. He closed his eyes and flexed his fingers, the sweat on his body turning ice cold. Killing. He was so weary of it, so sick-to-death weary. Yet no matter what he did, it never seemed to end.
    He whistled for his stallion and when the horse had trotted up he opened the saddlebag that held his store of extra cartridges. He wasn’t taking any chances that Rodriguez and the others might come back. Only after he had reloaded his Colts did he clamp his wide-brimmed hat back on his head and walk over to where Chink lay. He dragged the comanchero off the girl’s leg and then jerked up the dead man’s pants.
    “You all right?” he asked, more gruffly than he intended.
    She slid a blank gaze from Chink’s body to the other eight men sprawled around her. Swift sighed and raked a hand through his hair, uncertain what to do. If he took her to that ranch house on the horizon while she was in this shape, the only thanks he was likely to get would be at the business end of a rope.
    He gathered up her clothes, which were torn and barely wearable. Kneeling beside her, he began the difficult task of dressing her, which he decided was pointless before he finished. He touched a fingertip to her cheekbone.
    “He busted you a good one, didn’t he?”
    Her wide blue eyes flicked to his, blank with shock.
    Striding to his horse, Swift pulled one of his shirts from his pack. The girl offered no resistance when he shoved her limp arms down the black sleeves. When his knuckles brushed her breasts as he fastened the buttons, she didn’t so much as flinch. He guessed she was numb, nature’s way of lessening the horror.
    “I’m sorry I didn’t shoot him quicker,” he