Ghost Moon Read Online Free Page B

stare at Brewer. His eyes are cold. “Drop the reins, Dick,” he says quietly, raising his pistol and pointing it at Brewer’s head. “They murdered Tunstall in cold blood, and I aim to make them pay. I don’t want to have to kill you as well.”
    Brewer holds his ground. “You can shoot me now, Bill, but all that’ll mean is that we’ll both be dead. Look.”
    We all turn our attention back to the valley. Several riders are arriving to join the original four. I count fourteen in total.
    â€œWe’ll pay them back, Bill,” Brewer says, “and I’ll be right by your side when we do, but now’s not the time.”
    Bill holds Brewer’s eye for a long minute, then slowly lowers his gun. “John Tunstall was the only man that ever treated me like I was free-born and a man. Morton shot him first and Hill finished him off like he was a sick dog. I swear in front of all you boys that I will kill those two and everyone who helped them murder John Tunstall, or I will die trying.”
    â€œAnd we’re all with you in that, Bill,” Brewer says. He looks at each of us in turn. When his eyes meet mine, I, too, nod in agreement, although I’m uncertain what I’m agreeing to. The sudden violence in the valley has left an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach and the sensation that things are spinning out of control around me.
    Below us, Hill pulls Tunstall’s revolver out of its holster and fires two shots in the air. He then places the gun by the corpse’s hand.
    â€œWhat’d he do that for?” I ask.
    â€œSo he can say Tunstall fired back,” Bill says bitterly. “Claim it were self-defence not murder.”
    Hill says something to Morton, who laughs. Then he calmly walks over to Tunstall’s magnificent horse and shoots it between the eyes. The horse shudders, takes two steps back and collapses on the ground. Bill hisses a curse.
    Evans is now pointing up the slope at us, and several men are forming up as if to charge us.
    â€œTime we were gone,” Brewer says. Bill hesitates, itching for a fight, to do something to revenge his friend. “Come on, Bill,” Brewer encourages. “We can’t do anything more here.”
    â€œYou’re dead men,” Bill shouts down the hillside at Morton, Hill, Baker and Evans. Reluctantly, he turns his horse and we ride off into the trees. I wonder how things can change so abruptly. Even though I only knew him for less than twenty-four hours, John Tunstall
was my friend. In minutes, I have gone from being a
ranch hand to a witness to murder and a member of
a gang that has sworn revenge. What worries me is that
Tunstall’s murder is a beginning not an end, and that I
have no way of knowing what, where or when the real
end will be.

5
    T he undertaker has done the best he can to prepare the body lying in the coffin balanced across two chairs in the dining room of Tunstall’s house in Lincoln. However, there is a limit to his skill, and against the body’s marble-white skin, the bullet’s ragged exit hole in the forehead above the left eye looks black and evil. The face is also heavily scratched from encounters with heavy brush after it was loaded onto a burro and brought back to town.
    â€œEvery one of those rats who done this is still out there, free to live the high life and go where they want.” Bill is pacing back and forth along the length of the room like some caged animal, desperate to break out and run riot. “We should get a gang together and have done with it,” Bill continues without stopping his pacing. “Kill ’em all—Dolan, Evans, Morton, Baker, Hill.”
    â€œAnd what about Sheriff Brady?” Dick Brewer asks quietly.
    â€œHim, too, if he stands in our way.”
    â€œAnd the judge, and the soldiers they’ll send down from Fort Stanton?” Brewer continues. “And then we’ll ride on up to Santa