Shotgun Charlie Read Online Free Page A

sliced open, and groaned. That was something he didn’t need to see first thing in the morning, at least not before he’d taken in some hair of the dog.
    â€œWhere is it?” His dry-blood-covered hands scrabbled on the floor by his feet. He usually had enough wits about him to cork the bottle before he dozed for the night. But his fingernails brushed glass. The bottle rolled from him and sounded lousy and hollow. Spent. He groaned again and sank back into the chair. This day had not started well and it was only going to get worse, he was sure.
    â€œWhat I need,” he said after a few silent moments with his eyes closed, “is a whole lot of money so I don’t have to worry about such foolishness.” And as he sat there, as if it were a gift, a reward for his fine new idea, his gaze fell on a half-full bottle of whiskey he’d not seen the night before. He smiled, retrieved it off the sideboard, returned to his chair, and recommenced drinking and thinking.
    Grady recalled what the dead man had told him shortly before Grady had made him dead. He’d whimpered, said that what money he had was in the bank, that nobody but a fool would keep his money in his house nowadays.
    The thought of it had stunned Grady, but for a moment. Imagine that—plain ol’ giving your money to someone else to hold on to for you. Grady wasn’t too sure about how other folks might think, but if he had more than the few coins in his pocket, he was dang sure there wasn’t a person on the earth who could do a better job watching over it than his own self.
    Grady had come back to his senses in time to drag his blade deep into the whimpering man’s neck, mostly for being impertinent, but also for not having his money on hand when Grady needed it. Banks . . . of course he’d known about them, even been in one a time or two to redeem pay chits after cattle drives—nasty work were those cattle drives. But he had never considered banks to be of use in his own life.
    But the more he thought on it the next day, the more the very idea of banks made good sense. He tugged on the bottle again, licked his lips. A wide, slow smile pulled across Grady Haskell’s blood-spattered face, and a low chuckle uncurled itself from deep in his throat. “Yes, sir, I do believe it’s time to stab a big pig in the backside, as ol’ Grandpappy used to say. Enough of this penny play.”
    First things first. Grady knew that all the big operators had gangs to help them pull it off. The trick would be in getting rid of them and keeping the haul himself once the job was done.
    Grady didn’t fancy sharing much of anything with anybody, never had the urge to do so, in fact, even as a child. But he had no worries about going through the motions of sharing. That was what planning such a job was all about, after all. Now all he had to do was find the gang. He needed a handful of dumb-as-rocks desperadoes willing to do as he told them and then curl up and die when the dust settled.
    Another swig off the bottle to seal the deal—at least in his own head—tamped his hangover down to a dull thudding somewhere behind his eyes. Grady stood, straightened his shirt and vest, readjusted his trousers, checked his gun belt, found his dark beaver, flat-crown hat, and saluted the dead man.
    â€œThanks for your hospitality, friend.” He strode to the door, lifted the latch, and said, “No hard feelings, eh?”
    His dry chuckle followed him out the door and continued as Haskell relieved himself against the side of the little farmhouse. Yes, sir, he thought. This is turning out to be one of the best days I have had in quite some time. As he mounted up, he gave thought to the best direction he knew of to find a few men to do his bidding. But most important of all, he gave thought to which direction lay the richest town, one with a big, fat bank waiting for him. And as he wasn’t all that far from