A Coffin Full Of Dollars by Joe Millard Read Free Book Online Page A

.44. It crashed, erupting smoke and flame, and the gun flew out of the youngster's hand, skidding off across the grass. The boy looked down, staring in dull disbelief at his right hand with its broken index finger dangling limply.
    The hunter's second shot severed the boy's holster from his belt. It dropped, to dangle ludicrously from its tie-down thong. His third shot ripped off one of the high slanting bootheels. The kid staggered backward, thrown off balance.
    "I don't kill women, children or idiots," the hunter said coldly. "Your gun's back there. Go pick it up and clear out."
    The youngster, his face chalk white, limped back and bent down. As his left hand was about to close on the weapon, the hunter's gun slammed once more. There was a spang of lead on steel and the gun flew another dozen yards.
    "Go get it, then keep right on traveling, punk. Some day, if you should live long enough to get to be half as big and tough as you think you are now, look me up. I'll still be around."
    As the youth slunk off, Dandy bolted around the table to shake the bounty hunter's hand and pound his shoulder.
    "My God, what shooting! What cold nerve! You aren't a gunslinger, man, you're a phenomenon. That's twice you've saved my life in less than a week."
    "We all make mistakes," the hunter said. "I hope those don't turn out to be mine."
    They finished supper that night by lantern light. Molly and the girls went off to wash the dishes and Dandy brought out the whiskey bottle. He filled the glasses and set it between them.
    "One thing I can't figure is why you didn't kill that squirt when you had him cold. Now he'll go around hating you and maybe screwing up his nerve to bushwhack you."
    "I'll take that chance. Dead he isn't worth a penny to me now, but he might live long enough to turn up on a bounty poster one day and then I'll cash in."
    Dandy shivered. "And I thought I was a cold-blooded bastard."
    A little later the bounty hunter was spreading his bedroll when the faint sound of strange music reached his ears. Hunk Bannister was sitting on the tongue of his wagon, blowing softly on his trumpet. He broke off as the hunter approached.
    "If my playin' is keepin' you awake, mister, I'll quit it right away."
    "No, no, Hunk. Keep right on. But what kind of music is that? I never heard any like it before. I'm not a dancing man but it makes my feet almighty restless."
    "They call it 'jazz.' It was borned in the N'Awleans who'e-houses, the big, fancy ones with their own dance bands, and that's about the onliest place you hear it." He added softly, "I—I guess it's for folks like me that don't have a lot of big words that come easy. It does our talkin' for us—our talkin' and our singin' and our cryin'."
    CHAPTER 9
    South and west. Pionino. Las Quintas. Kreb's Notch. Burning Rock. And beyond that, Hangville, in the shadow of the Sierra Malhoras, the Misfortune Mountains.
    At almost every stop there was one or more overly ambitious young budding bad men to be taught discretion and respect for their betters. But it was not all charity work. At Kreb's Notch a familiar face in the crowd, a face he had first seen on a reward notice. This time the crash of gunfire was good for a thousand-dollar bounty.
    But it was at Burning Rock that he came within a hair's breadth of cashing in the Big Jackpot.
    Dandy was just climbing to the stage to begin his opening spiel when they came riding in—seven of the most vicious, cold-eyed killer types to be found anywhere. The hunter's eyes went wide with the shock of recognition. All seven of the newcomers were wanted killers whose ugly faces leered from the walls of every sheriff's and marshal's office in the Territory.
    Six had bounties ranging from two to five thousand dollars on their heads. But it was the seventh man, the leader, who rocked The Man With No Name back on his heels. Squat, thick-bodied, swarthy, with the unmistakable stamp of Indian blood on his features, he was the dread Apachito himself —