Six Gun Justice by David Cross Read Free Book Online

‘sides they’s a couple of buzzards up there that think they’ve found a meal. I say he smashed up on the rocks below,” Drago said. “I usually don’t miss what I aim at, not at the distance we was from him. I put that slug right through his heart.”
    “Maybe we should ride down in the canyon, and see if we can find his body,” Marvin suggested. “I’d feel a whole lot better if’n I knowed for sure he was a goner.”
    “You can ride down if you’ve a mind to, but I say I hit him in the heart, and if I didn’t, he died from the fall. Besides, by the time you get down there, it’ll be dark,” Drago argued. “We’ve wasted enough time as it is, stalking that galoot. Let’s just hightail it back to the ranch and tell Murdock his problems are over.”
    Marvin mumbled something in return, and then came the creak of saddle leather, and the clicking of hooves as the two men rode away. He lay there trying to regain his strength, wondering how he was going to get off this canyon wall, without a rope. There had to be a way down. He would have to search along the ledge, and try to find a way up or down. Short of that, he really had no other thoughts at the moment, but the burning pain in his shoulder, and a terrible thirst. The pain, and the thirst would have to wait, until he could make his way back to his horse. He rolled out from under the overhang, peering down into the deep canyon, but could see no way to get down the four hundred or so foot drop.
    He was in a tight spot, and he was weak from his wound, and tired from a day of rounding up strays. He gritted his teethe and forced himself to think in a more positive way. He had been in tight scrapes before, and had come out alive. He got to his knees, and then carefully dragged himself to his feet. The ledge was no more than three feet wide, in his standing position, and slightly less than four if one counted the overhang. One slip and he would wind up in the canyon below. He looked down and for a brief second his chest filled with panic, a touch of vertigo wafting over him, then he put his mind on the problem of finding a way down.
    He inched his way to the left about a hundred feet, rounding a cornice in the wall, and found it to come to a dead end. Cursing, he made his way back to his original position, then started inching along to his right. He went no more than a hundred fifty yards before he came to an open crevice, with a jumble of loose rock slanting up to the rim. Checking the rock, he found them to be loose to the touch, sliding away, to fall to the canyon floor, giving him a panic-stricken touch of vertigo again.
    The ledge had narrowed to no more than two feet, and from his precarious perch, he could see that it narrowed even more, until it played out completely about two hundred feet further on. He stood to one side of the rock filled crevice, thinking that this was his only hope. He knew it would slide if he tried to climb over the loose, jumbled mess. His only hope was to clear away the rock and try to wedge his body in the three-foot crevice and inch his way up to the top.
    Standing to one side, he gingery loosened the rock fall, letting the rocks fall to the floor below, ignoring the sick feeling that he would go tumbling into space any second. It was a lot of work and dark was beginning to settle over the land by the time he had cleared away enough of the rock to wedge himself in the opening. His left shoulder was aching with a vengeance, and the weakness, and the soaked bandana told him that he had lost more blood.
    There was little light left, and he told himself it was now or never, he had to make the climb quickly, before it became too dark to see. He could not spend the night here. He would only grow weaker, and possibly bleed to death, waiting for someone to find him, or fall to his death trying to make it to the top in a weakened state. That was a possibility even now.
    He began climbing, placing his back against one wall, he knees