The Forge of Darkness (Darkness After Series Book 3) by Scott B. Williams Read Free Book Online Page B

to move him. I was hoping Mitch and them would be back.”
    “They’re not. We haven’t seen him. They must have gone farther today. They may not be back tonight at all.”
    “I wish he was here. Mitch could track down that guy easy. I’m worried about Uncle Benny, and I wish he wasn’t going after him alone. But he wouldn’t let any of us go with him. He said we had to get Tommy back to the house but we had to be careful moving him or he might die.  
    April was trying to process all these staggering developments. It was simply unbelievable how quickly everything could change, but she’d had a bad feeling ever since she’d heard those first rifle reports. Poor Tommy! He was such a nice and friendly man and he’d already suffered one grievous wound when Wayne Parker had shot him through the arm with a broadhead arrow meant for the center of his back. Now, according to Lisa, he’d been hit in the chest with a high-powered rifle. He might die no matter what they did, from the way she described it. April couldn’t imagine what was going through Benny’s mind. He would stop at nothing to find the shooter, not only because of what he’d done to Tommy, but to stop him from trying to come back. These trespassers were clearly desperate and brazen to shoot someone’s cattle inside of a fence. They had to have known there were people around taking care of them.  
    Benny had left David there with Tommy until the girls could get help moving him. Now April faced the dilemma of deciding who would go. They couldn’t all go because of Kimberly, and she, of all four of them was the most experienced at facing these armed confrontations. What if there were more of them than just the two they knew of? Benny had taken a big chance going out there alone to find out, but April understood why he did it. She wanted so badly to go and help, but Kimberly was her first responsibility and she would have to stay here with her. With everyone else away, it was up to her to make the decisions about what to do. With Samantha’s help, Lisa and Stacy could return with the travois. Then with David, there would be four of them to move Tommy back. Maybe by the time they got there, Benny would be finished with his task as well. April knew he was a competent woodsman and that if he had enough time before dark, he would find the other shooter.  

    * * *

    David Green promised Benny he would wait there beside Tommy until the girls returned or he got back, whichever was first. Benny didn’t want to leave his boy’s side, but he wasn’t going to let whoever shot him get away with it either. David would have gone with him, but he understood they couldn’t leave Tommy alone. Somebody needed to stay there with him and Benny told David it was best if he did. He had Tommy’s rifle to guard him with and he had to make sure Tommy’s bandages didn’t come loose so he wouldn’t bleed too much before they could move him.
    Benny said if they could just get him back to the house Tommy would be okay, but David wondered if he was really going to die anyway. Lisa and Stacy had been crying when they saw how bad he was shot and Benny looked really worried too. David kept whispering to him as he sat there beside him, telling him his daddy was going to find whoever did this to him. David didn’t understand why anyone would shoot a nice person like Tommy. Tommy never hurt anybody as far as he knew and all he was trying to do was run off that boy that had shot those cows. David wondered now if the person who shot Tommy would have shot him instead if he had been the first one to get there, and he figured they probably would have. That boy was walking towards Tommy while he was hurt and on the ground, and David just knew he was going to cut his friend open the same way he was doing those steers when they found him. That’s why he ran out from where Tommy had told him to wait and hide, to try and stop the boy with his spear. When he missed, he could tell the boy was