Way of the Gun (9781101597804) by Charles G. West Page B

but a few hours old. It gave him a sick feeling inside to think that he might be a part of a robbery, but he resigned himself to the inevitable. It was a waste of time lamenting the fact that he had not made a run for it while they were still camped at Crazy Jack’s.
    The trail appeared to be a commonly traveled one and led them across a low hill, thick with pines. Soon the sun dropped behind the trees, leaving the forest around them to begin to close in as they made their way carefully now. Suddenly Red Shirt held up his hand, directing them to stop and dismount. When the three behind him caught up, he pointed to a glow filtering through the trees ahead. “It looks like a stream up ahead,” Red Shirt said softly. “You stay here. I’ll go take a look.”
    He was gone for about twenty minutes before reappearing out of the darkness. “Two men and a woman,” he reported. “They look like prospectors, maybe. Don’t know what else they’d be, comin’ outta the hills. I don’t know if they’ll amount to much of a payday, but maybe something to gain.” He checked his rifle to make sure it had a full magazine. “We’ll ride in peaceful-like. It’ll be like shootin’ fish in a barrel. They don’t look like they could give us much trouble.”
    â€œWell, let’s get at it, then,” Tice said, checking his own rifle.
    â€œWhat did the woman look like?” Swann wanted to know.
    â€œLet’s give ’em time to settle down for the night,” Red Shirt said. “Might as well make it easy on ourselves.” He turned his gaze to settle on Carson then and studied the young man for a moment. “No,” he said then, “we’ll leave the horses here and walk into their camp and hit ’em before they know what’s what.”
    â€œWhat did the woman look like?” Swann repeated. “She old, young, or what?”
    â€œWhaddaya care?” Tice scoffed. “When did you get so picky?”
    â€œDamn it, I just asked,” Swann came back, his hackles up.
    â€œI couldn’t tell,” Red Shirt finally told him, “just a woman.” Unlike Swann, he was not interested in the woman, only the possibility of acquiring the party’s possessions. “After we take care of the two men, then you can worry about the woman.”
    The bickering over for the moment, they sat down to wait and to anticipate the attack to come, eager to see if their intended victims might be some of the fortunate ones who had found gold in the mountain streams—all except one. Carson was almost frantic inside, caught in the evil web of Red Shirt’s intentions. He could not blindly go along with the savage half-breed’s raid on an innocent party. As he sat waiting with them, he glanced from one face to another, seeing the eager anticipation in both Tice and Swann, and the patient countenance of the calculating half-breed. It almost made him sick inside to know what was planned for the party of prospectors, and the fact that he didn’t know how he could prevent it. He knew that he could not stop all three of them, even if he decided to attack them. But he also knew he had to do something to stop a conscienceless massacre. When it was time to move on the camp, he was handed another setback that he had not expected.
    â€œAll right,” Red Shirt said, “it’s time to go get ’em.” When they all rose to their feet, he caught Carson by the arm. “You stay here with the horses. When the shootin’ starts, we don’t want ’em runnin’ all over hell and back.” From the beginning, Red Shirt had questioned the resolve he read in the young man’s eyes, and he decided it best not to take a chance on Carson doing something crazy in the heat of a gunfight.
    Further distressed over this recent turn of events, he was not sure what he should do. In that moment, however, he decided