Funeral By The Sea by George G. Gilman Page B

had been familiar with corpses since early childhood and was totally - professionally - unmoved by these bodies and the rapidly congealing blood which had spilled from them.
    Accepted this as a matter of course.
    But derived a sense of satisfaction at what he felt upon seeing the men who were very much alive. A negative feeling - nothing.
    Ten men he had seen before in the cantina and among the audience for the whipping of Seth Harrow. Recognized all of them but could put a name to just one - Vic with the partial beard that linked his sideburns by way of his jaw line. Men wearing a variety of wide-brimmed hats, shirts and pants of cotton or denim and spurred riding boots. With gunbelts slung around their waists. Each of them carrying a cocked Winchester in a double-handed grip.
    And showing his eagerness to use the rifle by the expression on his bristled, sweat-sheened face. The group advancing up the trail in a line, glinting eyes constantly shifting in their sockets. To survey the area of the timber where they had last seen Barnaby Gold to the high point to one side of the ravine entrance where the sharpshooter had been positioned.
    In pockets of cover behind the men in the open, others waited and watched in a similar state of readiness to kill. Ready, also, maybe to lunge across the open ground for the more extensive cover of the timber. The moment their quarry was known to be distracted by the group on the trail. And, once in the timber, Gold’s chance of survival would grow progressively less in relation to the number of Oceanville men stalking him.
    But the prospect did not frighten him, and this is what he found satisfying - more markedly so because of his recent experiences of unfamiliar terror.
    He had two fully loaded Peacemakers on his gunbelt and a carton of shells for the Murcott. Hal Delroy and the rest of the kill-hungry men did not know exactly where he was. There was not a part of his body that did not hurt, but he felt fully able to overcome this. In the knowledge that he was better off now than he had ever been since the two ravine guards had halted the mountain wagon the night before. And with the determination never to allow himself to become a prisoner of anybody ever again.
    Dividing his attention between the slow walking men on the trail and those who crouched behind rocks and in clumps of brush at the low end of the ravine, Barnaby Gold’s green eyes became deadpan, his lips closed into a line of repose to hide teeth that were no longer gritted and the cracks of strain were smoothed out of his skin at brow and to the sides of his eyes and mouth.
    And the calm set of his handsome face did not alter when there was a sudden flurry of frantic movement on the trail, the men lunging for the cover of the wrecked wagon to hurl themselves down behind it, out of his sight.
    His eyes raked from them to those still in the vicinity of the slab of rock. But, aware of the marksman’s skill with a rifle, they needed a more intensive diversion than this to risk a dash for the trees.
    And a single revolver shot signaled them to be ready. It did not seem to be so, for the bullet was exploded by a man behind the wagon into the head of the crippled horse, as if simply a humane act to end the animal’s suffering.
    But before the gelding had spasmed into death, the fusillade of rifle fire had begun. To spray bullets in two directions - at the area of timber where Barnaby Gold was concealed and up at the high ground where the sniper had last been seen.
    Gold went out flat to the ground and, with his face pressed into the pine needles, stretched his arms with both hands fisted around the shotgun - broke it fully open.
    Countless bullets cracked close by him to rustle foliage and thud into tree trunks, counterpointing the muzzle blasts and the sounds of the repeaters’ lever actions being pumped.
    The acrid taint of gunsmoke completely masked the pungent stink of kerosene and the pleasant aroma of pine trees.
    Gold drew