Valley of the Gun (9781101607480) by Ralph W. Cotton Page B

hand, liking the warmth of it. She felt herself want to lean closer to him across the table. Sam sensed it and felt the same. Yet they both stopped themselves and straightened and stood up from the table’s edges.
    â€œAll right, then,” Sam said. He nodded toward the rear window. “I’m going to go drag him away from here. We’ll spend the night here where there’s a hearth to shield a fire. Tomorrow you can lead us to Munny Caves.”
    â€œIt’s a long ride from here. We’ll need our rest,” she said.
    â€œI’ll get his horse and ours and bring them inside,” Sam said, turning toward the open door.
    â€œSam?” Mattie said.
    He stopped and looked back at her.
    â€œI should tell you. There’s been no other man since Dad—I doubt there ever will be.”
    â€œI understand, Mattie,” Sam said. They eyed each other closely before he turned away and walked out the door.

PART 2

Chapter 9
    Inside Dr. Lanahan’s large clapboard house in Whiskey Bend, Lightning Wade Hornady lay propped up against his pillow on a narrow bed in the corner of the small room he now shared with Sheriff Fred Hall from Goble. Hornady still wore an ankle cuff and a three-foot length of chain that held him to the bed frame. He was feeling better, stronger, yet he didn’t want anyone to know it. He’d started making his escape plans the minute the doctor assured him he would most likely live, in spite of his wounds and his loss of blood. That was all Hornady had needed to hear.
    He’d convinced himself that with another day or two of rest, he’d be able to break the single-rail bed frame as if it were made of matchsticks, climb out the window and make his getaway. Of course, now he had this son of a bitch to deal with, he thought to himself, drawing deep on a cigarette he’d rolled. He blew out a stream of smoke and stared at the back of a tall wicker-trimmed wheelchair facing the room’s only window. A double-barreled shotgun stuck out from the side of the wheelchair.
    â€œYou know, Sheriff Hall,” Hornady said matter-of-factly to the back of the wheelchair through a looming cloud of smoke, “I can’t think one solitary thing says you have to stay here and do DeShay’s job for him. I can see you’re in pain here.”
    â€œNever you mind my pain, Wade Hornady,” he heard Sheriff Hall say gruffly. The convalescing lawman sat in the wheelchair gazing out the window through bloodshot eyes. A wooden leg support held the sheriff’s plaster-casted broken foot straight out in front of him. Above the cast, the sheriff’s purple, swollen toes appeared to almost throb in pain.
    Staring unseen from his bed, Hornady gave a thin, devilish grin.
    â€œI’m only thinking of you, Sheriff,” Hornady replied. “I know for a fact that a man always feels better at home in his own bed. I always say that’s where true healing starts, and not a minute before.”
    â€œI know you’d like that, Hornady—you and me leaving here, heading back to Goble, just the two of us on the trail,” Hall said to the wavy windowpanes in front of him. “But you’d do well to remind yourself that just as bad as you want to bash my head in and cut out—that’s how bad I want to cock both hammers and blow your breakfast all over the wall.”
    â€œWhoa, you’ve got me all wrong, Sheriff,” said Hornady, puffing his wrinkled cigarette, stifling a nasty laugh. As he spoke, he struggled to sit up on the side of the bed and looked down at the bandage on his chest, only a dot of dried blood in the center of it. “Getting shot has caused me to restudy my whole wasted life. I’m looking forward to making amends, walk the straight and narrow from now on—maybe try to show others the right path, so to speak.”
    â€œThat’s real good to hear,” Hall said in a sarcastic tone. “Does