Peter Brandvold - The Devils Winchester  

Table of Contents

CAUGHT WITH HIS PANTS DOWN

Boom!

In his haste, Prophet had punched his Winchester round a hair south of Santees heart.

For a quarter second he wasnt sure if hed hit the man at all. But then, as the other men jerked their heads toward Prophet, Santee gave a little shiver and stepped back, impulsively triggering his Colt into the ground beside him, blowing up dust and rocks. Dropping his chin, he looked down at his chest where a patch of something dark and wet shone, though it was hard to see against the cutthroats brown wool vest and in the wedge of barn shadow the man had stepped into.

There was a moment of crystal silence.

Prophet ejected the spent brass from his Winchesters breech, and the empty casing clinked to the ground behind him as he levered a fresh round in the chamber. Dusty Willis and the other two cutthroats stared fierce-eyed toward Prophet, but, taken aback by the sudden, unexpected rifle bark, they held as still as stone statues.

A scream broke the silence, and Prophet wasnt sure where it was coming from until Blanco Metalious jerked his head up, hang-jawed, and staggered bare-assed away from Louisa while thrusting a hand at his crotch.

PRAISE FOR PETER BRANDVOLD

Takes off like a shot, never giving the reader a chance to set the book down.Douglas Hirt

Berkley titles by Peter Brandvold

The Bounty Hunter Lou Prophet Series

THE DEVILS WINCHESTER
HELLDORADO
THE GRAVES AT SEVEN DEVILS
THE DEVILS LAIR
STARING DOWN THE DEVIL
THE DEVIL GETS HIS DUE
RIDING WITH THE DEVILS MISTRESS
DEALT THE DEVILS HAND
THE DEVIL AND LOU PROPHET

The Rogue Lawman Series

BORDER SNAKES
BULLETS OVER BEDLAM
COLD CORPSE, HOT TRAIL
DEADLY PREY
ROGUE LAWMAN

The Sheriff Ben Stillman Series

HELL ON WHEELS
ONCE LATE WITH A .38
ONCE UPON A DEAD MAN
ONCE A RENEGADE
ONCE HELL FREEZES OVER
ONCE A LAWMAN
ONCE MORE WITH A .44
ONCE A MARSHAL

The .45-Caliber Series

.45-CALIBER FIREBRAND
.45-CALIBER WIDOW MAKER
.45-CALIBER DEATHTRAP
.45-CALIBER MANHUNT
.45-CALIBER FURY
.45-CALIBER REVENGE

Other titles

BLOOD MOUNTAIN

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

THE DEVILS WINCHESTER

A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author

PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley edition / January 2011

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eISBN : 978-1-101-47686-4

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In memory of my aunt Ellen,
who always enjoyed a good, racy yarn.

WITH TWO LONG, furry black legs, the tarantula probed the eye that was still stretched wide in horror and disbelief at the owners premature demise.

The spider drew back as though in distaste at what it found in the eye socket, then scuttled around the edge of the bloody bullet wound in the bone-white forehead and crawled down the length of the dead mans sunburned nose to his brushy brown mustache. Clinging to the mustache, the spider bent all eight of its black legs slightly and lowered its beadlike head atop its conelike thorax as if to investigate the mans mouth, back from which the mans lips were spread in a grisly death grin.

The yellow teeth were crooked, with bits of dried food and tobacco caked between them. The right eyetooth had been broken off during a fight in the Venus Saloon in Julesburg, Colorado. It was the jagged edge of this tooth, to which remnants of the mans recent breakfast still clung, that the spider seemed to probe with interest before freezing suddenly at the sound or possibly the vibration of oncoming riders.

As the thuds grew louder, the tarantula scrambled down over the dead mans chin and spade beard and across his right shoulder before leaping to the ground and hiding inside the collar of his calico shirt. Meanwhile, fifty yards down the trail, Lou Prophet checked down his ugly, hammered-head dun which he appropriately called Mean and Ugly, and reached down to slide his Winchester 73 from the cracked leather saddle scabbard jutting up from under his right thigh.

The big, sun-seared, broken-nosed bounty hunter cocked the rifle one-handed as his blond partner, Louisa Bonaventure, reined her brown-and-white pinto pony to a halt beside him. Prophet stared out from beneath the dusty, funneled brim of his battered Stetson at the dead man lying in the brush left of the trail, about ten yards from a scraggly mesquite shrub.

Spying the dead man as well, Louisa unsheathed her own Winchester carbine and looked around cautiously, squinting her hazel eyes beneath the flat brim of her brown felt hat with its braided leather band. The hem of her dusty wool riding skirt brushed her tall stockmens boots, the spurs of which glinted in the late afternoon sun.

When Prophet had scrutinized the scrub around him and spied no bushwhackers skulking behind the rocks and cedar trees that stippled the sandy apron hills of western New Mexicos No-Water Mountains, he grunted, Back me, and swung down from his saddle with a grace unexpected in a man of Prophets sizehis brawny, frontier-seasoned frame weighed 230 pounds desert-dry, and he stood well over six feet tall in his stocking feet.

Louisa levered a cartridge into her Winchesters breech. Remaining atop the pinto, she looked around cautiously. Strands of her honey blond hair were blown by a light, cool breeze around her smooth cheeks that, despite the sun and wind of the hundred trails shed been dusting since being orphaned by a gang of cutthroats in Nebraska Territory three years ago, still owned the texture of fresh-whipped cream. Her lips were full and richwhat some might call bee-stungthough her hazel eyes were tough and practical if a little on the snooty side.