Guns of Mars 48
A Martian action-adventure by The Legend Chuck Dixon
CHAPTER 12.4
The black man’s eyes narrowed, his mouth twisted in an effort to hide that he was intrigued. He turned to the rider to his right, eyes never leaving the man standing in the road, gesturing with his head for the rider to inspect the waterskin.
The bounty man stepped back a few paces as the rider rode closer and dropped down from the saddle to snatch up the skin. He kept his eyes steady on the leader of the hunting party. The dismounted rider turned the valve at the end of the skin to take a tentative sip and then a long gulp.
“You need to–” the rider began, holding the skin out to the others.
Their eyes flickered to the skin, momentarily leaving the bounty man.
It was all the opening he needed.
He pulled his pistol as he moved. A shot to the chest took down the dismounted rider who was flung off his feet, the waterskin flying from his hands. A single bound took him to cover behind the man’s thoat as the remaining men jerked their weapons clear. The thoat panicked as a fusillade opened up from the pair of mounted men. The bounty man ran alongside it as it bolted away, keeping it between himself and his attackers.
The black rider, weapon trained forward, rode with a hoot to come round in the wake of the fleeing animal. The remaining red man raced into the path of the bleating thoat to cut off its progress. They closed with the beast sliding to a stop in a thick haze of choking dust. The riders closed in from either side, sure to find their target trapped.
With a single leap, the bounty man bounded over the thoat, well clear of the balking animal’s bucking back. He’d left his carbine behind and had a pistol in each fist. At the apex of his arc the bounty man fired at the red rider, taking the man in the head to spill from the saddle, his skull a bloody ruin. The bounty man dropped to the ground in a crouch to fire both pistols into the back of the black man who was thrown hard against his mount’s neck to slide to the ground lifeless.
He holstered a pistol and stepped to the frightened thoat’s head and took hold of its bridle. He calmed it with kind words and strokes to its stout neck before leading it back to where the pack animals stood, ear stalks forward and stamping nervously.
He’d ride now to Yttrium rather than walk.
Signed First Edition collectors might be interested to see what the endpapers of the leather edition are going to look like. Here are the front endpapers:
Special Note: GUNS OF MARS is now available in a hardcover edition. It is available at Amazon and at NDM Express.
