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The horse flattened out into its dead run and it was like skiing down a fast slope.
It brought him into the road, angling away from Joe; he wheeled the horse and it responded so fast he knew it had to be a top-trained cutting horse. The Land Cruiser was bearing down and Watchman put the horse squarely across the road and lifted the pistol.
Joe had three seconds to make up his mind and through the windshield Watchman saw him thinking. Go around to one side: but that would give Watchman a perfect shot with the pistol. Go straight through: but that could wreck the Land Cruiser. Stop and use the rifle: but at this range the two weapons were equal and Watchman’s was already aimed.
Joe wrenched the wheel and the Land Cruiser plunged away to the right, skidding down along the grass. He was trying to bolt across the open country but Watchman had a good forty-yard shot and took it.
He scored on the fourth shot; it blew the front tire and the Land Cruiser lurched to the left.
Joe tried to keep it going on the rim but it was no good, the thing slowed to a crawl and Watchman came along on the horse, and finally the Land Cruiser stopped.
Watchman sat the saddle, training the pistol on Joe. Joe thought about the rifle but you couldn’t maneuver a rifle inside the cramped cab of a vehicle and finally Joe ran a hand through his hair, showing his desperation, and stepped out of the Land Cruiser bare-handed.
Watchman stepped down and handcuffed Joe’s wrists together, looping the cuffs through Joe’s belt.
“You made a pretty good run, Joe.”
“I sure did,” Joe screamed in a whisper.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a novel and all characters and events are fictitious. Principal locales are real but several specific places (like the settlement at Cuncon) do not exist in fact where this novel places them. There is a real White Mountain Apache Tribal Council and it has a real chairman but his name is not Frank Natagee and no resemblance is meant to be suggested. The same is true of officers of the Arizona Highway Patrol, the Indian Agency Police Force and the Arizona State Prison at Florence. The dispute over water rights described herein is suggested by recent events but in many particulars it is fictitious and should not be taken to represent actuality.
copyright © 1974 by Brian Garfield
cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
This edition published in 2011 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media
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