Read Brutal Vengeance for Free Online Page B

done at Fire Hill outraged The Kid’s sense of justice ... but that sense had taken a beating over the past couple years. Along with a helping hand from Fate, he had brought justice to the people responsible for his wife’s murder ... but Rebel was still dead, wasn’t she? Going after Warren Latch wouldn’t bring the people he had killed in Fire Hill back to life, either.
    “I could sure use the help,” Culhane tried again.
    The Kid was about to shake his head and tell the Ranger to go back to the posse, while he rounded up the buckskin and pack horse and rode in the opposite direction as fast as he could. He would have stuck to that decision, too ...
    If gunfire hadn’t suddenly erupted at the top of the escarpment.

Chapter 7
    Culhane jerked his head in that direction as he reached for the gun on his hip. “Son of a—”
    “Hold it!” The Kid snapped as he leveled the Winchester at the Texas Ranger. “If this is some kind of trick—”
    “No trick,” Culhane said. “I swear to you, none of those posse men would try anything. It sounds to me like somebody else jumped ’em!”
    Culhane had a point. The shooting continued, fast and furious. The Kid had been in enough gun battles to know the real thing when he heard it.
    “Damn it, Morgan, I need to get back up there!”
    The Kid nodded. “Go ahead. I’ll come with you.” He didn’t know where the offer came from. Volunteering to help the posse had been the furthest thing from his mind only moments earlier.
    But something about the sound of gunshots drew him. He had a difficult time turning away while bullets were flying.
    Culhane ran around the rock, grabbed his horse, and mounted in a hurry. The Kid’s buckskin and pack horse had drifted onto the flats to graze on the sparse grass. He didn’t take the time to go after them. He followed Culhane on foot, leaping agilely from rock to rock, carrying his rifle.
    Since the slope was so rugged, The Kid climbed it almost as fast as Culhane did on horseback. Looking up, he saw men scrambling over the rim and dropping below it for cover. They turned and fired back toward the west.
    Culhane noticed that, too. He reined in before he reached the top and dropped out of the saddle, dragging his rifle from its sheath. He went to his knees at the rim and peered over.
    A second later, his black hat leaped from his head and went flying into the air.
    “Great jumpin’ Jehosophat!” Culhane yelled. Reaching up, he felt his head as if he couldn’t believe his hat was gone.
    The Kid knelt beside him. “Are you hit?”
    “No, but one of the blasted varmints sure as blazes ventilated my hat!”
    Even under the circumstances, The Kid had to chuckle at Culhane’s indignation. The Ranger had come within bare inches of having his brains splattered all over the landscape, and he was worried about his hat.
    Or maybe that was just his way of not thinking about how close he had come to death.
    Angrily, Culhane thrust the barrel of his Winchester over the rim and triggered a couple swift shots before ducking back down again.
    “Marchman!” he yelled at one of the posse members ranged along the ragged brink of the escarpment. “Any of our men been killed yet?”
    The man shook his head and called back, “We’ve got a couple wounded, but nobody’s dead!”
    “Let’s try to keep it that way!” Culhane urged.
    The Kid spotted Clyde not far off. The man kept shooting nervous glances toward him. To Culhane The Kid said, “You’d better make sure those fellas know that I’m on your side now.”
    “Are you, Morgan?” Culhane asked. “On our side, I mean?”
    “For now,” The Kid said with a nod.
    To prove it, he slid his rifle over the rim and sighted on the dozen or so horsebackers who were throwing lead at the posse. They were riding back and forth about a hundred yards away, apparently untouched. The men from Fire Hill couldn’t draw a bead on moving targets.
    That wasn’t the case with Kid Morgan. He settled his