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    Breath Taker
    Breath Taker
    Breath Taker
    Ebook60 pages55 minutes

    Breath Taker

    By M.L. Bushman

    ()

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    About this ebook

    "Wouldn't listen," Dave said.

    "Heard the shots and was going after you," Sam said.

    Elliot added, "Dave decked him to keep him here."

    "Decked him good, too," Jesse muttered. Hard to tell in this light, but I think he almost smiled.

    Sarah nodded grimly when I looked her way.

    "You told us to wait for you," Dave said, on the defensive, as if he expected flack.

    Tom said, "Well, maybe he'll listen next time." A look at me half-ass grinning and Dave relaxed his stance.

    Jeremiah groaned, slowly sat up, fingers testing a jaw that was already swelling. Mumbled something no one understood, but the pain and anger in his face was plain.

    His father disarming him in one smooth, but unexpected move, Jeremiah leapt to his feet, hand to that fattening jaw, screaming shit no one could understand, pointing at Tom, at Dave, Jesse, Sam and Elliot, at me. Grimacing, wincing, he turned on Sarah, took a step toward her, squalling gibberish still, and I pulled my right gun.

    "Back up there, boy."

    Stopped him dead cold, but his look at me was murder in the pure degree.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJigsaw Press
    Release dateSep 26, 2014
    ISBN9781934340097
    Breath Taker
    Author

    M.L. Bushman

    A single mom, Ms. Bushman divides her time between her child, her horse, three cats and writing/editing for Jigsaw Press, not necessarily in that order. She is a novelist, a former newspaper reporter, a blogger, and a rabid patriot, again, not necessarily in that order. At present, Ms. Bushman is working on the Two Bit Western series Eli Stone. She and her small herd make their home just outside the tiny historical town of Sun River, Montana.

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      Book preview

      Breath Taker - M.L. Bushman

      Two-Bit Westerns presents...

      Breath Taker

      by

      M.L. Bushman

      Breath Taker© copyright 2014 by M.L. Bushman

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted by any means—including, but not limited to, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, audio or video—without express written consent by the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and/or used fictitiously. Any similarities to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.

      ISBN: 9781934340097

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author and publisher.

      Published by Jigsaw Press at Smashwords

      For the missing pieces of your reading puzzle

      www.jigsawpress.com

      To Nature's God

      Sounded like war for a minute or two. Even thought I heard machine gun spray at the end there, right after that loud boom.

      Any fool'd be almighty curious.

      Me, my wife, Sarah, and her brother, Dave, dismounted right there on the riverbank, just above what's left of a massive logjam we'd come on the day before. Led our horses off into thick pine in the general direction of the ruckus. All during that hard climb through heavy brush and tight-knit trees, I worried we were making too much noise ourselves.

      Wasn't another sound to guide us, but we kept moving and listening, guns drawn. Cut sign of what might've been a driveway once upon another time, enough suggestion of ruts and gravel to make me think so anyway. This wound up around and back down through dense overgrowth to a barbed wire fence.

      Four-strands of barbed wire in near-perfect condition, a fine steel gate in working order. On raw wood posts.

      Seen a lot of wire the last ten years--rusting, broken down, ready to snap at a touch--and a herd of rotten fence posts, but nothing like this.

      I looked over at Sarah and she had this face on--don't start any shit, Eli, especially about signs. I shot her a little grin, she just frowned and averted her eyes.

      Tempting really to just whip open that gate, but after the two-minute battle that drew us here, I'm thinking we oughta stick to the cover of trees outside this fence, at least until we got some idea what we might come up against.

      Skirted thigh-high pasture to the east and ran smack into a corner of fat wood post and braces. The wire continued up, and so did we, but topping this hill for a first look, damn if any of us had a word to say.

      Below us, this two-story log cabin under a green steel roof, a huge barn, even bigger metal shop kitty-corner to corral and pens of pipe rail fencing under a lazy windmill that fed water to the stock tank. There was some sort of metal lean-to on the cabin wall, white smoke curling out of a short stove pipe on one end and long lengths of wood, double any you'd use for a regular wood or cook stove, stacked nearby. Couldn't fathom what that was, at all.

      Body parts around a shallow black hole and one whole guy facedown at the barn doors ain't moving neither. Couldn't see the front door from where we stopped.

      Should we just halloo? Dave whispered to me. Like you're supposed to?

      How do you know anything about that?

      You mumbling all the time.

      Doesn't that drive you crazy? Sarah whispered fiercely.

      Dave nodded. Still can't figure how he does it either.

      Who does what? I said, thinking I might be insulted.

      Brother and sister grinned, then Dave said, You, making us remember shit all the time.

      Ignoring this obvious can of worms, I murmured, Don't see no way to sneak up on that house. Not without crossing fifty yards of open ground.

      What's a yard? Dave said.

      You're asking him now? Sarah whispered.

      Three feet, I said, just to see

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