saddlebag dispatches
“All right!” Cleary’s hand went to his holster and brought up the revolver. He fired once, the sharp report splitting the night silence. The slug doubled Hultren over and forced him back a few steps, but it did not fell him. He grunted and forced himself to straighten up. Laughing until he choked on his own blood, he staggered forward. Cleary fired another shot. It hit Hultren in the chest and propelled him back off his feet to a position spread-eagle on the ground. Cleary watched this in fascination. He stood transfixed over the body. His hand dropped to his side, loosely holding the gun. A hand reached from behind him and pulled the weapon from his grip. “I’ll take that,” the marshal said. Brushing past Cleary, the lawman went to a knee next to Hultren’s body and examined it for signs of life. He shook his head. Cleary came back to reality as the marshal stepped in front of him. “Mr. Cleary? What’s going on here?” Flustered, Cleary searched for words. “He… eh … he tried to kill me.” The marshal stared. “I ain’t seen anything like this in twenty years. Did he draw on you?” “Yeah, yeah, he drew on me.” “And you had to kill him?” “Yeah, I beat him to the draw. Self defense. I had to kill him to protect myself.” Cleary watched as the marshal turned and crouched at Hultren’s body for a closer examination. He was still trying to get a handle on what just happened when the marshal faced him again. “I’m going to have to arrest you.” “What do you mean arrest me? This was self defense. I got him before he got me.” “That’s going to be hard to prove. He had no gun.” “What?” “There was no gun. You shot an unarmed man.” And then, as suddenly as the gunshot, it all became crystal clear. Hultren had engineered this whole thing. He’d boxed Cleary in just as surely as Cleary had locked him away twenty-five years earlier. Cleary would pay the ultimate price. For Hultren, vengeance was his.
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B ob Giel
B
ob Giel was born in New York City and now lives in New Jersey. He has been in love with the Western genre since he was a kid, and absorbed so much of the period through books, movies, and television that he feels as though he could easily have been there himself. The grit and the determination of the people who carved a way of life out of the frontier have helped shape the way Bob lives his what he starts, and he is a true friend. While he was always interested in writing, life got in the way, that is, until he retired. With the decks cleared, he began writing and never looked back. A Crow to Pluck, was published
Fictioneers 2020 Peacemaker Award for Best First Western Novel. His next novel, Shawnee, is due out in Western adventures. featured in Saddlebag Dispatches, but he has served as Senior Editor for the magazine for over a year.
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