Nunslinger 10

by Stark Holborn

Genres: Westerns

Synopsis

The year is 1864. Sister Thomas Josephine is on her way from St Louis, Missouri, to Sacramento, California. During the course of her journey, however, she'll find that her faith requires her to take off her wimple and pick up a gun. Once more Sister Thomas Josephine finds herself snatched from the jaws of death by a rescuer whose identity remains a mystery. Emerging from her ordeal she finds herself a figure of infamy. The legend of the 'Six Gun Sister' has set the country aflame. But not all the stories are true: someone has stolen her name, and is using it to commit murder... Sister Thomas Josephine intended nothing more than a quiet journey out west, a trip filled with prayer, meditation, and ministering to those in need. What she got, however, was anything but. In the tenth story chronicling her adventures, Sister Thomas Josephine will face down a whole host of new problems - and the yellow-bellied scum who want to see her dead.

Release date: September 11, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 80

Sample

CHAPTER ONE

And the tenth I will utter to men with my tongue

 

My death met me with darkness and agony, as I had feared it would. A moment’s gasp of terror and the rope snapped taut; my feet left the wood and a violent jolt snapped through my body, ripping soul from flesh, to bring me at last into the presence of my maker.

 But heaven was not bliss, it was not peace eternal and freedom from a blemished human form. It was dirt and a bursting in my lungs. It hurt.

And pain is the lot of the living.

I opened my eyes. The gallows yawned open above me: a square of high blue framed by the platform through which I had fallen, the frayed end of a rope twisting uselessly. For one, awful moment I gasped emptily, then air flooded my lungs, blessed air, and I drank it in.

The noise of the crowd filtered into my ears, slowly at first but building like a river, angry and white. Still wheezing, I rolled onto my knees. There was one thought that claimed me then, before prayer or Lord or questions: if I lived, what of him?

I spun around, terrified of what I might find. Abe lay six feet away. For one moment he was still, then his chest was heaving with breath. A gunshot rang out and the dirt before me exploded. Roped wrist and neck, I could barely breathe, let alone move, but I crawled towards Abe through the dust and the noise and carnage. He was fighting his way towards me, bruised and battered though he was. We came to a stop eye to eye, just as we had been barely a minute before, at what we thought would be our worlds’ end. His smile was as wild as my own, unbelieving that we lived.

But the bullets were still flying, men still lunging to fire under the scaffold and Abe yelped as a charge clipped the heel of his boot. He dragged me away, using his body to shield mine. A stack of lumber protected the steps of the gallows. We crawled towards them on raw knees.

Macclehorse cowered there, white and gasping. I reached out to him when the broken noose about my throat was snapped taut. Someone had the rope in his hand; was dragging me backward. I kicked out, choking.

Puttick’s face appeared above me, blood vessels spidering his eyes red and yellow. His face was savage as he fumbled with the rope, his bound hands clumsy. I finally managed one stifled cry for Abe.

Muir lunged forward but it was too late. Puttick released me, and I scrabbled away only to find myself pulled up short. The outlaw had tied the end of my noose to his own, roping us together like a pair of cattle.

‘What have you done?’ I cried, even as the bullets thudded into our shelter.

‘Need the Lord on my side,’ he yelled, baring his teeth behind bleeding gums. ‘Or the devil, don’t care which. You got the ear of both, ma’am. If you live, so do I.’

‘Bastard!’ spat Abe, but before he could move there was a great splintering: the stacks of lumber were being blasted away.

‘We got to move!’ Puttick yelled, but all I could see was Macclehorse, pale on the ground, his broken leg thrust awkwardly before him.

‘Go,’ he told me, eyes swimming with pain.

Puttick heaved upon rope to drag me away, near cutting off my air. Rage took me, and I spun around, driving a knee into the outlaw’s groin. He spluttered and retched at the end of the rope, but this time it was I who dragged him toward the old hunter.

‘Mr. Macclehorse,’ I said savagely, ‘I will not leave you behind.’        

The old man looked as though he would object, but I grabbed his shirt in my roped hands and pulled, until he stood along with me.

Splinters were flying, the dust kicked up into chaos. The whole town seemed to have opened fire; it was only a matter of time before those bullets would catch us.

‘T. . .