Nunslinger 5

by Stark Holborn

Genres: Westerns

Synopsis

The True Tale of how Sister Thomas Josephine of St. Louis, Missouri came to seek Repentance but found Bloodshed in the town of Altar, Mexico. Sister Thomas Josephine thinks she may finally have found sanctuary in a small Mexican town, but she'll soon find out that her sins will not be easily forgotten...

Release date: March 13, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 80

Sample

CHAPTER EIGHT

He stealeth to fill his hungry soul

 

They came before dawn. Long after the last shutters had banged shut, after the wood smoke had died in the chimneys. They came as shadows, black and grey and dun in the darkness, their footsteps muffled. At first I thought it was my nightmare come true, that the men and women and children who were rotting in the ground by Carthy’s hand had returned to bear me to hell.

But the voices were real, feverish with restrained violence. I barely had time to rise from my bed before the door was kicked in. Instinctively I reached for the pistols, but a boot stamped down, just missing my hand, while another kicked the weapons away into the darkness. Hands were grappling my arms behind me, and I drove my head backward, connecting with a skull.

A man yelled in pain, yet my triumph was short, for the blow stunned me, enough that I felt rope binding my wrists before I could struggle. I was dragged backward, bare heels scraping through the dust. A dark figure followed behind, tucking my rosary into his pocket. I screamed my rage. A rag, sour with must and sweat, was stuffed into my mouth.

There were voices to my right, and I twisted painfully, in time to see the door to the other building flung open, to hear a familiar voice crying out in surprise, then in pain. Frantically, I spat the cloth free.

‘No!’ I shrieked toward the men, toward anyone who would hear me, ‘he is wounded! Leave him, please!’

But fabric was crammed between my teeth again, with enough force to make me retch. A sack was wrestled over my head, and I fought and thrashed, kicking out at whatever flesh I could find until my head grew light and I was forced slow my breathing or suffocate.

I felt myself being lifted bodily, smelled horseflesh as I was hoisted over what felt like a saddle, which dug painfully into my ribs. I made one last attempt to escape, throwing my weight backward, only for a hand to grasp my neck.

‘Quiet, Madre,’ a man’s voice hissed. Then we were moving, and I stopped struggling, for to fall would be death beneath a horse’s hooves.

The minutes dragged interminably into hours; soon I was crushed and bruised all over, winded by the motion of the horse. I forced my body to be happy with the little air that found its way through my nostrils.

I only knew that time was passing from the light that needled its way through the hessian sack, from the heat of the coming day as we left the damp, dawn hours behind us. From what little I could fathom, I judged we were riding east.

The nature of the land changed, sloping upward. Stones began to clatter past hooves and I smelled something that might have been vegetation, passing in a flash. Then voices crying in Spanish, metal clanging and dogs barking, movement all around.

These things I noted carefully, anxious to glean any clues about my surroundings. I was lifted free and set on my feet. Much to my consternation, my legs collapsed beneath me, numb from the long ride.

I sniffed beneath the hood before they hauled me upright. Somewhere, meat was cooking. It was strangely comforting when all else was fear and pain and unknown.

When the time came to move, I could not yet walk, and so was half carried, half dragged across the ground, down a step into a darker space, where the heat of the desert was kept at bay. Cool earth greeted my bare feet.. . .