Brotherhood of Evil Read Online Free Page B

stood looking out. Tomlin heard one of them say something about corpses, and that perked up his interest enough to make him climb unsteadily to his feet. He stumbled over to the entrance and rasped, “What’s goin’ on out there?”
    One of the cantina’s curious customers looked over his shoulder and said, “Some hombres are leadin’ in a bunch of horses with bodies draped over the saddles.”
    â€œWhat?” Tomlin pushed into the doorway, then felt sobriety hit him like a bucket of cold water in the face. The sight of Luke, Smoke, and Matt Jensen, along with the old-timer called Preacher and that damned dog, drove the drunkenness right out of Tomlin. He took a quick step back, putting himself in the shadows inside the cantina again.
    The Jensens hadn’t warned him that they would kill him if they ever laid eyes on him again, but Tomlin didn’t want to take a chance on that. They had reputations as tough, deadly, unforgiving enemies. He retreated to the table and his bottle and glass, shame burning in him at the knowledge those canvas-wrapped corpses were those of his former friends.
    Maybe Shawcross should’ve left well enough alone and not gone after Luke Jensen, thought Tomlin, but what had happened still wasn’t fair.
    He knew that if he hadn’t scurried back to the saloon from the livery stable to tell Shawcross what he’d seen, the rest of the gang might still be alive. That didn’t actually make their deaths his fault, but he’d had a hand in the whole mess and he couldn’t stop thinking about that.
    What could he do, though, he asked himself as he tipped more tequila into the glass. How could he fix this? He was only one man.
    A shadow fell over the table, and a man’s voice said, “You look a mite upset, amigo. What’s wrong?”
    Tomlin looked up, saw two men standing there. Their stances were casually arrogant, thumbs hooked in their gun belts and hats pushed back. They had a strong enough resemblance between them for him to guess they were brothers. Just looking at them was enough to make him uneasy, because he sensed that they carried trouble with them.
    â€œIt’s nothin’,” he replied with a shake of his head.
    â€œDidn’t look like nothing,” one of the men said. He drew out an empty chair at the table, reversed it, and straddled it. The other man did likewise as the first one went on. “You saw somebody you know out there, and you’re not happy about it. Nate and me, we saw those fellas ride by with those dead bodies. Friends of yours?”
    â€œHell, no,” Tomlin said. “They’re no friends of mine.”
    â€œWhat about the dead men?” the one called Nate asked. “Maybe they were your pards.”
    The first man nudged the bottle, which had only about an inch of liquor left in it. “Let me get you another bottle of tequila, and you can tell us all about it.”
    Tomlin thought about it then licked his lips. “Yeah, sure. Why the hell not?”
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    It had been a mistake telling the Riordan brothers what had happened in Espantosa, Petey Tomlin thought later that day as an early dusk was settling over Espantosa. At first, he hadn’t seen what it would hurt. Nate and Chuck had been so friendly, grinning and plying him with tequila and assuring him that none of the bloody violence had been his fault.
    He hadn’t realized at the time that all they were really interested in was making names for themselves as gunmen.
    Standing in the gathering shadows just inside the mouth of an alley, nervously clutching a shotgun while he waited for his quarry to come along, he gave thought to what had happened.
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    They fancied themselves as being fast on the draw and dangerous, and there could be no better way of proving that than becoming known as the ones who killed the Jensen brothers and Preacher.
    â€œOnce we’ve done that,” Chuck said,