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BULLETS WERE WHIZZING through the air as the confused-lookinga scrap of rusted tin he’d brought with hih the roof

LJ ran into the house and aimed a rifle at the fallen Raider “Get the hell out of here or die I see you again, you die!”

In the darkness outside I could see eightabout on horses They wore no sheets, no hoods They weren’t bothering to hide thenized the redheaded troubleh in front of Jenkins’ Mercantile

One lout, on a big dappled quarter horse, led to keep fro

The fatdown from his saddle like so down too, yoking their horses together

One aiun at the house Ka-blam!

“Goddarunted He poked the barrel of his fine hand-carved rifle through the , squeezed the trigger, and dropped the shooter in hi

s tracks

This ar, just like I remembered it from Cuba, except the enemy was from my on

LJ called, “Take the back of the house, Ben!” So I ran to the tiny kitchen and onto the stoop

Behind the trunk of a giant pecan tree stood Ricky, with his shotgun trained across the yard on an oak where a White Raider huddled with his rifle trained on him

Neither of the away at each other, riddling each other’s tree trunk with bullets and squirrel shot

As I burst headlong onto that stoop, I presented a clear target for the White Raider

He swung his gun toward me, and time seemed to slohile I watched him turn He squeezed off a shot I saw the spark of the bullet strike a rock near the stoop

The h that the trunk didn’t entirely conceal his belly I braced my pistol hand on my other arm and fired