Boon Ed Kurtz (the little red hen read aloud txt) 📖

But there in the Handsome Frank mine, something had changed. Mayhap it already had, sometime sooner, but it was there that it first became evident. Meihui was an obstacle. One easily solved for a cold, single-minded heart. That was how poorly I’d misjudged her, my lovely Boonsri Angchuan. Perhaps she deserved it once, but no longer. Because the life and safety of that small, broken child was not worth fulfilling Boon’s life ambition. She’d leathered her iron. She had surrendered death to preserve life.

Another day, I thought to myself. She’s waited this long. We’ll just have to wait a little longer.

“Good girl,” Stanley said.

“Let go of her now,” Boon said. “Let her go and we leave you be.”

A low, throaty chuckle worked its way out of the Englishman’s mouth at that. He shook his head and said, “No, you won’t. You think I don’t know what you’ve been about all these years? Asking after me in town after town, shooting any man who stands in your way? No, Boonsri. You will never leave me be. I’ve never been sorrier to have wet my cock than I am of the times I fucked your mother. My son was no great loss, but you—Christ. I should have cut you from her belly rather than allow you to be born.”

“Stanley, God damn you,” she said, but anything more was drowned out by the roar of the shot when he squeezed the trigger.

The shaft lit up with a bright, white flash when the pistol fired, and in that tiny instant I watched as Meihui’s face contracted with fear, screwing up to shut away what was happening, and a dark jet burst from just above her left ear. The dank air filled with the cloying odor of gunpowder and the flash died as quickly as it came, and all the while Boon screamed until there was no air left in her lungs to scream anymore.

Somewhere between the shot and the end of Boon’s heart-wrenching scream, the lamp dropped to the hard rock at our feet and shattered. I was still blinking away the spots in my eyes from the muzzle flash when the oil spilled out and the flame filled its shape, an amorphous blob between Boon and Stanley. His gun was on her.

But Boon was faster.

She first shot him in the forearm, the bullet tearing through tendons and forcing him to lose his grip on the pistol. The look of absolute horror on his face, lit only from the guttering fire on the floor, was ghostly. If he had kept abreast of her movements over the years as he attested, he must have heard how fast she was. The rotten bastard was just too damned arrogant to believe she was fast enough.

But she was.

Her next shot slammed into his left hip. He roared with shock and pain, dancing absurdly to shift his weight to the right and spinning round until he collapsed in a heap to the ground.

I realized my hand was reaching for the rifle at my feet and let it hang. This had nothing to do with me and my help was not needed.

Stanley struggled to get back up. He growled when his hip shifted and cried out when he tried to brace himself with his right arm. Boon kept her .44 on him and watched, her eyes afire and jaw clenched tight. She looked every bit the demon from hell, come to reclaim one of its worst.

“You bitch,” he seethed. “You cunt.”

He found a way to drag himself forward with his elbow and good hand, careful to keep his weight on his right side. He bared his golden teeth like a feral creature. The blood soaking through his shirtsleeve and trousers shone wetly in the firelight. Inch by inch he slithered closer to the gun he’d dropped.

Boon said, “I’m the worst bitch you ever met, and you’ll never meet another.”

She aimed carefully and squeezed off another shot, this time striking his right knee. I thought I heard a pop when the bullet lodged itself there. Stanley shrieked pitifully and dropped flat on his belly, weeping with pain and anger.

“Just do it, you heartless witch,” he said. “Get it fucking over with.”

Next she pointed the Colt somewhere at his midsection, but the hammer fell on an empty chamber. Almost dispassionately, she opened up the cylinder, saw that she was out of balls, and reholstered the gun. Without a word I squatted to pick up the repeater to hand it off to her, but instead of taking it she swept down to draw the knife from my boot.

I whispered her name and she paused on her way back to Stanley, breathing so hard her back seemed to swell. The fire on the ground was beginning to die out. She looked at me over her shoulder and said, “Go now.”

I nodded and moved to where Meihui lay in the shadows, outside of the meager light. Boon reached out and grabbed my hand.

“No,” she said. “I’ll bring her out.”

“All right, Boon.”

“Go.”

“All right.”

She turned the hilt of my knife in her hand so that the blade gleamed. Stanley grunted and said, “Listen to me, Splettstoesser. This woman is crazy. She will kill you too and never think twice of it. Help me now and I will make it worth your while.”

I said, “Kiss my fat ass, Arthur Stanley.”

Boon lurched to him, grabbed a fistful of his hair and drove the blade into his shoulder. More pain, nothing fatal. She intended to take her time with him. Realizing this, Stanley screamed, his eyes glazed over with the tears that poured from them, and I listened to him go on screaming as I made my way back to the main shaft to find my way out.

Jesus, how he screamed.

Chapter Forty-Three

The campfire was still burning when I emerged from the mine and the first light of morning was starting to glow on the horizon. I’d already sat down by the fire before it dawned