Longarm and the Colorado gundown

_{Two men. Two shotguns.}

_{More noise.}

_{Behind? No, overhead.}

_{Wood. Splintering wood. Collapsing. Damn!}

_{The comer post of the woodshed had been lashed and shattered by the two shotgun blasts. Longarm heard the post crack and give way under the weight of the roof it supported.}

_{He tried to gather himself. Wanted to spring to the side one more time.}

_{Too late.}

_{The roof came crashing down. He had time to raise his arms. Then poles and dry sod slammed onto him. Buried him. Knocked him flat beneath hundreds of pounds of roofing material.}

_{Dust filled his nostrils, and he could hardly breathe.}

_{The Colt was gone, swept out of his hand by the tremendous weight of the falling roof.}

_{He could barely draw breath, and damn sure couldn’t move.}

_{He felt stunned. His senses were overloaded. The smell of sunbaked dirt was thick inside his nose, and the taste of it was in his mouth. His head spun from an impact that hadn’t registered when he received it, but which he could feel now throbbing at the back of his skull. Hard sapling poles and heavy, broken sod crushed down atop him. His stomach churned sourly and he thought he might throw up.}

_{Even so, he was struggling already to free himself from the fallen roof that could easily become a tomb. Without conscious thought he pulled and twisted and tried to scramble free of the weight.}

_{He could hear. He could still hear. He could hear a footstep. And then another. A whisper. An anguished cry.}

_{“You son of a bitch. You’ve killed him.” There was pain in the sound of the voice. The pain of deep emotion. “He’s dead, damn you. Dead.”}

_{If the guy who was speaking was who Longarm thought he was, and if this guy was saying what Longarm thought he was ... well, good. Longarm only wished he’d gotten the both of them.}

_{He felt on the ground for the Colt. Wherever it was, buried in the rubble or simply lost somewhere close by, he couldn’t find it in the dark. He gave up and tried to work his hand back to his chest. He still had the derringer in his vest pocket.}

_{He heard footsteps again. Movement. The sound of wood being thrown or kicked aside.}

_{“Damn you, you son of a bitch.” From the sound of the voice the live one was crying over the dead one. His voice was cracked and shaking. “Damn you to hell.”}

_{Longarm tried to reach the derringer. His arm came up short, held back by a section of wooden pole that was somehow wedged between Longarm’s chest and his right arm. He jerked and pulled and twisted, but couldn’t reach the damn derringer.}