HENTY'S FIST 1: GAUNTLET RUN by Andre Jute, Dakota Franklin, Andrew McCoy

36 HENTY'S FIST 1: GAUNTLET RUN by Andre Jute, Dakota Franklin, Andrew McCoy

HENTY'S FIST 1: GAUNTLET RUN: birth of a superhero by Andre Jute, Dakota Franklin and Andrew McCoy. 60,000 words in 76 chapters.

CHAPTER 36

 Suddenly Henty threw both arms in the air and sank under the water.

The bounty hunter grimaced but didn’t take the rifle from his shoulder. Sooner or later she would run out of air and when she came up she'd present a nice stationary head shot. He even smiled to himself in keen anticipation. He enjoyed his work.

Henty’s lungs were bursting. She went to the surface as quickly as she could. She burst out of the water, gasping for breath. It was going to be many seconds before there was enough air in her lungs to go under again.

Through the haze over her eyes she saw the bounty hunter draw another bead on her and squeeze the trigger with obscene care. She was still gasping. If she went under now, she would drown. It was no choice at all.

“Goodbye Petey,” Henty said, for she fancied she saw him lying on his hospital bed on the bank of the river.

Just as he squeezed the last minute fraction of an inch on the hair-trigger uptake of the professional bounty hunter’s rifle, the red-faced freelance killer staggered backwards as he was hit a tremendous blow in the chest; he was lifted clear off his feet and flung into the river while the rifle went flying the other way.

Henty heard the bullet buzzing by like an angry hornet and ducked — too late, of course. When she came up, spluttering, she nearly went under again from the fright the smack! of the rope on the water gave her but stopped herself just in time. Anything was preferable to drowning. She clung on while she was hauled in.

“Now maybe you’ll recognize who your true friends are.”

Henty looked up from the toes of his green lizard skin shoes into the face of the man from the Syndicate, Jimmy Twoshoes. In his hand dangled the rifle with which he had zapped the bounty hunter.

“With friends like you, I need no enemies,” she said as her eye fell on Petey, lying in a clear plastic life-support system twenty paces away.

She came groggily to her feet, shrugging off the gangster’s helping hand, and walked over. Petey was awake. With thumb and forefinger he made her a circle: he was okay. The surgeon who had operated on him stood nearby. Henty turned to him.

“They took me too,” he said. “They’re looking after Petey well. They’re also threatening to kill me if anything happens to him.”

“Yeah. I guessed. I’m sorry you got dragged in, Chris, but if a doctor had to be kidnapped to look after Petey—”

“—I'd rather it were me too.”

“Thanks.”

“Think nothing of it. Could you manage to let Linda know I’m all right?”

“First chance I get.”

“Okay,” Jimmy Twoshoes said decisively. “You've seen the boy and you've heard the doc’s report, now—”

“— now here’s what you’re trying to blackmail me into.”

“Doan innarupt da boss,” one of his henchmen told Henty, who ignored him.

“You know what we want. Just a little control of where you take your fall.”

“Nevada,” Henty said. “Okay, you let Petey go and you got a deal.”

“We’ll let him go when you've taken your fall. But not in Nevada. In San Francisco, in sight of the Mint.”

“Hell,” said Chris, the surgeon, “if you let her get that near and then zap her, people will take the whole country apart.”

“That’s Washington’s problem. I look out for my own.”

“You can’t fool all of the people all of the time, you know,” Chris persisted.

“You wanna bet on it?”

Defeated, Chris shook his head.

“I’m hungry,” Henty said and, spying a candy bar in the top pocket of one of Jimmy Twoshoes’ bullyboys, extracted it, peeled the wrapper and starter munching it.

“That’s stealing!” said Jimmy Twoshoes.

“Look who’s talking,” Henty retorted around a mouthful of candy.

“You can take one of the bounty hunters’ cars,” Jimmy Twoshoes told Henty. “They won’t be needing them again.”

Henty went up to the glass. “It’ll be okay,” she said to Petey, who again signaled thumbs up.

“Lissen, you wanna take more care,” Jimmy Twoshoes said at her elbow. “That bunch of amateurs in Penn nearly got you and it was stupid to stay on the train so long after everybody knew where to find you.”

“I wanted to have a chat with you,” Henty said.

He looked at her calculatingly but said nothing.

With a wave to Petey and the surgeon, Henty trotted away to where the bounty hunters had parked their transport.

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• MORE ABOUT THE AUTHORS AT: 

Andre Jute http://coolmainpress.com/andrejute.html  Andre’s latest book is VANGUARD ELITE Book 1 of COLD WAR, HOT PASSIONS http://www.amazon.com/DREAMS-COLD-WAR-PASSIONS-ebook/dp/B00A3BSJM2  Dakota Franklin http://coolmainpress.com/Dakota%20Franklin.html  Dakota’s latest book is NASCAR FIRST http://www.amazon.com/NASCAR-FIRST-RUTHLESS-WIN-ebook/dp/B00A72A556  Andrew McCoy http://coolmainpress.com/andrewmccoy.html  Andrew’s latest book is STIEG LARSSON Man, Myth & Mistress http://www.amazon.com/STIEG-LARSSON-Myth-Mistress-ebook/dp/B004GXAZAM

Copyright © 2012 André Jute, Dakota Franklin, Andrew McCoy. The authors have asserted their moral right. Published by CoolMain Press 2012 www.coolmainpress.com. Editor: Lisa Penington. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or performed by any means without the written permission of the publisher.