Coyote: The Outlander (with FREE second screen experience)
Read Coyote: The Outlander (with FREE second screen experience) Online
Authors: Chantal Noordeloos
Tags: #QuarkXPress, #ebook, #epub
© 2014, Chantal Noordeloos published by
Tip My Hat publishing
ISBN: 978-94-91864-03-2
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author or publisher
Cover Art by Paul Chapman
Interior Design and e-conversion by Lori Michelle
TO DAAN,
WHO NEVER STOPPED BELIEVING IN ME.
TITLES BY CHANTAL NOORDELOOS
Coming in 2015
Coyote: The Rip Walker
Even Hell Has Standards: Wrath
Coyote series
Coyote: The Outlander
Coyote: The Clockwork Dragonfly
Lucifer Falls series
Angel Manor
Even Hell Has Standards series
Pride
Short story collections
Deeply Twisted
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABOUT THE SECOND SCREEN
Reading itself is a favorite pastime, but with ‘Coyote: The Outlander’ we wanted to add a little extra by offering you a free second screen experience. Within the book you’ll find four icons of a safe. Each of these will come with the secret code for
that
part of the book. Simply go to the website
www.coyotethebooks.com
and unlock the corresponding safe.
You will find FREE content, such as extra storylines, background music, selected for
that
part of the story. We advise you not to read ahead of the story, because the extra content may contain spoilers.
You do not have to read the stories while reading the book, but we urge you, if you do, not to read them
before
you have reached the safe that unlocks them, as they may contain spoilers.
You can also subscribe to our newsletter, which will enable us to keep you up to date about new releases. We intent to update the second screen regularly and offer extra freebies, so feel free to visit and don’t be a stranger!
The Tip My Hat team, Publishers of Coyote: The Outlander
PROLOGUE
You can go to
http://www.coyotethebooks.com
and visit the village to unlock this safe. It’s
not
necessary to read the short stories at this point, as they’re not crucial to the plot. Please don’t read the stories
before
you’ve read up to the safes, since they may contain spoilers. The code is: 230207
Gotcha, chuckle-head. Let’s see you get out of this one.
Thomas Norton squinted at the wooden hardware store in an attempt to see through the dusty glass windows. He spat sour-tasting phlegm onto the ground next to him; his bounty was in there, tearing the place up. Thomas checked the bullets in his gun, making sure the chambers were filled. He wouldn’t get caught without bullets facing this guy. His eyes flashed toward his metal servant, who stood near the door. He had bought the thing six months ago, and already it was proving a better companion than any of the sidekicks who’d accompanied him so far. The thing didn’t eat, only needing some oil and the occasional winding. Best if all, it never complained that it didn’t get a big enough cut of his earnings.
Most criminals feared the metal servant. Its cold, blank stare was intimidating, and on top of it all, the servant was nearly impossible to destroy. Perhaps some really well-aimed shots could do the trick, but no one had ever managed to bring the heavy man-shaped machine down.
Buying that thing was the best idea I ever had,
he thought with a hint of smug satisfaction.
An eerie silence lingered on the square. Onlookers peered from behind windows and from porches. Thomas stood a bit taller, squaring his shoulders; he liked having an audience. Hopefully, there would be a beautiful girl watching him. That would guarantee him a good evening. Women liked bounty hunters, Thomas knew. He guessed there was something rough and heroic about them, and that made the ladies a little flustered.
He glanced around to make sure everyone was at a safe distance and most of the locals were watching him from afar. Most . . . not all. To his annoyance, Thomas spotted a short, black man, who he almost mistook for an older child—though he didn’t look like a dwarf, judging by his proportions—with a tall woman standing right behind him. Too close for comfort.
Very pretty,
Thomas judged, taking in the woman’s heart-shaped face and doll-like features.
Shame she dresses like a man
. His eyes shifted from her dark blue jeans up to the black bowler hat. Two long, blond braids spilled across her shoulders and back, reaching all the way to her calves.
She wasn’t a local, he could tell that much, and he decided she was probably the black man’s sidekick. On occasion, a woman would make an attempt at being a bounty hunter. It was a rare occurrence, but he had met a few. There was the occasional man who liked working with a woman, someone to keep the bed warm, not to mention being deceptively useful when tracking down a bounty. Thomas had considered getting himself a female sidekick too, though he wouldn’t allow her to wear trousers. Women should never wear trousers; it simply wasn’t becoming.
He wouldn’t mind some company next to the metal servant, and a woman wouldn’t ask for much money. Perhaps, after he was done capturing his bounty, he could talk to this pretty blonde, see if she would be interested in changing partners.
He glared at the short, black man, wondering if they really were working together. They looked like such an unlikely pair. Thomas scanned to crowd to see if he could spot a third person, a leader, who would complete this odd duo.
“You might want to step aside,” the woman said. Her voice had an English lilt to it. Her words surprised him, and Thomas turned to her with a mixture of disbelief and irritation.
“Excuse me?” He pulled up the rim of his Stetson and stared straight into her cornflower blue eyes.
The woman stuck out her hip and hooked her thumbs in the loops of her jeans. He cocked his head, his eyebrows raised. She was an odd girl, that was for sure. Thomas guessed her to be in her early twenties. The black derby, and a very fine layer of white sand and dust coating her long, brown coat, indicated that she had been travelling for quite some time. She squinted at him with a confidence that made him a little uncomfortable.
“I said . . . ” her words were slow and deliberate as if she were talking to a backward child, “you might want to step aside.” A crooked smile played on her lips.
“Why would I want to do that?” He sneered at her, vexation threatening to get the better of him. Though he enjoyed talking to a pretty woman, this was neither the time nor the place. Thomas didn’t like the way this woman was talking to him, especially not in that insolent tone of hers.
“Because you’re standing in between me and my bounty.” The woman wrinkled her nose, and her casual body language infuriated him.
“
Your
bounty?” Spittle flew from his dry lips when he spoke to her. “This is
my
bounty, so you better git, Girly. This is no place for a woman to be. Let a man do his job.” He jerked his head at her, an indication that she should go. The woman didn’t budge. Instead, she glanced at his gun.
“You don’t intend to shoot it with that, do you?” She pointed at the weapon, cringing.
“I
do
intend to shoot it with this, and if you don’t scram, I might shoot you too.” He waved the gun in her direction and she actually laughed at him.
“If you’re sure you want to do this . . . ” She shrugged her shoulders and walked toward a stack of barrels that stood twenty feet away. The dark man followed suit, his movements surprisingly graceful. They each sat down on a barrel. The woman pulled her derby away from her eyes, crossed her arms, and leaned back as if she were enjoying a show.
“Go on,” she said in her English accent. “Shoot him.” Then she turned to her partner and nudged him with her elbow. “This should be interesting, Caesar.” The short man nodded, but his face betrayed no emotion. He looked as if he were deep in thought.
Thomas shook his head, his forehead furrowed.
That blonde bitch is getting on my nerves.Who is she anyway? Just some silly woman.
He turned to the metal servant. “Go in. Lure the bounty out.” He tried to give his voice a commanding tone, but the words came out strangled.
Damn her!
The metal servant came to life with slow jerky movements, and it made its way into the general store. There was a long moment of silence, and Thomas held his breath. He wondered if the onlookers were doing the same.
The longest two minutes of his life passed, and then the door burst open. The man who stepped outside—his bounty—was a lot bigger than his wanted poster had suggested. A lot uglier too. In his large hands, he held the metal servant, or at least what was left of it. He had somehow snapped the iron servant in two, and now waved the parts around over his head before throwing them to the ground, where the remains whirred and twitched like a grotesque corpse. Thomas stared up dumbfounded at his target, trying to take in the entirety of the man, from the large square shoulders that swallowed any hint of his neck to the unnaturally square head that sat between them. The man had a fat lower lip that hung loosely on his chin, giving Thomas a glimpse of the long bottom teeth that reached all the way across his top lip. His nose was broad, and so flat that it almost disappeared into the strong cheeks. Round, beady eyes, placed too close together, glanced at the world from underneath a heavy unibrow. The man sniffed, his nostrils quivering black holes. The body language reminded Thomas of an angry bull, and the bounty hunter felt his confidence wavering.