The Killing Shot (12 page)

Ahead of him, Pardo had mounted the dun, and Gene and Iverson were climbing into their saddles. Reilly touched the spurs to the roan's sides and felt the powerful horse explode into a gallop. He was chasing the dust raised by Pardo, Iverson, and Peck when a bullet sliced his left rein.

Once he had rounded the corner, Reilly jerked on the one rein he still held, pulling the powerful roan to a stop. Instantly, he swung off the saddle, shoved the Smith & Wesson into his waistband, and drew the Evans from the scabbard. He let the rein fall to the ground, knowing, or, rather, hoping, that Jim Pardo had trained this horse not to run during a gun battle. A quick look down the darkened street revealed nothing. Pardo and the two men he, Reilly McGivern, had helped free, were long gone.

Levering a round into the chamber, he ejected a .44 shell—Pardo had kept a live round under the hammer—and caught it, sticking it into his vest pocket. He ducked underneath a hitching rail, stepped onto the boardwalk, and peered around the corner. The light from the saloon gave him plenty of targets as men wandered out of the doorway. A few drunkenly attempted to mount their horses.

Reilly took aim and cut loose with the Evans.

His first shot took off a man's bowler hat as he wheeled around a buckskin. The man dived into the water trough, and the horse galloped down the street. His second shot kicked up dust at the feet of another bay a man in a Mexican sombrero was trying to mount, sending the man rolling over and flattening horse apples, and the horse loping after the buckskin.

Shouts and curses erupted from the crowd. The man emerged from the water trough, clawing for a revolver, and falling to the other side. Reilly drilled the trough with a .44 slug.

Off to Reilly's left, someone turned up a lantern in a second-story room and opened a window. Reilly spun, aimed, and broke a pane of glass, heard a curse. After that, he turned back toward the saloon. A bullet thudded into the wood frame near his head, but, unfazed, Reilly pulled the trigger. He saw the Yavapai cocking a Winchester, silhouetted in front of the door. Reilly's bullet clipped the doorway behind him. His next shot carved a furrow across the warped plank at the Indian's feet. His third chased the Indian as he dived through the batwing doors. His fourth, fifth, and sixth shots punched holes in the swinging doors.

His eyes burned from the gunshots. A shout came behind him, and Reilly turned and sent two rounds after a man waving, of all things, a broom. The man took off running down an alley. He left the broom in the street.

The stink of sulfur filled the air. Reilly dropped to a knee.

The roan horse stood patiently waiting.

Reilly jacked another round into the Evans and kept firing, shattering the saloon's window, throwing up dust at the throwing feet of the tethered horses, and slamming into ends of the hitching rails. A couple of shots came flying, but by now the drunks were leaping through the busted glass or diving to the ground. Two managed to crawl underneath the saloon's doors. One of those, the man who had taken a bath in the water trough, left a trail of water behind him.

Horses screamed. Reilly kept firing.

He thought of Ruby Pardo. The woman sure knew how to fix a rifle. He'd give her that much. The Evans had never fired truer, and this time, it didn't jam.

The string of horses to his left pulled the hitching rail off its posts, and the horses thundered away from Reilly's gunshots. Another horse, a big dun, jerked free, rearing, and somersaulted in the dust, gathered its feet, stumbled, regained its feet, and took off.

“Hey!”

Reilly spun around, jacked another round into the Evans, fired from his hips at a man on the other side of the street. The man managed one shot, which busted a pane of glass to Reilly's left; then he dived inside a door. Reilly took careful aim and fired two more rounds into the café.

Lights began appearing in various windows. Somewhere, a bell tolled.

He looked back at the saloon. All of the horses had scattered. A few men chanced potshots, without really aiming, and Reilly figured he had bought enough time. He fired twice more at the saloon, once at the second-story window, and a final shot in the open doorway, then grabbed the reins—the one the bullet had clipped had shortened it only four inches, could have taken off some of Reilly's fingers—leaped into the saddle, pounding the roan's flanks with the hot rifle barrel, and galloped down the street.

 

He rode east out of town, following the road, hoping he was following Jim Pardo. A couple of miles out of town, he saw the faint glow of a cigarette and slowed the roan to a trot, reining up when he spotted Pardo, sitting in the saddle, grinning, a Colt in his hand.

“Sounded like a war back there,” he said as Reilly reined in. Swede Iverson and Gene Peck sat nervously behind Pardo, eager to run.

“Thanks for your help,” Reilly said sarcastically. He realized he still held the Evans, and now took time to shove it into the scabbard.

Pardo took a final drag on his smoke and flicked the cigarette into the darkness. “I never got the habit of risking my neck, Mac.”

“At least you waited for me,” Reilly said.

“'Cause I've taken a liking to you.”

“We'd best raise dust,” Reilly said. “I ran off their horses, but they'll have a posse on our trail
muy pronto.
” He glanced skyward. “And that moon'll rise in an hour or so. Be light as day out here.”

With a nod, Pardo holstered his Colt, and gestured at Peck and Iverson. “Let's
vamanos
,” he said, and raked the sides of the blood bay he had stolen with his spurs.

 

They galloped on east for two or three more miles, then turned south, not stopping, barely slowing, until they reached Smith's Mill on the eastern banks of the Hassayampa, where they traded in their winded mounts for fresh horses, all brown, almost a matched set. There Reilly reloaded the Evans, finding he had only five rounds left, plus the one bullet he'd stuck in his vest pocket. He started to fetch that round, but something inside told him to save it, so he did. The Scotsman at the mill didn't bother asking for bills of sale for the horses he was getting, and didn't offer any for the ones he was trading, but he did warn them: “Best take it easy with
these
horses. Nearest settlement's Phoenix.”

An hour south, they picked their way east into the rocky hills, letting the full moon light their saguaro-and boulder-lined path. Peck and Iverson rode point, and Reilly rode alongside Pardo.

Exhausted, Reilly had almost let the clopping of hoofs on the hard stones lull him into sleep, when Pardo's voice suddenly jerked him awake.

“I heard a good story at Miguel's Saloon,” Pardo was saying.

After he stifled a yawn, and rubbed his eyes, Reilly asked, “What was it?”

“The town law, McCutcheon…I forgets his first name.”

“Thaddeus,” Reilly said.

Pardo turned and stared. “You got a good memory, Mac.”

Reilly shrugged.

Pardo looked ahead. “Anyway, Marshal Thaddeus McCutcheon says a lot of folks in Wickenburg say the Hassayampa flows backward. That's cause it's underground.” He snorted. “If it ain't just dry.”

“That's a fine story,” Reilly said.

“No, Mac. That ain't all of it. Because the river flows backward, them Wickenburg folks say that if you drink from it, you'll never tell the truth again.” He cackled, and slapped his thigh.

“Reckon you've partook of water from the Hassayampa,” Reilly said.

“Now, Mac,” Pardo said, “that ain't very polite of you.” He laughed again, though, and pushed back his hat. “Can't wait to tell Ma that one. She'll love it.”

Reilly felt a wry smile cut across his face. “I need to thank your mother, too, for fixing—” He stopped himself. He had almost said
my
Evans. “Fixing your rifle. That Evans is a good-shooting weapon.”

“Well, why don't you draw it, and put a round between that gent's shoulder blades?” Pardo jutted his jaw in the general direction of the gambler-turned-stagecoach bandit, Gene Peck.

A knot formed deep in Reilly's gut. His throat felt dry.

“I'm not in the habit of shooting a man in the back,” he said.

“Call his name,” Pardo said, “and when he turns around, you can shoot him in his head.” He tapped a finger above his nose. “Right about there.”

“I don't think so, Jim.”

“Why not?”

Reilly shrugged. “You could have left him back chained to that mesquite tree.”

“Yeah, but he might have sang out. Not that it mattered, not how things turned out. But he might have been irked at us, what with him getting left behind on two jailbreaks.” He shook his head, and pointed again at Peck. “I don't think I have no need of that fellow. Kill him.”

“No.” Firmly.

Pardo turned again, studying Reilly. “You're soft, Mac. And me, being so kindhearted, letting you carry that fast-shooting Evans, and them two other guns you taken off them Wickenburg laws.”

“We might have need of those guns,” Reilly said.

Pardo snorted and shook his head. “I don't think that posse is gonna catch up with us. Ain't heard a sound behind us since we left town.”

“They spoke highly of that Yavapai tracker,” Reilly informed him.

Another snort. “Injun.”

“Indians make good trackers,” Reilly said casually. “The way they talk in Wickenburg, he might be able to trail us all the way back to the Dragoons.”

“Yeah.” Pardo sounded irritated. “Maybe I should have rode back when you held off them boys. Maybe I could have put a bullet in that injun's head.” He tapped his forehead again. “Right there.”

Silence. They crested a hill, picked their way down a rocky slope. Somewhere to the north, coyotes sang out their melodious yips.

“I miss Ma,” Pardo said softly after a while. “Worried about her.”

“She's tough,” Reilly said. “She can take care of herself.”

Pardo, however, was shaking his head. “She said something before we left, Mac. I said something about me having to kill Wade Chaucer, eventually, and she said, ‘Not if I kill him first.'”

Reilly shot Pardo a quizzical look. “You planning on killing Chaucer?”

He answered first with a shrug, then looked over at Reilly. “I'll have to, one of these days. Or Chaucer'll kill me, though that ain't likely. Now Wade Chaucer, he wouldn't have no…um…no…revulsion…” He nodded with satisfaction at the word he had chosen. “No, sir, he wouldn't have no revulsion at the thought of shooting that Peck fellow in his back. Why, if I'd turn my back on Chaucer long enough…” He grinned, but his face saddened.

“Ma's all I got,” he said after they had ridden another thirty yards. He wet his lips, sniffled, and his whole body suddenly trembled.

“You all right, Jim?” Reilly asked.

Nothing for another twenty yards; then Pardo's head bobbed slightly. “Just worried. You see, I made Ma promise that she'd stay clear of Chaucer. She done it. Swore she wouldn't try nothing.”

“Then there's no need to worry,” Reilly assured him.

Pardo chuckled. “Well, maybe you're right, Mac, but, see, I know Ma. Knowed her all my life. Sure, she promised me, but, well, I reckon Ma has drunk her share of water from that backward-flowing Hassayampa River. That woman's a born liar.”

The levity died in his voice. “Ma's all I got,” he said again, his eyes narrowing into mere slits.

For the next hour, there was no sound except the creaking of leather, the jingling of spurs, the clopping of hoofs, until Gene Peck reined in and turned around.

“Where are we going?” Peck asked.

“You ain't going to Yuma,” Pardo said, and rode past the gambler. “Ain't that what you wanted?”

A short while later, they descended into a dry riverbed, and Pardo reined up, looking upstream, downstream, running a tongue across his lips. “This'll be it,” he muttered.

“What?” Reilly asked.

“The Agua Fria. There's a fork up this way, I think. They was talking about it back at Miguel's. This Mexican named Gonzales has a place just up this riverbed. Raises horses. Good horses. We can replace these nags and get us some real horseflesh that'll get us maybe to Florence, where we can steal some more that'll take us back to Ma and that Dagmar woman.”

Reilly stood in his stirrups, looking upstream. “That man raises horses…
here
?”

“Got himself an artesian well. A veritable oasis, I was told.” Pardo grinned, pleased with his vocabulary. He said it again. “Yes, sir, a veritable oasis. Let's ride.” Directing Peck to ride ahead, he kicked his horse into a walk alongside Swede Iverson's.

“Swede,” Pardo said, “I been meaning to have a bit of a parley with you.”

“All right.”

“I got a job I'm undertaking, one that would need a good dynamiter like you.”

“A bank?” Iverson asked.

Pardo shook his head. “Not exactly.” His smile faded quickly. “And it ain't no mine, and it ain't no railroad tracks, for you to kill people.” Suddenly, he reined up, and the Colt leaped into his hands.

“Mac,” he said, dropping his voice into a whisper. “Did you hear that?”

Reilly had pulled up short. He shook his head. Ahead of them rode Gene Peck. The sky was lightening to a dim gray in the east.

“Peck!” Pardo called out in an urgent whisper. “Peck!”

Gene Peck kept riding, turning at a bend in the riverbed.

Reilly heard it. “A horse,” he said, “whinnying.”

“Must be Gonzales's place,” Pardo said. “Well, looks like them boys at Miguel's hadn't drunk none from the Hassayampa. They musta been telling us the gospel truth.” He shot a glance eastward. “Be daylight directly.”

“I bet Señor Gonzales is already awake,” Reilly said.

“Then let's do us some horse-trading.” Pardo kicked his horse into a trot, with Reilly and Swede Iverson following a few rods behind. They rounded the bend, saw Gene Peck ahead of them, then saw the muzzle flashes as a dozen rifles opened up, cutting down Peck and the brown horse.