The Killing Shot (3 page)

“If I poured it out, you'd be in a fix.” W.W. grinned.

“Nope. But you'd be.”

The slim gunman laughed. “You got sand, Marshal, and savvy. Me and my brothers respect that, even in a law dog. Especially K.C.” He wiped his mouth, and tossed the canteen to his brother. “We'll regret killing you. Well, not really.”

L.J. Kraft drank little water before returning the canteen to his brother, who took another long pull. The iron bracelets sang a metallic tune as they scraped the iron bars when W.W. Kraft handed Reilly the water.

“Much obliged,” Kraft said. “How much farther was it you said before we hit Fort Bowie?”

“I didn't say.” Reilly made sure the canteen's cork was firm, then wrapped the rawhide sling around the saddle horn.

W.W. Kraft held up his hands and let the chain and cuffs rattle. “How about giving my wrists a break?”

“You heard me back in Charleston.”

“Yeah.
The iron stays on till
…you don't trust me, do you?”

The prison wagon lurched over brush and sand.

“The newspaper over in Tucson once wrote that Mrs. and Mr. Kraft couldn't spell, and that's how come us brothers got only letters for our names.” The dust storm had forced W.W. Kraft to keep quiet. Now, he was making up for it. “But they stand for something. W.W. stands for Wily, because I'm mighty smart. L.J. stands for Loco, because my big brother is slightly tetched in his noggin. You know what K.C. stands for, Marshal McGivern?”

Reilly tried to ignore him.

“Crafty. Best keep that in mind, pard.”

The Chiricahua Mountains looked closer, but not close enough. They'd keep climbing in altitude, cut through Apache Pass, and they'd be safe. Well, safer. They'd still have maybe 375 miles across Arizona Territory to Yuma. Reilly started questioning his plan. He didn't care much for what W.W. Kraft had to say, but he knew the outlaw was right about one thing. The middle brother, K.C., was crafty.

And cold-blooded.

“McGivern,” Chisum called from the wagon as he tugged on the reins and set the brake.

Reilly and Frank Denton stopped their horses. “I got to piss,” Chisum called, and leaped from the box, carrying his shotgun as he walked a few rods and began unbuttoning his trousers.

After pushing back his hat, Reilly looked up at Gus Henderson. The boy wasn't yet twenty-two years old, and his face was pale. Not from the heat, either, Reilly figured. Kid was nervous. Had been fretting since they'd left Charleston. Maybe that's how you acted when you were married.

“Still worried, Gus?” Reilly walked the horse closer to the wagon. He had to ask again before the boy heard.

“Huh?” Gus's Adam's apple bobbed.

Reilly wet his lips. He doubted himself again, muttered an oath underneath his breath.

“Reilly,” the kid said, tears welling in his eyes. “I…I…oh, God…”

That's when Reilly knew for certain, but it was too late, because the first bullet sang across the valley's desolate floor.

Screamed like some damned petticoat.
That's the kind of men I get these days
, Jim Pardo thought with disgust. Yet the shriek had snapped Pardo out of his inability to move, and now he watched as Harrah turned around, clawing for his Smith & Wesson. The small, bloodstained hand dropped from his shoulder, fell on the wooden wreck.

“Don't shoot!” Pardo yelled. He made a beeline for Harrah, the white arm, and the ruins of the passenger coach.

Harrah was still breathing heavily when Pardo reached him, the big-caliber .44 Russian at his side. The white hand gripped the cracked door frame, followed by another small hand, and a small head appeared. Blond hair, matted with blood, sweat. Next came the face, also small, also white, bloody, with brilliant green eyes.

“Hell,” Harrah said, and laughed a silly laugh. “It's just a little girl.”

“Just like you,” Pardo said. “Put that damned gun away.”

The girl's mouth moved.
Help
, she pleaded voicelessly.

“What is it?” asked Duke, standing near the inferno of the express car.

“A girl.” Harrah's voice giggled with nervous excitement. “Scared the hell out of me, she did.”

The Greek had ridden over, still mounted, cradling the heavy Sharps, watching. Wade Chaucer kept his distance, as well, those dead eyes taking in the scene.

“Help me,” the girl croaked.

Only Pardo moved. “Easy,” he said, like he was approaching a green bronc, holding out his hands, trying to smile. “Easy, girl.” He put his hands under her armpits. She grimaced. “I'm sorry,” Pardo said. He could feel heat from the flames sweeping across the coach. He pulled. The girl screamed. Her blouse caught on a splinter of wood, ripped. Next came duck trousers, and dirty brogans.
Pants?
Pardo wondered.
Pants on a girl?
He laid her on the ground at Harrah's boots, and her eyes fluttered open. She couldn't be older than twelve. Likely a whole lot younger, but Pardo didn't know much about kids.

She tried to rise, but Pardo, kneeling over her, pushed her down, as gently as he could. “Stay put,” he said.

“Bull!”

Pardo pulled back as if he had been struck by a diamondback, blinked away his amazement. She shoved his hand away, scrambled to her feet, grunting, gasping, and headed back to the burning wreckage. Pardo followed, angry, shocked by the kid's language, but she was fast. He barely caught her before she disappeared into the twisted metal and thickening smoke, had to pull the girl away, kicking, screaming, trying to claw his eyes out.

Somewhere, Wade Chaucer laughed.

“My mother!” the girl screamed when Pardo dropped her on the dirt again. “My mother's in there, you damned fool!”

Her yells stabbed at his heart. He wasn't aware he was moving until he heard Duke's shouts, warning him not to go, that he'd burn to death, but Pardo was already climbing into the scorching destruction. Coughing, gagging, blinded, he felt his way, cut his left hand on something, saw the red dress, the disheveled blond hair—just like the girl's—and tossed a stovepipe off her leg.

He felt a presence, tried to blink away the tears welling in his eyes. It was Phil. Good old Phil.

“Help me get her out of here,” Pardo said, choking on the smoke. He could feel hell at his back.

Pardo took the arms of the unconscious, maybe dead, woman. Phil gripped her feet. They moved, coughing; then Phil was staggering into the daylight. Someone came to help, and Pardo cleared the smoke, leaped off the coach.

His mother beamed as they carried the woman away from the burning mess.

“Plunder's gettin' better,” Duke said.

They laid her on the ground, and Pardo backed away, rubbing his eyes. His mother came to him. “You all right, Jim?”

He coughed again, slightly waved off her concern. “Be fine. Let me catch my breath.”

“That was a brave thing you done, son.”

“It was nothing, Ma.”

“Get me some water,” the girl demanded.

Harrah spit at the unconscious woman's head. “There,” he said.

Pardo took a step past his mother, watched the girl manage to stand and face Harrah. “My mother needs water,” she said, her voice cold, firm.

“You got balls, girl, but I ain't wasting precious water on no woman who'll be dead in ten minutes,” Harrah said.

Pardo saw the little Sharps in her waistband, saw her pull it, long before Harrah did, and grinned at the girl's spunk. It was a four-barreled .32 Triumph, and the kid jammed it into Harrah's crotch.

“You don't get some water, you'll not have any balls to speak of,” she told him, and thumbed back the tiny hammer.

The Greek laughed.

“What the hell's the matter with you people?” Pardo snapped. “That's a lady lying there, and she needs water.” He went to Harrah and the girl, jerked the .32 from her hand, and gave Harrah a savage shove. “Fetch a canteen. Phil, I reckon we'll need the buckboard after all.”

“We're takin' 'em with us, boss man?” Duke asked.

“Yes. Of course we are. Ain't that right, Ma?”

“Whatever you say, Jim.”

Chaucer shook his head. “This whole thing has been a bust.”

“You think so, Wade?” Pardo dropped to a knee, put the back of his left hand against the woman's cheek. If not for the blood, the busted nose, she'd probably be a fine-looking woman, and her breasts put Three-Fingers Lacy's to shame. He grinned. Lacy would be almighty pissed to have this woman tagging along with them. She might strangle the woman in her sleep.

Harrah handed him a canteen, and he wet down his bandana, put it on the woman's forehead. She stirred slightly, shivered, and went still again. Pardo bit his lip until he detected her chest rising and falling.

“I don't think it was a bust, Wade,” he said again, washing the blood off her pale face. “Not at all.”

“We didn't get that money,” Duke reminded him.

“And the Army ain't, neither. Blue-bellies can't spend ashes, and that's all that'll be left of that damned Yankee payroll.” He looked up at Harrah. “What'd you collect off the people inside?”

“Not much,” Harrah said timidly.

“What?” Pardo demanded.

“A couple of watches and a money belt. And a broach.”

“Too busy looting the dead to notice a kid and her ma, I reckon.”

“You told us to—” Harrah stopped himself.

“Give your plunder to Phil. Have him put it in the wagon. We'll split it up when we get back to the Dragoons. Like we always do.” He handed Harrah the canteen, checked the woman's ribs, her arms, her legs. “I don't think she broke anything except the nose and some ribs,” he told the girl. “And I can fix the nose.” He winked at the kid. “I'm right experienced with busted noses.”

The kid lifted her mother's head, and let Harrah give her a sip from the canteen. Most of it ran down her face and into the dust.

“She might be bleeding inside,” the girl said.

“Can't do nothing about that,” Pardo said, “except bury her when the time comes.”

Somewhere from the bowels of the wreckage, a scream suddenly sliced through the morning air. The whippersnapper of a girl went rigid, and Harrah dropped the canteen.

“Careful with that water, you damned fool,” Pardo barked.

Another scream. Then nothing but the roar of the inferno.

“Poor bastard,” Pardo muttered. He looked at the girl again. “What's your name, kid?”

She glared at him. “I don't have to tell you damned bushwhackers anything.”

He backhanded her and stuck a finger under her trembling lip. “And I can throw you and your ma back inside that coach, and you can burn like that poor, dumb, screaming bastard just did. I like grit, kid, but just a little of it for flavor. What's your name?”

Her lips still quavered. But she was too damned stubborn to cry. “Blanche,” she answered at last.

“How old are you?”

“Ten.”

Ten, and a mouth like that. He stared at the unconscious woman. That would make the woman thirty, perhaps younger. Didn't look much older, even with her face and body all beat to hell.

“And your ma? What's her name?”

“Dagmar.”

“Dagmar what?”

“Dagmar Wilhelm.”

“All right, Blanche Wilhelm, we're going—”

“I'm not Wilhelm. My name's Blanche Gottschalk.”

Pardo blinked.

“My father died,” the girl had to explain. “My mother remarried.”

“Gottschalk. Wilhelm. I don't know which name's ornerier on the tongue.”

“Gottschalk,” Chaucer said. “It means ‘God's servant.'”

“I wouldn't know nothing about that,” the kid said, which got a laugh out of Chaucer.

“Where were you bound?” Pardo asked.

“Tucson,” she said.

“That where your pa, your new pa, lives?” Pardo asked. He was thinking that a husband might pay a handsome reward for a woman like this, maybe a few bucks for the spitfire of a stepdaughter, too. It was something, he figured. Something to keep a lid on the tempers of the boys, because, no matter what he could claim about burning Army money, Chaucer had been right. This damned robbery was a bust.

“Sigmund Wilhelm,” the girl said, “was probably that poor, dumb, screaming bastard we just heard.” She turned away, dropped her head, and whispered, “He was a poor, dumb bastard, too.”

“That ain't right, girl,” Pardo roared, his finger back in Blanche's face. “You don't speak like that of your pa, stepfather, no kin. You don't speak of them like that.” But he was thinking:
My pa was the same, kid. Just a poor, dumb bastard.

 

He rode in the wagon with Ma, the kid, and the woman. Wouldn't trust any of his men with such a fine-looking lady. He also rode with the watches—one with the glass busted, no longer running, but the gold would bring enough for a whiskey—broach, money belt, and other items Harrah hadn't bothered to mention, their loot for their first, and last, train robbery. Pardo decided he'd stick to other ventures such as stagecoaches, banks, and the like.

They had left the burning wreckage, camped that night in an arroyo, and crossed Alkali Flat the following morning. Most of the boys wanted to stop at Dos Cabezas, but Pardo and his mother knew better than that. Yankees weren't fools. Nor were the Southern Pacific brass and Cochise County's law. Probably, a posse was already raising dust from the bend in the tracks, moving south, heading for Bloody Jim Pardo and his gang.

He bathed the woman's face again with a wet bandana. Her eyes fluttered, opened, and darted from Pardo to the sky, to quiet little Blanche, who firmly held her mother's hand. The woman might live after all, Pardo thought. Thanks to his doctoring. He'd even set her busted nose. Swollen, purple, but it would look almost normal in a week or two. So would Dagmar Wilhelm.

“Ma'am,” Pardo said, but the kid's voice drowned him out.

“Mama!”

Dagmar Wilhelm wet her lips, tested her voice, forced a smile. Then her face changed. “Where's…” Barely audible. “Sigmund?”

Blanche didn't answer. The woman's eyes locked on Pardo.

“She's awake, Ma,” Pardo said happily. He couldn't look away from the woman. Green eyes. Just like her kid.

“That's fine, Jim.” Ma showed no interest in the woman, but she had never liked any woman, especially not Three-Fingers Lacy. “Just fine.”

“What happened?” Dagmar tried again.

The kid cleared her throat. “These bastards derailed the train. Killed every—” She stopped herself.

Pardo smiled. “James B. Pardo, ma'am. At your service.” He tipped his hat. “I pulled you out of the pits of perdition, Miss Dagmar. Saved your girl's hide, too.”

Her eyes squinted. “Par-do?”

“Call me, Jim, ma'am. I'd be honored.”

He put his hand on her shoulder, felt her entire body tense. Closing her eyes, she mouthed the words:
Bloody…Jim…Pardo…

With a sigh, Pardo shot Blanche an angry look, then felt the buckboard stopping. He turned toward the driver's box, saw his mother setting the brake, reaching for her Winchester. The boys had reined in their mounts, too, atop a ridge.

As Pardo rose, drawing his Colt in the same motion, he saw the turkey vultures circling overhead, and the black wagon and dead horses, mules, and men down below.