Cutthroats

by William W. Johnstone

“She’s in love with you.” Myra arched her brows, incredulous. “Even I could see it and I don’t even know her. You’re in love with her back. I can see that, too.”

  Slash wheeled away from her. “Like you said. You don’t know her . . . or me!”

  Myra shrugged. “Have it your way.” She paused, hesitated. “What . . . what’re you gonna do with me?”

  “It’s a fair question, Slash,” Pecos said, leaning against a pine at the camp’s far edge. “What are we gonna do with her?”

  Chewing, Slash said, “By rights we oughta shoot her.”

  “You might as well.” Myra’s voice trembled slightly. “If you don’t, Billy will. If he ever sees me again.”

  Slash narrowed a skeptical eye at her. “Is that really how it is?” He just couldn’t wrap himself around this new, black-hearted version of Billy Pinto.

  Myra gazed at him directly. “That’s really how it is.”

  Slash glanced at Pecos. He took another bite of hotcake, sipped his coffee, then set the cup down and rose to his feet, wincing against the hammer-wielding little man in his head. He walked over to where Myra was tied to the tree and shucked his bowie knife from the sheath on his right hip, behind the .44 holstered on that side.

  Myra looked up at him from beneath her brows, her wide eyes cast with fear.

  Slash crouched beside her and cut through the rope tying her to the tree.

  “What’re you doin’?” Pecos asked.

  “Yeah,” Myra said. “What’re you doing?”

  “What’s it look like?” Slash cut the girl’s hands free. “If Billy really is as evil as you claim, you got more to fear from him than you do us.” He pulled her to her feet, canted his head toward the horses. There were now four, including Jay’s steeldust, tied to the picket line. “Mount up. Light a shuck out of here.”

  The girl looked up at him uncertainly, rubbing her wrists.

  “Well, now, look at that,” Pecos said, smiling over the steaming rim of his cup. “The old cutthroat’s heart ain’t completely stone, after all.”

  Slash touched the point of his knife to the underside of the girl’s chin. “You’ll find out how hard my heart is if I ever see you again, little girl. Go on. Hightail it out of here, and stay out of trouble!”

  No sooner had that last word left Slash’s lips than he heard Jay yell, “Slash! Pecos!”

  The yell was followed by a gunshot. Jay called out again but this time it was more like an agonized grunt.

  Slash and Pecos both wheeled to stare off toward the stream. It was from that general direction the shot had come.

  “Jay!” Slash cried, breaking into an all-out run. “You see her?” he asked Pecos.

  “There!” Pecos said, pointing.

  As Slash ran past Pecos, he shucked a Colt .44 and stared off toward the stream. About twenty feet beyond the stream, he saw where Jay lay on the ground. He couldn’t see much of her but he thought he saw her moving, extending her Colt Navy straight out in front of her.

  Jay turned to yell back over her shoulder, red hair winking in the sunshine, “We got company, boys!”

  She swung her head forward again and fired up a low ridge beyond her, and which was probably a former stream bank before the tributary had changed course.

  “Hold up!” Pecos shouted. “I’m fetchin’ my rifle!”

  But Slash didn’t slow his pace until more gunfire erupted from the ridge above and beyond Jay. Smoke and flames jetted from a tangle of brush topping the ridge. One bullet screeched over Slash’s left shoulder while another curled the air off his right ear and thudded into a tree behind him.

  Slash threw himself to the ground and extended his Colt, triggering three rounds toward where the smoke was still billowing atop the ridge. The shooter fired again. Slash couldn’t see the shooter himself, only the smoke and flames from his rifle. The bullet plowed into the soft, spongy ground only a few inches in front of Slash, who scrambled to his feet and ran to a tree just ahead and on his right.

  The bushwhacker’s next bullet hammered the side of the pine just as Slash took cover behind it. Bits of bark sprayed out past Slash’s left shoulder.

  Slash edged a look around the left side of the tree. Jay lay on the other side of the stream from him, another twenty feet beyond the sliding water that flashed in the intensifying morning sunshine. The forest was thin enough over there that Slash could now see Jay clearly. She lay prone, legs spread, her copper hair fanned out across her shoulders. Her right hand and pistol were still thrust straight out ahead of her, but her head was down. She wasn’t moving.

  “Jay!” Slash yelled.

  No answer.

  “Jay!” Slash shouted, his heart pounding fiercely. “Jay, are you hit?”

  Running footsteps sounded behind Slash. He glanced behind to see Pecos running through the forest toward him, weaving around trees, holding his Colt revolving rifle nearly straight up and down in his gloved hands.

  The ridge-top bushwhacker fired toward Pecos.

  Slash cut loose on the shooter, emptying his right-hand Colt, the hammer pinging benignly down against the firing pin. Pecos ran up to a tree about fifteen feet to Slash’s left and dropped to a knee. He looked at Slash, red-faced, breathing hard.

  “Jay?” he asked.

  Slash shook his head. He edged a look around his covering pine and a cold stone dropped in his stomach when he saw Jay’s unmoving body, head tipped toward the ground.

  “She’s still alive!” the shooter called from the ridge. “But she ain’t gonna be for much longer unless you two show yourselves!”

  CHAPTER 31

  “That’s Goose Johnson,” Pecos said.

  “Yeah, I recognized his voice,” said Slash.

  He edged a look around the side of the tree and yelled up toward the ridge: “Easy, Goose. You shoot her again, I’ll kill you so slow you’ll think you’ve been dyin’ longer than you been alive!”

  “You talk tough, old man!”

  Slash gritted his teeth when he saw a rifle barrel angle out of a tangle of brush atop the ridge. The barrel angled down toward Jay.

  Flames lapped from the barrel.

  The bullet blew up dirt and dead leaves maybe eight inches to the right of Jay’s head.

  “Goose, dammit!” Pecos bellowed.

  “Get over here!” Johnson yelled. “Show yourselves!”

  Slash glanced at Pecos.

  Pecos shook his head. “He’ll just shoot us and then he’ll kill Jay.”

  “I know.” Slash was reloading his Colt, quickly plucking out the spent shells and replacing them with fresh ones from his cartridge belt. As he flicked his Colt’s loading gate closed and spun the cylinder, he said, “Cover me!”

  “Forget it,” Pecos said. “It’s too much ground to cover. He’ll drill you!”

  “It’s the only way.”

  Pecos cursed in frustration, then raised his rifle, extending it out around the side of his covering tree. “Go with God, you copper-riveted fool!”

  Slash unholstered his second Colt, clicked the hammer back, and bolted out from behind the fir, running hard. “Cover me,” he raked out at Pecos. “But don’t shoot me, ya peckerwood!”

  “You’re name-callin’ again!”

  Pecos opened up with the revolving rifle. As he did, Slash triggered his right-hand Colt, then his left, aiming at the thicket atop the ridge. He leaped up onto the beaver dam and moved forward across the intricately woven branches, looking down at his feet, careful to avoid tripping over up-thrust sticks, looking up every few seconds to trigger another shot at the ridge.

  He and Pecos needed to keep Johnson pinned down so he couldn’t shoot Jay.

  Pecos continued to trigger his rifle as Slash leaped off the dam and bounded up the opposite bank, running hard as he climbed the grassy incline toward the ridge. He ran a weaving course, shooting every three or four steps, dodging behind trees.

  “You’re not gonna make it!” Johnson howled atop the ridge, laughing as his rifle thu
ndered, flames and smoke jetting toward Slash.

  The bullet plunked into the ground just right of Slash’s right boot.

  Slash cursed and glanced up at the ridge, where Pecos’s bullets were ripping leaves and branches from the thicket covering Johnson, keeping the bushwhacker pinned down for the most part. At least, Johnson was having a hard time drawing a bead on Jay, and that was good enough for Slash at the moment.

  But in another moment, Slash and Pecos were going to run out of lead, and Johnson would have an opening.

  Slash glanced at Jay. She lay as before, prone against the ground, about twenty feet ahead and on his left.

  He needed to shoot the jackass atop the ridge.

  Slash dropped to a knee. He hadn’t been counting his shots, but he knew instinctively that he had one bullet left in his right Colt, two remaining in the second Colt. He aimed carefully, waited until he saw Johnson’s rifle barrel show amongst the foliage once more, and then aimed just above it.

  He triggered the right Colt.

  He whipped up the left Colt and triggered two more shots before, as he’d expected, the hammer dropped with a ping instead of a roar. That was all right. A muffled yelp and a rustling of the brush told him he’d hit his mark. At the very least, he’d probably winged Johnson.

  Slash holstered both Colts, sprang to his feet, and ran up and over to where Jay lay against the ground. He placed a hand on her back.

  “Jay!”

  She groaned. He rolled her onto her back, and she stretched her lips away from her teeth in a grimace.

  “Ohh,” she said, and groaned again, eyelids fluttering.

  Another cold stone dropped in Slash’s belly when he saw the blood oozing out a ragged hole in her shirt about six inches down from her right shoulder.

  “Oh, Jay.”

  He glanced into the brush atop the knoll. He could hear the brush rustling up that way. Johnson was moving.

  Quickly, Slash slid his hands beneath Jay’s body. “Gotta get you to cover, lady.”

  He rose from his knees, lifting Jay as he did, and ran over to a broad pine. He eased Jay down behind it, resting her back against the tree and tucking her legs up close to her body so she wasn’t exposed to another possible rifle shot.

  “I’ll be right back, honey,” he said.

  Glancing behind, he saw Pecos now jogging up behind him from the river, reloading his rifle. Slash wanted to reload his Colts, too, but there was no time. Johnson might be composing himself, preparing to start hurling lead down from the top of that ridge.

  Slash lunged forward, sprinting as fast as his middle-aged legs could take him, leaping over deadfalls and blown down branches, his breath raking in and out of his lungs. He shucked his bowie knife as he reached the ridge’s base. Grinding his boots into the side of the knoll covered with a thin layer of soil peppered with gravel, dead leaves, and pine needles, he grunted as he heaved himself straight up the rise.

  His knees ached, his lungs strained, his heart was a sledge hammering his breastbone.

  Too much whiskey, too damn many cigarettes . . .

  He stared at the moving brush just above him now. Reaching the crest of the rise, he plunged into the thicket, holding the knife, blade forward, in his right hand. Johnson was just then heaving himself up off his knees, raising his rifle.

  Slash swung the knife up underhanded. He kept the blade so sharp that there was little resistance when the knife perforated Johnson’s belly. It was almost as though the knife wasn’t even in Slash’s hand but that he was merely punching the man in the gut with his bare, empty fist.

  Until the hot blood flowed over Slash’s hand.

  “Ohhh!” Goose Johnson croaked.

  He was a lean little dimwit with a long, crooked nose and dull brown eyes. Those eyes snapped wide now as he triggered his rifle into the ground to the right of his and Slash’s feet, and he stared at Slash, his face only six inches away from his killer’s.

  He opened his mouth but only gurgling sounds issued.

  “Well, hello, Goose,” Slash said, glaring at the startled man slumped toward him, driving the blade up . . . “Fancy meetin’ you out here!”

  “Sl-Slash,” Johnson gasped.

  “What’s the next job, Goose?” Slash said, so close to Johnson that the stench of the man’s unwashed body was heavy in his nose.

  “Slash—”

  “The next job?”

  “T-Tra-Train!” Johnson gasped.

  “Where?”

  “S-Si-Silverton! Dur . . . Dur-ang-go. Gold!”

  “Thank you, Goose,” Slash snarled.

  Johnson gained a thoughtful, perplexed expression. “Billy . . . Billy was . . . just . . . more fun . . . than you an’ Pecos, Slash. . . .” He’d said the words almost sadly, as though he were imparting regrettable news.

  “Well, I’m glad you had a good time now at the end,” Slash said again, quietly, tightly through gritted teeth. “But it was them good times that just got you killed by me, you cow-brained fool. Good night, Goose!”

  Slash delivered the final death blow.

  Johnson grunted once more, then stumbled backward, his body sliding off the knife as he fell away down the opposite side of the rise, rolling in the thick brush. Slash gave his knife a cursory cleaning in grass and tangled green branches, then sheathed the bowie and ran back down the front of the rise. As he gained the bottom and began running toward Jay, he saw Pecos on one knee beside her.

  Pecos’s head was down as though in prayer, one hand on Jay’s shoulder. At least, Slash thought his partner’s hand was on her shoulder. He couldn’t see Jay clearly because of the pine he’d set her down behind.

  Slash stopped. He didn’t realize he’d stopped, but then suddenly he wasn’t running. His knees burned, weakened. His heart banged against his ribs.

  He also didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until Pecos glanced over his shoulder at him and said, “She’s conscious. I think she’s gonna be all right, but we gotta get her to a sawbones pronto!”

  Slash heard Jay say something to Pecos, and then Slash released that breath he’d been holding and, relief washing over him, he ran over and dropped to a knee beside Jay and Pecos. Jay grimaced as she looked at Slash, holding her own neckerchief against the wound.

  “Did you get that slimy devil?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Good. He potshot me, the coward!”

  “How bad you hit?” Slash asked.

  “Not bad at all . . . I don’t think.” She winced sharply.

  Pecos looked at Slash. “Bullet’s still in her. We gotta get her to a doc.”

  “We’ll take her to Silverton.” Slash moved closer to Jay, extending his hand. “Let’s get her back to camp. We gotta get that bleeding stopped before we take her anywhere.”

  Pecos touched Slash’s shoulder. “Let me take her. I’m bigger’n you.”

  “Get away!” Slash slid his arms under Jay and lifted her.

  “Boys, boys, don’t fight over me, now!” Jay chided them, chuckling, then sucking a pained breath through her teeth.

  Pecos jogged back in the direction of the camp. “I’ll get the horses ready to go!”

  Slash carried Jay toward the beaver dam. She had her arms wrapped around his neck, and she was gazing up into his eyes, frowning. “You’d best be careful, Slash. If you keep carryin’ on like this, someone’s gonna think you got a heart, after all.”

  “Typical woman. Even with a bullet in you, you’re still a harpy all the way!”

  Jay kissed his cheek. He tried to ignore the inviting sensation of her lips. “Sometime still in this old life of yours, James Braddock, you’re gonna make some woman a right honorable husband. If you can find one who can see who you really are, that is. And you don’t scare her away first.”

  “Be quiet, Jay, dammit!” Slash leaped down off the beaver dam and strode quickly toward the fire.

  He was surprised to see Myra Thompson lingering around the camp. He’d expected her to ha
ve ridden off by now. Myra stood gazing with concern toward Slash and Jay, wringing her hands together, fidgeting.

  “How bad’s she hit?” she asked.

  “Bad enough.”

  “We gotta get the bleeding stopped,” Myra said. “And we have to get a poultice on the wound to keep it stopped and to prevent infection.”

  “‘We’?” Slash asked the girl, brushing past her and carrying Jay into the camp.

  He eased the woman down against his own saddle and tossed several branches on the fire, building it up.

  “I helped a midwife for a while,” Myra said. “She took care of pregnancies and injuries up in the mountains around my and Pa’s cabin. She taught me lots of stuff, even about bullet wounds.” As the girl poured water from a canteen into a small pot, she said, “I’ll get some water boiling, for cleaning the wound, and while it heats, I’ll forage for roots for the poultice.”

  She quickly set the pan on the iron spider, over the fire, then bounded up and jogged out into the woods. Slash shared a glance with Pecos, who was quickly saddling the horses.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Slash said, staring after the girl in surprise. “Maybe she’s got some good in her, after all.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe you do, too.” Pecos winked at him. “But don’t worry, partner.

  Slash turned toward Jay. She’d passed out with her head resting back against his saddle.

  Slash placed his hand on one of hers and squeezed. “Just keep fightin’, Jay. Just keep fightin’.”

  CHAPTER 32

  “That smells awful,” Jay said twenty minutes later as Myra, having cleaned the bullet wound thoroughly, applied a compress. “What’s in it?”

  “You won’t like it.”

  “Won’t I?”

  “It’s mashed pine needles with aspen leaves, mud, and . . . uh . . . horse urine.”

  “Horse urine?” Jay arched a brow. “You’re not trying to get back at me for that tattoo I gave you, are you?”

  “Yeah,” Slash said, grabbing the girl’s arm. “Maybe you’re funnin’ with us.”

  Jay chuckled. “Leave her be, Slash. I trust her.” She looked up at Myra speculatively. “I’m not sure why. But I do.”