“Then I’ll have to get closer,” Clint said.
“What do we do?” Tesla asked.
“You stay inside,” Clint said. “Miranda, I need him to take one shot so I can locate him.”
“So you want me to be the target?”
“I don’t want you to be.”
“I can do it,” Tesla said.
“No,” Clint said.
“Yes,” Tesla said. “Why would he shoot at her? He doesn’t want her. He wants me.”
Clint looked at him. He was right. If Miranda stepped out, the shooter would ignore her. Clint wasn’t sure why he’d shot the big man. Maybe he was afraid he’d lose his prey—Tesla. So it was only Tesla who could draw him out and get him to take another shot.
“All right,” Clint said.
“You can’t let him do that,” Miranda said.
“You’ll have to help me spot him, Miranda,” Clint said. “You stand at one window, me at the other. When you see the muzzle flash, call out. I’ll get him.”
“What if you miss?”
“I won’t.”
The shooter kept his rifle trained on the door. The storm was coming in behind him. He had to make the shot now. He’d waited too long, and now was in danger of losing his prey. If only his partner hadn’t gotten careless, they’d have worked this together.
He was going to take one last shot from here, and then move in closer.
Tesla walked to the door.
“Ready?” he asked.
“I’m ready,” Miranda said at one window.
“Wait,” Clint said, standing at the other window. He broke out the glass with the rifle stock. “Okay, ready.”
Tesla opened the door.
Behind the house, Roman wasn’t sure what to do. Running was an option, but he was still mad. Even if the others were dead, he had a chance for his revenge.
There was no back door, but there were back windows. If he could get in that way, he could take them from behind.
He approached the back of the house, then heard the growling noise.
He turned quickly and saw the cat.
FORTY-FOUR
Clint had an idea of where the shots might have come from. If he’d been the one with a Sharps, he knew where he’d position himself.
Tesla had his hand on the door, so Clint put his finger on the trigger.
Tesla held his breath and opened the door. His instructions were to stand still, count to three, and then drop down, but he found himself curiously staring out into the distance, wondering where the shot was going to come from.
Clint had explained that with the weapon they were dealing with, the bullet would reach them before the sound of the shot.
“Nikola, down!” Clint shouted.
Tesla dropped just as a bullet punched through the door.
“I saw it—” Miranda shouted, but Clint ignored her. He saw it, too.
He sighted down the barrel of the Remington. The cloud cover didn’t help. There was no sun to reflect off any metal. By the same token, there was no sun in Clint’s eyes.
He saw him. The man had stood to make the shot, and that was his undoing.
Clint fired.
The predator heard the shot, even saw the muzzle flash, but was convinced he was out of range. He was about to shoulder his Sharps for another shot when something punched him in the chest. Curious, he looked down and saw the blood.
How? he wondered.
His last thought was, Damn, that was a good shot!
“Did you get him?” Miranda shouted.
“I got him,” Clint said. “Nikola, you okay?”
“I am fine,” Tesla said, “I think.”
At that moment they heard the commotion from behind the house.
“Back window!” Clint shouted.
When Roman saw the cat, he froze.
The animal was huge, and Roman knew it could be on him in seconds with its long strides. His only hope was that the animal would decide he wasn’t really that good a meal for him.
With his right arm in a sling, there was no way he’d be able to pull his gun in time left-handed.
He stared at the cat, hoping the animal would see something in his eyes that would change its mind.
Apparently it did see something in his eyes.
Fear.
The cat moved.
Roman screamed.
When Clint got to the back window, he saw the cat tearing into a man. He could see the sling around the man’s neck, so he knew who it was.
Miranda joined him and said, “Oh, God.”
Tesla stood behind them, looked between them, and said nothing.
Clint backed up, broke the window, and stuck the muzzle of the rifle out.
The cat reacted to the sound of breaking glass, turned, and ran off before Clint could get off a shot.
Clint turned and ran for the door.
“Where are you going?” Miranda shouted.
He stopped at the door and turned.
“I’ve got to track that cat,” he said. “He’s grown too accustomed to the taste of human flesh. We won’t have a moment’s peace unless I get him. Also, I’ve got to check on the shooter, make sure I got him, see if there’s any sign of still another assassin.”
“Let me come—” Miranda started, but he cut her off.
“You’ve got to stay here and watch over Nikola,” Clint said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
As Clint went out the door, Tesla called out, “But what if you don’t come back?”
“Don’t worry,” Miranda said, “he will.”
FORTY-FIVE
Clint found the tracks of the cat very easily and began to follow them.
He knew he was taking a big chance leaving Tesla with Miranda. There was still a small chance that she wasn’t what she said she was, and might have been a third assassin. But he was a pretty good judge of character, and he didn’t feel that was the case.
He was sure he had hit the assassin with his shot, but had no way of knowing whether or not it was a killing shot. He was going to have to find the body to be sure he was dead.
As luck would have it, the cat was leading him in that direction.
Miranda and Tesla got together and moved the bodies away from the house—first the three in the front, and then what was left of the one in the back—just in case the cat decided to come back for an easy meal.
After that, Miranda insisted they go back inside to wait. She made a pot of coffee, then stood at a window holding the cup in her hand, the rifle leaning against the wall within easy reach.
Tesla wanted to work on his equipment, but was still too keyed up by the day’s events.
“It is going to rain for sure,” he said, joining her at the window.
“Yup.”
In the distance they could hear the rolling thunder, and see the flashing lightning.
“Will he be able to track the animal in a storm?” Tesla asked.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t know how good a tracker he is.”
“Well, I hope he can do it soon,” Tesla said. “I will not be able to concentrate while he is out there.”
“I know how you feel, Nikola,” she said. “Believe me, I know how you feel.”
Clint knew the storm was rolling in. The cat, also knowing a storm was coming, was probably going to ground. Clint had to get to that cat before the lightning and thunder started and the animal found shelter.
Eventually, Clint came to the shooter. The Sharps was lying on the ground, loaded for another shot. The man was lying on his back. Clint’s bullet had hit him dead center in the chest. He had died quickly, hadn’t bled much. The cat had not gotten to him. Clint turned the man’s face to him. He had never seen him before. He went through his pockets, but there was nothing there to identify him. The man was too professional to carry identification.
He finished examining the body, picked up the Sharps. Then, just like that, the hunter became the hunted. He knew the cat was ou
t there, watching him.
He put down the Sharps Big Fifty, picked up Miranda’s Remington. Slowly, he stood up. The rain started to fall. In moments, it was going to be dark—very dark.
He thought he could smell the cat’s wet fur.
Then he heard it. A low growl. He squinted, held the rifle ready. Would it come for him? Did it want to end it now, just like he did? He was convinced that these animals had intelligence—high intelligence. But did they think?
“Come on, come on . . .” he muttered.
The cat came, just as there was a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning.
It came from behind.
Miranda jumped at the first thunderclap.
Then the lightning came.
“Excellent!” Tesla yelled.
She turned from the window.
“Did it work?”
“It will,” Tesla said. “As soon as the lightning hits one of the antennae.”
“Then what will happen?”
“These tubes will light up,” Tesla said. “The electricity from the lightning will be in here”—he pointed to his equipment—“and I will have control of it.”
“You’ll control the electricity?”
“Yes.”
“And then what will you do with it?”
He spread his hands and said, “Anything I want.”
Clint turned in time to see it coming, but not in time to get off a shot. It seemed to be flying through the air as the lightning flashed again. He tried to bring the rifle around, but the cat hit him. He went sprawling one way and the rifle flew another.
The cat landed, then turned and looked at Clint over its shoulder.
Clint reached for his pistol, but as he did, his hand brushed the Sharps, lying on the ground. With his handgun, he’d have to hit the cat a couple of times, or more. But with the Sharps, one .50-caliber shot would do it.
The animal turned and glared at him.
His hand closed over the Sharps.
The cat tensed, preparing to jump again.
Clint picked up the Sharps, brought it around as the cat pounced.
He pulled the trigger.
FORTY-SIX
The rain was coming down in sheets.
The lightning kept coming, but for some reason had not struck any of Tesla’s antennae yet.
Miranda had stopped waiting for that to happen. She was standing at the window, waiting for Clint.
It had been two hours since he’d started out after the cat.
“I don’t understand,” Tesla said, walking around the room. “We should have had a strike by now.”
He stood in the center of the room with his hands on his hips.
“Wait!” Miranda said.
“What is it?”
“There he is! It’s Clint.”
She ran to the door and opened it. Clint came running in, carrying two rifles. He was dripping wet. She slammed the door behind him.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Yes, yes,” he said. “I’m fine. Just wet.”
“Did you get . . . it?” Tesla asked. “The mountain lion?”
“Yes,” Clint said, sitting at the table, “I got it.”
“And the other man?” she asked.
“He’s dead.”
“So it’s all over?” Tesla asked.
“For now,” Clint said, “unless someone else is sent to kill you.”
“Two men and a mountain lion,” Tesla said. “I think that is quite enough.”
He turned and walked back to his equipment.
“What’s going on?” Clint asked Miranda.
“The lightning hasn’t hit his . . . things.”
“Oh.”
“You should get those wet clothes off,” she said. “Why don’t you go into the bedroom?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll need a towel and then I’ll change.”
“Good,” she said with a smile. “We were waitin’ for you to come back and make supper.”
A week later they all went back to Gunnison for supplies. They hitched Miranda’s horse to the buckboard along with the remaining team horse. When they arrived, the first thing Clint did was buy a second horse. They left the team and the buckboard at the livery, which was housed in a large tent.
They decided to spend one night and then head back the next day.
Miranda found Tesla a place to stay. They were in the saloon, at the bar, each holding a beer.
“You can have a tent,” she said to the scientist, “with or without a girl.”
“Girl?”
“A prostitute,” she said. “Do you want one or not?”
“Not tonight, I think,” he said. “I need to think, to figure out what went wrong.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll get you a tent . . . alone.” She looked at Clint. “I already have a place for you to stay. Wait here for me.”
“Okay.”
“See you in the morning,” Tesla said, and followed Miranda out.
In Miranda’s tent they rolled a blanket out on the floor and rolled around naked on it. Clint reveled in Miranda’s full, round breasts, sucked avidly at the large nipples, licked the wide aureoles. It had been a while since they’d been interrupted, and both were tired of waiting.
Clint had nothing against whores, as long as he wasn’t paying them. Miranda was no longer a working girl, but the skills she had honed while plying her former trade had not eroded. She slid down his body, using her mouth and tongue to trace a trail, and when she arrived at his crotch, his penis was hard and raging. She took it in one hand and let her mouth swoop down and take it in. She sucked him wetly, taking him all the way in, then letting him slide free. She licked the bulging head of his cock, licked the shaft, then took it back into her hot mouth. Meanwhile, one hand circled the base of his cock while the other hand fondled his balls, and probed even lower.
Before long he was arching his back, lifting his hips off the blanket, and exploding into her eager mouth . . .
“Wow,” he said as they lay side by side on the blanket, “you must have been good at your former job.”
“I was a very good whore,” she said.
“Why’d you quit?”
“I got tired of it,” she said. “I decided I’d only lie with a man when I wanted to—like with you.”
“And the sheriff’s job?”
“That was a whim,” she said. “I was crossing the street, saw the badge, picked it up.”
“And when did someone come to town to talk to you about killing Nikola?”
She turned her head and looked at him.
“You know about that?”
“I suspected,” he said, “but you confirmed it just now. I just couldn’t see why else you’d come all the way out there.”
“You’re a sneaky man,” she said. “Yes, a man carrying a Sharps came to town and talked to me about it. He offered me a lot of money to help him.”
“Pay you in advance?”
“Nope,” she said. “He was supposed to pay me after.”
“Why didn’t you kill him when you had the chance?” he asked. “When I went after the cat?”
“I like him,” she said. “And I like you. I guess you can say the two of you kinda talked me out of it.”
“I had a feeling about you,” he said. “That’s why I left you alone with Nikola.”
“You took a chance that you were reading me right.”
“I don’t see you as a lawman or a killer, Miranda.”
“Then what, should I go back to being a whore?”
“I think you should move on and do whatever you want to do.”
“I can’t,” she said.
“Why not?”
“You killed the man who was supposed to pay me.”
“Did he say who was paying him?”
“No,” she said.
“Well, that part wasn’t his job. That was what Jim West was working on. Did he say anything about anyone else?”
“He had
a partner, but you killed him first,” she said. “As far as I know, it was just them two.”
Clint reached over, put his hand on her flat belly.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Miranda. San Francisco loves women like you.”
“Like I said,” she told him, “no money.”
“I’ll stake you, and I have some friends there who own hotels and would be glad to put you up . . . for a while.”
“And what will they expect in return?”
“That’ll be up to you and them,” he said, “but I’ll present you as a friend of mine.”
“You would do that for me?”
“Yes. But I want you to go right away,” he said. “Next time Nikola and I come here for supplies, you better be gone.”
“Oh, I will!” she said eagerly. “And will you come to San Francisco and see me?”
“You bet I will,” he said, sliding his hand lower. She had a wild tangle of pubic hair, and he wrapped his fingers in it.
She rolled to face him and said, “Well, let me give you something else to make sure you remember me . . .”
The next morning Clint hitched the new horse up to the buckboard, next to the old one.
“I always wonder how they get along when they are hitched together so closely,” Tesla said, entering the livery.
“They know their jobs,” Clint said. “You ready to go?”
“I think so.”
They walked the buckboard outside.
“Did you manage to figure out your problem?” Clint asked.
“Not really,” Tesla said as they climbed onto the seat together, “but there’s another storm coming soon. I should have it figured out by then.”
“Well,” Clint said, “I’m fairly certain nobody else is going to try to kill you, so you should be able to concentrate with no interruptions.”
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure,” Clint said. “Maybe the problem was with me. Maybe I put those antennae on the roof wrong.” Clint felt he needed to give the young man a way out.
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