This time he waited an hour.
He had just drawn a bead on his target when something spooked it. The jackrabbit spun with a speed he couldn’t believe, then bounded away before he could shoot. He sighed as he lowered the rifle. Probably a snake. Nothing to do but wait.
After ten minutes he caught the faintest trace of movement in the corner of his eye. Slowly he turned his head. A rabbit was twenty yards away, standing on its hind legs, forelegs dangling limply as its quivering nostrils tested the faint breeze for the merest scent of danger. The Kid remained stock-still. He wasn’t going to lose this one. He figured he had already spent longer out in the desert than necessary.
The animal seemed satisfied. It dropped onto all fours and hopped casually to a clump of grass. It took the barest of bites before deciding it wasn’t quite sweet enough. It turned, showing its tail as it chose another clump.
The Kid brought up the rifle, gently hooking the barrel, fearful of spooking the rabbit. He got a line, enjoying the feel of the worn stock smooth on his cheek. Any moment, the rabbit would turn and he would take it through the lungs like he had the first. He breathed slowly, the foresight on the end of the barrel rising and falling with his chest. Come on, turn. Just a little.
The jackrabbit moved. A shoulder came into sight, fattening its outline against the almost white sand. A little more. It was munching now, occasionally lifting its head to look around before dipping down for another mouthful. Come on. Turn.
The rabbit went up on its haunches again, staring toward him. He decided to shoot it through the chest. Not as certain a target and it would probably mash up the backbone, but what the hell. He corrected his aim, then as the rabbit continued to stare he increased his pressure on the trigger. He squeezed as gently as he would stroke Conchita’s smooth back tonight. The trigger came back slowly.
The rabbit was frozen erect, up on its hind legs.
The Kid allowed himself the luxury of a smile as he wet his lips with his tongue.
Now. Now.
Suddenly, cold steel touched his neck. The open mouth of a barrel.
“Hold it right there,” a flat voice stated.
The Kid froze as he heard a hammer cock.
CHAPTER 7
April 12th, 1884
Donna Ana County, New Mexico Territory
The Sonora Kid’s concentration on the rabbit crumbled, and instead his mind’s eye focused on the cool steel resting threateningly on the nape of his neck. He began to tense his muscles, ready to spring around. He would rise as he turned, catching the intruder’s gun arm with his elbow, then…
“You move one inch and you’re dead. Now take your finger out of the trigger guard and lay that rifle down slow as you please.”
The Kid did as he was told.
“Stand up and turn ’round. Slow.”
The Kid came to his feet, then shuffled around. In front of him was a man dressed entirely in black from his hat to his boots. He knew him from somewhere but couldn’t place it. His eyes were drawn to the thin lips as the man spoke.
“You are Raoul Lopez who also uses the name Sonora Kid, from Zamora in old Mexico.”
The Kid said nothing.
“On June twenty-sixth eighteen-eighty-three, you robbed the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad in Prowers County, Colorado.” There was no question; it was a flat statement.
The Kid smiled, showing his tobacco-stained teeth. He lifted his arms to execute an exaggerated shrug. “Señor, I know nothing of what you talk about.”
The man in black’s mouth compressed into a thin line. “Well, that’s a downright pity.”
“Why for you say?” asked the Kid, still smiling.
“Because you’re going to die for it.”
The Kid didn’t give a damn for what was said, he’d heard it all before, but there was something in the way it was said. With the smile frozen on his face, he squinted at the man. An image of another town somewhere drifted into his mind. He had watched this man say something very similar to another man before he killed him in cold blood. Although the outlaw had been fast, his hand a blur as he drew, this man had beaten him. He had the instinct. The need to kill, and he had no fear of killing. A very dangerous man. The Kid knew who he was now. A little of the voice, a little of the stance, a little of the long angular jaw and a little of the style, but most of all it was that chilling memory.
The man in black studied his prisoner, steely gray eyes flickering over him from head to foot in distaste. “The Lord sayeth: Thou shalt not steal…” he intoned.
The Kid nodded almost imperceptibly. It was him, no doubt now. The preacher. Preacher Creech. He glanced at the rock-steady gun hand. It was going to take more than a fast draw to beat this man. That had already failed some dead outlaw in a forgotten town. The only way was to put him on edge. He cocked his head to one side and raised his eyebrows.
“Hey, Señor, you are pointing your gun at me, but your Lord, He also say you should not kill.”
Creech’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you, scum that you are, to talk to me of the words of our Lord?”
“I can read, Señor, just as you.”
“Filth as you should not be allowed to touch the good book.”
The Kid raised his hook to his hat, pretending to adjust the brim against the sun. His smile grew wider. “Is it not the sinners who should read it?”
Creech bridled. “Sinners should die for their sins,” he said righteously.
“I take off my hat to death,” the Kid grinned, catching his hook in the brim and sweeping off his hat. It passed across his chest, traveling towards his waist.
“Stop right there.” Creech’s voice was harsh, gun hand reaching forward a fraction.
The Kid’s arm halted in mid-flight.
“I would not be deceived so easily,” Creech said. “I have seen that done before. In Nogales. A man did exactly what you did and then when his gun hand was hidden he drew and killed the man who held him captive.”
The Kid kept the hat at chest level as he shrugged. “I salute you, Señor. It is a man with brains who learns from what he sees.”
Creech eyed him steadily.
“But there are many tricks with a hat,” the Kid smiled. “Have you seen this one…” While he was still speaking he whipped his hook hand, sending the hat spinning towards Creech’s face.
Suddenly a blur of motion, the Kid jumped sideways, his good hand grabbing for his pistol. His fingers closed around the butt, then it was up and lining.
Creech flinched as the hat flew towards his face. His gun hand automatically rose to fend off the missile. At the last moment reaction was replaced by reason. He leaned back to avoid being hit and his left arm swung up. The spinning hat collided with his wrist to be deflected away. Off-balance, he sidestepped to the left.
The Colt in the Kid’s hand roared a fraction of a second before Creech’s.
The side step had thrown his aim. He missed.
Creech didn’t.
The bullet hit the Kid’s good arm. It was more accident than design. It smashed the bone between shoulder and elbow. As he fell gasping onto the bleached desert sand, his Colt dropped at his feet. He landed on his wounded arm with a groan.
“Bastardo, mayorazgo de la puta!” he screamed, rolling in agony.
Creech was smoking with anger as he ran forward to kick away the gun from his prisoner’s feet. When it was out of reach he scooped it up and stuck it in his gun belt, leveling his own Colt at the Kid’s head. “I don’t savvy Mexican. What did you say?”
The Kid began to laugh.
“What’d you say?”
The Kid cackled from the back of his throat, eyes carefully watching Creech as he built his laughter, letting it rumble up from his belly.
“Tell me,” Creech ordered, barely checking his anger.
The Kid’s laughter was now almost manic. He was screeching his mirth. Creech’s kick, hard in the leg, silenced him.
“Tell me.”
The Kid sn
eered. He lay at Creech’s feet, shielding his wounded arm with his hook. “I called you bastard, the son and heir of a filthy whore.” He started to laugh again.
Creech bared his teeth. “You scum. You…” Words failed him as he leaned down to grab the Kid’s shirtfront and haul him upright.
The Kid’s laughter abruptly stopped. The hook flashed up, knocking the gun aside with a strength that threw Creech sideways. As he tumbled, the Kid came up off the ground, wounded arm dangling, useless. The preacher, now on his back, still had a grip on the gun. The Kid threw himself astride him, landing on his chest. He smashed his hook downwards into the face below him. Creech squirmed frantically, left arm taking the punishment meant for his head. Desperately, he swung his gun arm up. The barrel thudded into the Kid’s bleeding arm with a sickening crunch of broken bone.
The Kid howled, his attack failing for an instant.
Creech seized opportunity with both hands. He twisted, pushing up his hips. The Kid fell sideways. Creech scrambled onto his knees, breath heaving in his chest. The Kid’s bare head was beside his, face contorted in agony.
A flickering smile of victory crossed the preacher’s face. Deliberately, slowly, he raised his gun arm then brought it down in a tight, vicious arc. The dulled barrel connected with the crown of the Kid’s thick black hair. He pitched forward onto his face.
The preacher crawled a few feet then rested on his haunches, pulling his string tie loose. The hot dry air rushed into his hungry lungs. Sweat rolled down his bruised face where the hook had made contact once or twice. His fingers probed the skin and came away clean. No blood. Good.
He glanced at the unconscious Mexican, then around at the desolate expanse of chaparral. Not a tree in sight. He grimaced. Shooting him would just not be the same. Then he remembered the rancho where the Kid had been living with the fat woman. There was a small grove of trees there. Not exactly broad oaks fitted for the job, but as long as the Kid would bear the rope burns of his disgrace when he approached the gates of heaven.
Preacher Creech came to his feet, taking a couple of swipes at his suit to rid it of clinging sand as he walked to where he had left his lariat, coiled like a snake behind a small cactus. He returned and bound the Kid’s hands and feet together in case he regained consciousness and tried to leg it while he went for the horses. Satisfied the Kid could not escape, Creech put his hat back on then set off to collect the pinto and the stallion. Striding across the parched ground, he raised his voice in song.
“Rock of ages cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee,
Let the water and the blood,
From thy riven side which flowed…”
***
Floyd sucked deeply on the cheroot, held the smoke in his lungs, then jetted it over the boardwalk railing at the sky. He flexed his knee and began to rock the chair as he surveyed the first citizens to grace the street. As soon as Sophie came down they could go for breakfast. He had left her sleeping, a secret smile on her lips. In the daylight her scar hadn’t looked nearly so bad as he remembered. Not that he cared. It was healing fast, hair stubbling the fresh-scarred skin and soon she would bear no trace at all. He still couldn’t figure out how they had ended up in bed, but that didn’t matter either. It had happened and they had both enjoyed it. Or at least he hoped she had as much as he. It had given him a whole new perspective. Instead of the raw hunger for killing the man in black he had nurtured throughout the long ride here, the need was still with him but somehow the urgency had gone.
He inspected the end of his cheroot, blowing off the ashes. It still had to be done, of course, and it would be. Even if he had found something to replace what he’d had with Mary. The account still had to be closed. Anyhow, he couldn’t be sure Sophie would want to continue what they had begun last night. Perhaps she would just dismiss it and carry on as though nothing had happened between them. But he knew he didn’t want it to be over. It had been like coming home after a two-day ride in the dead of winter, feet frozen to the stirrups, then standing in front of a roaring fire. A good feeling.
He took a last draw from the cheroot then flicked it over the railing. It landed with a hiss in the water trough where a big roan was slaking its thirst. Floyd turned to look at the hotel door and into the lobby. Where was Sophie? He could feel his stomach growling like a starving timber wolf. As he leaned over the arm of the chair for a better view into the lobby, a gold ten-dollar piece fell out of his jeans pocket and clattered on the boardwalk.
“Aw, shit,” he said, grimacing as he strained down to pick it up.
There was the click of a gun hammer being cocked.
At the same time a pair of battered high-heeled boots came into sight, one of them coming down hard over the gold piece. It missed Floyd’s fingers by a bare inch. Floyd froze. Head down, only the boots in front of his eyes, he was figuring hard just what the hell to do next. Without thinking, he had reached down with his right hand, which put it a long stretch from his Colt. And bent over double wasn’t exactly the best position to be in when you were contemplating taking desperate action.
“My horse has no liking for water all cluttered up with cigar butts,” a voice said, deadpan. “Where I’m from, a man’d likely get his brains blown out for that.”
Floyd executed as much of a shrug as he was able, considering he was still bent over, hands rising slightly at his sides.
“Don’t be making a move towards that gun, mister. Mine’s only a lick and spit off your face.”
It was a hard-edged warning, delivered with heavy emphasis of menace. Annoyed, Floyd realized there was no way out of his predicament, no way that he could see.
“What do you want?” he asked grudgingly, staring at the scuffed toes of the boots in front of him.
“Apologies to my horse.”
“What?” Floyd’s head came up in surprise, seeking the stranger’s face. He came face-to-face with the ugly muzzle of a .44 Colt that looked as big as a cannon from where he sat. His eyes went from the gun to the stranger and back again. “Just what was it you wanted me to do?”
The man’s eyes twinkled. “You heard the first time.”
Floyd’s mouth turned down at the corners. “For you, I’ll do it.”
The man backed off, giving Floyd room to rise. He stepped down off the sidewalk and stood by the roan which had finished drinking and was now gazing impassively at him. Floyd laid a hand on its neck, stroking the hide softly as he used his other hand to rub its velvet muzzle. He leaned over and whispered in its ear.
“Well horse, I sure am sorry for dropping my dirty old cigar butt into your drinking water. If I’d seen you, I swear I wouldn’t have done it. You believe me now?” He tugged its mane so the horse worked its head up and down.
There was a guffaw behind him.
Floyd let go of the horse, throwing himself backwards and twisting in the air. He battered into the stranger, knocking the Colt flying as they both collapsed onto the boardwalk steps. The stranger was underneath, helpless, Floyd astride him. Keeping both arms pinioned below him, Floyd swept off his hat and scooped it full of water from the trough.
The man’s eyes widened in horror as Floyd tipped it into his face.
The man spluttered. “Hell, Floyd, what’d you go and do a thing like that for?”
“Shit, Emmett, you shouldn’t have laughed when I ’pologized to your horse.”
“Which horse was that?”
“The one you…” Floyd’s eyes narrowed. “You mean it wasn’t even your horse?”
Emmett’s chest rumbled with laughter.
Quickly, Floyd scooped another hatful and held it over his friend’s head. “For that, Emmett Green, you son of a bitch, you can buy me breakfast.”
“Or what?”
“You get this water all over you.”
“Nah.”
“Yep. Anyways, you could do with a wash.”
“I’m already wet.”
“You’re gonna be wetter. And then I’m going to
pull off your boots and tickle your dirty feet with a feather.”
Emmett’s face was glum. “You wouldn’t.”
Floyd dropped the hat and twisted to grab Emmett’s nearest foot. He took a hold on the boot heel and began to yank.
“All right, all right,” Emmett called as his foot began to slip out. “I give in.”
“Breakfast?”
“You got a deal.”
Sophie was just as pleased to see Emmett as Floyd. She had emerged from the hotel during their struggle and had stood by, enjoying the sight of two grown men fooling around like little boys. When they had finished she hugged Emmett welcome, then linked arms with both of them as they crossed the street to the nearest restaurant.
“Well, what the hell are you doing here?” Floyd asked between shoveling eggs into his mouth. When there was no immediate answer he glanced at Sophie. Her smile had disappeared along with Emmett’s.
“Long story. What’re you two doing here?”
“Looking for the Kid.”
“So am I.”
Floyd frowned. “You first.”
Emmett told them of his meeting with the two Pinkertons up near the border in Grama and how he reckoned to come south to warn the Kid the Pinkertons were on his trail too, and to find out if the Kid knew where the others were so he could find them.
Floyd exchanged glances with Sophie.
“Double or nothing,” he said.
“Uh?” Emmett grunted, forking a thick chunk of hot ham into his mouth.
“They ain’t the only ones after us. Jack got his up in Steamboat Springs just after Christmas. Mary too. And Sophie here, ’cept she got left for dead. But she lost the child she was carrying.”
Emmett stopped chewing, his eyes searching Sophie’s face. “Who did it?”
Floyd shrugged. “We don’t know. That’s why we came to see the Kid. I figured it had to be a bounty hunter and if anyone knows bounty hunters, it’s the Kid.”
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