The Killing Shot

by Johnny D. Boggs

  Pardo swallowed and looked into what once had been a window of the second coach. He saw a dead man’s face, and walked on, then stopped, frozen.

  Harrah had climbed out of the ruins of the first coach, stopping to mop sweat off his face with a calico bandana. Behind him rose a small arm, so white, so stained with blood. The scene completely mesmerized Pardo.

  The fingers stretched out, fell on Harrah’s shoulder, and Harrah screamed.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Charleston’s whores came out that morning to serenade the Kraft brothers.

  A couple of strumpets, Deputy U.S. Marshal Reilly McGivern decided, could actually sing, so well that he found himself humming a few bars of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” when deputies Gus Henderson and Frank Denton led L.J. and W.W. Kraft, arms and legs chained, out of the jail and toward the black-barred prison wagon waiting for them at the corner of Stove and Second streets. Deputy Slim Chisum, who was the definition of the word cautious, climbed into the wagon’s driver’s box and thumbed back the hammers of his sawed-off twelve-gauge.

  Reilly pulled open the door at the back of the wagon and waited.

  Next, the whores started “Oh, My Darling, Clementine,” which everyone seemed to be singing that year. Reilly hated that stupid song and tried to hum “Lorena” instead, but he couldn’t keep it up because of the whores, who crowded Charleston’s streets while other residents, the kinds usually seen on the streets in the daylight, gathered along the boardwalks—keeping a respectable distance, naturally, from the whores—to watch the show.

  It had turned hot that morning, and the air stank of the smoke pouring out of the stamp mills along the river. Reilly shot a glance at the rooftops, spotting the sheriff’s deputies and town marshal’s men in position, rifles ready, and made himself relax. K.C. Kraft wouldn’t try anything today. Not here. The only threat out in Charleston, he thought with a grin, was a case of the clap.

  He kept his left hand on the door.

  Marshal Zan Tidball had spent a lot of money on this prison wagon, and Reilly had decided it would pay for itself once he got the Kraft brothers to Yuma. If he got there. It was a black wagon—except for the freshly painted yellow wheels, and silver words, U.S. MARSHAL, ARIZONA TY., on the left side—with a wood bottom, housing an iron jail on the bed that would soak up the Arizona heat like the sand swallowed water. The iron bars allowed a breeze, at least, and they could chain the brothers to the floor if needed.

  Marshal Ken Cobb, who typically oversaw the district that covered Cochise and Pima counties, had instructed Reilly to transport the prisoners in the wagon along the San Pedro River north to Contention City, where they would board the train to Benson, then catch the Southern Pacific all the way to Yuma, where they would deliver the two Krafts to the warden at the territorial pen.

  Simple enough.

  Except everybody in Arizona Territory knew about it, including K.C. Kraft, the third, and meanest, brother, who hadn’t been captured or killed. So Reilly had thought of something better, although he hadn’t gotten around to telling Cobb or Marshal Tidball, or anyone else. Hell, Reilly never had been good at following orders.

  “All right, ladies,” he said easily. “Let’s make room for the gentlemen.”

  He wore blue trousers tucked inside black, $15 stovepipe boots inlaid with green, four-leaf clovers; a mustard and brown-checked collarless shirt; faded blue bandana; and a wide-brimmed, flat-crowned hat the color of wet adobe. A six-point star hung from the lapel of his gray vest, and a long-barrel Merwin, Hulbert & Co. .44 fit snugly on his right hip, six shells for easy access on the tooled leather holster. He turned so that the Krafts couldn’t reach the revolver, and let the whores keep singing.

  L.J. Kraft climbed into the wagon without a word, but W.W. stopped to hold out his manacled hands.

  “How about taking these bracelets off, Mac?” W.W. showed his yellow, crooked teeth.

  Reilly stared.

  “Hell,” W.W. said, “I just want to feel Matilda’s tit-ties before I take my leave, and don’t want to hurt her none with this iron.”

  Somewhere in the crowd, Matilda giggled.

  “That iron,” Reilly said, “stays on till you get to Yuma.”

  “You ain’t Cupid,” W.W. said, and climbed into the wagon with his older brother. Reilly slammed the door, locked it, and tossed the keys to Frank Denton.

  “Gus,” Reilly told the young, pockmarked deputy, “get up there with Chisum. Frank, fetch our horses.” He looked at the rooftops again. A sheriff’s deputy nodded that everything looked fine. Reilly let out a breath.

  “All this for just us two poor, misguided souls.” W.W. Kraft laughed. “We can’t be that dangerous.”

  No, Reilly thought. K.C. was the dangerous one. The free one. That’s what worried him.

  The whores started singing “Rock of Ages.”

  Stepping back, Reilly wiped the beads of sweat peppering his forehead.

  “Why don’t you shut them the hell up, McGivern?” Slim Chisum grumbled from the driver’s box. He hadn’t lowered the hammers of the scattergun.

  Reilly shrugged. “Maybe I’m Cupid after all,” he said, but not loud enough to be heard, and walked across the street toward Denton, the horses, and, most importantly, Reilly’s .44 Evans Sporting Rifle in the saddle scabbard. Taking the reins from Denton, Reilly started to swing onto the buckskin gelding. That’s when he saw her, moving through the crowd down the boardwalk, past Wilbur’s Tonsorial Parlor, and into the sea of whores.

  He almost didn’t recognize her, not wearing that French sateen skirt with the ruffled bottom and the silk ottoman wrap. Then again, he tried to think of how many times he had seen her with her clothes on. Not that many. At least, never for long.

  “Oh, hell,” he said, and tossed the reins back to Denton.

  She was moving fast, reaching into her purse.

  The whores had started singing “Ar fin y don,” a Welsh tune he’d often heard Gwendolyn sing. That’d be ironic, he thought, shoving one strumpet aside.

  One flailing arm knocked his hat off.

  He kept moving.

  She was standing in front of the bars now, right hand coming out of the purse. No, the purse was falling into the dust. No one noticed her. Not Matilda. Not the other whores. Not Slim Chisum, Gus Henderson, or any of the guards on the flat roofs. Not W.W. Kraft, whose hands gripped two iron bars, as he leaned forward and kissed a whore whose name wasn’t Matilda. Not L.J. Kraft, who sat in the shade, working on a mouthful of chewing tobacco.

  She pulled out the sawed-down Colt, cocked it, and aimed the .36 at W.W. Kraft’s chest. Finally, one of the whores spotted her and screamed. W.W. Kraft pulled away from his lover. His mouth fell open. His brother spit between the bars.

  Gwendolyn Morgan pulled the trigger.

  The hammer caught Reilly’s left hand as it came down on the Colt, biting into the meaty flesh between his pinky finger and wrist. Blood spurted. It hurt like hell. He shoved Gwendolyn aside, felt the hideaway gun fall into the dust, and he kicked it underneath the wagon.

  “What the hell?” Slim Chisum called out.

  “She tried to kill W.W.,” a whore cried.

  “Bitch!” Matilda snapped.

  Reilly put his right hand to keep Gwendolyn back. He saw her now, the ugly bruise that blackened the left side of her face, down which tears streamed. Her eye remained almost swollen shut. Her lips trembled.

  Blood dripped down Reilly’s fingers into the dust. W.W. Kraft giggled. “Gwen, ol’ gal, are you still mad at me?”

  His brother shifted the plug of tobacco to the other cheek. “She come from Contention to see you off.”

  “Hell, Gwen, you didn’t need to do that. We’s going to Contention City. I could have given you some good loving there.”

  “Shut up!” Reilly snapped, and W.W.’s face froze. He pulled Gwendolyn away from the wagon, steered her across the street. “Gus, get that belly-gun from under the wagon. Now!” One of those whores would lik
ely pick it up, slip it to one of the Krafts.

  She was sobbing, shaking with rage, when they reached the boardwalk. Her head fell on his shoulder, and he let her cry.

  Cupid, he thought, and cursed silently.

  Slim Chisum had had enough. He braced the shotgun on his left thigh, and let one barrel sing. “I’ve heard enough music today!” he bellowed. “You strumpets, get gone. Everybody get gone. This wagon’s leaving for Contention, and if I sees anybody—wench, baker, miner, or parson’s wife—anywhere on the street in the next two minutes, I’ll blow him or her apart.” Pellets from the first load rained onto the roofs of nearby buildings.

  The concert was over.

  “Reilly?”

  She had pulled away from him. He tried to smile.

  “I’m sorry, Reilly. I hurt you.”

  “I’ll be fine,” he told her, but she had lifted his left hand, found a handkerchief, and wrapped it around the torn flesh.

  “You need a doctor.”

  “It’s nothing,” he told her again.

  She looked past him, at the prison wagon. “I want him dead.”

  “I don’t blame you. But Judge Spicer gave him and L.J. fifteen years.”

  “Not for what he did to me.”

  Reilly put his right hand under her chin, turned her face toward him. “He’ll get his, Gwendolyn. Fifteen years in Yuma…”

  “If he gets there.”

  He frowned.

  “Can you get back to Contention?” he asked.

  “I made it here.”

  “You best go. Matilda’s girls can be meaner than guttersnipes.”

  “I can take care of myself. Maybe I should have waited till you brought him to Contention.” She smiled at him. She had quite the smile, even with her face disfigured by that bastard W.W. Kraft. “Can I see you in Contention, Reilly? I won’t try to kill that peckerwood. I promise.”

  He started to say something, stopped himself, then decided to tell her. “We’re not going to Contention.”

  “What the hell?” The words came from Gus Henderson, who stood at Reilly’s side, stupidly holding Gwendolyn’s Colt and purse.

  “Be quiet, Gus,” Reilly said. He cursed his own stupidity. Should have kept his big mouth shut.

  “Gwendolyn, you get back to Contention. Pretend that you’re waiting for us. Anybody asks you, I told you that I’d see you in Contention before the train left. That’ll buy us some time. Do this for me?”

  “Sure, Reilly.”

  She took the purse and reached for the belly-gun, but Gus pulled it back, eyeing Reilly.

  “Give it to her,” Reilly said. “It’s some rough miles to Contention.”

  She took the gun, dropped it into her purse, and hurried down the boardwalk, rounded a corner, and was gone.

  “We’re supposed to catch the train in Contention,” Gus said.

  “We’re not,” Reilly told him, and looked across the saddle at Frank Denton.

  “Everybody knows we’re going to Contention.” Reilly spoke in a hoarse whisper. His left hand throbbed. “Including K.C. Kraft.”

  “It’s about three hundred miles to Yuma,” Denton told him. “Across the desert.”

  “I know.” Reilly wet his lips. “K.C.’s not going to let his brothers reach Yuma, not without making a play. He’ll be waiting for us in Contention, maybe Benson, maybe Tucson, or somewhere on the road, somewhere on the rails. When we don’t show at Contention, he’ll start wondering, fretting.”

  “And looking,” Denton said.

  “And looking,” Reilly agreed. “But looking west of here. We’re crossing the San Pedro and riding northeast. Skirt around Tombstone, through the Chiricahuas, and to Fort Bowie.”

  “That’s the opposite way of prison,” Gus told him.

  “But I know an Army officer at Bowie.” Reilly ran his fingers through his unruly brown hair. He realized his hat was gone, saw it in the dust on the street. “He’s agreed to let us tag along with a company he’s leading to California.”

  “The Krafts aren’t a military matter,” Gus said. “Why would he do that?”

  “Because I asked him.” Reilly was losing his patience. He hadn’t planned on telling them this until they crossed the river. “And the Army doesn’t like the Krafts any more than we do. We ride with them. It’ll take longer, but I don’t think even K.C. would attack a company of cavalry.”

  “Does Cobb know about this?” Denton asked.

  “’Course not.”

  Denton chuckled. “You got style, Mac. I like it.”

  “I don’t,” Gus said, pleading. “I just got back from Dos Cabezas, Reilly. My wife’ll worry sick if we don’t get to Contention. She’s bringing me fried chicken for the train. You got to let me go tell her, Reilly. Before she leaves. Before we leave. Please, Reilly, please!”

  Underneath his breath, Reilly McGivern muttered, “Cupid.” He shook his head, but sighed. “All right. Go tell her. But tell her not to breathe a word of this to anybody. Nobody. If she wants you alive. If K.C. Kraft finds out, we’re dead. Savvy?”

  “Thanks, Reilly.” Gus dashed down the boardwalk.

  Frank Denton led his dun toward the prison wagon. A bandolier full of the large .44 shells for the Evans rifle dangled from the saddle horn of Reilly’s buckskin. Reilly slipped the canvas over his shoulder, grabbed the buckskin’s reins, and followed Denton, picking up and dusting off his hat on the way.

  A vast emptiness, the Sulphur Spring Valley could hide hell. Seemed like a body could see forever, only there was nothing much to see among the Dragoons, Chiricahuas, and other brown, mostly barren mountains that tried miserably hard to make the country look somewhat hospitable.

  For the past hour, a dust storm had choked and scalded the lawmen and their prisoners, but finally the winds had abated, and Reilly McGivern pulled down the bandana that had been covering his nose and mouth and sucked in a lungful of air that didn’t taste of dirt and smell of acrid creosote. His face felt heavy with dirt and grime, and he reached for the canteen secured around his saddle horn. He took a long pull.

  “How about some agua for me and my brother?” W.W. Kraft asked.

  After swallowing, Reilly nudged his mount close to the prison wagon and stuck the canteen between two hot, black bars.

  “Not too much,” Reilly warned. “That’s got to last us to Bowie.”

  “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.

  CHAPTER THREE

  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.