The Killing Shot

by Johnny D. Boggs

  She looked up, saw it, but ten feet might as well be a thousand miles. She heard the shouts of the major, his pounding feet, the slapping of the scabbard. Gwen pulled herself to her feet, looked over her shoulder, and let out a piercing scream, as the silver flashed over her head.

  It missed. The momentum carried Ritcher into a spin, and he dropped to his knees. Her right ankle was no good. She could barely support her own weight. She glanced at the gun, knew she couldn’t reach it because Ritcher was already on his feet, and she clawed her way through the brambles, the thorns tearing the sleeves off her dress, scratching her face. She kept running, climbing, pulling herself up the slope.

  Behind her, the saber slashed through the vines, chopped down the trees. Her hand found a grip, pulled herself forward.

  The saber bit into her left calf, and blood soaked the tattered remnants of her dress. She rolled onto her back, saw Major Ritcher, eyes wild like some hydrophobic skunk, raising the bloody saber blade over his head with both hands. The blade came arcing downward, and she rolled again. The blade bounced off the granite.

  Gave her a chance.

  Her lungs burned. Her calf bled. She was bleeding everywhere. She crawled up the hill, toward a clearing, heard the major coming after her. She hurled herself the last few feet. Didn’t bother to look behind her. Just ran, as best she could. Stumbled toward a boulder. Staggered until a hardened copper hand wrapped around her mouth, yanked her to a body that smelled of deer-hide and bear grease. The hand clamped hard on her bloody lips, pushed her against the granite.

  Her eyes opened, and she saw the face. Round, pockmarked, burned a deep, dark copper. Black hair, long and glistening, falling to the shoulders of a dirty, greasy buckskin shirt. A large nose, broken countless times. A dingy red piece of silk wrapped across the forehead, tied in the back. Staring into her own petrified eyes were the black, malevolent eyes of an Apache.

  Reilly’s eyes opened. The horse had stopped. The sky no longer rained rocks and debris. The wheel to the buckboard remained on the road.

  Another cloud of dust—no, this was smoke—passed over, and the big dun snorted, took a step. Reilly drew the leather lines back toward him, toward the wall, his eyes on the wheel, watching it drag down the mound, back onto the road. The horse stopped, and Reilly walked toward it, whispering in a haggard voice, “Easy, boy. Easy.”

  He reached the horse’s side and began rubbing his left hand on its neck in a circular motion. “Good boy,” he said, his eyes welling with tears, maybe from the smoke, maybe not.

  A smoking piece of leather lay between Reilly’s boots. He looked at it, realized it was a line from Phil’s wagon. Reilly eased his way back to wagon, wrapping the lines around the brake lever. He let out a little gasp when he looked over the sides of the buckboard, finding the blankets on the crate covered in rocks and debris. Something was smoking, and Reilly ran to the rear of the wagon, climbed in the back, picked up a chunk of smoldering wood, which burned his fingertips. Quickly, Reilly threw it over the side, brushed the dust and embers from the wool until he was satisfied it no longer would burn. At last, he hung his legs over the tailgate, and looked behind him.

  My God. His mouth moved, but no sound escaped.

  Ritcher’s mouth fell open. The saber tumbled from his hand. Ahead of him stood an Apache, holding the whore, shoving her against the granite wall, then releasing her, bringing up a Springfield rifle, its stock heavily beaded, to his shoulder, aiming at Ritcher’s chest.

  Like a woman, Ritcher screamed. Turned, ran. He expected a bullet to slam between his shoulder blades at any moment, but the Apache never fired. Vines and brambles cut his face, knocked off his hat, as he tumbled through the overgrowth, down the rise, until he tripped over another root of the Arizona walnut, and his face splashed into the spring water. He lifted his head, turned, screamed again, but saw nothing.

  The Apache. He hadn’t followed. Hadn’t shot him.

  Ritcher pulled himself to his knees. He saw the whore’s Colt, her purse, saw the note her lover had written. He grabbed both, pulled himself to his feet, staggered up the hill, running, his chest heaving. Looking over his shoulder, expecting to see the Apache, or dozens of them charging down the mountain, but nothing happened.

  He swallowed. Ran now to his black horse, still pawing the earth. He looked at the surrey and horse. The Apache, no doubt, would make a meal of the animal. Or steal it.

  Ritcher grinned.

  After that buck has his way with that whore.

  Gathering the reins to the black, Ritcher laughed. The Apache would give that bitch what Ritcher planned to give her. He’d seen women after Apaches had had them. Worthless. Vegetables. Lunatics. That would show that wench Gwendolyn Morgan.

  His plan had gone to hell. Someone would find the surrey, the remains of the woman, unless the Apache took her with him. He couldn’t return to Fort Bowie. Or could he? Explain that the Apaches had jumped him, taken the woman? He had pursued before the red savages forced him to turn back.

  Maybe. But first, he had to ride to the Dragoons. Warn Jim Pardo. He had to make sure that lawman, Reilly McGivern, was dead. Reilly McGivern knew too much. His testimony could put Ritcher in the federal pen at Leavenworth, Kansas…or on the gallows.

  What had once been a mountain road defied imagination.

  Jim Pardo whipped off his hat and shook his head. The side of the mountain had come down, burying the road, spilling down the slopes of the ridge, still smoking, still dusty. Where the road hadn’t been filled with debris lay a crater, maybe fifteen feet deep. A section of road, maybe one hundred yards, was gone. Atop the mound of rubble, rose Duke, waving his hat.

  “Boss man,” Duke called. “The road…it’s gone. What am I supposed to do?”

  Cupping his hands over his mouth, Pardo shouted. “Go back down the road! You know where the black rocks are, at the northern side of the Dragoons?”

  Waiting. Duke’s head bobbed.

  “All right! You’ll have to cut around this mesa, ride to the Dragoons. That’s where I told Soledad to bring the Kraft boys and their friends. You’ll have to meet them there, Duke. Then take them to Texas Canyon. You think you can do that, boy?”

  Duke had to let that chore sink in.

  “Yeah, boss man!” His head bobbed like a toy. “I’ll do it!”

  “Good! Good, Duke. Good man!” His voice dropped. “You better do it. And do it right.” Louder: “Get out of here. Ride hard. Ride fast. You got to get to Texas Canyon in three days. Savvy?”

  “I savvy, boss man!” Turning, Duke disappeared behind the rubble.

  When Pardo turned, he faced the smoke-, blood-, and dirt-stained faces of Harrah, Mac, Dagmar, and Blanche. Swede Iverson whistled at his handiwork.

  “Poor Phil,” Harrah said, and crossed himself.

  “Poor Yankee soldiers,” Pardo said excitedly. “When we bring Texas Canyon down on their heads. This stuff’s great, Swede. Great!”

  Swede Iverson smiled, but Pardo saw no humor in the man’s face.

  “What…what caused the wagon to blow?” Dagmar asked in a measured voice.

  Shrugging, Swede Iverson replied, “Who knows? Could have hit a bump. Clouds passed over, could have dropped the temperature. Who the hell knows? It’s nitroglycerin.”

  “What the hell is that over yonder?” Blanche blurted out, and Pardo’s eyes followed the line of her pointing finger.

  He walked to the rocky, ragged wall, bent over, and picked up something between his thumb and forefinger. Grinning, Pardo returned to the edge of the road, and dug a small hole in the soft sand with his boot heel. Next, he held up the tip of a pinky finger, a shard of bone sticking from the bloodied, burned end, for everyone to see.

  Dagmar and Blanche turned their heads. Harrah shut his eyes. Swede Iverson laughed. Mac just shook his head.

  Pardo planted the fingertip in the hole, spread the dirt back over it with the foot of his boot, and removed his hat.

  “Ashes to ashes, Phil, and dust
to dust.” The hat went back on his head. “Let’s ride.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  All right, Reilly McGivern, you’ve done a lot of crazy things in your life, broken I don’t know how many laws—even as a federal peace officer—but this time…

  He stared at the beaker of nitro in his hands, drew a deep breath, slowly exhaled, and heard Swede Iverson calling him. Reilly looked up at the towering walls of Texas Canyon, saw Iverson waving his cap, standing atop a boulder. “Bring it up, Mac. Just watch where you put your feet. Don’t trip, my friend.”

  He stepped away from the wagon, parked in the shade at the southern side of the canyon, and began picking a path up the slopes toward the explosives expert who stood waiting with twine and cotton padding.

  If you don’t blow yourself up, he thought, the Territory of Arizona no doubt will hang you.

  They had arrived at Texas Canyon the night before, without any incident since the explosion that had killed Phil. Luck had been with them. No rain, just clouds dumping their contents to the east and south. Few travelers on the road, just a couple of Mexican laborers, a stagecoach, and a couple of vaqueros searching for cattle they thought had been stolen by Apaches.

  Reilly hadn’t slept since Phil’s death. He had tried to get some shut-eye last night, but kept tossing and turning, trying to figure out how he could get Blanche and Dagmar to safety. He had to hope Gwen had delivered his note to somebody in Tombstone, maybe Fort Lowell, and that—and this might be the hard part—somebody actually believed what he had written.

  Twenty-three minutes later, he knelt underneath a rocky outcropping and gently placed the beaker on a bedding of ripped cotton sheets Iverson had crammed into a hole he had dug. Finished, Reilly leaned back and watched Iverson wrap the twine six times around the beaker, after which he wet it down with water from a canteen.

  “How do you plan on detonating this?” Reilly asked.

  Iverson didn’t answer until he had backed out of the outcropping, unspooling the twine as he went. At last he sat down, took a slug of water from the canteen, and wiped the sweat off his brow.

  “Needs to go almost simultaneously,” he said. “We’ll plant three more on this side, have them all looped together with this here twine. When I jerk, they’ll all explode. We need to plant two more beakers on the other side. No, better make it three. That’ll do the job, for sure. Maybe Harrah or one of them Krafts, if they ever show up, can jerk the twine there.”

  Reilly considered this for a moment. “And for the eastern entrance to the canyon?”

  “Same deal,” Iverson said, nodding. “Pardo’s over there now, looking at things. Like he knows a damned thing about where to put a bunch of nitro. But…” Iverson grinned. “I ain’t gonna argue with that crazy bastard. Anyhow, we’ll have three, four batches on both sides of that end.”

  “And two men pulling the twine to detonate it?”

  “Yep.”

  “Four men altogether.”

  “You’re good at math, Mac. But before you volunteer to be a twine-puller, I got to inform you. Pardo says you’re our backup detonator. If something happens to this here twine, like, say, a rat chews it up, and when I yank it nothing happens, that’s where you come in. You and that fancy repeating rifle you got. You get to shoot into the rocks, hit one of these little bottles. Chances are, that’ll cause all of them to blow.”

  “That’s fine with me. But I can’t see the other entrance. If something happens over there—”

  “Pardo’s got that covered, too. He’ll put one of the Krafts on that end. Or do it himself if the Krafts don’t show.”

  “Nice of Jim to let me in on all this, me being his partner and all.”

  Swede shrugged, offered the canteen to Reilly, who shook his head. “I best water that one down again. Getting hot. You go back down and bring up another batch.” He pointed toward a huge, angular boulder that looked as if it might slide down the canyon side on its own accord. “I’ll have a hole dug for it by the time you bring it back up. Now—uh-oh.” He peered down the canyon, and pursed his lips. “Rider coming.”

  Reilly turned, kneeling, spotted the dust first, then a hatless rider on a big black horse, heavily lathered with sweat. The man was about to ride that horse to death, whipping its sides with the reins. He pulled harshly on the reins when he saw the wagon, almost toppled from the saddle, practically dragged the horse to the rear wheel, and wrapped the reins around a spoke.

  “Christ a’mighty.” Iverson seethed. “That damned fool might blow up our cache.”

  Below, leaning against the wagon, the man cupped his hands and yelled, his voice echoing across the rocks. “Pardo!”

  Par-do…Par-do…Par-do…

  “Pardo!”

  Par-do…Par-do…Par-do…

  Then Blanche appeared in front of one of the massive, round boulders over on the southern edge of the canyon. “Shut up you damned fool! And get away from that wagon!” Her voice echoed, too.

  The man ran, stumbled, regained his feet, charging toward the camp where Blanche and her mother waited.

  Reilly swore softly, and said, “It’s Major Ritcher.”

  “And he looks like hell,” Swede Iverson added.

  His lips were cracked, tongue swollen. It had hurt like blazes just to shout Pardo’s name. Dried blood caked his over-baked head, coated with dust from the trail. He tried to wipe the sweat out of his eyes, peering through the haze, looking into the nest of boulders at someone yelling at him. It looked like…no, it was…a damned kid. A girl. Didn’t appear to be even in her teens.

  Ritcher remembered. Pardo had taken a girl and her mother captive after derailing the Southern Pacific train. He caught his breath, took a few steps, collapsed, dragged himself to his feet, and staggered. The girl disappeared behind the boulder. Delirious, parched, Ritcher careened his way toward the boulder. He had to warn Pardo.

  For a moment, he thought maybe this girl had been a mirage. An apparition. A haunt. No, he told himself, she was real. Had to be flesh and blood. When he reached the boulder, he leaned against it, trying to summon enough energy, felt the coolness of the rock in its shadows, wiped his brow, lurched, using the giant boulder for support. He eased around the edge into a rock-strewn clearing, and saw the girl, her head wrapped in a torn sheet, sitting on a white rock with another girl, an older, adult woman, between two dead mesquite trees and a Spanish yucca.

  His worn boots clopped on the stones. The woman whispered something to the girl, and rose, stepping in front of the mesquites. Ritcher staggered toward her, but when he saw the canteen, he forgot all about her and rushed to it, dropping to his knees, the rocks ripping his trousers. He pulled the canteen, uncorked it, sloshed it around and heard the water. Greedily, he drank. Drank until the rocks began spinning around him, and he almost passed out.

  “Sir…”

  The woman’s voice revived him. Feeling that he might throw up, he dropped the canteen, now empty, and reached for the smooth boulder in front of him, managed to pull himself up, and looked around. The sky was blue, and beyond this fortress of boulders rose the rocky walls of Texas Canyon’s northern side.

  “Pardo,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

  “You’re a soldier,” the woman said, a touch of hopefulness in her voice.

  He turned toward the voice as the kid said, “Ma, he’s a traitor.”

  Blinking, he stared at the woman. Her face had been burned by the sun, badly bruised, a scab forming over her chin. Her lips parted, and she took an involuntary step back.

  He let out a mirthless chuckle. He must look like some monster, but he looked a lot better than he would had those Apaches caught him at McCoy’s Well.

  “Vere’s Pardo?” he asked, and repeated the question, louder. The water had revived his voice, and he was desperate to warn Pardo.

  When she didn’t answer, Ritcher charged, grabbed the front of her blouse, pulling her savagely toward him, hearing the cloth rip, hearing his own haggard yet roaring voi
ce: “Vere is Pardo, damn you? I must find him.”

  The girl, whom he saw shoot to her feet out of the corner of his eye, said, “You leave my ma alone.”

  Ignoring the kid, he shook the woman again. “Vere’s Pardo? I must see him. Tell him about Reilly McGivern. About the Apaches. Vere is he, damn you?”

  He saw the woman’s eyes, filled with fright, watched the girl reach down and pull up her britches leg. He shook the woman, whose lips quivered, but formed no words.

  Holding her by the throat with his left hand, he released his hold with his right, drew it back, slapped her. Blood spurted from her nose. “Pardo. I must find him, damn you, you wretched bitch.”

  Pardo and Harrah eased out of the shadows as soon as the rider had passed, and rounded the bend in the canyon.

  “Hey,” Harrah said, “wasn’t that…?”

  “Yeah,” Pardo said. He tested his Colt in the holster before turning back to Harrah. “You stay here. I’ll see what Major Ritcher wants.” He moved down the canyon, sliding, kicking up dust, feeling his pants rip, looking east, from where Ritcher had ridden, but seeing no signs of any other rider. When he reached the buckboard, parked in the shady edge of the canyon, he heard Ritcher’s echo, calling out his name.

  With a curse, Pardo found his horse, swung into the saddle, and galloped down Texas Canyon as another echo bounced along the canyon. This time, Pardo managed a guess, it was Blanche’s voice:

  Wa-gon…wa-gon…wa-gon…

  He reined in beside the rocky fortress on the southern side of the canyon, heard Blanche shouting, heard a ruction beyond the rocks. Ritcher’s voice boomed, and Pardo swore, swung from the saddle, spotting Mac and Swede Iverson kicking up dust as they came down from the canyon’s northern rim.

  Pardo didn’t wait for them. Drawing the Colt, he ran around the giant boulder, and stopped, taking it all in. The kid, Blanche, was trying to get something out of her boot. Ritcher was shaking beautiful Dagmar savagely, screaming something. He slapped her hard, caused her nose to bleed.