“Pardo,” Ritcher was saying. “I must find him, damn you, you wretched bitch.”
Pardo cocked the Colt, saying, “Unhand her, you damned dirty, stinking, miserable rat.”
Ritcher turned. Damn, he looked like he had been mauled by a mountain lion. He shoved Dagmar aside, forming a crooked smile, and reached inside his tunic. “Pardo,” he said. He pulled out a woman’s purse. “I must—”
The .44-40 bucked in Pardo’s hand. He stepped away from the smoke to see Ritcher be driven backward, purse falling onto the rocks, and spun around, his hands reaching out, grasping a mesquite branch for support.
“Par—” Ritcher said, and Pardo shot him in the back.
The impact of the slug drove him away from the mesquite, and to his knees. As the Colt’s roaring echo faded, Ritcher shook his head, muttering, “Nein. Nein.” And pitched over, his face falling into the razor-sharp yucca.
Once he holstered the Colt, he rushed to Dagmar, whose knees were beginning to buckle, her eyes locked on the dead form of Major Whatever-his-name-was Ritcher. The kid was quickly pulling down her britches leg, running over to Pardo’s side.
“Are you all right, Dagmar?” Pardo kept asking, but the woman just stared at the blood pooling underneath Ritcher’s body.
“Don’t you worry about him, Dagmar. He won’t mistreat another woman ever. He won’t never lay a hand on you.” He wiped the blood off her nose, eased her into the shade. Footsteps and hoofbeats sounded, and moments later, Iverson, Mac, and Harrah ran into the clearing.
“It’s all right,” Pardo said. “I took care of Ritcher, the damned rapist.” He removed his hat, started fanning Dagmar’s face. The woman just stared blankly. Pardo looked up at Mac. Mac would know something. Mac would tell him what to do.
But Mac had squatted by the mesquite, had picked up the purse Ritcher had dropped. He was staring at it, his eyes misting over, lips trembling; then his fingers managed to open the purse, and he pulled out a piece of paper, which he wadded into a ball, and rose.
“Mac…” Pardo pleaded.
By then, Iverson and Harrah had dragged Ritcher’s body out of the yucca, Harrah was going through the man’s pockets. “All right!” Harrah exclaimed, and held up a little watch in his right hand. “This’ll fetch us a whiskey or two next time we get to Dos Cabezas.” Iverson pulled out a sawed-down, small-caliber Colt, which he shoved into his waistband.
Mac exploded. Pardo had never seen him like this before. “Damn you!” he screamed, and kicked the major’s lifeless face, which the yucca had sliced to ribbons. “You son of a bitch!” Another kick, this time to Ritcher’s chest. “You son of a bitch!” Kicking and kicking, driving Iverson and Harrah away. The ribs of the dead major began to crack, and Pardo turned quickly to Blanche, saying, “Take care of your ma, kid,” and racing, grabbing Mac, pulling him away, telling him everything was all right.
Mac broke away, whipped off his hat, slammed it against the giant boulder, and let out a mournful wail. Sinking to his knees, hands balling into fists, shaking his head, Mac said, “No. No. No. No.”
Pardo knelt beside him, perplexed. He didn’t know how to comfort a woman. He damn sure didn’t know what to do about a crazy partner. He just said, his voice tense, “Easy, Mac. Easy there, pard. It’s all right, kid. Everything’s all right. I killed the major. He didn’t hurt nobody. Won’t ever lay a hand on a woman again.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“Did you love her?”
Reilly looked up slowly from the coffee cup he had been staring at and into Dagmar Wilhelm’s eyes.
“I…” He couldn’t finish, shook his head. “Never really thought about it, I guess.” His voice sounded hollow, distant. His eyes again dropped to the thick, black coffee, which remained untouched, cold now, and it wasn’t likely that Reilly would get hot coffee anytime soon. Pardo had kicked out the fire after frying up the salt pork and boiling the coffee, saying they couldn’t risk campfires after tonight. “Her eyes,” he said hollowly, “were like yours. Green. Only hers were…” He shook his head again. “I don’t know.” After setting the coffee cup on a rock, he looked over his shoulder where Iverson, Pardo, and Harrah were devouring the last of the salt pork, while Blanche filled their cups with bitter coffee. He slid closer to Dagmar.
“Listen,” he said. “I gave Gwen a note, but Ritcher got it. Killed her for it.”
“You don’t know—”
“I know,” he said. “Her watch, her revolver, her purse, my note. She’s dead. And that means we’re not getting any help. Damn!” His hands balled into fists. Why the hell hadn’t he mentioned Ritcher in that note? He was to blame for Gwendolyn Morgan’s death. Most likely, he would be to blame for all of their deaths. His fists unclenched. “We’re on our own. And we have to get out of here before the Krafts show up.”
“Maybe they won’t. Maybe something happened to Soledad. Maybe they told him no, maybe even killed him. They should have been here by now. Maybe…” She stopped suddenly, aware of the desperate tone of her voice.
“They’ll be here.” He sounded resigned.
He glanced again toward the outlaws, saw Blanche returning with the coffeepot, Pardo’s eyes following the kid. Turning back to Dagmar, he pointed over the rocks with his chin. “Top of that canyon, there’s a door. Right behind that juniper underneath that twisted chimney-like tower. I saw it when I was helping Swede Iverson plant the nitro. That’s how Pardo plans to get the Gatling guns and cannon after he’s gunned down all the soldiers. Through that opening. There’s an animal trail, kind of tight at places, I think, but you and Blanche can make your way through there easily. Find the S.P. rails, just follow those east. It’s twenty miles to Benson, but a few miles before that, right before the rails cross Prospect Creek, there’s a station at San Pedro. You might get help there. If not, Benson.”
“What about you?” Dagmar asked.
“I’ll be busy,” he said flatly.
She shook her head. “We won’t leave you here, Reilly.”
“Yeah.” Blanche sat down between her mother and Reilly.
His head shook. “That’s our only chance. You—” He stopped, turned, stood as Bloody Jim Pardo walked over, hat in his left hand hanging at his side.
“Evening, Mac,” Pardo said, and nodded a greeting at Dagmar. “How y’all two fine folks feeling?”
“I’m fine,” Reilly said. Dagmar nodded in agreement.
“Well, that’s just jim dandy. Glad to hear it. You was half out of your mind, beating the pure hell out of Major Ritcher, though he was past feeling your kicks. Thanks to me. Mind telling me what it was that pained you so?”
Reilly grinned. “I just don’t like Yankees.”
With a chortle, Pardo slapped his hat on his head, and put his arm around Reilly’s shoulder. “That’s my pard. That’s my kid brother. Listen, Mac, let’s leave these ladies alone. They’ve had a rough day, too. We got a busy day tomorrow, and it’ll be a lot busier if Duke don’t get back here with Soledad and the Krafts.”
“Maybe we should call it off.”
Pardo stiffened, and removed his arm from Reilly. “Jim Pardo don’t call of nothing, Mac. If the Krafts don’t show, we’ll just blow this canyon all to pieces. Bury them blue-bellies, bury them Gatlings, send them all to the depths of hell. Come on. We got to form our little battle plan.”
Midmorning found Reilly working with Harrah on the southeastern rim of the canyon. Already, the temperature had reached the nineties, and not a cloud in the sky. The wind had picked up, but it blew a scalding wind that sucked the moisture out of everything. The sun already blistered the ground, so Reilly uncorked his canteen and let the water pour over the beaker of nitroglycerine he had just placed in a cotton-padded hole underneath a series of rocks. He had wrapped the beaker with twine.
“That’s the last one, ain’t it?” Harrah asked.
Reilly nodded, and carefully slid out from underneath the rocks, unwinding the twine as he went. Out of the shade, he remo
ved his hat, ran his fingers through sweat-soaked hair, and took a drink from the canteen, which he then offered to Harrah.
“We got a lot of nitro left,” Harrah said after he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and returned the canteen to Reilly.
“Yeah,” Reilly said. They had placed three beakers, under Swede Iverson’s directions, on this side of the canyon; four just across the road, on the northern edge; three on the southwestern side; four on the northwest. Fourteen in all. Iverson had left with one of the wagons, heading back to camp with the nitro, saying he would transfer the five remaining beakers into the crate in the rear of the wagon parked on the southwestern side. “If you hear a loud boom,” he had said with a grin, “it’ll be me dying.”
There hadn’t been an explosion, and by now Swede Iverson had likely transferred the nitro. Ten beakers left.
“He said we’d need at least two crates of this stuff, didn’t he?” Harrah asked.
“Yeah.”
“Well, we just used barely more than one.”
“He lied. Or he thought maybe we’d lose two wagons on the way here.”
“Bastard. Likely just wanted us to haul all that extra juice for his own nefarious purposes.”
Reilly gave Harrah a moment’s study and shook his head. Harrah was one to talk about nefarious purposes.
“Poor Phil,” Harrah said, shaking his head. “But better him than us.”
“Let’s get the twine down to that rock,” Reilly said, pointing, “where Swede told us to leave it.”
“They’re all tied together, right?”
Reilly nodded.
“Good,” Harrah grinned. “Pardo says I can yank this end, cause the explosion. I’m looking forward to it.”
“Don’t yank on it yet,” Reilly said, and Harrah sniggered as the two men slowly made their way down the ridge, for the most part sliding on their buttocks, Reilly giving the roll of twine plenty of slack, angling away from the last batch of explosives. He ran out of twine, had to tie the end to another roll, and they continued their descent. When they reached the triangular reddish-brown boulder, maybe two hundred yards to the west and one hundred fifty feet below the last beaker of nitro, Reilly took in some of the slack and draped the twine over a sprouting juniper. At that moment, hoofbeats sounded, and Harrah drew his revolver, pressing his back against the boulder, peering down.
Two riders rounded the bend at a high lope, one of them whipping a large sombrero over his head. They reined up at the base of the canyon, and Harrah stood, holstering his gun. “Hey,” he told Reilly, “that’s Soledad.”
“Yeah.” Reilly pulled his hat low, and put his hand on the butt of the Bulldog tucked inside his waistband.
“Don’t recognize the fellow with him,” Harrah said, and removed his hat and waved down the ridge.
Reilly recognized him, though. He looked over his shoulder, found the sun, and stepped over a few rods so that Soledad and L.J. Kraft wouldn’t be able to see his face. The beard, also, might help.
“Mac!” Soledad called. “Mac! El patrón, he want you. At camp.” Pointing back down the canyon.
Reilly’s head bobbed.
“Pronto, señor,” Soledad said, and neck-reined the horse, turning it back east.
“The Krafts?” Harrah called down. “They with you?”
“Sí. Y tres muchachos.”
Harrah glanced over his shoulder. “What did he say?”
He knew that much Spanish. “Yes, and thirteen men.”
Grinning, Harrah turned back, and asked, “Where are you two off to?”
Soledad pointed out the canyon. “We go. Find soldados. Come back. Let el patrón know how far away they be.”
“Good luck!” Harrah called to the riders as they galloped off, out of the canyon, into the rugged country that stretched on forever.
They watched the dust; then Harrah said, “You best get back to Pardo. Want me to water down them glasses of nitro again?”
“Yeah,” Reilly said absently, but quickly changed his mind. “No. Let’s not risk accidentally blowing one up. You just stay here. Keep an eye out.”
“Suits me,” Harrah said. He squatted behind the rock and fished out the makings for a smoke. Reilly ran his tongue over his cracked lips, then made his way down the slope, picked up the Evans carbine he had leaned against a boulder, and slowly walked westward through the canyon.
He had traveled maybe a hundred yards when he heard horses again. Sucking in a deep breath, Reilly thumbed back the hammer of the Evans and stood, waiting. Five horsemen rounded the bend and stopped their horses, kicking up a cloud of dust that swallowed Reilly. When the dust cleared, they saw Reilly pointing the rifle at the center rider. Of course, three of the men, including the man the Evans was trained on, were aiming revolvers at Reilly. The fourth had a shotgun cradled over the pommel; the fifth was too busy trying to control his skittish mare.
Reilly studied their faces and slowly lowered the rifle. He recognized none of the men. “You riding with Kraft?” he asked.
“Uh-huh.” The man in the center, a big, burly man with a thick, dust-coated red beard, holstered his big Schofield, and the other riders did the same. “Well, reckon we’s ridin’ with Pardo and Kraft now.”
“Kraft and Pardo,” the man with the scattergun said, and a couple of the riders chuckled.
“You must be Mac,” Dirty Red Beard said.
“I am. K.C. and W.W. back in the camp?”
“You know ’em?”
Reilly shrugged. “I’ve run into them a time or two.”
“K.C.’s in camp,” Dirty Red Beard said. “Gabbin’ with Pardo. W.W.’s up on the hillside.” He grinned a toothless smile. “Wanted to wet down the nitro his ownself. Duke took him up there.”
“Nice-lookin’ woman Pardo’s got back yonder,” a tall man in a linen duster said.
Reilly bit his lower lip. Damn. Dagmar was still in camp, hadn’t made for the door over the ridge. He had hoped, prayed, she would, but knew she wouldn’t. She just wouldn’t leave him behind, damn her. On the other hand, Pardo wouldn’t let Dagmar out of his sight, wouldn’t give her a chance to make for the opening at the top of the canyon with her daughter.
“Kid with her?” Reilly asked, but he already knew the answer.
“Yeah,” Linen Duster said. “She cusses more than Ezra.”
Ezra, the man with the dirty red beard, spit out a stream of tobacco juice and made no other comment. Reilly gestured with his head down the canyon. “Soledad and L.J. rode out. What are y’all doing?”
Ezra pointed a gloved finger ahead. “K.C. told us to ride over here. Get into position. Won’t be long now till the Army’s comin’ down here.”
“To get massacred,” Scattergun said, laughing again at his own joke.
Reilly nodded. “Harrah’s on the southern side. Give him a halloo before you ride up there. Don’t want one of y’all to get shot down, accidental-like.”
“That’s what we’ll do.” Dirty Red Beard tugged on the brim of his slouch hat. “Be seein’ you, Mac.”
“Good luck,” Reilly said, “and stay clear of that nitro. Harrah knows where it’s planted.” He stepped between the horses as they trotted past. After a few yards, he looked over his shoulder, but saw only dust. He walked to the bend, and leaned against a white, egg-shaped boulder. He couldn’t see the two wagons parked in the shade, but a couple of Kraft’s men were crossing the road. On the northern rim of the canyon, he found two more of Kraft’s men climbing among the rocks, looking for a good spot. Others would be on the southern side, but he couldn’t find any. How many would that leave in camp? K.C. and Pardo, certainly. Swede Iverson? Maybe, though Iverson might have followed W.W. and Duke to the nitro. Then what? He looked to the north again, down a little lower, saw a dun-colored hat resting on a yucca. That’s where the twine was. The man would jerk that twine to detonate the beakers of nitro on that side. Reilly wiped his brow.
He eased his way around the bend, trying to walk casua
lly, toward the fortress of boulders that surrounded the camp. When he reached the edge, he listened, hearing voices, unable to make out the words. Then a footstep sounded, and he swung around, lifting the rifle to his waist, aiming the barrel at another man in a linen duster, the man pointing a long-barreled Colt at Reilly’s head.
Reilly lowered the rifle. “I’m Mac,” he said. “You with Kraft?”
The man nodded, and holstered the Colt. “They’s waiting for you.”
“Thanks,” Reilly said, and walked past the man, looked up, saw nothing, then swung quickly and clubbed the man behind his left ear with the Evans’ barrel. He caught the man as he fell silently and dragged him into the shade, pulled the Colt from the holster, and started to toss it away. Thought better of it, and shoved it in his waistband near the .44 Bulldog.
He looked again, listening, then wet his lips once more before he stood. Deftly, he untied the bandana hanging from the man’s neck, rolled him onto his stomach, and used the piece of silk to tie his hands together. Next, he pulled the man’s knife from its sheath, and slit the tails of the duster, tearing off one piece, which he used as a gag, and another, which he used to bind the man’s ankles. The knife he pitched into a hole.
Afterward, Reilly picked up the Evans and slowly rose.
“All right, Reilly Francis McGivern,” he said in a low whisper. “Let’s start the ball.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Jim Pardo sweetened the coffee in K.C. Kraft’s cup with a couple of fingers of rye before sitting beside him, and saying, “The coffee’s cold, K.C., but I can’t risk having no fire.” Making sure K.C. Kraft didn’t think Pardo was apologizing for anything.
“The whiskey’ll help,” Kraft said, and took a drink. “So, you haven’t exactly told me your plans for after we kill all of those soldiers and muleskinners.”
Pointing over the rocks, Pardo said, “We’ll haul out the Gatlings and cannon, any other plunder we get, through a gateway in those rocks yonder. Beyond that, there’s a smooth animal trail that winds down to the other side. Your boys are unloading the nitro from the back of that one buckboard, and I’ll have them take the wagons to the other side of the canyon. We’ll haul the Gatlings in those two wagons and pull the cannon behind it.”
The Killing Shot Page 23