Dead Man's Gold. J.A. Johnstone

enough so that you won’t be too tempted to doze off again.”

      “All right. Thank you for the advice.”

      “Here’s another piece. That Smith and Wesson of yours is a double-action. You don’t have to cock it before you shoot. But you know that, or you seemed to when you were gunning down that Apache.”

      Her breath hissed between her teeth. “Are you trying to remind me that I killed a man tonight?”

      “First time?”

      “Yes, of course.”

      “Well, I hope it’s the last, too. But in case it isn’t, it won’t hurt you to get as good with that gun as you can. Maybe we’ll work on it some on the way.”

      “You’re going to teach me how to be a gunfighter like you?” Her voice held a tone of mockery.

      “Not like me, lady. You don’t want to be like me.”

      He started to turn away.

      “Wait,” she said. “I heard you talking to Father Jardine earlier. The business about the rope and the rattlesnakes. You were nice to him, when he was a little condescending to you. I appreciate that. He really is a good man.”

      “He’s a priest. That’s what you’d expect, I reckon.”

      “You know a lot about surviving out here on the frontier, don’t you?”

      “I’ve had to learn,” The Kid said. He didn’t say anything about the tragic circumstances that had forced him to pick up a lot of his survival skills in a hurry.

      “But I’ve noticed…there are times when there’s something about the way you speak, the way you carry yourself…Are you an educated man, Mr. Morgan?”

      The last thing he wanted to do was to tell her all about the life he had led back east, when he was still a pampered, pompous ass. Yeah, he was educated, all right, but he had also been ignorant of the things that mattered most in life. It had taken Frank Morgan and Rebel Callahan to educate him about those.

      “No, Doctor,” he said. “I don’t know a damn thing except how to kill my enemies before they kill me.”

      With that, he turned and walked back to the wagon. He took his bedroll and spread it out on the ground inside the big circle of rope, placed his saddle where he could use it for a pillow, and stretched out to sleep. The ground wasn’t too comfortable, and The Kid had trouble forcing thoughts of the conversation he’d just had with Annabelle Dare out of his head.

      He was asleep in minutes, anyway.

      The sky was gray with the approach of dawn when The Kid woke up. He opened his eyes first, without moving otherwise. His head was turned so that he could see Annabelle sitting on the rock. He watched her for a moment without giving away the fact that he was awake.

      Her head was up, and it turned frequently from side to side as she looked around, evidently alert for any sign of danger. That was good to see. If he was going to travel with them, he had know whether or not he could depend on her. From the looks of it, she could stand a turn on watch. They’d have to wait and see about everything else.

      Oh, and she could get her gun out fairly quickly and defend herself in a fight, he reminded himself. But that had been an instinctive reaction, and the Apache had been only a few feet away when she shot him. He would find out how fast and accurate she really was once they’d had a chance to practice a little. He wouldn’t truly know how she would react in a fight until the time came again—which he was sure it would, if they were heading into the Jornada del Muerto.

      The Kid sat up, which drew Annabelle’s attention to him as she saw the movement in the dim light. He pushed his blankets aside and climbed to his feet, walked over to her.

      “Everything quiet?” he asked.

      “Yes. I haven’t seen or heard anything except some sort of night bird a little while ago.”

      The Kid frowned. What Annabelle had heard might have been a night bird…or it might have been something else.

      “Give me the rifle,” he said, his voice flat and hard. “Then go get under the wagon with Father Jardine.”

      “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Do you think—”

      “I don’t know. Just give me the damned rifle.”

      “You’re a rude man, Mr. Morgan,” she said, but she handed over the Winchester and stood up.

      “Under the wagon,” The Kid said again. “Where’d you hear that bird?”

      She gestured vaguely toward the hills. “Up there somewhere.”

      “If you hear any shooting, stay where you are and keep the padre under there with you. Don’t come out until I tell you to.”

      He set off up the hill, moving swiftly in a crouching run and veering from side to side. The light at this time of day wasn’t good for shooting, just like twilight, but if anybody was up there waiting to bushwhack them, chances were the bastard’s eyes would be adjusted to the dimness by now.

      The Kid used every rock, every bush, every scrubby little tree he could find for cover. He climbed all the way to the slab of rock where he had watched over the camp the night before, without running into any trouble along the way. He paused there to listen.

      Somewhere far away in the distance, he heard the drummimg of hoofbeats.

      The tension that filled The Kid eased a little, but only a little. His gut told him that someone had been spying on them, and more than one someone, at that, otherwise there wouldn’t have been any need for signals passing between them.

      The two members of the Apache war party who had survived the fight? Maybe. Indians often signaled with animal noises like that. It might have been some of Fortunato’s men, too, although The Kid considered that less likely. And it could even have been someone else, some enemies Annabelle and Father Jardine hadn’t encountered so far. The Kid wondered just how many people actually knew about this golden candlestick they were after. Something like that might be valuable enough to tempt any number of thieves and owlhoots.

      But right now, The Kid didn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary, so he suspected that whoever was watching them was gone. He didn’t know what the purpose had been in spying on them. He was sure he would find out sooner or later.

      “What was it?” Annabelle asked when he returned to the camp.

      “Nothing,” The Kid said. No point in worrying her when he didn’t really know anything. “I reckon it was just a bird, like you said.” He handed the rifle back to her and went on, “Keep your eyes open. I’ll get started on a fire so we can cook some breakfast.” He looked toward the north. “We’ll put some miles behind us today.”