Dead Man's Gold. J.A. Johnstone

way dirt and rocks sprang into the air where those slugs smacked into the ground in front of them. The Kid knew by the way they reined in so sharply that they had seen the bullets hit. One of the men hauled back on the reins so hard his horse stumbled and went down in a welter of kicking legs. Dust billowed around the fallen man and horse.

      The other two men yanked their mounts around and pulled rifles from saddle boots. If they had simply turned and ridden away, The Kid would have let them go. But they clearly wanted to make a fight of it. He heard the sharp crack of shots and then the whine of a bullet passing over his head.

      They had called the tune, he thought. Let them dance the dance.

      Shooting uphill or downhill, either one, was tricky, which was why the first hurried shots from the riders on the flats were high. The Kid didn’t give them the chance to correct their aim. Rapidly, but without rushing, he fired four shots of his own. One of the men hunched over in the saddle but didn’t fall. The other twisted around and then, as his horse bolted, toppled off the animal’s back. His foot hung in the stirrup, though, so the horse dragged him as it continued to run back the way it had come. His foot didn’t come loose for a couple of hundred yards. When it did, he lay there motionless on the sandy ground.

      The wounded man who was still mounted didn’t try to keep the fight going. Instead he turned his horse and kicked it into a run after the one that had dragged off his companion. The Kid’s eyes narrowed as he lowered the Winchester and watched the man flee. He might have been able to hit the hombre again, even at that range, but he didn’t attempt the shot.

      Maybe that was a mistake. Letting an enemy go usually was, thought The Kid. But that hombre didn’t know who he was. Besides, the man was wounded and might not live.

      The wagon had kept going without slackening speed. It was vanishing in the distance to the east, its location marked by the plume of dust raised by its wheels and the team’s hooves. The Kid glanced in that direction, then clicked his tongue at the buckskin and heeled the horse into motion.

      The horse that had fallen had managed to get back to its feet and apparently was unhurt. It was wandering around aimlessly near its former rider, who still lay on the ground. The Kid headed for that man first, because he might be alive and pose a threat. The one who’d been shot and dragged was dead, more than likely.

      The Kid held the Winchester ready for instant use as he approached the fallen man. When he was close enough, he brought the buckskin to a stop, dismounted, drew the Colt with his right hand and used the left to slide the rifle back in its saddle sheath. He kept the revolver trained on the man as he walked over to him.

      When he was still several yards away, The Kid could see that the man’s head was twisted at an odd angle. He must have landed wrong and broken his neck, The Kid thought. He stepped closer, saw the glassy, lifeless eyes, and knew that the man was dead. The hombre wore range clothes and had a hard-featured, beard-stubbled face. Might have been an outlaw, might not have been. The Kid didn’t know, had never seen the man before. But the other two had been quick to shoot at him, and those hadn’t been warning shots, like the first ones he’d fired. He had no doubt that the trio had been up to no good by chasing the wagon.

      A whistle brought the buckskin to The Kid’s side. He mounted up and rode across the flats to check on the other man. As he had thought, that one was dead, too, drilled through the body by one of the slugs from The Kid’s Winchester. A bloody froth drying around the man’s mouth told The Kid that he’d ventilated at least one of the man’s lungs.

      This fella had the same hardcase look to him, The Kid noted. He supposed that they’d intended to rob the pilgrims in the wagon.

      The buckskin pricked up his ears and tossed his head. That caught The Kid’s attention. He turned to look and saw that the horse was reacting to the approach of the wagon, which was rolling steadily toward him at a much slower pace than it had been making earlier. The people on it realized that they weren’t being chased anymore and had turned around to see what was going on.

      Curiosity like that could get folks into trouble, The Kid reflected. It would have been smarter for them just to be thankful that someone had stepped in to help them and keep going.

      He hoped they didn’t want to spend a lot of time being grateful. He wasn’t looking for gratitude.

      The wagon came to a stop beside the other dead man. The passenger climbed down from the seat and knelt beside the corpse, probably checking to make sure the man was dead.

      The Kid put a foot in the stirrup and swung up onto the buckskin. He thought about waving to the people with the wagon and then riding on without talking to them.

      The driver hopped to the ground, and strode toward him. Now that The Kid was closer, there was no mistaking the fact that the slender but well-curved figure of the driver belonged to a woman. The long red hair swayed around her face and shoulders in the hot wind that blew across the flats.

      The man he had once been had prided himself on being a gentleman. There was enough of that left in Kid Morgan to keep him from turning his back on the woman and riding away. Instead, he hitched the buckskin forward at a walk to meet her.

      She moved like a young woman, and as he came closer, he saw that estimation was correct. She was in her mid-twenties, he guessed, with a lightly freckled face that was attractive without being classically beautiful. She wore trousers and a long-sleeved shirt, and The Kid was somewhat surprised to see that she had a gunbelt strapped around her waist. It was unusual enough to see a woman in pants; to run across one who was packing iron was even more uncommon.

      She stopped and put her hands on her hips, which meant her right hand was pretty close to the butt of the holstered revolver she wore. He supposed that she didn’t fully trust him, which probably wasn’t a bad attitude. While civilization had spread across much of the land, there were still some wild places left, and this remote area of southern New Mexico Territory certainly fit that description. Outlaws still roamed here, Mexican banditos sometimes raided across the border, and occasionally even bands of bronco Apaches from the mountains south of the Rio Grande ventured this far north in search of plunder. It was smart to operate under the assumption that anybody you met might mean you harm.

      He reined in and held up a hand to show her that he didn’t. With a polite nod, he called, “Hello.”

      She didn’t return the greeting. Instead, she asked bluntly, “Is that other man dead?”

      “He is,” The Kid replied.

      She glanced over her shoulder at the man who’d been on the wagon with her. He still knelt next to the first dead man. Then she looked at The Kid again and said with an intensity he hadn’t expected, “Good. I wish you’d gone ahead and killed the third one, too.”

      Chapter 2

      The Kid couldn’t keep his eyes from rising in surprise. She saw that and said, “You must think I’m a bloodthirsty bitch.”

      “No, ma’am,” The Kid said. “I don’t know you well enough to venture an opinion either way.”

      “You don’t know how they’ve been dogging our trail, either, making life miserable for us. Now Fortunato is just going to send more men after us, once the one you wounded gets back and tells him what happened.”

      “Could be, ma’am.” The Kid reached up and tugged on the brim of his hat. “Good luck to the both of you.”

      He started to turn the buckskin away, when she cried, “Wait!”

      The Kid paused.

      “Don’t you want to know what it’s all about?”

      “No offense, ma’am, but I figure that’s your problem, not mine.” The Kid had just spent several months taking care of personal business that had turned bloody and heartbreaking. He wasn’t in the mood to take on anybody else’s trouble.

      “You mean you’re going to just ride off and…and leave us here?”

      “You don’t have to worry