Dead Man's Gold. J.A. Johnstone

have time to get where you’re going.”

      “How do you know that? You don’t know where we’re going.”

      “No, I don’t,” The Kid admitted. She was a stubborn woman, and he was losing his patience. “And I don’t care, either.”

      He pulled the buckskin’s head around a little harder than he intended and immediately felt bad about taking his anger out on the horse. The buckskin was a damned fine animal.

      “They’re going to try to kill us again, you know!” the woman shouted at The Kid’s back. “Fortunato doesn’t want us to find it before he does!”

      He knew what she wanted. She wanted him to stop and ask who Fortunato was, and what they were looking for, and why Fortunato wanted to find it first. There had been a time when he would have been very curious if he had found such a puzzle facing him. Not now, though.

      The woman cried out suddenly, not in anger but in pain, and a second later, The Kid heard the faint boom of a high-powered rifle. He whirled the buckskin around and saw the woman staggering to one side, her right hand clutching her upper left arm. A crimson stain appeared under her fingers, spreading as blood welled from her arm.

      The Kid’s head jerked toward the east, where some low hills rose. The sun was quartering down toward the western horizon, and its rays struck a reflection from something in those hills. A pair of field glasses, maybe…or a telescopic rifle sight.

      The Kid sent the buckskin racing toward the woman. She was still stunned from being wounded. He didn’t know how bad the injury was, but he knew the next shot from that distant marksman might be fatal. He brought the horse to a sliding stop beside her, leaned down, and wrapped his left arm around her. She cried out again as he lifted her off her feet and set her in front of him.

      Then he was galloping toward the wagon, and as he approached he shouted to the woman’s companion, “Get back on the wagon! Get it moving!”

      Those hills were close to a mile away. That had been one hell of a shot to come as close as it had to killing the woman. The Kid knew instinctively that that had been its intent. She had said that this fella Fortunato would try again to kill them. The Kid wondered briefly if Fortunato himself was the one who’d pulled the trigger.

      The woman’s traveling companion was an older man. He had taken his hat off, and his white hair shone in the sun. The Kid shouted at him again to get on the wagon and get the vehicle rolling, and this time the man gave a little shake of his head and reacted, as if he hadn’t fully understood the first time. He clapped the hat back on his head, ran to the front of the wagon, and clambered up on the seat.

      The Kid’s back was to the rifleman. His skin crawled. He knew that if he was targeted and the bullet found its mark, he would never hear the shot. The bullet would travel faster than the sound of its firing. But all he could do was keep going and wait for the dreadful impact of the lead, if such was his fate.

      He reached the wagon. The old man was slapping the reins against the backs of the team and shouting at the horses. They broke into a run, which rocked the old-timer back on the seat as the wagon jolted into motion. He regained his balance and started slashing at the horses’ rumps again as The Kid rode past.

      The Kid thought about veering in close to the wagon and transfering the woman to the seat, but decided that was too dangerous. If she slipped, she might fall under the wagon wheels. Anyway, she was probably safer right where she was, with his body serving as a shield from any bullets that came their way.

      He looked back as the buckskin pulled slightly ahead of the wagon. No matter how high-powered that rifle was, they had to be at the very outer edge of its range. At distances like that, a couple of hundred yards could make a big difference.

      The Kid remembered his father, Frank Morgan, telling him about an old friend of his, a buffalo hunter named Billy Dixon, who had made a mile-long shot during an Indian fight down in Texas twenty-some-odd years earlier, shooting a chief’s horse right out from under him at that range. But that had been a spectacular shot, a once-in-a-lifetime shot, and probably more than a little bit of luck had been involved, too.

      Despite the fact that he thought they were probably safe now, The Kid kept the buckskin running and waved for the old man to keep the wagon moving, too. He didn’t slow down until they had put another five hundred yards behind them. Even then he just slowed down and didn’t stop, even though he was sure they were out of range of the rifleman in the hills.

      When he looked back, he saw the sun glint on something again. He knew it was probably a foolish thing to do, but he lifted a hand in a mocking wave of farewell.

      Then he turned back to the woman and asked, “Are you all right?”

      She didn’t answer him. Her head lolled loosely on her neck. The Kid bit back a curse. His left arm was still tight around her, just under her breasts, and he could feel her heart beating so he knew she wasn’t dead. She must have passed out, he thought. He needed to find some place where they could stop safely and he could take a look at that wounded arm to see how bad it really was.

      The arid flats stretched for a couple of miles, but he saw more hills and some green where they ended. There might be a little shade and some water, and both of those things would be welcome.

      He kept moving at a steady pace, staying a short distance ahead of the wagon. As he rode toward the hills, he thought about how his desire to avoid other people’s trouble had gone by the wayside. There had been a time, before he was the man he was now, when he truly didn’t care about what happened to anybody else. That was before he had met his real father, who had started him on the path to growing up, and before a beautiful blonde named Rebel had come into his life and finished the job of turning him into a decent hombre.

      Rebel was gone now, although there were times when he still seemed to see her, to hear her voice, even to feel the soft caress of her hand against his cheek. But the lessons she had taught him remained. She had never turned her back on people in trouble.

      And she wouldn’t let him do it, either, no matter how much he wanted to just be alone, to drift and not care.

      He saw some trees at the base of the nearest hill and knew there must be a spring there. All the waterholes in this part of the territory were spring fed, except for a few tinajas that caught the occasional rain, and they were dry a lot more often than not. As they came closer, he saw grass growing. The horses would welcome some graze. The woman and the old man could camp there tonight, he thought.

      The spring bubbled out of a rocky outcropping at the bottom of the hill and formed a pool about fifteen feet wide. The horses headed straight for it once they smelled it. The Kid reached it first and waited for the wagon to get there. When it did, he motioned for the old man to stop short of the water.

      “Set the brake!” he called to the old-timer. “I want to check the water before we let the horses drink, and I need help with the girl.”

      The old man nodded and hauled back on the brake lever. The horses in the team pulled against it but were unable to reach the water. The old man scrambled down from the wagon and hurried over to The Kid.

      “Help me put her on the ground,” he said as he carefully lowered the young woman. The old man was too frail to take her in his arms—he probably didn’t weigh any more than she did—but he was able to steady her long enough for The Kid to throw a leg over the saddle and slide down from the buckskin’s back. He got one arm under her shoulders and the other under her knees and lifted her, carrying her over to the grass alongside the pool so he could place her there carefully on the ground.

      Then he stepped over to the pool, hunkered on his heels, and cupped a handful of water in his palm. It didn’t smell of alkali, and when he tasted it, it was clear and cool and sweet.

      With a nod, he told the old-timer, “All right, let the horses drink.” He straightened, went to the buckskin, and led him over to the pool as well. “Not too much,” he cautioned the old man. “That’s not good for them.”

      “I know a thing or two about horses, young