The Killing Shot. Johnny D. Boggs

      “Wagon’s not pointed toward Yuma,” Chaucer countered.

      “Fort Bowie,” Pardo said. “Could be this gent was bound for Fort Bowie. Maybe from there, they’d send him to Leavenworth. I’ll see what the major knows, next time we have us a palaver.”

      “Jimmy!” Three-Fingers Lacy cried again. “I’m getting sicker.”

      While Harrah and Phil carried the unconscious man from the marshal’s wagon to the buckboard, Duke almost tripped over a rifle, covered with dust, leaning against the bloated remains of the buckskin horse. “I ain’t never seen no long gun like this,” he muttered, and picked up the weapon. He tried the lever, tried harder, then swore, spit tobacco juice, and started to bust the rifle against a wagon wheel.

      “Give me that thing, you damned fool,” Ruby Pardo said from the buckboard, and Duke quickly obeyed.

      “It’s jammed, Miz Ruby,” Duke told her. “Lever won’t work no more.”

      “I can see that.” She hefted the rifle. “This is an Evans forty-four. Ain’t seen one in five-six years.” She braced the stock against her shoulder, took aim at the ocotillo, squeezed a trigger that wouldn’t move. “Hell of a gun.”

      “Can you fix it, Ma?” Pardo asked.

      “It’s a gun, ain’t it?” His mother laughed, and she slid the rifle onto the floor at her feet. She spit, and looked up the ridge. “We’d best skedaddle, son,” she said. “Make for the Dragoons.”

      “Ma’s right, boys,” Pardo said, and he helped Blanche into the back of the wagon, then climbed up beside his mother. Odd, he thought, watching the kid as they pulled away from the massacre site. That little hellion was doting on the man they had pulled out of the prison wagon, bathing his forehead, his wounds, letting a few drops of water fall into his mouth. Kid practically ignored her mother.

      Well, it made sense, in a way. Pardo was pretty sure the girl’s mother would live. He wouldn’t bet on the man’s chances.

      CHAPTER SIX

      The first thing he saw was a face. Sunburned. Blond hair, dirty and unkempt. Green eyes. Thin lips. A hard face. A girl’s face. A kid’s face.

      “My name’s Blanche,” the face said.

      “I’ll do the talking, kid,” came another voice, followed by another face. A man, needing a shave, wearing a battered hat. Wild, angry eyes. “Who are you?”

      “Mac,” was all he could manage before plunging back into that cold, midnight void.

      A blacksmith’s sledge pounded an anvil inside his head, the top of which felt as if someone had poured steaming water over it. With a groan, Reilly forced his eyelids open and saw the girl’s face again. Her bright eyes darted before landing back on his, and she whispered, “You remember what I told you?”

      He remembered nothing but the girl’s face. His confusion must have showed. The girl’s lips moved. It looked like she said “Damn,” but Reilly didn’t think little girls spoke like that. He smelled piñon wood burning, coffee boiling. He tried to move his head, but that hurt. He tried to remember.

      “Listen to me,” the girl started, only to be cut off by that second voice he vaguely recalled.

      “I told you to holler when he woke up, kid. I talk to this hombre first.”

      Spurs jingled, and the other face, the man with the crazy eyes, reappeared as he shoved the girl aside.

      “All right, Mac,” the man said. “You got some questions to answer, and they’d better satisfy me.”

      A ton of sand coated Reilly’s throat. “Water,” he said softly.

      “Later.” A short-barreled Colt sprung into the man’s hand. The cylinder rotated a huge bullet as the revolver cocked. The man pressed the barrel under Reilly’s nose.

      “What happened down in the valley?” the man asked.

      “Ambush,” Reilly said, and he started to remember. Gus Henderson. Poor Frank Denton and Slim Chisum shot dead, Slim while he was taking a piss. And Frank, as good a lawman as Reilly had ever known. But this man with the bulldog’s face and the madman’s eyes, he hadn’t been part of K.C. Kraft’s gang. More memories came. K.C., riding south. W.W., slapping those manacles on Reilly’s wrists. And…the girl, the kid. He could picture her lips moving, her hands reaching through the bars of the prison wagon. Reilly looked down, saw his hands were freed. He reached up, fingered over his bandaged neck, felt his chest.

      “My patience,” the man with the gun said, “is about to end.”

      “Give him some water,” the girl’s voice said. “He can’t talk.”

      “Shut up.” His finger tightened on the trigger. “Ambush, you said. I ain’t blind. I could see you was ambushed. Don’t play me for—”

      “Give him some damned water!” the girl barked.

      “I’m going to give him a hole between his nostrils and his mouth. Then I’m going to wash out your mouth with soap.”

      Another voice, from off in the shadows. “Give him some water, Pardo.”

      “Why don’t you introduce all of us to this hombre, Chaucer?” the man said, glancing over his shoulder. He looked again at Reilly. “Start talking. Or start dying.”

      Reilly’s fingers ran down his vest. His badge. His badge was gone. His eyes found the girl. The name bounced around in his weary head. Pardo…Pardo…Pardo… He saw the girl’s face again, remembering, heard her saying something, felt her small hands on his chest, taking off his badge, heard that voice, that warning.

      The man with the Colt wet his lips. He swallowed, thinking, and grinned. “One sentence, Mac. One sentence, but make it a good one. Then I’ll give you some water. Or a chunk of lead.”

      He tried to swallow, couldn’t. “They were,” he tried, wondering if anyone could really hear him, “hauling my ass…to…prison.”

      He closed his eyes. He didn’t expect Pardo to believe him. He expected to feel a bullet tear into his brain, and he wouldn’t have minded it one bit.

      The water revived him. The girl smiled at him, and even Pardo grinned. He still held the Colt, and the pistol remained cocked, but it was on Pardo’s lap now, not pressed against Reilly’s nose.

      Reilly wanted to drink forever, but the girl pulled the canteen away. “Not too much,” she said. “We’ll get you some broth in a minute.”

      “Feel better?” the man with the gun, the man named Pardo, said easily.

      “Not really,” Reilly answered honestly.

      “Hauling you to prison, eh?” Pardo said. “Yuma, I take it?”

      Reilly started to nod, but there was something about Pardo’s tone. He tried to savor the taste of water, the wetness on his cracked lips. The girl had dipped a bandana in a bowl of water, wrung it out, placed it on his forehead. The coolness almost put him back to sleep, but the man’s voice called out, sharper.

      “Why were they taking you to Yuma?”

      Reilly swallowed. He had been taking W.W. and L. J. Kraft to Fort Bowie, to meet up with Lieutenant Jeremiah Talley. The man named Pardo was lifting the revolver.

      “Not Yuma,” Reilly said, and the gun lowered. “Huntsville.”

      “Huntsville?” Pardo’s eyebrows arched. “Huntsville?”

      “Texas,” Reilly said. It seemed far enough away.

      “You’re in Arizona Territory,” Pardo reminded him.

      “Thought it was far enough from Texas,”