The Killing Shot. Johnny D. Boggs

into his left wrist, then held the key in front of Reilly’s face, and dropped it in the dirt beside the dead buckskin.

      “That iron stays on,” W.W. said, “till you get to Yuma.” Even L.J. laughed with his brother, and Reilly felt rough hands jerk him back, shove him. The heavy door opened. After they threw him inside, he heard the door clang shut. And more laughter.

      With iron-cuffed hands, he gripped the hot bars, pulled himself to his knees. The Krafts mounted their horses, and W.W. tipped back his hat with the scattergun—Slim Chisum’s twelve-gauge—he held in his right hand. “Don’t look like you’re going to get to Yuma no time soon, Mac. That’s too bad.”

      K.C. jerked the cigar from his mouth, as if it suddenly had turned bitter, and threw it in the dust.

      “He’ll die here.” Gus Henderson’s voice trembled.

      “Look around, boy,” L.J. Kraft said. “You helped send two other lawmen to their demise. Now, you’re getting soft?”

      The young deputy stared at his dirty boots and walked toward a ground-reined bay horse without shooting Reilly another glance. Sighing, maybe even crying, he grabbed the reins and mounted. Immediately, W.W. Kraft jammed the shotgun’s buttstock against his shoulder, and cut loose with both barrels, blowing Henderson out of the saddle. The bay bolted toward distant buttes, and other horses danced nervously from the deafening roar, the fresh scent of blood.

      Eyes and mouth open, Henderson lay faceup, spread-eagled on the ground, his chest blown apart by buckshot at close range.

      “Damn you, boy,” K.C. said, trying to control his big dun mare, “why’d you do that? I gave that kid my word.”

      “Your word? To a law dog?”

      “My word, you jackass.” He pulled the reins tight, and the horse stopped twisting, though, snorting, it fought the bit, eyes wide.

      “He sold out his own men,” L.J. Kraft said. “Sold them out for money. A Judas.”

      “That’s right. A turncoat,” W.W. said. K.C. turned his horse around, waved a hand at Reilly, and coughed out a mirthless chuckle. “Reilly,” he said, turning. “My idiot brothers have short memories, don’t they?”

      “Appears,” Reilly said.

      “If not for Henderson,” K.C. said, turning back at this brothers, “you two would be dead. Reilly would have seen to that. That Judas saved your lives. I wasn’t about to forget that. The money I promised him, well, that’ll be going to his woman. And it’ll be coming out of your share.”

      The brothers said nothing, although W.W. looked like he wanted to. L.J. tugged at the bandage covering his bloody ear.

      “Look at him,” K.C. said. “That’s murder. Next time you go up in front of a judge, it ain’t going to be fifteen years you’re looking at. It’ll be a hangman’s rope. Same as me. Now ride out of here, boys. All of you. Ride hard. I’ll catch up.”

      The younger Krafts, and the five other riders spurred their mounts. For a long minute, K.C. watched the dust, and eased his mount toward the wagon. Turkey buzzards already circled in that dead sky. He found his canteen, offered Reilly a last swallow of water. Reilly took a long pull before returning the canteen.

      “This ain’t my doing, Reilly,” K.C. said softly. “I want you to know that.”

      “I know it.”

      “I would have killed you quick.”

      “I know that, too.”

      “But this had to be left up to my brothers.”

      “Makes sense. I arrested them. I was taking them to prison.”

      “Yeah.” K.C. looked through the bars, past Reilly, at the rising dust. “You got family, Reilly?”

      He shook his head.

      “Lucky,” K.C. said absently, and galloped after his brothers.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      You could smell the stench all the way up the ridge.

      Below, coyotes pulled noses and fangs away from one of the bloated mules, spotted the riders, and took off running toward an arroyo. Above, buzzards kept circling in black-winged silence.

      Pardo climbed out of the wagon, dropped to a knee, and studied the valley.

      “That’s a prison wagon,” Harrah said. “I seen one just like it in Prescott.”

      “I got a better look at one over in Yuma,” Duke said. “Got a real good look. From the inside.” He laughed and mopped the sweat off his neck.

      “Shut the hell up,” Pardo told them. His eyes went over every rock, every cactus, every hole.

      Nothing stirred except dust and coyotes. Four mules had been pulling the wagon. Two horses, one close to the black wagon, the other off a few rods on the far side, equally still. Pardo could make out a body near the bloated mules, and something, or someone, lay inside the jail-on-wheels. Nothing else.

      Leather creaked, and Pardo looked up to find Wade Chaucer pulling a spyglass out of his saddlebags. Pardo hated Chaucer for that, too. The gunman slid open the telescope and looked—slowly, carefully—then shook his head.

      “Nothing’s moving down there.”

      “I can see that,” Pardo said. “Without no fancy glass.”

      The telescope slid shut with a snap.

      “We could ride around this,” Three-Fingers Lacy whined. “I don’t like it. Let’s ride around, pretend we never seen nothing.”

      “Bloody Jim Pardo don’t ride around nothing,” he told her angrily. “But he don’t ride into nothing, either.”

      “We can’t wait here all day,” Chaucer said, “not with that posse likely on our trail.”

      “Something’s in that wash,” The Greek said. “I don’t know what.”

      Pardo turned quickly, and Chaucer jerked the telescope back to his face. They stared. “The Greek’s right,” Chaucer said. “Looks like a man in that ocotillo. But he’s not moving. I think he’s dead. Everyone down there’s dead.”

      “Greek.” Pardo stood. “Make your way down that way.” He directed with his finger. “Into the arroyo, come on up alongside those cactus. See about the man there. If he’s dead, good. If he ain’t, kill him.” He let out a mild chuckle, and walked to the edge of the wagon, holding out his arms toward Blanche whatever-the-hell-her-name-was. “Come here, little darling,” he told her. “Uncle Jimmy’s got a chore for you.”

      The girl didn’t move.

      “Come here, you damned little wench, or I’ll rip the veins out of your throat.”

      She leaped over the buckboard’s side, avoiding Pardo’s hands. The kid’s mother tried to rise, said something in protest, but sank back onto the rough bed they’d made for her. He shoved Blanche forward, and pointed at the wagon and animals. “You’re going down there, kid. Just walk down this hill, make sure that ain’t no ambush.”

      The girl took in the scene quickly, and shot Pardo a hard look. “There’s not a damned thing down there but dead animals and deader men.” White-faced she was, but gamer than many of Pardo’s men. He liked that about the girl, but didn’t let that show.

      “You don’t get a move on, Blanche, and there will be a dead ten-year-old girl down there, too. Vamanos.”

      A weak cry rose out of the buckboard. “Shut up, you hussy,” Ruby Pardo told the kid’s mother, and reached for the can of snuff she kept at her boots. “Ain’t nothing going to happen to your girl.”

      Pardo took the Winchester from his mother’s hand, squatted again by the team of mules,