A Mass Murderer - Tears for the dead (ADDITIONAL BOOK INCLUDED ) (2 page)

Like a snake flicking out its head after a mesmerized jack-rabbit, so Nathan moved like a flash as soon as they were distracted. First angering them, he had then thrown them completely off guard, and now made his move. A small Derringer, with an over-and-under barrel, appeared in his unwounded left hand. So fast that Klyne had a moment to wonder if he was wearing some kind of trick rig with a spring release.

Bates cried something out, firing, even though his gun wasn’t pointing anywhere near Nathan. The bullet tore a chunk out of the far wall, burying itself in the scsrred white wood.

1. The Conflict
   

Klyne himself started to dive to his right, reaching for the gun in his shoulder holster as he fell. But the old speed had gone, and his fingers fumbled, dropping the gun as his elbow hit the floor. He saw Nathan hesitate for a fraction of a second, wondering which target to take first.

He decided to take Bates, who was cocking the gun ready for his next shot. There was the vicious snap of the little pistol, firing its .33 bullet from its three and a quarter inch barrel, with its Damascene swirl and gold engraving.

And he missed.

The bullet ripped through Bates’s trousers just above the knee, flattening itself in the leg of a chair. That gave Klyne the chance he wanted, picking up his gun, sighting and firing, before Nathan could loose off a second shot. Bates had been thrown off balance by the near miss, and had flung himself to the floor.

Klyne fired three times, squeezing the thin trigger. The first shot snapped by Nathan’s face, making him jerk back his head in a reflex action. The second bullet went feet wide to the right as Klyne tried too hard for speed. The third shot struck home, smashing into the young man’s shoulder. Blood splattered out of his back as the bullet exited, but it was only a slight flesh wound, and Nathan was still on his feet, still holding the lethal little gun.

“For God’s sake, Roy. Bust the bastard!” screamed Bates, rolling frantically to one side, and loosing off another speculative shot at Nathan that hit the ceiling, loosening a shower of white plaster all over the three of them.

“I’m trying for Christ’s sake!” yelled back Klyne, bitingly angry with himself for his own sloppiness in not putting the man away with at least one of the three shots.

Nathan dodged behind the bed, so that only his white face and arm could be seen by his attackers. And the arm ended in a bright little Derringer. Klyne saw the flash of the gun and slid behind a chair by the door, conscious of the frailty of the cover. He noticed Bates out of the corner of his eye, scrambling along on his stomach.

There was enough light in the bedroom for all of them to be able to see the others. Klyne heard the thin metallic click that told him Nathan had reloaded the handgun, and now had two shots. Reaching round the back of the chair he snapped off a couple of bullets at Nathan, but both went high, the younger man ducking safely behind the bed.

“Come on boys!” shouted Nathan. “All this gunplay’s going to bring out some other folks who might not take kindly if you kill the son of someone like a powerful senator who could snuff out this town like a spent cigar.”

It was a stand-off. Neither Bates nor Klyne wanted to attack Nathan and risk a bullet in their skulls from his small but lethal weapon. The derringer was useless at any range over eight feet, but in the confines of a room it was as much use as any bigger gun.

Suddenly Bates shouted to him. “Roy. Get the son-of-a bitch’s head down. I got me an idea.”

It was more than Klyne had, so he fired off three more shots in the general direction of Nathan, having the satisfaction of seeing the pasty face drop down out of sight for a moment. In that moment, Bates made his move.

Scuttling sideways like a bulky crab, he slid over the rough floor, and fired four times. Under the bed. There was a piercing scream of agony, and Nathan crashed sideways from cover, both hands clutching at his leg.

“My Leg! Aaaargh! Noooo!”

Nathan toppled on the floor, his shattered knee unable to take his weight, both hands trying to hold the ruined joint together. At least one of Bates’s .44/40 cartridges from his gun had hit home under the bed, ricocheting off the pine boards, and picking up a spray of splinters on the way.

It had hit Nathan plumb at the centre of the knee, cracking the top of both tibia and fibula, blasting the patella into shreds of powdered bone, and wrenching the bottom of the thigh bone from its junction with the knee. Cartilage and ligament were torn apart, crippling the man in a web of stunning agony.

1. Down to Earth
   

As he writhed on the floor, Nathan screamed high and thin, like a stallion at the gelding. His gun had dropped from his fingers, and lay somewhere behind the bed.

Warily, in case this was another trick, Klyne climbed to his feet, and stood by Bates looking down at the man they had come to kill. In the other room, behind them, they could hear groaning as Doc Newton started to recover consciousness from the blow to the head.

“Please. Don’t kill me.”

“I figured that’s what my wife probably said to you and your friends, you bastard,” spat Bates, aiming a kick at Nathan, but stopped by Klyne.

“Come on Bill. Let’s kill the bastard and get away from here. We’ll never get to any of the others if we get caught here by the crud police chief.”

Nathan strained to look up at them, gaining a brief mastery over the pain that was consuming him. His eyes burned into them like coals, and there was a depth of bitter hatred in his voice that was like a blow from a fist. “You’re dead. Both of you. For what you done here to me, you are both dead!!”

He screamed the last word. “My Pa hears about what you done to his boy, then he will crucify you. By tomorrow you are going to be begging to die.”

Bates grinned at him, the gun steady in his hand. “Maybe we will die tomorrow. But you, Bastard, are going to die now.”

Aiming carefully, he fired three more times. Hitting the other knee, and both elbows. After one last cry of rending pain, Nathan fainted, flopping back in his own blood. Crimson streams flowed from both arms and legs, collecting in a dip in the floorboards like a lake, then dripping out of sight through a crack down under the foundations of the house.

“Finish him, Bill,” said Klyne, carefully reloading his own gun, slotting the cartridges in, flicking up the cover and easing down the hammer.

“Nope.” Bates grinned. “I figure we ought to leave him like that. A forty-four through each knee and elbow is sure as Hell going to slow that bastard down some. I figure he won’t even walk again. Nor do nothing, come to that He’s even going to need one of his Pa’s servants to wipe his ass for him. Leave him. Let him suffer for the rest of his life like he and his buddies made Becky and Louise suffer.”

Klyne looked down at the prostrate man, stirring as the pain began to get through to him again. Nathan’s eyes opened, and for moment shock kept his mind clear.

“Don’t leave me. Please! Don’t . Pa, don’t let them hurt your Joe. Please Pa.” and then his brain took him away and he began to babble. Bates laughed at him.

Unhurriedly, Klyne cocked and aimed his gun, squeezing the trigger, feeling it buck in his hand. Seeing the red rose of bright blood blossom in the centre of Nathan’s forehead, right between the eyes, making the skull bounce and judder with the force of the bullet’s exit through the back of the head.

“Now why did you do a thing like that for, Roy? He’d have been better alive.”

“I know that. But I want revenge. I want to see all seven of those men dead in front of me. That’s one.”

He reached over and tugged a sheet off the bed, throwing  its snowy whiteness over the ravaged corpse, noting with a passing interest the way it stuck to the place where blood still flowed. The redness seeping through the linen like ink through blotting paper.

“There. Come on now, Bill. I know how bad I messed up on that one, and I don’t aim to do it again. Before we try for number two, I’m going somewhere to get me some practice with this,” holstering the warm gun. “Next time things are going to be different, I can promise you that.”

At that moment, Doc Newton appeared in the doorway looking in horror at the sheeted body of Nathan. Blood still trickled down his own forehead where Klyne’s gun barrel had knocked him cold.

“That’s awful. You two….you don’t know what you’ve done. Senator Nathan won’t rest till he’s hounded you down. His son was in my care.”

Bates and Klyne pushed by him, Bates pausing at the front door. “Well, Doc. I guess it looks like you just lost another patient.”

1. Practice Makes Perfect
   

With the first victim of the killer group of seven, the master mind, laid down under and taken care of Klyne  ‘the Hunter’ the ex-cop and his friend Bates had to be more careful with their task at hand. Their encounter with Joe Nathan was a very close call, they almost ended as dead meat because of their impulsive attitude.

Klyne realized that his three year lay off from the police force had made him rusty in all aspects, his reflexes, his keen senses, and most important of all his police way of thinking which was once lightening fast and finally his trigger finger. They were all off target by a mile.

It took nearly three weeks before Klyne was satisfied. Three grueling weeks of self disciplined practice to put his mind to the task at hand specially getting his once deadly gun hand in proper condition. Bruised hands and bleeding fingers. The thumb and fingers of his right hand that worked the trigger of his gun were red-raw, but he wouldn’t stop. Every morning he was out soon after sun-up. Relentlessly driving himself on. Recovering the old speed and accuracy.

The way he’d  fumbled the killing of Nathan had appalled Klyne. Time was he’d have faced a man like Nathan, even with the toy Derringer ready in his hand, and still reckoned that his own speed would have been enough to pluck him down before the other man could squeeze the trigger.

Klyne and Bates, both had agreed that the small town had become too hot for them for the time being. Leaving money and instructions with a very close associate, they had left town under cover in case Senator Nathan sought revenge for the killing of his son.

Klyne and Bates had travelled together part of the way but parted when they reached a certain less known town. Bates went north to stay with a relative of his and Klyne continuing on to a another small town to join a friend of his from the police. His friend was away in the big city, but his wife fed Klyne and kept silently out of his way while he practiced with his gun.

The two friends met again after three weeks. “I reckon we are safe from pursuit so it’s better we get moving once again.” Bates told Klyne.

“I’m ready. Near as I can judge, I’m about as fit as I ever was. I won’t let us down again, Bill.”

Bates had changed in the three weeks that they’d been apart. He’d put on some weight, and his eyes looked puffy and bloodshot.

The nearest man on their target list was the man from Gila Bend, Patrick Shelton. Klyne bade good bye to his friend’s wife, complimented her for her hospitality and started rolling in his vehicle with his friend on the second step of their revenge.

The road to Gila Bend was raged, hilly and winding, It was quite laborious for the two friends to dive the distance. Since they were somewhat on the run they did not wish to make their presence known to anyone they decided not to book into any hotel. Instead they camped out off the road among a huge pile of tumbled boulders and kept a vigilant eye.

Just as dawn paled the eastern sky, Bates woke Klyne shaking his shoulder, whispering in his ears. “I can hear some men lurking nearby. Sounds like half a dozen men.”

Klyne was instantly awake, gun in hand, the other hand dropping to his shoes. Camping out for the night in those sort of surroundings, it was only a fool who would be without shoes.

“What we going to do, Roy?” asked Bates, nervously holding his gun out towards the light brush around them.

“Wait for them, or don’t wait for them. Me, I reckon it’s better not to wait for them.” Klyne said, not willing to get involved with anyone. So they beat the hell out of that place.