The Big Gun (Dusty Fog's Civil War Book 3) (29 page)

Dusty Fog was not a reckless boy,
hot-headedly trying to avenge a friend and win acclaim for his
courage.

He was a
man—
and he knew full well what he was
doing!

It was a chilling thought for the Yankee
officer.

So much so that Lyle could not make his hand
move right then.

‘
Three!’ Billy Jack went on, seeing perspiration forming on
Lyle’s face.

Looking at Dusty, who was standing
apparently relaxed yet gave the impression of being like a
compressed spring, just waiting to be released so that he could
spring into immediate motion, Lyle began to realize how his own
victims had felt. He was facing a man who did not fear him. Who
was, in fact, confident of emerging victorious.

Lyle wondered what possible
advantage the
big
Texan could have. That he had—or believed he had—one, Lyle
did not doubt. No man would dare to stake his life unless he was
sure of winning.

Yet, on the face of it,
everything appeared to be in Lyle
’s favor. He had only to drop his hand,
lift the revolver, take aim as he squeezed the trigger and fire.
Since first deciding upon the duel as a way of removing rivals, he
had spent at least fifteen minutes every day in rehearsing the
sequence of movements; until he could do them instinctively and
without the need for conscious thought.

Against that, Captain Fog would
have to reach across, draw a revolver from its holster, cock the
hammer and point it
in
the required direction. It seemed that the Texan had no
hope of succeeding.

So why, Lyle asked himself, had Fog insisted
upon such terms?

‘
F
our,’ Billy Jack counted, the words flowing as slowly yet
inexorably as the ticking of a clock.

Legends of t
he speed with which Western
gunfighters could draw and shoot had not yet started to circulate,
so Lyle had no conception of how fast and deadly a man trained in
the frontier fashion of revolver fighting could be. All he knew was
that his opponent exuded a quiet, unnerving confidence. There had
to be some factor, of which Lyle was unaware, that caused Dusty Fog
to feel so sure of victory.

‘
Five!’

Although Lyle was engrossed in
his thoughts, Billy Jack
’s word triggered off his reflexes. Down swooped
his right hand, gathering up the Tranter and starting to raise it
to shoulder level.

At the same instant,
Dusty
’s
hands passed on their flights across to their waiting Colts. While
Lyle’s Tranter continued to rise, the Texan’s revolvers merely
cleared the lips of their holsters and turned the barrels outwards.
Back rode the hammers, under his thumbs and his forefingers found
the triggers as the weapons lined at waist level.

Suddenly, finding himself
confronted by the muzzles of the Colts, Lyle understood where
Dusty
’s
advantage had been. The major attempted to halt his instinctive
actions, but he was too late.

Flame lashed from the barrels
of Dusty
’s
Colts. With twin detonations that merged into a single sound, they
drove a pair of .44 bullets into Lyle’s left breast. Jerked
backwards, the major completed the pressure on the Tranter’s
trigger, but its bullet winged harmlessly into the ceiling.
Stumbling against the table, he bounced from it to the
floor.

‘
Whew!’ Billy Jack breathed, advancing from where he had
retreated to the sidepiece and out of the possible line of fire. ‘I
figured he was going to get you, Cap’n Dusty. Right pleased he
didn’t.’

‘
And
me,’ the small Texan admitted, holstering the Colts.

‘
Yes,
sir,’ Billy Jack went on. ‘Happen he had downed you, I’d’ve been
next to go.’

‘
I’m
right pleased to know how concerned you were about
me
!’
Dusty growled, watching his companion bend over Lyle. ‘Is
he dead?’

‘
Sure,’ the sergeant major confirmed. ‘And I’ve never seen a
man who deserved to die more than him.’

‘
Or
me,’ Dusty agreed. ‘He caused a lot of people to die and, no matter
what I told him, we could never have convicted him for doing it.
That’s why I faced him down.’

‘
I
reckon General Hardin and Colonel Blaze’ll claim you did right,’
Billy Jack drawled. ‘Give him his due, Cap’n Dusty, he died
game.’

‘
We’ll
give him that,’ Dusty replied. ‘Take him to the boat, we’ll see he
gets a decent burial, even though he didn’t give Doug better than
being sunk in the lake.’

‘
Yo!’
Billy Jack drawled, for they had discovered what had been done with
Staunce’s body and he knew that the knowledge had steeled Dusty in
his resolve to punish Lyle. ‘How about you?’

‘
I’ll
set off the fuses and blow up Big Minnie,’ Dusty
replied.

Fifteen minutes later, Billy
Jack and Dusty were supervising the unloading of
Lyle
’s body.
There was a shattering roar from the island and the workshop
disintegrated. The sound was echoed by two more explosions to the
south. The first destroyed Eli Cable’s other traction
engine.

The second brought a permanent end to the
threat of the big gun.

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