The Killing Shot (4 page)

The buckskin's front legs buckled as Reilly swung his left leg over the saddle, trying to pull the Evans rifle from the scabbard, yelling something at Denton and Chisum, looking for the powder smoke to find the location of the bushwhackers, watching Gus Henderson dive for cover into the driver's box, searching for something that might resemble cover, all in one motion, in a matter of seconds.

A bullet sang past his nose. Another ripped the horn off the saddle. The buckskin dipped forward, then fell away from the wagon, landed hard on its side, shuddered, and went still. Reilly managed to free the Evans, leap clear of the tumbling dead animal. A slug carved a furrow across his neck. Blood and sweat dampened his shirt, his bandana. He cocked the rifle with his right hand, drew his revolver with his left, pressed back against the dead horse.

He tried to breathe.

Bullets slammed into the buckskin, kicked up dust around him. The mules pulling the prison wagon lay dead in their traces. Beneath the wagon, he could see Denton's dead horse, but not the deputy. Nor could he spot Slim Chisum, but he knew they were dead, knew he should be shouting at the devil himself.

Above him, around the driver's box, Gus Henderson showed his head. Reilly fired the Merwin with his left hand, and the traitorous deputy's face disappeared. The shot had gone wild, the kick of the big .44 almost breaking Reilly's wrist. He had never been much of a shot with his left hand.

Another cannonade of fire pounded into the dead buckskin. Then laughter. Reilly looked up to see W.W. Kraft's face behind the iron bars.

“Told you my brother was crafty,” W.W. said. “Told you you'd never get me to Yuma.”

Reilly lifted the barrel of the Evans, and W.W. screamed, “You can't—”

Reilly pulled the trigger as the outlaw dived. Sparks flew off the iron bar as the chunk of lead ricocheted and thudded somewhere in the wagon's bed.

“Jesus, McGivern!” Kraft yelled. “We're unarmed!”

Reilly shot again, then sank deeper as K.C. Kraft and his men cut loose with several more volleys.

Tilting the barrel downward, he levered another round into the .44, and rolled over, testing his neck. Just a crease. Wetting his lips. Sizing up his chances.

Chances? He tried to laugh but couldn't manage anything more than a silent sigh. None. Livestock all dead. Denton and Chisum dead. That left him alone with two unarmed men in the prison wagon and Gus Henderson, that son of a bitch, cowering in the driver's box with a Winchester and Colt.

The sun was a blistering white orb, high in the sky. A long time till sundown. He wouldn't live that long. The dead horse gave him some cover, but Kraft had at least five or six men with him. One of the rifles sounded like a Sharps, so K.C. would send his best sharpshooter around to a new position. Before long, the man with the Sharps would begin taking a few shots, find his range, and Reilly McGivern would be dead.

He loosened his bandana, tied it across the wound in his neck. He could run. But where could he go? They'd cut him down before he got thirty yards. He could toss away his weapons, give up, let them shoot him dead when he rose.

“L.J.,” said a voice Reilly recognized.

“Yeah, K.C.,” the middle Kraft brother called from his hiding place on the floor of the prison wagon.

“You and W.W. all right?”

“For now.”

“Hey, lawman!” K.C. Kraft shouted. “You hear me?”

Reilly stared at the prison wagon.

“It's McGivern!” W.W. cried out. “Reilly McGivern, K.C. That bastard took a shot at me.”

“Just keep your damned head down, little brother, and shut up. Reilly! You want to stay alive?”

Silence.

“You're alone, Reilly. I can sweat you out. I can ride you down. Or, you toss away your guns, I can let you walk out. Walk out of here. Walk and live. Name your pleasure.”

Nothing.

“It was a good plan, Reilly. You almost got away with it. But let's consider where you are now. The law don't know where you are. It's too far from Dos Cabezas or Fort Bowie to expect help from there. You're alone. There's nothing to do, Reilly, but surrender. While you still can.”

Reilly eased up the barrel of the Evans slightly. Wet his lips. Pulled the trigger.

Thirty grains of exploding gunpowder rifled a 220-grain centerfire bullet through the wagon's black wooden side, blowing out a chunk of wood, and whined off the iron frame.

“Christ almighty!” W.W. Kraft yelled. “We're unarmed. You can't shoot us—”

“Can't I?” Reilly's voice was hoarse, but he made sure all of the Krafts, and that coward Gus Henderson, could hear him. He jacked another shell into the rifle and slid over a few feet, while K.C. started talking.

“Don't you fret, boys. Reilly, your bullets won't go through iron. You can't get a clear shot from where you're lying down, and if you stand up or move, you're dead. You're making a fool's play.”

The Evans boomed. The bullet slammed into the iron wall behind the driver's box, put a dent in Marshal Tidball's prized possession, cut down, and whined off the floor somewhere out of his view. L. J. and W.W. cried out in terror.

“Bullets don't have to go through iron,” Reilly said. “Ever seen how bad a ricochet can tear a body up, K.C.?”

“Reilly!” K.C. yelled. “Reilly, that's murder!”

“I don't give a damn.”

Silence.

“Odds are against you, Reilly,” K.C. Kraft tried again, but he no longer sounded so sure of himself. “Hitting one of my brothers—”

He shot again, jacked the lever, fired again, and again, and again. Let the smoke cleared, then shot twice more, listening to the bullets whine, and the Kraft brothers scream. His bandana was soaked with sweat and blood, so he unloosened it to wipe down and cool off the rifle barrel. As far as Reilly knew, he was the only man in Arizona Territory with an Evans rifle. Marshal Cobb called the weapon a pain in the arse, and sometimes Reilly would agree with him. He had to go to Tucson to get the ammunition, and even that was getting harder to come by since the Evans Repeating Rifle Company had gone out of business three or four years back, and the big rifle was damned heavy and cumbersome, but Reilly loved it. Especially right now.

“K.C., you stupid ass!” L.J. shouted when the din faded into the desert heat. “You ain't the one stuck in here. Bastard just nicked my left earlobe.”

“I'm hit, too!” W.W. whimpered. “He blew off my damned boot heel.”

Reilly shot again, pushed out cartridges from his bandolier, and began reloading the rifle.

“He'll be out of bullets soon,” K.C. said.

“Like hell,” W.W. argued. “That rifle of his holds more rounds than an armory.”

Reilly almost smiled. W.W. was right. Designed by, of all people, a Maine dentist, and featuring a rotary magazine in the walnut stock, the Evans had a 30-inch octagonal barrel that could chamber twenty-eight .44 cartridges—earlier models could hold more than thirty shells—and Reilly had filled every loop on the bandolier with a cartridge before leaving Charleston.

He wouldn't die for a lack of ammunition.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the flash of light, and rolled, pulled himself closer to the dead horse, already drawing flies. Off to the northeast, maybe three hundred yards, among a couple of spindly ocotillo cactus that were probably in a dry wash. That would be the man with the Sharps. At least, that's where Reilly would have gone.

Reilly wiped sweat off his brow, rested the barrel against the buckskin's stiffening forelegs, adjusted the tang sight he had a Tombstone gunsmith add two years back, and waited.

“Reilly!” K.C. yelled. “Looks like we're at a standoff. I don't want my brothers dead, especially not shot without a chance. And you don't want you dead. Let's work out a deal. A deal that'll leave everybody alive.”

“Everybody?” Reilly said, never taking his eyes off those ocotillo. “What about Denton and Chisum?”

The wind kicked up.

He drew a breath. Waiting. Exhaled.

He made out the figure, or what he guessed to be the man with the Sharps, adjusted his aim for the wind, and squeezed the trigger. The Evans roared, but he detected something behind him and rolled, working the lever, cursing, seeing that Gus Henderson had found his courage, was leaping from the driver's box, swinging up the Winchester.

Reilly's lever jammed. If the Evans had one flaw, it was its tendency to jam. That's one reason the company had gone out of the rifle business. Reilly swore again, pitched the .44 aside, reached for the revolver. Henderson's shot spit sand into Reilly's face and kicked away the Merwin. Reilly grabbed for the pistol again, Henderson's shot almost tore off a finger or two, and the deputy was pleading: “Don't, Reilly. Please don't.”

He made another play for the revolver. Had to. This time, the Winchester's slug spanged off the pistol, and Reilly let out an exasperated sigh. Slowly, he rolled away from the revolver, knowing it was over, that Gus Henderson wouldn't give him another chance, that the Merwin was ruined, that his rifle was useless.

That he was as good as dead.

“I got him, Mister Kraft,” Gus Henderson shouted, smiling. “I got him covered.”

 

K.C. Kraft smoothed the handlebars of his reddish brown mustache. Except for those big ears of his, most people considered him a good-looking man: cowlick that gave a little height to his hair and forehead, a firm jaw, angular nose. He wore a brocaded vest, and, satisfied with his mustache, removed his wide-brimmed straw hat, and began running his fingers around the sweatband. Waiting. Studying Reilly with his brilliant hazel eyes while W.W. exchanged boots with the dead Slim Chisum and other men rolled smokes or reloaded their weapons.

One man rode up from the ocotillo-dotted arroyo, but didn't bother to dismount.

“Carter's dead,” the man said. “Gut shot. Bled out mighty quick.”

K.C.'s eyes twinkled, as he set the straw hat back on his head. From his vest pocket, he found a cigar, and nodded at Reilly. “You that good?”

“Scratch shot,” Reilly admitted.

“I'm reckon Carter'll appreciate knowing that.” Still looking at Reilly, he said, “You about done, W.W.?”

“Just about.”

They had stripped the dead of money and watches, gone through the weapons—tossing Reilly's jammed Evans, bandolier, and busted revolver atop the dead buckskin—and tied a silk rag tightly over L.J.'s bloodied ear. One of the riders had taken his gunbelt and shoved Frank Denton's weapon into the holster. Another was pulling coin and scrip out of Reilly's pouch.

“You probably could have held us off,” K.C. said, “if it hadn't been for Judas here.”

Gus Henderson's head dropped.

Reilly spit. “No. You would have killed me.”

“Maybe. But you probably would have shot one, or both, of my brothers to pieces.”

He jutted his jaw at the Evans. “Jammed. That ended it.”

“Would have been interesting, though,” K.C. said, “if not for Judas.”

Gus Henderson choked back something, and toed the sand with his right boot.

K.C. Kraft struck a lucifer against the butt of his holstered Colt and fired up the cigar. He took a long pull, removed the cigar, and asked, “You want a smoke, Reilly?”

He shook his head.

“What about you, Henderson?”

The deputy looked up.

“Don't give me that look, boy. So you sold out your pards. You had good reason. Woman in the family way. You making hardly no money to speak of, risking your life for Arizona's finest citizens. Reilly don't blame you none, do you, Reilly?”

If Reilly had planned to answer, he never got the chance. Heavy iron slammed into the back of his head, and the next thing he saw was sand. His head throbbed. Blood matted his hair. He felt himself being jerked up, and he tried to shake away the pain, blink back the tears.

Heavy iron, hot from the sun, fell against his right wrist, and he felt the manacles tighten. Laughing, W.W. Kraft squeezed the other cuff until it bit deep 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.”