Die by the gun, p.15
Die by the Gun, page 15
part #2 of Chuckwagon Trail Series
The red-haired rider looked around but didn’t reach for his revolver. That was a good sign. Means waved all friendly-like and trotted over to him.
“Howdy, mister. This the Circle Arrow herd?”
The cowboy got a sullen look and answered, “What’s it to you?”
“I’m looking for a gent named Mackenzie. Dewey Mackenzie. You know him?” Mean rode closer so they were knee to knee.
“He’s the cook. If you got any quarrel with him, you got to go through me first.”
“Friends, are you? Good friends?” Before the cowboy answered, Quick Willy Means showed how he got the moniker. He drew his pistol left-handed and swung it in a wide arc that landed across the kid’s nose.
The redhead threw up his hands to his broken, bleeding nose. Means drew with his right and jammed that pistol into the cowboy’s exposed gut.
“You’re coming with us. First, we got to leave a message for your good friend Dewey Mackenzie.” He slipped his left pistol back into its holster so he could grab the cowboy’s hat, put the note inside, and then yank the knife from the boy’s belt. With a show of dexterity he rammed the knife through the hat crown and tossed, backhanded, hat and knife toward a tree. The blade dug deep, leaving the hat hanging as a signpost.
“He’ll come for you. He’s good with a gun.” The cowboy used the end of his bandana stuffed up his nose to slow the bleeding.
“Yeah, he killed our brother. I want a piece of him.” Charles Huffman rode over and tried to cuff the prisoner. The boy ducked so Charles missed and almost fell from his horse. “You little—”
“Enough of that,” Means snapped. “We need to finish up. Our plan. We need to finish our plan.” Means wondered if he had to repeat it a third time for Charles to get the idea that staying this close to the herd abusing one of the cowboys was a bad idea.
He motioned with his drawn gun for the boy to ride west. Seeing how his prisoner tensed and looked around furtively made him cock his revolver to emphasize the futility of trying to escape.
“You’re holding me for ransom? Flowers won’t give so much as a cow chip for me. He hates me.”
“If you don’t shut up, I’ll take to hating you, too. You wouldn’t like that. Faster.” Means galloped hard when the captive lit out. If he thought to escape by outrunning his captors, he was wrong.
Means considered whether to make the young man dead wrong about that. A hostage added to complications he wanted to avoid. Most often he walked up to the fugitive he wanted to take in and shoved a gun in their gut. Using a hostage to get to Mackenzie was a hitch in an otherwise simple plan.
The three bounty hunters caught up to the redhead. The Huffman brothers flanked him while Means brought up the rear.
“Up there, Willy.” Charles stood in his stirrups as he rode and gestured wildly. “That’s a good spot.”
Means took in what Huffman claimed about the terrain. For once, the idiot had it right.
“You and Frank get up on the hillside behind those rocks,” Means ordered. “They don’t give much cover, but you shouldn’t need much. Take your rifles. If anything goes wrong, open fire and kill as many of them as you can.”
This order caused Charles to grin from ear to ear. He and Frank galloped off to find decent spots to command the hollow where Means intended to stake out the cowboy to lure Mackenzie.
“Get off your horse,” he ordered.
The redhead reluctantly obeyed. He had a truculent look that belied his position. Two men with rifles covered him, and Quick Willy Means could draw and fire twelve times before the youngster could even touch the butt of his revolver. Means staked out his horse and the cowboy’s mount to one side and pointed to a rock exposed to anyone following the trail they had laid out.
“You didn’t try to cover your tracks,” the boy said. “You want to make it easy to find me. Well, nobody’s gonna come. They don’t like me. Flowers downright hates me because—”
“Shut up. Yammering the way you do bores me.” Means drew and pointed his gun at the prisoner’s head when he started to protest more. “Another word and I blow your brains out. I’ll prop you up so from a distance nobody can tell you’re dead.”
The boy sucked in breath to protest, then let it out slowly when he realized Quick Willy Means didn’t bluff. He meant what he said. The youngster sank to the rock and slumped forward, eyes on the ground as he muttered to himself.
Means walked around to find a better angle to shoot Mackenzie, if it came to that. He settled down behind another rock and considered what to do about the hostage. Letting him go free after they nabbed Mackenzie made no sense. Even if they tied him up and left him for the cowboys to find, he could identify them later. Means didn’t care if he spilled his guts to a federal marshal and identified the Huffmans. Having the law breathing down his neck was another matter.
“You really don’t think they’ll come for you? That’s a shame. If they don’t, this is where you’ll die.” Means prodded his captive to see what response he got.
“He made me a fruit pie.”
“What? What are you talking about?” Means perked up. The words showed how loco everyone working for the Circle Arrow ranch was.
“A pie. He didn’t have to do that, but he did. Mac will come for me.”
“That’s what I’m counting on. I just don’t want to wait forever. I get mighty impatient.”
“Willy! Willy!”
Means looked up to where Charles stood, waving his arm frantically to get his attention. Before he shouted for the man to get back into hiding, he took a hard look along their back trail. A smile slowly curled his lips. The wait had been brief.
And it was over now. His hunt was over. Dewey Mackenzie made his way along the trail, eyes on the ground as he followed the hoofprints in the soft dirt. If he failed to look up in another minute, he would be in the middle of a firing squad of two rifles and both of Means’s guns.
Quick Willy Means settled his mind and held his hands relaxed and ready over each holster. The moment of truth was at hand.
CHAPTER 17
Mac forced himself to keep his eyes on the ground. The tracks of at least four riders showed where Desmond had been taken. The difference in horseshoes made it obvious that Desmond rode flanked by the others. Mac’s hand twitched, moving toward the gun holstered at his side, but he covered the action by scratching his belly.
He knew perfectly well where the gang that had kidnapped Desmond was. He had to pretend he didn’t and that he was riding heedlessly into their ambush.
Mac slowed and finally stopped, as if confused about the trail. The earth, soft from the rains, took the prints well. He needed to play for time. He swung down from the saddle and continued pretending to study the tracks.
Then ignoring the outlaws was no longer possible. One of them stood up from behind a rock and called out to him.
Mac looked up. He tried to make it seem like he was taken by surprise.
“Come on over, or I’ll put a bullet in his head.” The man held a pistol to Desmond’s temple. He thumbed back the hammer with an ominous sound.
For his part, Desmond showed great courage. He didn’t flinch.
“There’s no call for you to shoot him,” Mac said. “What do you want in the way of ransom?”
“Ransom?” The man laughed harshly. “What’ll you give me for him?”
“Five hundred head of cattle. That’s half of what we have left.”
Mac knew who he dealt with by the way the gunman jerked around and eyed his prisoner in surprise.
The reaction told Mac they had kidnapped Desmond to get him to surrender and had no idea who they held. He recognized the man from Fort Worth and later as the leader of the bounty hunters on his trail.
“Why so much for this kid? It’s you we want, Mackenzie.”
“I reckoned so,” Mac said, slowly walking closer. He hunted for the others in the gang. At least two more lurked somewhere nearby, maybe three. He wished he had read sign better.
“Why’s he worth so much?” The gunman moved around, standing half behind Desmond now, making a shot more difficult.
“You’re bounty hunters. You want me. Let him go and take me.”
“Who we got here?” the man insisted. “Is he wanted, too? If you wanted to buy me off with that many head, he must be somebody important. He’s too young to be the rancher who owns that herd.”
“I’m not that young,” Desmond blurted. “My ma’d never give over that many beeves as ransom.”
“Your ma?” the gunman laughed harshly. “This is my lucky day. I got me a fugitive from the law and a sprout who can get me half of that great, big herd.”
Desmond should have kept his mouth shut when the bounty hunter revealed he had no idea who he had kidnapped. Mac couldn’t blame the boy too much. He had planted that seed himself, trying to make sure these men were the bounty hunters who had been pursuing him.
His presence on the drive had been a fuse burning down to a keg of giant powder. When he learned that the bounty hunters were still on his trail, he should have left the Circle Arrow crew and hightailed it as far away from the drovers as possible. He respected Hiram Flowers and liked the others working for Mercedes Sullivan. Bringing down the wrath of these bounty killers on them was a great disservice.
“This is between us,” Mac said loudly. “You don’t want him.”
Desmond struggled as the gunman circled his neck with a strong arm. The bounty hunter used him as a shield now.
“Drop your gun, murderer. Now!”
Mac looked around, trying to find the rest of the bounty hunters. No sign of them. His heart beat faster as he suddenly stepped behind the horse and used the animal as a shield just as Means used Desmond.
When he disappeared, he flushed out two more men. They popped up from the rocks higher on the hill, rifles in their hands. One had the stock snugged to his shoulder, ready to shoot. The other held his Winchester slanted across his chest.
Mac was done talking. His hand flashed to his gun. He felt like a machine, a smoothly oiled machine built to draw the Smith & Wesson, aim, cock, and fire. The first round sailed uphill to the bounty hunter with the rifle to his shoulder and knocked him back a half step.
Letting the momentum of his draw spin him around, Mac got off a shot at the second bounty hunter, the one lackadaisically holding his rifle. This shot went wide. He whirled in a complete circle and dropped to a knee, ignoring the men on the hill because the leader slugged Desmond with the revolver, then opened fire.
Mac had counted on the man’s greed keeping him from putting a bullet through Desmond’s head, and so far that hunch was right.
Mac got off a couple more shots as slugs whined over his head. To his surprise, the leader stood his ground. The man pulled his second gun and blazed away, right, left, right, left. His marksmanship was off, and that saved Mac. But at least one slug hit his horse and caused it to rear and paw at the air with its hooves.
Dodging the flying hooves as well as the bounty hunter’s increasingly accurate fire sent Mac diving forward to skid along in the mud on his belly. Trying to aim as he slid proved impossible. All he could do was throw enough lead in the leader’s direction to make him take cover behind a rock.
One round remained in the S&W’s cylinder, but Mac reloaded as he wiggled his way to a shallow ditch. Rainwater stood a couple inches deep. Partly submerged, he aimed in the leader’s direction but conserved his ammunition.
“Throw down that six-gun, Mackenzie. Give up now or I’ll plug your friend. What is he? Heir to the ranch? What’s his ma gonna think if you get away alive and her son’s caught a bullet in the head? Any more menfolk left to inherit?”
Mac’s bile rose. He held it down because he knew the man intended to rile him, make him mad enough to show himself. The best he could do was cover Desmond, but the bounty hunter had a clear shot at him from behind the rock.
“I got him, Willy. I got him in my sights!”
The shrill shout made Mac shift his attention back uphill. The bounty hunter he had driven back readied his rifle, but he was aiming at Desmond. Resting the butt of his pistol on the ground to steady it, Mac drew back the trigger. Again he missed. The range was too great for a handgun.
“I’m gonna kill that little son of a bitch!”
As the man stepped up to put his foot on a rock, a shot echoed through the draw. Mac winced. He thought the bounty hunter had fired. Then he saw the man jerk around. A second shot took the man’s legs from under him. Flailing, he began sliding down the hill. When he came to a halt at the bottom of the slope, he lay unmoving.
“Charles!” the other man hidden in the rocks cried. “You killed my brother, you bastard! You killed Jimmy and now you killed my little brother!”
The man showed himself and charged down the hill in blind rage. This time Mac began firing steady, sending his lead dead on target, then aiming a little left, a little right, and back to center. His hammer fell on an empty chamber with the last shot.
But he had hit his man at least twice and maybe three times. The bounty hunter sat down, out of sight, but no further cries of revenge came from him.
Reloading again, Mac wiggled forward in the shallow water. The sounds alerted the remaining bounty hunter, the leader of the bunch.
“Enough. You killed my men. You don’t give up right now, I’ll kill this one.” The bounty hunter hauled Desmond half upright and shoved a gun into his spine. “Out where I can see you. Now. Do it now or I swear he dies.”
“Don’t give up, Mac,” Desmond said as he thrashed about weakly. His captor shook him hard to make him stop trying to get away.
Mac called out, “Don’t shoot him. I’m surrendering.”
“No, no, Mac!”
“Let him go and—”
“Toss out your gun or I start shooting,” the bounty hunter rasped. “Maybe only a bullet to his legs. He won’t walk again. He won’t ever ride one of his mama’s horses or brand another of her calves. Throw down your gun!”
Mac slid his revolver into his holster and stepped out.
“You can hide behind him all you want, but if you shoot Desmond, I’ll kill you.”
“You want to face me down?”
“I think I heard you called Quick Willy. You really quick or are you just good at telling people you are?”
The man shoved Desmond out in front of him. Mac looked for an opening, but the bounty hunter was too clever to expose much. Drawing and shooting at a patch of shoulder or an exposed leg wouldn’t work. Rather than rush it, Mac waited. It was the hardest thing he had ever done, but he bided his time because he knew the man would make a mistake.
He had to if Desmond and a cook wanted for murder in New Orleans were going to escape alive.
“I’m faster than you,” the bounty hunter said, “but I’m not stupid enough to try your hand. You’re a killer, and I am entrusted to bring you in.”
“So you’re not that quick.”
“I don’t get mad, either. I’m too smart for that.”
Desmond moved without warning. Instead of jerking away, he drove his elbow hard into his captor’s belly. The bounty hunter’s gun roared. Desmond groaned and Mac’s hand flashed for his revolver.
The bounty hunter jerked as Mac’s bullet sent his hat flying. He started firing the gun in his right hand as his left whipped out the other pistol. Mac found himself standing in a windstorm of lead. He crouched low and triggered again, but nothing happened. He knew he wasn’t empty, so the cartridge must have misfired.
The bounty hunter yelled in triumph. Mac thumbed the hammer and got off another shot but missed. As he fired again, he knew there wouldn’t be another chance.
The man grunted and took a step back.
“Damnation,” he said. He clutched his right side.
Mac saw the hole in the bounty hunter’s body begin to bleed. He shook off his shock and fanned the rest of his cylinder as he came to his feet. His wild fusillade joined another as a rifle high up behind him began firing.
The bounty hunter kept firing as he backed away and fell behind a rock. Rifle bullets spanged off it. In spite of the chance he would catch a ricochet, Mac ran forward and grabbed Desmond’s arm. Digging in his heels, he pulled the young man out of the line of fire. They flopped back into the shallow muddy ditch.
“Are you hurt?” Mac hunted in his coat pocket for more cartridges. He found only three more rounds. With a snap, he broke open the S&W and ejected the spent brass. Working methodically, he inserted the three cartridges and snapped it shut.
“I don’t think so. You risked your life to save me.” Desmond stared at Mac as if he had grown another head.
“Not just me. That’s Flowers with the rifle.”
“He came to get me, too?”
Mac started to give a bad-tempered reply to that, but he held back. The threat remained. The bounty hunter was still dangerous. Until he saw the man’s body, Mac couldn’t let his guard down for an instant.
“Stay here.”
“I can help,” Desmond insisted.
“You’ll get hurt. Stay put.” Mac waved and from out of nowhere Hiram Flowers came huffing and puffing, his rifle pointed ahead of him.
“Did I get the varmint?”
“That’s the man you were talking about? Quick Willy?”
“Quick Willy Means. We crossed paths before. He didn’t come out so good.” Flowers stared hard at Mac. “He’s after you, even if he knows me. He didn’t want Desmond for ransom.”
“Until Desmond told him, Means didn’t even know who he was. And yeah, he’s after me.”
“The son of a bitch.” Flowers checked his rifle to be sure the magazine was full. “Let’s go get him.”
“He’s a bounty hunter and he and his gang have been after me.”
“What? Can’t hear you, Mac.”
“I said—”
Abruptly, Mac shut his mouth. He realized that Flowers wanted to hear nothing of his past. It was enough that Flowers hunted Means for other reasons, for whatever had happened when they met before, for kidnapping Desmond. An attempt to take his cook back to New Orleans to stand trial wasn’t necessary to add to the list of reasons Means had to die.
“Howdy, mister. This the Circle Arrow herd?”
The cowboy got a sullen look and answered, “What’s it to you?”
“I’m looking for a gent named Mackenzie. Dewey Mackenzie. You know him?” Mean rode closer so they were knee to knee.
“He’s the cook. If you got any quarrel with him, you got to go through me first.”
“Friends, are you? Good friends?” Before the cowboy answered, Quick Willy Means showed how he got the moniker. He drew his pistol left-handed and swung it in a wide arc that landed across the kid’s nose.
The redhead threw up his hands to his broken, bleeding nose. Means drew with his right and jammed that pistol into the cowboy’s exposed gut.
“You’re coming with us. First, we got to leave a message for your good friend Dewey Mackenzie.” He slipped his left pistol back into its holster so he could grab the cowboy’s hat, put the note inside, and then yank the knife from the boy’s belt. With a show of dexterity he rammed the knife through the hat crown and tossed, backhanded, hat and knife toward a tree. The blade dug deep, leaving the hat hanging as a signpost.
“He’ll come for you. He’s good with a gun.” The cowboy used the end of his bandana stuffed up his nose to slow the bleeding.
“Yeah, he killed our brother. I want a piece of him.” Charles Huffman rode over and tried to cuff the prisoner. The boy ducked so Charles missed and almost fell from his horse. “You little—”
“Enough of that,” Means snapped. “We need to finish up. Our plan. We need to finish our plan.” Means wondered if he had to repeat it a third time for Charles to get the idea that staying this close to the herd abusing one of the cowboys was a bad idea.
He motioned with his drawn gun for the boy to ride west. Seeing how his prisoner tensed and looked around furtively made him cock his revolver to emphasize the futility of trying to escape.
“You’re holding me for ransom? Flowers won’t give so much as a cow chip for me. He hates me.”
“If you don’t shut up, I’ll take to hating you, too. You wouldn’t like that. Faster.” Means galloped hard when the captive lit out. If he thought to escape by outrunning his captors, he was wrong.
Means considered whether to make the young man dead wrong about that. A hostage added to complications he wanted to avoid. Most often he walked up to the fugitive he wanted to take in and shoved a gun in their gut. Using a hostage to get to Mackenzie was a hitch in an otherwise simple plan.
The three bounty hunters caught up to the redhead. The Huffman brothers flanked him while Means brought up the rear.
“Up there, Willy.” Charles stood in his stirrups as he rode and gestured wildly. “That’s a good spot.”
Means took in what Huffman claimed about the terrain. For once, the idiot had it right.
“You and Frank get up on the hillside behind those rocks,” Means ordered. “They don’t give much cover, but you shouldn’t need much. Take your rifles. If anything goes wrong, open fire and kill as many of them as you can.”
This order caused Charles to grin from ear to ear. He and Frank galloped off to find decent spots to command the hollow where Means intended to stake out the cowboy to lure Mackenzie.
“Get off your horse,” he ordered.
The redhead reluctantly obeyed. He had a truculent look that belied his position. Two men with rifles covered him, and Quick Willy Means could draw and fire twelve times before the youngster could even touch the butt of his revolver. Means staked out his horse and the cowboy’s mount to one side and pointed to a rock exposed to anyone following the trail they had laid out.
“You didn’t try to cover your tracks,” the boy said. “You want to make it easy to find me. Well, nobody’s gonna come. They don’t like me. Flowers downright hates me because—”
“Shut up. Yammering the way you do bores me.” Means drew and pointed his gun at the prisoner’s head when he started to protest more. “Another word and I blow your brains out. I’ll prop you up so from a distance nobody can tell you’re dead.”
The boy sucked in breath to protest, then let it out slowly when he realized Quick Willy Means didn’t bluff. He meant what he said. The youngster sank to the rock and slumped forward, eyes on the ground as he muttered to himself.
Means walked around to find a better angle to shoot Mackenzie, if it came to that. He settled down behind another rock and considered what to do about the hostage. Letting him go free after they nabbed Mackenzie made no sense. Even if they tied him up and left him for the cowboys to find, he could identify them later. Means didn’t care if he spilled his guts to a federal marshal and identified the Huffmans. Having the law breathing down his neck was another matter.
“You really don’t think they’ll come for you? That’s a shame. If they don’t, this is where you’ll die.” Means prodded his captive to see what response he got.
“He made me a fruit pie.”
“What? What are you talking about?” Means perked up. The words showed how loco everyone working for the Circle Arrow ranch was.
“A pie. He didn’t have to do that, but he did. Mac will come for me.”
“That’s what I’m counting on. I just don’t want to wait forever. I get mighty impatient.”
“Willy! Willy!”
Means looked up to where Charles stood, waving his arm frantically to get his attention. Before he shouted for the man to get back into hiding, he took a hard look along their back trail. A smile slowly curled his lips. The wait had been brief.
And it was over now. His hunt was over. Dewey Mackenzie made his way along the trail, eyes on the ground as he followed the hoofprints in the soft dirt. If he failed to look up in another minute, he would be in the middle of a firing squad of two rifles and both of Means’s guns.
Quick Willy Means settled his mind and held his hands relaxed and ready over each holster. The moment of truth was at hand.
CHAPTER 17
Mac forced himself to keep his eyes on the ground. The tracks of at least four riders showed where Desmond had been taken. The difference in horseshoes made it obvious that Desmond rode flanked by the others. Mac’s hand twitched, moving toward the gun holstered at his side, but he covered the action by scratching his belly.
He knew perfectly well where the gang that had kidnapped Desmond was. He had to pretend he didn’t and that he was riding heedlessly into their ambush.
Mac slowed and finally stopped, as if confused about the trail. The earth, soft from the rains, took the prints well. He needed to play for time. He swung down from the saddle and continued pretending to study the tracks.
Then ignoring the outlaws was no longer possible. One of them stood up from behind a rock and called out to him.
Mac looked up. He tried to make it seem like he was taken by surprise.
“Come on over, or I’ll put a bullet in his head.” The man held a pistol to Desmond’s temple. He thumbed back the hammer with an ominous sound.
For his part, Desmond showed great courage. He didn’t flinch.
“There’s no call for you to shoot him,” Mac said. “What do you want in the way of ransom?”
“Ransom?” The man laughed harshly. “What’ll you give me for him?”
“Five hundred head of cattle. That’s half of what we have left.”
Mac knew who he dealt with by the way the gunman jerked around and eyed his prisoner in surprise.
The reaction told Mac they had kidnapped Desmond to get him to surrender and had no idea who they held. He recognized the man from Fort Worth and later as the leader of the bounty hunters on his trail.
“Why so much for this kid? It’s you we want, Mackenzie.”
“I reckoned so,” Mac said, slowly walking closer. He hunted for the others in the gang. At least two more lurked somewhere nearby, maybe three. He wished he had read sign better.
“Why’s he worth so much?” The gunman moved around, standing half behind Desmond now, making a shot more difficult.
“You’re bounty hunters. You want me. Let him go and take me.”
“Who we got here?” the man insisted. “Is he wanted, too? If you wanted to buy me off with that many head, he must be somebody important. He’s too young to be the rancher who owns that herd.”
“I’m not that young,” Desmond blurted. “My ma’d never give over that many beeves as ransom.”
“Your ma?” the gunman laughed harshly. “This is my lucky day. I got me a fugitive from the law and a sprout who can get me half of that great, big herd.”
Desmond should have kept his mouth shut when the bounty hunter revealed he had no idea who he had kidnapped. Mac couldn’t blame the boy too much. He had planted that seed himself, trying to make sure these men were the bounty hunters who had been pursuing him.
His presence on the drive had been a fuse burning down to a keg of giant powder. When he learned that the bounty hunters were still on his trail, he should have left the Circle Arrow crew and hightailed it as far away from the drovers as possible. He respected Hiram Flowers and liked the others working for Mercedes Sullivan. Bringing down the wrath of these bounty killers on them was a great disservice.
“This is between us,” Mac said loudly. “You don’t want him.”
Desmond struggled as the gunman circled his neck with a strong arm. The bounty hunter used him as a shield now.
“Drop your gun, murderer. Now!”
Mac looked around, trying to find the rest of the bounty hunters. No sign of them. His heart beat faster as he suddenly stepped behind the horse and used the animal as a shield just as Means used Desmond.
When he disappeared, he flushed out two more men. They popped up from the rocks higher on the hill, rifles in their hands. One had the stock snugged to his shoulder, ready to shoot. The other held his Winchester slanted across his chest.
Mac was done talking. His hand flashed to his gun. He felt like a machine, a smoothly oiled machine built to draw the Smith & Wesson, aim, cock, and fire. The first round sailed uphill to the bounty hunter with the rifle to his shoulder and knocked him back a half step.
Letting the momentum of his draw spin him around, Mac got off a shot at the second bounty hunter, the one lackadaisically holding his rifle. This shot went wide. He whirled in a complete circle and dropped to a knee, ignoring the men on the hill because the leader slugged Desmond with the revolver, then opened fire.
Mac had counted on the man’s greed keeping him from putting a bullet through Desmond’s head, and so far that hunch was right.
Mac got off a couple more shots as slugs whined over his head. To his surprise, the leader stood his ground. The man pulled his second gun and blazed away, right, left, right, left. His marksmanship was off, and that saved Mac. But at least one slug hit his horse and caused it to rear and paw at the air with its hooves.
Dodging the flying hooves as well as the bounty hunter’s increasingly accurate fire sent Mac diving forward to skid along in the mud on his belly. Trying to aim as he slid proved impossible. All he could do was throw enough lead in the leader’s direction to make him take cover behind a rock.
One round remained in the S&W’s cylinder, but Mac reloaded as he wiggled his way to a shallow ditch. Rainwater stood a couple inches deep. Partly submerged, he aimed in the leader’s direction but conserved his ammunition.
“Throw down that six-gun, Mackenzie. Give up now or I’ll plug your friend. What is he? Heir to the ranch? What’s his ma gonna think if you get away alive and her son’s caught a bullet in the head? Any more menfolk left to inherit?”
Mac’s bile rose. He held it down because he knew the man intended to rile him, make him mad enough to show himself. The best he could do was cover Desmond, but the bounty hunter had a clear shot at him from behind the rock.
“I got him, Willy. I got him in my sights!”
The shrill shout made Mac shift his attention back uphill. The bounty hunter he had driven back readied his rifle, but he was aiming at Desmond. Resting the butt of his pistol on the ground to steady it, Mac drew back the trigger. Again he missed. The range was too great for a handgun.
“I’m gonna kill that little son of a bitch!”
As the man stepped up to put his foot on a rock, a shot echoed through the draw. Mac winced. He thought the bounty hunter had fired. Then he saw the man jerk around. A second shot took the man’s legs from under him. Flailing, he began sliding down the hill. When he came to a halt at the bottom of the slope, he lay unmoving.
“Charles!” the other man hidden in the rocks cried. “You killed my brother, you bastard! You killed Jimmy and now you killed my little brother!”
The man showed himself and charged down the hill in blind rage. This time Mac began firing steady, sending his lead dead on target, then aiming a little left, a little right, and back to center. His hammer fell on an empty chamber with the last shot.
But he had hit his man at least twice and maybe three times. The bounty hunter sat down, out of sight, but no further cries of revenge came from him.
Reloading again, Mac wiggled forward in the shallow water. The sounds alerted the remaining bounty hunter, the leader of the bunch.
“Enough. You killed my men. You don’t give up right now, I’ll kill this one.” The bounty hunter hauled Desmond half upright and shoved a gun into his spine. “Out where I can see you. Now. Do it now or I swear he dies.”
“Don’t give up, Mac,” Desmond said as he thrashed about weakly. His captor shook him hard to make him stop trying to get away.
Mac called out, “Don’t shoot him. I’m surrendering.”
“No, no, Mac!”
“Let him go and—”
“Toss out your gun or I start shooting,” the bounty hunter rasped. “Maybe only a bullet to his legs. He won’t walk again. He won’t ever ride one of his mama’s horses or brand another of her calves. Throw down your gun!”
Mac slid his revolver into his holster and stepped out.
“You can hide behind him all you want, but if you shoot Desmond, I’ll kill you.”
“You want to face me down?”
“I think I heard you called Quick Willy. You really quick or are you just good at telling people you are?”
The man shoved Desmond out in front of him. Mac looked for an opening, but the bounty hunter was too clever to expose much. Drawing and shooting at a patch of shoulder or an exposed leg wouldn’t work. Rather than rush it, Mac waited. It was the hardest thing he had ever done, but he bided his time because he knew the man would make a mistake.
He had to if Desmond and a cook wanted for murder in New Orleans were going to escape alive.
“I’m faster than you,” the bounty hunter said, “but I’m not stupid enough to try your hand. You’re a killer, and I am entrusted to bring you in.”
“So you’re not that quick.”
“I don’t get mad, either. I’m too smart for that.”
Desmond moved without warning. Instead of jerking away, he drove his elbow hard into his captor’s belly. The bounty hunter’s gun roared. Desmond groaned and Mac’s hand flashed for his revolver.
The bounty hunter jerked as Mac’s bullet sent his hat flying. He started firing the gun in his right hand as his left whipped out the other pistol. Mac found himself standing in a windstorm of lead. He crouched low and triggered again, but nothing happened. He knew he wasn’t empty, so the cartridge must have misfired.
The bounty hunter yelled in triumph. Mac thumbed the hammer and got off another shot but missed. As he fired again, he knew there wouldn’t be another chance.
The man grunted and took a step back.
“Damnation,” he said. He clutched his right side.
Mac saw the hole in the bounty hunter’s body begin to bleed. He shook off his shock and fanned the rest of his cylinder as he came to his feet. His wild fusillade joined another as a rifle high up behind him began firing.
The bounty hunter kept firing as he backed away and fell behind a rock. Rifle bullets spanged off it. In spite of the chance he would catch a ricochet, Mac ran forward and grabbed Desmond’s arm. Digging in his heels, he pulled the young man out of the line of fire. They flopped back into the shallow muddy ditch.
“Are you hurt?” Mac hunted in his coat pocket for more cartridges. He found only three more rounds. With a snap, he broke open the S&W and ejected the spent brass. Working methodically, he inserted the three cartridges and snapped it shut.
“I don’t think so. You risked your life to save me.” Desmond stared at Mac as if he had grown another head.
“Not just me. That’s Flowers with the rifle.”
“He came to get me, too?”
Mac started to give a bad-tempered reply to that, but he held back. The threat remained. The bounty hunter was still dangerous. Until he saw the man’s body, Mac couldn’t let his guard down for an instant.
“Stay here.”
“I can help,” Desmond insisted.
“You’ll get hurt. Stay put.” Mac waved and from out of nowhere Hiram Flowers came huffing and puffing, his rifle pointed ahead of him.
“Did I get the varmint?”
“That’s the man you were talking about? Quick Willy?”
“Quick Willy Means. We crossed paths before. He didn’t come out so good.” Flowers stared hard at Mac. “He’s after you, even if he knows me. He didn’t want Desmond for ransom.”
“Until Desmond told him, Means didn’t even know who he was. And yeah, he’s after me.”
“The son of a bitch.” Flowers checked his rifle to be sure the magazine was full. “Let’s go get him.”
“He’s a bounty hunter and he and his gang have been after me.”
“What? Can’t hear you, Mac.”
“I said—”
Abruptly, Mac shut his mouth. He realized that Flowers wanted to hear nothing of his past. It was enough that Flowers hunted Means for other reasons, for whatever had happened when they met before, for kidnapping Desmond. An attempt to take his cook back to New Orleans to stand trial wasn’t necessary to add to the list of reasons Means had to die.
