Bending himself almost double with the effort, Longarm jackknifed up out of the grave. It was only about four feet deep because Rainey and Lloyd had gotten tired of standing there and watching Longarm dig. The lawman put his hands on the ground and pushed himself up, vaulting into the air as he emerged from the hole. He came out to the left, toward the spot where Lloyd had disappeared. The dead man was sprawled on the ground next to the grave, the fallen Winchester beside him.
Longarm dropped the empty derringer, flung out an arm, and grabbed the rifle’s breech as he lowered his shoulder and rolled over the corpse. Rainey’s gun blasted, but the bullet thudded into Lloyd, who was long past being hurt by it. Longarm tumbled completely over and came up with his right hand through the lever of the Winchester. His finger found the rifle’s trigger as he brought the barrel in line with Rainey on the other side of the long, narrow hole in the ground.
There had been no way for Longarm to know if the Winchester was ready to fire, but luck was with him again. The rifle bucked in his hands as it blasted. Rainey was scuttling away from the other side of the grave like a desperate crab. The outlaw went down hard, the impact as he landed on the ground knocking the gun out of his hand.
Longarm came up on one knee and levered the Winchester in the same motion, jacking another round into the rifle’s chamber. He brought it to his shoulder, aiming at Rainey’s fallen gun as the outlaw groped toward the Colt. Longarm fired. The bullet slammed into the revolver and kicked it a good dozen feet from Rainey’s outstretched fingers. Longarm levered the rifle again and said, “The next one goes in your head, Mitch, unless you settle down and don’t move again.”
Rainey cussed a blue streak, but he remained motionless on the ground as Longarm climbed to his feet. He circled the grave, still covering Rainey with the Winchester. As far as Longarm could see, the outlaw had only had the one gun on him. Rainey’s rifle was in the saddle boot of the Appaloosa tied to a bush about forty feet away, next to Lloyd’s chestnut. The gray gelding Longarm had rented in a stable over in Weatherford a few days earlier seemed to have run off. Longarm didn’t much care; the son of a bitch had had an uncomfortable gait about him. Billy Vail might pitch a fit, though, when the Justice Department got charged an inflated purchase price for the animal.
There was nothing Longarm could do about that now. He peered at Rainey over the barrel of the Winchester and asked, “Where’d I get you the second time, old son?” He couldn’t see but one patch of blood on the outlaw’s clothes, and that stain was on Rainey’s hip.
“You only hit me the once, you bastard,” Rainey said. He pressed the palm of his hand against his hip and winced. “A rock rolled under my foot; otherwise I wouldn’t have fallen down and you’d be a dead man now, Long!”
So luck had smiled on him yet again, Longarm thought. Well, it was only fair. If not for that tainted beef, he wouldn’t have been in such a bad fix to start with, and the steak hadn’t smelled or tasted bad. He made a mental vow to never again buy a meal in Pickettville, Texas, should he ever find himself there again.
“If you ain’t injured, get up on your feet,” he told Rainey.
“My hip’s broke!” the outlaw protested.
Longarm sighed. “I doubt that mighty serious-like, the way you were squirming after that six-shooter you dropped a couple of minutes ago. That bullet just creased you, Rainey, but the next one sure as hell won’t.”
Muttering under his breath, Rainey climbed awkwardly to his feet. He listed to the right, favoring the injured hip, but he was able to stand up and hobble away from the grave.
Longarm checked Rainey’s pistol. The cylinder had been smashed and the frame bent by the bullet from the Winchester; the gun was useless, not even worth picking up off the ground. Longarm went back around the grave to make sure Jimmy Lloyd was dead, not that there was much doubt in his mind. It was mighty difficult to survive having half your brain blown out the back of your head, and Lloyd hadn’t managed to beat those odds.
Longarm found his own .44 stuck behind Lloyd’s belt. He tugged the revolver loose and settled it back in the cross-draw rig, then took Lloyd’s Colt as well. That done, he started trying to brush some of the dirt off his clothes. One good thing about the brown tweed which his trousers and coat were made from was that it didn’t show mud stains too much.
“Hey!” Rainey yelled. “How long you going to make me stand here? I’m in pain, you know!”
“Ask me if I care,” muttered Longarm. He spotted his flat-crowned, snuff-brown Stetson on the ground not far away and picked it up. It was none the worse for wear, since he had already taken it off and set it aside earlier before he’d started throwing up.
He settled the hat on his head and brushed some dirt out of the wide, sweeping brown mustache on his upper lip. He spat a few times, clearing his mouth of the last of the grit and the aftertaste from being sick. A good healthy shot of Maryland rye would have cleaned his mouth even better, but what was left of the bottle he had bought in Weatherford had been carried off by that stupid gray horse. Longarm sighed again. The trials and tribulations of being a lawman sometimes made him wonder why he kept on packing a badge.
It wasn’t like he wanted to go back to cowboying or scouting for the army, though. His years of riding for Uncle Sam’s Justice Department had been eventful, dangerous ones, but he wouldn’t have traded them for a more settled existence. Having to put up occasionally with murderous assholes like Rainey and Lloyd was the price he paid for the freedom he enjoyed.
“Stay where you are,” Longarm advised Rainey. He went over to the Appaloosa and the chestnut. Rainey’s Appaloosa was the better mount, which was not surprising considering that Rainey was the brains of the two-man outfit. According to the reports Longarm had read, Rainey had seemed to be in charge during the stagecoach holdups the two outlaws had carried out. He had probably planned the jobs, which had netted a few good payoffs and a lot of miserly ones. But the important thing as far as Longarm and his boss, Chief Marshal Billy Vail, were concerned was that several U.S. mail pouches had been stolen, making the crimes a federal matter.
Most of the time Vail would have contented himself with sending wires from the office in Denver to the Texas Rangers and the local law in these parts, advising them of the federal warrants that had been issued on Rainey and Lloyd. In this case, however, Billy had judged it prudent to find an excuse for getting Longarm out of town for a while, so he had sent his top deputy to Texas to run down the two outlaws. Longarm had sworn up and down that he hadn’t known the pretty young redhead was actually the newlywed bride of an elderly but still powerful Congressman, but to no avail.
He had taken the train to Fort Worth, caught a stagecoach to Weatherford, some twenty miles to the west, and rented a horse there. It hadn’t taken him very long to get on the trail of Rainey and Lloyd, since they were proud of being desperadoes and took advantage of every opportunity to proclaim how bad they were to anybody who was willing to listen, but several days of riding in circles through this rugged Brazos River country had been required before he finally closed in on them.
And then his damned stomach had gone crazy on him, which was how he’d wound up facedown in a grave he had dug himself.
Now, surprisingly enough, his belly didn’t feel too bad. He supposed he had gotten rid of everything that was upsetting it. In fact, he was a little hungry. After a night of feeling queasy, he hadn’t eaten any breakfast this morning, so his insides were pretty empty.
Longarm untied the horses and led them over toward Rainey. “There’s a town called Cottonwood Springs not far from here, if I recollect right,” he said. “Ought to be a doctor there to look at your hip, and we can catch a stage there for Weatherford and Fort Worth.”