Nick walked over to the deputy while reloading the shotgun. “Who’d you tell about me?” he shouted.
“Don’t worry, asshole,” came the hurried reply. “Red’s gonna know soon enough where to find you! If I was you, I’d start riding for Mexico right now!”
“He’s gonna know? That means he doesn’t know yet.”
The deputy felt his stomach knot. He also felt his legs start to gain some leverage as he continued to wriggle out from beneath his dead horse. “If you hurt me, them folks that took you in will pay for it.”
“What did you say?” Nick asked.
The deputy sensed he’d gained some ground and nodded. “Marshal Bagley gave the order, his self. I told him you were holed up with them folks and he’ll bring hell down on them if you hurt his men. Ride off now, and—”
A blast from both barrels of the shotgun cut the deputy off in mid-sentence, while also nearly separating his head from his shoulders.
Nick looked down at the bloody mess and said, “Nobody’s gonna know I was here and they’re not gonna know who took me in.”
He fumbled through the motions of opening the shotgun and digging in his pocket for fresh shells, but his bandaged fingers didn’t find any. Nick tossed the shotgun and picked up the gun from the deputy’s hand. He tried to fish a few rounds from the dead man’s gun belt, but his fingers weren’t up to the task. Swearing under his breath, Nick kept at it until he’d gotten one bullet free of its leather loop. That brought the gun’s cylinder up to half capacity.
It would just have to be good enough.
Nick rode back to Mather’s house and discovered Marshal Bagley was still there. The lawman had pulled himself to his horse and was just starting his painful climb into the saddle when Nick arrived. The moment he saw who was coming toward him, Bagley looped one arm over the horse’s back so he could reach for his gun.
Nick knew better than to try and shoot at him from where he was. Although he knew he could hit the marshal on any other day, his fumbling with the shotgun had put him in his place. He climbed down from his saddle, carefully wrapped his hand around the pistol he’d taken from the deputy, and walked over to Bagley.
“I know who patched you up,” Bagley said. “You put that gun down or those folks will get a visit from Red’s Committee.”
There was no emotion in Nick’s face as he walked up to within five feet of the marshal. His hands may have been bloody and his fingers mangled, but his aim was good enough to keep Marshal Bagley from moving his gun arm one more inch.
“You fucking bastard,” Bagley spat. “No wonder them vigilantes are looking for you.”
“How long have you been taking orders from them?”
“Long enough to know it don’t pay to go against them. Besides, most of the assholes they string up got it coming, anyway.”
“Most? What about the Hemphills? What do you think will happen to them if you manage to tell Red they helped me?”
“You know…just as well as I do,” Bagley wheezed as his vision started to fade and his grip upon the side of his saddle loosened. “Red likes making…examples of folks like that.”
Nick flexed his mangled hands and muttered. “An example just like me.”
“Let me go…” Bagley pleaded. “I need a doctor. Let me…get to one and I’ll see what I can do about Red.”
Shaking his head solemnly, Nick said, “There’s only one thing to do about Red and I’m the one to do it. You’re just another crooked lawman who shits on the folks he’s supposed to protect.”
The marshal froze in his spot as he stared down the barrel of Nick’s gun. The color was already gone from his face after losing so much blood. Even now, it was getting harder to maintain his grip on his saddle. “The rest of my…men will come. They…must have…heard the shots.”
“Here’s one more for them to go by,” Nick said before pulling his trigger.
TWENTY-TWO
Arizona Territory
1884
A cheerful whistle drifted through the air. The man doing the whistling had gathered up an armful of dry wood and was stacking it in a ring of rocks to make a healthy campfire. Since he hadn’t wanted to mark his position until he was far enough away from anyone who might see him, this would be the first night that he could have something other than cold beans and jerked beef for supper.
The food was stacked up and ready to be prepared. A freshly killed rabbit lay nearby and he was ready to make a pot of coffee. As the sun eased its way down past the western horizon, the man settled into a spot beside his crackling fire and kept whistling.
He was mistaken about one thing, however.
He wasn’t too far for anyone to see him.
The two men who crept up to his campsite just didn’t make any noise.
J. D. drifted from one tune into another while his hands busied themselves cleaning the rabbit and placing the meat over the flames. When he turned around to get the bag of coffee beans he’d left in his saddlebag, he saw one of the men crouched not too far away.
“Who the hell?” J. D. snapped as he went for the gun at his side. Behind him, he could hear the subtle brush of iron against leather as the second man drew a pistol and put it against the back of his head.
“Such a nice night,” Nick whispered. “No need to ruin it with gunshots.”
Letting out an aggravated sigh, J. D. let his gun slide from his hand and into his holster. “If you want to rob me, you’re not gonna find much.”
“I know. You did just get out of jail, after all.” J. D.’s eyes widened as he started to turn around. The man behind him backed up a bit, but kept his weapon drawn. When he saw Nick’s face, J. D.’s knees buckled and he landed with his backside in the dirt.
“You let me go and I left,” J. D. said quickly. “I answered your questions! What the hell else do you want from me?”
Nick sat down as Joseph moved up behind J. D. When Joseph took the pistol from J. D.’s holster, he got no resistance. Nick lowered his gun.
“I came up with a few more questions. We’d like to know where you’re going,” Nick said.
“I thought I might go into Old Mexico. Seems to be a lot safer down there.”
“Is that where your friends are headed?”
“I’m alone.”
“You know why that is?” Nick asked. “Because the only people who use this trail are either lost or on the wrong side of the law. You’re riding to catch up with some of your friends.”
“Look around! I’m alone!”
“For now,” Joseph grunted. J. D. shifted to get a better look at Joseph now that he was closer to the fire. When he saw Joseph’s face, he scowled and shook his head. “Goddamn gravedigger needs to hire on some help just to keep me from eating my dinner.”
Joseph’s free hand snapped forward and knocked the hat off of J. D.’s head. Grabbing a handful of J. D.’s hair, Joseph nearly wrenched the man’s head off as he forced J. D. to look at him again. “I’m not a hired gun. I’m the man that your friends tried to kill. Those same friends of yours killed my family.”
“As you can see,” Nick said, “my partner here is a little upset. He’d like nothing more than for me to walk away and let him find some creative ways to put different parts of you into that fire.”
J. D.’s muscles slackened and his voice rose to a high-pitched whine. The more he talked, the closer he sounded to breaking into tears. “I already told you about Dutch and where they were headed. What more do you want from me?”