“Well, he ought to be out at the cemetery, but that there’s his horse.”
“I’ll just wait in the office for him to return then,” Josiah said.
In the distance, a church bell tolled. Doom and finality carried on an unseen wind and the rays of sunshine. They’d obviously had to wait out the downpour to bury Bill Clarmont.
“Suit yourself. I’m not one for funerals myself.”
Josiah nodded and pushed into the sheriff’s office, the Spencer still in his grip. He took a deep breath and blinked his eyes, shocked at what he was seeing.
The sheriff, Roy something or other, Josiah hadn’t picked up on the man’s last name, was sitting in the chair at his desk, his head thrown completely back, a fresh bullet hole centered square in the man’s forehead. Blood was still dripping on the floor.
The jail cells were empty, and all of the doors were standing wide open.
CHAPTER 14
A loud rush of noise out in the street—horses running at full speed—drew Josiah’s attention away from the dead man. The thundering hooves were quickly followed by gunshots. There was nothing Josiah could do for the sheriff, so he dashed to the window.
Three men on horses sped past the sheriff’s office, heading north, the opposite direction from which Josiah had come into town.
He recognized the three men immediately.
Liam O’Reilly and the Comanche brothers, Big Shirt and Little Shirt. They had bags thrown over their laps. Money bags, full and bulging.
Instead of rushing to the door, Josiah pulled the Spencer up and shot straight through the window.
Shattering glass exploded across the sill, but Josiah was ready for the fallout of his action; he dodged back quickly, dancing away from the shards as best he could, then returned to the window for another shot once the glass fell to the ground.
The three horses ran at a quick gallop, the muddy street holding them back slightly, but not slowing them enough for Josiah to get a great shot. There was a waterfall of mud flying behind the horses, globs hitting the ground in thumps, like someone was throwing muddy bombs from the roof of every building they passed. Two more breaths, and they’d be out of town, out of range—gone.
Josiah’s second shot closed the deal.
Little Shirt tumbled off his horse, screaming, yelling words into the wind that only the breezes and his brother understood, his hand going for his blood-splattered shoulder rather than his gun.
The other two riders didn’t even slow down, didn’t offer to turn back and help if they could. Josiah didn’t expect them to. He just hoped to get another shot off to stop them. He pulled the trigger on the second breath—the range too far, the shot too rushed to hit its target: the back of Liam O’Reilly’s gnarly red head.
Little Shirt’s horse reared back at the sound of the third shot, screaming and neighing wildly, frightened and confused by all the blasts, pulls, and tussles. Little Shirt had crashed into the mud, toppling without control, coming to a stop just shy of the boardwalk, stunned and injured—though how badly was hard to tell.
Josiah rushed out the door, putting himself behind Lady Mead. He had two shots left with the rifle, then the Spencer would become useless to him. At least, for the moment. So he had to make the shots count.
O’Reilly was certainly out of range, but still in sight.
The enraged Irishman was now fully aware of what had happened, though Josiah wasn’t sure if the outlaw knew that he had been the one to take down Little Shirt. It didn’t matter, other than making sure Billie Webb was free of retribution, so Josiah kept himself covered behind the horse.
They had been going in the opposite direction from Billie’s house, so that was an immediate relief. O’Reilly was no fool. He would want to get as far away from Comanche as possible while the whole town was at the funeral. At least, Josiah hoped that was the case.
Josiah decided to try one last shot, so he laid the rifle across the horse’s back, propped it up over his wrist, and sighted on O’Reilly, rays glaring off his red hair, making his head glow like a setting sun on the horizon.
Just as he was about to pull the trigger, out of the corner of his eye Josiah saw Little Shirt begin to move. The Comanche was struggling for the gun in his holster, staring at Josiah angrily, muttering words that no one could understand.
Josiah had no choice but to pull his aim off O’Reilly. He turned the barrel toward the Indian and pulled the trigger, certain and intent on killing yet another man.
There was not an ounce of regret careening through Josiah’s body as he took the shot.
His heart was racing with anger and rage—the score almost settled now for the deaths of Red Overmeyer and the sheriff.
The only recent death that caused Josiah any moral concern at all was that of the deputy, Bill Clarmont, but he could trace that occurrence back to Little Shirt’s action as well. If Josiah hadn’t been apprehended for a bogus reward on his head that O’Reilly had brokered with the sheriff, then he would never have stepped a foot into Comanche in the first place, and Bill Clarmont would still be alive. Who knew what side of the law Clarmont really worked? It was hard to say, and perhaps impossible to ever know.
All Josiah knew was that he was in the town of Comanche unbidden, forced there against his will, by the two brothers and their obvious allegiance to Liam O’Reilly.
This next bullet caught Little Shirt at the very base of his throat. His head jerked back, nearly ripped off with the sudden tear of flesh.
Blood sprayed every which way it could, a spiderweb of red fluid contrasting on the dark brown mud of the road. The sickening sound of certain death had probably been heard from a half a block away.
This time Little Shirt fell straight back into the mud, unmoving after the fall.
When Josiah looked back up, Liam O’Reilly and Big Shirt were about to vanish over the horizon. The shot was lost. It would be a waste of a bullet, and he didn’t have the luxury to waste any.
Chasing after the two men now seemed like a ride into more uncertainty, and he’d had enough uncertainty in the last few days to last him a good long time.
The two outlaws had the advantage of knowing the land and of having a full cadre of weapons, fully loaded, unlike Josiah, who only had one cartridge left in the Spencer and a belt full of bullets for the Colt Frontier.
He eased out from behind Lady Mead, who had handled the rifle fire with grace and courage, hardly wincing at all when Josiah fired the final shot that had ended Little Shirt’s life. Or at least he assumed that the Indian was dead. He still wasn’t going to take any chances.
The round in the Spencer was chambered, and each step Josiah took toward Little Shirt was heavy with caution.
Somewhere in the distance a woman screamed.
The scream came from the direction of the bank, and that did not surprise Josiah in the least.
Once he made sure that the Indian was truly dead, he’d go investigate. But not until he was certain he’d been as successful as he thought.
The only Comanche he trusted was a dead Comanche.
The door to the bank was standing wide open, and a woman dressed all in black was bent over the floor, her back to Josiah. She was crying over a man in a brown tweed suit. A pair of eyeglasses lay shattered on the floor not too far from the man. A pool of blood surrounded the man’s body.
There was no one else in the bank, at least as far as Josiah could tell. He’d left the Spencer behind, secured in the scabbard on Lady Mead’s saddle, but for safety’s sake, he had the Colt Frontier in his hand, loaded and ready.
Josiah was reasonably certain there was only a trio of outlaws, one dead, two on the run, but he couldn’t be completely sure O’Reilly didn’t have more men in Comanche, staying behind to do whatever meanness they could muster.