The Killing Shot

by Johnny D. Boggs

  “Don’t shoot!” Pardo yelled. He made a beeline for Harrah, the white arm, and the ruins of the passenger coach.

  Harrah was still breathing heavily when Pardo reached him, the big-caliber .44 Russian at his side. The white hand gripped the cracked door frame, followed by another small hand, and a small head appeared. Blond hair, matted with blood, sweat. Next came the face, also small, also white, bloody, with brilliant green eyes.

  “Hell,” Harrah said, and laughed a silly laugh. “It’s just a little girl.”

  “Just like you,” Pardo said. “Put that damned gun away.”

  The girl’s mouth moved. Help, she pleaded voicelessly.

  “What is it?” asked Duke, standing near the inferno of the express car.

  “A girl.” Harrah’s voice giggled with nervous excitement. “Scared the hell out of me, she did.”

  The Greek had ridden over, still mounted, cradling the heavy Sharps, watching. Wade Chaucer kept his distance, as well, those dead eyes taking in the scene.

  “Help me,” the girl croaked.

  Only Pardo moved. “Easy,” he said, like he was approaching a green bronc, holding out his hands, trying to smile. “Easy, girl.” He put his hands under her armpits. She grimaced. “I’m sorry,” Pardo said. He could feel heat from the flames sweeping across the coach. He pulled. The girl screamed. Her blouse caught on a splinter of wood, ripped. Next came duck trousers, and dirty brogans. Pants? Pardo wondered. Pants on a girl? He laid her on the ground at Harrah’s boots, and her eyes fluttered open. She couldn’t be older than twelve. Likely a whole lot younger, but Pardo didn’t know much about kids.

  She tried to rise, but Pardo, kneeling over her, pushed her down, as gently as he could. “Stay put,” he said.

  “Bull!”

  Pardo pulled back as if he had been struck by a diamondback, blinked away his amazement. She shoved his hand away, scrambled to her feet, grunting, gasping, and headed back to the burning wreckage. Pardo followed, angry, shocked by the kid’s language, but she was fast. He barely caught her before she disappeared into the twisted metal and thickening smoke, had to pull the girl away, kicking, screaming, trying to claw his eyes out.

  Somewhere, Wade Chaucer laughed.

  “My mother!” the girl screamed when Pardo dropped her on the dirt again. “My mother’s in there, you damned fool!”

  Her yells stabbed at his heart. He wasn’t aware he was moving until he heard Duke’s shouts, warning him not to go, that he’d burn to death, but Pardo was already climbing into the scorching destruction. Coughing, gagging, blinded, he felt his way, cut his left hand on something, saw the red dress, the disheveled blond hair—just like the girl’s—and tossed a stovepipe off her leg.

  He felt a presence, tried to blink away the tears welling in his eyes. It was Phil. Good old Phil.

  “Help me get her out of here,” Pardo said, choking on the smoke. He could feel hell at his back.

  Pardo took the arms of the unconscious, maybe dead, woman. Phil gripped her feet. They moved, coughing; then Phil was staggering into the daylight. Someone came to help, and Pardo cleared the smoke, leaped off the coach.

  His mother beamed as they carried the woman away from the burning mess.

  “Plunder’s gettin’ better,” Duke said.

  They laid her on the ground, and Pardo backed away, rubbing his eyes. His mother came to him. “You all right, Jim?”

  He coughed again, slightly waved off her concern. “Be fine. Let me catch my breath.”

  “That was a brave thing you done, son.”

  “It was nothing, Ma.”

  “Get me some water,” the girl demanded.

  Harrah spit at the unconscious woman’s head. “There,” he said.

  Pardo took a step past his mother, watched the girl manage to stand and face Harrah. “My mother needs water,” she said, her voice cold, firm.

  “You got balls, girl, but I ain’t wasting precious water on no woman who’ll be dead in ten minutes,” Harrah said.

  Pardo saw the little Sharps in her waistband, saw her pull it, long before Harrah did, and grinned at the girl’s spunk. It was a four-barreled .32 Triumph, and the kid jammed it into Harrah’s crotch.

  “You don’t get some water, you’ll not have any balls to speak of,” she told him, and thumbed back the tiny hammer.

  The Greek laughed.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you people?” Pardo snapped. “That’s a lady lying there, and she needs water.” He went to Harrah and the girl, jerked the .32 from her hand, and gave Harrah a savage shove. “Fetch a canteen. Phil, I reckon we’ll need the buckboard after all.”

  “We’re takin’ ’em with us, boss man?” Duke asked.

  “Yes. Of course we are. Ain’t that right, Ma?”

  “Whatever you say, Jim.”

  Chaucer shook his head. “This whole thing has been a bust.”

  “You think so, Wade?” Pardo dropped to a knee, put the back of his left hand against the woman’s cheek. If not for the blood, the busted nose, she’d probably be a fine-looking woman, and her breasts put Three-Fingers Lacy’s to shame. He grinned. Lacy would be almighty pissed to have this woman tagging along with them. She might strangle the woman in her sleep.

  Harrah handed him a canteen, and he wet down his bandana, put it on the woman’s forehead. She stirred slightly, shivered, and went still again. Pardo bit his lip until he detected her chest rising and falling.

  “I don’t think it was a bust, Wade,” he said again, washing the blood off her pale face. “Not at all.”

  “We didn’t get that money,” Duke reminded him.

  “And the Army ain’t, neither. Blue-bellies can’t spend ashes, and that’s all that’ll be left of that damned Yankee payroll.” He looked up at Harrah. “What’d you collect off the people inside?”

  “Not much,” Harrah said timidly.

  “What?” Pardo demanded.

  “A couple of watches and a money belt. And a broach.”

  “Too busy looting the dead to notice a kid and her ma, I reckon.”

  “You told us to—” Harrah stopped himself.

  “Give your plunder to Phil. Have him put it in the wagon. We’ll split it up when we get back to the Dragoons. Like we always do.” He handed Harrah the canteen, checked the woman’s ribs, her arms, her legs. “I don’t think she broke anything except the nose and some ribs,” he told the girl. “And I can fix the nose.” He winked at the kid. “I’m right experienced with busted noses.”

  The kid lifted her mother’s head, and let Harrah give her a sip from the canteen. Most of it ran down her face and into the dust.

  “She might be bleeding inside,” the girl said.

  “Can’t do nothing about that,” Pardo said, “except bury her when the time comes.”

  Somewhere from the bowels of the wreckage, a scream suddenly sliced through the morning air. The whippersnapper of a girl went rigid, and Harrah dropped the canteen.

  “Careful with that water, you damned fool,” Pardo barked.

  Another scream. Then nothing but the roar of the inferno.

  “Poor bastard,” Pardo muttered. He looked at the girl again. “What’s your name, kid?”

  She glared at him. “I don’t have to tell you damned bushwhackers anything.”

  He backhanded her and stuck a finger under her trembling lip. “And I can throw you and your ma back inside that coach, and you can burn like that poor, dumb, screaming bastard just did. I like grit, kid, but just a little of it for flavor. What’s your name?”

  Her lips still quavered. But she was too damned stubborn to cry. “Blanche,” she answered at last.

  “How old are you?”

  “Ten.”

  Ten, and a mouth like that. He stared at the unconscious woman. That would make the woman thirty, perhaps younger. Didn’t look much older, even with her face and body all beat to hell.

  “And your ma? What’s her name?”

  “Dagmar.”


  “Dagmar what?”

  “Dagmar Wilhelm.”

  “All right, Blanche Wilhelm, we’re going—”

  “I’m not Wilhelm. My name’s Blanche Gottschalk.”

  Pardo blinked.

  “My father died,” the girl had to explain. “My mother remarried.”

  “Gottschalk. Wilhelm. I don’t know which name’s ornerier on the tongue.”

  “Gottschalk,” Chaucer said. “It means ‘God’s servant.’”

  “I wouldn’t know nothing about that,” the kid said, which got a laugh out of Chaucer.

  “Where were you bound?” Pardo asked.

  “Tucson,” she said.

  “That where your pa, your new pa, lives?” Pardo asked. He was thinking that a husband might pay a handsome reward for a woman like this, maybe a few bucks for the spitfire of a stepdaughter, too. It was something, he figured. Something to keep a lid on the tempers of the boys, because, no matter what he could claim about burning Army money, Chaucer had been right. This damned robbery was a bust.

  “Sigmund Wilhelm,” the girl said, “was probably that poor, dumb, screaming bastard we just heard.” She turned away, dropped her head, and whispered, “He was a poor, dumb bastard, too.”

  “That ain’t right, girl,” Pardo roared, his finger back in Blanche’s face. “You don’t speak like that of your pa, stepfather, no kin. You don’t speak of them like that.” But he was thinking: My pa was the same, kid. Just a poor, dumb bastard.

  He rode in the wagon with Ma, the kid, and the woman. Wouldn’t trust any of his men with such a fine-looking lady. He also rode with the watches—one with the glass busted, no longer running, but the gold would bring enough for a whiskey—broach, money belt, and other items Harrah hadn’t bothered to mention, their loot for their first, and last, train robbery. Pardo decided he’d stick to other ventures such as stagecoaches, banks, and the like.

  They had left the burning wreckage, camped that night in an arroyo, and crossed Alkali Flat the following morning. Most of the boys wanted to stop at Dos Cabezas, but Pardo and his mother knew better than that. Yankees weren’t fools. Nor were the Southern Pacific brass and Cochise County’s law. Probably, a posse was already raising dust from the bend in the tracks, moving south, heading for Bloody Jim Pardo and his gang.

  He bathed the woman’s face again with a wet bandana. Her eyes fluttered, opened, and darted from Pardo to the sky, to quiet little Blanche, who firmly held her mother’s hand. The woman might live after all, Pardo thought. Thanks to his doctoring. He’d even set her busted nose. Swollen, purple, but it would look almost normal in a week or two. So would Dagmar Wilhelm.

  “Ma’am,” Pardo said, but the kid’s voice drowned him out.

  “Mama!”

  Dagmar Wilhelm wet her lips, tested her voice, forced a smile. Then her face changed. “Where’s…” Barely audible. “Sigmund?”

  Blanche didn’t answer. The woman’s eyes locked on Pardo.

  “She’s awake, Ma,” Pardo said happily. He couldn’t look away from the woman. Green eyes. Just like her kid.

  “That’s fine, Jim.” Ma showed no interest in the woman, but she had never liked any woman, especially not Three-Fingers Lacy. “Just fine.”

  “What happened?” Dagmar tried again.

  The kid cleared her throat. “These bastards derailed the train. Killed every—” She stopped herself.

  Pardo smiled. “James B. Pardo, ma’am. At your service.” He tipped his hat. “I pulled you out of the pits of perdition, Miss Dagmar. Saved your girl’s hide, too.”

  Her eyes squinted. “Par-do?”

  “Call me, Jim, ma’am. I’d be honored.”

  He put his hand on her shoulder, felt her entire body tense. Closing her eyes, she mouthed the words: Bloody…Jim…Pardo…

  With a sigh, Pardo shot Blanche an angry look, then felt the buckboard stopping. He turned toward the driver’s box, saw his mother setting the brake, reaching for her Winchester. The boys had reined in their mounts, too, atop a ridge.

  As Pardo rose, drawing his Colt in the same motion, he saw the turkey vultures circling overhead, and the black wagon and dead horses, mules, and men down below.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  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 a
way 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.