The Killing Shot

by Johnny D. Boggs

  He took the bartender’s rag away from his nose, started to throw it across the room, thought better of it, and dropped it by the Colt. Lucky, Pardo thought. Hadn’t been much of a nosebleed. The major sat across from him, rigid. Mac leaned back against the wall, rocking his chair, not seeming to care about anything.

  “Let’s get to business,” Pardo said. “Reckon my nose might cooperate now.”

  The major shrugged. “The desert. The dry air. It—”

  “Don’t doctor me, Major. I said let’s get to business.”

  “Vat happened vith the train?” Ritcher asked carefully.

  “Didn’t go the way we’d figured things.”

  “The payroll?”

  “Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.”

  Ritcher’s shoulders sagged, and the sigh came out of his mouth like a cannon shot.

  “Twenty-three people vere killed on the train.”

  “Good day for the Tucson undertaker.” Pardo downed another shot of tequila. “’Least, somebody got rich off it. Me and Ma sure didn’t. The boys didn’t.” He refilled his glass. “And you didn’t. Besides, we made a profit. Got us a woman and her kid. Nice-looking woman, too. Real nice.”

  “A voman?” Ritcher sat up, grinning all of a sudden. “I vould like to see—”

  “You stay clear of that woman, Ritcher,” Pardo spoke harshly. “I know about you and women. You stay clear of her, Major. Touch her, and I’ll kill you.”

  Ritcher mumbled something in German. He studied Mac again, but only briefly, cleared his throat, and looked Pardo in the eye.

  “I have more information.”

  “Figured.”

  “Dere is no money, no payroll, involved.”

  With a dry laugh, Pardo shook his head. “Then why in hell would I be interested?”

  The major leaned forward. Mac stopped rocking his chair.

  “Because, my dear comrade, you might be able to end dis var of yours against the Yankees, as you call us.”

  “I don’t call you one. You’re just a money-grabbing turncoat.”

  Ritcher sat up straight. “I vant ten thousand dollars.”

  Pardo laughed. “I told you that money burned up.”

  “You have robbed elsewhere. You are rich.”

  The tequila reached his mouth, but Pardo decided he had had enough. With a snort, he lowered the glass. “Yeah, that’s why I hide in the mountains with a bunch of killers who’d gun me down in a second. Rich? In a pig’s eye.”

  “Ten thousand dollars.”

  “I don’t buy a horse without seeing her run, Major. Start talking.”

  He leaned back. “Did you know several Apaches escaped from San Carlos last week?”

  Pardo’s eyes twinkled as he looked at Mac. “We heard, didn’t we, Mac?”

  Mac’s head slightly bobbed. His eyes remained on Ritcher.

  “The colonel has requested additional weapons,” Ritcher said. “Specifically, he asked for a dozen Gatling guns to be shipped to Fort Bowie.” Ritcher’s face briefly held a rare smile before he shrugged. “The colonel is overly cautious. But the Var Department granted him four forty-five-seventy-caliber Gatling guns. They are being shipped to Fort Bowie next month. By vagon train.”

  Pardo decided he’d have that drink after all, but he sipped it. “What am I supposed to do with four Gatling guns?”

  This time, Ritcher held his smile longer. “Start a var?” he suggested. “Avenge your precious Confederacy’s defeat? Turn Arizona into a desert of blood?”

  “You’ve been reading too many penny dreadfuls,” Mac said, and went back to rocking.

  The major’s face flushed, but he regained control. “Four Gatling guns, and vagons of ammunition. Oh, and I failed to mention, dere is a howitzer, too.”

  “You must think I’m crazy,” Pardo said. He killed the drink.

  “If you don’t vant the guns,” Ritcher said, “they vould fetch a handsome price among the bandits—ah, I should say revolutionaries—in Mexico. Or the Mexican government?”

  Pardo shook his head, and pinched his nose, then checked his thumb and forefinger. No blood. Good. “So, I just ride up to that Army train, and ask for them guns?”

  “Do not play me for a fool, Herr Pardo.” The major had gotten his dander up. “I know you are not one. It vill not be easy, but if any man can do this, it is Bloody Jim Pardo.” The major found the jug and took a pull. He coughed, but he was game. After wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his blouse, he said, “And I trust you vill perform better than you did vith the Southern Pacific.”

  Pardo pointed the Colt at the major’s chest. “Don’t press your luck. Maybe Mac’s right. Maybe you ain’t nothing but a Yankee son of a bitch.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Which trail’s the Army using?”

  “That I vill have to find out. After I am paid my ten thousand dollars.”

  “Un-uh. Now you’re playing me for a fool, Major. I’ll give you a thousand when you give me the route. And four after we do the job.”

  “That does not equal ten thousand dollars, my friend.”

  “It don’t equal a bullet in your belly, neither. Five thousand. Or a forty-four right now.”

  The major wet his lips. Finally, his head bobbed.

  “I vill get vord to you later, Herr Pardo.” He rose, bowed slightly to Mac, and walked outside.

  On their way out of the saloon, Pardo grabbed the folded newspaper off the plank bar, stuck it in his saddlebag, and mounted.

  They said little on the two-day ride back to the Dragoons, reaching camp shortly before sundown. There was a new man in camp, a Mexican with salt-and-pepper hair whom Pardo called Soledad. The Mexican tended to their horses, while Pardo strode to the campfire and knocked a whiskey bottle out of Three-Fingers Lacy’s hand.

  “That all you been doing since I been gone?” he asked savagely. “Or have you being enjoying some horizontal refreshments, too?”

  “Jimmy,” the girl began.

  “Shut up. Get out of my sight.”

  “But Jimmy—”

  He threatened her with a backhand, and she cringed, crying, and ran to her tent, stumbling. Pardo turned his wrath on Wade Chaucer.

  “Who gave her the bottle, Chaucer?”

  “Welcome home, Jimmy,” Chaucer said. “How was the trip? The boys have missed you. Did you see that Soledad rejoined our lovely troupe?”

  Pardo grabbed Lacy’s bottle, killed it, and shattered the glass against the boulders behind him.

  “Mac!”

  “Yeah?”

  “Bring me that newspaper.” Reilly headed to the corral and heard Pardo call Dagmar to the campfire. He helped Soledad with Pardo’s saddle, found the paper in the saddlebag, and walked back to the campfire. It was the Arizona Daily Star. He opened it up, still walking.

  “Miss Dagmar,” he heard Pardo saying. “I ain’t much for letters, but a man like Bloody Jim Pardo needs to keep informed, so I’d be obliged if you’d read us this here newspaper.”

  “We sure do like to hear good stories,” Duke muttered.

  A headline at the bottom of the front page stopped Reilly cold.

  Federal Lawmen Waylaid,

  Kraft Brothers Escape!

  _____________

  FOUR FOUND DEAD ON BOWIE TRAIL.

  _____________

  3 Deputy Marshals Savagely Slain!

  _____________

  MARSHAL MCGIVERN SOUGHT BY AUTHORITIES,

  BELIEVED TO HAVE JOINED UP WITH NOTORIOUS OUTLAWS;

  MASTERMINDED BLOODY ESCAPE FROM PRISON WAGON.

  _____________

  Tidball Offers $750 Reward!

  “Hurry up, Mac,” Pardo called.

  Duke’s gloved hand snatched the paper from Reilly’s hand, and he thrust at Dagmar Wilhelm.

  “Read it, ma’am,” Pardo said. “You got such a nice voice. Read every damned word.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “What do you think?” Pardo asked when Dagmar Wilhelm folded the p
aper.

  “You’re right,” Reilly answered. “She does have a nice voice.”

  Carefully, he reached up and took the newspaper from her trembling hands, thanking her with his eyes. Reilly didn’t know how she had done it—must have been the look on his face—but she had skipped over the twelve-paragraph article on the Arizona Daily Star’s front page. She turned, started walking back to her daughter, and Reilly leaned closer to the fire, yet before he could drop the newspaper into the pit, Pardo stopped him.

  “Don’t burn that just yet, Mac,” he said. “Let’s see how your voice is. I want you to read me again that story.”

  “Which article?” He wondered if Pardo was teasing him, if Pardo could actually read and had seen the article about the ambush.

  “The one about Swede Iverson.”

  Quickly, Reilly unfolded the paper, trying to find the piece, turned to the third page, and saw the short note under the headline TERRITORIAL NEWS:

  SWEDE IVERSON ARRESTED.

  Reports confirm that the notorious killer Swede Iverson has been arrested and is confined in the jail in Wickenburg. The opprobrious dynamiter was captured without incident at a house of ill repute.

  The hangman must be delighted at the opportunity to stretch this villain’s neck.

  After Reilly read the article, Pardo laughed. “Your voice ain’t as pleasant as Dagmar’s,” he said, and topped off his cup with tequila. “Wickenburg,” he said absently.

  Reilly let the paper fall into the flames, watching it erupt and quickly turn into blackened ash. Taking a deep breath, he reached for the tequila.

  Well, he thought, you’re in for it now. There’s a price on your head. $750. Marshal Tidball, that idiot.

  No, Reilly couldn’t blame the U.S. marshal. An Army patrol had discovered the abandoned prison wagon and three dead deputy marshals, plus one dead bandit. Reilly was gone, and so were the Kraft brothers. Nobody knew his plan, except Lieutenant Jeremiah Talley, and Jerry was off to California by now. Hell, he hadn’t even told Jerry everything. Anyway, the law was the least of his concerns right now. Staying alive and keeping Dagmar and her daughter aboveground topped his priorities.

  “Hey, Mac, I’m talking to you.”

  He killed the tequila and looked into Pardo’s narrow eyes. “Yeah?” Reilly asked.

  “You know this Swede Iverson?”

  His head shook. “I know who he is. Can’t say I know him.”

  “Dynamiter,” Pardo said. “Paper called him oppo, oppro…”

  “Opprobrious,” Reilly said.

  “Yeah, that’s the word. What’s that mean?”

  “Scurrile,” Wade Chaucer answered with a laugh.

  Pardo glared. “All right, smart guy, what does that mean?”

  “Contemptuous,” Chaucer said. “Abusive. One mean bastard. You know, Pardo, the same things the newspapers call you.”

  Pardo turned away from Chaucer and stared at the fire, his mind working. A few minutes later, his head bobbing, the laughter back in his eyes, he looked up at Reilly. “What do you hear about this Iverson gent?”

  Reilly shrugged. “He was working at a mine in Greaterville. Had a run-in with the Mexican boss, who fired him. Next morning, Iverson blew up the mine. The newspaper got the story a little bit wrong, though.” Reilly remembered this fairly well. He had spent a week on a posse trying to find that bastard. “He didn’t use dynamite. He used nitro.”

  “Nitro,” Pardo said. “Nitroglycerine? That stuff’s murder.”

  “That’s what it was, all right. Iverson’s explosion killed the boss, and three, four others. About two months back, he blew up a section of S.P. rails near Rillito with two sticks of dynamite. Just for spite, I guess, or maybe the Southern Pacific pissed him off. Nice guy.”

  “Man like him could come in handy.” Pardo was staring again at the flames.

  “How you mean, boss man?” Duke asked.

  Pardo didn’t answer. He just stared.

  Reilly set his empty cup on a rock, stood, and left. He headed straight to Dagmar Wilhelm.

  “So,” she said softly, “your name’s Reilly McGivern.”

  “Best keep it Mac for now, ma’am.”

  She smiled. “I skimmed the article.”

  “I burned the paper.”

  Silence. He broke it. “I didn’t have a thing to do with that ambush.”

  “I know that…Mac. Else, we wouldn’t have found you in the back of that transport, half-baked, half-dead. It’ll make things…harder, though. I mean, for us, to get out of here. The law’s looking for you.”

  “We’ll be all right.” He looked around. “Where’s your daughter?”

  “Sleeping.”

  He grinned. “I didn’t think she slept.”

  She smiled back pleasantly, despite the strain etched into her face.

  “I’d best get out of here. Pardo’s jealous.” He turned away, stopped, and looked back. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “The name,” she said, “is Dagmar.”

  Pardo looked at his mother, who spit a mouthful of snuff into the fire. They were alone. Everybody else must have turned in.

  “I think I can use this Swede Iverson.”

  She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I figured as much, son. You’re thinking about trying for those Gatling guns.”

  With a grin, he reached over and patted her knee. “You know me pretty good, don’t you, Ma?”

  “Raised you. I reckon I know you.”

  He found the jug, lifted and shook it, sighing, then brought it up and took in the last few drops of tequila. Afterward, he pitched the empty container onto the dirt. “Those guns could fetch us a handsome profit down in Mexico. And I might keep one of them for ourselves.”

  Her head shook. “They ain’t so good. Jam, most of them will, like that Evans rifle I fixed. Gatlings, well, they make a lot of noise and smoke, but for killing…” She spit again, shaking her head.

  “Well, first we got to get them. That’s where this Swede Iverson could come in handy. Man knows how to use dynamite. And nitro. The way I see it, we could use a good man with explosives when we hit that Army wagon train. They ain’t gonna just give us them Gatlings.”

  “So you’re bound for Wickenburg?”

  He nodded. “Reckon I’ll take Mac.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You trust him?”

  “You know me better than that, Ma.”

  “I have suspicions about that fellow.”

  “That’s why I love you, Ma. But—”

  “No buts, Jimmy. I don’t trust him at all. I trust him as much as I trust Wade Chaucer. And speaking of that son of a bitch, you watch him, Jimmy. You watch him good. Mind you, son, I can’t prove nothing, but I think Chaucer done some talking, and that’s how come The Greek got so careless with his shooting when those Apaches tried to put you under.”

  Pardo’s grin flattened into a frown. “You hear them talking?”

  “Nah, but I heard some such-and-such after it all happened. The Greek, he ain’t prone to miss. Not as much as he missed on that day. It was Chaucer’s doings.”

  “Well, I’ll have to kill Wade Chaucer one of these days.”

  “Not if I kill him first.”

  Pardo moved, knees in the dirt, gripping his mother’s arms, pulling her toward him. “Now, you listen to me, Ma.” Panic was in his voice. “You stay away from Chaucer. I’ll kill him, but only when it’s time for me to kill him. You keep out of his way, especially whilst me and Mac’s gone to fetch Swede Iverson out of that Wickenburg hoosegow. You hear me, Ma?”

  She stared into his frightened eyes in silence.

  “Ma?” he demanded.

  “Nobody, and I mean nobody, tries to bushwhack my boy,” she said at last.

  “Ma.” He gripped her bony arms tighter.

  With a heavy sigh, she looked away. “Ain’t like it was back in the war, son,” she said, staring into the darkness. “Missouri men, they’d ride with you, side with you. Game, they was
. They’d look after you. They was almost like family.”

  “I still got Phil.”

  She turned to face her son. “Phil? He ain’t family. He’s trash. Trash like all them other guttersnipes you got riding with you. And that Mac, he ain’t one to trust.”

  “I told you I don’t trust nobody. Now, you tell me. You promise me this. You stay out of Chaucer’s way when I’m fetching this oppo, appro, this opprobra, ah, this contemptuous dynamiter back from Wickenburg.”

  Her nod was barely noticeable, and Pardo rose and kissed his mother lightly on the lips. She tasted of snuff, and it tasted good. He sat beside her and pulled her close.

  “I ain’t nothing without you, Ma,” he told her, and then, as an afterthought, he added, “Reckon I’ll bring The Greek with me, too. For a spell.”

  Sweat burned Reilly’s eyes, blurred his vision until he had to rein up, remove his bandana, and mop his face.

  For close to a week, Reilly, Pardo, and The Greek had been riding in a general north by northwest direction, keeping off the main trails and avoiding towns such as Tucson and Florence. Pardo hadn’t said why they were bound for Wickenburg, just that they were going there, but Reilly figured it had to do with that murderous explosives man from the Arizona Daily Star.

  With a frown, Pardo tugged on the reins and turned in the saddle. A moment later, he sighed and swung to the ground. “Might as well rest here,” he said after he looked around.

  Not that there was much to see. Just rocks and ridges peppered with towering saguaro, and a bleak expanse of desert that stretched into eternity in all directions.

  “Thanks.” Reilly dismounted, and The Greek eased from the saddle with his Sharps.

  They were near the Gila River, somewhere west of Phoenix, maybe two, perhaps three days, from Wickenburg.

  “What are we going to do in Wickenburg?” The Greek asked.

  Pardo shrugged. “I got me a plan. It’s a good one.”

  Reilly pulled the stopper out of his canteen, and took a small drink.

  “Can you share it?” The Greek asked.

  “Sure. I reckon I can do that, Greek. You see, if we’re going to take those Gatlings from the Army, I think we might have need of the talents of Swede Iverson. So me and Mac here is going to break him out of the jail. I gots me a good plan.” With his left hand, he reached inside his vest pocket and withdrew a deputy U.S. marshal’s badge, which he pinned onto the lapel of his vest. “You can call me Marshal Smith from here on out, Mac. I’m taking you to jail.”