The Killing Shot

by Johnny D. Boggs

  Pardo set his cup down, scratched his palm against the hammer of his holstered Colt. Maybe, he thought, Swede Iverson could blow himself up once they got the nitro to Texas Canyon, once they had those Gatling guns and that howitzer.

  Accidentally, of course.

  The last of the beakers was loaded onto the third buckboard shortly after dawn, and Pardo wasn’t waiting. He ordered Harrah to drive the first wagon, Mac the second, Phil the third. The girl and the woman would ride with Mac. No. Make that Harrah. He didn’t like the way Dagmar had looked at Mac last night when she asked him if he wanted more coffee. Harrah wouldn’t try anything, and, hell, Dagmar despised Harrah.

  “Duke,” he said, “you watch our back trail. Make sure nobody’s following us. Swede, you and me, we’ll ride point.” That sounded right. He’d keep well ahead of all of those wagons, just in case one—or all three—decided to blow up. Yeah, he’d ride point. Keep Swede out of harm’s way, too. He still needed Iverson to cause that avalanche and trap those soldier boys at Texas Canyon.

  “What about the dynamite in those blankets behind the cabin?” Mac asked.

  “What about them?” Pardo was growing a little impatient. He had to be back at Texas Canyon in a matter of days.

  “Those sticks are still sweating. They could blow up.”

  “Not could, Mac,” Swede Iverson said. “They will. At some point, they will go boom.” He laughed heartily. Man was fine now, Pardo figured. He’d been almost worthless until he got some rye to settle his nerves.

  “Just what the hell do you want to do about them?” Pardo demanded, and swung into the saddle. He turned his horse, saw Mac just standing there, without an answer.

  “That’s what I figured. The sticks stay all wrapped up in their blankets. Now let’s ride.”

  He spurred his horse, and loped over the hill, getting as far away from the cargo he was escorting as he could.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  A corporal stopped her when she arrived at the sprawling compound of adobe buildings on a plateau surrounded by the Chiricahua Mountains. She set the brake on the surrey she had rented in Contention City and slid down, almost collapsing into the stunned soldier’s arms. A couple of privates whistled. Another clapped. The corporal, a young man maybe twenty-two, blushed.

  Exhaustion had overtaken Gwendolyn Morgan. “I’m sorry,” she said, and tried to remove the burgundy boat hat that was cocked to her left side.

  “That’s all right, ma’am,” the corporal said. “Here, why don’t you sit in the shade.” It sounded more like an order than a question or suggestion. He helped her up the steps, eased her onto a bench. A moment later, the corporal was offering her a dipper of water while fanning her flushed face with his slouch hat, the three privates staring over the kneeling noncommissioned officer’s shoulders.

  Closing her eyes, she drank greedily, cherishing the cool water as it traveled down her throat.

  “Ma’am,” the corporal said, “what is it that brings you to Fort Bowie?”

  She peered into the corporal’s brown eyes.

  “I came from Contention,” she said.

  “Contention City?” The corporal slapped his hat on his head, rising. “You came all the way from Contention?”

  Her head bobbed. Suddenly, she remembered her purse. She stood, weaving, weak from the heat, stumbled past the three privates, into the sun, found her purse in the seat of the surrey, came back to the bench, and collapsed.

  Things had been a blur since Reilly McGivern’s last visit. She had read his note—a woman’s prerogative, she figured—had rented the surrey, ridden to Tombstone, where she learned that Special Deputy United States Marshal Ken Cobb had been murdered down in Nogales.

  Now what? she had wondered, pulled the note from her purse, and reread it. He had mentioned a Lieutenant Talley, and Fort Bowie, so she had climbed back into the surrey, lashed the horse with a whip, and now…well, she had made it, despite nothing to eat on the two-day journey, finally climbing through Apache Pass to the military post.

  “Is Lieutenant Talley here?” she asked.

  The corporal shook his head. “No, ma’am, he’s in the field, Missus…?”

  “Miss Morgan,” she said, and smiled at the corporal. “Gwendolyn Morgan. Call me Gwen.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He began blushing again, trying to ignore the muffled giggles of the privates behind him. “Well, Miss Morgan, I mean, Gwen, the lieutenant won’t be back to Bowie for another week or two.”

  “That’s right.” Her head bobbed as she remembered the note. She clutched her purse tighter. “He’s…I’d like to see the commanding officer.”

  “The colonel?” The corporal looked dumbfounded. “I mean, General Crook, he’s in the field, too. Colonel’s in charge.”

  “Yes. The colonel then. It’s a matter of life of death, sir.”

  “Don’t ‘sir’ me, ma’am. I am no officer.”

  “I’m no soldier. Please, take me to the colonel.”

  “Well, yes, ma’am.” He held out his hand, and helped her to her feet.

  As they walked across the parade ground to another dreary adobe building, she felt every eye from every soldier marching or riding across the parade ground fall on her. Like they’ve never seen a whore before, she thought. The corporal opened the door, holding it open for Gwen. Inside, a black-mustached man peered up from a pile of papers littering his desk, removed his spectacles, and rose.

  “Begging the sergeant major’s pardon,” the corporal said, “but this is Miss Gwen Morgan, and she wants to see the colonel.”

  She didn’t like the look of the sergeant major, whose eyes covered her body up and down before he spit a mouthful of tobacco juice into a brass cuspidor by the desk. “Colonel’s busy,” he said.

  “Please,” Gwen begged, and the sergeant major motioned to another bench.

  “Take a seat. Dismissed, Corporal.”

  She must have waited an hour, and the sergeant major never went to the colonel’s door. Gwen began to wonder if the colonel was even there. Maybe she should have just given the note to the corporal. He was a pleasant fellow. He would have helped her.

  Another door opened, and a heavyset man stepped into the office. The sergeant quickly jumped to attention, and fired a salute as a man with close-cropped blond hair and thick eyebrows walked to the desk. “Sergeant Major,” he said in a German accent, “you vill deliver dis…” He must have caught Gwen out of the corner of his eye, because he turned, lowering the envelope he held in his right hand, and stared, whispering, “Nicht schlecht.”

  “Vell, Vell,” he said, and smiled. “Guten Tag, fräulein. Wie geht es?”

  She didn’t understand a word he had said, but she understood that look. She’d certainly seen it enough.

  “Major, this is Miss Gwen Morgan,” the sergeant major said. “Wants to see the colonel.”

  The major bowed, turned, and whispered something to the sergeant major, who grinned and shot a quick lecherous look at Gwen, then accepted the envelope and listened attentively as the major gave his instructions. Clicking his heels, the major turned, bowed slightly at Gwen, and walked back to his office.

  “Major,” Gwen said, rising, “please. This is an urgent matter. It has to do with Bloody Jim Pardo and a planned ambush on one of your wagon trains.”

  The major stopped in mid-stride, turned. The sergeant major was walking out the door. The major watched the outer door open and close, then walked over toward Gwen.

  “Pardon me?” he said.

  “Please,” she said. “Jim Pardo plans to ambush one of your wagon trains. With Swede Iverson. At Texas Canyon. May we talk?”

  “Certainly,” he said, and motioned her into his office. He closed the door behind him, pointed out a chair, and she took it, while he sat on his desk. She opened the purse, removed the note, and held it to him.

  “This is from Reilly McGivern. He’s a deputy U.S. marshal. Usually works out of Charleston.”

  “Is that vere you
vork?”

  “No. I’m in Contention City.”

  “And vat is it dat you do in Contention?”

  “I…” She shrugged.

  “Ah,” the major said, and, laughing, reached behind him and opened a cigar box, removed a thick brown one, and struck a match.

  Gwen waved the letter Reilly had written.

  The major didn’t speak until his cigar was going. Afterward, he gestured with one end of the cigar at the note. “You have read it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see. I know dis name, McGivern. Isn’t he the one voo freed the Kraft brothers?”

  Her head shook violently. “No, that’s all a mistake. He says so in this letter. He told me it was another deputy, Henderson was his name, who set up the ambush.” Her mind was swimming with images, mostly of McGivern riding out of Contention with Bloody Jim Pardo, not doing anything to arrest him, after he had killed one of his gang members. Maggie Fairplay had told her, after what had happened in Contention, that, “Reilly McGivern is as crooked as the nights are long,” but she didn’t believe that. She had known Reilly too long.

  The major took the letter in his hand, opened it, and read.

  “How many men does Pardo have?”

  “Seis,” Soledad answered, and lifted the glass of tequila.

  Across the table, in a crowded cantina in Nogales, Mexico, K.C. Kraft laughed over the sound of castanets, a strumming guitar, and laughter. “Six men? He’s going to attack an Army wagon train with six men? Yeah, I’d say he does need our help.”

  Sitting on either side of the tall, leathery gunman, his two brothers laughed. Soledad drained his glass, and placed it on the table.

  “You tell your boss that I told him gracias, but no gracias.” He gave Soledad a sharp nod, dismissing him.

  As Soledad started to rise, the youngest brother shouted out, “Hold on there, Mex. Let’s hear him out, K.C. This job sounds like fun.”

  K.C. Kraft’s eyes hardened, and his fist clenched the bottle of beer he was lifting toward his mouth. He slammed the glass on the wormwood table, and turned toward his brother. “It sounds like suicide, W.W.”

  “Nah, brother, you’re getting soft.” He winked, motioned Soledad back into his chair, and asked, “What’s Bloody Jim got up his sleeve that makes him think he can pull off this damned robbery?”

  Half-standing, Soledad looked at K.C., who let out a weary sigh and gestured with the beer bottle for Soledad to sit down again. Once Soledad was sitting again, he said, “Pardo has a man who knows ka-boom. Dynamite. Only, no, he plans to use, um, how you say, nitro…”

  “Nitroglycerin?” K.C. asked.

  “Sí. That is it. Big ka-boom.” W.W. Kraft clapped his hands. “Hot damn. That would be something to see.”

  “Yeah. It’ll probably be the last thing you see.” K.C. Kraft took a long pull of beer. The castanets stopped clicking, followed by applause and whistles.

  “Pardo, he say, you bring as many men as you got,” Soledad informed him.

  “I don’t have that many,” K.C. Kraft said.

  “Oh, hell, K.C., you got enough.”

  On the other side, the third brother, L.J. Kraft sat quietly cleaning his fingernails with a pocketknife, his tumbler of tequila untouched.

  K.C. drained his beer. “What’s in it for us?”

  Soledad shrugged. Pardo hadn’t told him what he could offer, other than the glory of riding with Bloody Jim Pardo. “There are many Gatling guns, I think. One cannon.”

  “And how many men guarding them?”

  Another shrug. “Setenta. Ochenta.” Actually, he seemed to recall the gringo called Mac mentioning a much higher number.

  With a comical smile, K.C. Kraft shook his head. “Seventy or eighty. Yeah, against a dozen men I can round up. Plus your boss’s six.”

  “Siete,” Soledad said, “con Pardo.”

  “Oh, right. Pardon me. Nineteen, maybe twenty, against seventy or eighty.”

  “But ka-boom. Swede Iverson, he bring down the walls of Texas Canyon. Like Jericho. On top of soldados.”

  K.C. kept shaking his head. “Forget it. Tell Pardo no.”

  Soledad bowed, started to rise, but the youngest brother, W.W., shot to his feet. “I’m going, K.C. This is a haul that’ll make us famous. No sense in letting Jim Pardo hog all the glory.”

  The castanets resumed their clicking. The music and laughter grew louder.

  “Go ahead. I won’t stop you.” W.W. savagely snatched the bottle of tequila off the table, muttered an oath, and followed Soledad into the dusty streets of Nogales. “Where are we supposed to meet up with Pardo?” W.W. Kraft asked as Soledad gathered the reins to his horse in front of the hitching rail.

  “Sierra Dragón,” Soledad said. “Del norte.” W.W. walked down a few rods and mounted a buckskin. He was waiting for Soledad to tighten the cinch of his saddle when the saloon doors swung open. Soledad looked up over his saddle and saw K.C. and L.J. Kraft standing on the boardwalk.

  “Family,” K.C. Kraft said underneath his breath. “I hate having a damned family.”

  She was a handsome woman. Armin Ritcher liked the way Gwendolyn Morgan looked. Liked how that boat hat of hers was cocked, showing off her attitude. She wore a well-fitting dress the color of violet, dusty from her travels, but still mighty fancy for a Contention City prostitute, a full skirt gathered in front and back, and a cloth-topped, high-heeled shoe that must have taken her an hour to lace up. A petite gold pocket watch hung from a chain around her soft, sweet neck. Something told Ritcher that she didn’t always dress up so nicely.

  He looked at the note she had given him, and read it again.

  Ken:

  Haven’t much time. I’m with Bloody Jim Pardo, who freed me from the prison wagon in the Sulfur Spring Valley. Gus Henderson set us up for the ambush, paid for his sins with his life. Will explain later. If I’m still alive.

  Pardo plans to attack an Army wagon train bound for Ft. Lowell at Texas Canyon. Train’s bringing Gatlings & a howitzer. Get word to the Army. We You can hit Pardo there in ten days or so.

  Pardo has a woman and child held captive, taken from raid on the S.P. That’s the main reason I haven’t tried to capture Pardo myself.

  Reilly McGivern

  Please trust me. You’ve know me long enough to know I didn’t have anything to do with the Krafts’ escape.

  Swede Iverson with Pardo. Plans to use nitro in Texas Canyon ambush.

  Get word to 2nd Lt. Jeremiah Talley, escorting the Army train with his cavalry troop. Talley can also explain why I took the Krafts toward Ft. Bowie.

  Ritcher folded the note, saw it was addressed to Ken Cobb.

  “When I found out Marshal Cobb had been murdered,” the woman told him. “I didn’t know what to do, who I should give this to.”

  “You’ve done right, child,” he said. “How did you get here?”

  “I rented a rig in Contention. God. Maggie’s going to be furious at me for missing all this work.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “You’ll get word to Lieutenant Talley? He’s a friend of Reilly’s.”

  “I’ll send out a galloper. Don’t vorry, ve vill stop Bloody Jim Pardo. We vill vindicate your beau.”

  “Oh, he’s not, well, I mean, I’d like, but…”

  He offered her a cordial of brandy. She drank. He dipped the end of his cigar in his brandy, admiring the auburn-haired beauty. Ritcher grinned.

  Jim Pardo was a fool. He had a deputy U.S. marshal riding with him. The tall, dark-haired one he called Mac.

  This will be all right, Ritcher thought. I’ll just ride over to the Dragoons, tell Pardo all about his new man. That might be worth a few extra dollars—and that son of a bitch owes me. Might make Pardo think better of me, especially after what happened in Redington.

  He frowned. He hadn’t shown much backbone in Redington, riding out of town as fast as he could once Pardo found out his mother had been killed. But what was a fellow supposed to do? Pardo
had gone completely mad, shooting in the streets. Ritcher had to run. He put the cigar back in his mouth, saw Gwen Morgan staring at him, and he forced another smile.

  “Did you share this note, or its contents, vith anyone else?”

  “No, sir. Nobody knows but you, Major.”

  “Please, call me Armin.”

  She said nothing, merely looked into her brandy cordial.

  He smoked the cigar, then set it on the ashtray on his desk. “Miss Morgan, if you vill vait here, I vill order a trooper to intercept Mr. Talley’s command. I vill inform the colonel of vat you have told me. After vich I vill personally escort you back to Contention City.”

  “You don’t have to escort me, Major.”

  “It’s Armin, my dear. Please, call me Armin. And I must certainly escort you back to Contention. Apaches have bolted from San Carlos. It’s not safe for anyone to travel alone. You risked your lovely life just riding out here, alone. Besides, I must go to the marshal’s office in Tombstone and Tucson and clear your heroic Marshal McGivern’s name.”

  She smiled. Damn, but she had a wonderful smile, for a whore.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  From where the trail crested the ridge, Pardo and Swede Iverson stopped their horses, turned in their saddles, and peered down the winding road. Slowly, the three buckboards crawled up the slope. The path had been carved into the hard, rugged rock, hugging the hillside, barely wide enough for one wagon, the ridge slopping downward from the road, below which sprouted a forest of yucca and ocotillo.

  Per Iverson’s instructions, the wagons were spaced about one hundred fifty yards apart, creeping up the hill, Duke following the last wagon, the one driven by Phil, about two hundred yards behind on his horse. Pardo looked south, then turned and studied the terrain down the hill, his eyes scanning the desert for signs of anyone. He saw nothing. Who the hell would travel in this heat? he wondered, and looked back down the trail.

  The first wagon stopped. He could make out Harrah as he set the brake. Dagmar and Blanche eased off the driver’s seat next to him, gripping the edge of the wagon, their feet barely on the road, and made their way to the back.