Gus no longer felt any pain from the wound in his shoulder. He merely adjusted to the lack of mobility he had on that side and fired from the hip. Luckily, his trigger finger wasn’t affected in the least and he sent a torrent of lead into the barrel where the rifleman had been hiding. His shots were wild, but many of them managed to send pieces of the barrel flying off in different directions. Although he would have been happy to put the rifleman down then and there, Gus really wasn’t expecting to get that lucky.
The rifleman rolled away from the barrel as the upper ring broke loose and fell away. The moment he came to a stop, the stranger brought his weapon up and took aim. His finger was just tensing upon the trigger when Gus fired the gun in his left hand. Knowing better than to completely trust his aim on that side, Gus fired again and again until the rifleman hit the dirt.
Gus wasn’t about to rest on his laurels just yet. He swung both guns to the left, which was the direction he’d last seen Smythe slither off to when the shooting had started. The gun in Gus’s right hand was emptied first, so he pulled that arm away from his body to reveal the other pistol he’d taken from Swann. The gun had been tucked under that arm and now dropped into Gus’s waiting hand. All he needed was a target.
Smythe must have ducked around the stable, so Gus took a moment to shout over his shoulder, “You still with me, Doyle?” When he didn’t get an answer, Gus turned to look at that end of the street. All he could see was a pile of bodies lying near a few very nervous horses. One of those bodies straightened up to raise a knife over his head to prepare for what had to be a finishing blow.
The figure that had pulled itself up was too big to be Doyle. Still holding the bowie knife over his head, the man let out a grunt and fell backward. Although he couldn’t see every last detail from where he was, Gus could make out something protruding from the man’s chest. Another figure propped himself up and shouted, “To your right!”
That voice was Doyle’s, marking yet another instance where he had saved Gus’s life.
Gus turned and reflexively pulled his trigger when he saw the shape of a man walking out of the stable. That shot hissed through the air without hitting anything, but managed to make Smythe think twice before firing a shot of his own. When Gus turned to face Smythe head-on, he was able to survey the carnage on that end of the street.
Dan and Bennett lay in the dirt no more than a few yards from each other. Folks peeked out from windows and doors on both sides of the street, but didn’t seem anxious to do any more than that.
“All right, Smythe,” Gus wheezed. “You like to talk so much. What have you got to say now?”
Smythe held his gun at the ready, but Gus had one in each hand.
Smythe had all of his men with him, but most were lying motionless in the dirt or out of sight altogether.
All things considered, there wasn’t much else for Smythe to say and there was only one thing left for him to do. Glaring defiantly through his spectacles, Smythe raised his gun and pulled his trigger.
Both of Gus’s pistols barked a heartbeat before Smythe’s hammer could drop. Lead burned through Smythe’s body, snuffing him out before his back could slam against the outside of the stable.
Gus kept his pistols at the ready, blinking in surprise when it became clear that Smythe wasn’t going to get up.
Panting like a tired dog as he staggered out of the stable, Jacob asked, “Is it over?”
“Yeah,” Gus said, “looks that way. You all right?”
Jacob was favoring one leg and bleeding from enough places that his shirt was pasted to his torso. “I’ll live.” When Gus reached out to help him, Jacob reflexively twitched. Even when he saw the grateful smile on Gus’s face, he still didn’t know quite what to make of it.
“You did real good,” Gus said. “I’m real glad I didn’t have to kill you.”
“Me too,” Jacob replied. His eyes were drawn to a sudden burst of motion across the street as Abigail rushed out of the hotel with her father in tow. Although the elder Swann tried his best to rein his daughter in, he wasn’t having much success.
Abigail ran over to Jacob and wrapped her arms around him. She buried her face against his chest and started speaking in a current of words that were all too muffled to be heard. When she pulled herself away from the bounty hunter, she gave Gus the same treatment. This time, however, the recipient wasn’t quite as grateful.
“Aww, son of a . . .” Gus snarled before his words were choked off.
“What’s the matter?” Abigail asked. “Are you hurt?” When she looked down at his, she pulled in a quick breath.
“Looks like that fancy pants got a shot off after all,” Gus mumbled. He lifted his arm and touched the bloody spot on his ribs. A deep gash had ripped through his shirt as well as the side of his body. It hurt like nobody’s business, but he’d had worse. “Where’s Doyle?”
“Last I saw him, he was over by my horses,” Thomas Swann said from his daughter’s side.
Gus looked over there and still saw the crumpled forms that hadn’t moved since the last time he’d checked. Gripping his side, he rushed over there as quickly as he could. At that moment, he didn’t even take time to wonder if Smythe had any more gunmen stashed somewhere waiting to take a shot at him. He didn’t waste any time looking about or trying to figure any angles. All Gus wanted to do was get to his friend’s side.
Dropping to one knee beside Doyle, Gus said, “You must be slipping, Doyle. I thought you could handle two men without me looking after you.”
Doyle lay with one leg folded beneath him. He’d managed to prop himself up on one elbow, but couldn’t get any farther. His face was bruised and his mouth was bleeding, but what worried Gus the most was the deep slashes in his arms and sides. There were smaller stab wounds in his chest, which looked a whole lot deeper. “That big fella thought he could take me,” Doyle rasped.
The big fellow in question lay on the ground with his back arched and a look of pain etched on his face. Doyle’s good-luck piece protruded from his chest like a post that had been driven into a patch of open ground.
“He was mistaken about that,” Gus said. “Can you stand up?”
“Nah. I won’t be goin’ anywhere.”
“You got to. This may be a small town, but we can’t just stay here after all of this.”
“I ain’t tellin’ you to stay,” Doyle said. “I’m tellin’ you to leave me here. Better yet,” he added with a chuckle that also made him wince, “have the kid cash me in. At least it’ll be some way for me to pay him back for not skinnin’ out on us when the shooting started.”
Gus stuck his arm under Doyle’s back and started to lift. “Come on. You been hurt worse than this. All we need to do is get you patched up.”
Although he wanted to keep laughing at whatever had struck a chord with him, Doyle let out a sudden hacking cough and swatted at Gus. “Put me down! It’s too late for me, so just get out of here before some law dog comes along.”
“Shut your mouth and stop fighting.”
Suddenly, Doyle grabbed onto the front of Gus’s shirt and hung on with more strength than any man in his condition should have been able to muster. “Stop it, Gus! I mean it. That big fella managed to sink that bowie knife into my back sometime during the fight.”
Gus rolled Doyle over a bit to get a look for himself. Sure enough, there was enough blood seeping through the back of Doyle’s shirt to create a puddle beneath him. “Aw, Lord.” Gus sighed. “That’s pretty bad.”
“I told ya so.” As he let out his next breath, Doyle started to shake. Soon, his shaking turned into broken laughter.
“What’s so funny?” Gus asked.
“One death too many. You went through all of this to avoid it and I got it instead.”
Shaking his head, Gus tried to look away so his friend couldn’t see the guilt etched into his face. Doyle’s eyes were so vacant and clouded over, however, that he probably didn’t see much of anything at all.
“I didn�
��t mean for this to happen, Doyle. Not to you.”
“Eh, it was bound to happen . . . sooner or later. Just don’t waste your . . .”
“I know, Doyle,” Gus said. “Save your breath.”
“Don’t waste your time on Abigail,” Doyle continued. “She’s sweet on that damn bounty hunter.”
Gus nodded and held Doyle up until his friend’s body became heavy and slack. He gritted his teeth and laid Doyle down. From there, Gus stood up and walked back to where Abigail was speaking excitedly to her father.
“You find Doyle?” Jacob asked.
Gus nodded. “Yeah.”
“Is he all right?”
After a pause, Gus replied, “No. Come help me load him onto a wagon. I ain’t leaving him here.”
Abigail picked up immediately on the change in Gus’s tone and looked over to where Doyle was stretched out on the ground. She threw a flurry of questions at Gus, followed by a few panicked pleas before finally breaking into tears. Gus ignored all of that, along with the stern words spoken by Thomas Swann. He and Jacob collected a horse and draped Doyle over the back of it. From there, Gus led the way out of town.
Sometime during the ride to Prescott, Swann started talking again. The silver-haired man’s smooth baritone managed to cut through the fog in Gus’s head and hold his attention for a moment. When Gus realized his ears had picked up on the mention of a reward, he felt sick to his stomach.
“. . . anything at all,” was the last part of what Swann had been saying. “You brought my daughter back and dealt with all the ones who took her. Just name your price and it’s yours.”
“I don’t want no reward,” Gus told him. “Just a favor.”
Chapter 26
The months that followed were busy ones for all who’d survived the gunfight at Killebrew. Thomas Swann fired everyone on his payroll who wasn’t related to him by blood. When he wasn’t scouting for new help, he was searching for any last remnant of Smythe’s kidnapping ring. While it eventually came to light that Smythe and his men had been responsible for several other similar instances over the years, there wasn’t a trace to be found of any surviving kidnappers. Swann would never give up the hunt, however, and funded several posses to track down folks that went missing throughout all of the Arizona Territories.
After spending some more time with Jacob, Abigail was soon given the task of planning her wedding. There were arrangements to be made and a dress to stitch together, all of which she did with bright eyes and excited hands. Once the preacher declared them man and wife several months later, Jacob gave up hunting wanted men and rode shotgun for Thomas’s shipping company in Prescott. Now that Gus McCord and Doyle Hill were no longer about, stagecoaches tended to arrive at their destinations at a much more reliable rate.
As per Doyle’s wishes, Jacob was given the chance to bring in his body to claim a substantial reward. Jacob refused and buried Doyle in a shady spot that wasn’t far from a rowdy saloon.
Gus McCord rode away from Killebrew and wasn’t heard from again. Not long after the shoot-out, Thomas Swann was commissioned to drive a shipment of trapping supplies and mining equipment north of the border into Canada. Somewhere just north of the border, the wagon and its battered old driver with the bad eye and foul temper went missing. Considering the harsh terrain and unfriendly natives of that area, it wasn’t a wholly surprising outcome. When Thomas Swann’s associates thought to ask why he’d decided to risk such a treacherous journey for such a menial shipment, the answer was always the same.
“It was a favor for a friend.”
Outlaw's Reckoning Page 23
