The Killing Blow

by J. R. Roberts

  “It sounded like you needed some help,” Clint said. “Since it’s too late to get Ordell right now, I suggest you take whatever help you can get. Who’s hurt?”

  Howlett was lying against a tree with his legs stretched out in front of him. “Never mind that!” he snarled. “Ordell’s right around here! I saw him with my own eyes. I won’t have Three dead for nothin’ by letting that murdering crazy man skip out of here!”

  “I chased him as far as I could and he went straight into another batch of trees just like this one. Since his own cabin isn’t far away, I’d say he’s had more than enough time to booby-trap this whole damn place. Now, if you want to go running into that, be my guest. I heard someone get hurt and I know it’s in one of those traps. Tell me where he is!”

  Howlett let out a tired sigh and nodded toward the pit. “Three was the one making the noise, but he’s done now.”

  Clint leaned forward just enough to see the bloody tips of a few spikes. “Is he still in there?”

  “Yeah, but like I said before, he’s done. I was nearly in there with him.”

  Crow stumbled into the little clearing and then hunched down on one knee as if he were paying his respects to the dead. One of the Indian’s hands was pressed to his head and a small trickle of blood was coming from his temple.

  “What about you?” Clint asked. “Are you all right?”

  Without looking up, Crow replied, “I will be fine.”

  “He tussled with Ordell,” Howlett explained. “Caught a nasty knock from the butt of the bastard’s fancy rifle.”

  “Can you move?” Clint asked.

  “I twisted an ankle and nearly yanked an arm out of its socket, but I should be all right. I’d be a hell of a lot better if Ordell was dead right about now.”

  “Ordell won’t be going anywhere. After all the trouble he went through today, I doubt we’ll have to wait too long before seeing him again.” Kneeling down beside Howlett, Clint placed a hand on the man’s shoulder and could immediately feel where some of the bones were out of place. “Come on, let me help you back to your camp.”

  “I don’t need any help.”

  Clint stepped back and watched the man try to get to his feet. Howlett managed to get halfway up before wincing and gritting his teeth in pain.

  “You just gonna stand there?” Howlett grunted. “Or are you gonna help me?”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Howlett wasn’t lame by any stretch of the imagination, but he’d twisted his knee and ankle in his fall. Even though he needed some help getting back to camp, his injuries weren’t enough to drain the fight out of him. In fact, he seemed just as ready to fight Clint as he was to fight Ordell. Howlett kept right on fighting until he was dropped back into his own camp.

  Landing with a thump, Howlett grunted and spat out a string of obscenities.

  “You’re welcome,” Clint said.

  “Might as well put a bullet in my head if I can’t run after that son of a bitch,” Howlett growled.

  Clint was already busying himself pulling down thick branches. “You’re going to be fine. You don’t have anything that a splint and a bit of rest won’t cure.”

  “Really? And when am I supposed to rest? The bit of time before that animal comes after me again or the bit of time after he picks me off?”

  Now that he had the lengths of wood he was after, Clint looked for some rope. He found some looped to the saddle of Three’s horse. “That’s just the pain talking. Here”—he took a bottle he’d found in one of Three’s saddlebags and tossed it over to Howlett—“take a few drinks of this and calm down.”

  Still glaring at Clint, Howlett pulled the cork from the bottle and tipped it back to his lips. After letting some of the firewater pour down his throat, he lifted the bottle to the sky in a quick salute. “That Indian may have been crazy, but he fought the good fight.”

  “Speaking of Indians, where’s your other partner?”

  “He ain’t here?” Howlett asked while looking around at the small camp. “Considering how long it took for you to get me back, I would’ve thought Crow had been here, had supper, taken a nap and gone back out again.”

  “I thought I made good time, considering I was dragging a complaining sack of bones like you along with me.”

  Howlett took another drink and grinned. “All things considered, it was a hell of a run. That’s the closest we got to that crazy son of a bitch since we started.”

  “We’ll get another chance,” Clint said as he set down the wood and rope he’d collected. After forming a splint from the branches and tying it around Howlett’s ankle, Clint started to wrap the rope around a spot above Howlett’s knee, but got his hand swatted away.

  “I can finish it up myself.” Howlett grunted. “Lord knows it ain’t the first time I mended myself.”

  Clint took the bottle from Howlett’s hand so the man could tie off the top of the splint. Although he didn’t usually prefer whiskey, Clint shrugged and took a sip from the bottle. After everything that had happened, the drink went a long way toward making him feel like he wasn’t still running.

  “Where do you think Ordell got to?” Howlett asked.

  Clint shook his head and took one more sip before putting the cork back in the bottle. “Right now, I don’t even care.”

  “How can you say that? After everything, you’re ready to quit?”

  “No, but I’m not going to turn myself inside out trying to figure out every noise I hear and dream about which tree Ordell might be hiding behind. That’s exactly what he wants. Besides, he’s still out there and he’s still a flesh and blood man. He’ll need his rest, too.”

  “He is still out there,” Crow said as he stepped into the campsite.

  Although they were startled by the Indian’s sudden appearance, Clint and Howlett were too tired to jump.

  “Where’ve you been?” Howlett asked.

  “Putting Three Eyes to rest.”

  “You pull him outta that pit?”

  “I buried him where he fell. His spirit is free and his body is now one with the earth. That is all that matters.”

  “What matters is that we get the sick son of a bitch who dug that pit,” Howlett said. “I seen plenty of men die before, but that was . . . that was inhuman is what it was.”

  Since he’d come back to the camp, Crow had yet to take his eyes off of Clint.

  “What’s the matter?” Clint asked the Indian. “You still don’t trust me? You think I put on a good show and am still working with Ordell?”

  “You weren’t with us when we chased him,” Crow pointed out. “I don’t know where you were.”

  “I wasn’t drawn into chasing him through a series of death traps that Ordell had rigged before we even got there,” Clint replied. “That’s why you didn’t see me. Hell, I would’ve even warned you about them if you would’ve bothered to ask. I would have even said something when Ordell drew you men into the trees, but you three bounded off like a bunch of rabbits.”

  Crow straightened up and narrowed his eyes into angry slits. In a matter of seconds, the fire inside of him dwindled and he nodded slowly. “You could have killed us both when you found us.”

  Judging by the startled look on his face, Howlett hadn’t gotten around to thinking about that just yet.

  “Now you’re thinking straight,” Clint said.

  “Yeah,” Howlett said as he chuckled nervously under his breath. “That’s what I figured all along.”

  “So, you will be hunting with us?” Crow asked.

  “No.”

  Howlett and Crow both looked at Clint as if his answer had come in another language.

  “What do you mean no?” Howlett asked.

  “Just what I said,” Clint replied. “Looking at this like a hunt is giving Ordell exactly what he wants. After everything I’ve seen so far, my guess is that he set this up a long time ago and worked awfully hard to draw you men to this spot.

  “Ordell has hunted men for years and has been pa
id handsomely for it. Josh Ordell found out that much and was killed. Something’s been bugging me about that, though. Mark Ordell can come and go as he pleases by just walking out of town and disappearing into the trees. There’s only one good reason for him to kill his nephew when it would be no problem for him to just pick up and head somewhere else.

  “This hunt,” Clint said. “Right here and right now. He’s had this all set in motion for a while. If Josh started talking about it or if he’d gotten the law involved or even if he got too many folks poking around in this patch of woods, Mark wouldn’t have been able to have his fun.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Howlett groaned. “We’ve been led by the nose for so long and I never saw it until now?”

  “When you were tracking Ordell, did you follow mistakes he’d made or bodies he’d left behind to show you where he was?” Clint asked.

  Howlett didn’t answer directly, but the mix of anger and shame on his face spoke volumes.

  Clint looked over to Crow and said, “What happened to your people was enough to gather the best warriors and hunters you knew to send after Ordell. It’s a horrible thing to have done, but it suited his purposes perfectly.”

  “In the eyes of an animal,” Crow said through gritted teeth, “there is no good or bad. I believe you are right in these things you say, except for one thing.”

  “What’s that?” Clint asked.

  “I knew this killer wanted to hunt me. If the animal wishes to put his neck in front of my weapon, I am willing to step into his den.”

  “Yeah, but walking out again is the tricky part.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Clint walked back into his own campsite and felt oddly at home. The spot wasn’t much more than a little clearing in a good location with a small pit dug for a fire. Still, it was quiet and close enough to the river for Clint to wash off his face and take a cool drink. Eclipse stood beside him, sipping from the river like it was just another day.

  “I’d give every cent I have to have your worries right about now,” Clint muttered as he patted the Darley Arabian’s nose. “Then again, I wouldn’t be too crazy about eating fried oats and sleeping in a stall.”

  Perhaps Clint was tired or perhaps he’d been out in the woods for too long, but he suddenly thought that was one of the funniest things he’d ever heard. Perhaps he just needed to laugh for a few seconds, because that alone made him feel a whole lot better.

  After leading Eclipse back into the campsite, Clint sat down and stretched his legs out to enjoy a few moments of quiet. A few moments was all he got before he heard soft footsteps padding toward him. His hand drifted toward his gun, but he didn’t draw. Instead, he sat and waited until the soft footsteps stopped.

  “It’s all right, Rain,” he said. “Come on over here.”

  The Indian woman stepped into the campsite and made her way quickly to Clint’s side. She sat facing him with her legs drawn in tightly and her knees held close to her chest. “You have a good nose to know it was me,” she said.

  “More like good ears.”

  “It is the sign of a good hunter.”

  Clint groaned at the sound of that last word. “It comes from too much practice doing things I’d rather not be doing.” Seeing that he’d only put confusion onto the Indian woman’s face, Clint shook his head and said, “Never mind. What brings you here?”

  “I wanted to make sure you were all right. I heard that . . .” Lowering her eyes for a moment, Rain had to gather up some strength before saying, “I heard that Three Eyes is dead.”

  “You heard right.”

  “Ordell killed him.”

  “Three killed himself by charging without thinking,” Clint said with a bit of an edge to his voice. “And if it had been another sort of trap, he might have killed someone else.”

  “He was always too ready to fight. Crow said that is why he made it this far in hunting down Ordell.”

  “I’d rather not think about all of that right now.”

  Setting her chin upon the tops of her knees, Rain asked, “Aren’t you worried that Ordell will find you?”

  “Not really.”

  “But he is a great hunter. Crow says he thinks Ordell already knows where Howlett made his camp.”

  “He probably does know,” Clint said. “He might even know where I am right now, but I don’t think he’ll come into this clearing with guns blazing. I doubt he’ll even fire a shot at me for a while.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that’s not part of a hunt.” Looking at her, Clint could see genuine concern on Rain’s face. He could also see plenty of fear. “He is a great hunter. He laps it all up like milk. The hunt, the kill, the chase, even him being chased. He loves all of it and he wouldn’t bring it to an end just by firing off a few shots from afar. That’s how boys hunt. At least, that’s probably how he sees it. I didn’t see much of him today, but I saw enough to show me that he’s loving every minute of this.

  “Besides,” Clint added, “we gave him a good run today. He’ll need to lick his wounds for a while.”

  “You’ve said that before.”

  “Have I? Well, it’s still true.”

  Averting her eyes just a bit, Rain said, “And you wouldn’t be able to stop him if he decided to come here anyway.”

  “I wouldn’t put it quite like that, but you’re not far off the mark.”

  “When I was a child, I was told the same thing about the soldiers that would come to our villages.”

  “Well, just because you can’t keep someone from crossing your path,” Clint said, “doesn’t exactly mean you’re about to let them roll right over you.”

  Rain smiled and said, “That’s what my brother would say when he would hunt down the soldiers who killed my people for sport. You remind me of my brother.”

  “Not too much, I hope.”

  “You have his fighting spirit,” she quickly amended. “That’s all I meant.”

  “Maybe you should go see your brother. I think he could use the sight of a friendly face right about now.”

  “He is gone already,” Rain said while slowly shaking her head. “I spoke to him for a little while, but he didn’t have much to say. He told me about what happened to Three Eyes and how close you all came to killing Ordell. After that, he didn’t want to talk anymore.”

  “He didn’t really strike me as the sort who would take a moment to catch his breath. Although, I hope he knows that running prey to the point of exhaustion is an old hunter’s trick and Mark Ordell is most certainly an old hunter.”

  “I don’t know anything I could say to make him stop, even for a moment. He will go after this man until he can no longer move.” Shifting her voice to a deeper, more stern tone, she added, “Only then will he rest.”

  “You’ve already had this conversation with Crow before?”

  “Many times. That is why I have been following him. Every now and then, I can get him to smile or eat more than a few bites.”

  “That’s very thoughtful. He’s a lucky man to have a sister like you.”

  “He’s not the only lucky one, you know,” she said while slowly crawling onto Clint’s lap. “I’d like to make you feel good for a while. They say a woman can make a man’s eyes sharper and his blood run hotter.”

  Clint wrapped his arms around her and slid his hands along the curve of her back. “I can certainly vouch for that second part.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  As she undressed him, Rain worked her fingers along every inch of Clint’s body. She massaged his tired muscles and peeled away the clothes so she could keep her hands moving upon him. He leaned back and let her do what she pleased, feeling more like a human being instead of an animal running through the woods.

  Clint watched her run her hands along his chest and stomach. He then reached up to peel the top of her dress down to reveal her pert little breasts. Rain’s dark nipples were already growing hard and when Clint rubbed them, she let out a trembling sigh. With a few shrugs of her sho
ulders and wriggles of her hips, she squirmed out of her clothing and then tossed her hair over her shoulder.

  Looking down as she opened his jeans, Rain glanced back up at Clint just as she slipped her hand between his legs. She rubbed his hardening cock and breathed in deeply as she felt him become fully erect. She begged him with her eyes to strip down the rest of the way and when he did, she guided Clint’s penis between her legs.

  Rain kept her hands flat against Clint’s chest as she rode him. Her legs pressed tightly against him and she kept her head bowed forward so her hair would brush against his skin. Rocking back and forth, she began grinding her hips and digging her fingernails into his flesh.

  Clint could feel the strength in her body the way he could feel power in a bowstring. Her muscles were taut and her breathing was fast and getting faster with every stroke. Placing his hands upon her hips, he held her in place as he started pumping into her.

  The moment she felt him take charge, Rain let out a gasp and leaned back until she could grab Clint’s ankles. The front of her body formed a slender arch and her stomach became tight as a drum while she savored the feel of Clint sliding in and out of her.

  Now Clint only had to hold onto her with one hand. His fingers curved around her hip and felt her tight backside. He moved his other hand up and down along the front of her stomach to feel her muscles move as she breathed. Slowly sliding his fingers down again, Clint placed his thumb on her clitoris and started moving it in a slow circle.

  Rain’s eyes fluttered open and her pussy tightened around him. She let her head fall all the way back as every muscle in her body began to tremble with a powerful orgasm. As the climax slid through her, she pumped her hips up and down over Clint’s cock until he drove it in as deeply as it would go.

  Clint sat up and Rain bolted up to meet him. Her arms wrapped tightly around him and she held on until her climax was finished. When she could finally take a breath again, Rain got up and pulled Clint to his feet.

  “Come here,” she whispered.

  “Where are you going?”