The Killing Shot (14 page)

When the gunfire erupted, Jim Pardo did the damnedest thing.

He stood in the stirrups and dived, wrapping both arms around Swede Iverson, knocking the big man off his horse. Reilly was kicking his own boots out of the stirrups while drawing the Evans from the scabbard, feeling the brown gelding he was riding begin to stagger. A bullet tore off his hat as he dropped behind the falling horse. He hit the ground, knees bending, catapulting himself to the rocky slope of the dry riverbed. A bullet kicked dust into his eyes, but Reilly was running, diving to the top, rolling over, coming to rest, rifle ready, behind the toppled remains of an old saguaro.

Right behind him came Swede Iverson, being pushed by Pardo, who urged the explosives man in a comically kind voice. “Hurry up there, Swede. Don't want you to get shot dead before my little job.” The two dived over Reilly.

Bullets sliced over their heads, thudded into the dead cactus, whined off rocks, before a shout down below yelled that they were just wasting lead. A long silence followed as the skies began to brighten.

“How's Peck?” Swede Iverson panted.

Pardo laughed. “Dead. Them boys saved me a bullet. They ain't soft like you, Mac.” He laughed harder, then began cursing. Reilly looked over at him, saw him turning, laying his Colt on the ground, gripping his nose. Blood gushed between the fingers. Swede Iverson stared, then reached over Pardo's waist for the Colt, but Pardo's right hand shot away from his bleeding nose, and gripped Iverson's wrist like a vise.

“The hell you think you're doing?” Pardo asked, spitting specks of blood that ran over his lips.

“I'm…trying to help,” Iverson whined.

“Nobody takes Jim Pardo's gun.” He shoved Iverson's hand away from his chest. “Nobody!”

Reilly pulled the Bulldog from his waistband, said, “Here,” and tossed the big .44 to Iverson, who caught it and rolled to his side, then crawled toward the unearthed roots of the old cactus. He wondered about what he had just done, giving a murderer a weapon, but, hell, he had broken so many laws since the Krafts had left him locked inside that prison wagon, what did one more matter?

“Smith!” a voice called from down below. A voice vaguely familiar. “Deputy Jim Smith! Or whoever the hell you are!”

Pinching his nose, Pardo yelled back, “Why Marshal Thaddeus McCutcheon, what brings you so far into Maricopa County?” He turned toward Reilly. “Guess now I know why I never felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck, why we wasn't followed. Looks like the posse made a beeline for Gonzales's spread.”

“You likely asked too many questions at Miguel's Saloon,” Reilly said.

“Yeah.” He let go of his nose and tilted his head back. “Figured them boys for nothing but a bunch of drunken hayseeds.” His head shook. “This damned nose. Picked a fine time to start bleeding again.”

“Don't worry about it,” Reilly said. “You'll be bleeding elsewhere once the sun's fully up.” He thought a moment, before adding, “Unless you want to surrender.”

Pardo grabbed his gun, and rolled onto his stomach, letting the blood drop in the dust between his elbows. “Bloody Jim Pardo don't surrender, Mac. No time. Not ever.” He lifted his head a bit, and yelled, “What you want, Marshal?”

“I want you to throw down your guns and walk down here. You, your so-called prisoner, and Swede Iverson. Do that, and I promise you, nobody will get killed.”

Pardo cackled. “What about Peck?”

“Peck?” The marshal sounded bewildered.

“Yeah, Peck. You promise me he won't get killed?” He slapped his left palm against the dirt.

“Peck's done for. I can't…nobody
else
'll get killed. That's what I mean.”

“No, no, Marshal,” Pardo said, chiding. “You don't mean that. Why, the Territory of Arizona means to hang Swede Iverson.” He looked quickly at Reilly and said, “I love playing with them fool laws like this.”

“I'm talking about you, Smith,” McCutcheon thundered. “You won't have to get killed. You haven't done nothing but help bust out some of my prisoners out of jail.”

“Well, hell, Marshal McCutcheon, it ain't like you got a real jail in Wickenburg. I just freed them from that tree you got growing.”

“I ain't fooling around no more, Smith. You come on down here now. Come on down, and you'll get to live.”

“Nah, Marshal, you see the Territory of Arizona wants to see me swing, too. Along with the states of Missouri and Kansas. Don't think they'd kill me in California for robbing that bank over in Julian, or in Denton County, Texas, but they damn sure have a rope for me over in New Mexico Territory. You see, my name ain't Smith, but Pardo. Bloody Jim Pardo.” He looked again at Reilly, and winked. “That'll put the fear of God in all of them.”

A lengthy quiet followed, and Pardo rolled over and crawled toward Reilly. “You figure out where he is? From his voice?”

Reilly ran his fingers through his hair. “Maybe,” he said.

Pardo pointed his gun barrel downstream. “You and me can sneak down to that bend, cut across, come back, sneak up on that fool law dog. Way I figure it, we get him, capture him—I mean, keep him alive, use him as a hostage—then them others'll quit.”

Reilly shook his head. “McCutcheon's no fool. He's likely already posted two or three men down yonder.”

“Unlucky for them.” He crawled over Reilly's legs, turned back, and shouted in a dry whisper, “You stay put, Swede. Give us ten minutes, then fire two shots into this dead saguaro. Then you yell out that you just killed me, Pardo, and him, Mac, and that you're coming down. Pitch your
pistola
into the riverbed, and walk on down, hands high in the air. That's all you got to do. Oh, yeah, don't get killed.”

A muffled curse exploded out of Reilly's mouth, and he turned and frantically crawled after Pardo, catching up with him a few yards away. “We don't know how many men McCutcheon has with him,” he said.

“Enough to go around.” Pardo kept crawling.

“He's likely sent men all around us.”

“It's what I'd do.”

“Then this is a fool's play.”

“Un-uh. Means there'll be fewer of them hayseeds hanging around Marshal McCutcheon. Should reduce our taking him to child's play.”

“He could have moved by the time we get over there.”

“He won't.” Pardo stopped, listened, wiped his nose, began crawling again. Reluctantly, Reilly followed.

They moved slowly. Pardo was like an Apache. The marshal kept shouting, but got no answer. As soon as they rounded the bend, Pardo stopped and dropped his head closer to the dirt. Immediately, Reilly did the same, until Pardo turned slowly and motioned Reilly to come alongside him. Once he had, Pardo pointed the Colt's barrel to a spindly mesquite on the dry bank. A second later, Reilly detected the glow of a tip of a cigarette, then movement.

“Now what?” Reilly whispered. Something flashed on the far bank, and Reilly studied it for several seconds, then told Pardo, “There's another man in those rocks over there.”

“Makes things a mite ticklish, wouldn't you say, Mac?” Pardo said, before, catching Reilly completely off guard, he slid down the slope, and started running in a crouch across the dried bed, hoarsely calling out, “Hey, hey, guys, I got a message from Marshal McCutcheon.”

To Reilly's dismay, the man in the rocks on the other side, stood and took a few steps into the riverbed. “What's up?” he asked. The fellow on this side of the bank also rose, pitching his smoke into the rocks.

“That man,” Pardo said, stopping in front of the posse member, and pointing his gun barrel widely in the general direction of where they'd left Swede Iverson by the cactus. “He says he's Jim Pardo. Bloody Jim Pardo!”

“Yeah,” said the man. “We heard.”

The man on Reilly's side of the bank took a step down, and Reilly started crawling, rapidly, sensing the urgency. “Hey!” the man said, and reached for his holstered revolver.

Pardo turned back, swinging his gun viciously, clobbering the posse man's head, dropping him like a rock. The other man was drawing his revolver, had it halfway out of the holster, when Reilly stood and dived. He must have caused quite a racket, because the man spun, his mouth opening to let out a scream that never came, because Reilly's Evans smashed him in the chest, and both men crashed into the dirt. Reilly lifted himself up and brought the stock of the Evans squarely on the man's forehead. Slowly catching his breath, he scrambled across the bed toward a smiling Pardo, waiting for a cannonade of rifle fire to cut him down.

Only…nothing happened.

“I told you,” Pardo said. “They's stupid hayseeds.”

“What's going on down there?” a voice called from maybe twenty-five feet upstream, around the bend.

Pardo, still grinning, called out, “Who's that?”

“It's me, Matthew.”

“Matt, it's me. Get your ass down here on the double. I think Pardo and them two other outlaws is up to something. Hurry, damn it.” He winked at Reilly and lifted the Colt over his head as spurs chimed out a tune. A man cursed as he ducked underneath the arm of a saguaro, and Pardo slammed the Colt across his skull.

“Hayseeds,” Pardo said, as he climbed up the path. “Nothing but stupid hayseeds.”

Reilly couldn't argue.

They had gone only thirty yards when two gunshots cracked the brightening morning. Pardo slid to a stop, ducking, and cursed, “Hell, I should have left Swede an Illinois watch. Ain't no ten minutes passed!”

“Marshal McCutcheon!” Swede Iverson's voice called out from across the riverbed. “It's me, Swede Iverson. I just killed Pardo and the other man, Mac, I think that was his name. I shot them. Shot both of them. They're dead. I'm coming out. Is that all right with you?”

“You sure you killed them?” Marshal McCutcheon's voice, maybe another thirty yards ahead.

“Yeah, I'm sure. I practically blew the back of Pardo's head off.”

Pardo sniggered. “That Iverson, he's a born thespian. I didn't know he had it in him.”

“Throw down your weapon, Swede,” McCutcheon called out.

“Do I get the reward? For Pardo, I mean.”

Pardo laughed harder.

“Throw down your weapon! Then climb down, with your hands up high. Don't try nothing funny.”

Pardo straightened. He turned toward Reilly. His nose had stopped bleeding, but his lips and beard stubble on his chin were stained, as was the front of his shirt. “You wait here. Cover me with that Evans. I'll go down and fetch the good marshal.” He slid down the embankment, and Reilly crawled until he had found a clearing.

The sun was rising above the mountains now, and Reilly could see clearly. A gun whirled over the brush, landing with a thud in the center of the riverbed. Gene Peck's body lay pinned underneath his dead horse. Another dead horse lay a few rods away. Coming out of the brush on this side of the bank, Wickenburg Town Marshal Thaddeus McCutcheon appeared, placing a boot on the withers of the horse Peck had been riding. From a few yards downstream came Swede Iverson, hands stretched high. Other men came out of the brush, weapons held loosely in their hands.

“That's far enough, Swede!” McCutcheon called when Iverson stood between the two dead horses. “Charley, you, Pedro, and Lewallen climb up the other side, make sure Pardo, if it was Pardo, and that other gent are dead.”

“No need, Marshal,” Pardo said, and he covered the twenty feet separating him and McCutcheon in an instant, shoving the short barrel of the Colt into the marshal's belly.

“All right!” he yelled. “Every mother's son of you pitch his iron. Do it! Do it now, or I open up Marshal McCutcheon's stomach. Do it, you damned hayseeds! Do it, I say. Tell them, Marshal. Tell them to obey, or so help me you and I go to hell right here and now.” His finger tightened on the trigger.

“Do it!” Thaddeus McCutcheon screamed. “For God's sake, do like he says. All of you. Charley, Pedro!” His eyes, wide, looked behind him. “Gonzales. Do it.”

Another figure slid down the embankment, and Reilly instinctively drew a bead on the Yavapai's chest.

Weapons dropped. The sun rose. Swede Iverson shrieked, “Hell, you did it,” and ran to rip a Henry rifle from one old man's trembling arms. Only the Indian refused to move, his left hand on the hilt of the machete.

The lawman noticed that. “Joe,” he begged, “don't do nothing, Joe. This is Jim Pardo, man.”

“That's Bloody Jim Pardo to you, law dog. But he's right, injun, if you try something your pal here'll be dying, only slow.” He drug out the last word. “Then I'll gun down as many of you sons of bitches as I can. Oh, yeah, you'll kill me, but before you think about collecting any reward on my head, you best know that you're all covered. Ain't that right, Mac?”

Reilly pulled the trigger. The bullet clipped a spine off a saguaro over the Yavapai's right shoulder. Damn, if the Indian didn't even flinch.

“Joe,” the marshal pleaded. “For God's sake, Joe, just do as Pardo says.”

Slowly, the Indian moved, unfastened the cover of an Army-issue holster on his left hip, drew out an old Colt, and dropped it at his feet. Then he walked across the riverbed.

“The big knife,” Pardo said. “Tell him to drop the big knife.”

“Machete,” Yavapai Joe said, “stays.”

Pardo let out a chuckle. “All right, injun. You can keep that blade. Now, you damned hayseeds, I want you all to mount up and ride back to town. Oh, and pick up them three
hombres
that got their heads rattled around the bend. Don't stop till you're at Miguel's Saloon. Then you can finish your celebration. And bill it to the town council. Ain't that right, Marshal McCutcheon?”

“That's right!”

The posse, about fifteen or so, started shuffling off. “Not you, Gonzales,” Pardo called out to a dark-skinned man in buckskin britches and a yellow shirt. “You and me, we got us some horse-trading to do.”