Crossing the Line (19 page)

Jerry turned around and nearly jumped from his saddle when he saw how close Clint had gotten. He said something to Les before taking a rifle from his saddle boot and levering in a round. Since Jerry had to stay on the back of a racing horse while taking his shot, Clint was content to bet on those shots missing their target. Instead, Clint turned to get a look at the trail behind him.

The Indian was closing the distance quickly and firing his pistol along the way. Those shots started off too close for comfort, and drew closer with each consecutive pull of the trigger. Clint pulled back hard on his reins so Eclipse turned to the left while coming to a stop. The move was quick enough to take the Indian by surprise, but smooth enough for Clint to maintain his balance.

Clint took a fraction of a second to steady his arm as the Indian thundered toward him. When he fired, he did so as if he was pointing his finger at his target and willing it to drop. Just to be certain, Clint emptied his cylinder and began reloading while the Indian was still reeling from the lead he'd caught.

The Indian fell from his saddle, but had the agility needed to tuck his chin against his chest and break his fall somewhat with his arms and legs. Even though he didn't snap his neck upon impact, he hit the ground hard enough to break something. Clint saw the Indian arch his entire body like a bow and groan as he lowered himself flat onto the ground. One arm was curled awkwardly and one leg looked to be twisted, but the Indian would live to ride another day.

Clint finished reloading his Colt, pointed Eclipse's nose in the direction Les and Jerry had gone, and then snapped his reins. He'd already caught up to them once and he was confident he could do it again.

Carl's spot was marked by a thick cluster of tall trees situated just outside of the old Blair Farm's property line. The remains of a barbed-wire fence were only a few steps ahead of him. Beyond that, he could see the entire broken-down spread. Since the tree created a big enough silhouette against the horizon, Carl stood with one shoulder against it to steady his aim. When the gunshots began echoing in the distance, the old farm sprang to life.

The lookout that'd climbed the old windmill turned to look in the direction of the shots. Several figures emerged from the house to get a look, as did one of the men posted just inside the main door of the barn. Carl watched them all as if he was studying a big painting hung on a wall in front of him. He barely had to move his eyes to take in the entire scene. All he cared about was that the men didn't try to offer any support to the ones Clint was chasing down.

If those men knew what was good for them, they'd just stay put.

Naturally, those men didn't know what was good for them. They also didn't know anyone was watching them.

When one of the men ran toward the barn, Carl fired a shot that landed a few paces outside of the barn's door. The man who'd been running let out a yelp that Carl could hear all the way back from where he was standing and then drew his pistol.

Carl levered in another round and spotted more movement in the house. Someone was trying to lead his horse out of there, so Carl fired into the wall at the corner of the building. His shot didn't come close to drawing any blood, but it had the desired effect of forcing the man and his horse to duck back inside.

The man who'd tried running for the barn fired in several different directions. He spun crazily upon the balls of his feet, looking for a target and shouting threats to the surrounding trees.

Standing there with his rifle against his shoulder, Carl felt as exposed as if he was in the middle of an open field. He wanted to duck behind the tree, but was too frightened to move. So far, his inability to move had served him well, and none of the men at the farm had narrowed down the exact spot where the rifle shots had come from. If Carl stayed still, he might just slip their notice altogether.

That plan lost its appeal when two more men poked their noses out of the farmhouse. Carl couldn't tell which of those was George, but he could hear the man's familiar ranting.

“Bastard's in them trees! I can see him!” George hollered.

Carl flinched when the next volley of shots came, but none of them was pointed in his direction. Pistol fire crackled through the air and not one piece of lead hissed anywhere near Carl's tree. He smirked as three men inched their way out of the farmhouse. Carl fired a few shots, working the Winchester's lever as quickly as he could in between each one. George emptied his pistol, firing wildly in the wrong direction, but the other two men managed to narrow down their choices.

There were a few muzzle flashes from within the house as some of the men shot through the windows. This time, Carl did hear the angry hiss of lead coming his way. When the shots got closer, he moved around to put the tree between himself and the farm. That was enough for the men in the house to find their target and the next few rounds started hitting the tree itself.

“Damn coward!” George shouted as he fired toward Carl. Rather than switch to rifles like the other men, George merely reloaded his pistol and used that. Fortunately for Carl, the pistol's range wasn't even close to long enough to be a threat to him.

Carl reloaded the Winchester and gritted his teeth as the gunshots kept coming. He could run away from the tree, circle around, and easily get back to where his horse was waiting. From there, he could escape from the farm before any of those men came after him.

But Carl couldn't let himself do that. As appealing as it was to simply leave the fight, he'd come too far to turn back now. Even if nobody knew it was him firing those shots, or that he'd skinned out when he had the chance, Carl would know.

Letting out his breath, Carl peeked around the other side of the tree and dropped to one knee, just like the soldiers he'd watched during the war. Carl sighted along the top of the Winchester and sent a round into one of the farmhouse's windows. He worked the lever, shifted his aim, and then fired at the barn's loft, where he knew a lookout was hiding.

“Same tree!” the man perched upon the old windmill shouted. “Same tree where he was before, but other side!” After that, he brought a rifle to his own shoulder and took aim.

Carl fired at the windmill and hit a spot slightly lower than where he'd intended on placing it. A bit of dust was kicked up from the bullet and a plank swung loose. That plank hit another one, which sent a creaking moan throughout the entire structure. The man at the top of the windmill grabbed on to it with both hands and struggled to find a better foothold. Since he was preoccupied, Carl shifted his aim from the windmill to the farmhouse.

Shots were being fired from the house in a slow, steady rhythm as the men inside adjusted their aim. Each time a bullet thumped into the ground or chipped at a tree, it was closer to Carl than the ones that had come before. Clint had told him to keep moving, but Carl couldn't get his legs to follow through on that. The longer he stayed in one place, Carl knew the chances of him getting hit would only get better. Since he couldn't get himself to move to another spot and he wasn't about to run away, Carl pressed up against the tree and steadied himself as best he could.

George was still shouting obscenities and firing his pistol angrily. Still the same loudmouthed jackass he'd always been.

When Carl saw that son of a bitch, he saw the only reason he'd gotten involved in this whole mess. He saw the man who'd killed his friend. He saw a man who didn't deserve to draw another breath.

Even though Carl was well outside of that idiot's range, he shifted his aim to the center of George's chest.

With one pull of the trigger, Carl could put that asshole down for good.

Then he remembered what Clint had taught him.

He had to squeeze the trigger, not pull.

Clint knew he could have caught up to Les and Jerry before too long. Unfortunately, they had just enough of a head start that he would be halfway to town before meeting up with them again. If the other two men knew a shortcut or managed to stay ahead of Clint for a little while longer, they might get all the way back to town where they could hole up in any number of spots. They might even have backup waiting for them there. Although Clint wouldn't mind taking his chances against those odds, Carl's odds would be a whole lot worse on his own.

Turning around and letting those two slip away went against Clint's grain so badly that it almost hurt. He set that aside quickly enough when he heard the sounds of gunshots coming from the farm. Clint snapped his reins and got back there as quickly as Eclipse could carry him.

 

The shots were getting closer. They cinched in around Carl like a noose, forcing him to lie flat on the ground and cover his head with his hands. He'd heard a lot worse during the war, but he'd been a kid back then. He'd seen men die, but still never thought it could happen to him. Only grown-ups bled that way and never got up again.

He was a grown-up now and he knew he could be dead at any second. Once that certainty hit him, the rest didn't seem so bad.

Carl forced his eyes open and checked his rifle. If he was going to die, it wouldn't be due to a lucky shot fired into the top of his head while he was lying on his belly. If these were his final minutes on earth, he'd spend them firing back at the son of a bitch who'd started this whole mess.

While thinking along those lines, the crackle of gunfire faded away. Carl no longer paid attention to the bullets that whipped past him like angry insects. He pulled himself up, lifted his rifle, and took aim at the men who were making their way from the farm to finish him off.

 

Clint charged from the trees and rode toward the farmhouse like a one-man cavalry battalion. The man perched at the top of the windmill fired at him, but Clint fired right back. He'd only meant to force the lookout to duck, but the boards beneath the man's perch had been weakened and he fell from his spot to drop at least twenty-five feet to the ground. He hit with a loud thump and let out a pained wail. Of the four men rushing toward the trees, two of them turned to see what had happened to their lookout.

Upon seeing Clint, one of those men brought his gun around to take a shot at him. Clint aimed from the hip, using nothing but raw instinct, and blasted a hole through that one's heart.

The second one who'd turned around fired wildly while launching himself through the air to one side. His shots were so wild that they wouldn't have hit their target even if it had been the old barn.

Dropping to one knee, Clint straightened his arm and fired.

When the man hit the ground on his shoulder, he was already dead. A fresh yet messy hole started at his chin and ended at the upper portion of the back of his skull.

Since the other two that had been running toward the trees had stopped by now, Clint walked forward and came to a stop where one of the dead men had come to a rest. “You up there, Carl?” he asked.

George stood facing the trees, but was nervously glancing back and forth between them and at Clint. “Yeah, Carl,” George said. “Stick yer cheatin' head up for me.”

Suddenly, Carl stood up and lifted his rifle to his shoulder. “Nobody cheated you, dammit!”

At first, it looked as if Carl was going to shoot George right then and there. Instead, he shifted his aim slightly to a point just over Clint's right shoulder. Before anyone could say or do a thing about it, Carl pulled his trigger, worked the Winchester's lever, and fired again.

The air became heavy and still.

Then, from behind Clint, someone grunted and hacked up a painful breath. Everyone else was looking in that direction, so Clint took a quick glance for himself. He was just in time to see another rifleman standing at the upper window of the barn. By the looks of it, he'd been about ready to fire a shot into Clint's back. The rifleman doubled over and fell headfirst from the loft to the hard ground below.

Clint snapped his head back around to watch George and the last remaining gunman. “What the hell is going on here?” he asked.

“You're breathing your last breaths,” George said. “That's what.”

“Les talked you into helping him rob Pace's?”

“I don't know what the hell you're talking about.”

“If you were a better liar, you'd be a better card player,” Clint pointed out. “Since it seems like you're not good for much of anything, we'll just have to put you and your friend down for good so we can be on our way.” With that, Clint sighted along the top of his barrel and Carl did the same. Fortunately, that was enough to get their point across.

“We were supposed to rob the Emporium, but that's over now,” the man next to George said.

George wheeled around as if he meant to kill his partner on the spot. “Eckhart, you fucking asshole!”

Eckhart might have been at the wrong end of several guns, but he seemed more annoyed with George than anything else. “For once in your goddamn life, will you shut the hell up? We don't got enough men to do the job now anyway!”

“We still gotta try! You saw what he did to Paul.”

Trying to get back into the conversation, Clint asked, “Who's Paul?”

“Paul's the man Les gunned down in the street,” George snapped. “You should recall that, since you was there!”

Clint nodded as he remembered Les killing one of George's partners after the tournament. “If you're working for him, why would he do that?”

“Hell, I wasn't working for the son of a bitch until he did that!” Blinking as if he'd just sobered up, George said, “He came to me when I was locked up and told me I could either go free and help him or die. He swore that if I wasn't hung for what I done before, he'd finish me off the moment I was set loose. Since that lazy prick Sheriff DeFalco practically eats from Mister Pace's hand, I knew there wouldn't be anything stopping him from making good on that claim.”