Nan Ryan (44 page)

Authors: Outlaws Kiss

“Goddamn it, Hatton, what is it?” The Kid glanced over his shoulder. “The price on my head? You looking for money?” They reached the stand of cottonwoods. “I got plenty. Gold. Enough gold to make you rich. Let’s go to the—”

“That’s far enough,” Lew said as the Kid stepped beneath a tall cottonwood. “Turn around.”

The Kid spun around. “Tell me what you want from me!”

“Your life,” said Lew, a muscle clenching tightly in his tanned jaw. “I figure I owe you four shots, Kid.” He raised his gun, took aim, pulled the trigger. The Kid screamed with fear and pain when the bullet grazed his collarbone and glanced off. “That one,” drawled Lew, unmoved, “was for the bullet you put in my left shoulder.”

Tears filling his eyes as he clutched at his bloody shirt-front, the Kid sputtered, “Okay! Okay! We’re even.”

“Not quite.”

“Jesus God, you’re crazy,” ranted the Kid, turning to run, sobbing like a baby now.

A second shot rang out. The Kid fell to the ground as the bullet pierced his right thigh just above the knee. Lew resolutely advanced on him.

Standing over the wounded Kid, Lew said levelly, “That one was for my father, William Hatton. You shot him in the back three months after the war had ended. He was unarmed.”

“Please, please,” whimpered the Kid. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Are you? Are you sorry about Dan Nighthorse as well? Stand up.”

Blubbering, his big body jerking uncontrollably, the Kid struggled up, favoring his wounded right leg and wiping his nose on the back of his hand. “I … I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never …”

A bullet shattered his ribs and exited his back, causing the words to die instantly on his lips.

“Let me refresh your memory. You murdered my brother while holding up a stage in Bernalillo, New Mexico a few years back. Remember? A half-breed riding shotgun behind the stage?”

“It wasn’t my fault!” the Kid frantically pleaded his case. “I never meant to—”

Cutting him off, Lew said, “Know what Dan Nighthorse was guarding, Kid?”

Tears streaming down his bearded face, sweat and blood staining his clothes, the Kid, realizing that he was not yet mortally wounded, cried, “Please! You’ve paid me back for everything! Now let me go!”

“I asked you a question. Do you know what my brother was guarding that day?”

Babbling foolishly, the Kid said, “Gold, but I—”

“Something far more precious than gold. An innocent young woman. Teresa Castillo.” Lew paused, then added,
“Mi tesoro.”

“Oh … m-my G … no, God, no!” the Kid stuttered as the indelible sight of the beautiful young Spanish girl’s tear-stained face as he raped her flashed before his eyes. “No! I never—”

“Lower your trousers, Kid,” said Lew, his voice still soft, calm.

The Kid screeched like a banshee and violently shook his head, hysteria overtaking him. “No, no, no!” he wailed, “you’ve got it wrong. It wasn’t rape at all. She made me do it! She wanted it and I—”

“Let’s see what she wanted, Kid. Skin ’em down.”

“Holy God!” wept the Kid, as his trembling, bloodied fingers went to the buttons of his pants. Bawling like a baby, he dropped his trousers to the ground and stood, trembling like a leaf in the wind with his big hands protectively closed over his naked groin.

“Hands on your head, Kid,” ordered Lew. Sobs ripped from the Kid’s aching throat, but he obeyed. Lew aimed his pistol downward.

“You wouldn’t!” screamed the horrified Kid.

“Yes, I would.”

For a long, tense moment Lew trembled almost as violently as the man standing before him. Perspiration dotted his upper lip. His trigger finger was slippery with sweat. His heart pounded heavily in his chest.

He cocked the hammer.

“Raise ’em high,
amigo,”
came a Spanish-accented voice from just behind Lew and Lew felt the steel barrel of a gun poking his back. Lew raised his good right hand. The gun was taken from his fingers and a voice he recognized as Gilberto Perez’s said, “He is mine now. Your bride awaits you.”

Lew turned, nodded, and holstered the revolver Perez handed back to him. The Kid, blinking back tears, attempting to make out which one of his men had come to help, gurgled gratefully. “Thank God, thank God.” Slobbering, his nose running, he bent to pick up his pants, saying, “Shoot Hatton! Shoot the bastard!”

“Kid, meet Gilberto Perez,” Lew said evenly, “I believe you know Gilberto’s wife. Petra Perez.”

The Kid dropped the pants, straightened, looked into the mean black eyes fastened on him and sobbed, “Noooo!”

Gilberto Perez swiftly drew a knife from the waistband of his black charro pants. The knife’s long blade flashed in the brilliant sunshine and the Texas Kid, choking with fear, grabbed his crotch and fell to his knees, realizing that a horror far worse than death was in store for him.

“He’s all yours,
amigo,”
Lew said to Gilberto Perez, turned, and walked away.

“Padre, you came here to perform a wedding ceremony. Please continue,” said Lew minutes later, as he stood in the mission before the confused priest with a smiling, relieved Mollie at his side.

“Yes, Father,” said Mollie, happily. “This is the only man I ever meant to marry.” She laid a gentle hand on Lew’s bandaged shoulder.

The puzzled padre shook his head, sighed, raised his Bible, and began again, “Do you, Mollie Louise Rogers.…” And within five minutes, he said with a note of relief in his tone, “I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss—”

Lew swept Mollie into his good right arm and kissed her long and lovingly. Then, laughing like two carefree children, they hurried up the aisle and outside to the big white steed tethered there. The beaming groom set the blushing bride atop the pawing stallion and swung up behind her.

The newlyweds rode away in the noonday sun with Mollie saying, “I love you, Lew. Soooo much.”

“I love you, sweetheart. And there’s not even a hotel in San Carlos,” Lew lamented as the horse cantered down the dusty street.

“Since when have we needed a hotel?” asked his bride, kissing his handsome, suntanned face and laughing.

Lew laughed too. “I thought now that you’re a respectable married lady you would—”

“You thought no such thing.” She glanced at the makeshift sling supporting his wounded left arm. “Is your shoulder all right? Can you … ah …?”

“Make love to my beautiful bride? Try me, baby.”

“Oh, I intend to. Let’s see … there’s an abandoned gambling hall on the river, two miles south of San Carlos.”

“I don’t know.” He glanced at her, grinned. “You might insist on playing faro all afternoon.”

She hugged him happily. “No, but the dice table’s still in place. Big solid table. Soft green felt covering it. Make a perfect bed.”

“God, I love you, Mollie Rogers Hatton.”

“Then hurry.”

Lew kicked the stallion into a gallop.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Connie Gabbert

This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media

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