The Killing Shot (10 page)

The mesquite was twisted and gnarled, a giant of a tree, perhaps seventy-five years old, with huge forks going every which way, some low to the ground, creeping like the legs of a tarantula, the main branch rising above the dust-coated adobe buildings of Wickenburg. Its branches and leaves, at least, shaded the four men chained to its limbs.

Pardo almost doubled over in the saddle, he laughed so hard, pointing, spitting out the words: “That's a jail?”

“It's a big tree,” Reilly told him. “Best remember that.”

“Getting out of here will be a piece of cake,” Pardo said, and wiped the saliva off his chin.

“Piece of mesquite,” Reilly corrected. He looked around for a guard, but saw none. The four men ignored the two men on horseback. One slept. Another tried to. A third rolled a smoke. The last one paced across the courtyard. Paced, that is, as far as he could with a ten-foot chain secured around his left ankle and the fork that branched off almost at the ground. From the description Reilly recalled from the wanted posters, the pacing man would be Swede Iverson.

“Come on, Mac,” Pardo said. “I'd best get you to the law dogs.” He laughed again. “A tree for a jail. Piece of cake.”

Men, miners mostly, but a few Mexican farmers, crowded Wickenburg's streets as Pardo and Reilly eased their way from the Jail Tree to the town marshal's office. Since leaving the dying Greek back in the desert, they had crossed the Gila River, drifted downstream a few miles, and turned northwest, following the Hassayampa River to Wickenburg. A few miles outside of town, Pardo had fastened handcuffs, which he apparently had taken from the prison wagon, on Reilly's wrists.

It was pretty country, Reilly observed, and a lively town, full of saguaro, shaded by the mountains to the north. Hot, but not the hellish heat from the desert south. He had never been to Wickenburg, didn't know the law here.

“Here.” Pardo pointed to a small adobe shack on a corner, a warped plank sign hanging over an open doorway with the word
MARSHAL
branded into it. “Can't read, but I know what that spells. It says, ‘This is the place for John Law.'”

They reined up and swung down, greeted by a mountain of a man who filled the doorway, a man with beard as red as his face. He eyed the deputy's badge on Pardo's vest and studied Reilly.

“Thought you might be bringin' in Luke Willett,” the red-bearded man said.

“Who the hell's Luke Willett?” Pardo asked.

“Prisoner. Escaped.”

Pardo grinned at Reilly, then shoved him toward Red Beard. “Maybe you'd do better if you had a real jail, and not a tree.”

“Tree's good enough for our little town, Deputy,” Red Beard said. “Served us well for nigh a dozen years now. My posse's trackin' down Willett. Who's your prisoner?”

“Name of Mac,” Pardo said. “I was hoping you'd be so kind as to lodge him at your Jail Tree.”

“Be happy to accommodate you.” Red Beard held out his hand. “I'm Thaddeus McCutcheon, town marshal.”

“Jim Smith,” Pardo said. “We rode by the Jail Tree on our way in. Who else you got chained to that mesquite?”

“Couple of Mexicans I'm lettin' sleep off their drunks. They'll be gone by evenin'. Gambler named Gene Peck who tried to supplement his income by robbing the stage. And Swede Iverson, the murderer. Waitin' for the law from Prescott to come down and fetch them latter two.”

“When do you reckon that'll be?”

“Day after tomorrow, I warrant. Come on in, Deputy Smith. I was about to pour myself a bracer. We can have a snort or two; then I'll fetch a chain for your prisoner.”

“Marshal McCutcheon,” Pardo said eagerly, “you speak the language of my tribe.”

 

“How did that Willett fellow escape?” Pardo asked after McCutcheon refreshed his tin mug with a splash of Scotch.

The marshal shrugged. “Oh, he got hold of a file, sawed through his chain last night, lit out toward the Vulture.”

Pardo sipped the Scotch. “That happen often?”

McCutcheon shook his head. “Rare thing. Should have suspected it, though. Old Willett, he's got a passel of friends.”

“What did he do?”

“Killed a man. We was to hang him yesterday.”

“Didn't see no gallows.”

“You seen our Jail Tree, though. It suffices.”

Pardo killed his Scotch while McCutcheon laughed. Man laughed like a girl.

Forcing a grin, Pardo held out his empty mug, and the marshal started to pour from the bottle, but hoofbeats stopped him, and he slid the bottle across his desk, rose, joints popping, and made his way to the door. Pardo helped himself to the Scotch.

Reilly sat in a dark corner, silent.

“Well, boys,” McCutcheon called out. “Where's Luke Willett?”

Someone answered in Spanish, and a moment later, McCutcheon and everyone outside were laughing. Pardo shot Reilly a glance, but Reilly only shrugged.

Still cackling, McCutcheon stepped back into the office, and in came an Indian in deerskin and a black hat, and another man, a gringo with a five-point star pinned to a collarless blue shirt, holding a grain sack, stained brown at the bottom.

“Deputy,” McCutcheon said, eying Pardo, “this here is Henry Dunlap, my deputy. And this is our tracker. He's Yavapai. I call him Joe.” McCutcheon stuck his head outside. “Boys, I'm right proud of you. You done good work. Ride over to Miguel's, and get good and drunk. Tell Miguel to bill the town council.”

Cheers followed the red-bearded marshal back inside his office, and hoofs pounded the street. “Show Deputy Smith our escaped prisoner,” McCutcheon instructed, and Dunlap reached inside the sack and pulled out Luke Willett's head.

He resembled, Reilly thought, Wade Chaucer, with shorter, blonder hair and a bullet hole in the center of his forehead. Flies buzzed around the grisly throat where the Yavapai had cut off Willett's head. At least, Reilly figured, the Yavapai had done it, using that machete sheathed on his belt. McCutcheon turned the dead man's face toward him, and clucked his tongue. “Well, Luke, looks like you cheated the hangman after all.” He waved his hand at the flies, and told Dunlap to drop the head back into the sack.

“Let's nail his head to the post in front of Garland's Livery,” the town marshal suggested, and grabbed a chain off the wall. “It's on our way to the Jail Tree, Deputy Smith. We can secure your prisoner, then join the boys for a round or two at Miguel's.”

“Sounds like a fine plan, Marshal,” Pardo said.

 

“Getting out of here will be a piece of cake,” Reilly told Pardo when Dunlap and the Yavapai fastened one end of the chain around a giant limb, and the other to his left ankle.

Pardo's eyes danced. “It's a big tree. Best remember that.” With that, he turned, and followed the marshal, his deputy, and the Indian out of the courtyard, around the little adobe wall, and across the street.

Reilly tugged on the chain, knowing it would be locked solid, and looked at his companions. The two Mexicans continued to sleep, the gambler had moved away from their snores and found a shady spot, and Swede Iverson continued pacing, dragging his chain across the gravel.

A barrel-chested, broad-shouldered man, Reilly observed, with a lean, angular face, sandy-colored hair, and blue eyes. His fingers were long, hands too small for the rest of his body, for Swede Iverson towered over Reilly McGivern. Probably a good six-foot-three, maybe four. He wore faded jeans stuck inside well-worn black boots, and a blue cotton shirt dampened by sweat. Atop his head rested, at a rakish angle, a cap of gray herringbone.

Reilly wet his lips and walked over to the sleeping Mexicans, dropping beside the nearest, and cleared his throat.

Slowly, a dark hand left the muslin shirt and pushed a straw sombrero off his beard-stubbled face. Black eyes stared up at Reilly.

“Buenas tardes, señor,”
Reilly said.
“¿Cómo está usted?”

The Mexican answered with a shrug.

“¿Habla usted inglés?”

The Mexican shook his head.

Reilly frowned. That might be a little difficult, for Reilly had practically used up the Spanish he knew. He pointed to the Mexican's still-snoring companion, his eyes forming a question.

The man shook his head.

He tapped his chest.
“Policía,”
he said.

With a grunt, the Mexican pushed himself up into a seated position.

“Es verdad,”
Reilly said, softly adding, “But it's a long story.”

The Mexican pointed at the iron clamped across Reilly's boot. Reilly gave a mild shrug, and tried to smile. “That's an even longer story.” He ran his tongue of his chapped lips. How could he warn Marshal McCutcheon of Pardo's plan?

“You having trouble talking to that greaser?” a voice sounded behind him.

Startled, Reilly turned, saw Swede Iverson rolling a cigarette. The big man licked the paper, smoothed it, and fished a box of matches from his jeans pocket.

The Mexican pulled the sombrero back over his eyes and slid back into a more comfortable position.

Reilly let Iverson fire up his smoke; then he reached over and took the cigarette from Iverson's lips. “Trying to get a smoke,” he said. He took a long drag, held it, and exhaled.

Iverson smiled, and pulled the makings from his shirt pocket. “Tough guy, eh?”

“Some think so.” Reilly had never been much of a smoker, but he liked the taste on his tongue, the way the smoke seemed to settle his nerves. He walked closer to the dynamite man. “You're Swede Iverson.”

The killer's eyebrows arched. “You know me, but I don't recollect your face.”

“Call me Mac,” he said.

“All right, Mac. What did you mean when you told that greaser yonder,
‘Policía'
?”

“You heard that?” Reilly said, trying to think up a lie, and think one up pronto.

“I got ears.” He struck the match against the side of his jeans, and fired up the cigarette.

Reilly waved around the complex. “I don't see any guards. That's what I was asking the Mexican. Where are the guards?”

“You planning on escaping?”

“The thought struck me. You game?”

Iverson laughed, and squatted. “Nobody's busted out of this, ahem, jail, since 1863, Mac.” He took a long drag, blew a smoke ring toward the branches over his head. “Well, unless Luke Willett got away. A drunken drummer brought him a file the other day. He vamoosed.” He looked at the branches overhead thoughtfully. “Maybe Luke made it.”

“He didn't,” Reilly said.

Iverson stared at him.

“Marshal McCutcheon nailed Willett's head to a post at the livery down that street.” Pointing the way.

Iverson gave a shrug, put the cigarette back between his lips. At last, he said, “That Yavapai's pretty damned good.”

“That why you didn't run out with Willett?”

His laugh was more snort. “Old Luke didn't share his file. Me and Gene begged him to share, but he took it with him and skedaddled. Ain't that right, Gene?”

“Bugger off,” the gambler named Peck muttered.

Iverson laughed again. “Your smoke's gone out, Mac.”

Reilly nodded. He had pinched it out. “Your makings are about played out. Figured I'd best save this one.” He stuck it in his vest pocket. “Not likely to find a smoke for a long spell.”

“Not the way I smoke,” Iverson said. He studied Reilly long and hard. “You think you can get out of here?”

“What would you say if I told you that the deputy marshal who brought me in isn't really a lawman? That he brought me here to help break you out of this, ahem, jail? That he's really Bloody Jim Pardo, and he has needs of your, shall we say, expertise with explosives?”

Laughing, Iverson pulled hard on his cigarette, and shook his head. “I'd say you're loco.”

Reilly grinned. “Well, Swede, you just watch for your chance. I don't know what Pardo has in mind, but I suspect we'll find out soon enough.”

With that he turned, ducking underneath the mammoth branch of the mesquite, and found a spot on the ground. Swede Iverson's chains dragged across the gravel as he paced back and forth, back and forth. Slowly, Reilly reached inside his pocket and pulled out the cigarette. He ran a thumbnail over the paper, peeled it off, letting the tobacco fall onto his lap. He glanced over his shoulder, then drew a pencil from his vest pocket. Flattening the paper on his thigh, he wrote, carefully, legibly, trying not to tear the paper.

He folded the cigarette paper and waited until he heard the two Mexicans awaken and rise. One, the one he hadn't spoken to, got up and headed for the slop bucket in the corner of the adobe wall. Reilly stood, moved underneath the branch, and came to the other Mexican. In the center of the yard, Swede Iverson was taking a piss.

Carefully, but quickly, Reilly pulled the paper from his pocket and thrust it into the Mexican's hands.
“Socorro,”
he said. “
Dar
McCutcheon,
por favor. Es muy importante.
”

The Mexican eyed the paper uncertainly, but at last said,
“Por supuesto,”
and stuck the folded paper into the mule ear pocket of his duck pants.

 

Shortly before sundown, Marshal McCutcheon and Deputy Dunlap brought sowbelly and beans in a bucket, and a blackened pot of coffee, to the prisoners for supper.

“Oh, no,” the red-bearded lawman told the two Mexicans. “You boys don't get no meal. Not tonight. Henry, turn 'em loose.”

Reilly watched, his heart pounding against his ribs, as Dunlap unlocked the manacles around the two Mexicans' ankles. The taller one fired out something in Spanish, too rapid, too hard, for Reilly to catch anything, and leaped over the wall. The second one reached into his trousers pocket, pulled out the cigarette paper, and walked timidly to McCutcheon.
“Abrala,”
he said, and turned, gathered his sombrero in his hand, and leaped over the small wall, hurrying to catch up with his friend.