The Killing Shot (21 page)

“Shut up.” Pardo pulled his hat down. “But you tell them, Soledad, that they got to be here, at the northern tip of the Dragoons, in six days. Then we'll ride over to Texas Canyon and have ourselves a real party.”

“What about us?” Phil asked.

“We ride to Total Wreck first thing tomorrow. To fetch us Swede's dynamite.” Looking back at Iverson. “How long will it take to sweat nitro out of them sticks, Swede?”

Iverson kept his eyes on Reilly. “They've probably already sweated. All we have to do is get the nitro loaded and not blow ourselves into oblivion doing it.”

“What about the woman? And the kid?” Harrah asked.

“They'll be tagging along. We won't be able to get the nitro up here, and once we're pulled our little job, we'll be raising dust for the border. So everyone leaves camp. It'll be a party.”

“How many wagons do you have?” Iverson asked.

“One,” Pardo said. “A buckboard. It's hidden down below. We'll fetch it tomorrow. Why?”

“You'll need two more.”

“How come?”

Lightning lit up the sky. Four seconds later, thunder crackled.

“Because I'm thinking we'll have three crates of nitro. One for each wagon.”

“Can't you just haul that juice in one wagon?”

“Sure.” Swede Iverson smiled. “But what happens if one batch decides to blow up? Then you lose all of it. This way, you got a better chance.”

Pardo's head bobbed. He slapped Iverson's broad back. “I like the way you think, Swede. Don't worry. We'll get us a couple of extra buckboards before we get to Total Wreck. All right, boys, best take cover before them skies open up. I got to go talk to Ma.”

He was walking up the hill when the first sheets of icy rain tore across the camp.

Reilly stepped inside the tent that had been Three-Fingers Lacy's, which Pardo had said he could use. Pardo had moved into his late mother's tent. He took off his hat, shook off the water, sent the hat sailing to the bed, then sank into the chair at the desk.

The tent flap flew open, and Blanche stepped inside, soaked from the rain. Reilly stared. The ten-year-old stared back.

“How's your mother?” Reilly asked.

“She's fine. They been leaving us alone. I got my gun back.” She pulled up her britches, and he saw the handle of the little .32 Triumph sticking out of her brogans. “Got two shots left. That whore who was in this tent shot that old crone with this gun.” She pointed at the bullet holes, leaking rain, in the flap.

Blanche smiled. “Nobody saw me pick it up. They was all confused, moping around after that old woman got killed, then burying her, and that Chaucer bastard and this whore had to leave camp in a hurry. Ma led me away, but I sneaked back. Just picked it up out of the mud, cleaned it.” She swallowed. “You want it?”

He drew the Bulldog .44 from his waistband, checked the loads, ejected four spent cartridges. “I have a gun,” he said, thinking,
With two shots left. Plus maybe three or four in the Evans.
“You best keep it in case…” He smiled wearily. “Better get back to your mother, Blanche.”

“How you gonna get us out of here?” She pulled down her pants legs.

Reilly sighed. He didn't have a plan, but he'd have to make his play before Soledad returned with the Kraft brothers. “You just follow my lead, kid,” he said. “Maybe at Total Wreck. Maybe at Texas Canyon. Then you and your mother keep your heads down.”

The girl started to say something, but gunshots, muffled by the wind and rain, stopped her. She turned, pushed open the flap, stepped outside. Shoving the revolver back into his waistband, Reilly grabbed his hat and quickly followed her. They looked up the hill where Jim Pardo had gone. Somewhere in the forest came more shots, followed by a primal scream.

“Get back to your mother,” Reilly said, and he ran through the puddles, past Phil and Harrah, climbed up the hill, ducked underneath a branch, and followed the trail. It was hard to see in the rain, but he slid to a stop when he detected the form of Pardo, on his knees, head bent, rain pouring off the brim.

He moved closer, could see Pardo now. Sobbing. Gun in his right hand, the barrel in the mud.

“Jim,” Reilly called out, and was answered by thunder. He heard footfalls behind him, turned to find Harrah and Phil, but he waved them back with his gun barrel. He squatted beside Pardo.

“What's the matter, Jim?” he asked.

Pardo shook his head, then slowly pointed at the pit before him.

“They dug her up,” he said, releasing his Colt and burying his face in his hands. “Wolves. They dug up Ma!”

Reilly cringed as he looked into the shallow grave. Lightning flashed. He made out ripped bits of an India rubber poncho, parts of Ruby Pardo's boots.

Suddenly, with a animal's ferocity, Pardo turned, staggered to his feet as he grabbed the Colt, and took a few steps back toward camp. “You dumb sons of bitches!” he screamed at Phil and Harrah, aimed the gun, pulled the trigger, the hammer falling on a spent shell. “You don't know no better than to put rocks on a grave! She's gone. Wolves. Coyotes. Cougars. Something dug up my mother and ate her, you dumb bastards!” He kept cocking and firing, but the Colt was empty.

“Easy, Jim.” Reilly reached over, took the gun from Pardo's hand, let it slide into the water-slick holster.

“She's gone,” Pardo sobbed. “Ma's gone.”

“No, Jim, she isn't,” Reilly whispered, his arm over Pardo's shoulder, steering him up the path. Briefly, he wondered if he could shoot down Phil and Harrah, but then his gun would be empty, and he still would have to deal with Duke and Swede Iverson, maybe Soledad, if he hadn't left camp. And Pardo. He looked through the falling rain. Didn't appear that either Harrah or Phil had anything other than the shotgun Phil held. He motioned the two gunmen to return to camp, and they obeyed. “Ruby's right here,” Reilly said softly. “She's right here with you.”

“You…think…so?”

“I know so.”

“I…”

“It's all right, Jim. You can talk to your mother anytime. Anywhere. And you know what? She'll listen.”

“Ma always listened,” Pardo managed. “To me.”

“She always will, Jim.”

They were coming down the hill now, back into camp.

“I ought to kill Phil. Kill them all. Letting them animals make a meal out of my ma.”

That would help things immensely
, Reilly thought.

“Guess I can't, though.”

He steered Pardo into Three-Fingers Lacy's old tent, let him have the chair, while he found a bottle of bourbon they'd left behind, and he pushed out the cork and put the bottle in Pardo's right hand. “Have a drink, Jim,” Reilly said, and sat on the end of the bed.

Pardo switched the bottle to his left hand, and took a long pull, then another. He had stopped crying now, but his eyes were rimmed red. “Thanks, Mac,” he said.

Reilly shrugged.

“It's funny, Mac. Ma never liked you. Didn't trust you. Told me I shouldn't trust you.”

“Do you?”

“I'm starting to. It's funny. I'm starting to think of you as my kid brother. Remember? I told you about him. The one who didn't live.”

He took another pull, and passed the bottle to Reilly. There was just enough for one more drink, and Reilly took it, then dropped the bottle on the wet ground.

“That's fine with me,” Reilly said. “I've always thought of you as my big brother. Remember? He was killed during the war.”

“Damn Yankees,” Pardo said. “Yeah, I remember.” He pulled out the Colt, began ramming out the empty shells and refilling the cylinder with fresh loads from his shell belt. “We'll make them damn blue-bellies pay for what they done to our families. They killed my pa. I tell you about that?”

Reilly shook his head.

“Well, they didn't really kill him. Pa died of fever. Actually, he was about to be shot by his own men for breaking some kind of damn-fool rule, but fever got him before they could line him up in front of a firing squad.”

He's mad
, Reilly thought.
He's a stark, raving lunatic.
Saying, however, “That's all right.”

“My nose ain't bleeding.” Pardo holstered the Colt.

“That's good.”

“Family's important.”

Reilly nodded. “The most important.”

“It's good to talk like this.” Pardo took off his hat, set it on the table. “I'm still half a mind to kill Phil and Harrah. Even Duke.”

“I wouldn't stop you.”

“Damn right, you wouldn't. I'd kill you if you did, even if I think of you like my brother. I saved your life, you know.”

Reilly was rubbing his beard. He stopped, stared deep into Pardo's deadly blue eyes.

“Stopped that Yavapai from splitting your skull. You owe me, Mac.”

“What do you want me to do?” He felt uncomfortable now. Wished he had something to drink.

“Oh, I'll think of something. Right now, it's just…well, I was thinking of making you my partner. Split everything even. Fifty-fifty. Like brothers should do.”

Reilly's head bobbed slightly. “I'd like that, Jim.”

“Well, I ain't done it yet, Mac. I want to talk it over. With Ma.” He stood, grabbed his hat. Lightning flashed, followed by a deafening burst of thunder. After Pardo had gone, Reilly just sat there, staring at the two bullet holes in the canvas tarp, watching the rainwater seep through, wondering just how in hell he was going to be able to save Dagmar and Blanche, and himself.

 

The town of Total Wreck lay scattered about the rolling desert hills in Pima County, well south of the Southern Pacific tracks on the eastern slope of the Empire Mountains, just a little due east of the Santa Rita Mountains. It was home of the Total Wreck Mining and Milling Company—earning its name from a man's comment, “This whole damned hill is a total wreck”—a number of houses, a few stores, three hotels, four saloons, some brick, most adobe, but several wood structures, too, a lumberyard, and the seventy-ton mill.

Once it had been populated by as many as two hundred people, but the mine was beginning to play out, and silver prices had dropped, so from where Pardo stood in his stirrups on a barren hill east of town, the whole damned place looked practically deserted.

“I want you, Phil, and you, Harrah, to ride down there and buy us a couple of buckboards,” Pardo said.

“Buy?” Duke laughed. “Hell, boss man, I figured we'd just kill a couple of people on the road and take their wagons.”

Ignoring Duke, Pardo kept his eyes on Phil. “You think you can do that?”

“Sure,” Phil answered.

“Don't go to one of those saloons,” Pardo said, and pulled his money purse from his vest pocket, handing a few folded bills to the old Missouri bushwhacker.

“How about horses?” Phil asked.

“Unless you want us to hitch you up, Phil, yeah, I think horses would be in order. Trade your two mounts for a couple of good draft animals.
Good
draft animals, you hear?”

“I hear you.”

The sun was directly overhead, blistering the parched ground.

“This place is a total wreck,” Pardo said, and laughed. “All right, Swede. How far is it to that sweating dynamite of yours?”

“About a mile south,” Iverson said, and wiped his brow with his Irish cap.

“Can these boys find it all right?”

Iverson nodded. “Just drive back up this hill, Phil,” he said. “You'll come down on that side, through a bunch of boulders strewn every which way, and follow a little switchback, that you gotta be looking for, else you'll miss it. There's a wooden cabin tucked up against the hill.”

“Lead the way,” Pardo said.

Phil and Harrah eased their horses down the hill, toward the town, while Swede Iverson nudged his black gelding across the brown, dusty hilltop, followed by Mac, driving the buckboard, with Dagmar and Blanche sitting beside him. Next rode Duke. Pardo brought up the rear.

They rode down the southern side of the hill and through a forest of brown boulders before Pardo saw Iverson's cabin. The Swede dismounted and began working a pump, while Mac set the brake, leaped off the buckboard, and helped Dagmar and the kid down. Pardo looked behind him, then stared at the cabin, cautious, before deciding nobody had been here in months. He eased the roan the last few yards and stopped in front of the sweating, furiously pumping Swede Iverson, who finally gave up and looked up at Pardo with a sheepish grin. “She's dry as a bone.”

Without comment, Pardo swung down and tethered his horse to the pump.

“Where's your dynamite?” he asked.

Iverson tilted his head toward the cabin.

“Let's go,” Pardo said, and followed Iverson. They passed the buckboard. Pardo heard Mac tell the woman and her kid, “You stay here,” and Mac joined the procession.

Iverson stopped at the door, put his hand on the latch, and carefully pulled it open. A tarantula scurried outside, and Pardo stepped inside, only to jump back upon hearing the angry whir of a rattlesnake somewhere inside the dark, dusty, cabin. He quickly drew the Colt, eyes searching for the snake, but Iverson started laughing.

“I wouldn't do that, Bloody Jimmy,” he said. He pointed inside.

Pardo stepped back. Sunlight reflected off several gallon-size jars, what looked like canning jars from the Ball Brothers Glass Manufacturing Company, or maybe John L. Mason's fruit jars. The rattler continued its deadly whine, but Pardo cocked his head, studying those jars. At first, he thought somebody had been canning carrots, or something, but then he understood.

“You put dynamite sticks in fruit jars?” he asked Iverson.

“Yep. And unless I miss my guess, they've sweated out a bunch of nitroglycerine.” He slapped his thigh, and broke out laughing. “You shoot that rattlesnake, and this whole hill might just blow up.” He pointed at the Colt, which Pardo quickly holstered.

“I'll fetch the snake,” Swede Iverson said, and grabbed a grubbing hoe from inside the door and stepped inside.

Pardo turned toward Reilly, then heard Iverson yelling, “Out of the way, boys, here she comes.”

Both men leaped aside, and a moment later hoe, handle, and rattler came flying outside.

The snake hit the ground first, bounced once, and began crawling toward a rock. When Pardo drew his Colt, a scream came from inside the shack, “No, don't—” but the roar of the revolver drowned out Iverson's warning, and the rattler's head flew off.

“Are you crazy?” Iverson yelled. His face was white when he emerged from the shack. “You could have blown us all to hell.”

Pardo holstered the revolver, started to say something, but Iverson gestured inside. “That stuff's touchy. I told you that. Anything can set it off, so…” Pointing at the Colt. “Don't shoot that thing again.”

He wiped his sweat-soaked face, caught his breath, tried to steady his nerves.

Silence.

Reilly broke it a moment later. “You left jars full of dynamite sticks in a cabin this close to town?”

Iverson managed a weak smile.

“That's mighty risky,” Reilly said.

Iverson nodded. “Yeah, but nobody really knows about this cabin, despite how close it is to town. Still, I kinda figured some fool might come inside while I was gone, and then Total Wreck would be Buried Total Wreck when this hill came sliding down on top of her. But, 'twasn't meant to be, I guess.” Calmer now, he said “All right, let's get to work,” before returning, treading ever so gently, inside.

Pardo looked at Reilly, who smiled. “After you, Jim,” he said.

When they entered the cabin, they found Swede Iverson on his knees, staring at a jar on the edge of the table, purring like a kitten, stroking the jar with his hands.