illumination.
He could hear just fine, though, and he didn’t like what he was hearing.
Enrique Kelly said, “You’d better do what I tell you, honey, or you’re going to be sorry.”
“You can go to hell.”
That low, hoarse voice belonged to Jess, and the anger and defiance The Kid heard in it brought a grim smile to his lips for a second.
“I could say the same thing to you,” Kelly responded.
“It wouldn’t do any good,” Jess said. “I’m already there.”
“That’s enough arguing, damn it. Come here, you little—”
A fist thudded against flesh. For a second The Kid thought Kelly had hit Jess, but then Kelly’s grunt of pain told him it was the other way around. Jess wasn’t the sort of woman to slap somebody. She clenched her hand into a fist and whaled away.
“Blast it!” Kelly exclaimed.
Clothes ripped. Another blow sounded, and the soft, involuntary cry of pain came from Jess.
The Kid had waited as long as he was going to wait. He bent down, grasped the sides of the window, and pulled himself through the opening. He caught a glimpse of Kelly struggling with Jess. Kelly had succeeded in ripping the rest of her tattered clothing away from her. The lamplight glowed on her pale, bruised skin.
The Kid launched himself in a flying tackle that took Kelly from behind. His shoulder caught Kelly in the small of the back and knocked him forward onto the bed.
The impact sent Jess flying. The Kid didn’t have time to see if she was all right. He had his hands full with Kelly.
The man was big and strong and obviously an experienced bare knuckles brawler. He had barely landed on the bed when he bucked up away from it, arching his back in an attempt to throw off his attacker.
The Kid got his left arm around Kelly’s neck and hung on. Kelly drove an elbow into his midsection. The blow knocked the breath out of him and he gasped for air, but he didn’t loosen his grip. Kelly managed to heave himself up and topple over backward, which put The Kid on the bottom. His head hit the floor hard when they landed, stunning him.
The Kid grabbed hold of Kelly’s left wrist with his right hand, and didn’t let go. Somehow he found the strength to squeeze harder. He knew he had cut off Kelly’s air, and if he could just manage to hang on, eventually the Irishman would pass out or die.
Kelly tried to fumble his gun from its holster. The Kid brought his knee up sharply and hit Kelly’s wrist. The revolver flew free and slid across the floor.
With a heave, The Kid rolled over and put Kelly underneath him. He planted a knee in Kelly’s back and hauled up harder against the Irishman’s neck. There was a chance he would snap Kelly’s spine, and if he did, it was perfectly all right with The Kid.
Before that could happen, Kelly finally went limp. Thinking that it might be a trick, The Kid kept the pressure on Kelly’s throat for another minute or two. When he let go at last, Kelly’s head fell forward and thudded against the floor.
The Kid checked for a pulse and found a weak, unsteady one in Kelly’s neck. The scalp hunter was still alive, but he was unconscious and likely to stay that way for a while. The Kid thought about killing him—it would take only a few blows with a gun to crush Kelly’s skull—but in the end decided against it. He had killed men in cold blood before, but only some of those responsible for the death of his wife.
He pushed himself up onto hands and knees, then heaved himself to his feet. As he did, he heard an all-too- familiar sound.
The metallic ratcheting of a revolver being cocked.
Chapter 27
Slowly, The Kid turned his head to look over his shoulder. Jess stood behind him. She had picked up Kelly’s gun, and was pointing it at The Kid as she held it in both hands. The barrel was rock-steady.
It was the first time he could recall a naked woman pointing a gun at him. It was a pretty unsettling experience.
“Jess, wait a minute. It’s me, Kid Morgan.”
“I know who you are.” Her voice was as steady as the barrel of the gun. “You’re the man who threw in with these scalp hunters.”
“
What looked like doubt flickered in her eyes, but she wasn’t convinced yet. “Downstairs you told that one”— the gun jerked toward Kelly’s unconscious form for an instant, then went right back to pointing at The Kid—“that you didn’t care what happened to me.”
“What was I supposed to tell him? I couldn’t tell him the truth. I didn’t want him using the way I feel about you against either of us.”
“How
“I want to help you,” he answered without hesitation. He was human; the fact that she was nude wasn’t lost on him. But after everything she had gone through, he knew any thoughts of intimacy were the farthest thing from her mind. “That’s all. I want to help you and the other women get away from here.”
“What about the
The Kid shook his head. “That bargain was between Guzman and Kelly. The only promise I made was to myself, and now I’m making it to you. I’m going to help you get away.”
Finally, she lowered Kelly’s gun. Carefully, she looped her thumb over the hammer and let it down.
Then a shudder went through her and she took a deep breath in an obvious effort to keep her emotions under control. “I need something to wear. My clothes are ruined.”
“We’ll do something about that.” The Kid nodded. “For now, wrap the sheet around yourself.”
Jess used the gun to point at Kelly. “What about him?”
“I’ll make sure he can’t hurt you.”
“Are you going to kill him?” She asked the question in a cold, impersonal voice, as if the answer didn’t matter to her at all.
“No, I’m not going to kill him,” The Kid said, hoping he wouldn’t regret that decision.
He waited until Jess had wrapped one of the bed sheets around her, then tore strips from the other sheet to bind Kelly’s hands and feet. He yanked Kelly’s arms behind his back before he lashed the scalp hunter’s wrists together, and he pulled off the man’s boots so Kelly couldn’t bang the heels on the floor to summon help that way.
The last thing The Kid did was stuff another piece of sheet into Kelly’s mouth and bind it in place to serve as a gag.
While he was doing that, Jess watched him curiously and finally asked, “Why did you come all the way down here into Mexico after us? How did you even know what happened to us?”
He answered her second question first. “I saw the light from the burning wagons in the sky and was about to come back when three Apaches jumped me. They must have been watching the wagon camp and saw me leave that night, so a few of them followed me.”
“You killed them.”
It wasn’t a question, just a flat statement.
The Kid nodded anyway. “Yeah. By the time I got to the wagon camp, it was too late. The wagons were burned, and everybody was dead ... except Milo Farnum. Before he died, he told me what had happened and told me that the Apaches had carried off four prisoners. There was never any doubt in my mind that I’d come after you.”
“Scott ... ?”
