Nick’s ears were ringing and the grit of burned gunpowder coated the back of his throat. Thanks to the close proximity of that last shot, he didn’t hear J. D.’s scream when he grabbed hold of the knife still embedded in the man’s arm and gave it a single, powerful twist.
The jangling in Nick’s ears was slow to fade, but he instinctually glanced over to see what Alan was doing. Sure enough, Alan had flipped onto his back and was sitting up with gun in hand. There was still a confused look on his face, but Alan quickly focused in on where the fight had gone.
Nick lunged for J. D.’s gun and felt his hand close around its grip. When he got his finger on the trigger, the gun had slipped in his hand and skewed to one side. Nick was accustomed to the kind of trouble a regular gun gave him, but he cursed it all the same. Tightening his hand around the grip and taking another second to adjust for the slip, he pulled his trigger just as Alan pulled his own.
Alan’s shot was panicked and rushed, which caused it to hiss through the air a few inches off-target.
Nick’s measured shot carved a good-sized hole through Alan’s head.
Feeling his heart pound against his ribs and the blood churn through his veins, Nick watched Alan flop over and hack up one, final gasp.
THREE
When Nick turned the gun toward J. D., he saw naked fear in the other man’s eyes. J. D. tried to kick and scramble his way toward the surrounding trees while waving his hands as if he could swat away a bullet. Nick kicked J. D. onto his back while tossing away the gun. He then stood over the younger man and reached down to take hold of the knife still lodged in J. D.’s arm. Although Nick didn’t twist the blade, he held onto it solidly enough to keep J. D. from moving.
“What the hell brought this on?” Nick asked. “Who are you men?”
J. D. gasped painfully. As he tried to get away again, he felt the knife staying where it was. Finally, J. D. gave up his struggle and rested on his back. “You…recognized George,” he said, wheezing.
“George? You mean that boy from the Van Meter spread?”
J. D. nodded.
“So what if I recognized him?”
“Dutch didn’t want the…job to be spoiled.”
“What job?”
A good amount of the color had drained from J. D.’s face. His wound wasn’t bleeding too badly, so Nick figured the younger man was fading due to exertion.
“Tell me,” Nick growled, loudly enough to be heard through the fog in J. D.’s head. “What job?”
“Dutch…needed someone on the inside. To make it…easier.”
“Make what easier? Are they going to rob Van Meter’s ranch?”
Once again, J. D. nodded.
“When?” Nick asked.
“Soon. Real soon.”
Nick straightened up and took his knife with him. The blade came free, allowing J. D. to finally let out the breath he’d been choking on. After wiping the blade on his shirt, Nick ran to search for his gun. Along the way, his mind raced to figure just how quickly a group of men that size could move.
If Nick knew about anything as much as he knew about his current profession, it was how a gang worked. He’d practically grown up leading one. After getting to the bushes where his gun had been tossed, Nick dropped to his knees and shoved his hands through the brush.
The sun was a memory and the dim glow in the sky was all but blotted out by the trees over his head. Since he couldn’t see much of anything, he closed his eyes and let his hands continue their search on their own. In the darkness, the ghosts he thought he’d banished came rushing back to him. He saw the faces of men he’d killed, men he’d betrayed, men who were his brothers and men who’d dragged him through hell.
While trudging through those nightmares, Nick touched the familiar piece of gnarled iron. He quickly found the nub of a handle and then closed his hand around it. To the ignorant eye, the Schofield looked like a piece of cobbled-together junk. Even the handle was chipped down to a stump, but it fit Nick’s hand perfectly.
Nick lifted the gun while letting out a relieved breath. The fingers clutching the weapon were just as gnarled as the gun itself. His right ring finger was nothing but a short stub and the middle finger was clipped short as well. Although his other fingers were there, the scars made his flesh look more like melted wax. His left hand was slightly better, but not by much.
Unlike J. D.’s gun, this one didn’t slip. Its handle had been specifically carved to fit his hand as well as compensate for the odd balance due to his missing fingers. Every other part of the weapon was modified as well, allowing Nick to draw and fire it almost as quickly as he could in his youth.
Gun in hand, Nick hurried to where his horse was waiting. Rasa might have been way past her prime, but the horse knew better than to wander off after being freed from the wagon’s hitch. While the gunshots hadn’t spooked her, she was ready to put some distance between herself and that graveyard. She took off like a shot at the first touch of Nick’s heels, carrying him all the way back to the little cabin he’d built outside of Ocean.
As soon as he swung down from the saddle, Nick headed for the door and pushed it open. Catherine’s face was the first thing he saw.
The brunette stood up from where she’d been sitting and rushed over to greet him. She didn’t even seem to notice how close Nick’s hand was to his gun as she wrapped her arms around him and held him tightly.
“Surprise!” she said.
Nick barely even knew what to think. His mind was still swimming with what had happened as well as the memories that were his constant burden. Finally, he managed to calm himself enough to speak in something other than an angry snarl. “What are you doing back? It’s not time to close the restaurant yet.”
“I left early. Something told me you’d like it if I paid you a visit. Weren’t you thinking about me?”
“Yeah. Of course I was.”
Catherine took a step back and held Nick at arm’s length. She looked him up and down, which was more than enough to tarnish the smile that had been on her face. Her smooth skin accentuated the fine lines of her face in much the same way that the cut of her dark green dress accentuated her figure. Long, dark hair flowed freely to the middle of her back, just the way Nick always liked it.
“What is it, Nick?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
“There was some trouble.”
A look of horror flashed across Catherine’s face. “Did somebody come after you? I thought that was all over.”
“It is. This is something different.”
“Different how? Just tell me what happened.”
Nick immediately went to the small room attached to the back porch. Normally, it was a place used to store meat or other supplies. A section in one corner, however, was designated for a different purpose and was sealed off by a locked wooden panel.
“Some men rode through the graveyard while I was there,” Nick explained as he unlocked the panel with a key kept in his watch pocket. “They had guns. They rode away, but some of them came back to try and gun me down.”
“Oh, Jesus. Do you know them?”
“I recognized one of them, but he wasn’t anyone who would want to shoot me.”
“Who was it?” she asked.
Opening the panel, Nick reached inside for a handful of bullets as well as a battered leather holster that had only started to collect dust. “He was one of the boys working for Joseph Van Meter.”
“The one who owns that ranch outside of town?”
“That’s the one. I went there for a job a while back and just caught sight of the kid. I didn’t even say a word to him.”
“Then why would he want to kill you?”
