“If it’s the Pacific you’re after, you’ll need to ride west.”
Cocking his head a bit, the rider looked to a skinny, pale-skinned man behind him and asked, “Why do you think they call that town Ocean, Bertram? Maybe our host, Mister Van Meter, knows.”
The other man didn’t answer. All he did was shrug and lean forward with both hands piled over his saddle horn. At the moment, Joseph realized he was the only one brandishing a weapon. The riders simply looked back at him.
“From what I hear, the town didn’t have a proper name when it sprung up,” Joseph said. “Then someone came along complaining about not being able to see the water and an old man wrote the word Ocean on a sign. He pointed to it and said, ‘There’s yer damn ocean.’”
The riders broke into laughter. A few of them even had to swipe at their eyes after a time. No one laughed more than the riders’ leader, who nodded and tried to speak a few times, but couldn’t get anything out.
Finally, Dutch pulled in a breath and steadied himself. “And that’s how the town was named?”
“That’s the story,” Joseph replied.
“That’s funny as hell.”
As many times as he’d heard the story, Joseph still found it amusing. Hearing all the other men laugh so hard at it made it seem even funnier this time around. “So where are you men headed?” he asked.
“We’re headed to your ranch,” Dutch said. “From what I hear, you keep all the money and valuables in that nice, big house over yonder.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
All of the humor had drained from Dutch’s voice and the men around him were now staring at Joseph the way hungry dogs stare at a bit of raw meat. Joseph brought his shotgun to bear on them, which still didn’t throw any of the riders off their game.
Of the seven men now gathered in front of Joseph, six of them had skinned their weapons and were taking aim. The seventh kept his head down and his hands folded in front of him.
“Get the hell off my property,” Joseph snarled. “Right now!”
Dutch shook his head slowly. “That ain’t no way to talk. We were just getting along so well.”
“I swear to Christ, I’ll shoot.”
“You got two shots and you’re too far to make good use of either of ’em. The best thing for you to do is just take us back to the house and hand over what you got.”
“There’s not enough to warrant all of this,” Joseph told him. “I don’t even have enough to keep a steady group of hands on my payroll.”
But Dutch just kept shaking his head. “You got enough to pay almost a dozen men and you pay them real well. You also keep a stash under yer house to save for the futures of them precious little children.” Leveling his gaze and narrowing his eyes, Dutch added, “If I don’t get enough to make this worth the effort, I know some Mexicans who’d be more than happy to buy them pretty women of yours.”
Joseph put the shotgun against his shoulder and pointed the barrel directly at Dutch’s face. “You men turn around and leave right now, or I’ll pull this trigger. My guess is that you don’t have what it takes to see if you’re right about me being out of my range.”
Dutch kept his eyes fixed upon Joseph as he said, “You hear that, Bertram? The rancher thinks he’s a killer.”
Joseph didn’t see Dutch move a muscle. All he saw was a flicker of movement followed by the crack of a single pistol shot. The bullet hit him like a sledgehammer, twisting his torso around and knocking him off the back end of his horse. Joseph pulled his trigger somewhere along the way, but knew he would have been lucky to hit anything with a pulse. When he heard the men laughing at him, Joseph knew his luck had run out.
“Nice shot, Dutch,” Bertram said. “Someone go get that shotgun from him before he hurts himself.”
Every inch of Joseph’s body hurt from the landing he’d taken. His knees flared up when he tried to move. His ribs practically exploded when he sucked in a breath, and even his teeth seemed to have been cracked during the fall.
As the sound of footsteps drew closer, Joseph tried to reach for his shotgun, but could barely move his arm. He could feel the familiar iron against his fingertips, but couldn’t get his hand to close around the grip. Before he could try again, one of the riders stepped right up to him and took the shotgun away.
When Joseph felt the cool touch of a gun barrel against the top of his head, he closed his eyes and drew in what little strength he had.
“Mind if I kill him now, Dutch?” the rider asked.
Gritting his teeth, Joseph rolled over and swung his arm out with one burst of desperate strength to knock the gun from the hand that had been holding it. The weapon landed with a heavy thump not far from Joseph’s other arm and he somehow got his fingers around it.
Rather than pick out a target, Joseph pointed at the first solid thing he could see and pulled the trigger. The pistol bucked against his palm and let out a satisfyingly loud roar. Hot lead flew from the barrel, drilling a messy hole through the rider’s knee and speeding out the other side amid a spray of blood and slivers of bone.
“God DAMN!” the rider howled as he dropped to the ground in an awkward heap. He fired a wild shot, which came closer to hitting Joseph’s horse than the man himself.
Joseph gritted his teeth and turned to fire at the remaining horsemen. Pulling his trigger quickly, he fired a round at one of the closest men, but was quickly stopped by return fire from Dutch. At first, Joseph thought the nearby horse had clipped him. The impact felt more like a punch or wild kick. When the burning set in, Joseph felt dizzy and wavered. Even so, he still fought to keep his arm steady so he could pull his trigger one more time.
Another shot cracked through the air, followed by a sharp clang and a burst of sparks as the bullet ricocheted off the gun in Joseph’s hand. When the pistol fell from Joseph’s grasp, it might as well have dropped to the bottom of a ravine.
“Will you look at that?” Dutch said. “This rancher’s got some real fight in him. He’s putting on a hell of a show.”
“I’ll show you his fucking brains in a second,” the horseman with the wounded knee snarled.
“Not so fast.”
It took a moment for those words to register, since the fallen horseman was still lightheaded from the shot he’d taken in his knee. As he prepared to pull his trigger, he suddenly felt himself being hauled up by his hair and shaken like a rag doll.
“You heard what Dutch said,” Bertram grunted, as he lifted the horseman up like he was carrying a dog by the scruff of its neck. “Not…so…fast.”
The horseman hadn’t seen or heard Bertram climb down from his saddle. After being shaken enough for his knee to be rattled, it was all he could do to keep from passing out. “Fine,” he wheezed. “Fine.”
Bertram looked over to Dutch.
Twisting in his saddle to focus on the horseman who hadn’t drawn his pistol, Dutch asked, “You know exactly where to find what we’re lookin’ for, George?”
The silent man at the back of the row shook his head reluctantly.
“Then the rancher’s coming with us. Carry him back to the house.”
Despite the paltry moonlight, Joseph could make out a set of familiar features as he inspected the previously quiet man. “George?” Joseph wheezed. “What…what are you doing with these men?”
“Go on, George,” Dutch taunted. “Go over there and tell him all about what you’ve been doing.”
Since he knew there was no other alternative, George lowered himself from his saddle and walked over to Joseph. He could feel Dutch’s eyes boring through him, waiting for him to take one misstep.
George went to Joseph’s side, bent down and started taking hold of Joseph’s good arm. “You need to come with us.”
“You’ve worked for me for the better part of a year,” Joseph said. “I took good care of you. My wife cooked meals for you. You…you played with my children!”
George only shook his head as he lifted Joseph to his feet. About halfway up, Joseph started to struggle and fight against the younger man’s grasp.
“Put me down!” Joseph said. “Let me go, you son of a bitch!”
Leaning in closer, George whispered, “It’s too late to do anything about this now. If you stay here, they’ll kill
