but hadn’t counted on Ann doing the same. Since he wasn’t sure which to shoot first, Nick opted to try and live through the next few seconds to see if he could come up with a better plan.
Wesley’s rifle went off and sent a round through the air fairly close to where Nick had been standing. By the time Nick hit the dirt, he heard the roar of the shotgun. The buckshot spread out as it left the barrel and some of it scraped along the backs of Nick’s legs. He gritted his teeth against the pain, more surprised than hurt that Ann had been the one to draw first blood.
“Serves me right, I guess,” Nick muttered.
As soon as he heard steps thumping against the porch, Nick rolled to one side and prayed he could reach some of the taller grass nearby.
Another shot from the rifle punched into the soil not far from where Nick had been lying. Nick fired one round toward the porch, but knew he wouldn’t hit anything but a wall if he was lucky, since he was still in the process of rolling. When he came to a stop, he popped onto one knee and found himself looking at the woman who’d been sitting in the rocker.
Ann looked right back at him over the top of her shotgun as her finger tightened around its trigger.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Nick was running toward her even as the hammers of Ann’s shotgun dropped. He bolted straight past Wesley so he could grab hold of the shotgun and twist it out of Ann’s grasp. Only when he was holding the shotgun himself did Nick realize what he’d done. Ann stared at him with eyes as big as dinner plates and her mouth hanging open.
“You already emptied both barrels,” Nick told her.
But that didn’t do much to soften the blow. She still stared at Nick as if he had dodged a hail of gunfire without breaking a sweat.
The truth of the matter was that Nick wasn’t sure whether she’d emptied both barrels or not. He’d already been in her sights and she was already pulling her trigger. If she’d saved a barrel for him, he would have been dead either way.
Ann’s jaw began to move as she regained the power of speech. Less than two seconds had ticked by, which was more than enough time for Wesley to turn and see what was going on. Nick looked at Wesley just as the man was swinging his arm around to take a shot. The next thing Nick did was extend his arm and throw himself back against the house. The shotgun Nick had taken caught Ann across the chest and knocked her back into her rocker, just as Wesley’s rifle spat out a plume of smoke.
Nick’s back hit the house as a bullet hissed past him. Since Wesley didn’t seem like the sort of man to get flustered under fire, Nick turned away from him and ran for the corner. It was a bit farther than he would have liked, so he raised his modified Schofield and squeezed off a round to cover his escape.
“Jesus!” Wesley yelped as Nick’s bullet took a small piece out of his shoulder. He rolled with the momentum of the passing bullet and dove away from the porch. When he brought up his rifle again, the only one in his sights was his wife.
“Where the hell’d he go?” Wesley asked.
Ann’s eyes were still wide and she turned as if in a daze.
“Answer me, woman! Where’d he go?”
Ann looked at the corner where Nick had gone and then looked back at her husband. She opened her mouth to speak, but only a few strained grunts came out.
Wesley was back on his feet and stomping onto the porch. As he passed his wife, he slapped the palm of his hand against her face and shoved her back down onto the rocking chair. “Just stay put and keep out of the way, you useless pig.”
Stepping around the corner, Wesley was propping his rifle against his shoulder when he saw Nick standing calmly with his back against the side of the house. Snapping his head back, Wesley nearly tripped over his own boots before Nick took a shot at him. The Schofield’s bullet whipped through the air past Wesley’s face like an angry hornet as the scent of burnt powder filled his nostrils.
“Dammit, Pat, what the hell are you doin’ in there?” Wesley shouted.
When he heard that, Nick saw some movement through the window beside his face. Glancing that way, Nick saw a younger man with a gun in his hand. The instant he saw that gun raised up to fire, Nick pushed away from the wall and sent a pair of shots into the house.
Glass shattered loudly as the shots blasted through the air. Inside the house, Pat fell to the floor as he fired blindly at Nick. One of Pat’s shots took out the remains of the windowpane, while the other punched straight through the wall.
Nick moved away from the house as he tried to decide if he should waste his remaining bullets by trading blind fire for more blind fire. Deciding to make better use of the next few seconds, he pulled some fresh bullets from his gun belt and began dumping the empty shells.
“You ain’t taking them jewels from me, you son of a bitch!” Wesley shouted as he rounded the corner.
Snapping the Schofield shut, Nick was about to fire when he heard another shot crack through the open air. This one didn’t come from inside the house or even from the porch. It had come from behind Wesley and opened a messy hole through the bearded man’s chest.
Stumbling forward, Wesley twisted around to try and return fire, but was hit a second time. The next bullet caught Wesley in the side of the neck and took a good portion of meat along with it. Not knowing which way to turn, Wesley looked back at Nick as he coughed up a mouthful of blood.
Nick closed the Schofield with a snap of his wrist, kept the pistol at waist level and fired a round through Wesley’s forehead. Once Wesley finally dropped and fell face-first to the ground, Nick was able to see Kinman standing behind him.
Still holding his smoking pistol in hand, Kinman said, “You were supposed to wait for me.”
“Let’s clear this house out before we haggle over details.”
Shifting his eyes toward the shattered window, Kinman said, “Best watch yourself.”
Judging by the tone in the bounty hunter’s voice, Nick might have expected Kinman to be warning him about getting cut from the broken glass. When he took a look for himself, Nick saw Pat charging toward the window with a crazed look in his eyes. It was all Nick could do to jump clear of the window before catching the hell that was about to be thrown through it.
Not only did Pat fire through the window, but someone else was firing as well. Nick gritted his teeth as the hailstorm of lead rushed outward. Kinman stood his ground and waited for Nick to look his way before pointing calmly toward the front porch. Nick nodded to acknowledge Kinman’s signal and then pointed toward the back of the house. Both men headed off in the directions they’d chosen as the gunfire from within the house subsided.
Nick treated the next window he was approaching as if it were a bear trap. Rather than walk straight past it, he stopped with his back against the wall and his gun held at the ready. Considering how flimsy the walls of the house were, Nick wasn’t about to stand and wait for a bullet to punch through the wood. Instead, he took a quick glimpse through the window, saw an empty room, and then moved along.
The back of the house opened out to a wide couple of acres that were overgrown with more weeds than shrubs. The back porch wasn’t much more than a platform with a few steps leading to the ground. There were no windows between him and those stairs, so Nick rushed the back door.
Slamming his heel against the door, Nick sent an explosion of splinters into the house as the door’s frame gave way. Inside, he found a small kitchen and pantry leading to the sitting room at the front of the house.
“Who’s there?” Pat shouted from another room. “Is that you, Wesley?”
Nick held his gun in front of him as he moved through the house. With all the noise coming from the other rooms, he didn’t have any trouble keeping his steps from being heard. To his left and away from the kitchen, Nick saw a short hall leading to a closed door. He knew that had to be the room with the broken window and he prepared himself for anything to come through that door.
