with the notion of starting over. But he hadn’t been in New Mexico two months when he hooked up with Saber. That was a year ago.
Now here he was. Still living outside the law. A regular curly wolf, with no desire to change.
Dunn shook himself. He was almost to the Rio Largo. Time to concentrate on what he had to do. He could not afford a mistake. Not with fifty thousand dollars at stake.
Dunn smelled the water before he came to it. So did his horse. It wanted to drink, but he reined west and paralleled the meandering waterway, until he came to a cluster of cottonwoods about a hundred yards from the crossing the Pierces would likely use.
Dismounting, Dunn wrapped the reins around a sapling, shucked his Winchester from the saddle scabbard, and glided to within a few yards of the tree line. Sinking flat, he parted the waist-high brush. Yes, it was perfect.
Dunn took off his hat and placed it beside him. He levered a round into the Winchester, and set the rifle in front of him. Then he folded his forearms and rested his chin on his wrist to wait.
Dunn thought of what he was about to do, and the slaughter that would result. Men would die because of him, a lot of men, but he didn’t care. He was used to killing. He had accounted for eleven so far. What was another two or three dozen?
He remembered every one. The clerk who had tried to stop him from robbing a bank. The farmer who objected to having a horse stolen. The old fool he had beaten and robbed after the man insulted Texas and Texans. Then there were all the others, each easier than the last. Now he felt no qualms whatsoever about pulling the trigger or plunging a knife into someone’s hide.
Dunn never saw himself as a hardened killer, though. He wasn’t like Hijino, who killed out of perverse delight. Or like Saber, who killed because he had no regard for human life, or any other kind. He certainly wasn’t like Creed, either, who had killed women and children as well as grown men. Creed was different.
About six months ago, they had stumbled on a family of emigrants in a prairie schooner and massacred them. Creed shot the three kids himself, since no one else wanted to do it. That night, after a few glasses of whiskey, Dunn asked Creed how he could look a child in the eyes and blow its brains out. “I couldn’t do that,” Dunn freely confessed. “I’d feel guilt for the rest of my life.”
Creed had been in a rare talkative mood. “I’ve never felt any. I’ve never felt anything.”
“Nothing at all?” Dunn had said skeptically.
Draining the bottle in a gulp, Creed had wagged it back and forth. “I’m as empty as this is. Always have been. Always will be. When I kill, I don’t feel a thing. It’s no different whether I kill a lizard or a person. I feel nothin’ at all.”
Dunn had repressed a shudder. “What about friendship? Saber and you are close pards.”
“He thinks we are,” Creed said. “But I only stick with him and his bunch because he needs a lot of killin’ done.”
Dunn refused to give up. “What about love? Haven’t you ever met a female you were fond of?”
“I don’t cotton to women. They’re abominations.”
Stupefied, Dunn had half expected Creed to grin to show it was a joke, but Creed was serious. “Isn’t that a mite harsh?”
“The way they think, the way they move, their bodies, everything about them sickens me.”
“You’ve never wanted to kiss one? To crawl under the sheets and partake of her charms?”
To Dunn’s amazement, Creed had shuddered. “I would rather lie with a goat. Or an ewe. I had a pet sheep once. Pretty little thing. I called her Wendy.”
Dunn had absorbed the implications, and then
“What?”
“This rotgut has gone right through me,” Dunn had said to get out of there. “I’ll be right back.” But when he did come back, he sat next to Twitch instead of Creed.
A slight vibration snapped Dunn out of the past and into the present. There was the faint drum of hooves in the distance. He raised his head. To the north, a cloud of dust heralded his victim. It would be a while yet.
Dunn thought of Nancy Tovey. Now there was a fine figure of a woman. A little on the lean side, but she had an ample bosom and lips ripe for sucking on. He wouldn’t mind indulging, if the opportunity arose. Unlike Creed, he liked women better than sheep.
Riders became visible. Dunn counted them. Ten in all, as there should be. Pierce, his three sons, Hijino, and the five vaqueros. He imagined that Hijino had enjoyed killing Berto; Hijino liked to snuff out lives almost as much as Saber did.
Dunn once asked Saber how many people he had killed. Saber couldn’t remember. “I’ve lost count. Somewhere between fifty and a hundred, I reckon.”
Dunn never asked Creed how many he had killed. It was not healthy to pry into Creed’s past. The last man who did, or so Saber told him, Creed had knifed, then shot, then poured kerosene on the body and burned it.
Creed was one nasty son of a bitch.
Now the riders were close enough for Dunn to tell who was who. Dar Pierce was in the front, Steve and Armando next, Julio between Paco and Roman. Hijino brought up the rear behind the vaqueros.
Dunn flattened. He had it all worked out in his head. He would fire twice—the extra shot to be sure—then he would race for his horse and ride like hell. By the time they worked out where the shot came from and found his tracks, he would be halfway to the Circle T. They might give chase, but Dunn’s horse was as fleet as an antelope. With enough of a lead, they had a snowball’s chance in Hades of catching him.
The Pierces came to the river, and drew rein to let their mounts drink. Steve Pierce climbed down and inspected one of his animal’s front hooves.
Roman shifted and scanned the grassland behind them, his one hand under his jacket. “No one follows us,
“I didn’t think anyone would,” Dar Pierce responded. “Kent Tovey trusts me not to go after Demp.”
“I do not trust Tovey. We are not safe here,” Julio grumbled. “We will not be safe until we are across the Rio Largo.”
“I believe them,” Steve said. “I believe Jack Demp had nothing to do with Berto’s death.”
“You would.”
“That is enough out of you, Julio,” Dar said. “Your mother and I will have a long talk with you after we get back. You were unforgivably rude to Kent and Nance, and it must not happen again.”
“They are not our friends, Father. They never were.”
“You are young yet. You do not see what is right in front of your face.” Dar gigged his mount into the water. “Let’s go.”
The others were quick to follow suit. Water sprayed and frothed.
Hijino glanced at the trees, at the exact spot where Dunn lay. His perpetual grin widened a trifle. No one else noticed.
Dunn wedged the Winchester’s smooth wooden stock to his shoulder. He centered the sights on his target’s back. But he did not shoot. Do it too soon, and the vaqueros might catch him.
Dar Pierce was almost to the middle. Rising in the stirrups, he looked back. Why, Dunn couldn’t say. Maybe fate was making it easy for him. Dar opened his mouth to say something just as Dunn steadied the barrel, took a deep breath, and fired. In a twinkling, he fed in another round and squeezed off his second shot.
Dar Pierce’s face dissolved in a shower of scarlet.
Chapter 14
Trella was napping when a commotion woke her. She lay on her side, staring at the sunlit window, puzzled by loud voices and the patter of running feet. She should rise up and see what was going on, but she did not want to get out of bed. It was cool and comfortable, and she was perfectly content.
Trella’s parents would deal with it. Or her brothers and sister, who were bound to criticize her for meddling in matters that did not concern her. They always treated her the same. To them, she was the youngest and the least experienced, and needed to be protected—or, worse, treated as if she did not have a brain between her ears and
