exchange surprised the two gunmen coming from the front and both swung their guns into firing position. Checker’s Winchester roared into the night. Three times. Answering fire clipped the porch and one bullet thudded into Checker’s left thigh.
Jaudon flinched as Emmett Gardner drove the nose of a revolver into his back. “Better hope this gits dun quick an’ ri’t, Frenchie.”
Waving arms, Jaudon yelled out, “
From inside the house came Andrew’s scared voice. “Pa, there’s someone at the back door!” Hans’s voice was right behind his older brother’s. “Shoot him, Andrew!” Hammer growled as if he were much bigger than he was.
Emmett spun toward the door as two shots cracked into the night. He entered the house to see Rikor standing in the back doorway.
“It’s all right, Pa. Rikor got him,” Hans said, appearing calmer than his brother.
Andrew’s gun was in his hand at his side. It hadn’t been fired. He was shaking and close to crying. Both younger sons stood near the tied gunmen, whose expressions were unreadable.
On the floor in front of a grim Rikor was an unmoving body.
The older rancher’s shoulders heaved with relief.
“That’s the guy who was yellin’ from our shed, Pa,” Rikor declared, holding his smoking Winchester with both hands. “Watched him curl back to the house—an’ followed him. He was the only one over on this side. Where do you want me to go?”
Emmett motioned toward the front window and returned to the porch.
“Did ya miss me, Frenchie?” he growled, jamming Jaudon’s pistols into the fat man’s back. “John, Rikor got the bastard tryin’ to come in our house. Nobody’s on that side now. He’s at the window. To my right.”
“It was his bullets we heard?” Checker said without turning his focus from the ranch yard.
“Yep. Rikor don’t miss much.”
Slowly, the remaining gunmen came to the porch, all realizing the situation had changed. One of the two gunmen coming from the front was down and not moving; the other held his arm. The curly-headed gunman from the barn left his companion and hurried toward the porch. Bartlett stopped and disarmed the short gunman, telling him in detail that he wasn’t hurt badly, that it only was painful.
Checker was bleeding from the upper thigh of his left leg. He recognized the advancing gunman. It was Tapan Moore. The Ranger report had been correct.
The old rancher was the first to notice. “You’ve been hit, John.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You’re bleedin’, man.”
For a vicious moment, Checker saw his father’s face in the one of the man advancing. He always realized, without wanting to admit it, that his own face carried much of the same look. Anger snarled within him as the memory barreled through his mind. J. D. McCallister was slapping his mother as she fought to keep him from the tent where they lived.
Once more he saw himself as a small boy diving into this man who was his father, but never admitted it, to save his mother and be beaten bloody himself. The evil man never came to their tent again. Ever. His mother’s health deteriorated steadily after the beating and she died from whooping cough a few years later. A fourteen- year-old John Checker blamed his father, the man who never recognized him or his sister as his.
His attempt to kill J. D. McCallister at his saloon resulted in his being chased out of town by McCallister’s men, after Checker wounded one with a knife. A sympathetic prostitute had helped him escape. Neighbors took in his eight-year-old sister and raised her. They hadn’t seen each other since; he wasn’t certain she even lived in Dodge anymore.
The hole in his heart had been filled with hardening as the young man fought his way through life, becoming one of the Rangers’ best men, dangerous and fierce.
“John…you all right, boy? John?” Emmett’s concern and the touch of his hand to Checker’s shoulder broke him out of the momentary nightmare.
“Oh. Yeah, I’m all right,” Checker said, flinching slightly from the rancher’s concern. “That fellow out there, that’s Tapan Moore. Heard about him down in El Paso. He’s a bad one, Emmett.”
Bartlett yelled orders, standing near the fallen short gunman, “Drop your rifles. Unbuckle your handguns. Get rid of those hideaways—before we do it for you. We’re Rangers and you’re all under arrest.”
Chapter Four
An hour later, all of the Jaudon gunmen were tied with Emmett, Rikor and the younger sons standing guard over them in the ranch yard. Even the three gunmen from inside the house were led outside. Moonlight washed across the strange gathering as the captured men muttered and swore. Before going inside, Bartlett pointed out the two most dangerous, Luke Dimitry and Tapan Moore. Both grinned as Emmett agreed.
Only Jaudon was completely silent.
Inside the house, Bartlett brought a surgeon’s tool from his saddlebags and began probing Checker’s leg for the bullet. The tall Ranger had been reluctant to have the wound cared for, but his partner had assured him that it was necessary they do so now.
A bright orange fire in the fireplace heated the foot-long instrument. It had been used many times over the years, whenever a doctor wasn’t close. With Checker stretched out on the kitchen table and his bloody pants pulled down, Bartlett began to probe and root for the embedded piece of lead in his leg. Checker had refused any whiskey, believing he needed to stay alert. Instead, he bit down on a stick while his friend sought the bullet.
Trying to keep from thinking about the jabbing pain, Checker took his watch from his pocket. He popped open the lid and sought the memories within its tiny, cracked photograph of his mother with her two small children. Bartlett glanced up once and smiled grimly; he knew of Checker’s sad childhood in Kansas. Taking a deep breath, the gentle lawman squinted and began to probe the bloody cut in Checker’s thigh. He had seen this reverie before.
Checker remembered his mother being so proud as she guided them into the photographer’s studio. It took a long time for him to accept the fact that she had probably paid for the expensive session with her body. It didn’t matter, he told himself. It was the only record that such a family ever existed. Except in his heart. And maybe Amelia’s, wherever she was. He let his mind wander again to the awful parting of Amelia, his little sister, and himself. There was no other choice; neighbors were willing to take the girl, but not him. Not with McCallister and his men seeking his head. As the two children said their tearful good-byes, Amelia had sought his promise to return. The neighbors had given him an old brown horse, a sack of food and a silver dollar.
From a jammed-away corner of his mind, his sister came running with tears washing across her face.
“I—I—I want to go with you, Johnny!”
Trying to act stronger than he felt, the boy said, “You can’t, sis. But I’ll come back for you.”
After her insistence, he promised to return for her.
“Say you promise.”
“I promise.”
As he turned to leave, Amelia asked that he give her something of his to keep until he returned. He had nothing, except the knife in his belt. She had grabbed his shirt and pulled free a button.
That was the last time he saw her.
His trail had taken him east and then south, through all manner of jobs including making money fistfighting, until his skill with a gun took precedence. A short stint as a Yankee sharpshooter. He had even ridden the outlaw trail for a short while before becoming a Ranger. His promise to return to his sister had faded into the place where other broken promises went.
It hurt too much to think long about what might have happened to her.
The pain from Bartlett’s probing jerked him back to the table. Checker bit hard on the stick, nearly breaking it,
