“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.
When the door opened, a younger woman stood there with tears streaming down her cheeks. “Are you the law?” she asked.
Nick didn’t have time to say a word before a man’s hand took Stephanie by the shoulder and pushed her out of Nick’s sight. Pat then filled up the doorway. Firing from the hip, Pat pulled his trigger again and again as a visceral scream rolled up from the bottom of his lungs.
All Nick had to do was take a step back into the kitchen and every last one of Pat’s rounds burrowed into the wall or flew into the next room. Once the firing was over, Nick took a cautious peek around the corner to find Pat closing the door again.
Gunfire came from the sitting room, announcing Kinman’s entrance into the house. Within seconds, someone raced out of the front room like a quail that had been flushed from a bush. Nick pressed his back to a wall and listened for those steps to draw closer. Lester raced straight for the back door, without so much as glancing in Nick’s direction as he passed.
Nick took a few lunging steps and grabbed hold of the back of Lester’s collar. Squirming reflexively, Lester pulled himself out of his loose-fitting shirt like a snake shedding its skin. His arms flailed in front of him and he finally managed to get hold of the door. Pulling it open, Lester used every bit of his strength to sprint outside.
As Nick ran after Lester, he could hear more yelling and shooting behind him. A woman screamed. Something heavy hit the floor. The last thing Nick heard as he followed Lester to the barn was a man’s voice roaring over everything else.
“Shut your damn mouth and put the gun down!” Kinman shouted.
There was a moment of silence followed by another pair of shots.
Nick didn’t have time to figure out what had happened, since Lester had made it into the barn. He knew better than to rush in there after Lester, so he shouted, “Come on out of there or I’ll drag your dead body out myself!”
Hearing the creak of hinges, Nick stepped back and got ready for whatever was about to come through that door. Hearing the rustle of hooves through loose hay, Nick swore under his breath and ran to pull open the door himself.
Nick got a real good look at the immaculate interior of the barn, mostly because of the light flooding through the wide-open rear door. Lester was in the saddle and riding through the rear door on the back of a sleek black mare. Nick was just able to see the bundle tucked under Lester’s arm before the black mare broke into a run and turned sharply out of Nick’s sight.