Dark Sky (Joe Pickett #21)(82)

Then Joe caught a glimpse of movement in the drainage, up the creek from where Earl and Kirby had been.

Two figures, one on foot and one on horseback, emerged from a dark tight stand of trees. They charged straight for a place halfway up the slope where they could intercept the Thomases. The rider was Sheridan, her hat flying off her head and her hair streaming behind her as she rode.

To Joe, she looked like a younger, faster, female version of John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit.

The man on foot with his big revolver out was Nate.





TWENTY-EIGHT


Sheridan swung wide on Rojo just below the tree line when she heard: “Hey! No! Goddammit!”

She’d spurred her horse into a full gallop and the gelding had responded as if this was what he’d been waiting for his entire life: to be unleashed. It was hard for her to stay on his back while also seeing what was going on below in the drainage.

Earl and Kirby had also erupted into action. Earl shouted again and barreled up the slope from the creek. She could see he had a rifle in his right hand and the reins in his left. Kirby was behind him and to the side. They were both headed to the same place she was: up the slope, where her dad stood in a clearing with another man near a pile of slab rock.

Was that other man Steve-2?

She leaned forward in the saddle and rode straight toward them. She was moving too fast and the ride was too wild even to consider drawing the rifle out of her saddle scabbard or pulling the pistol. That could come later when she reached her father.

The situation she was in reminded her how unrealistic movies and television shows were when they depicted riders in full gallop drawing their six-shooters and firing away. She was an experienced rider and she could barely hang on.

She noted in her peripheral vision that Earl had pulled to a sliding stop halfway up the slope. At the same time, she realized the reason he’d done it was because he saw her cutting across the incline toward the two men. Earl raised his rifle and he swung it in her direction.

There was a sharp crack as a bullet snapped through the air just ahead of her. Then another behind her that thudded into a tree trunk to her right.

Sheridan leaned forward and hugged Rojo’s neck, trying to make herself a harder target to hit.



* * *



—

Nate saw Earl stop and aim his rifle at Sheridan. She was moving fast. Two hurried shots rang out, but she didn’t stop. At the same time, Kirby spotted him jogging along the creek and the younger son peeled away from where his father was. He turned his horse toward Nate and spurred it.

As Kirby charged, Nate could see that he’d drawn a rifle out and he held it at his side with a stiff arm. The rifle bobbed up and down as the horse ran toward him.

Nate stopped, steadied himself into a shooter’s stance, and leveled his weapon. Kirby was coming hard and fast and he was leaning into it, pressing himself forward along the neck of his horse. Nate thumbed the hammer of his .454, but couldn’t get a clear shot. All he could see coming was the horse’s head, its nostrils flared.

He hated to shoot a horse, he thought.

But: BOOM.

Kirby’s mount cartwheeled forward in a violent and complete somersault, throwing Kirby through the air. Kirby was launched and he hit the ground headfirst. Nate clearly heard Kirby’s neck snap as he landed. The rifle left his hand and clattered on the rocks of the creek bed.

Kirby lay facedown in the rocks and grass with his limbs thrashing in spasms.



* * *



—

Sheridan, no!” her dad yelled to her when he turned and saw her coming. “Go back!”

She had seen the horse tumble below her and she knew Kirby was down. Nate was now approaching the injured man, following the muzzle of his revolver.

Earl had seen what had happened to Kirby, too, and he’d turned his attention from Sheridan back to her father. He swung his rifle that way, but not before her dad shoved the other man to the ground and dived down himself.

Another shot cracked out. She saw a puff of grit and a shower of sparks on the rocks behind her dad, but she didn’t think he got hit.

As she rode within twenty yards of him, she glanced toward Earl and saw the man drive his horse into a thick stand of tall trees. It walked in with a stiff-legged gait.

Then she lost sight of him.



* * *



—

Kirby was breathing but badly broken. Nate nudged him with the toe of his boot until he could see Kirby’s pale, slack face. His nose was broken and bleeding and his head skewed to the side unnaturally.

There was no doubt to Nate that Kirby was motionless because he was paralyzed, his spine snapped at the base of his neck.

Nate looked up briefly in time to see Earl move his horse into the stand of trees. It was a thick group of mature ponderosa pines rimmed by buckbrush in full fall color. The isolated stand stood well above the spruce and lodgepole in the drainage. But the copse was surrounded by clearings on all four sides. There was no way Earl could ride away within the cover of the forest without exposing himself.

“Now that it’s all gone to hell, will your dad stand down?” Nate asked Kirby.

A spit bubble formed on Kirby’s lips, but his eyes flashed. “No way.”

“What does he want?”

“He wants to be with Sophia,” Kirby croaked. “That’s all he’s ever wanted.”