The slugs pocked the ground around them, spanging off rocks with shrill, echoing rings. The three horsemen had dismounted when they saw Prophet and the girl heading for the weeds. Trying to head them off, they knelt and cut loose with their rifles.
It was a barrage like Prophet hadn’t experienced since he and his buddy, Trav Davis, were bushwacked by a small Union patrol when they’d lit out from a barn in which they’d spent the night and where Prophet had tended Trav’s wounds inflicted by an exploding cannon ball.
Trav had lasted only another day, dying in Prophet’s arms before the next moon was up. Prophet wasn’t sure he and the girl would make it, either, as close as those slugs were humming around their tender flesh.
“Run, run, run!” Prophet shouted as a slug buzzed viciously past his ear.
They were halfway to the weeds, nearly breaking their ankles on the small rocks of the creek bed, nearly tripping over driftwood and a bison’s bleached carcass, when Prophet took a bullet in his calf. It felt like the nip of a large horsefly, and he forced himself to ignore it until that foot gave and he fell to one knee.
“No! Keep going!” he raged when the girl stopped and turned to him, terrified.
She did as he’d told her, and he pushed back on both feet, fighting the pain of the bullet in his calf, and ran in spite of the fire shooting up past his knee and into his thigh.
He followed the girl deep into the weeds, until they came to the brackish, foul-smelling water. It was black as molasses and barely moving. Something scratched in a heavy cattail patch. Nervy from the barrage. Prophet gave a start. Only a small beaver or muskrat, he knew. Maybe a duck that hadn’t flown when the gunfire had started.
“Oh, my god! Oh, my god!” the girl cried, staring at the blood welling out of Prophet’s calf, soaking his jeans. She cupped her hands to her face. He knew she wasn’t worried so much about him as about what she’d do if she were suddenly alone out here.
“Just a scratch,” Prophet said, trying for calm in both himself and her. “Stay low.”
They were on their knees, the tops of the cattails and saw grass waving a good three feet above their heads. Prophet held his Peacemaker in his right hand. He peered through the weeds, lifting his head slightly for a better look. When the breeze parted the weeds, he saw the three horsemen walking this way. They’d left their horses behind and were holding their rifles before them in both hands.
Turning northward, he saw the fourth gunman—the man who’d fired at them from the knoll—hunkered down on his haunches atop the cutbank, not far from where Prophet and the girl had been. Prophet recognized the Big Fifty in his arms—a Sharp’s buffalo gun accurate up to seven hundred yards. The sun winked off the brass breech and butt plate. Prophet was just glad the shooter wasn’t as accurate as the rifle, or it would’ve been taps for the girl.
“You boys flush ‘em and I’ll shoot ‘em!” the man with the Big Fifty called, his voice muffled by distance.
“Why don’t you come down here and flush ’em?” one of the others returned. “You can’t hit anything with that cannon anyways.”
The man with the buffalo gun didn’t say anything, but Prophet saw him raise the gun to his shoulder, evidently drawing a bead on the man who’d mouthed off at him. That was enough to silence the others while they kicked around in the weeds, spread about ten paces apart, trying to flush Prophet and the girl like deer. They’d either shoot them themselves or feed them to the Sharp’s.
Prophet’s chest and throat filled with bile. He turned to the girl kneeling beside him, who clutched her bloody left shoulder with her right hand and stared wide-eyed through the weeds, her face blanched with fear. There was no longer any anger there. Only fear. She suddenly looked so girlish and innocent that Prophet felt sorry for her. He felt like even more of a heel than he had before.
If it wasn’t for him, she might still be running, but she’d at least be safe....
He turned back toward the faint sounds of the three gunmen walking through the weeds along the creek, moving steadily this way. He didn’t dare lift his head very high, for the man with the Big Fifty might see him and alert the others ... or go ahead and take it off with his buffalo gun.
Damn, what a mess!
He turned and considered the water. He and the girl could try to wade across the creek and hide on the other side, but the three gunmen were approaching too quickly. Prophet could hear their movements growing louder— could even hear their harsh breathing and occasional throat clearings. They’d probably hear Prophet and the girl in the water, and really pin them down.
No ... they’d have to stay put and fight it out. There was no other way.
Prophet looked at the girl. Her eyes slid up to meet his. He tried to steel her with a look, and she seemed to understand. To his surprise—maybe she had more sand than he’d given her credit for—a faint smile nipped at the very corners of her lips. Then her gaze returned to the direction from which the three gunmen were approaching.
“That’s about where they went into the weeds!” the man with the Big Fifty called from atop the cutbank. “Be careful.”
None of the others replied, but Prophet could tell from the sudden silence that they’d stopped in their tracks. Prophet’s heart beat harshly against his sternum, and his mouth went dry. He strained his ears to listen—only the faint scratching of the breeze-bending weeds, the faint sucking of the creek. On the bank across the water, a prairie dog chortled.
“You in here, friend?” one of the men called, tentative, as though his own pulse were racing.
Prophet figured he was about thirty feet away. The bounty hunter slowly thumbed back the hammer of his forty-five. When it locked, he left his thumb on it, taking an unconscious comfort in the grooved grip. He sensed the girl tense, heard her give a barely audible gasp. But something told him she wouldn’t break down and give them away. He didn’t try to shush her with a look.
There was a faint rustling of weeds, as if the man closest to him took another step or two forward. The man cleared his throat. “Why don’t you send the girl out, friend? We’ll let you live.”
More rustling, and the man’s hatted head came into view through the bending weed tips. Prophet lowered his own head while lifting his chin, feeling a dull pain in the back of his neck. His calf throbbed metronomically.
“Come on, friend, be reasonable,” the man continued. “What’s ole McCreedy payin’ you, anyway? Can’t be enough for your life.”
There was a long, breeze-brushed pause. More rustling, the snap of a stout weed under a boot.
“Sure enough, friend. We’ll let you go—scot-free,” the man said, his voice growing louder as he approached. He was only about ten yards away and facing just north of Prophet and the girl.
Prophet’s heart hammered as the man swung his head toward him. The man’s eyes grew large as they found Prophet. He started lifting his rifle, but he was too late. Prophet jumped to his feet, ignoring the pain in his right leg, and shot the man through the chest. The man went over backwards, discharging his rifle in the air and giving a clipped scream.
Prophet knew the other two men and probably the man with the Big Fifty were bearing down on him, but he didn’t have time to find out which was bearing down on him fastest. He had to pick one and shoot, and to that end he wheeled to his left. About thirty yards away, another man already had his rifle to his shoulder. Prophet fired a quarter second before the rifle sprouted smoke and flames. Dropping the rifle, the man grabbed his neck, twisted, stumbled backwards, and fell without a sound.
Before he hit the ground. Prophet turned slightly right and saw the third gunman running toward him through the weeds. He was about forty yards away and closing, yelling something unintelligible, raising his rifle as the wind tore his cream Stetson from his head, revealing a thatch of wavy, chestnut hair.
Prophet knew he couldn’t get off a shot before the man running toward him did, so he dove forward just as he heard the rifle bark. The weeds were too high—he couldn’t see through them—but he fired through them, anyway, hoping for a lucky shot. Then, knowing that his chances of having hit the man were slim, and also knowing the man would probably fire at the spot where he’d seen Prophet hit the ground, he rolled to his left.
Just as he’d suspected, the man fired a barrage of bullets where Prophet had landed, the slugs whistling and crackling through the weeds and tearing into the spongy ground with decisive thumps. As the man fired, the slugs grew closer and closer to Prophet, for the gunman was keying on the weeds Prophet bent as he rolled. To top it all off, the fourth man was cutting loose with the Big Fifty, the fifty-caliber booms lifting boldly and horrifically above the wind.
Prophet knew he couldn’t keep roiling forever, but he also knew that when he stopped, he’d no doubt catch a bullet. Then the shooting stopped, and Prophet, grunting with fear and exertion, his breath rasping in and out of his lungs, stopped rolling. He climbed to his feet, lifted the Peacemaker to his shoulder, and aimed in the direction of the third rifleman.
But the man wasn’t there. Prophet’s heart increased its pounding, and he jerked in a half-circle, searching for the man while expecting a slug to tear through him at any moment. Behind him, a gun cracked. Prophet jumped. The small-caliber pistol cracked again as Prophet turned, aiming the Peacemaker.
It was the girl, standing and holding her small, silver-plated revolver in both hands. She flicked back the trigger, scrunched up her face as she aimed down the barrel, then blinking and recoiling as she fired, the small gun jumping in her hands.
Looking northward, Prophet saw the man with the Big Fifty galloping away on his mouse-brown gelding with the single white sock. He’d mounted so quickly he hadn’t had time to sheathe the buffalo gun, which dangled from his right hand.
The girl steadied the gun on him again, and fired. The man turned a look over his shoulder, the brim of his hat bending in the wind, then jerked back around, spurring his horse over a rise and out of sight.
Prophet stared flabbergasted at the girl, the Peacemaker falling to his side. Remembering the third gunman, he jerked back around, lifting the Peacemaker once again.
“I shot him,” the girl said, turning to him.
Prophet walked cautiously forward and, sure enough, found the third gunman lying dead with a bullet through his forehead. He glanced back at the girl, surprised by her prowess with the thirty-two.
Prophet knelt down, removed the man’s revolver from his holster, and picked up the man’s rifle—a new-model Winchester, freshly cleaned and oiled.
“Is he dead?” the girl called.
Prophet turned and walked toward her. He nodded. “He’s dead, all right. Where in hell did you get that thing, anyway?”
Her eyes were haunted as she stared at the bent grass where the dead man lay. “Brian Kildavies gave it to me.”
“Who’s Brian Kildavies?”
“A fine old actor I met in San Francisco. He was finally dying of a bullet wound he’d received in the war, and gave me the gun when he learned I was heading to the frontier. He said you never knew who you’d meet out there.” She formed a crooked half-smile.
Prophet scratched his head, giving a befuddled look. “Well... that was some ... good shootin’, I reckon.”
Her haunted eyes strayed to him slowly. “I never shot a man before.” Her gaze grew fishy once more as she returned it to the matted weeds where the dead man lay.
“Could’ve fooled me,” Prophet muttered. As he started limping away on his wounded leg, using his new rifle for a cane, he said, “We’d best track down our horses before that hombre with the Big Fifty comes back for more.”
“Will he do that?” she asked.
“With the reward you have on you,” Prophet said with a sigh, “you can bet your pantaloons he will.”