He swung the Colt toward the other deputy.Seeing his partner fall, the man veered off, heading instead for the corral.He spun and ran, firing shot after shot.
Caleb was not about to let him reach either Sheila or those horses.He squeezed the trigger twice, hitting him with the second shot.The bullet knocked the man off his feet and sent him hatless into the dust.
Caleb swept his gaze toward the left, searching out the sheriff.This was not over.
After hitting the door, Horner had disappeared.The only place he could have gone, however, was into the shadows behind the row of buildings.Back there, the wide creek washed along the base of the hills.Caleb could see the thick, dark evergreens covering the hillside with a thousand places to hide.
His right arm was completely numb now, and it hung loose at his side.If he was going to go after Horner—and he was going to do exactly that—Caleb couldn’t have the damn thing flopping around.After putting his pistol down, he reached across, drew his other Colt, and pouched the iron on his left hip.Carefully, he slid his injured hand into the right holster.
He heard the crunch of gravel on his left, and turned to see Horner step out of the shadows.His Remington was leveled on Caleb.
“Ain’t this something?”the sheriff sneered.“It’ll be a fine thing, crowing about how I outdrew Caleb Marlowe.”
“Did you, snake?”
Horner raised his pistol just a whisker before firing.That was all Caleb needed.Lightning never struck with the speed that his left hand moved.
Both pistols fired almost simultaneously, but only one bullet found its mark.Horner’s head snapped back then righted itself.
The sheriff’s body sagged, his hands dropped, and he collapsed backward onto the ground.
Caleb walked over and looked down at him.A little tobacco juice dribbled from the corner of Horner’s mouth into his drooping mustache.And as Caleb watched, the life faded from the man’s eyes.
He felt no triumph.Only the cold certainty that one danger might be finished, but the night was not done with them yet.
ChapterThirty-Five
Doc Burnett pulledopen the door and rubbed the bruised shoulder he’d used barricading it against the sheriff.Beyond the campfire, a cowboy in a duster and a wide-brimmed hat was coming across the open space and stopping to look at each dead man.
Caleb strode up, pistol still in hand, and Doc greeted him like the hero he was.
“Damn me, Marlowe, but I knew you’d come.Somehow, I knew it.”
“Ain’t nobody else in there to worry about, Doc?”
He glanced back at the open door.“Well, that’s complicated.But the short answer is that you don’t need to be worried.I’m sure as hell glad you’re here, Marlowe.”
As Doc thanked Caleb, he tried to shake the cowboy’s hand, but Caleb’s right arm was hanging loose at his side.He gestured toward it questioningly.
“Got the feeling knocked out of it when one of them knotheads got lucky and hit my rifle.Busted the damn thing.A good rifle too.”
“Let me look at it.”
“Ain’t nothing, Doc,” Caleb said, grudgingly submitting to a cursory examination.
Nothing appeared to be broken.The impact of the bullet striking the rifle had numbed the limb, but he was certain the feeling would soon return, and he told Caleb so.
When the cowboy coming from the corral reached them, she threw off her hat, and Doc forgot about Caleb, his arm, the sheriff, the outlaws, and everything else in the universe.
“Sheila,” he croaked, his throat tight.
Her face lit up, and there was no hesitation as she ran toward him.The pages of time flipped backward.Doc was once again the tired but happy father, coming up the front steps after visiting with a patient.And she was that little girl in the doorway, delighted that he was home.
“Papa.”
His arms closed around her.He held on to her as she held on to him.She was safe, he kept telling himself.Safe!When Horner told him they had Sheila, the pain that had clawed at his insides was far worse than death.
Doc would have done anything they asked him to do in return for her safety.He couldn’t allow her to be hurt.Even as he told himself that, however, he’d known in his heart that both Horner and Dodger were evil men.Whatever promise they made was sure to be a lie.
