Judith French - Morgan's Woman

The back door opened and Billy limped out, using a barrel slat for a crutch. He had a thin mustache, wore bloodstained rags wrapped around his head, and carried a shotgun.

"Three left," Ash muttered under his breath. He hadn't expected the injured man to be able to walk this morning, let alone carry a weapon. It showed that outlaws had grown tougher than they used to be. Or that he was a complete fool for letting Tamsin talk him out of killing Billy where he'd found him.

A trickle of sand rolled down from the bluff above him, and Ash tensed. Had Jack or Boone slipped out and come up behind him?

A cold sweat broke out on his skin. He didn't dare move and give away his position, but neither could he lie here and wait for a bullet through his back.

Slowly Ash turned his head. No silhouette of a man loomed above him. The grass and wildflowers that sprouted from the overhang seemed undisturbed. What then could-

He froze as something heavy slithered over the back of his calves just above his boot tops. His breath caught in his throat, and his heart bucked against his chest. A long second passed, and then another.

From the corner of his eye Ash detected motion. At the same instant, a dry buzzing turned his gut inside out. Ash's mouth shriveled as though he'd eaten a green peach when the rattlesnake's diamond-shaped head appeared inches from his right elbow.

The serpent's body slid over Ash's legs, and the flat expressionless eyes gleamed with moisture as the snake flicked a long, thin tongue. Ash remained motionless. He knew it wasn't possible, but he would have sworn he could smell it.

The rattler smelled of death.

Sweat dripped into Ash's eyes. His lungs began to burn for lack of oxygen, and his fingers cramped on the damaged rifle stock. Somewhere high above, he heard a hawk shriek a plaintive cry. Ash's parched mouth tasted of lead.

Slowly the scaly, gray-green patterned body coiled and sounded another lethal warning, a dull vibration like the rattle of seeds in a dried gourd.

The snake turned its huge striped head to stare at him with frigid, glassy eyes, and Ash's bowels clenched. When he was twelve, he'd seen a boy bitten by a big diamond-back. His leg had swollen to gigantic proportions and turned black. And all his parents' prayers hadn't been enough to save him from a screaming death.

A prairie rattler wasn't as volatile as a diamondback, but one this size packed enough poison to kill a horse.

Ash didn't know how much longer he could hold his breath, but instinct told him that any movement could trigger a deadly strike.

Then something rustled in the grass. The snake's head snapped around as a white-bellied deer mouse popped into sight. The tiny rodent rose on its hind legs and sniffed the air.

The rattler bunked.

Emitting a faint squeak, the mouse darted off. The snake leapt after it, and both vanished from view. Ash inhaled deeply, remembering Billy and his shotgun just before the weapon blasted.

Ash snapped his rifle up, preparing to return fire, then realized that the outlaw hadn't been shooting at him.

Ash's breathing slowed and his heart quit jumping as he watched the man walk into the tall weeds and lift up the rattlesnake.

The back door flew open, and Boone Cannon showed his face. Boone had aged a lot since Ash had last seen him. His blond hair had darkened and thinned, and one side of his face bore an ugly scar. "What the hell you shootin' at, Billy?"

"Thought it was a rabbit," the man with the shotgun answered. "Ain't nothin' but a damned ole rattler." He heaved the headless body of the twitching reptile over the top rail of the corral, and the horses shied and crowded to the far side. Billy laughed. "Skittish, ain't they?"

"Jack don't like being woke up this early by you actin' the ass," Boone said. He walked out a few steps from the back door, scanned the valley, and fumbled with the front of his trousers.

As Boone relieved himself, Ash's finger tightened on the trigger. If he fired now, he could drop both of them before they could shoot back.

Common sense told him that's just what he should do, but he couldn't. He'd killed more men than he wanted to remember, but he didn't like the way he'd felt when he'd shot that man out of the saddle yesterday.

"You'd be no better than they are," Tamsin had said.

Maybe he'd lost his taste for killing when he thought that trash like these two deserved more than being mowed down with no more thought than Billy had destroyed the snake.

"Drop your guns! You're under arrest!" he shouted.

Billy jerked the shotgun to his shoulder, and Ash drilled him through the heart with a single bullet.

Boone drew his Colt and started firing as he backed toward the house. Ash's bullet caught him in the groin.

Boone staggered back and fanned the hammer, spraying the ground near Ash with lead. Ash's next round caught him through the throat. He fell, half in and half out of the open doorway.

Ash leapt to his feet and ran for the house. Then Jack Cannon appeared at the front corner of the cabin with a rifle in one hand, a pistol in the other.

Bullets whizzed past Ash's head like angry bees. One shot. He dived for the ground and rolled as Jack kept up a steady hail of lead.

Sand exploded in Ash's face as he scrambled to find some shelter from the bullets. He hunkered down behind a pile of rotting fence posts, and got off a shot at Jack as he dashed for the corral.

Jack was already over the corral fence. Ash took careful aim and fired. The bullet plowed through a railing and drove into Jack's left knee. He swore, fell, dropped the rifle, and struggled to his feet. Panicked horses milled around him, and Ash saw him grab Shiloh's saddle.

Jack twisted and tried to get off another shot. When the pin clicked on a spent shell, Ash was up and running toward him. The outlaw swung up onto Shiloh and lashed him toward a low place in the fence. Then Ash saw something out of the corner of his eyes. He glanced in the direction of the spring and saw Tamsin riding toward him on Dancer.

Swearing, Ash whirled back toward the corral as Jack galloped toward the broken rail. Ash's final bullet hit him in the right breast.

Jack sagged forward and dropped the reins. Ash whistled. The gelding turned hard to the left, nearly throwing the outlaw out of the saddle. Jack grabbed a handful of horn and stayed with the horse as he shied and came to a trembling halt halfway between Tamsin and Ash.

"Don't shoot me!" Cannon yelled. "I give up! Don't shoot!" He slumped forward and raised one hand over his head. "I'm dropping my gun. See." He let the empty pistol fall.

Ash's finger tightened on the trigger of his Colt. He'd never wanted anything so badly in his life as he wanted to put two shots into Jack's belly and watch him die slow and ugly.

The outlaw with the pretty-boy features had aged since Ash had seen him last.

He wanted to kill him just the same.

"You don't deserve to live," he said. "Give me one reason, Jack, why I shouldn't-"

" 'Cause I know you, Morgan. You ain't got the balls to kill me. Just like you didn't have the balls to satisfy that pretty little wife of-"

Cannon's eyes widened as a crimson flower blossomed on his chest. "I… I…" Blood spilled from his open mouth, and he toppled out of the saddle.

Tamsin lowered Billy's smoking pistol. "He had a derringer hidden in his boot. He would have murdered you, Ash."

He stared at her, still unable to believe what he'd seen. "You killed him."

"What was I supposed to do, let him kill you?"

"Hell, woman," he said as he lifted her down off Dancer. "I'm glad you did. I just can't believe you made that shot from the back of a horse. Do you know how many marksmen would miss-"

"I couldn't miss." She tilted her face up to kiss him. "I was the only hope you had."