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Authors: William W. Johnstone,J. A. Johnstone

Tags: #Fiction, #Westerns, #General

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Chapter Three

The Kid moved now with the same sort of speed he exhibited whenever he drew his gun. He ducked under the looping punch that Wolfram threw and sprang aside from the bull-like charge.

Wolfram’s momentum carried him past his intended victim. The Kid kicked out behind him as Wolfram went by, driving the heel of his boot into the back of Wolfram’s left knee. The baldheaded bruiser howled in pain and pitched toward the ground as that leg folded up beneath him.

The Kid whirled toward him, intending to kick Wolfram in the head and finish the fight in a hurry, but he saw to his surprise that Wolfram had slapped a hand on the ground and managed to keep from falling. A supple twist of the big body brought Wolfram upright again, facing The Kid. The lips under the handlebar mustache pulled back in an ugly grin.

“Well, now I know that you’re fast, you little son of a bitch,” Wolfram said as he began to circle more warily toward The Kid. He limped slightly on the leg that had been kicked. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

The Kid knew his chances of surviving this fight had just gone down a little since he hadn’t been able to dispose of his opponent quickly. But the battle was far from over. True, Wolfram had advantages in height, weight, and reach, but as Conrad Browning, The Kid had been a boxing champion during his college days.

More importantly, his vengeance quest as Kid Morgan and the wandering existence on the frontier that had followed it had taught him to do whatever was necessary to win when he was fighting for his life.

He didn’t hang back and let Wolfram bring the fight to him again. Instead, he launched an attack of his own, darting in to throw a flurry of punches. The blows were almost too fast for the eye to follow, and they were too fast for Wolfram to be able to block all of them. A couple of The Kid’s punches got through, hard shots that landed cleanly on Wolfram’s shelflike jaw and rocked his head back and forth.

Wolfram roared in anger and counterattacked, managing to thud a fist into The Kid’s breastbone with staggering force. The impact stole The Kid’s breath away and sent him stumbling backwards a few steps.

Wolfram bellowed again—obviously, he was one of those fighters who liked his battles noisy—and surged forward to try to press his advantage. As The Kid gasped for air, he saw the light of bloodlust shining in Wolfram’s eyes and knew his opponent thought the fight was just about over.

The Kid went low again, sliding under pile-driver punches that would have broken his neck if they had landed. He threw his body against Wolfram’s knees in a vicious block that cut the man’s legs out from under him. This time Wolfram wasn’t able to recover. He went down hard, his face driving into the dirt.

The Kid rolled and came up fast. He had gotten a little breath back in his lungs. His heart pounded madly in his chest and his pulse played a triphammer symphony inside his skull. He leaped and came down on top of Wolfram, digging both knees into the small of the man’s back as hard as he could. Wolfram jerked his head up and yelled in pain.

That gave The Kid the chance to slide his right arm around Wolfram’s neck from behind. He grabbed his right wrist with his left hand and hung on for dear life as he tightened the pressure on his opponent’s throat. He kept his knees planted in Wolfram’s back and hunkered low so that the awkward, frantic blows Wolfram aimed behind him couldn’t do any real damage. The Kid forced Wolfram’s head back harder and harder and knew that if he kept it up, sooner or later the man’s spine would crack.

Wolfram might pass out first from lack of air, though, and he appeared to know it. In desperation, Wolfram rolled over and over. The Kid felt the big man’s weight crushing him each time he wound up on the bottom, but he didn’t let that dislodge his grip. He clung to Wolfram’s back like a tick.

Suddenly, he felt Wolfram’s muscles go limp. Either the man had lost consciousness, or he was trying to trick The Kid into relaxing that death grip. The Kid wasn’t going to be fooled. The muscles of his arms and shoulders bunched. One more good heave would break the bastard’s neck—

A shot crashed like thunder. The Kid’s head jerked up. He saw that Malone had dismounted and now loomed over him, blotting out the sun as he aimed one of those pearl-handled revolvers at The Kid’s head. Smoke curled from the barrel as a result of the warning shot Malone had fired.

“Let him go,” Malone said. “You’re gonna kill him. Let him go, Morgan.”

“He would’ve . . . killed me . . . if he could,” The Kid said between clenched teeth.

“I reckon that’s right, but I’ve got the gun, and I’m tellin’ you to let him go. We been partners too long for me to let you just snap his neck like that.”

“You’ll keep your word and let me and Miss Star-bird go on to Bristol?”

“Aye, go and be damned to you!”

The reluctance with which Malone uttered the words convinced The Kid that he was telling the truth. The Kid eased his grip on Wolfram’s throat, then released it entirely. The man’s head slumped forward into the dirt. He was out cold, all right, not shamming. But he was still alive. The Kid heard the ragged rasp of breath in Wolfram’s throat.

With an effort, The Kid kept his muscles from trembling as he climbed to his feet. He didn’t want Malone to see how shaky he felt at this moment. Instead he reached out to Diana as she came closer to him, took the gunbelt from her, and buckled it around his hips. The weight of the holstered Colt felt good to him.

“For your own benefit, you ought to keep movin’ instead of stoppin’ in Bristol,” Malone went on. “There’s no place in this valley that’ll be safe for you after today.”

“Then if I see you or any of your men again, I might as well go ahead and shoot on sight, is that what you’re telling me?” The Kid asked.

Malone’s lips twisted in a snarl, but he didn’t say anything else. He slid his gun back into its holster, then bent to grasp one of Wolfram’s arms. Without being told to, a couple of the hardcases dismounted and hurried over to help their boss hoist Wolfram’s senseless form back onto his feet. Wolfram began to come to, shaking his head groggily.

The Kid took his hat from Diana and put it on, then picked up his coat, folded it, and stuck it in his saddlebags. The sun was too hot for the garment.

He asked in a low voice, “Where’s your horse?”

She inclined her head toward the boulders where she must have been hidden as she watched him kick the skull out of the trail. He figured he hadn’t heard her ride up because the echoes of his shot had been rolling away over the hills at the time.

“Go get it,” he told her.

“Not yet,” she replied. “Not until they’re gone.”

He understood what she meant. She believed that Malone would be less likely to break his word and try to gun The Kid down as long as she was close by.

She was probably right about that, too. He stood there holding the buckskin’s reins in his left hand and kept his right close to his gun while Malone and his men helped Wolfram climb onto his horse. Greavy kept a close eye on The Kid while that was going on. The Kid had a feeling that Greavy sensed the presence of another fast gun. He saw the appraisal and the challenge in the little man’s eyes. Greavy was trying to figure out if he could take The Kid.

Once Wolfram was mounted again, Malone swung up into his own saddle and motioned for his men to follow suit. They turned their horses around and started jogging away, following the trail that led through the valley. They rounded a bend and rode out of sight.

“Do you think they’ll try to find a place to pull an ambush?” The Kid asked.

Diana shook her head. “Not now. Black Terence keeps his word . . . most of the time.”

The Kid glanced over at her and lifted an eyebrow.

Diana waved a hand and said, “I’ll explain on the way to Diamondback.”

“Diamondback?”

“The ranch my uncle and I own.”

“I was headed for Bristol, remember?”

Diana shook her head. “Not anymore. It won’t be safe for you. I’m pretty sure Malone has spies working for him in town. Anyway, there are a lot of alleys where bushwhackers could hide.”

“You don’t owe me anything, if that’s what you’re thinking,” The Kid told her.

Diana let out a snort. “Me owe you anything? It’s the other way around, Mr. Morgan. If I hadn’t been here, Malone and his men would have killed you. And it was your shot that drew them in the first place. When you saw the skull and crossbones, why didn’t you just turn around and ride away? Don’t you know what they mean?” She drew in a deep breath. “They mean death.”

The Kid wasn’t in any mood to argue with her. “I’ve seen plenty of it,” he said. “Let’s get your horse.”

“You’ll come to the ranch with me?”

The Kid shrugged. “Why not? The main thing I wanted was a chance to rest my buckskin. I reckon I can do that at your place as well as I can in town.”

“Better,” Diana said. “Our hands will take good care of your horse.”

They fetched her mount, a fine-looking chestnut, from the rocks where she had left it. She put her foot in the stirrup and stepped up into the saddle with a lithe grace that didn’t surprise The Kid. From everything he had seen so far, he guessed that she had been born and raised out here in West Texas. He knew a Western girl when he saw one. He had married one, in fact, and a pang went through him at the reminder of what he had lost. Months had passed since Rebel’s death, but he still reacted the same way every time he thought about her.

As they started along the trail, he kept his eyes peeled for any sign of trouble, just in case Diana was wrong about Malone and his men trying to ambush them. The range seemed peaceful enough, though.

“Where is this Diamondback ranch?” The Kid asked.

Diana pointed to the line of trees that marked the stream’s course. “Everything in the valley north of the Severn River is Diamondback range.”

“The Severn, eh?” That was the name of a river in England, he recalled, and Bristol, of course, was an English town. He wondered if that meant anything. He had been to England, and while Rattlesnake Valley certainly wasn’t as dry and barren as most of West Texas, it was still a far cry from the lush green English countryside.

Diana didn’t offer any explanations. She was watchful, too, as if she didn’t have complete confidence in her assurances that Malone wouldn’t attack them.

“Why the skull and crossbones?” The Kid asked after they had ridden a mile or so. “I know they put it on the labels of liquids that are poisonous, but I never saw anybody use it as a road marker before.”

“It’s the symbol from the pirate flag,” Diana said, telling The Kid something he already knew. “I suppose Malone thinks that it’s appropriate.”

“Appropriate?” The Kid repeated. He frowned over at her. “Are you telling me that—”

“Black Terence Malone is a pirate,” Diana said with a nod. “At least, he used to be, and just because he’s not on the high seas anymore, that doesn’t mean he’s any less of a brigand.”

PINNACLE BOOKS are published by

Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

Following the death of William W. Johnstone, the Johnstone family is working with a carefully selected writer to organize and complete Mr. Johnstone’s outlines and many unfinished manuscripts to create additional novels in all of his series like The Last Gunfighter, Mountain Man, and Eagles, among others. This novel was inspired by Mr. Johnstone’s superb storytelling.

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

PINNACLE BOOKS and the Pinnacle logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

The WWJ steer head logo is a trademark of Kensington Publishing Corp.

ISBN: 978-0-7860-2779-8

Notes

Published by Henry T. Williams, New York, 1876.

Slaughter of Eagles