MacCallister: The Eagles Legacy: The Killing by William W. Johnstone, J. A. Johnstone

uncontrollably. He sank down to his knees, then clasped his hands in front of him.
    “Please, Mr. Gleason, don’t kill me,” he begged.
    Elmer let both hammers down, and Wilson breathed a sigh of relief.
    “I’m goin’ to let it pass, this time,” Gleason said. “Almost,” he added.
    Still gripping the shotgun by its stock, Elmer brought the barrel around in a vicious arc, landing on the side of Wilson’s head. Two teeth and a stream of blood spewed from Wilson’s mouth as he fell forward, flat on his face.
    “Damn it, Elmer, you went and got blood on the floor anyway,” Biff said.
    “A little piss, too,” someone else said, pointing to Wilson’s pants, which were now obviously wet.
    “I’ll give a free beer to anyone who will drag this boy’s sorry ass out into the alley behind my place and leave him there,” Biff said.
    Two men responded immediately to the offer.
    “Take his gun belt off and leave it with me,” Biff said. “I don’t want him comin’ back in here, blazin’ away.”
    Business returned as usual in the saloon as the two men, one on each leg, dragged Clete Wilson across the floor and out through the back door.
    Kansas
     
    Crack Kingsley had been riding for eight hours. Behind him, like a line drawn across the desert floor, the darker color of hoof-churned earth stood out against the lighter, sun-baked ground. Before him the Kansas plains stretched out, not in hills but in motionless waves, one right after another. As each wave crested, another was exposed, and beyond that another still. The ride was a symphony of sound: the jangle of the horse’s bit and harness, the squeaking leather as he shifted his weight upon the saddle, and the dull thud of hoofbeats.
    He had filled his canteen in a creek this morning, and it was already down by a third. He had no idea how far it would be to the next dependable water hole, and already his tongue was so swollen with thirst that, in a condition that was rare to him, he did not have a cigar clenched between his teeth. As a means of preserving his water, he allowed himself no more than one swallow of water per hour.
    Squinting at the sun, he guessed that an hour had passed since last he’d last allowed himself a drink, so he stopped his horse, mopped his brow, then reached for the canteen. He had just pulled the cork when the shot rang out.
    The bullet hit his horse in the neck, and blood gushed from the wound. Without a sound, the animal went down. Kingsley jumped clear to avoid being pinned beneath it. As he did so, however, he dropped the canteen and water began running out. He scurried to pick it up, not knowing how much of the precious fluid he’d lost.
    Crack pulled his rifle from its sheath, then ran to a nearby arroyo. Jumping down into it, he was not only concealed from the approaching posse, but he also had the advantage of cover. He cocked his rifle, then slithered up to the top, lay his rifle on the parapet and waited. There were three men approaching.
    “Ha, lookie here!” one of the men said. “I told the sheriff he was turnin’ back too fast. We got ’im now. We’ll teach that son of a bitch not to treat women they way he done the sheriff’s daughter.”
    “I wouldn’t be all that sure if I was you, Poke,” one of the other men said. “All I’m seein’ there is the horse. Don’t see him nowheres.”
    “Well, he’s got to be around here some’ers,” Poke said, sliding down from his saddle. “He sure ain’t goin’ to get far without his horse.”
    Poke dismounted, then holding his pistol at the ready, walked over to the horse and gave it a kick.
    “Damn! Where’d he go?”
    Poke put his pistol back into its holster.
    “I reckon ’bout the only thing we can do now is start back.”
    When Poke put his pistol back in its holster, that meant that not one man of the three had a weapon in his hand. With a huge, triumphant smile spread across his face, Kingsley stepped up out of the arroyo. His rifle was raised to his