The Copper City - Chris Scott Wilson [53]
Up front, Quantro heard the swift hoof beats. He half turned, his Winchester rising. If he was surprised his face betrayed nothing. No time. The horseman was almost on top of him. Before his own rifle could level, the barrel of Upton’s nearly smashed in his forehead. As the rifle barked its call of death Quantro flung himself sideways. His ears rang from the explosion. Inside his head was an echoing canyon where the crash of the .44 bullet was magnified a thousand fold.
But it missed. As he crumpled to the ground, rolling away from the milling hooves of the spooked packhorses, he was unaware of the powder burn down his right cheek or the singed hair that tattered by his ear. When he came over on to his stomach he was six feet away from the horses, out in the open.
Upton hadn’t seen the results of his snap-shooting, but he had been right on top of Quantro and he couldn’t see how he had missed. He curbed the horse’s headlong rush, then wrenched its head to make another run. Wild-eyed, the horse turned almost sitting on its haunches. Upton jacked another shell into the rifle chamber, looking down to see Quantro rolling on the ground.
His face a death’s head grin, Upton savagely kicked the horse forward. As it leapt into a gallop, horror struck him. Quantro’s body wasn’t sprawled in death, but in a controlled roll, his rifle still in his hands. With one hand gripping the horse’s reins, Upton raised his Winchester to shoot from the hip.
Quantro saw it all. He landed belly down, the “One of a Thousand” Winchester ready in his hands. As Upton raised his own weapon, Quantro lined and fired.
The red flower of death bloomed on Upton’s shirt as the bullet took him in the lungs. His face was frozen for an instant into a frown, then he tipped backwards over the galloping horse’s saddle. His rifle discharged harmlessly into the sky. The toe of his right boot snagged in the stirrup. It turned the graceful backward somersault into an ugly spectacle as his body flipped over the side of the horse like a bundle of rags. He hit the ground and bounced like a butchered buffalo calf towed by a skinning wagon. The horse kept running, past Quantro to the end of the clearing where it shambled to a halt. It stamped and snorted, the scent of blood ugly in its nostrils.
Quantro worked the Winchester’s mechanism. He slowly stood up to check the body. Upton was still alive, eyes staring glassily at the earth pressed against his nose. Quantro knocked Upton’s foot free of the stirrup, then turned him over with the toe of his boot.
Upton groaned. Blood was bubbling into his mouth. He tried to speak but when his lips moved crimson dribbled on to his cheek. No words came out. His eyes flickered briefly as a rattle sounded in his throat. A moment later he was dead.
Quantro looked away to the horses standing patiently with their valuable loads.
It wasn’t over yet.
***
Cananea looked just the same.
Quantro reined in on the outskirts of town, then rested his hands on the saddle horn. He peered ahead, squinting through the slashing rain. His gloves could barely be seen where they peeped from under the wet slicker that was buttoned up tight to his throat. His sodden hat-brim sagged with the weight of the rainwater it carried and each time his head dipped a run-off the brim was caught by the wind to spatter in his eyes and run down his face. Pete looked across at his younger partner. Quantro had said little during the long ride back from Watertank, his face grim, mouth downturned at the corners. He had slept sparely and his eyes betrayed the fact, dark-rimmed sockets, eyeballs bloodshot and distant. Each time Pete had woken from his own troubled sleep, Quantro had been watching over the saddlebags, deep in thought.
Pete had left him to it, satisfying himself with keeping an eye on the young man. But he couldn’t help wondering what was on his mind. Now