The Killing Shot Read Online Free PDF

have to tell you damned bushwhackers anything.”
    He backhanded her and stuck a finger under her trembling lip. “And I can throw you and your ma back inside that coach, and you can burn like that poor, dumb, screaming bastard just did. I like grit, kid, but just a little of it for flavor. What’s your name?”
    Her lips still quavered. But she was too damned stubborn to cry. “Blanche,” she answered at last.
    â€œHow old are you?”
    â€œTen.”
    Ten, and a mouth like that. He stared at the unconscious woman. That would make the woman thirty, perhaps younger. Didn’t look much older, even with her face and body all beat to hell.
    â€œAnd your ma? What’s her name?”
    â€œDagmar.”
    â€œDagmar what?”
    â€œDagmar Wilhelm.”
    â€œAll right, Blanche Wilhelm, we’re going—”
    â€œI’m not Wilhelm. My name’s Blanche Gottschalk.”
    Pardo blinked.
    â€œMy father died,” the girl had to explain. “My mother remarried.”
    â€œGottschalk. Wilhelm. I don’t know which name’s ornerier on the tongue.”
    â€œGottschalk,” Chaucer said. “It means ‘God’s servant.’”
    â€œI wouldn’t know nothing about that,” the kid said, which got a laugh out of Chaucer.
    â€œWhere were you bound?” Pardo asked.
    â€œTucson,” she said.
    â€œThat where your pa, your new pa, lives?” Pardo asked. He was thinking that a husband might pay a handsome reward for a woman like this, maybe a few bucks for the spitfire of a stepdaughter, too. It was something, he figured. Something to keep a lid on the tempers of the boys, because, no matter what he could claim about burning Army money, Chaucer had been right. This damned robbery was a bust.
    â€œSigmund Wilhelm,” the girl said, “was probably that poor, dumb, screaming bastard we just heard.” She turned away, dropped her head, and whispered, “He was a poor, dumb bastard, too.”
    â€œThat ain’t right, girl,” Pardo roared, his finger back in Blanche’s face. “You don’t speak like that of your pa, stepfather, no kin. You don’t speak of them like that.” But he was thinking: My pa was the same, kid. Just a poor, dumb bastard.
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    He rode in the wagon with Ma, the kid, and the woman. Wouldn’t trust any of his men with such a fine-looking lady. He also rode with the watches—one with the glass busted, no longer running, but the gold would bring enough for a whiskey—broach, money belt, and other items Harrah hadn’t bothered to mention, their loot for their first, and last, train robbery. Pardo decided he’d stick to other ventures such as stagecoaches, banks, and the like.
    They had left the burning wreckage, camped that night in an arroyo, and crossed Alkali Flat the following morning. Most of the boys wanted to stop at Dos Cabezas, but Pardo and his mother knew better than that. Yankees weren’t fools. Nor were the Southern Pacific brass and Cochise County’s law. Probably, a posse was already raising dust from the bend in the tracks, moving south, heading for Bloody Jim Pardo and his gang.
    He bathed the woman’s face again with a wet bandana. Her eyes fluttered, opened, and darted from Pardo to the sky, to quiet little Blanche, who firmly held her mother’s hand. The woman might live after all, Pardo thought. Thanks to his doctoring. He’d even set her busted nose. Swollen, purple, but it would look almost normal in a week or two. So would Dagmar Wilhelm.
    â€œMa’am,” Pardo said, but the kid’s voice drowned him out.
    â€œMama!”
    Dagmar Wilhelm wet her lips, tested her voice, forced a smile. Then her face changed. “Where’s…” Barely audible. “Sigmund?”
    Blanche didn’t answer. The woman’s eyes locked on Pardo.
    â€œShe’s awake, Ma,” Pardo said happily. He