In that same instant, another firearm bellowed behind him.
Dog fell back, shot in the throat.
Conn kept moving. He ran in a crouch and snatched Dog’s gun off the ground then tucked his shoulder and rolled as Toole’s gun barked again.
Conn came out of the defensive roll into a crouch and lifted the weapon.
Mayfield lay on the ground, one arm reaching for the sky, his badge gleaming softly in the last light of the dying day.
Toole, his face a mask of blood, had gunned the marshal down, and was now turning his weapon on Conn.
They fired as one.
Conn’s leg jerked, struck by hot lead, and he fell to the side.
Lying on his shoulder, he drew back the hammer again and put his sights on Toole once more.
The man was already down.
Conn shot him again anyway just to be certain.
The heap that had been Henry Toole, murderer, jerked a little with the impact of the big bullet but did not cry out or beg for mercy.
Henry Toole was stone-cold dead.
As were Dog and Duncan.
Conn checked his wounded leg. The bullet had passed cleanly through the calf, poking a hole through both sides of his boot. It hurt like the blazes, but Conn reckoned it wouldn’t slow him down too bad.
He tore away a section of his shirt and wrapped it above the wound to slow the bleeding then tore away another piece and winced as he held it to the exit wound, wanting to stop the worst of the flow.
He’d have to get to a doctor and get it cleaned up or else it would get infected and kill him.
And he couldn’t let that happen.
Because he still had a pair of men to put in the ground.
Nine down, two to go.
“Sullivan?” U.S. Marshal Clayton Mayfield groaned from where he lay just this side of the alley.
“Yeah,” Conn said.
“You get him?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“Not yet,” Mayfield said. His voice was weak and stretched thin with pain. “I’m hit hard, though. I reckon I will die unless you do something.”
“If I come over there, don’t shoot me,” Conn said, struggling to his feet.
Mayfield laughed then groaned at the pain again. “I won’t shoot you. Not today, anyway.”
51
