She fired, her revolver cracking. A cry followed. One of the bounty men stumbled, clutching his thigh before collapsing into the pine needles.
“Hell of a shot, Doc!” Brigg said over the gunfire.
Sykes roared from his cover, his rifle thundering. Bark exploded inches from Anthony’s head. He dove toward the ground and raised his Colt before firing twice.
The old bounty hunter staggered, hit square in the chest. His rifle clattered into the dirt as he fell backward into silence.
That left two.
The shooting slowed, and the smoke started drifting.
Brigg was the one to call out next.
“You boys picked the wrong trail!” he said. “Hawk ain’t dying easy. Take your boots and run, or we’ll plant you where you stand.”
Silence held. Then a voice cracked through it, high and panicked.
“To hell with this. I’m done!” One of the men bolted, crashing through the undergrowth. His rifle was abandoned.
The last one was the boy. He crouched behind a fallen log with his revolver shaking in his hands. He fired once. The shot smacked into the boulder near Abigail. His nerve broke. With a cry, he flung the Smith & Wesson aside. Then, he stumbled out from cover with his hands high.
“Don’t shoot!” he begged. His knees hit the dirt, and his face was as pale as chalk. “Please, don’t shoot! I don’t want no part of this!”
Anthony rose from behind the tree before closing the distance between them. His gaze was unreadable.
The boy’s breath came in ragged bursts. “They told me it’d be easy money, mister,” he said. “Just easy money. I didn’t know it’d be you. Please, I don’t wanna die.”
Brigg came up slowly to the side, Colt still out but his eyes on Anthony. “Well?”
Abigail stepped from cover, too. Her voice was softer. “Anthony.” She didn’t plead, didn’t press. Just said his name, waiting for his choice.
Anthony stared down at the boy. He saw fear, but beneath it all was regret. Desperation. A kid thrown into wolves’ company without the teeth to match.
He holstered his Colt revolver. His voice was flat and cold when he spoke. “Go.”
The boy blinked, stunned. “You . . . you’re letting me live?” he asked.
“Go back to Vanburgh,” Anthony said. “Tell him Hawk is still breathing. Tell him every man he sends will find the same welcome.”
The boy scrambled to his feet, stumbling backward. “Name’s Eli,” he blurted, as though giving it might save him. “Eli Turner. I...I’ll tell him. I swear.”
“Go,” Anthony repeated.
Eli bolted, crashing through brush until the forest swallowed him whole. The silence returned, broken only by the thin curl of gun smoke. Brigg finally slung his Winchester over his shoulder, shaking his head.
“You’re either wise as Solomon or foolish as sin,” he said. “Can’t say which yet. If that boy runs his mouth, the whole county will know I was here.”
Anthony turned to him slowly. “Word travels faster when carried by the living.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” the deputy replied, pulling his hat down.
Abigail moved closer, her hand brushing Anthony’s sleeve. Her gaze searched his face. “What if he brings more?” she asked. “What if he comes back?”
“Then we’ll be ready, ma’am,” he replied, meeting her eyes.
“Vanburgh will hear soon enough,” Brigg said. “When he does, he’ll come with hell at his back.”
Anthony bent over Krell’s body, stripping spare ammunition and checking the weapons on the bounty hunter’s belt. He worked methodically, as if he had all the time in the world.
