The Black Jacks

"Why is he shooting at us?" asked Emily.

"It's Eli Wingate, and it's personal. Stay down."

Drawing both Colts, he moved away.

As McAllen emerged from the trees, Wingate checked his horse and dismounted. A man could shoot better on foot than in a saddle, and Wingate wasted no time in proving it. "McAllen! Time to meet your Maker!" he roared, and fired.

Wingate's bullet caught McAllen in the fleshy part of the leg. The impact staggered but did not stop him. He kept moving forward, firing first one Colt and then the other. The Ranger captain fired again. This time the bullet tugged at McAllen's shell jacket. McAllen kept walking and shooting. Squinting through the acrid powder smoke, he saw Wingate shudder and drop to his knees. "You bastard," groaned the Ranger, and tried to lift his Colt for one more shot. Ten feet away, McAllen stopped, took dead aim, and put a bullet between Wingate's eyes. The Ranger's body jackknifed, twitched, and lay still in the sun-browned grass.

McAllen went to Joshua. The half-breed was unconscious and his breathing was ragged, shallow. The bullet had hit him squarely in the back, and McAllen knew the wound was fatal. Sadly he carried Joshua into the trees, returning to the place he had left Emily. He laid Joshua down gently and sat beside him and watched him die as Emily applied a makeshift dressing to his wound, using a strip of soft buckskin from her dress to stop the bleeding. . . .

Reaching Spotted Tail's tepee, Gray Wolf saw his lame friend emerge with his wife. She carried a papoose—his son. Gray Wolf gave silent heartfelt thanks to Our Sure Enough Father that they were still alive. Then he shouted a warning as a Texas Ranger stumbled around the skin lodge into view. The Texan's horse had been killed under him, and he had hurt his leg in the fall.

As the Ranger raised his pistol, Gray Wolf lengthened his stride, but he could not reach the man in time. The pistol barked, and Spotted Tail staggered, shot in the back. Somehow the lame Quohadi kept his feet and shielded his wife from the Ranger's second shot. The second bullet killed him outright, and he fell.

The Ranger aimed again at Spotted Tail's wife, who stood staring in horror at her husband's body. That she had a baby in her arms did not deter the Ranger. Nits made lice. But then he saw Gray Wolf and turned his pistol on the warrior, and Gray Wolf saw the hammer fall and knew he was going to die. But he would not die before the Ranger—before the threat to his son—had been dealt with.

The pistol misfired.

Gray Wolf caught a glimpse of the fear in the Ranger's eyes as he closed the distance between them and drove his knife into the Texan's chest, turned so that the blade could slip between the man's ribs and pierce his heart.

Before the Ranger's body hit the ground Gray Wolf was turning to Spotted Tail's widow.

"Come," he said hoarsely. "We must go."

She handed him the papoose and knelt beside her husband. "I will stay."

The Rangers had swept into the northern part of the village, but Gray Wolf knew they would return. That was the Ranger way, to make several runs through a village at full speed. She knew this, too, but she was exercising her right to die alongside her husband, and Gray Wolf did not try to talk her out of it or force her to come with him. Sadly he walked away. The baby was crying. He wrapped his bloodstained fingers around its little hand and the crying stopped.

Luck was with him. He found a horse near the river—a Ranger's mount, saddled and iron-shod—and the animal let him approach and take up the dragging reins. He rode south out of the village, trying not to look at the all the dead who lay sprawled in the pale dust. . . .

Not long after the last gunshot's echoes faded and the canyon fell deathly silent, Joshua breathed his last. McAllen ignored the pain of his wound and piled river stone on top of the body to deny the wolves and the vultures. Emily helped him. The half-breed's horse had been trained not to stray, so McAllen put her in his friend's saddle and mounted the gray hunter.

"Let's go home," he said.

"Yes. Home. What a wonderful word." She smiled. It was the most beautiful smile John Henry McAllen had ever seen.

They skirted the village, inhabited now only by the spirits of the dead. The long shadows of day's end were creeping across the canyon floor. The Quohadi survivors had scattered. The Rangers were gone. McAllen wondered if Antonio Caldero had escaped. He had a hunch the bandit leader was a hard man to kill. Perhaps someday he would find out if that was so. But for now he had only one thing on his mind—going home to Grand Cane and starting his life anew with the woman he loved.

Look for these reissued ebook titles by Jason Ma

HIGH COUNTRY SERIES

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Green River Rendezvous

Battle of the Teton Basin

FLINTLOCK SERIES

Flintlock

The Border Captains

Gone To Texas

TEXAS SERIES

The Black Jacks

Texas Bound

The Marauders

MOUNTAIN MAN SERIES

Mountain Passage

Mountain Massacre

Mountain Courage

Mountain Vengeance

Mountain Honor

Mountain Renegade

FALCONER SERIES

Falconer's Law

Promised Land

American Blood

ETHAN PAYNE SERIES

Frontier Road

Trail Town

Last Chance

Gun Justice

Gunmaster

The Outlaw Trail