Ernestine could just make them out, a knot of men and horses close enough to hit with a flung stone. “Who are you? What do you want?” she repeated, giving them the chance to say they were not the posse and were not after Jeeter and her.
“Who is askin’?” the man with the harsh voice demanded.
“I asked you first,” Ernestine said. “If you are a gentleman, you will answer first.”
“I ain’t no gentleman,” the man snapped. “Who are you? Are you alone? What in hell are you doin’ out here?”
Ernestine probed the night for Jeeter. He would not wait long to spring his surprise. She must talk fast. “Tell me you are not out to harm anyone. Tell me you are not out to kill.”
There was a gasp, and another voice said, “Did you hear? How does she know?”
“It is not natural,” said yet another man. “Maybe she’s not real. She could be a haunt.”
“I don’t want to tangle with no spook!” exclaimed the youngest.
“Shut up, all of you!” the harsh one commanded. “She’s not no haunt.” He raised his voice. “You’re not no haunt, are you, lady?”
“I am not sure what a haunt is,” Ernestine told him, “but I am flesh and blood just like you. Now please. Who are you? Who do you intend to kill?”
“The party we are after should have been planted long ago,” the man said. “If ever there was a case of deservin’ to die, this is it.”
They had to be referring to her Jeeter. Ernestine took a step, pleading, “Ride off! Now! Before it is too late! Oh, I beg of you! Ride for your lives!”
“What are you talkin’ about, damn it?” the man growled, and then, almost in the same breath, “Wait! You’re the schoolmarm! The one the whole town is stirred up about!”
“We found her?” the young-sounding one said.
By then Jeeter Frost was close enough. He had slunk on foot in a loop that brought him up from the rear, and he had his Colt Lightning out when he came to the first of them. He pressed the muzzle to the man’s spine and blew the backbone into splinters. At the shot the man cried out and flung forward over the saddle, spooking his mount, which bolted. Instantly, Jeeter sprang to the second rider, jammed the Lightning low against the man’s side, and squeezed off another shot. The slug, angling upward, tore through the man’s innards and burst out between the sternum and the clavicle. The man was dead before his body started to fall.
Whirling, Jeeter aimed at the belly of a third and put a slug into it. The logical thing to do was finish him with another shot, but there was a fourth rider to deal with, and the man was wheeling his mount and unlimbering a revolver while cursing a mean streak. Jeeter aimed for the neck since a neck shot nearly always killed outright or slowed them enough that they were easy to dispatch, but with the rider moving and with the dark his aim was off and the slug caught the rider in the side of the head, which worked just as well.
Jeeter turned, thumbing back the hammer. The man he had shot in the belly was clinging to the saddle horn, ink that was not ink spreading down his leg and over his saddle. Jeeter raised the Lightning.
“Why us?” the man asked hoarsely, his voice quavering. “Why in hell did you do this to us?”
“You should have left well enough be,” Jeeter said.
“But—”
Jeeter shot him between the eyes, a nice shot that made up for missing the other one’s neck. The man pitched from the saddle and the horse ran off. Jeeter did not try to stop it. They did not need another horse.
In the quiet that followed, Jeeter commenced reloading. He thought they were all dead until the one he had shot in the spine groaned and went on groaning. He went over. The man was on his back, paralyzed, unable to move anything but his lips. Out came flecks of blood.
“You done killed me.”
“That was the general idea.”
“You are him, aren’t you? Frost?”
“I am him.”
The man was fading, his face ungodly pale. “You are a hellion. But if I have to die, it might as well be someone famous who kills me.”
Jeeter squatted and remarked, “You are the politest hombre I ever shot. I would like to remember your name. What is it?”
“Happy,” the man said, and smiled, and died.
The eyes bothered Jeeter. He reached down and closed them.
“Did I hear correctly?” Ernestine asked. She had come up behind him. “He told you that he died happy?”
“You should not look at this,” Jeeter said, unfurling and facing her. “It ain’t fitting.”
“Isn’t,” Ernestine said. “And I was the bait, wasn’t I? If I don’t have the right, who does?” She went from body to body, glad the dark hid the worst of it. “Only four? I thought the posse would be bigger.”
“They must be spread out,” Jeeter said. “Groups of them across the prairie, the better to catch me. Which is why we can’t dawdle.”
“Four lives snuffed like candles,” Ernestine said softly. “Tell me how you feel, if you don’t mind.”
“I am glad it was them and not me.” Jeeter sought sign of more riders out on the benighted sea of grass, but he might as well have peered into the depths of a well.
“That is all?”
