Page 95 of Coyote

He ran straight for the rusted flatbed truck we'd parked across the narrowest throat of the gap, and he didn't look back.

A second later, the riders hit the mouth of the pass. They crowded into the gray opening, ten or twelve of them, horses shoulder to shoulder. Zaroff rode in the middle of them, rifle raised, a white headlamp strapped to his hat brim, the beam cutting the dust.

"Now," Ransom whispered.

Below, Cruz rode into the mouth of the pass and closed the gap behind the last of them. Two riders were at the rear now, rock on both sides, nothing open behind them.

Then Mateo started firing from the shelf above, and the sound echoed until my teeth vibrated in my jaw.

A horse screamed, high and thin, and dumped its rider into the gravel. The animal next to it reared, its leg slamming into the rock wall with a sickening crack, and the rider shrieked, dropping his gun to clutch at his shattered leg. Above me, Ransom fired one shot, a pause, then another, his movements slow and mechanical. With each crack of his rifle, a man slackened and slipped out of his saddle. The riders piled into each other, the narrow gap turning into a thrashing knot of rearing horses and shouting men. The trap worked exactly as we'd drawn it in Rafe's office: the number was never going to matter, because the throat of the pass only allowed three of them abreast.

Down in the dirt, I saw Sierra scramble out from behind the flatbed. He ran into the open, grabbed Coyote by the arm, and dragged him behind the heavy iron wheels just as three rounds punched through the truck's sideboard.

Every muzzle in that gap turned on us, on Sierra, on the rocks, on the truck. Not one of them was pointed at the naked man in the dirt.

I lost track of Zaroff. My chest tightened, a hard knot of panic rising in my throat.

A rider broke free from the tangle on the right, his horse hugging the rock wall, driving straight toward Sierra's exposed back. He had a shotgun, the barrels pointing right at Sierra's head.

My cheek dropped onto the cold wood of the stock. I put the front sight on the shotgun's receiver and pressed the trigger.

The rifle kicked hard against my chest. The shotgun exploded out of the rider's hands and spun away into the dark. He clutched his bloody fingers to his ribs, pulled his horse around, and rode back out into the open.

I hadn't killed him.

Before I registered the relief, I had worked the bolt, chambered another round, and settled the sights back onto the horses.

Zaroff was still in his saddle in the middle of the screaming horses. He had the rifle up to his shoulder, swinging the muzzle toward the flatbed that hid Sierra and Coyote.

I put the sight on his hands.

I didn't remember deciding to do it. I remembered the trigger breaking, the loud crack, and Zaroff's rifle flying apart in a spray of silver metal and splinters.

Zaroff came out of the saddle sideways and landed on his shoulder in the dirt. He rolled onto his knees, his hat gone, the headlamp lying in the dirt and casting a long, bright beam across the bloody gravel. He hunched over his right hand, cradling it against his stomach, rocking back and forth as he let out a thin, wet whistle.

Around him, the gunfire began to taper off. Then it stopped entirely. My ears buzzed with a high, sharp ring, and the smell of burnt sulfur hung thick and heavy in the stagnant air of the cut.

Ransom called out names from the ledge. Mateo answered him. Cruz answered him. Sierra didn't answer at first, and then he finally did, and the tight band around my ribs finally loosened enough for me to breathe.

I stood up. My legs burned from hip to heel, but they held. I climbed down out of the rocks and walked into the open path, holding the rifle flat across my chest.

Nobody spoke to me as I passed. A horse snorted a fine red mist near my shoulder. My boots crunched loudly on the dry gravel as I walked out onto the flat dirt of the pass. I stopped in front of Zaroff.

The air around him smelled of sweat, cheap cologne, gun oil, and the sharp, sour tang of a man who knew he was about to die.

Zaroff looked up. The white beam of his discarded headlamp illuminated the left side of his face. His right hand was a shredded, dripping mess between his knees. The necklace of boar tusks around his throat swung forward, clinking together like dry teeth.

I raised the rifle, brought my cheek down to the wood, and aligned the sights with the fourth space between his ribs, two inches left of the midline.

I pulled the trigger back until I felt the sear catch. Zaroff stared straight up the dark of the barrel, his eyes wide, the realization of what I was about to do finally sinking into his face. Let him look. I wanted him to see it.

"Wait." Coyote limped up beside me wearing nothing but Sierra's shirt. He sniffed and drew his wrist under his nose.

My finger loosened on the trigger, but I didn't let go. "I'm not letting him walk. Not after everything he's done."

"I know, big man." Coyote put a hand on my shoulder. "A quick death is a kindness he never gave anyone. He doesn't deserve it."

I glared down at Zaroff in the dirt, bleeding from his hand, broken, defeated by a narrow pass, a pacifist, and Coyote.