Big Damn Hero

26

Outside the stable block, Simon Tam was keeping watch. His specialty was medicine, however, not sentry duty. He didn’t see the armed man stealing up on him from around the corner of the stable block. He wasn’t even aware of his presence until the man pounced on him from behind, snaking an arm around his throat. The barrel of a gun dug into Simon’s temple.

“Don’t move,” the man growled, “’less you want your brains spattered all over that there fancy vest of your’n.”

“P — Please don’t shoot,” Simon stammered.

“Don’t give me no excuse to. State your business. Quick about it.”

“I’m — I’m a guest of Hunter Collington’s. Good friend of his. Arrived just this morning. I’m only taking a stroll around, admiring the spread.”

“Hunter who?”

“Your boss. Hunter Collington.”

The man chuckled gratingly. “I have a boss, but his name ain’t Collington. You maybe wanna try that again?”

“Covington!” Simon exclaimed. He could have kicked himself. What a rookie mistake, getting the surname wrong. He just wasn’t cut out for this sort of clandestine stuff. Nothing in his upbringing or education had prepared him for a life of skullduggery and violence. “Slip of the tongue. I meant Covington.”

“A so-called good friend of Mr. Covington’s wouldn’t have gotten his name wrong, pal. I don’t reckon you know him at all. I reckon you’re some kinda spy or somethin’. We’re under orders to be on the lookout for intruders, anyone sneakin’ around looking suspicious. I’d say you fit the bill. Now tell me the truth. You got until the count of three, and then it’s brain surgery by bullet. One. Two…”

River drifted out of the stable block, hands behind her back. “Hey, Simon. Who’s your friend?”

Simon felt the man holding him stiffen in surprise. “Where’d you come from, girl?”

“In there,” River said. “I was just stroking the horses. They have such soft noses, did you know that? Apart from the bristles. And their breath, when they snort, it’s warm on your hand. I like it. It smells of friendliness.”

She took a step towards the man and Simon.

The gun moved from Simon’s head, swiveling towards River. “Best you stay where you are,” the man said to her. “I got plenty of rounds in this thing, and I only need one for the each of you.”

Simon’s breath caught in his throat. With the tiniest twitch of his head, he tried to indicate to River that she should stop moving.

Whether she saw the instruction or not, River halted. She twirled one foot, drawing circles in the dust with the toecap of her boot. The man with the gun looked down at what she was doing. When he looked up again, River had brought both hands out in front of her. The right held a horseshoe. In one blindingly swift action she flung it at the man. It connected with his gun hand, knocking the weapon out of his grasp. Before he was able to collect his wits, River sprang. Simon stumbled aside as River and the man went crashing to the ground. Straddling her opponent’s torso, she rained punches on his face and ribcage in such a rapid flurry that her arms were twin blurs, like the pistons on a locomotive pumping at full speed. The man was utterly unable to defend or deflect. Within seconds River had rendered him unconscious. Still she kept up the barrage of blows, until Simon laid a hand on her shoulder.

“River? You’ve done it. He’s out cold. Keep that up and you might kill him.”

“He was going to kill you,” she said. “And me. Fair’s fair. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a candy for a candy, a penny for your thoughts.”

“Still and all. We don’t kill unless we have to.”

River reflected on this, then smiled brightly. “Okay! That’s a good rule.”

“I like to think so.”

She picked herself up and dusted herself off. “Oh, hi, Shepherd. And straw-in-hair lady.”

Book had just come out of the stable block, one arm around Elmira Atadema to support her. He cast a glance at the man on the ground.

“No problems here, I take it.”

“None that couldn’t be dealt with,” Simon said.

“Then let’s make haste. Covington seems to have an endless supply of thugs and I’ve no idea if we’ve met them all yet.”