the damage was done, and they all knew it—all except Ledbetter, who didn’t seem to know anything except his fear. Sam Tarver was the leader of a gang of outlaws that had been plaguing West Texas for months. Posses hadn’t been able to run him and his men to ground, so now the army was giving it a try. Bo had seen a newspaper article about Tarver in El Paso, before he and Scratch left in a hurry.
Tarver turned toward Bo and Scratch again and came close enough for them to see that he was a big man with a craggy face and several days’ worth of beard. “You fellas got horses,” the boss owlhoot said. “We want ’em.”
“We only have two horses,” Bo pointed out, “and there are…” He made a quick head count. “Five of you.”
“Yeah, well, that’ll still let us rest two of our mounts,” Tarver said. “Anything that helps us move a little faster and stay ahead o’ that cavalry patrol.”
So the army was catching up to the gang, Bo thought. In fact, he seemed to recall reading that Tarver’s gang was larger than five men. He wondered if the outlaws had already fought a skirmish or two and lost some of their members.
“We’ll want any supplies you got too,” Tarver went on. “And hell, you might as well go ahead and hand over any dinero in your pockets. We’ll make it a clean sweep.”
Lightning flashed as he spoke, and a crash of thunder followed his words like punctuation. Reverend Ledbetter howled like a kicked dog and curled up on the ground again.
“Maybe you’re right, Harry,” Tarver added. “Puttin’ a bullet in this crazy varmint’s head would be a blessin’.”
“I thought you said we wasn’t supposed to use each other’s names.”
Tarver shrugged. “Well…it don’t hardly matter now, does it?”
Bo and Scratch both knew what that meant. The outlaws didn’t intend to leave anyone alive in Duster. They didn’t want anybody telling the cavalry patrol which way they had gone. Five to two odds were pretty heavy, especially when the five already had their guns drawn, but the drifters had faced worse in their adventuresome career. And since they still had their guns, they’d be damned if they would die without a fight.
But before Bo and Scratch could hook and draw, one of the outlaws who hadn’t spoken before suddenly said, “Look yonder, Tarver! It’s a couple o’ kids!”
“What?” Tarver exclaimed. “Where?”
“Right over there,” the owlhoot said, pointing. “I…I…Where the hell’d they go?”
“Spirits!” Ledbetter screeched. “Spirits of the dead!”
“Shut up!” Tarver roared. “I’m gettin’ mighty tired o’ you, old man—”
“Hey, mister….”
The childish voice floated through the air and seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. It caused all of the men except Ledbetter to jump a little and look around, even the usually iron-nerved Bo and Scratch. They had already encountered the mysterious youngsters, and now they heard the boy’s voice.
The girl chimed in a second later, saying, “Over here, mister…” The voices were so wispy they didn’t seem real.
But what else would you expect ghosts to sound like, Bo thought?
“No, over here, over here!” the boy called.
“There!” one of the outlaws cried. He triggered wildly, Colt flame blooming in the darkness as the shots gouted from his gun. He emptied the weapon, and as he lowered it, he said, “Where the hell’d they go? I hit the little bastard, I know I did!”
“Stop shootin’, you idiot!” Tarver said. “That’s a little kid you’re blastin’ away at!”
“No, it’s not,” Bo said, figuring that any distraction would work in his and Scratch’s favor. “That little boy and girl were orphans who were killed in a flood here months ago. The water made the orphanage collapse. More than thirty children died that night, and their spirits are here in Duster.” Bo paused as more lightning glared across the sky. “They’ve come back tonight.”
“Over here…over here…over here…”
The outlaws twisted and turned frantically, looking for something that wasn’t really there. Scratch leaned close to Bo and said, “That one hombre never reloaded his gun.”
“I know,” Bo replied. “That makes it four to two. Good enough odds for you?”
“Damn good enough,” Scratch snapped, and slapped leather.
“Look out!” Tarver yelped. “Get those two saddle tramps!”
The outlaws’ panic had given Bo and Scratch a chance to draw their guns. Both Colts blasted as the two drifters split up, Bo going right and Scratch going left. Bo hoped that Ledbetter would have sense enough to keep his head down.
One of the outlaws spun around with a harsh cry as a bullet from Bo’s gun drilled through his body. Another doubled over as one of Scratch’s slugs punched into his belly.
But then Tarver and the desperado called Harry began to return fire, forcing Scratch to dive behind the old water trough. Bo dashed for the far side of the street, but it was too far away. He would never make it.
Sure enough, a bullet traced a trail of fire across the outside of his left thigh. The wound was minor, but the impact was enough to knock his leg out from under him and send him tumbling to the ground. He knew he would be ventilated good and proper before he could get to his feet again.
But he had landed so that he was turned toward the old hotel or saloon or whatever it was, and in the light of the campfire Bo saw Reverend Ledbetter rise from the ground and throw himself at Sam Tarver. “No!” the preacher screamed. “Vengeance belongs to the Lord—and to the children!”
A pair of shots erupted from Tarver’s gun. Ledbetter crumpled as the bullets smashed into him. His action gave Bo time to draw a bead on Tarver, though, and before the boss outlaw could fire again, the walnut-handled Colt leaped in Bo’s hand. Three shots rolled out, all of them hammering into Tarver’s chest and driving him backward so that he fell heavily on the old boardwalk. The planks were rotten. Tarver busted right through them.
At the same time, Scratch fired from behind the water trough at Harry. One of the slugs smashed the outlaw’s elbow; the second tore his throat out. He went down with blood fountaining from the wound. It looked more black than red in the firelight.
That accounted for four of the five outlaws, but the one who had emptied his gun at a ghost was still on his feet. His gun wasn’t empty anymore, either. He had been desperately thumbing fresh cartridges into the cylinder as the battle went on around him, and now he snapped the weapon closed and lifted it, grinning as he aimed it at Bo.
It was Bo’s gun that was empty now. He couldn’t do anything as the outlaw shouted to Scratch, “Drop your guns, mister, or I’ll blow holes in your pard, I swear I will!”
Bo heard the curses coming from Scratch and called, “Kill the varmint!” He wasn’t surprised, though, when Scratch stood up a moment later and
