Lawman from Nogales (9781101544747) by Ralph W. Cotton Page B

follow the X on her horse’s hooves, unless he wanted to stop, step down and examine the dirt every few minutes.
    No need, he’d told himself. There was no other way for her to go but down this trail until she reached the flatlands in the wide basin below.
    He’d followed at a steady but checked pace, not wanting to get close enough for her to hear him behind her. Come daylight, he would find the marked horse’s shoe helpful. Tonight, he told himself, he would lag back, take his time—
    He stopped short, hearing the big Starr’s distant twanging sound rise from the base of the hillsides. Listening closely, he made out the faintest sound of a woman’s scream.
    How far down? Three miles, five . . . ?
    Faintly, he identified the baying and barking of wolves. Without hesitation, he booted the dun and put it forward back onto the trail. He rode on, listening as best he could above the clack of iron shoe on the hard rocky ground.
    He’d gone over a mile when he reached a place in the trail that rounded to his right and gave an open view of the flatlands below. He stopped for only a moment, just long enough to look down and see the tiny black figures darting back and forth in the purple moonlight.
    Drawing his rifle from its saddle boot, he gave the dun another tap on its sides, this time with urgency, as he heard another gunshot resound in the night
    Â 
    Burrowed in tight stone and earthwork, Erin could do nothing now but space out her remaining shots as far as possible and hope that when death came upon her, she would die quickly—she and her child.
    Very quickly, she told herself, hearing the wolves snap and growl and fight among themselves over her.
    She could hear the animals still pulling and tearing at the horse’s carcass, yet the sounds had fallen from that of a feeding frenzy to a calmer, more selective picking-over of the bloody remains.
    In front of her, a younger, smaller wolf stuck its head into the dug-away opening beneath the boulder and stared at her, panting, its face so close that she could smell its putrid breath. But as she raised the Starr and pointed it, the animal jerked its head back out of sight.
    Her shot exploded from beneath the boulder and sent a half dozen wolves scrambling away. A moment later, though, and they were back, a gathering of probing, digging paws that moved all about in front of her in the first pale glow of dawn.
    Three shots left , she reminded herself, smelling the strong odor of burnt gunpowder in the tight area she’d enclosed herself in. Her cheeks and forehead were drawn and stiff, covered by a layer of dried blood. Her back and legs cramped. Her stomach ached deep inside. She wondered if the baby had even survived the spill from the saddle. If she thought for a minute that it hadn’t, she might yet turn the Starr around in her hand, put the barrel to her head—
    Stop it! she demanded, cutting herself off. She wasn’t going to do that —she wouldn’t allow herself to even think about it.
    At her heels, she felt a paw rake at her. She tried to pull her foot farther inside the rock shelter, but this time the persistent animal managed to get a firm grip with both paws and pin her foot down until its jaws clamped onto her ankle and began dragging her backward.
    Erin screamed, but as she did, she clawed at the ground and the rock in front of her with one hand and leveled the Starr down her side with the other. The gun was already cocked, ready to fire.
    She pulled the trigger and heard the wolf jump back with a loud yelp. But the bullet had missed, done no damage, and the wolves were quickly losing their fear of the loud gunshots. In front of her, younger, smaller paws scratched at her hand as she clung to the bottom edge of the boulder to keep from being dragged out and eaten.
    Two shots left. . . .
    She hurriedly turned the Starr to the front of her, cocked it and fired. Fresh blood splattered Erin’s face, but the