Apache Ambush

Fargo shot with more care than either of the remaining brothers. He got Sam in the throat. The man went dramatically, calling out for his mother before he fell to the ground.

The other brother he got twice in the heart. The man’s gun went flying into the air. Then he pitched forward, slamming his head on a razor-sharp edge of embedded rock. The fall probably would have killed him without the bullets.

Fargo glanced at Lou Clemmons. He’d been shot twice in the face. He was as much of a mess as station manager Lem Cantwell was inside.

Fargo got to his feet. For long seconds all he could hear were the echoes of all the gunfire; all he could smell and taste was gun smoke. But then the wind came and cleansed the air of the gun smoke and birds replaced the crack of bullets.

He turned to the people he’d ordered out of range. The killings inside the station and out had dulled their eyes and crippled their bodies. They watched him suspiciously, as if he might turn on them, as if this might be a nightmare without end.

But he smiled at them. The heavyset woman, who clutched the girl as if she were her daughter, laughed and said: ‘‘It’s really over, isn’t it?’’

‘‘Yeah,’’ Fargo said, ‘‘it’s really over.’’