Free Territory by Emma Bull

Wyatt said softly. “Head for the south end of that barn, and when you get near, make it known who you are. Quietly, as if you didn’t want ’em to hear in the house.”
    “How do you—” Morgan started.
    “Do as I say.”
    Morgan moved toward the barn as Wyatt got to his feet.
    “If I tried to finish Morgan’s question, would I get much further than he did?” Doc said.
    Wyatt gave him a look, but Doc couldn’t see it, since Wyatt’s hat brim cast his eyes into darkness. It probably meant “no.”
    Wyatt turned back to the barn. “Once he knows Morgan’s not alone, he’ll try to make a break. Be ready to go after him.”
    Doc refused to ask who “he” was. “You go after him. I am an invalid.”
    That got him one of Wyatt’s bared-teeth smiles. “If he gets past you, I can shoot him before he makes the creek. Without hitting you by mistake. Can you say the same?”
    “Why don’t you just shoot him anyway?”
    “Now how the hell would that look?”
    At the corner of the barn, a new silhouette joined Morgan’s. Doc could read the scene without sound. The unknown man frightened, hesitating; Morgan swaggering a little too much for someone who was supposed to be afraid of getting caught. Then one of the posse’s horses, tied on the other side of the house, let out a whinny over something. The unknown man started, backed away from Morgan—
    “Damn,” Wyatt muttered, and drew his pistol.
    Doc moved to cut the man off before he remembered he’d refused to do it. But Morgan was closer, and quicker. By the time Doc reached them, Morgan had knocked the fellow down.
    Doc couldn’t tell who he was, or exactly what he was saying, since his face was pressed into the dirt. It sounded like begging. “Care to introduce your new friend?” Doc suggested.
    Morgan pulled the man to his feet. He was younger than Doc expected, and terrified. He certainly wasn’t Billy Leonard, or Head or Crane. “This is Luther King, Doc. He may not look like much, but he’s an awful desperado. According to him, anyway.”
    “Shut up,” said Wyatt. He’d come up behind Doc through the gathering dark, his gun out. The boy, King, rolled his eyes to look at Wyatt, and Doc thought for a moment that King might faint. “Where’s the rest of your gang?”
    King’s gaze went to Morgan. Morgan grinned at him. But Wyatt grabbed a fistful of King’s hair and jerked his head up and around, and jammed the barrel of his gun under King’s chin. “You don’t look like a fool,” Wyatt said, his voice almost gentle. “So I think it’s worth my time to say this. I wager your friends are nearly to New Mexico. I, on the other hand, am right here, and nothing you can do will change that. So you think good and hard about who you want to keep happy: them, or me.”
    King’s Adam’s apple bobbed. Wyatt seemed to take that for assent, since he let go of the boy and lowered his gun. “We got split up,” King told him, a squeak in his voice. “Arthur—Arthur Ortega—and me just held the horses—”
    “Whose horses?” Wyatt said.
    “Billy Leonard’s, Harry Head’s, Jim Crane’s …” King trailed off, staring hard at Wyatt as if afraid to shift his eyes in Morgan’s direction.
    “And that was all?”
    “Yes, sir,” King whispered at last. “But I don’t know where they are. When it went bust, Arthur and I lost ’em in the dark. Then Arthur’s horse stepped in a hole and threw him, and …”
    Doc couldn’t help but smile. “And you bolted with his horse, instead of sharing yours, leaving him on foot in open country. Good to have that cleared up.”
    Wyatt frowned at him. “I’m sure the Redfield brothers’ll be surprised to learn they were hiding a criminal,” Wyatt said. “Let’s go up to the house.”
    The Redfields were profoundly surprised. The enthusiasm with which they expressed their amazement nearly deafened the rest of the men in the Red-fields’ parlor.
    “Good work, Wyatt,” Johnny Behan said, his smile