“So much for the honeymoon,” Winston Boone shrugged.

The station house air smelled of gun smoke. Pritchard looked up at the ceiling, as his vision rapidly faded. He felt Caroline’s warm body against him. He tried to put his arms around her, but found he couldn’t lift them. He could hear the farmer’s wife sobbing, and Winston Boone giving orders.

“Saddle up our horses,” he said. “And get them other passengers outside. How’s Toby?”

“Toby’s done for,” he heard Wesley answer. “He just don’t know it yet. She stuck him good. Can’t you hear him a-hackin’ and a-sputterin’?”

Pritchard couldn’t see the man dying from the throat wound Caroline had inflicted, but he could hear him. The all-too-familiar sound of the death rattle, as the cowboy’s life dwindled, was unmistakable.

“His own damned fault for lettin’ the spitfire stick him,” Winston Boone said. “Once he’s finished, get his carcass on a horse.”

Pritchard heard men scrambling to comply, and sensed the hostages being herded from the station house. His vison had completely gone, and darkness was all he could see. He felt Caroline being pulled off him.

“She’s dead,” Wesley announced, “and the Ranger’s gettin’ there.” Pritchard heard a revolver’s hammer click back. “You want me to finish him?”

“Nope,” Winston told his son. “That’d be doing him a favor. He’ll bleed out before too long. Leave him be, to contemplate. I want him to spend his last minutes ruminating on the wedding he ain’t gonna attend.”

“Whatever you say, Pa.”

The last thing Pritchard heard, before slipping into unconsciousness, was the sound of gunshots outside the station house.

Chapter 32

Chapter 32

“You surely are one hard man to kill,” a familiar voice said.

Pritchard slowly opened his eyes. He found himself in pain, lying in bed, in an unfamiliar room. He also found himself staring into the worried face of Ditch Clemson.

“How . . . long?”

“Ten days,” Ditch said. “The next stage passing through that station found you just this side of perdition. You refused to die, like the stubborn Missouri mule you are. You were shot three times, Samuel. When they got you here to Waco, your life was hangin’ by a thread. Some famous doctor from Austin came up and put you under his knife. They say he saved your life. You’ve been conked out, recovering, ever since.”

“The other passengers?” Pritchard asked, already knowing the answer.

“Dead,” Ditch said. “Driver, shotgun messenger, and station agent, too. They were all shot and left to rot where they fell.”

Pritchard lowered his head.

“I’m awful sorry about your fiancée,” Ditch said solemnly.

Pritchard closed his eyes, tears squeezing from the corners. The image of his beloved Caroline, shot to pieces in his arms, flooded his memory.

“It was—”