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thoughts and dropped down to find that Elwood had drawn Barney away from Pablo and was now holding him upright by leaning him against his chest.
    The dark, blood-soaked hand that Elwood withdrew showed the wound was serious, and with the wounded Pablo to guard, both men agreed to take no further part in the battle in the pass below.
    Ten minutes later Kurt had mopped up Pablo’s remaining men, each man fighting until he drew his last breath, but that matter didn’t concern Shackleton and Elwood. Barney was dead.
    For three years they’d worked together as a team, doing their duty with diligence and skill, then getting into scrapes when they’d unwound between jobs.
    Always they’d looked out for each other, but somehow Shackleton had never expected this to happen.
    By the time Kurt joined them, he was in no mood to join in his gloating.
    ‘How’s Barney?’ Kurt asked as he kicked the wounded Pablo over.
    ‘Dead,’ Shackleton reported, making no attempt to keep the bitterness from his voice.
    ‘I lost four others down there.’
    ‘Only four of your men followed us here!’
    Kurt shrugged. ‘That’s what happens when you take on outlaws like Pablo Rodriguez.’
    ‘Except they died at Pablo’s hand. Barney got shot by his own men.’
    ‘That happens too.’ Kurt looked down at the sprawling Pablo. ‘And it was worth it to get this one.’
    ‘By whose judgement?’ Shackleton spluttered.
    ‘By mine.’ Kurt drew his gun, aimed down at Pablo’s chest, and fired, the shot dragging a pained bleat from Pablo as his body rose, then fell.
    ‘What you doing?’ Shackleton snapped, getting to his feet, but Kurt ignored him as he blasted round after round into Pablo’s body.
    ‘I’m ensuring that this is one man,’ he said as he planted a final bullet in him, ‘who doesn’t get to have no politician fawning over him.’
    The mention of their prime duty shook some of the shock from Shackleton’s mind and he turned away from Kurt to tap Elwood’s shoulder.
    ‘We’re leaving,’ he said. ‘We’ve got some live prisoners to guard.’
     
    ‘Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,’ The Preacher intoned, ‘I will fear no evil, Psalm twenty-three, verse four.’
    ‘For God’s sake stop preaching and help me get this off,’ Nathaniel shouted, tearing at the laces toremove his boot.
    The prisoners had left them to their fate, but Nathaniel reckoned that if he could knock the dynamite out of the cage that fate might not be the one Turner had wanted.
    The stick lay fifteen feet away and beyond his reach, but it was only four feet from the edge of the cage, spluttering through the last inch of fuse.
    He slipped his boot off then drew back his arm, but The Preacher grabbed that arm.
    ‘Anyone,’ he muttered, his voice shaking with righteous indignation, ‘who blasphemes the name of the Lord must be put to death, Leviticus twenty-four, verse sixteen.’
    ‘And you’ll join me,’ Nathaniel snapped, tearing his hand away. Then he hurled the boot at the stick.
    But the act of getting his arm away from The Preacher’s grip had veered his aim. The boot flew two feet wide and thudded into the bars.
    Nathaniel grunted with irritation and uttered another blasphemy, this time with an added oath, but, as if in answer to his plea, the boot rebounded from the bars, skittered across the base of the cage and nudged the stick.
    The force with which it collided was minimal but it was enough to send the stick spinning diagonally across the cage. It came to rest three feet closer to Nathaniel but only a foot from the edge of the cage.
    The Preacher provided another appropriate quote predicting that Nathaniel’s repeated blasphemies meant he wouldn’t enjoy the afterlife, butNathaniel didn’t plan on finding out whether he was right just yet.
    ‘Be quiet,’ he muttered.
    ‘In the beginning,’ The Preacher said, ‘God created the heavens and the earth.’
    Nathaniel removed his other boot. He