He originally shot the sumbitch in the belly. But that would be against the Code of the West.
The rest of the fight wasn’t much of a much, tell truthful. Dallin and Desert Joe had brought up the rest of the slaves, there; they were in rags and only a couple of ‘em had weapons, but they were screaming, and they were there. Some of the slavers had gotten torn limb from limb; the others had run… right into the rest of the folks from the original slave caravan. Even then it should have been a fight, but by then the eight or so slavers had just given up. They threw their weapons on the ground and surrendered.
The first ones and the only ones in the entire fight, in fact. Tabetha was inclined to hang ‘em all, on general principles; but when she saw Dallin coming up with Rex to look over the captives she muttered angrily at herself. Dallin had taken a wound or two, but looked better, more sure of himself than Tabetha had ever seen him, although on admittedly short acquaintance. Maybe we can salvage some of these slavers, too, she thought.
And Dallin did pick out two as being worth saving. The others? Rex made them strip down to their drawers, then pointed west. “I’ve heard you got another camp down that way,” he said. “Better get going. It’s a long walk on a hot day.”
One of the raiders started raising a fuss over that: Rex gave him a minute to get up to speed, then reached out with one hand. Desert Joe – who had somehow found a hat, a long stick to lean on, and a long coat filled with pockets that were now full of snakes – promptly handed Rex a crossbow; Rex swung it into position, and fired it from the hip with nary a word.
The bandit fell to the ground, still twitching from the bolt in his brain. Rex pointed west, again, with the crossbow. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Your friends will find you. Even if it’s just by looking for the buzzards.”
The few remaining bandits decided not to wait for Rex to reload.