by Kurt Barker
“What do you mean? Did you learn something new?”
“No... it just doesn't feel right. This whole thing doesn't add up somehow. Just... be careful.”
Agent Boone was silent for a minute, then she opened the door to the hideout. “Good night, Mr. Blackshot,” she said, and disappeared inside.
The little man's eyes twinkled behind his spectacles as he counted out a healthy sum of cash into Blackshot's hand. His name was MacGillicuddy, Blackshot had learned, and he was C. K. Donovan's lawyer.
“Worth every penny,” MacGillicuddy said as he finished. “Mr. Donovan is very pleased, and I daresay I am, too. You did your job admirably.”
“The payroll is in the bank now?” Blackshot inquired.
“Yes, safe and sound,” the little man replied heartily. “The train brought it in about an hour ago. Everything's on schedule and according to plan.”
“That's good to hear.”
“Yes, indeed. Well, I assume you'll be leaving town now, Mr. Blackshot?”
“Yes, that's the plan.”
“Fine, fine. Well, good day to you, sir,” MacGillicuddy said warmly, shaking Blackshot's hand. “I wish you safe travels.”
Blackshot returned the sentiments and parted ways with the lawyer, who walked hurriedly back toward the bank. As he watched the thin figure disappear into the darkness of the street, Blackshot mused on their conversation. MacGillicuddy seemed to want to be sure that Blackshot was leaving. Or was he reading too much into some innocent palaver? Blackshot turned to the stable with the uneasy feeling still looming in his mind.
A few minutes later he was in the saddle, and the fall of his horse's hooves which had echoed between the buildings of Jacksonburg now thudded dully on the prairie turf. A thousand questions without answers swirled in Blackshot's mind like a thick soup, muddled and disorganized. The robbers had been waiting for him; they had set up an ambush to get him when he came in. Had they been tipped off that he was coming? How? He hadn't even known himself that he was coming until he had happened to see the girl in the saloon. He spat on the ground in frustration.
Far off behind him the whistle of the train sang out in the stillness of the cool night air. Its peal seemed to jolt Blackshot out of his funk and suddenly he realized what was missing. The hats! There were six hats on the bed, but only five robbers. Where was the sixth man-- or rather who as the sixth man? The picture was becoming clear now; the bank robberies in the small towns had been planned around the robbery of the payroll, but the gang of robbers was never the real threat. Someone on the inside was planning to get their hands on the money.
As he was piecing together the scheme in his mind, Blackshot remembered something else that he had forgotten in the heat of battle; the puzzled expression on the face of the long-haired robber when he had jumped out of his hiding place to ambush him. Blackshot felt his blood run cold and turned his horse back toward Jacksonburg at a dead run. The robbers hadn't been lying in wait to kill him. They had been lying in wait to kill Emily Boone.
Chapter 8
Blackshot turned off the main street and rode in the shadows of the narrow back alleyways. When he was a little more than a block away from the bank he pulled the roan to a stop so that the sound of the horse's hooves would not give away his presence.
The roan's neck glistened with sweat in the moonlight and its heavy snuffling breaths seemed unnaturally loud in the quiet alleyway. The giant lopsided silhouette of the bank stood black against the night sky, and a dim light emanated from the thick glass windows bracketing the front door. The light shone on the back of a man standing just in front of the door, and Blackshot could make out the face of one of the tough-looking men he had seen in the bank earlier. He still carried a rifle in his hand, and he paced in a small circuit around the front face of the building. Blackshot could see that he would not be getting into the bank that way, at least not without attracting unwanted attention.
Keeping to the shadows, Blackshot stole around to the new wing of the bank and made his way along the wall toward the back. There were faint sounds coming from the rear of the building, and as he crept to the corner of the wall Blackshot recognized them as the stamping of horse hooves on the hard dirt. Carefully he leaned out just enough to see around the edge of the wall, and saw six horses lined up in a long narrow lot between the bank and the tall fence that lined the back of the rail yard. They were bridled and saddled and ready to ride, except for one which bore a pack harness. The large stitched leather packs lay open and empty, but Blackshot had no doubt about what cargo they were meant to carry.
The back door of the bank stood open, and the light from inside cast the horses' exaggerated shadows against the railroad fence. Another smaller shadow moved amongst them, that of a man; Blackshot recognized his burly frame and mean face from the earlier meeting in the bank as well. The man carried a rifle in the crook of his arm as he paced along the line of horses, holding a cigarette in his opposite hand.
He flicked the butt to the ground, and as he snuffed it out with his boot he saw another pair of boots directly in front of his. His head jerked up to see Blackshot's smiling face not two feet from him.
“Evening, mate,” Blackshot said. “How's the robbing and killing business? Nice night for it, eh?”
The wide-eyed man's hands fumbled for the rifle, but they were too late. Blackshot yanked the rifle from the hollow of the man's arm and brought the butt crunching into the shocked face opposite him. The man staggered backward with blood spitting from his mouth, grasping for the grip of the revolver at his side. Before he could pull it free the rifle butt shattered his jaw and sent him reeling to his knees against the wall of the bank.
Blackshot lunged forward, jabbing the broad butt of the rifle into the man's throat, pinning him against the wall. Blood spilled onto the rifle from the man's mouth as he struggled to abate the pressure on his windpipe, but to no avail. The powerful hands on the rifle barrel did not relent until all struggling ceased and the body fell limp to ground.
Blackshot stood up and listened for a moment; there was no sound of movement from inside, or any indication that the brief battle had been overheard. A quick look inside the open door revealed a little office with a small desk in the corner and ledgers stacked neatly on wooden shelves. Through a door which stood ajar at the far end of the room Blackshot could make out the muffled strains of voices, one distressed and one confident and gloating.
Stealing quietly across the room, Blackshot eased through the door and found himself in a dark hallway. At the end of the hall shone the light from the big main room of the bank, partly blocked by the thick back of another of the bank “guards” who stood leaning against the door frame. Moving soundlessly, but as fast as he dared, Blackshot made his way to the end of hall and slid against the door frame, close enough to the big gunman that he could have reached out a hand and poked him in the back if he had wanted to.
Over the man's shoulder Blackshot could see the whole room, and the scene was much as he had expected it to be; the bank manager cowered in the corner near the big steel safe and Sheriff Watkins stood over him, gun in hand. His tall, lean frame reclined casually against a wooden post, and a satisfied sneer curled his lips. He looked every bit the part of the mystery sixth robber that Blackshot had figured him to be.
But it was not this, but what he saw in the center of the room that made sparks of hot anger flare up in Blackshot's mind; Emily Boone was slumped on the floor, blood streaming down her face from a gash on her forehead while the fourth guard stood over her, holding her up on her knees by her hair while brandishing a pistol with a bloodstained butt in his other hand. She had been stripped to the waist and her torn blouse lay near the door. She let out a gasp and her plump bare breasts jumped on her chest as the burly guard drove his boot into her stomach.
“Hey, don't take all the fight out of her!” the sheriff called jovially. “Once I'm finished with this piss ant I'm going to teach that bitch a lesson about giving me orders, and I wan
t her to be fresh.”
“You won't get away with this, sheriff!” the bank manager cried. “Everyone will know it was you! They'll investigate and-”
Sheriff Watkins interrupted with a hearty laugh. “Of course they'll know it's me, you fool!” he crowed. “You don't think I'm going to hang around here waiting to get caught, do you? This is enough money for me to live like a rich man where these damn hicks can't touch me! Maybe I'll send 'em a postcard from Paris, huh? Now hurry up and open the damn safe!”
The sheriff's haughty laughter only fueled the fury burning inside Blackshot, but with some effort he snuffed it out. At least Emily was still alive, and if he wanted to keep it that way he was going to have to stay calm to devise a plan of action. Summing up the layout of the room, Blackshot's brain worked quickly, assessing a way to overcome the robbers without endangering Emily or Baldinger.
He glanced down at Emily; her lids fluttered as she blinked the blood from her eyes and struggled to stay conscious. Suddenly she saw him; her eyes widened as they met his, but she made no reaction that would betray her awareness of him. Blackshot could not make any motion to her without risking alerting the guard at the door, be he had a feeling that she understood what he planned to do.
Blackshot saw Emily's jaw set with determination, and she swung her arm up into the big guard's stomach. “Let go of me, you animal!” she rasped.
“So you want some more, do ya?!” the man snarled, and bent over her, knocking her unconscious with a sharp blow to the face with the gun butt.
The moment the guard turned to her, Blackshot sprang into action. He threw his forearm into the back of the guard in front of him, pushing him out from the door. Before the man could react, Blackshot pressed the muzzle of a Colt into the small of his back and let loose. The slugs burst from the man's stomach in a shower of blood and guts and plowed into the body of the other guard. He stumbled backward across the room like a drunken man, trailing blood from gouges in his back and side, until he pitched over into the door of the safe. Baldinger screamed in terror and scrambled away from the fallen man, while the other guard fell forward into a pool of his own blood at Emily's feet.
Blackshot's next shot was aimed for Sheriff Watkins, but the wily old badman had chosen to find cover rather than assist his comrades when the shooting had started, and reached the safety of the sturdy wooden cashier's counter as the bullet bit into the wood behind him.
The front door of the bank burst open with a bang and the guard with the rifle burst in. “He's in the hall!” Sheriff Watkins shouted from behind the counter.
The man swung the rifle toward the hall door and squeezed off his first shot just as Blackshot's bullet punched into his hip, spinning him around and sending his shot into the ceiling. Before he could turn around, Blackshot put another slug through the back of his head, sending him into a graceless dive back through the door from whence he had just come, leaving only a smear of blood on the doorpost behind him.
The echoes from the gunfire died away, and the only sound aside from Bladinger's hyperventilating sobs from behind the safe was the dry laugh from the sheriff. “You know, you done me a good service right there, boy,” he called to Blackshot. “Them fellas figured they'd get a cut of the money, and you saved me the trouble of disabusing them of that notion.”
“Then that's the second good service I've done for you,” Blackshot called back as he thumbed shells into the empty chambers of his Colts. “You put together your little 'black hat' crew to rob some little banks in the towns around here to make it look like there was a gang on the loose so you could use them as a cover when you went for the real money from Donovan's payroll; and this time the gang wouldn't survive the robbery to share in the take! Only I saved you the trouble there, too.”
The sheriff laughed again. “Oh, killing them clowns was no big help to me. These fellas here would have put 'em in the ground, no trouble. These were the ones I was worried about, 'cause they knew I wouldn't cut 'em in unless I was made to, so they were watching me pretty careful like.”
“Why did you bring them along in the first place, then?”
“Well, I was made to,” the sheriff replied. “They were hired by my business partner.”
“That would be me,” came a voice from behind Blackshot. He turned to see MacGillicuddy standing by the door at the end of the hall. The light from the main room reflected on his glasses and glinted on the barrel of the pistol in his hand. “You should have left town, Mr. Blackshot.”
Chapter 9
A furtive grin crossed the little man's face, and he brought his left hand up to help steady the gun that shook nervously in his right. “You must be surprised,” he said in an excited voice.
Blackshot laughed casually. “Nope, not a bit.”
An unsettled look showed on MacGillicuddy's face and he sputtered to answer, but Blackshot continued, “I knew you had to be involved because of two things: First, the bank robberies started a couple of weeks ago, and it surely took at least a week for the sheriff to round up his little fake gang before that. He wouldn't have known the payroll was coming that far in advance unless someone tipped him off.”
“You're just guessing; trying to look smart!” the little man shot back, “You're pretty smart to get caught like this, eh?”
“I haven't told you the second reason I knew,” Blackshot replied. “It's something I suspected all along, but I found out for sure just now.”
“Go ahead, tell us!” MacGillicuddy sneered. “I could use a good laugh.”
“The second thing I knew is that you're a fool,” Blackshot said with a grin. “You had to walk by the horses to get in here. Did you stop a second to count them? Five horses saddled to ride; one for the sheriff and one for each of your four 'guards'. Where's your horse, MacGillicuddy?”
The stunned look on the little lawyer's sweat-drenched face spoke everything that his stammering lips could not. His eyes turned toward the main room to seek Sheriff Watkins and by the time they turned back to Blackshot the black Colts were already spitting fire. The pistol fell from MacGillicuddy's hand and clattered noisily on the wood floor just moments before his lifeless body joined it, leaving a long red smear on the wall behind him as he slid down it.
“Son, you do me one good turn after another!” Sheriff Watkins boomed.
Blackshot turned and saw the sheriff standing in the center of the room. He held Emily Boone up on her knees by a handful of her hair, and his other hand pressed the barrel of a silver revolver into the back of her head.
“Look here, Mister Gunfighter,” the sheriff barked, “I'm leaving here with my money, and I can put a bullet in the bitch's brain before I do or I can leave her be; it don't make no nevermind to me. Now you drop those guns nice and slow!”
“If you pull that trigger you know I'll drop you right where you stand,” Blackshot growled.
“Don't play with me, Blackshot!” the sheriff shouted, shaking Emily's head violently. “I know you ain't gonna let her die! You do as I say, you hear?!”
A slight movement caught Blackshot's eye, and he saw that as Emily's hand had seemed to flail limply as the sheriff shook her, she had surreptitiously drawn her skirt above her knee, and now her fingers fished in the top of her boot. Slowly she drew a short knife from a sheath in her boot and hid the blade against her wrist.
“Listen, Watkins,” Blackshot growled. “You drop that gun and I'll let you ride out of here alive. That's the best deal you're going to get from me.”
Sheriff Watkins laughed again, and this time it had a bitter, mirthless ring to it. “You'll let me go so you can collect another fee from Donovan for hunting me down, you mean! Don't test me patience, asshole! Drop them guns!”
The little knife flashed suddenly upward in Emily's hand and punched through the wrist of the sheriff's gun hand, driving the gun up from her head. The curse that spat from Sheriff Watkins' lips as he struggled to regain control of his gun was drowned out by the roar of Blackshot's revolvers. A slug ripped th
rough his forearm and another followed it closely, severing it from his body in a shower of blood.
As the sheriff staggered backward, clutching at the blood-spewing stump of his arm, Blackshot's next bullet bored through the front of his skull and smashed into the wall behind him, taking the back of his head with it. He fell as limp as a rag doll against the old safe which he had not lived to see opened, and slid to the floor next to the prone form of Baldinger, who had fainted when the shooting had started again.
Emily had pushed herself unsteadily into a sitting position and held one arm across her bare nipples. Blackshot retrieved her blouse and drew it around her shoulders as he knelt beside her.
“You've got some real grit, Agent Boone,” he said as he put an arm around her.
“Why, thank you, Mr. Blackshot,” she replied, and passed out against his chest.
Chapter 10
The news of the great bank heist calamity spread like wildfire through the city, and great crowds swelled around the bank, as well as the boarding house where onlookers hoped to get a glimpse of the heroic federal agents or Pinkertons or Texas Rangers or mercenaries (the story and the players changed with every telling) that had saved the bank from the clutches of the sheriff turned badman.
The hapless young deputy tried vainly to maintain order for a while before eventually forsaking his position and going back to work in his father's tannery. Baldinger, on the other hand, was basking in new-found fame; the next few days he could be found holding court in the saloon, regaling the crowd with dramatic tales of the harrowing gunfight that had ended the terror of the murderous gang (in which he had played a vital role).
Blackshot had decided to avoid all the excitement, however. He had stayed in the relative peace and quiet of his room at the boarding house, leaving only for a meeting with C. K. Donovan, who had offered him a generous sum of money for his work. Blackshot had to refuse; he had already been paid once by MacGillicuddy when the job was only half done, and he wasn't the sort of man to charge twice for the same job. Donovan praised Blackshot for being a principled man, but urged him to consider the money a bonus and take it anyway. Blackshot considered it a bonus and took it; he was a principled man, not a fool!
