Now effectively fenced, the short stampede was over, but it had done its work. It had sown fear and confusion among the Peace Officers and had brought them to where Riker wanted them to be. The bulk of Riker's crew emerged from the alleys where they had pushed out the second set of wagons Above a few men including a couple of women who had insisted on taking part, rose on rooftops on both sides of the street with the cavalry long guns pointing downward leaving Dalton’s hired guns surrounded.
Grinning confidently, McKenna moved out of the corral and down the planked walkway in front of the leather shop to take her place surrounding the scofflaws parading as law officers. She hated that they could do such a thing and was glad to shut them down for good. The moment was at hand for either Dalton’s Creek to be liberated or fall. At that moment behind the vigilantes, the sun dropped from view behind the majestic Sierra Nevada mountains as if it did not wish to bear witness to what might come next.
CHAPTER 44
“Throw down your weapons!" Riker ordered the men, hoping they had the smarts to realize they were surrounded and not do anything stupid that would spark a needless gun battle. In a perfect world that was, what was what would happen, but these men were hardened criminals, many illiterate and ignorant as the day was long.
“You should have warned us, Jefferies! God damn you! You should have warned us!” Bryant shouted, nearly frothing at the mouth. Instantly, Riker realized just who the traitor was that had spoiled their first attempt to organize that had cost the town its weapons. He began to turn to Jefferies who was standing next to him, but the man had dropped back and suddenly he felt the steel of a gun barrel up against the back of his head and cursed mildly. Just once he wanted a plan to come together without a hitch, but alas he knew that only happened in those dime western novels that were so popular. This was real life, and nothing was ever going to work out perfectly, he thought as he rapidly tried to come up with a way out.
“Dammit, Bill! How could you do this!” he heard Luther Beckett shouting down the row of men.
“Easy. Dalton’s going to give me enough money when all this is over stopping me from having to spend the rest of my life giving a shave and a cut for peanuts. I’m taking the money and going to that there Florida place where it isn’t ever cold!”
“You’ll be lucky if you get a red cent from Dalton now! Why didn’t you warn us?!” Bryant spat at the man.
The sensation of cold steel against his neck added urgency to Riker’s situation. He could feel the barrel against his skull shake and knew Jefferies was out of his depths.
"They just recruited me a few hours ago, didn't tell most everybody that they got more guns until the last moment. There was no time to slip out and give you a warning, Bryant! I swear!" Jefferies yelled back to the gunslinger. Nervously, his eyes darted around, and he raised his voice, "Alright, townsfolk. Lay down your guns or Riker's brains will be painting the street right quick!" the barber demanded. The marshal felt the gun waver away from his head for an instant and took his chance.
Riker brought up one hand as he spun towards Jefferies, grabbing the gun barrel and sweeping it away from the back of his head. With his other hand, he spun the traitor around in front of him. His timing couldn’t have been better as Bryant, in blind frustration, had raised his gun to shoot Riker despite the cries of some of his fellow Peace Officers who possessed a smattering of common sense. Unfortunately for Jefferies, Instead of Riker, Bryant's shot struck him, and his chest exploded in a cornucopia of blood and gore.
With the Peace Officers firing the first shot, all bets were off as the townsfolk began shooting at them in retaliation for Bryant’s attempted murder of Riker. A handful of men with enough smarts to long for self-preservation threw down their guns and dropped to the ground, but the majority of Dalton’s outlaw army returned fire.
As the gun battle erupted and the two opposing sides sought whatever shelter available, Riker dove down to the side, and saw his sister do the same down the street, behind some packing crates in front of the supply store. Riker wished he had crates instead of the low water trough for visiting horses he had landed behind. All around people were shooting or running, trying to take out an enemy without being shot themselves. Riker fixed his eyes on the town hall with its bell tower under construction down the street. That was his goal, that was where he would find the architect of all the upheaval this once quiet town had found itself embroiled in.
He watched as Crewson, the blacksmith, fired his army-issue rifle and one of the Peace Officers fell to his knees screaming, the side of his head a bleeding, crimson mess. Crewson got off another shot and dropped a second man before he dove for cover. The blacksmith had been one man Riker hadn’t needed to worry about as the man had told him as a younger man he’d served in the army before he had crossed the ocean from Scandinavia.
Then Callie, beautiful Callie, popped up from one of the wagons behind the Peace Officers' original position. Several of Dalton's men had already turned to run back in that direction and she fired the Union army service revolver she clutched at the same time one of the men shot at her. The wood of the wagon splintered up into her face, but she shot again, without flinching. The man shooting at her jerked backward as his head exploded apart. Riker gave a grim smile and gunned down another man headed towards the wagon. When he kissed the earth, Callie lay back down in the wagon. Riker smiled at her and then ducked under the wagon next to hers and began to dodge his way through the throng of whinnying, agitated horses heading for his ultimate destination … the town hall.
Behind him, one of the gang turned to shoot at McKenna, but she was having none of it and rolled to the side. The dirt puffed up around her as the shots came close. McKenna was at a bad angle for a return shot and came up short near the head of the alley. She brought her gun up, turning to the desperadoes and fired as a bullet whizzed past her head. Her opponent's fingers released their grip on his Smith and Wesson, instantly, clutching his shoulder as the bullet penetrated his flesh.
The man next to him swung around to shoot at her, but she was ready this time and delivered a blast of her Colt .45 directly into his gut as blood sprayed like a fountain from the frothing wound. He staggered to the left but managed to stay on his feet, raising his gun again. Man and woman fired at the same time and the shards of wood exploded from the wall behind her pelting McKenna, but her bullet took the guy in the heart, killing him instantly and unceremoniously.
Her attention was suddenly drawn towards the sound of two men fighting not far from her. McKenna almost fired but they were moving too fast for her to draw a bead on the Peace Officer without risking hitting the vigilante who was a baker in town she recalled training that went by the name of Wainright. The man had proved to have great difficulty handling a gun, so it appeared he had abandoned using his, perhaps more comfortable with a knife given his profession and was slashing at Dalton's man managing to get a couple of good cuts across the man's chest. McKenna raised her gun to attempt to aid him again when she came under fire and was forced to retreat behind a rain barrel.
Returning fire, she punched two shots through a man's stomach who was shooting at her from the steps of Johann's church. When she turned her attention back to the baker she gasped as she saw the both he and the Peace Officer was down on the ground, but the criminal had wrestled the knife away from him and was just in the process of burying it in the baker's heart as the man's body jerked and his legs kicked. McKenna cried out in anger as one of her slugs blasted through the skull of the knife-wielding man.
Above her, McKenna heard someone shout Wainwrights' name having just seen his friend was dead. She glanced up to the roof over the leather shop and saw the proprietor standing frozen in grief, the cavalry rifle extended but no longer firing. She saw that she wasn't the only one whose attention had been drawn to the man as across the street a Peace Officer outside the post office raised his weapon upward. A shot rang out and clutching his chest, the leather worker stiffened and slowly toppled off the roof t
o land with a thud in the dusty road as his murderer ducked back inside the post office. McKenna cursed, wishing the battle would end before any more of the citizens had to forfeit their lives and what of her brother?
She glanced wildly around, looking for Riker in the chaos and spotted him through the milling horses rolling under the final barrier of wagons. It was no surprise as she'd learned he'd developed a seething hatred for Dalton while she was away in Pine Bluff and Pepper Hill. She knew Nash would get to Dalton even if Satan himself tried bar the way.
As Riker completed his roll and emerged with a clear and unobstructed path to the town hall tucked between the two towering pines his thoughts were indeed on the criminal Dalton and all he had done to the town that carried his own name. All for this grand scheme, the dying Ramírez had relayed to him.
As he rose to his feet, he looked back past the two barriers of wagons as the battle raged. He could see Luther hit a man in the face with the butt of his shotgun. That man went down on one knee and fell over to the side, clutching his broken face, leaving Riker to whistle. Luther was strong, he reminded himself, despite his age.
"Mr. Beckett look out!" he heard Mckenna shout as another Peace Officer was running up behind him as his sister swung her Colt around. Luther blocked her aim and she couldn't get a shot off but could only watch the drama unfold as Riker was. Luther turned and ducked as the fraudulent lawman tried to pistol whip him and then stand up straight, shoving the man back. He then shot his gun from the hip and the blast took the bad man in the chest and he flew backward, dead, Riker reckoned reasonably.
With no further delay, Riker's feet carried him down the street at a dead run when the angry whine of a bullet sounded in his ears as a shot buzzed past his head and his instincts told him to hit the ground. Riker rolled up against another nearby water trough, quickly scrambling behind it. Looking over it he could see Bryant was getting up from crawling under the same wagon Riker had gone under. Damn, he thought. If it wasn't one thing, it was another. Lead flew hot and loud from his newly acquired cavalry pistol, but Bryant managed to make it across the street from Riker and secured himself a position behind his own water trough.
“You’re a dead man Riker!” Bryant shouted. Riker stayed down now, letting his adversary stew. He didn’t answer. There was a long pause and Riker reloaded, as he waited.
"You'll never succeed Riker. You have no idea what you're up against!" Bryant yelled next. Riker bit his tongue to keep from yelling an answer. Instead, he rolled onto his back and took his hat, that had fallen off when he went prone behind the trough and lifted it up. As he raised it, a bullet tore through. He cursed silently as only a single shot rang out. He's hoped Bryant would take the bait and mimic Jet Langston by emptying his entire chamber allowing Riker to get the drop on him. Nice, now my hat has a hole in it for nothing he grumbled to himself, thinking he might as well just lost it during the mad canoe ride down Dalton's Creek.
"You're done, Bryant! Your boys are dropping like flies back there," not being able to help himself Riker shouted back without showing himself, keeping his ears peeled. The sound of gunfire was dwindling out and Riker was sure it meant that his ragtag defense force was winning the day.
“You think this is all we got!” Bryant yelled back.
“I know it is. The Beckett’s gave me a pretty good number of the men you have and that’s not counting the pair I buried out in the woods hours ago!”
Bryant fell silent and Riker could hear Luther, Crewson and the others calling out for the surrender of the Peace Officers. A sudden final burst of gunfire erupted in what had to be a last stand. The sound of a barrage of return fire from weapons whose sounds he knew was military issue was a testament to the citizens of Dalton's Creek's new diligence in cleaning up their town.
“I’m gonna see you dead Riker!”
Riker didn’t answer and kept his ears peeled as he listened to one final shot from down the street.
"What's wrong with you, Riker?! Where's the tough guy at you make yourself out to be?!" Bryant tried. Riker smiled. Here we go, he thought. Soon now, he tightened his grip on his six-shooter.
“What are you a coward!? Too scared for a real fight?” Bryant goaded, clearly hoping to lure Riker into some rash action that would prove fatal for him. It was time to turn the tables and give Bryant some of the same.
“You’re just a yellow belly, just like your friend Farley was! Real big men aren’t you pushing around a bunch of peaceful townsfolk and then trying to blow them up in a church no less. Problem was you’re so yellow you didn’t’ even have the courage to come out and be the one to set off that TNT!”
As soon as he closed his mouth, Riker heard it. Feet were running from across the street.
Riker sat up, turning towards the sound of the footsteps. Turning his head, he saw Bryant almost halfway towards him. He constricted his finger on the trigger as Bryant fired and he felt his hair move a second before he fired one, then two shots. The first blew away the fleshy area above the man's collar bone and the second pegged him square right between the eyes. It knocked Bryant off his feet and Riker jumped up. For a brief moment, his gaze held the image of Bryant's head and a large pooling puddle of blood.
"That's for Captain McBride, all the others and anyone who dies here today." He said his voice a cold hissing sound before he spun around and resumed his race towards the town. With all the commotion, Dalton would be panicking. He didn't want him to get away. He really didn’t like that man.
As the doors to the town hall loomed large before him, he heard a cheer go up from the people, McKenna and Callie's voices among them. They had won that battle and saved the day. Riker felt proud of them as his hands fell on the brass doorknobs on the double oak doors. Time to end this, he thought grimly, yet with a smile.
CHAPTER 45
Reaching the top of the stairs, Riker lifted his right boot in the air and let fly a savage kick that nearly tore the door off its hinges amid the sound of splintering wood from the door frame. With his gun drawn, he burst into the parlor shouting
“Grab some sky now!”
As he had bolted up the stairs, he hadn't felt much in the way of a threat from Dalton and Crockett. His assessment of them from their first encounter was they were card-carrying cowards who were content to let others take risks and do the dirty work for them. What he hadn't been prepared for was the sight of a man-mountain in a well-tailored suit who was swinging his weapon towards him. Riker caught a flash out of the corner of his eye as he snapped his gun in the man's direction and they both fired, but the China man had a split-second lead in pulling the trigger.
First, the China man’s bullet blasted its way into the flesh of the man’s back and then Riker’s shot struck the man in his chest, perforating his heart, killing him instantly. The body of Judge Crockett, who had been the flash Riker had seen as the man had attempted to flee had panicked and gone in the worst possible direction—right into the line of fire between the two gunmen.
Crockett’s body jerked backward propelled by the power of Riker’s higher caliber slug that was far stronger than the big man’s pistol. The judge’s corpse smashed into the Chinaman, staggering him, giving Riker the advantage to unleash a roundhouse kick striking the man in his wrist and sending his gun flying away only to land under a table Dalton kept in one corner of the room.
The colossal man glared at Riker and looked like he was going to charge at him, but Riker held the gun pointed directly at the man's forehead. To his right, he saw a slender man with glasses seated in one of the chairs turn his head towards them and almost with disinterest gave what could only have been a command in Chinese. Instantly, the other man dropped his arms to his side and stepped back with a sudden impassive look on his face.
Still keeping his gun trained on the man, Riker looked over to the other man and to the Mayor. Dalton had his back pressed to the wall and looked like he was close to being in shock, his eyes cast downwards to the body of Crockett who was bleeding out all
over Dalton’s fine Persian rug. Riker turned his attention back to the stranger.
“I told Chang to cease hostilities with you. I have no quarrel with you.”
I wouldn’t be so sure about that. You don’t even know who I am.”
"In name I do not," the man said as he put aside his teacup and rose to give Riker a bow. "But from the sounds out on the street, you are likely the leader of those who would oppose the mayor's plans to depopulate the town. I am Chao Tzen."
“Marshal Nash Riker.”
“Marshal?” This seemed to draw Dalton out of his stupor as he stood there blinking at him. “You’re a marshal?”
“The only real law in this town. Now get your hands up. All of you!”
Slowly the men complied, including Chang who followed Tzen's lead. Riker kept an eye on them as he moved towards the table and spied the numerous photographs of the town. There was even a large map spread out, showing every structure in the town and the outlying areas like the Becketts' ranch. He knew McKenna would be impressed with the detail of the drawing. Using his free hand, he snatched the map up, sending photographs drifting to the floor.
“So, this is what it’s all about. Confirms what one of your Peace Officers said with his dying breath. If you’re counting, that’s twice now that I’ve learned things as your men were about to pass into hell.” He shook the map in his hands. “Speaking of hell, this is a hell of an audacious scheme you had going on here. Attempting to rid the town down to the last man so you could lease their properties to city slickers!”
Seemingly to have gotten over the shock of Crockett’s death, Dalton suddenly had fire back in his belly as he straightened and shook his head. “You’re damn right it is, Riker. City people yearn to leave it behind and move to simpler places like this. But you know what’s stopping them? Basic skills. Most of them couldn’t swing a hammer if their life depended on it. How would they manage to build homesteads for themselves? Where would they even live while they built their new home? Then what if they didn’t like it after living in the countryside for a spell? They’d be stuck!”
Six-Guns Or Surrender (Lincoln's Lawman Book 1) Page 27
