“What are you suggesting, man?” Benedict said testily.
“Tom wants to give himself up to them, Duke.”
They all turned as Rachel Arnell emerged from the shadows. They saw that the woman who hadn’t shed a tear throughout the day was weeping now.
“Don’t let him do it, Duke, Hank,” she begged. “Please …”
“Food is on the table—” Dixie called, coming to the door, then fell silent as she grew aware of the tension by the bar.
“Of course he won’t do it,” Benedict said sharply. “We need every fighting man we have, Marshal. We don’t need any heroes.”
“I’m not being heroic, Duke, and I’m not doing it for you or the others, much as you might deserve it,” Fallon said evenly. “I’m doing it for Rachel. And there’s not one of you who can stop me.”
“The hell there isn’t—” Flint started angrily, but broke off as Fallon lifted his gun and trained it on Flint’s chest.
“I mean it,” the lawman said. “When Shacklock kidnapped Rachel, he had two objectives; to force Arnell to resign, and to make me surrender to him. Well, the governor is still governor, but having lost as many men as he has, I’m hoping Shacklock will cut his losses and accept my surrender on the condition that he lets Rachel go.”
“You’re thinkin’ muddle-headed, Marshal,” Brazos protested. “Them butchers ain’t about to quit no how!”
“The train isn’t coming, Hank,” Fallon replied, and it was the first time anyone had put their deepest fear into words. “Maybe it’s a slender hope, but at least it is a hope.” His eyes turned to Rachel. “Goodbye, my dear.”
The woman flung herself at him and Caleb Flint saw his chance. Moving fast, the gun packer chopped to the head with the gun barrel and Fallon crashed to the floor. Instantly, Rachel whirled on Flint, beating futile fists against his barrel chest until Benedict seized her arms and drew her back.
“Stop it, Rachel!” Benedict said. “It was the only way to save his fool neck.”
Immediately Rachel went limp and began sobbing softly as Benedict turned her towards him. Caleb Flint stared wonderingly at the weeping woman in silence for a long moment, and a subtle but vital change seemed to cross his face. It was as if a shield had been removed, revealing the real man for the first time.
But then the big gunfighter spoke harshly.
“Fallon was right, Benedict. It’s only a matter of time now. The train isn’t comin’ and we’re dead unless we come up with somethin’.”
Benedict didn’t answer, though he knew it was so. So too did Hank Brazos, whose chief concern was how Bullpup was going to survive in a hostile world when he was dead and gone. Dixie also knew the truth of it, but characteristically hid her feelings behind a casual, “Chow’s on if anybody’s interested.” Flint spoke again, still staring at Rachel.
“There’s a way, better than the marshal’s ... ” His voice faded, he lifted his eyes to Benedict, then to Brazos. When he continued, his voice was totally emotionless. “They don’t know about the tunnel. If they did they’d have tried to make use of it. Our horses have had all day to rest up, and if Shacklock hasn’t shifted them, then you fellers, the marshal and the womenfolk could put some long, far-apart tracks behind you north along the railroad. The train ain’t here yet, but it might be on the way. Mebbe you’d have the head start to catch it, providin’ Shacklock was held up here long enough.”
“How?” Brazos demanded.
“Kain don’t know it’s me in here with you,” Flint said. “I planned it that way ever since we left Drum. I didn’t want him knowin’ I was about on account—”
Flint broke off as a fresh volley of fire broke the night. All crouched down by the bar, then rose slowly as the rifles stuttered into silence again. Flint nodded grimly.
“On account it might have limited my chances of gettin’ close to Holly,” he continued. “What Callaway said before he croaked proves they don’t know I’m here. So that means we’ve got ourselves a ready-made surprise for Kain and Holly, and maybe that’s just what we need to buy time so you folks can make good your run-out.”
“I’m not following, Flint,” Benedict said.
“Simple. I’ll stand them off while you make it to the livery, then I’ll show myself. Sure, Kain and the boys have had me tagged as a Judas since Dodge, but to them I’ve been a dead Judas. They’re goin’ to be mighty surprised to see me still alive!”
For a long, stunned moment, nobody spoke. Then Fallon groaned and sat up holding his head. Rachel knelt quickly at his side and Brazos said:
“Let me get this straight, gunfighter. You’re fixin’ to do the same foolish thing the marshal was talkin’ about?”
“Foolish is the right word, Texas,” Flint replied with a strange smile. “The difference between me and the marshal though, is that when the powder does start to burn, I’ll take a hell of a lot more of them with me than he could.”
“Loco,” Brazos said, trying to hide his astonishment. “Right, Yank?”
“Wrong.”
Brazos gaped. “What?”
Benedict’s face was bland as he studied Flint. “Flint’s idea is excellent,” he said briskly. “I suggest we act on it immediately.”
There was a deal of argument and indecision after that, but ultimately the combined resolve of Benedict and Flint wore them down, and Brazos, Dixie, Fallon and Rachel Arnell gathered up their guns and what was left of their ammunition, made their somber farewells to Caleb Flint, then headed for the cellar.
“Johnny Reb, send Tom ahead to the stables with the women,” Benedict ordered. “You wait for me in the cellar. I want a last word with Flint.”
As confused as if he had just witnessed the spectacle of a leopard changing its spots before his very eyes, Brazos nodded slowly, snapped his fingers to Bullpup, then followed the others to the cellar stairs.
Two tall men, one built like a bludgeon, the other a rapier, faced across ten feet of gun smoke and shadow. It was Benedict who finally broke the pregnant silence.
“What happened, Flint? Or can I guess?”
“You talk too much, Benedict. I told you that before.”
“And I thought I was wasting my time ... all that talking. But I wasn’t, was I, gunslinger? You made yourself look at Tom and Rachel honestly and you realized they do love one another, that love does exist, despite what happened to you.”
“If words were bullets you’d have had this fight won long ago, mister.”
“You see the marshal and Rachel as you and the girl who threw you over,” Benedict went on, as though the other hadn’t spoken. “Only they’ve made you believe there’s something more to life than hate. They’ve shown you that some people care for more than number one, and because it’s something you’ve always secretly believed in deep down, you’re looking for the chance to show that Caleb Flint can still care about others, too.”
“Look, mister, if you’re tryin’ to talk me out of this—”
“Of course not,” Benedict broke in. “I said yours was a far better suggestion than Fallon’s and I meant it.” He nodded casually. “Give us ten minutes, Flint. If your appearance draws all the gunfighters, then we should stand an excellent chance of getting out of town undetected.” He threw a casual salute. “Luck, gunfighter.”
“Don’t shed any tears, Benedict,” Caleb Flint murmured with heavy irony when he had gone. Then gun in hand, he headed for the windows.
The lantern in Brazos’ hand guided Benedict’s steps down the cellar stairs. The big Texan’s face looked taut and pale by the sickly yellow light as he glanced upwards in the direction of the barroom.
“So, he’s goin’ to do it, Yank?”
“Yes, indeed. What do they say about not being able to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear?”
Brazos frowned hard. “Them’s hard words for a man who’s throwin’ himself to the dogs just so’s we can leave, Benedict.”
“True enough, true enough,” Benedict said airily. Then in an insta
nt his whole expression changed and there was steel in his gray eyes as he looked at the Texan across the smoking light. “But of course we aren’t leaving, are we, Johnny Reb?”
Brazos’ honest face lightened.
“We ain’t?”
Benedict shook his head. “I think it’s safe to say at this juncture that—indeed we ain’t.”
Chapter Twelve – End of the Hate
RIFLE LEAD PLOWED through the shattered window of the Taloga General Store, slammed into the plank walls, crashed through the pots and pans that hung over the counter. Waiting for the sounds to diminish, Kain Shacklock lifted his shotgun, squinted along the twin barrels and started a slow squeeze of the triggers.
Moments later, the bellow of the Greener erupted and glass burst across the street inside the besieged Last Hope. Immediately a rifle answered. The shot came from a different window, but Holly was certain it was the same sharp spanging Henry that he’d been hearing for several minutes now.
Shacklock glanced at Holly as he reloaded. “What’s up, Holly?” he grinned. “Gone tired in the gun-arm?” They were finally on good terms again, trusting one another. Shacklock had kept Holly at his side long enough for Holly to have been forced to open up on the saloon. Once this had happened, Holly had given up hope of quitting the Drum pack and reuniting with Fallon. He was now even more strongly committed to total victory over the Last Hope’s defenders than even Shacklock, for while one of Fallon’s bunch remained alive, there was the chance that they might get to tell Shacklock of his plot with Fallon to bring Drum down.
Holly didn’t intend that anybody, man or woman, should leave the Last Hope alive. Yet as he studied the embattled saloon now, suspicion was strengthening in his mind that some had already left.
“You with us, Holly?” grinned Monroe McGuire. Monroe had forgiven and forgotten also, for apart from any other consideration, Holly had again proved himself top-gun amongst their talented ranks throughout the day-long siege, with two certain kills and two probable woundings to his credit.
Hatless, his golden hair glowing and his face mask sheening in the reflected street light, Holly turned to them with sudden decision.
“There’s only one man returnin’ our fire,” he said.
“The hell you say!” Shacklock snorted.
“Watch,” Holly instructed, then angling his Colt over the sill, slammed two shots through the window to the left of the saloon’s front doors.
Instantly, fire came snaking back, and uncommonly accurate fire it was too. But the retaliatory lead came from just the window, and when Holly squeezed off another two shots, the return fire spat from a different position, but still only one gun answered.
Breaking open his smoking Colt and thumbing fresh shells from his belt, Holly looked at Shacklock.
“What do you reckon now, Kain?”
“By hell, it seems like you’re right,” Shacklock breathed. “But what does it mean? They’re either runnin’ out of shells or they’re more shot up than we figured or—”
“Or they’re up to somethin’ crafty,” Holly broke in. “Fallon’s a smart bastard, Kain, you ought to know that.”
Shacklock knew that all right. Of all the Territorial lawmen he’d had experience with, Tom Fallon stood out as the toughest and cleverest, so much so in fact, that Shacklock had insisted on making Fallon part of the deal when he’d first hatched the kidnap plot with Jake Larsen and Foley Whitney. Shacklock had virtually resigned himself to the fact that Rachel Arnell would not survive the siege, and therefore the more grandiose part of the plot—the governor’s abdication—would not be achieved. But Kain Shacklock would spill the last drop of Drum blood to see Fallon dead at his feet. But as Holly had suggested, he didn’t expect Tom Fallon just to lie down and die when the time came. That wasn’t his style.
“You got any ideas, Holly?” he asked tensely.
Holly opened his mouth to reply, but as he did, two sharp shots sounded from the saloon, followed by a shout.
“Kain! Are you still breathin’, Kain?”
An astonished murmur swept through the store where seven of the Drum force were concentrated. Astonished gunmen stared at one another in the half light. That voice had sounded uncommonly familiar!
Kain Shacklock banged the side of his head with the heel of his hand.
“Must be sufferin’ from gunshot blast,” he muttered. “That sounded just like Caleb Flint.”
“Shacklock!” the voice boomed out again, and there could be no mistaking it this time. That was the voice of Iron Man Flint himself, and all around the Last Hope now, guns were being lowered and heads were lifting to stare unbelievingly through the gun smoke.
While in the general store, behind his concealing silver mask, Holly’s ruined face went pale as death: the face of a man confronted by a ghost. His lean body shook, he fought for control and tightly gripped his gleaming guns.
Shacklock rose on his knees. “Caleb?” he called.
“I’m comin’ out, Kain!” Flint answered. “Empty-handed. I got some things to tell you, Kain!”
Before Shacklock could reply, the saloon’s tall front doors opened and the batwings swung outwards. Then an unmistakable figure appeared on the littered porch, and the men of Drum, with one stunned exception, found themselves staring at Caleb Flint again for the first time in two long years.
“Ain’t no ghost,” Shacklock said wonderingly. And then surprise was swiftly giving way to anger as he lifted his shotgun and eased to his feet.
“You said you got somethin’ to say, Caleb!” he shouted. “Better make it fast, on account I ain’t forgettin’ Dodge City—and mebbe I’m beginnin’ to understand how come your pards have made it so hard for us now ... ”
He broke off at the sound of a sucked intake of breath at his side and was barely quick enough to knock down Holly’s lifted Colt as the man squeezed trigger. The bullet slammed into the street, sending up a puff of yellow dust.
“Is that Holly?” Flint guessed, immobile and rock-like under all those deadly guns. “Yeah, I reckon that’s him. And—Kain, he’s got mortal good cause to cut me down before I can speak up, on account he’s the real Judas and he’s the one who brought Fallon in—”
“No!” Shacklock yelled as Holly jerked up his gun again.
But there was no stopping Holly this time. Ghost, or flesh and blood man out there, he had to silence Caleb Flint before the Iron Man buried him.
Holly’s six-guns smoked and red tracers of death leapt across the street. The range was a hundred feet and Holly didn’t miss that close. There were days when he was so good that he couldn’t miss. But the silver-masked figure at Kain Shacklock’s side was not the ice-cold Holly of old, but a man shaken as he had never been.
One slug ripped into Flint’s left shoulder and the second scored his thigh, tolerable shooting by some standards but miserable by the vaunted standards of a man like Holly. And before he could trigger again, Caleb Flint had spun and thrown himself headlong through the doors to roll violently to one side as a storm of lead came homing in on all sides.
He came erect to see the barroom flaring in the gun flashes of the six-guns of Hank Brazos and Duke Benedict.
Flint could not understand it. Not any of it. And the best he could get out of Benedict as the Last Hope rocked again to the boom of guns and shook to the impact of lead was a casual, smiling confession:
“This hero business must be catching!”
Brazos’ six-gun kicked hard against the heel of his hand and drove lead dead center into the menacing shape coming towards him across the littered floor of the saloon’s big back room. He fired again but the figure kept coming, making no sound, seeming as insubstantial as the air itself.
The Texan gritted his teeth and was about to shoot again when he realized that he had just wasted two precious bullets on nothing more substantial than a vertical plume of gun smoke that was now dissolving before his eyes.
The gun was lowered to hang from a limp wrist. A rasping pink ton
gue licked his hand and a pair of faithful yellow eyes stared up at him without understanding.
Absently, Brazos rubbed Bullpup’s head and listened to the Last Hope tremble to the six-gun assault. The last assault. He could tell that by the pattern of the fire, by the close shouting and the stutter of bootheels on the porch.
It was almost over.
He didn’t regret the .32 slug that had ripped through his lower ribcage and cost him a lot of blood, any more than he regretted the decision he and Benedict had made an hour earlier to send the others on and to stay back with Flint to buy them as much time as they could. He’d always hoped to go out with style, and there was style aplenty to be found in the closing hour of the siege of Taloga now, with Benedict and Flint, both shot up but both still making a fight of it, burning powder in the barroom and himself still able to account for a few more when they came in through the back door.
If he regretted anything at all, it was that they hadn’t been able to take Holly with them. It would be almost easy to die, now that he’d adjusted to the idea, knowing that the butcher had gone on ahead ...
The guns were growing louder now and he knew the last minutes had come. Ignoring the throbbing pain in his side, he got to his feet and started for the door. He staggered and crashed against the wall with a crescendo of sound filling his head, the gun song so high-pitched that it sounded like the clanging of a great bell.
He shook his head to clear it. No bells in Taloga. Just a man’s last minutes to be shared with as good a pard as any illiterate Texan had ever had—even if he was a heel-clicking dude. And another man too, who had earned the big name of friend ...
The door seemed an impossible distance away, while the shooting and that damned phantom bell kept growing louder and louder. And now he could hear men screaming outside the bullet torn walls of the Last Hope, like a revival hall full of repentant sinners in torment.
Why should the Drum killers scream? he thought dully. If anybody had cause to scream, it was he.
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