Dead Before Sundown

by William W. Johnstone

  Frank couldn’t argue with that. Hundreds of lives might be at stake. But Meg meant a lot to him, so he planned to do everything in his power to keep Palmer alive until the varmint led them to her.

  So far Frank hadn’t seen anybody he recognized. Neither had Salty or Reb.

  “There’s too dang many people here,” Salty said. “It’s like tryin’ to pick one ant outta a dang anthill.”

  “Just keep watching,” Frank said.

  He wasn’t the sort of hombre to get discouraged, but he had to admit that the odds of spotting Palmer and trailing him to the Métis and those Gatling guns were small. Frank had bucked plenty of long odds in the past, though, and was still here to tell about it.

  Folks had come from all over to attend this rodeo and exposition. Horses were tied everywhere there was a place to loop their reins, and scores of buggies, buckboards, and even some covered wagons were parked near the arena. The sound of happy, excited voices filled the air on this beautiful summer day.

  Frank just hoped that screams of pain and terror wouldn’t replace those happy voices before the day was over.

  “We should tell the Mounties,” Joseph said, although the idea of turning to the constables for help was repulsive to him. This wasn’t the first time he had made the suggestion.

  “No,” Charlotte said. “We have to give Anton a chance to see that he’s wrong.”

  “He’s not going to—”

  Joseph stopped. Arguing with his sister was a waste of time. Even after everything Mirabeau had done, she couldn’t bring herself to betray him.

  From behind them, Palmer said, “You two stop wrangling and take me to him. I don’t care what he does, I just want the gold.”

  Joseph glanced over his shoulder. Palmer’s hand was under his coat, and Joseph knew that hand gripped the butt of a gun. He and Charlotte had gone from being in the clutches of one madman to another. But where Mirabeau was obsessed with avenging the Métis who had lost their lives in the past rebellions, Palmer’s only thought was of the gold.

  “He won’t have all of it,” Joseph said. “I told you that. Some of it went to purchase the wagons.”

  “Then I’ll take what he has,” Palmer said. “Keep moving.”

  The three of them made their way through the thickening crowds. Palmer had held them prisoner since finding them in the hotel room the night before. He had freed Charlotte long enough to bind up Joseph’s broken wrist, but that was all the medical attention he had received. The wrist still hurt like blazes, and his hand had gone numb.

  After that, Palmer had bound and gagged Charlotte again so that he could get some sleep. They had stayed like that until a short time earlier, when he had finally untied Charlotte and had her untie Joseph in turn. Then he had marched them at gunpoint down here to the rodeo arena in Victoria Park.

  Joseph hadn’t told Palmer exactly where to find Mirabeau. If he had done that, then Palmer wouldn’t have needed to keep them alive anymore. Joseph was confident Palmer would have slit their throats and left them at the hotel.

  Palmer was a fool. Mirabeau wasn’t going to turn over the gold to Palmer. He wouldn’t care that Palmer was holding the two of them hostage. But maybe Palmer’s intrusion would disrupt Mirabeau’s bloodthirsty plans. That was the only hope Joseph clung to.

  Joseph saw the canvas-covered prairie schooner up ahead. He turned to Palmer and nodded toward the wagon.

  “There,” he said.

  A greedy smile creased Palmer’s face. “All right,” he said. “Go ahead. And if Mirabeau wants the two of you alive, he’d damn well better do what I say.”

  That was where Palmer had made his fatal mistake, Joseph thought.

  Anton Mirabeau didn’t care about life. His only concern was death.

  * * *

  Frank climbed to the top of the grandstand, leaving Salty and Reb to keep searching lower down. The broad brim of his Stetson shaded his eyes as he looked from one end of the arena to the other. He still didn’t see Palmer anywhere, but another thought had cropped up in his mind.

  The Métis couldn’t just attach those Gatling guns to their carriages, roll the rapid-firers into place, and start shooting. People would see the guns and panic long before the first shot went off. They would have to hide the Gatlings somehow in order to get them close enough for the massacre they had planned.

  He and his friends still didn’t know for sure that the revolutionaries were going to strike at the rodeo, Frank reminded himself. But it seemed like such a perfect opportunity that he didn’t see how they could pass it up.

  The Gatling guns were pretty big. Frank recalled that the guards at Yuma Prison had had one mounted on a wagon. There were a lot of wagons parked near the arena. He turned to look toward one end of the grandstand….

  And there was Joe Palmer, following a man and a woman toward a big prairie schooner with an arching canvas cover over its bed.

  Frank’s eyes narrowed as he peered into the shadows under that cover. Something was in the back of the wagon, something bulky under another sheet of canvas.

  “Blast it,” Frank breathed. He knew he was looking at one of the Gatling guns. There was something else in the back of the wagon, he realized, probably a second rapid-firer.

  He jerked his head toward the other end of the grandstand, saw an identical wagon parked there, angled so that if the other two Gatling guns were in there, they could fire through the canvas cover, tearing it to shreds in seconds, and rake their deadly claws right across the crowded stands.

  Frank cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Salty!”

  The old-timer didn’t hear him at first over all the noise coming from the crowd. Frank yelled again, and this time Salty looked up.

  “The Conestoga!” Frank shouted as he waved a hand toward the big wagon. “The Conestoga!”

  Salty jerked his head in a nod and took off at a run, weaving his way awkwardly through the crowd. He couldn’t move too fast because of the wound in his side and the press of people all around him, but he hurried as much as he could.

  Frank didn’t see Reb, but he knew the young Army officer was around somewhere. He made his way down the grandstand as quickly as possible, taking more than one step at a time and dodging around people arriving for the rodeo.

  When Frank reached the ground, he spotted McKendrick. “Sergeant!” he called. “I’ve found what we’re looking for.”

  He didn’t want to yell out anything about Gatling guns. That might start a stampede in which innocent people would be hurt or killed.

  McKendrick joined him. “Where?” the Mountie asked sharply.

  “In that wagon over there. There’s another one at the other end of the grandstand. I sent Salty down there.”

  “That old man?”

  “He’s a lot tougher than you think he is.”

  McKendrick reached for the whistle attached to his red coat. “I must summon reinforcements.”

  Frank grabbed his arm and jerked him into motion. “We can handle this ourselves!”

  “You’re insane,” McKendrick muttered, but he came along.

  Frank had lost sight of Palmer, but the man had to still be around somewhere. As he and McKendrick approached the wagon, some sort of scuffle suddenly broke out at the rear of it. Frank threw himself forward in a run.

  A shot roared.

  Mirabeau stared at Joseph and Charlotte in shock as they came up to the back of the wagon. He looked as if he was about to reach under the canvas to grasp the Gatling gun’s crank.

  “Take it easy, Mirabeau,” Palmer said. “I don’t want any trouble. You can see I’ve got your friends. Give me the rest of that gold, whatever you’ve got left, and I’ll let them go.”

  “You’re one of Lundy’s men!” Mirabeau exclaimed. “I thought you were all dead.”

  “I’m my own man,” Palmer snapped, “and I want that loot.”

  Mirabeau laughed. “You’re insane. The gold means nothing now. Anyway, it’s long gone. I brought what
I needed to buy these wagons, then sent one of my men back into the mountains with the rest of it. It will support our cause for a long time.”

  “You mean you don’t even have it anymore?” Palmer asked as his lips drew up into a snarl.

  “That is exactly what I mean.”

  “You lie! I’ll kill these two—”

  “Go ahead.” Mirabeau turned back to the gun. “Now I have work to do.”

  Joseph knew this was his last chance to stop the massacre. He turned suddenly and threw himself at Palmer. His right hand was useless for firing a gun, but he could still swing that arm like a club. He smashed a blow across Palmer’s face and grabbed for the man’s gun with his left hand.

  The attack by a supposedly crippled man took Palmer by surprise. As he staggered back a step, Joseph wrenched the gun out of his hand and whirled around, lifting the weapon toward Mirabeau as he tried to get his finger through the trigger guard.

  He was too late. Mirabeau had seen what was happening and jerked the canvas off the Gatling gun so he could swivel it around. Joseph found the trigger and fired, the sound of the shot not really all that loud with all the noise of the crowd around them.

  Then the Gatling gun began to chatter and spit fire, and Joseph felt himself being driven backward as his flesh shredded under the leaden onslaught.

  At the other end of the grandstand, Salty saw Reb and waved a hand at him. “The wagon!” the old-timer yelled. “They’re in that wagon!”

  Reb fell in alongside him. “Where’s Frank?”

  “Goin’ after the guns at the other end.”

  “Split up,” Reb ordered. “You take the front, I’ll take the back end. We’ll get ‘em in a cross fire.”

  “Better hurry. Ain’t no tellin’ when they’ll start the ball!”

  And just as if Fate were listening, chaos erupted at the other end of the grandstand. Shots churned out, dozens of rounds in a few seconds. The men in this wagon must have been waiting for that, because the canvas on the side facing Salty and Reb suddenly erupted in flame and lead, ripping apart to reveal the death-spewing weapons inside.

  “Hit the dirt!” Salty yelled. He hauled out his old revolver as he threw himself to the ground. Pain shot through him from the bullet crease in his side, but he ignored it.

  A few feet away, Reb’s ivory-handled Colt was already out and roaring. One of the Gatlings dipped toward him. Reb flung himself to the side and rolled as several dozen slugs kicked up dirt where he had been a second earlier. As he came up on a knee, he fired over the revolving barrels, squeezing off two swift shots. Both bullets hit the gunner in the face, erasing his features in a bloody smear as he was thrown backward. That rapid-firer fell silent.

  The other one still poured death toward the now shrieking and stampeding crowd. Salty gripped the wrist of his gun hand with his hand to steady it and fired. The man turning the devil gun’s crank doubled over as the old-timer’s bullets punched into his midsection. That gun stopped firing as well as the man collapsed.

  Hell was still roaring down at the other end of the arena, though.

  Frank’s Colt was in his hand even before the first shot rang out. When the Gatling began to fire and one of the men at the back of the wagon stumbled back as he was shot to pieces, Frank raised the revolver and triggered three shots, blasting the slugs right through the wagon’s canvas cover.

  At the same time, Sergeant McKendrick drew the revolver from the holster at his waist and leaped to the front seat of the vehicle. He fired through the opening there as the second Gatling gun began to roar. The gun was abruptly silenced.

  Not the one in the rear, though. The canvas ripped apart as whoever was manning the weapon swung it toward Frank. He dived flat as the slugs hammered through the air above him. The shredded canvas fluttered, giving Frank a glimpse of the man turning the crank. He was big and bearded, and his face was covered with blood. He looked positively satanic as he kept the Gatling pounding away.

  Another shot came from the rear of the wagon, almost unnoticed in the chaos. Frank glanced in that direction and saw that the woman had picked up the little pistol. Smoke curled from the muzzle, so he knew she had fired the shot.

  The man at the Gatling gun let go of the crank and lurched to his feet. One hand clutched at his neck where a bullet had torn through it. Blood flooded over his fingers. With his other hand, he reached for the rapid-firer’s crank, evidently determined to fire it even as he was dying.

  Frank stood up and shot him in the head.

  The man reeled back against the other side of the wagon’s canvas cover and then slid down it, leaving a crimson stain behind him.

  Frank turned his head to look for Palmer. The battle, eventful though it had been, had lasted only a minute or so.

  Palmer was gone. Frank’s heart sank when he realized that. Then a second later he spotted what looked like Palmer’s back as the man fled from the bloody chaos.

  “Morgan, what—” McKendrick called after him as Frank broke into a run.

  “Tell Salty and Reb I’ve gone after Palmer!” Frank shouted over his shoulder as he bulled his way through the crowd, trying desperately not to lose sight of his quarry.

  Chapter 33

  Everybody was trying to get away from the scene of the shooting, but the crowd thinned a little as Frank left the immediate area of the grandstand. He could see the man he was chasing better now, and he was sure it was Joe Palmer. The man glanced back, and Frank would have sworn that Palmer’s eyes widened with recognition.

  The hombre probably thought he was being chased by a ghost.

  Suddenly, Reb Russell flashed past Frank, so quickly it appeared almost as if the older man were standing still. Reb quickly closed the gap with Palmer and left his feet in a flying tackle that sent both of them spilling to the ground.

  By the time Frank caught up, Reb was on top of Palmer, slamming punches into the man’s face. “Where is she, damn you?” Reb demanded between clenched teeth. “Where is she?”

  Frank holstered his gun. He could get it out again quickly enough if he needed to … and it didn’t look like he would need to.

  Reb had just about pounded Palmer’s face into raw meat by now. Frank put a hand on the young man’s shoulder and said, “You’d better stop hitting him, Reb, or he won’t be able to talk at all. He might even be dead.”

  Reb stopped throwing punches and drew his gun instead. He jammed the muzzle up under Palmer’s jaw and said, “He’ll be dead, all right, if he doesn’t tell me where Meg is right now.”

  “A … a house,” Palmer began babbling. “Close by! I’ll … I’ll show you!”

  Salty, Sergeant McKendrick, and several more Mounties came hurrying up. “Get that man on his feet,” McKendrick ordered. “He’s under arrest.”

  Reb looked like he might argue the point, but he moved aside and let the Mounties take charge of Palmer.

  “He’s going to tell us where to find our friend Meg,” Frank said. “You can wait that long to take him to jail, can’t you, Sergeant?”

  “Very well,” McKendrick said. To Palmer, he said, “You, there. Lead us to your hostage, immediately.”

  “Jus’ … jus’ don’t let that madman near me again,” Palmer choked out through smashed lips.

  A few minutes later, at a house surrounded by aspens not far from Victoria Park, Meg rushed out onto the porch and into Reb’s arms while the woman who ran the place babbled to McKendrick about how she hadn’t known anything about Palmer kidnapping anybody, she’d just been doing a favor for a friend of a friend….

  The sergeant held up a hand to stop her. “Silence, madam,” he ordered. “Just be thankful that the young woman is all right. She is all right, isn’t she?”

  “She’s fine,” the woman insisted. “Nobody laid a hand on her, Sergeant, I swear. You can ask her yourself.”

  “I will, have no doubt about that.”

  Frank and Salty stood at the other end of the porch, thumbs hooked in their gunbelts, grinning as Reb
kissed Meg. Salty dug an elbow into Frank’s side and chuckled.

  “Looks like these young folks don’t need us old pelicans around no more,” he said.

  “I don’t reckon they ever really did,” Frank said with a smile.

  That evening, Frank and Salty sat in the lobby of the Drover’s Rest. Salty was smoking a big cigar he had gotten somewhere. Reb and Meg were in the dining room, having supper. Frank had figured it was a good idea to give them some privacy.

  “You see the way they was sparkin’ each other this afternoon?” Salty said between puffs on the “see-gar,” as he called it.

  “I saw,” Frank said solemnly.

  “I reckon Meg ain’t gonna be moonin’ over you no more.”

  “You knew about that?”

  Salty snorted. “Of course I knowed it. I ain’t blind, you know.”

  “She’ll be a lot better off with Captain Russell.”

  “No doubt about it. You’re too old to have much to offer to a gal like that. And I got to admit, I never was all that sold on the idea of her comin’ down to Mexico with us. Havin’ a gal along might sort’a cramp my style when it comes to the señoritas.”

  “Speaking of being too old to have much to offer,” Frank said drily.

  “Oh, there’s life in these old bones yet,” Salty insisted. He puffed on the cigar again, then sighed and went on, “I just wish I’d got my money back from Palmer.”

  After being saved from being beaten to death by Reb, Palmer had been eager to talk. He had freely confessed that he no longer had any of the loot he and Yeah Mow Hopkins had taken with them when they escaped from Skagway.

  “Hell, I lost most of it in a poker game while Yeah Mow was sleepin’ off a drunk in some whore’s bed, before we ever got to Powderkeg Bay,” Palmer had told them. “I never told Hopkins about it, because I knew as long as he thought I had the loot, I could get him to go along with anything I wanted while he was waiting for his share.”

  “You mean we chased you halfway across Canada for nothin’?” Salty had demanded in astonishment.