Ralph Compton Death Along the Cimarron

by Compton, Ralph

  Now Tuck Carlyle saw the wagon. “That’s it, all right. I wish Sheriff Wright was back. We’re going to get spread awfully thin here if we ain’t careful.”

  “This changes our plans,” said Danielle. “We can’t run the risk of going after Cherokee Earl and leaving the money or this town unguarded.” They watched the wagon stop out front of the bank. The two guards and the wagon driver stepped down and began opening a steel security box that stood bolted to the floor of the wagon.

  “Right,” said Tuck. “The first thing I better do now is let the townsmen know we’ve got trouble coming.”

  “You do that,” said Danielle. “I’ll go tell the wagon guards and driver the same thing.” As Danielle and Tuck turned from the window and headed for the door, she said, “There’s three more guns on our side.” They stepped out onto the boardwalk outside of the doctor’s office, and Tuck closed the door behind them.

  In the other room of the doctor’s office, Ellen Waddell heard the front door close. She sat halfway up, seeming startled, and said, “Doctor, was that Mr. Duggin and the deputy leaving? Where are they going?” Her eyes went to the rifle she’d clung to throughout her ordeal. “Hand me that, please,” she said, struggling to raise herself the rest of the way up from the cot. “I’ve got to get up from here and get busy.”

  Out front, Tuck said to Danielle, “I’ll hurry, Danny. As soon as I tell them there’s outlaws coming, I’ll—”

  “Save yourself the trouble, Tuck,” Danielle said, nodding toward Avery McRoy, who stood in his long riding duster and leaned against the front of a building. “The outlaws are here already.”

  “How in the world ... ?” Tuck’s voice trailed as the two of them sidestepped along the boardwalk, then down into the shelter of a narrow alley.

  “Cherokee Earl and his men must have doubled back along a side trail in the night,” said Danielle, scanning the street now for any other familiar outlaw faces. There’s Eddie Ray Moon,” she added, gesturing toward a stack of nail kegs out front of the town mercantile store across the street from where Avery McRoy stood with his head bowed, trying to go unnoticed. ”Earl and his men must’ve gotten them up right after we left this morning.”

  “He’s gotten ahead of us on knowing the money was arriving today,” said Tuck. “But how?”

  “I don’t know,” said Danielle. “But any minute now this street is going to turn into a battlefield.” As she spoke, they both saw Fat Cyrus and Clifford Reed stepping down from their horses at the edge of an alley that ran between the mercantile store and the barbershop. “Why didn’t they hit the wagon while it was on its way here?” Danielle asked.

  “Because they’re greedy,” said Tuck. “This way they hit the bank and get the money plus the silver.”

  Danielle nodded. “Then it will be their greed that causes their downfall.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Tuck said. He looked back and forth quickly, taking in the street. Then he said, “You stay here. I’ll circle around behind the buildings, get to the guards and let them know what’s about to happen.”

  “Go ahead,” said Danielle. “I’ll keep watch from here. As soon as I can get to my saddle without tipping our hand, I’ll get my rifle and keep this end of town covered.”

  “Be careful here, Danny,” Tuck said. Danielle only nodded as he turned and hurried away along the alley.

  “You too, Tuck,” Danielle whispered under her breath, scanning the street like a hawk. “I don’t want to lose you again.”

  Running in a crouch, keeping close to the side of the building, Tuck hurried to the long alley running behind the town. As soon as he knew there was little chance of being stopped from the street, he came out of the crouch and ran faster, his Colt in his hand. At the rear door of the bank, he pounded hard until he heard the voice of the bank manager say, “Who goes there?”

  “Mr. Scally! It’s me, Deputy Tuck Carlyle! Open the door, quick!”

  “Now see here, Deputy,” said the manager’s gruff voice. “I never open this door unless it is an extreme emergency!”

  “This is an extreme emergency!” Tuck said, trying to keep from shouting. “There’s a robbery about to take place!”

  “A robbery?” The manager’s voice sounded suddenly hushed and anxious. “One second, sir!” He shakily turned a key in the lock, then threw back a heavy steel door latch and swung the door open a few inches. “Now what are you talking about?” He stood blocking the door with his square, portly chest.

  “I’m coming in, Mr. Scally.” Tuck shoved the man back out of his way and stepped inside. On the other side of the room, the two guards stood holding their rifles at port arms. Upon seeing Tuck shove his way inside, they both leveled their rifles at him. “Easy, fellows, I’m on your side,” Tuck said, raising his hands chest high and at the same time nodding at the badge on his chest.

  “What’s going on, Deputy?” the bank manager asked.

  “There’s a gang in town, Mr. Scally,” said Tuck. “Don’t ask me how, but they knew the money was arriving today.” He looked at the two guards. “They’ll be coming any minute. I’ve got a man covering the other end of the street. He’ll move this way once the shooting starts.”

  “The shooting? Oh, my!” said the bank manager as if the possibility of getting shot had just crossed his mind. “What on earth shall I do?”

  “Get a gun,” Tuck said flatly.

  “I have no stomach for this sort of thing, Deputy,” said the manager. He placed a hand to his sweat-beaded forehead in anguish and terror.

  “Then take cover and stay out of our way,” Tuck said. “These guards and me will have our hands full.”

  “That’s right, mister,” said one of the guards, a tall raw-boned man with a sandy-red mustache. “We won’t have time to wet-nurse you.” As he spoke, he stepped over beside Tuck and looked out through the empty bank lobby to where the wagon driver stood staring out the front window. “Fred? How do things look out there?” the guard asked.

  “So far, so good,” said the wagon driver, a grizzled old teamster with a tobacco-stained beard.

  “All right then,” said the guard. He gave Tuck a smile of confidence and nodded. “Everything is under control.” But as he turned to step back over beside the other guard, his free hand snatched Tuck’s Colt from his holster. Before Tuck could react, the guard swung a hard blow with the pistol barrel and cracked Tuck across the side of his head, sending him to the floor.

  “Damn, Roy!” the other guard shouted. “What the hell are you doing?” As he asked, he swung his rifle barrel and pointed it at him. His thumb went across the hammer, ready to cock it.

  “Sorry, Smitty,” said guard Roy Sadler to the man who had been his partner for the past year. “You just got put out of work.” The rifle bucked in his hand. Smitty slammed backward against the door of the big vault, then slid down to the floor.

  “My God! Help!” the bank manager shrieked, throwing his hands up and cowering back against the vault door. His plea was directed at the wagon driver in the other room. “We’re being robbed!”

  “Is that the truth?” the old wagon driver called out, a slight chuckle to his voice.

  “Yep. It’s the truth, so help me,” Sadler replied, smoke curling up from his rifle barrel.

  The wagon driver called out. “What the hell happened back there? You wasn’t supposed to do any shooting until everybody got in here.”

  “I know it,” said Sadler, “but Smitty here had more guts than I thought. He was all set to cock and fire on me. I had to kill the idiot.”

  “Damn it, that rushes everything up too much,” said the wagon driver. “You could have slugged him. Why did you have to pull that damn trigger?”

  “It couldn’t be helped,” said Sadler. “I don’t like slugging a person. It’s bad on a gun barrel. Now wave Earl and the others in here, Fred.... Let’s get this damn thing done and clear out of town.” He turned to the terrified bank manager. “Old buddy, you better get that safe open like your life d
epends on it. Because it does.” He jammed the tip of his rifle into Scally’s big belly.

  “Oh dear, oh dear!” said the frightened bank manager, his trouser legs shaking along with his trembling knees. “My mind has gone blank on me. I’m too scared to remember the combination!”

  “Then you better take a few deep breaths, count to ten, and start remembering. Otherwise, I can’t think of any reason not to kill you right now.” He cocked the rifle. “I’ll even count to ten with you.” He pointed the rifle into Scally’s round belly. “One ... two ... three ...”

  “Wait! Please! Just give me a moment!” Scally pleaded. “It’s coming to me.... Yes, I think I remember now.” He turned to the vault and began quickly turning the combination dial. His fingers shook violently. Then he stopped twisting the dial, turned the steel door lever, and swung the big door open with both hands.

  Sadler grinned, looking inside the vault at stacks of silver bars in the middle of the floor and stacks of cash on shelves reaching almost to the ceiling. “I find that looking down a rifle barrel always jogs the memory.” He shoved the manager inside the large vault and into an empty corner. “Now, you sit your scared-to-death ass down and don’t open your mouth, comprende?”

  “Yes, sir,” the bank manager said shakily, covering his face with his forearms.

  At the far end of the street, when Danielle had heard the rifle shot, she immediately ran to her saddle and snatched her rifle from its boot. Now, as she turned toward the bank, she saw Avery McRoy and Frisco Bonham hurrying through the door. “Tuck!” she said aloud to herself, the rifle shot having conjured up all sorts of dark possibilities. Down the street she saw Buck Hite, Cherokee Earl, Fat Cyrus, and Clifford Reed, all four mounted, wearing long dusters, converging on the bank with their pistols blazing in every direction.

  Townsfolk scattered and sought shelter where they could from the barrage of gunfire. At the wagon, Eddie Ray leaped forward and grabbed the reins to the team of horses to keep them from spooking and bolting away. Instead of dismounting, the men rode their horses right inside the bank building, leaving Eddie Ray Moon standing outside as a lookout. Danielle saw Eddie Ray pull a double-barreled shotgun from under his duster. In a flash it came to Danielle that the key to breaking up this raid and saving Tuck Carlyle—if he was still alive—was to take control of the wagon. Without the wagon, the silver ingots weren’t going anywhere. Turning, Danielle swung up atop Sundown and heeled the mare straight toward Eddie Ray Moon.

  “It’s Danny Duggin!” said Eddie Ray, seeing the horse and rider pound toward him. He raised his hands and waved the shotgun back and forth above his head. “Hurry up, Danny! The raid’s already commenced!” he shouted. “Get on in there—you’re missing everything!”

  Before he realized what was happening, Danielle swept past him on the big mare, jerked her boot from the stirrup, and kicked Eddie Ray solidly in the jaw, sending him sprawling. While Eddie Ray rolled on the ground, still grasping the shotgun, Danielle slid the mare down to a halt and leaped from the saddle into the wagon seat. She grabbed the discarded traces and slapped the horses’ backs. “Yieee!” she shouted, sending the horses lunging forward into a run down the middle of the street.

  Feeling the wagon slide a bit sideways turning the comer around the livery barn, Danielle caught sight of several townsmen encircling the bank with their rifles and shotguns in hand. When she’d hitched the wagon and jumped down with her own rifle, she heard Cherokee Earl’s gruff voice shout from the boardwalk out front of the bank, “Where the hell is the wagon?” Then rifles, shotguns, and pistols began to explode all at once.

  Danielle made it to the front corner of the livery barn in time to look across the street and see Eddie Ray Moon hurrying to the door of the bank on all fours, his shotgun still in hand. Rifle shots from a rooftop across the street followed him in a jagged row, ripping up splinters from the boardwalk.

  “Boys, that damn Danny Duggin stole our wagon!” Eddie Ray shouted loudly.

  “What?” said Cherokee Earl, who’d just stepped out the door and been met by whistling bullets slicing past his head. He had been carrying two bags, one full of silver bars and the other full of money. But he dropped the silver bars and backed inside the shelter of the bank, his big Colt blazing in his hand, returning fire.

  In the back room of the bank, Tuck Carlyle had regained consciousness enough to realize what was happening. He’d managed to inch his way closer to the rear door when the shooting began out front. Sadler the guard saw Tuck reaching out for the partly opened door. “Where do you think you’re going, lawdog!” he growled, raising a boot and slamming the door shut. He pointed his cocked rifle down at Tuck’s face.

  “Don’t shoot him,” Cherokee Earl commanded. “He’s our free ride out of here.”

  Sadler stared at Earl, along with the others, while bullets pounded the front of the building. “They’ve got our wagon, damn it!” Earl shouted above the roar of gunfire. “We’ll have to trade him for it if we’re going to take everything here with us.”

  “Forget taking everything, Earl,” said Buck Hite. “Let’s grab whatever we can carry! They’ve got us pinned down here like ducks in a shooting gallery. Let’s load these horses down and get the hell out of here!”

  “Like hell,” said Earl. “I planned this job to be big, and by God it’s going to be big!” He glared at Buck Hite. “Show some guts here, Buck. We don’t have to settle for less. Let’s be bold as brass! Any objections?”

  “No, sir,” Buck Hite said, looking down at the smoking Colt in Earl’s hand. “None at all.”

  “Good!” Earl said sarcastically. He looked back at Sadler and said, “Bring the deputy up here and stick him in the door where the town can see him.”

  Sadler dragged Tuck through the bank, then pulled him to his feet with Earl’s help. Earl held Tuck by his lapels and said close to his face, “Your friend Danny Duggin took our wagon, lawdog. Now we’re going to give you a chance to see just how good a friend he is.”

  “I’m not telling Danny to deal with you, Earl, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Tuck said defiantly. Blood ran down his cheek from the short gash the pistol barrel had left on the side of his head.

  Cherokee Earl grinned. “I knew you’d say that. You lawdogs are all alike ... always looking for a way to be some kind of half-assed hero!” He looked at Eddie Ray Moon, held out his hand, and said, “Eddie Ray, give me your belt and shotgun.”

  “My gun belt? My shotgun?” Eddie asked, looking worried, afraid he’d be blamed for letting the wagon get away from him. “Why, Earl?”

  “No, not your gun belt, idiot!” said Earl, snatching the shotgun from his hands. “Give me your trouser belt. Come on, hurry up!” He snapped his fingers impatiently.

  “All right,” said Eddie Ray, reluctantly unbuckling his belt and pulling it loose. He looked to Buck Hite for support, seeing none. “But now my britches are going to fall down.” He clasped his trousers at the waist to keep them up. Bullets continued to whistle in from across the street and pound the front of the building. At the broken front window, Clifford Reed and Avery McRoy returned fire. Behind them their horses stamped back and forth in fright on the bank’s polished floor.

  “They’ve surrounded us now, Earl,” shouted Fred from the back room. Three bullets pounded the back door like someone knocking with an angry fist.

  “Somebody get these horses in the back room,” Earl demanded. He turned Tuck around and drew Eddie Ray’s belt snug around his neck. He striped the length of the belt back along the shotgun barrel until he held it gripped in place, his finger across the triggers. The tip of the barrel pressed securely against the back of Tuck’s head at collar level. “Now, let’s see what this town really thinks of you, Deputy! Get over here in the door!”

  “Go to hell!” Tuck said, standing firm.

  But it did him no good to resist. “Not without you, I won’t!” said Cherokee Earl. He yanked hard on the belt around Tuck’s neck and pulled him fully into
the open doorway, into plain sight from all directions. “Here’s your deputy, folks!” Earl shouted, standing directly behind Tuck. Firing stopped immediately. Cherokee Earl gave his men an I-told-you-so look, then grinned and shouted out to the street, “That’s it, gentlemen. Hold that fire! If I hear one more shot out there, I’ll make a dead lawdog out of this boy. I swear I will.”

  There was a tense silence for a second. Then Danielle said in her best man’s voice, “All right, Earl, what is it you want?”

  “Why, Danny Duggin!” said Cherokee Earl in feigned surprise. “Is that you out there?”

  “You know it’s me, Earl,” Danielle said flatly. “Now what’s your deal?”

  Cherokee Earl wasn’t ready to make a deal just yet. “What are you doing, siding with the townsfolk? I thought you were in with us on this raid.”

  “I changed my mind,” said Danielle, her firm tone of voice unchanged. “Now what’s your deal?”

  “Imagine my sore disappointment,” said Earl, still putting off any serious discussion about Tuck Carlyle, “looking out there and seeing you on the side of law and order. It nearly shook my faith to the foundation.” He cackled aloud behind Tuck Carlyle.

  Danielle shot a glance along the boardwalk where townsmen looked at her with uncertainty. “Don’t worry,” she said. Lowering her voice to the men huddled with their rifles and shotguns behind wooden shipping crates and rain barrels, she added, “He’s looking for any opening he can find.”

  “Who are you, mister?” asked Angus O’Dell, the owner of the town’s mercantile store.

  “My name’s Duggin, just like he said. ”I’m a friend of Tuck Carlyle.” Danielle nodded toward Cherokee Earl standing hidden behind Tuck Carlyle. ”If I was riding with these outlaws, would I have taken off with their getaway wagon?”

  “He’s got a point there, Angus,” said John Dash, the town barber. Along the boardwalk heads nodded in agreement.

  Angus O’Dell asked Danielle, “What about the wagon then, Mr. Duggin? Are you going to give it back to them?”