Hang Him Twice

by William W. Johnstone

  “Dooley!” Buffalo Bill shouted. The living legend tossed away the empty rifle and rose. “I’m empty!” He held out both hands.

  Ignoring the man behind the barbershop pole, forgetting about the two other cutthroats likely still inside the other Leadville bank, Dooley stood. He tossed the Henry to Buffalo Bill and tried to make it back to the grocery to snag that Winchester carbine. Out of the corner of his eye, Dooley saw Buffalo Bill catch the rifle expertly, and the killer behind the barbershop step out with his six-shooter.

  Dooley had no chance to make it to the entryway and the Winchester carbine, but that’s when he remembered the revolver stuck in his waistband. He jerked it out, thumbed back the hammer.

  The killer fired.

  Buffalo Bill’s Henry rifle spoke.

  The pistol bucked in Dooley’s hand.

  The outlaw spun around like a ballet dancer, sending the pistol in his hand crashing through one window to the barbershop while he smashed into the other. Glass rained down upon him, the upper part of his body inside the building, his legs hanging out, his boots dragging on the boardwalk and glass.

  About that time, the two outlaws came out of the bank.

  “Where the hell are the horses?” one yelled.

  Dooley noticed that the horses the man now halfway in the barbershop had been holding had taken off, but had not followed the two brown horses out of town. One was about three blocks down the street. Another was in an alleyway, and the third one had found shelter in a livery.

  Seeing their dead colleagues—two in the street, the third not getting a shave or a trim—they dropped the sacks of the other bank’s money.

  Both men took shots at Dooley, and Dooley’s pistol roared, too, but they were far out of effective pistol range. Buffalo Bill’s shot from the Henry took off one of the outlaw’s black hats. He worked the lever, aiming as the two men ran down the street, both for the horse that could still be found. The .44 slug whined off the metal rim of a parked freight wagon. Cody jacked another load into the chamber, or at least thought he had, and pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked.

  “Empty!” Cody yelled.

  Dooley reacted and tossed him the pistol in his hand, which again the frontiersman caught as though he had rehearsed this scene for one of his stage plays. Dooley took time to snag the Winchester carbine.

  The hatless outlaw reached the horse, first, which, somehow, despite all the roaring gunfire and bullets shooting this street to pieces, remained calm.

  “Bill!” cried the man still with a hat, and still carrying a sack of money. “Bill! Don’t leave me, Bill!”

  Bill, without a hat, without any money, but with a horse and a pistol, did not listen. He spurred the horse and took off down the street, popping away with his pistol at Dooley and Buffalo Bill.

  Once again, Dooley and Buffalo Bill pulled triggers simultaneously, and Bill flew out of the saddle, dropping his six-shooter and crashing against a water trough on the other side of the street. He did not splash in the water, but smashed against the hard wood. His boots touched the dirt. His right arm and his neck hung over the side, near the apothecary shop. His left hand, the one still holding the pistol, pointed upward, and then it fell into the water trough. It was probably his imagination, but Dooley thought he heard the barrel of the pistol sizzle as it dropped into the water.

  The horse, naturally, avoided Buffalo Bill’s palomino and followed the other horses out of town.

  That left one remaining bank robber, and he ran into the Silver Palace Saloon, kicked open the door. Dooley heard a few tables overturning from inside. The outlaw had dropped the bag of money, but he still had that pistol.

  Dooley gave Buffalo Bill Cody a glance. The man checked the loads in the Colt, shucking out the empty casings as he moved to the man he had shot off his horse. Dooley crossed the street and worked the lever on the .44-40 carbine.

  “Dooley,” Buffalo Bill said grimly.

  “Bill,” said Dooley.

  Cody stopped, and dropped to the dirt by the dead outlaw. He thumbed fresh loads from the outlaw’s shell belt and fed those into the weapon he held. Laying the pistol he had just reloaded on the dead man’s chest, Cody kept pushing more cartridges out of the belt.

  “That’s a .44-40, ain’t it, Dooley?” Cody asked, meaning the carbine Dooley held.

  “Yep.”

  Cody held out a fistful of cartridges, which Dooley gathered and began feeding into the Winchester’s loading gate.

  After collecting the pistol from the outlaw’s bloody chest, Buffalo Bill rose.

  “I’m thirsty, Dooley,” Cody said. “Want a morning bracer?”

  Dooley thumbed back the Colt’s hammer.

  “I’ll buy,” he said.

  And the two men walked down the street toward the one-story Silver Palace Saloon.

  The shutters had been closed, and Cody and Dooley stopped at the side street, out of view from the door the lone surviving bank robber had kicked off its hinges.

  “Back entrance to this place?” Cody asked.

  “I don’t know,” Dooley said. There was no entrance leading to the side street, no windows, either, and the other side butted up against a dance hall. That much Dooley could see. “Probably in the back.”

  Cody nodded. “All right. I’ll take the back door. You take the front. If there ain’t no back door, I’ll come join you in the front. Don’t shoot my head off.”

  Dooley’s mouth was quickly losing any moisture, so he nodded, worked up just enough spit, and said, “Bill?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’d like to take this fellow alive.”

  Cody stared.

  “For talking,” Dooley explained.

  Cody gave a curt nod. “I’d like to hear some squealin’ myself. Like how come two gangs would try to rob two banks on the same day.”

  “When one gang didn’t even bother taking any money,” Dooley said, and that was about all his mouth could muster, for the time being.

  Cody started down the alley. “But,” he called out to Dooley in a deadly whisper, “I ain’t makin’ no promises.”

  I ain’t, either, Dooley thought.

  “Give me about two minutes,” Cody said. “See you at the bar.” He winked. “If you get there first, I’ll have rye with a beer chaser.”

  Once Buffalo Bill reached the corner of the saloon, he turned back, nodding that there was a door that led to the alley. Then Cody disappeared around the corner.

  Even though the shutters remained tight against the big window, Dooley dropped below and crawled down the boardwalk till he reached the entryway. He looked down streets, but found only dead men and Buffalo Bill’s palomino gelding in the street. Up the street, he saw some curtains moving, which told him people were looking from the safety of their homes or businesses, waiting till they knew for certain that it was safe to step outside.

  “Some vigilance committee,” Dooley whispered. Then he inched his way to the door. He stopped, listening, looking through the crack. The saloon was dark. Having the shutters closed didn’t help matters. He could see an overturned table and some chairs knocked onto the floor. Other chairs remained stacked on the tables that had not been knocked over.

  Two minutes had to have passed by now, Dooley told himself. His throat felt parched. His left hand still bled and throbbed. He sucked in a deep breath, balanced himself on his knees, and launched himself up and forward, toward the busted door of the Silver Palace Saloon.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  His shoulder slammed into the edge of the door, knocking it completely off the hinges that the last of the bank robbers had loosened, and Dooley hit the floor and rolled over, stopping behind the overturned table. A bullet thudded against the table, but the Silver Palace wasn’t any run-of-the-mill watering hole. These tables were pure mahogany, not pine, not cheaply made. The bullet the robber had fired didn’t punch through the wood. It didn’t even make the round table wobble.

  The din from the shot reverberated in th
e darkened saloon. Dooley managed to catch his breath, and rubbed his sweating right palm on his britches. He didn’t bother with the left palm and tried not to look at how ugly his handkerchief and ribbon tie looked now. That makeshift bandage had been on his left hand for what seemed like an eternity.

  Light slipped through the doorway, casting a glow on the fancy floors of the saloon, but only for a few feet, and some sunlight filtered in through shutter slats in the large window. Toward the bar, however, where the last of the gunmen was hiding—Dooley could tell from where the gunshot had hit the table—the saloon remained not completely black, but plenty dark.

  Eventually, saliva reappeared in Dooley’s mouth and throat, and he could hear now that the gunshot’s echoes had faded. Acrid gun smoke assaulted his nostrils. He was inside the saloon, but had nowhere really to run to. The robber had knocked over just one table, as far as Dooley could tell. And he was fairly safe here.

  For now.

  Thump.

  Dooley straightened, listening intently.

  Thump.

  Thump.

  A muffled voice somehow reached Dooley’s ears. Then:

  Thump.

  Thump.

  Thump.

  “Hell,” Dooley whispered to himself as the source of the muffled voice—undoubtedly a curse—and that odd thumping noise became clear to him.

  Buffalo Bill Cody had found the rear entrance to the saloon, but the owners of the Silver Palace did not just splurge on quality furniture, but on rear doors, locks, and wooden bars, as well. At least for the back door. The front ones had been for decorative purposes only. The back was to keep out riffraff. Right now, it was keeping Buffalo Bill from getting into the saloon.

  So Dooley cursed again, a little more vilely, a little louder.

  The robber answered with another pistol shot, which again thudded against the thick table. Grimacing, even though the table still did not feel weakened by another slug, Dooley looked out the door. Still, no one appeared. Inwardly, Dooley cursed that good-for-nothing vigilance committee.

  This wasn’t quite the Mexican standoff, but Dooley couldn’t sit here on the floor all day. Although the wound in his palm didn’t bleed as much as it had, it still had not congealed. He would need some stitches, and Dooley hated stitches. Another bullet grazed the top of the table. Of course, Dooley thought, if that owlhoot kills me, I won’t need any stitches or medicine.

  He decided to move. Coming up to his knees, bending his head down to keep it from getting shot off, Dooley peered around the table. Then he bolted to his right, firing at the bar, seeing his reflection in the fancy mirror on the fancy back bar shatter into a million pieces. Dooley worked the lever, touched the trigger, and started to slide, pushing over another table, sending those chairs clattering against the floor, and then taking cover behind the table, which rolled this way and that.

  The man behind the bar did not return fire.

  Dooley sucked in air, blew it out, sucked in air, blew it out, and felt his heart racing faster than the speed of the bank robbers’ two brown horses as they galloped out of town. When he regained control of his breathing, Dooley looked at the doorway, and the overturned table where he had first taken cover. He estimated how much of the saloon floor he had covered, and how close he was to the bar.

  Again, a gunshot roared in the darkened saloon. This time, Dooley moved to his left, aimed, fired, and heard whiskey bottles shatter. What a waste. His shot had come nowhere near the last robber, because Dooley saw the muzzle flash about ten feet down the bar. The light blinded him, and the shot sounded like a bee as it buzzed past his ear. Dooley had already jacked the hammer, and he touched the trigger again as he aimed from the feel. Then he quickly returned to the safety of the heavy table, hearing another shot from the gunman thud against the wood. Had the owner of this joint been a little cheaper with his tables, that bullet would have shattered Dooley’s spine or pierced his heart.

  He waited, sweating, bleeding, and scared as a greenhorn cowboy in his first stampede. Yet he fought back the nerves, worked the lever again, and rubbed the sweat and residue of gunpowder from his eyes.

  Which only burned his eyes even more.

  Slowly, the sound of the reports faded. A moment later, his eyes stopped hurting. He blinked several times until he felt certain he could see—as clearly as anyone could see in a saloon this dark.

  Where the hell is Buffalo Bill? Dooley thought.

  Outside, a dog began to bark.

  Dooley listened, but the thumping and cursing from the rear of the saloon had stopped. Had Buffalo Bill managed to get inside the saloon while Dooley and the gunman hiding behind the bar had been exchanging shots?

  Obviously, the last of the robbers had plenty of ammunition. As far as Dooley could tell, the bandit had entered the saloon with only one weapon, a six-shooter, and he definitely had fired more than six bullets. That caused Dooley to wonder how many shots he had fired. Granted, the Winchester held more rounds than a Colt revolver, but . . . still . . .

  You count cards, he told himself, so why can’t you count shots when you’re in a game where the stakes are much higher?

  He almost turned to look out the door again, but this time stopped himself. The light shining through the door, dim as it was, still strained his vision when he looked back toward the bar. Those gun flashes certainly hadn’t helped his vision, either.

  With the Winchester carbine cocked and ready, Dooley moved again, firing, levering another round, squeezing the trigger, and sliding against the front of the bar. The brass boot rail felt cold against his cheek. Now he just had to decide which way to go: To the nearest edge of the bar? Or sneak down the floor to the far side? Or just stand up, hurtle himself over the bar, and hope he fired in the right direction?

  Slowly, he came to his knees. He wet his lips and began inching his way toward the far side of the bar.

  The bank robber must have had a similar notion. Dooley happened to be looking down toward that side when the outlaw stuck his head around the corner. Dooley could have sworn, even in the darkness, that he saw the man’s eyes widen in fright. But Dooley wasn’t ready for the man. He started to bring the Winchester up, and came up to his knees, but the outlaw dropped onto his belly and squeezed the trigger of his revolver. Dooley felt his hands wring with pain as the bullet from the robber’s .45 flattened and whined off the case-hardened receiver. The Winchester flew from Dooley’s grip and crashed somewhere to his right. The gunman turned his Colt in that direction, but Dooley sprang up and dived up and over the bar—the opposite direction. Still, he barely made it, and felt the bank robber’s bullet—after he had corrected his error—tear off the heel of Dooley’s right boot.

  And those boots he had bought here in town . . . at Leadville prices.

  He crashed against the floor, feeling glass shards from busted whiskey bottles bite into his back, feeling the wetness of liquor burn his cuts and scrapes. Yet he knew he had no time to moan, or whine, or just lie here and try to get his lungs to work again. He was behind the bar, and his Winchester was on the other side.

  The bank robber must have realized this, too, for Dooley heard the miserable cur start to laugh.

  “Well, well, well,” the bandit said. “Appears to me that you ain’t got no gun no more. But I still got mine.”

  Dooley rolled over onto his hands and knees. He looked at the bar. He swallowed. Shells began clattering against the floor as the robber still chuckled and began feeding fresh rounds into the cylinder. “I reckon,” the varmint said, “I’ll just have to gun you down and be on my way. Don’t look like nobody in this town wants to stop me. Exceptin’ you and that pard of yourn who must’ve realized the errors of his ways.” The man laughed again. Another empty brass casing bounced across the floor.

  That’s when Dooley sprang up.

  The bank robber was about to snap the loading gate to the .45 shut. The barrel pointed at the floor. The outlaw started to bring up the revolver, but froze.

  D
ooley held the sawed-off Greener ten-gauge, the scattergun the bartenders kept behind the bar in case customers got out of control. And Dooley trained those massive barrels at the gunman’s belly. Even though the man was silhouetted by the sun coming through the doorway, Dooley clearly saw the man’s smile vanish. Shotguns at this range would have that effect on even a brave legend like Buffalo Bill Cody, wherever the hell he was.

  The outlaw backed up, dropped his weapon, raised his hands, and spun around. In blind fear, he ran for the door. Dooley brought the stock of the Greener to his shoulder, and his fingers touched the twin triggers, but he stopped, remembering his own words to Buffalo Bill:

  “I’d like to take this fellow alive.”

  Holding his fire, Dooley laid the sawed-off cannon on the bar and leaped back across it. He grabbed the weapon and started to run after the shooter, cursing himself as the man pushed through the broken doorway.

  Then, a sickening crunch sounded, the doorway seemed to go dark, and the outlaw came stumbling back into the saloon, bouncing into another table, knocking the chairs off, although this table remained upright. The man rolled over, fell to the floor, and came up slowly to his hands and knees, bawling like a newborn calf.

  Another silhouette came into the bar.

  “How ’bout that drink, Dooley?” Buffalo Bill Cody said.

  Dooley just stood there as the scout holstered the Colt and walked into the darkened saloon. He jerked the groaning, bleeding outlaw to his feet and shoved him toward the bar. Dooley lowered the hammers of the Greener and leaned against the bar.

  It felt good, Dooley realized, mighty good. He was still alive. The last of the outlaws remained alive. Buffalo Bill Cody rounded the bar, his tall boots crunching broken glass as he found three glasses and a bottle of something that Dooley hoped would be better than anything he ever had tasted.