by Evans, Tabor
“I couldn’t miss Plummer given how tall he is, and I recognize Flannery by his walk.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Longarm watched as five men went into the bank, leaving a sixth outside the entrance as a watchman. “Damn, I didn’t think they’d be smart enough to post a lookout!”
“What are we going to do about him?” Hector asked.
Longarm’s mind was racing. He knew that he had less than a minute before all hell was going to break loose inside the bank. “I’m going to try and take him without him giving his friends inside any warning. Just move in closer but not too close to me, Joe.”
“I got a bad feeling in my gut about this,” Joe Hector said as they moved forward. “This just doesn’t feel right.”
“Shut up and stay back! If that lookout sees us both coming toward him, he’s probably going to panic.”
Longarm kept his head down and walked as fast as he dared without attracting too much attention. He moved across the street, and as he neared the bank the lookout began to watch him closely while moving his hand to the butt of his holstered pistol.
“Hey,” the man said, “you goin’ into the bank?”
“Yeah. I was planning to,” Longarm replied. “Why do you ask?”
“Uh . . . the bank is closed. The office manager died, I think.”
Longarm paused in mid-stride, but then he kept coming.
“Hey, I said—”
The lookout’s words were cut short by the sound of gunfire inside the bank. Longarm saw the lookout’s hand move toward his own gun, and that’s when Longarm threw a straight right cross that hit the man directly in the nose, causing it to break and gush blood. Longarm slammed an uppercut to the lookout’s stomach and shoved him aside as he took the bank’s stairs two at a time. There was so much gunfire inside the bank that it sounded like a war.
Longarm threw open the door with his gun coming up in his hand. He saw gunsmoke and men firing at one another at close range. Some were down; some were bent over and obviously critically wounded, but still firing.
It was every lawman’s worst nightmare.
Chapter 8
Longarm hesitated, eyes blinking rapidly as he stood framed in the doorway trying to make sure that he correctly identified Flannery and Plummer. But there was a wild card to consider . . . What if one of the men shooting was a bank employee?
Suddenly, Bully O’Brien emerged from the cloud of gunsmoke, staggering toward Longarm and the door. He was looking back over his shoulder and still firing when Longarm shot him through the back of the head. O’Brien crashed into the doorway and Longarm jumped over his body, yelling, “Flannery! Plummer, it’s Custis!”
There was a flurry of final gunshots, and then only two men were standing, Henry Plummer and Longarm, who jumped over another body and knelt beside Deputy Mike Flannery.
“Mike!”
Longarm shook the man, but from the rapidly spreading pool of blood underneath him it was clear that Flannery had died in the furious gun battle. “Oh, damn!” Longarm whispered just as Henry Plummer collapsed to the floor, gun spilling from his hand.
Longarm had started to move toward Plummer, when a Shamrock Gang member raised his head, aimed his pistol, and fired. The bullet clipped Longarm’s gunbelt and splintered its way through a desk. Longarm spun away from Deputy Plummer and shot the man twice, just to make sure there would be no more surprises.
“Henry, how badly are you hit!”
“Help!” someone yelled from behind the teller’s cage. “I’m shot and need a doctor!”
Suddenly, there were other cries pleading for help. A woman began to sob somewhere in the bank, and Henry Plummer whispered, trying to smile with a bad joke, “I’m sure glad I didn’t go into banking.”
Longarm yelled for Joe Hector to run for a doctor. He made a hurried examination of his young deputy and determined that Plummer had been shot at least twice in the body and once in the thigh. However, none of the body wounds seemed to be dead center, and both might have missed any vital organs.
“Just hang on, Henry. We’re getting a doctor here as soon as we can.”
“I missed with my first two shots, but I killed Mick O’Toole before I went down.” Plummer grimaced and whispered, “How . . . how is Deputy Flannery?”
“He didn’t make it,” Longarm answered in a voice that even he didn’t recognize.
Henry Plummer began to weep and rage. “Dammit, Custis, this didn’t go anything like I expected.”
“It rarely does.”
“Mike Flannery saved my life. He jumped in between me and Bully and took a bullet that I should have taken. Then he—”
Longarm put a hand over the badly wounded deputy’s mouth. “You can tell us all what went wrong later. Right now I’ve got to see if I can help anyone else.” He pulled a handkerchief out of his coat pocket. “Henry, you’re bleeding pretty badly from the bullet you took in your upper right leg. Can you press this down on it to slow the bleeding?”
“Sure. Go see what you can do for the others. There were two women in the bank, and I managed to shove one behind a desk, but she was so scared that I’m not sure that she made it. She might have jumped up in panic and gotten herself killed.”
“I’ll find out,” Longarm promised. “Just hold this handkerchief down tight on that leg. I’ll be back soon.”
The gunsmoke was clearing and Longarm quickly took an accounting. A woman caught in the cross fire, with cash still clutched in her hand, was dead because a bullet to the neck had severed an artery. Another woman, probably the one that Henry Plummer had saved by shoving her behind cover, was hysterical but unscathed. Three bank employees at the back of the room were hiding under their desks, faces pale and wearing terrified expressions. The manager of the bank was unconscious, shot all to hell and dying.
Longarm calmed the young woman and pulled her out from under her desk. “It’s over,” he said. “It’s over and you’re going to be all right.”
She was pretty and plump. With a huge sob she threw her arms around Longarm in a death-like grip and would not let him go until he pried her fingers apart and then led her outside over Bully O’Brien’s body and that of another member of the Shamrock Gang.
Moments later, Deputy Hector burst inside dragging a young doctor.
“Jaysus!” the doctor whispered. “This place looks like a slaughterhouse!”
“Take care of that deputy before he bleeds to death,” Longarm ordered. “The bank manager is over there in the corner, but I’m pretty sure that he’s not going to make it.”
“What a bloodbath,” the doctor breathed as he hurried over to attend to Deputy Plummer. “I don’t care how much damn money they would have taken . . . better that than all these people dying!”
Longarm didn’t have a response or the will to argue the point. Instead, he went outside, followed by Deputy Joe Hector. The lookout that Longarm had knocked senseless had been shot dead on the front steps. Maybe by Hector but perhaps he had blundered back inside and taken a random bullet.
“Custis, what do you think went so wrong?”
“I don’t know yet,” Longarm admitted. “The plan was that deputies Flannery and Plummer were going to let the gang take the money without incident and wait until they were out on the street. With Flannery and Plummer behind Bully and his boys and with me and you in front of the gang, we’d have had them boxed from both sides and in a cross fire. We thought they’d surrender rather than die.”
“But . . .”
Longarm shook his head and his voice was bitter. “Something went wrong inside the bank and our plan never had a chance. We’ll find out what happened when Deputy Plummer is able to talk.”
“You think he’ll survive?”
“He was shot three times, but I don’t think any of his wounds are fat
al,” Longarm said. “Now, don’t ask me any more questions, Joe. Just . . . just go back into the bank and see what you can do to calm people down and get them out of there.”
“All right,” Hector said. “What are you going to do now?”
Longarm wanted a few shots of whiskey, but he had things to do first. “I’m going to find Marshal Vail and give him a sketchy report of what went wrong.”
“There will be hell to pay from the mayor’s office. And if Henry doesn’t make it . . .”
“I know,” Longarm said. “But we can’t worry about that right now. I have a woman to tell that she’s just become a widow.”
“Mrs. Flannery.”
“Yes,” Longarm said. “And it’s a job that I dread more than anything in this world.”
“If you want,” Hector offered, “I’ll go tell Delia that her husband is dead.”
“Do you know Mrs. Flannery?”
“Yeah. I know her a little.”
Longarm was more than tempted to let his deputy do the sad job of informing the new widow what had happened to her husband inside the bank, but that would have been shirking his duty, and he had never in his life ducked something just because it was hard to do.
“Thanks, Joe, but I’ll tell her.”
“She’s going to take it real hard. She and Mike were really a fine match. They loved each other so much.”
“Yeah,” Longarm said, his mind still whirling from all the death and all the terrible things he’d just witnessed. “I’m sure she did. Deputy Mike Flannery was an outstanding officer and a good man to stand with in a fight.”
“I really admired him,” Hector said, voice thick with emotion. “Mike was always so dedicated to duty. Just like you, Custis.”
Longarm had no response. With the sounds of gunfire still booming inside his head, along with the image of blood splatters on the wall and pools of it on the bank’s polished hardwood floor, he walked away feeling half-sick and awful.
“It was me that shot the lookout,” Hector called down the street. “He was getting up with a gun in his fist and . . .”
Longarm didn’t hear the rest of that story. At the moment, he was consumed by questions and an overwhelming sense of failure.
Why did Billy Vail and I ever think that we should send a newly hired deputy and one without much more than a year of experience into that bank with Bully O’Brien and his Shamrock Gang of cold-blooded killers? he asked himself. And why hadn’t they let the gang take the money and come outside just like we planned?
Chapter 9
Longarm knew where Mike Flannery had lived with his wife, and now, with the day going long and two strong shots of whiskey under his belt, he stood outside of their white picket fence with his hand frozen on the gate’s latch.
He had often heard from the men in his office that Mike and Delia Flannery had been deeply in love and that the woman was breathtakingly beautiful. But none of that really mattered anymore.
Longarm could not bring himself to open the gate.
Delia stepped out onto her little front porch, and for a moment they both seemed frozen in time. Then, without him saying a word, her hands flew to her face and she let out a deep, sorrowful moan, screaming, “Oh, no!”
Standing beside her latched gate, hearing that sound and watching her break up wounded Longarm more deeply than any knife blade or bullet ever could.
He unlatched the gate, but she had already whirled and run back inside to shut her front door. Longarm walked up to the porch and sat down on the steps. He’d stay there for an hour or two just in case she decided she needed a shoulder to cry on or a sympathetic ear ready to listen. Longarm knew that Delia would soon be asking questions . . . and they were mostly ones he could not yet answer.
• • •
Two hours later and just about the time that the sun was setting in the west, Delia came out with two cups of coffee and quietly sat down beside him. Her eyes were red, her face drawn, and her expression had about it the look of devastation.
“I only have two questions for you right now,” she managed to say. “Did my husband die bravely and while trying to carry out his duties?”
“Yes. He saved Henry Plummer’s life by pushing him to one side and taking a bullet.”
She nodded and wiped at tears. “And did he die . . . quickly or . . .”
“He died very quickly and didn’t suffer, ma’am.” Longarm swallowed hard. “I . . . I just don’t have the words to tell you how liked and respected your husband was by all of us in the federal office.”
“Michael loved his job and he wouldn’t have considered doing anything else.” She gently placed her hand on Longarm’s hand, and hers felt very cold. “I knew that Michael and Deputy Plummer were going to do something very dangerous together today. Michael didn’t want to talk about it and neither did Henry. So Henry’s alive?”
“Yes.” Longarm took a deep breath. “But he is pretty shot up. He’s been rushed to the hospital. He was bleeding pretty badly when I got to him in the bank, but none of the wounds appeared to be fatal.”
“If he was standing tall beside my husband when the fight began and my husband saved his life, then I need to see him.”
“I’m sure that would be welcomed by Henry,” Longarm said. “But . . . but you need to wait until we know for certain that he’s going to make it.”
“If he’s going to die, I want to be there before he passes.”
Longarm looked into her grief-stricken eyes. “Why?”
She shrugged. “Michael told me that he really liked Henry. Said he was going to make a fine deputy, even though he could have done most anything else because of his father’s money and position as our mayor. The fact that he chose to be sworn in as a federal deputy marshal in that office really meant something to my husband. I’d like to tell Deputy Plummer that to his face, so that he knows that my husband died beside a man he really cared about.”
“I understand.”
“Then let’s go and find where they’ve taken Henry Plummer.”
The sun was just starting to set and the temperature was dropping fast. “Right now?”
“Yes, right now. If Henry has died of his wounds, then I will still tell him what I just told you. And if Henry is alive, he’ll want to hear what I have to say so that he isn’t filled with guilt because my husband saved his life today.”
Longarm pushed himself to his feet and nodded. “All right, Mrs. Flannery, let’s go see where they’ve taken Deputy Plummer . . . to the hospital or the morgue . . . so that we can both pay our respects.”
“Thank you, I’ll get my coat because it’s getting very cold out. It feels like it might even snow tonight.”
Longarm waited, and when Delia returned from inside, he offered her his arm and they headed down the street. “Be careful,” he cautioned, “it’s almost to the freezing point and this street is getting icy and slick.”
“Nothing can hurt me more than I’m already hurt.”
“We’ll just watch our steps,” Longarm told her. “Most likely Henry is at the Denver Memorial Hospital. Maybe we can hail a horse-and-buggy driver to—”
“I’d rather walk with you and breathe in some cold, fresh air, if you don’t mind.”
Longarm didn’t mind at all, and he sure did hope that the doctors had gotten Deputy Henry Plummer’s wounds to stop bleeding. If the bullets to his body had pierced organs, Henry was almost assuredly dead. But if not, he seemed likely to survive.
Longarm wanted to walk faster, but with Delia on his right arm and the ice starting to crunch beneath his feet, he needed to walk slow and easy.
It had been a nightmare of a day, and he’d be going to hell if he let either himself or the beautiful widow on his arm fall.
Chapter 10
“Doctor, is Deputy Henry Plummer
still alive or . . .”
The doctor looked at Longarm and then at the woman on his arm. “And you are . . . ?”
“We’re friends,” Longarm said. “Deputy Plummer works with me, and this lady is Mrs. Flannery. Her husband was gunned down in that attempted bank robbery where Deputy Plummer was badly wounded.”
“I see.” The doctor looked exhausted. He wiped a hand across his face and took a deep breath. “Well, the good news is that Deputy Plummer is going to live. But the bad news is that he has lost a lot of blood, and while the two wounds to his body missed organs, the bullet to his leg shattered the thigh bone.”
Longarm swallowed hard. “Are you going to have to amputate?”
“We’re not sure.”
“What does that mean?” Longarm demanded.
“It means what I just said . . . we’re not sure. Given how much blood Deputy Plummer has already lost, in my professional opinion, amputation would cause even more blood loss and he’d almost certainly go into severe shock and die.”
“Then don’t amputate.”
The doctor was in his fifties and heavyset, with large dark circles under his eyes. He ran his fingers through his thin, straw-colored hair and said, “Mayor Plummer just arrived and is with his son, who remains unconscious. His vital signs are weak and things are touch-and-go. If we don’t operate now, sepsis might set into the thigh bone, and a bone infection could take the young man’s life.”
“So,” Delia said, “if you operate, he’s almost sure to die of shock, and if you don’t operate, he may die of infection?”
“I’m afraid that’s about the size of it,” the doctor replied. “I gave the head of the hospital and my superior my medical opinion. Now they’re passing that information on to Mayor Plummer, who, as the young man’s only living relative, will decide what should be done for his son.”
Longarm nodded. “I see.”
“The decision is not ours to make,” the doctor said. “And Mrs. Flannery, may I extend my sincerest condolences for the loss of your brave husband today. I had heard that several people died in the bank, including a federal officer. I am very sorry.”
