Hour of Death

by William W. Johnstone

  It was cut short, silenced by the booming blast of a shotgun exploding in the tight confines of the kitchen. The concussion had a physical presence, like a thunderclap or a bomb going off. It had different effects on the players.

  Braddock froze. Porrock jerked the shotgun up toward Sixkiller.

  Porrock made a fatal miscalculation, forgetting that while Braddock’s body shielded him from Sixkiller’s bullets, Sixkiller was screened by Braddock from Porrock’s shotgun.

  Braddock was the man in the middle, the one caught in a crossfire.

  Sixkiller’s gun barked twice, putting two slugs into Braddock’s middle. He had to drop Braddock to get Porrock. Braddock wouldn’t shoot under Sixkiller’s gun. Porrock was sure to make a play.

  Sixkiller threw himself to the right-hand side the instant he squeezed off the two shots, diving for a clear line of fire on Porrock.

  Braddock was already folding at the knees when Porrock panicked, loosing a shotgun blast before his weapon was clear of the marshal’s falling form. Braddock took most the blast in the back.

  Sixkiller fired from the floor, twin lances of light that were muzzle flares licking out at an upward angle to spear Porrock in the middle.

  Already off-balance when he was tagged, Porrock vented an inarticulate, strangled cry of fear and rage that was chopped off by Sixkiller’s slugs. His feet got all tangled up, tripping him on twisted legs. He backpedaled, falling through the café’s front window. A musical clangor sounded as the glass pane exploded outward into the street.

  Porrock lay bent backward, his upper body hanging out the window sill and his lower body inside the café.

  The silence of stilled guns was a physical presence, an oppressive weight. Glass shards jangled as they worked loose from the window frame, falling to the floor.

  The walls and ceiling looked like a blood bomb had gone off, largely the result of Braddock catching Porrock’s shotgun blast in the back. Upper walls were peppered with buckshot pellets.

  The place stank of blood, gunpowder, and death.

  Braddock lay facedown on the floor. He was shredded and raggedy, the back of his clothes smoking and burning from stopping a shotgun blast at point blank range.

  Sixkiller lay on his side on the floor, raised on his elbows, gun arm extended. A wispy line of gun smoke curled from the muzzle of his gun.

  The miners at the side table began cautiously raising themselves from the floor where they had flung themselves once the gunplay opened.

  Alex’s head raised from behind the counter where the register was kept.

  The hushed silence was suddenly interrupted by a rustling in the kitchen. Sixkiller swung his gun to cover it.

  He eased off the trigger when he saw Bull stick his head into the dining area. Bull was tough, but he couldn’t help wincing when he saw the carnage in the café.

  Sixkiller got to his feet, brushing himself off.

  Bull looked like he had showered in blood. He had—but none of it was his.

  “Wheeler,” Bull said in answer to Sixkiller’s questioning glance. “He tried to make a play.” He paused a moment, then added, “What else could I do?”

  “I ain’t kicking,” Sixkiller said.

  “Oh. Good,” Bull said toothily.

  “Cora?” Sixkiller asked.

  “Out the back door,” Bull said. “She was so scared she didn’t bother to open it first. She hit that door running, knocked it flat off its hinges, and kept on going. Last I saw of her, she was still running.”

  “Too bad. She was a good cook,” Sixkiller said, sighing. “I reckon she was right, though.”

  “Eh? How’s that?”

  “We are undesirable customers.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Hour of Death had come and was raging.

  Not where Sixkiller was to be found, however. Not yet, but soon.

  The night after he and Bull retired with bullets Braddock and his deputies, gunfire blazed across the Glint. Colonel Donovan led his riders on a smashing raid against Endicott’s Highline Ranch. The Highline crowd was seriously, perhaps mortally wounded by the double loss of Port and his crew and the elimination of Marshal Braddock and the protection he provided to the bad men.

  The furious gun battle raged on the Highline as long-suffering Donovan and his men tore in righteous fury at the vitals of Endicott’s outfit.

  Sixkiller was far from the scene of the action, honchoing an eerie midnight ride of an armored pay wagon. He held the reins as coachman for the midnight pay run to the mining camp at Sagebrush Flats.

  In their wisdom, the directors of the Western Territories Mining Company had decided there would never be a better time for a payroll run than while all Ringgold and the valley were distracted by the final chapter of the Donovan-Endicott war.

  Were the WTMC division bosses right in their calculations?

  The answer would not be long in coming.

  The payroll delivery wagon was no ordinary stagecoach, not a passenger vehicle at all. It looked uncomfortably like to a hearse. It was long, narrow, and high-sided, with no windows and double doors in the rear, drawn by a team of ten black horses yoked in tandem, two by two.

  The midnight pay run made up in stealth, speed, and surprise what it seemingly lacked in firepower.

  Sixkiller wore a long, dark duster. Beside him, riding shotgun was Bull Raymond. Several big-caliber rifles lay in the boot at the foot of the seat. No cashbox rode on top of the coach. The money chest was locked inside the wagon out of sight.

  At the foot of the hill, Sixkiller lit up a fat cigar, took up the driver’s whip, a wicked blacksnake whip he handled with authority, and cracked it expertly over the heads of the horses. Thus began the last leg of the journey—the climb up the slope of the rise to Sagebrush Flats. The landscape of the valley flattened and spread out below. Atop the summit awaited a quick mad dash across open flat ground to the mining camp where supervisors and armed guards were gathered.

  It was something of a wild night—clouds at the remote heights of the dome sky scudding along under brisk, chilly winds blowing not from the prevailing north, but rather from the west. The moon at the zenith alternated floods of silver light with great curtains of blackness depending on whether it was covered by clouds.

  The summit drew near.

  This is the hinge, thought Sixkiller. This is where Bart Skillern would make his play. The team of horses would be at their slowest and most tired when they reached the crest, less able to pour on the extra speed needed to outdistance charging outlaws.

  The coach crested the summit, topping Sagebrush Flats. Rock spurs and outcroppings ahead upthrust out of the soil to display weird wind-eroded rock forms, twisted gnarly pillars of stone.

  Suddenly, a brassy metal bee—a bullet—whined past Sixkiller’s head. Dark riders emerged from behind the rocks ahead to fan out, blocking the road. They whooped, hollered, and hoorahed, firing into the air.

  Sixkiller set aside the whip and hauled in on the reins, throwing the hand brake. Horses were drawn up short, halting the coach. He puffed on his cigar, unconcerned. He was holding something up his sleeve, hidden by the cuff of his duster coat.

  Shots came from behind, too. Sixkiller glanced over his shoulder. Another half-dozen riders came up from behind the coach, charging from the rear. The bandits had the coach boxed in, front and back.

  “The gang’s all here” Sixkiller said. Bart Skillern, Lonnie Brett, Josh “Haywire” Haworth, Denver Ralls, Beany Evans, Carlton T. Olin and a couple new hands unknown to Sixkiller, hands the gang had added along the way.

  Bart Skillern rode ahead, taking the fore of the group of riders blocking the road ahead. He closed on the coach, halting less than a stone’s throw away. “Quinto?” he called.

  “That’s right,” Sixkiller said. One name’s as good as another when you’re on the hunt, closing in for the kill.

  “I’m Bart Skillern—the Utah Kid. I heard you were looking for me.”

  “Shoot him a
nd be done with it,” one of his men advised. But Bart Skillern was not one to take advice, good, bad, or indifferent.

  “Quinto interests me. He got closer than any of the others,” Skillern said. “Who are you, Quinto? I don’t know you. You with Pinkerton? You a Pink? Continental Detective Agency, maybe?”

  “No,” Sixkiller said.

  “That’s good. Makes it more interesting. Bounty killer, maybe? You sure come on like one, leaving a trail of corpses from Nibiru to here. Impressive!

  “You were looking for me, and you found me. I should say, I found you. Others tried to find me. They’re all dead. Now you’re gonna join them.”

  Sixkiller puffed away at his cigar, the orange disk glowing brightly, lighting his face with a webwork of orange-red lines. Reaching to take it from between his jaws, he flicked off a half-inch of dead ash at the tip.

  “You did better than the rest, if it’s any consolation,” Skillern went on. “You busted up Port and his boys pretty good, but he wasn’t much. Took out Braddock, too. He was faster. Was that you who did for Freedy and Hooper?”

  “Those the clowns at Powder Basin?” Sixkiller asked.

  “Yup. So it was you who got them,” Skillern said, laughing. “In the end, though, what did it get you?”

  “You.”

  “You know the old saying, ‘Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it’? You got that backwards, son. You ain’t got me. I got you.”

  “Depends on your point of view,” Sixkiller said.

  Bull Raymond stirred restlessly on the seat beside him, longing to get into action. But he knew not to jump the gun on Sixkiller’s plan.

  “I heard you had a message for me from Dean Richmond,” Skillern said. “That for true?”

  “True.”

  “What is it? What’s the message?”

  “They were his last words. His very last words. He said, ‘Tell Bart I’ll see him in Hell.’ And since we don’t want to keep him waiting—”

  Sixkiller brought his hand up to his face, lighting the short-fused stick of dynamite hidden up his sleeve. It hissed, sputtered, then burst into crackling flame, a line of fire stabbing into the stick. He tossed it at Skillern and dove off the left side of the coach, while Bull threw himself off the right.

  Short fuse? A very short fuse. Skillern’s gun cleared leather and swung toward Sixkiller even as the dynamite exploded.

  It struck like a thunderbolt crashing to earth. It was the signal for mayhem, a blinding blast of heat, light, and smoke spoiling the aim of Skillern’s riders.

  It also signaled Vandaman and the federal agent’s gunmen hidden in the wagon. The armored sides were hinged and fell down, opening the upper halves of the long walls of the vehicle.

  Its back doors flung open. Riflemen inside opened fire, cutting down the bandits to the rear of the coach.

  The harnessed team wanted to bolt, but couldn’t move forward with the handbrake locked and set the way Sixkiller had left it.

  As he rolled clear of the coach, Sixkiller started slinging lead into the bandits in front of the coach. On the other side of the vehicle, Bull was shooting too, his shotgun blasting.

  The riflemen in the carriage weren’t the only shooters in the area. Other posse men hidden in the hills behind the rocks opened fire. Skillern’s gang was caught in the crossfire, shot to pieces.

  But not the Utah Kid. He did not share their fate.

  He had been blown to pieces, scattered to the four winds by the stick of dynamite Sixkiller had tossed at him.

  Chapter Twenty

  Once again, it was a case of, “the gang’s all here.”

  Different gang, though, thought Sixkiller.

  They were assembled in the courthouse . . . without Mr. Justice Applewhite presiding. Applewhite had shrunk mighty small as a prisoner of the law.

  Collected on hard wooden benches in the courtroom were Sixkiller, Bull, Vandaman, Cass Horgan, Reeve Westbrook, Edmund Bigelow, Mayor Dawes Ivey, Prosecutor Mitch Evert, Mason Rourke, Colonel Tim Donovan, his foreman Pete Pecos, and Jackpot saloon girl Brenda.

  Conspicuous by his absence was Milt Dash.

  The get-together was part victory celebration and part inquest.

  “Man, you missed a real brawl,” B Square B foreman Pete Pecos told Bull. “Endicott and his boys rode into a buzz saw! With us on one side and Rourke and his men on the other, we shot the buttons off them rannies.”

  “What about Endicott?” Bull asked.

  “He broke off running, him and what was left of his men. At the rate he was going, he won’t stop till he hits Montana!”

  “If he comes back here, there’ll be a rope waiting for him,” Evert vowed grimly.

  “Better save more than one rope,” Sixkiller cautioned. “There’s still a rascal or two left unhung. Or even unknown. A secret plotter, a hidden hand not entirely unknown, not to me and not to one other party here tonight.”

  No small uproar followed Sixkiller’s words. When the clamor had quieted, he went on. “Bart Skillern wasn’t alone in this scheme. Endicott neither. There was a third man, an inside man tipping them off on our every move and more.

  “That’s why I put young Eli and his friends to watching everybody who knew about the so-called secret payroll shipment to the mines last night. Or thought they knew. There never was a payroll shipment. It was a scheme worked out by Vandaman and me to flush out Skillern and bring him out in the open.

  “The secret was told to a handful of people here and I had Eli and the kids spying on each and every one of them, morning, noon, and night. Watching to see who—if anybody— would ride out to tip off Skillern about a fat midnight payroll run to the mines.

  “The skunk in the garden patch turned out to be Milt Dash, the mayor’s special assistant. When Eli tipped me that Dash was acting suspiciously, I saddled up and followed him out of town. He led me not to Endicott, but to the Utah Kid and his hideout. A good one, most forgotten by the town—the old flooded Mine Shaft Number Seven.

  “Nobody goes there anymore. Why would they? That’s what made it a good hideout. Still some old buildings up there to live in. Underground diggings and aboveground tailings for the gang to hide their horses and lights at night.

  “But there was more up there. A woman. She was one the reasons Skillern’s longtime pard Dean Richmond split with him. What woman? Lord Dennis’s lady, La Valletta, a famous beauty who could turn most any man’s head. You all thought she was killed with the rest of the Bletchley party, but with no bodies to be found no one could be sure.

  “But it didn’t work out that way. Bart Skillern had found the one thing money can’t buy—the one woman in the world he most wanted and had to have, no matter what. Since he was a thief and killer, he did what comes naturally and took what he wanted. He took her and made her his prisoner—slave—call it what you will.

  “The only one of his gang he trusted to keep an eye on her was old Nestor Fox. Figured he was too old to be swayed by her charms into letting her go free or falling for her charms enough to let down his guard to give her a chance to escape. When the rest of the gang went out on jobs, Fox stayed behind at the hideout to watch over her, make sure she didn’t escape, and that none of the gang ever got close enough to her to fall under her spell.

  “I followed Dash to the hideout. When Skillern and the others rode out to set up the midnight ambush at Sagebrush Flats, old Fox stayed behind guarding the girl. Dean Richmond had told of Valletta before he died so I knew who to look for. I put down Fox and freed the girl, taking her to a safe place before going to the showdown with Skillern.

  “Valletta’s got one final key to the puzzle. Who put the idea of the Lost Gold Mine into Bletchley’s head, luring him and his party to ambush and death by Skillern’s gang? Lord Dennis was an Englishman and a foreigner but he wasn’t a complete damned fool. It took a mighty slick talker to convince him to go take a look.

  “Who was he? Who was this silent partner, the third man in the combine with Skiller
n and Endicott? I’ll let Val tell you herself. Folks, meet La Valletta,” Sixkiller finished up.

  The door opened and in she came, escorted by Brenda and Rourke. Valletta had had a chance to wash and clean up after her long ordeal. She was a beauty with a wild mane of golden hair, dark almond-shaped eyes, and a mouth of ripe passion. The bitterness and hardship of her experience couldn’t erase her stunning beauty.

  Valletta set eyes on the silent partner the moment she entered the room. If she’d had a knife in her hand she’d surely have used it on him. He jumped up and started running for the door even before she stabbed an accusing finger at him to point him out to the others.

  Reeve Westbrook, ace reporter for the Banner.

  Sixkiller was ready for him, his gun drawn. He shot him in the leg, blowing off a kneecap to bring him down. He wanted Westbrook alive.

  “They’ll have to prop him up when he goes to hang, but they can always sit him on a horse when he swings, so that’s no problem,” Sixkiller said. “Why did Westbrook do it? Maybe he got tired of writing news and wanted to make some of his own, behind the scenes. Maybe it tickled him to pose as a drunk newsie when he was laughing up his sleeve at the rest of the town—but who knows?”

  “Why’d he help you out, Quinto?” Bull asked.

  “To start thinning out his partners in the Skillern and Endicott camps. With those two gone, he was poised to lay title to the Highline spread with some documents he forged on the newspaper’s printing press.

  “Funny, ain’t it? The biggest news story to come out of these parts ever and he’ll never get to write it a word of it—or maybe he will, a real exclusive for the Banner.

  “As for Lord Dennis and the others, their remains are weighted down and sunk to the bottom of flooded Mine Shaft Number Seven.” Sixkiller was eager to get back to Oklahoma to start cracking down on the bad men there. He had one last detail to attend to. “This town needs a marshal. I saved Braddock’s badge, figuring it would come in handy. It’s tarnished, but a little polish and the right man to wear it will make it shine again.”

  He pinned the badge on the breast pocket of the dumbfounded Bull Raymond, the new marshal of Ringgold. “You’ll do fine, Bull.”