by Scott Connor
So, Lincoln reckoned he had to give him the benefit of the doubt. Now felt the right time to prove whether his hunches were valid.
Lincoln took a deep breath, then stood and paced back from the edge of the boulder.
With his hands held high and his gun pointed to the sky, he paced on a determined route down the slope. This time, he ensured that he stayed within Zandana’s view.
Ahead, sporadic gunfire blasted from the house and from Zandana’s position as the two opposing groups traded shots. Then Zandana saw Lincoln heading towards them and with a roar, ordered his deputies to still their fire.
His deputies stopped instantly. Two more shots ripped from the house before quiet descended.
‘What in tarnation are you doing, Lincoln?’ Zandana yelled, peering at Lincoln from over a boulder and sighting him down the barrel of his rifle.
To avoid losing his footing on the slippery scree, Lincoln continued his steady pacing until he was at ground level, then edged sideways towards the house, ensuring he faced Zandana.
‘I said, what are you doing?’ Zandana roared.
‘I’m ending this stand-off with everyone still alive,’ Lincoln shouted.
‘Where’s your fellow escapee?’
‘He escaped, but I’ve returned.’
‘And Raul?’
‘Raul is secure and alive on the other side of the ridge.’
‘Then that’ll count in your favor, but you’ll be the first to die if you don’t give yourself up.’
‘I’m not doing that. I’m just heading to the house to end this stand-off, and end it peacefully.’
Zandana snorted. ‘I guess as you’re a lawman you’re planning to get the last of the hostages out?’
With Zandana mentioning his true role loud enough for Crane to hear, Lincoln winced and glanced at the house. He couldn’t see who was covering the door, but when on the count of ten, no gunfire had emerged from within, he shrugged and held his head high.
‘Yep. Although I’ve heard from some that you were planning to kill everyone once you have the gold, then keep it.’ Lincoln smiled. ‘I didn’t believe that.’
‘You were right not to.’
‘I guessed as much, but it doesn’t matter now. Whatever the truth, this ends the same way with the gold returning to its owners, and all of Crane’s hostages going free.’
‘You got some of them out and I’m pleased to see that.’ Zandana chuckled. ‘Perhaps you are a lawman after all.’
‘I am. I directed those hostages to the stagecoach on the other side of the ridge and in about fifteen minutes, they’ll be back in Sweetwater. If you aren’t honest lawmen, you won’t be able to kill everyone here, then claim that what happened here was a raider attack, because there’ll be witnesses back in Sweetwater whom you’ll never silence.’
Zandana lowered his head behind his covering rock, presumably to talk to one his deputies. Then he rose.
‘You reckon you’ve figured everything out, don’t you, Lincoln?’
‘Yep.’
‘And you reckon you’ve forced me to react in a way of your choosing?’
‘Yep.’
‘Then it’s a pity for you that you’re wrong.’
Zandana hurled his rifle to his shoulder and blasted a slug at Lincoln that winged over Lincoln’s right shoulder.
As one, the deputies surged to their feet and hammered gunfire at him. Lead scythed through a trailing jacket sleeve, the rest ripping through the air around his head.
Lincoln winced. He glanced left and right. As he was closer to the house than the nearest cover, he ran for the house.
Gunfire blasted at his heels, kicking dirt into the backs of his legs. He thrust his head down and charged the last ten yards, his feet pounding to the ground and hurling up dust in his frantic dash.
Another volley whistled over his head, so he threw his hands up and dived into the house, skidding across the porch and through the doorway on his belly as another ripple of gunfire blasted across the doorway.
Lincoln skidded on the ground to plough into the side wall. He shook himself, confirming that he’d survived his mad dash then sat up.
It was only to face Rocco and the gun he’d aimed at his head.
Chapter Fourteen
‘So, you’re a lawman, are you?’ Rocco muttered.
Crane hurried from the doorway to stand beside Rocco as Lincoln jutted his jaw.
‘Yeah,’ Lincoln said. ‘If you were listening to all that, so are the men out there – they’re Marshal Zandana and his deputies.’
‘It is Zandana,’ Rocco said, glaring at Crane, who winced. ‘I’ve waited twenty years to get him.’
‘You can’t take him on. You have to give yourself up.’
Crane sneered. ‘We can’t do that.’
Lincoln raised his gun hand so that he pressed the gun flat to the wall, pointing upwards.
‘See sense and you’ll get out of this alive.’
Crane strode before Rocco. ‘You’re in no position to threaten us.’
‘I’m not threatening you.’ Lincoln pointed through the door with his left hand. ‘But Zandana is sure threatening you.’
‘You reckon you can get us out of here alive?’
‘Yep.’
‘Then you’re lying. Your negotiations with Zandana failed.’ Crane smirked as Lincoln winced. He glanced over his shoulder. ‘You hear that, Truman? Dig faster.’
‘That won’t help,’ Lincoln said. ‘You won’t get the gold. You just haven’t got the time to dig it up, get past Zandana, and escape the posse who’re coming.’
Crane lowered his head, muttering to himself.
Rocco snorted. ‘We still have Truman and you to negotiate with.’
‘You still won’t escape with the gold. Too many people know about it now and you’ve got no option but to walk away.’
Rocco grunted his indifference, but Crane raised his head.
‘You’re as misguided as Truman is,’ Crane said. ‘You can’t expect us to give up on our gold after twenty years.’
Lincoln rolled to his feet, still keeping his gun aimed high.
‘I can when it’s the only option that will keep you alive and out of jail.’
‘After what we’ve done here, if we live, we’re returning to jail.’
‘You don’t have to. You did twenty years for failing to steal the gold buried in this house. I’m guessing you can’t do more time for failing to steal it all over again.’
‘I doubt that. We held people hostage and fired at lawmen.’
‘Truman probably deserved it and Zandana and his deputies aren’t decent enough for that to worry anyone. Just walk away. You’ve wasted enough of your life over that gold.’
Crane sighed. ‘I wish I could believe that was the right thing to do.’
‘Decker Calhoun did. He chose life over gold.’
Crane narrowed his eyes. ‘When did you meet him?’
‘Zandana brought him along to help him find the gold, except I escaped Zandana’s clutches with him.’ Lincoln shrugged his sleeves higher, displaying his broken handcuffs. ‘Decker was all set to run, but when I promised I wouldn’t pursue him, he helped me.’
‘You wouldn’t let Decker go.’
‘I did, and he covered me when I first came in here.’
Crane glanced at Truman, who returned an encouraging nod, then at the hole, which despite everyone’s efforts was still not softening or becoming deep enough to reveal the gold.
‘I believe you’re trying to end this stand-off without bloodshed,’ he said. ‘But walking away won’t work.’
‘It can if we trust each other.’
‘Trust isn’t the problem.’ Crane shook his head and fixed Lincoln with his firm gaze. ‘You got Seymour and Marvin out of here so that the lawmen couldn’t silence them, didn’t you?’
‘Yep.’
‘You also told them to alert the law in Sweetwater so that they’ll head here and end this siege?’
&nbs
p; ‘That was my plan.’
Crane snorted, his sound echoed by Wallace and Elwood. Rocco threw back his head and roared with laughter.
‘Then it was the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard,’ Crane said, shaking his head. ‘That help isn’t coming.’
‘Marvin will get to his stagecoach and raise the alarm in Sweetwater. Zandana didn’t pursue him.’
‘Marvin might get to his stagecoach,’ Crane said, his voice tired. ‘He might even head to Sweetwater and keep himself safe, but he won’t fetch any reinforcements, and he will stop Seymour bringing any.’
‘Why?’
‘Because Marvin works for me.’
‘He doesn’t,’ Lincoln said. ‘He’s a decent man. I’ve ridden the stagecoach to Sweetwater with him before.’
‘That’s what he does now, but that wasn’t what he did twenty years ago.’
Lincoln gritted his teeth. ‘You mean he was a member of the Calhoun gang?’
‘Not exactly. Before Zandana captured Decker twenty years ago, Decker hired Marvin to transport the stolen gold. When we learnt that Marvin was driving the stagecoach to Sweetwater and that Truman Garner was on it, we told him to stop somewhere where we could confront him.’ Crane shrugged. ‘Why else do you think the stagecoach stopped at a trading post when Sweetwater is only fifteen miles away? How else did you expect us to transport the gold when we’d found it?’
‘I did wonder. So you’re saying Marvin won’t fetch help?’
‘Nope.’
‘Damn,’ Lincoln murmured.
‘So, knowing that, what do reckon we do?’
Lincoln glanced around the small building, then sighed.
‘At least Zandana doesn’t know that Marvin will help you. So, he still thinks that help is a-coming. That’ll force him to act before sundown.’
‘That doesn’t help none.’
Gunfire roared outside, a stray bullet hurtling through the open doorway to tear into the facing wall.
In an involuntary action, Crane ducked and joined Lincoln in pressing himself flat against the side wall.
‘Like I said, I’ve forced Zandana to act now,’ Lincoln said.
Crane sighed. ‘Then I guess I have to ask – are you with us against Zandana?’
‘Depends. Is Truman a free man?’
‘If he lives through Zandana’s onslaught, yeah.’
‘And are you still after the gold?’
Crane glanced through the doorway into the adjoining room.
In the hole, Truman was chest high, but from the pained way that he was biting his bottom lip as he massaged his arms, he wasn’t any closer to the gold.
‘I guess not,’ Crane whispered, then raised his voice and stood tall. ‘I guess I never thought I’d say those words, but I don’t need that gold.’
‘Then I’m with you.’
Crane glanced at Rocco, whose mouth had fallen open, his face reddening by the second, but Crane turned from him and edged to the doorway.
Lincoln joined him in glancing outside. Framed before the rapidly sinking sun, Zandana and his deputies were running towards the house.
One of Zandana’s deputies took up a position ten yards before the boulders behind which they’d been hiding. His fellow deputies maintained continuous fire at the house, forcing Lincoln to risk only the shortest of glances, and not enough to fire more than one wild shot.
Then each man scurried to an advanced position on the leading man and hunkered down, the other deputies covering the moving man.
At ten-yard intervals, they repeated the exercise, all the time closing on the house.
When the sprawl of deputies were twenty yards from the house, their frantic gunfire intensified around the doorway, forcing Crane to order everyone to stay back and not even venture returning fire.
By the door, Wallace twitched back and forth. Then, in a momentary lull, he leapt into the doorway and blasted a single shot.
‘Yeah, got one,’ he cried, then spun around, a slug tearing into his chest and sending him plummeting to the ground.
Crane lurched out from his cover and grabbed his legs. With a sharp tug, he dragged him out of the way of further gunfire, but from the other side of the door, Lincoln could see that Wallace wasn’t breathing.
Lincoln edged round the corner to fire, then leapt to the side, still firing, and rolled over his shoulder to take cover on the other side.
All his gunfire was wild. He repeated the risky action, dashing to the other side. Before he reached it his frantic finger twitching closed on an empty chamber.
Crane took his place, but intense gunfire from outside thundered through the open doorway and forced him to scurry for cover, too.
Then footsteps pounded outside and a deputy hurtled through the doorway, rolling over his shoulder as more of the deputies bundled in after him. Lincoln paused from his reloading to slug the nearest deputy to the jaw, then spun round to look for his next target.
Zandana was the last to leap through the door and Lincoln lurched for him, but another deputy bundled into him and knocked him to the ground.
Lincoln glanced around. In the confined space, the fighting was hand to hand. With the numbers even, each deputy took on one of Crane’s men.
Zandana had his back to Lincoln, trading blows with Crane. Lincoln leapt to his feet and immediately ducked under a wild blow from the deputy facing him, then grabbed Zandana in a bear-hug from behind.
Zandana thrust his elbow into Lincoln’s guts, knocking him away. Lincoln staggered back, while to his side, Rocco thundered a blow into his opponent that bundled the deputy into Lincoln.
Lincoln thrust out a leg and avoided falling. Then he swung back his fist and slugged the deputy to the ground.
He reached down, ready to hurl the deputy through the doorway to the adjoining room, but from behind, Zandana grabbed his shoulder, swung him round, and smashed a blow into his jaw that crashed him into the wall.
As he rebounded, he saw Crane grab Truman’s collar and hurl him through the front door, urging him to run. Then Crane swung round and hurled himself at Zandana. The two men went down in a heap.
To his side, Elwood was on the ground, his reddened hands clutching a knife sticking out of his chest.
Rocco squared off to the man who had stabbed him and with one huge blow, slugged his jaw, sending him spinning back and through the doorway to the adjoining room. Then he swirled round to confront another deputy and with a long round-armed blow, hammered him through the doorway after the first man.
This man tottered, then fell into the hole.
Lincoln turned to see Crane squirm out from beneath the prone Zandana and, with hope burgeoning in him that he might survive this battle, Lincoln leapt on Zandana’s back and slammed his face into the ground, then again and again.
He glanced up to see that Crane had trained his gun down on them, waiting for an opening. Then the last of the deputies in the main room leapt to his feet and with both hands held together, crashed them down on Crane’s back, knocking him to his knees.
As Crane floundered, the deputy drew his gun.
Rocco turned on his heel and blasted a slug in the deputy’s back as he fired, his last finger twitch gouging a bullet into the wall behind Crane’s left shoulder before he fell against Crane. Then Rocco ducked as the deputies in the other room regrouped and fired at him through the doorway.
Lincoln dragged himself away from considering the other fights and concentrated on wrestling Zandana down.
Zandana bucked him from his back, and as Lincoln floundered, he surged to his feet with a mighty roar and grabbed Lincoln’s collar. Zandana dragged Lincoln to his feet and thundered a sickening blow into his guts, grinding his fist in before dragging it back.
Lincoln folded over the blow and staggered in a short circle, bile burning his throat. With no control of his movements, he walked into Zandana’s right-arm slug to the jaw that sent him sprawling to the ground.
On the ground, Lincoln looked up to see Zandana tug
his gun from its holster and aim it down at him.
Behind Zandana, Crane shrugged out from beneath the dead deputy, leapt to his feet, and kicked out, knocking Zandana’s gun arm to the side and sending Zandana’s blasted slug into the ground, inches from Lincoln’s head.
Lincoln jerked to the side and rolled to his feet, then carried the movement on to bundle into Zandana and grab his gun arm. He pressed himself flat to Zandana’s chest and thrust his gun arm high above their heads.
The two men flexed back and forth, but, inch by inch, Zandana dragged his gun down, past Lincoln’s head, then in an arc, directing it inexorably in towards Lincoln’s chest.
Crane jumped to Lincoln’s side and grabbed the arm. With Lincoln’s help, he swung the arm back up.
Zandana grunted, his eyes bulging as he strained. Then he stamped his boot down on Crane’s instep.
Crane winced, his grip momentarily weakening, and Zandana used the distraction to clip Crane’s chin with his left hand.
Crane stumbled back, then tripped over a body, landing heavily on his side.
Lincoln and Zandana swung round to face each other, the gun jerking up and down as both men tried to gain control of it.
A shot tore into the roof. Then Zandana shuffled his feet to gain a firm stance and thrust the gun down between their two bodies.
Lincoln dragged the barrel from his chest and closed his hand around Zandana’s hand. Then the two men slammed their chests together and a gunshot blasted, their bodies muffling the sound.
As hot fire momentarily burned Lincoln’s chest, Zandana and Lincoln stared into each other’s eyes. Then Zandana’s eyes rolled back and he slumped in Lincoln’s grip.
Lincoln opened his arms and, with slow inevitability, Zandana’s gun fell from his slack fingers. He fell to his knees, then keeled over on to his back.
Crane fast-crawled to Zandana’s side and grabbed the gun, then knelt by Zandana’s body and felt his neck. He nodded to himself.
‘That was for Decker,’ he said.
Lincoln dashed to the corner. He reloaded, then joined Rocco in aiming his gun at the doorway to the adjoining room.
At his feet, Elwood was still, a bloom of blood darkening his chest.
