The outlaws in the bank thought they were coming under attack and began shooting in all directions.
George raised to his knees and let bang another round from the Dragoon.
The slug struck an outlaw in the chest and knocked him halfway across the room.
“Clear out!” Tie hollered. “We’re blowin’ the vault!”
Fifteen seconds later, it seemed the gates to Hell opened up in the little town in New Hampshire.
23
The force of the giant powder exploding sent half the roof flying off and blew one wall completely down. George Mahaffery ended up in Sheriff Poley’s lap and the chief of police found himself sitting on a spittoon, with no one really knowing how they got in their present positions.
“I got money in that bank!” a volunteer suddenly realized.
“Hell, so do I!” another called from a rooftop.
“Get ’em boys!” another called.
Then they all, finally, opened up.
* * *
“They just blew the bank building,” Smoke called.
“Place needed renovating anyway,” John returned the call.
Smoke laughed. “You’ll do, John. You’ll do!”
And John realized his son-in-law had just paid him one of the highest compliments a western man could give.
Smoke heard the pounding of hooves on the street and jerked up his Henry, easing back the hammer. He recognized Glen Moore. Bringing up the butt to his shoulder, Smoke shot the killer through the belly. Moore screamed as the pain struck him, but he managed to stay in the saddle. He galloped on down the street, turning into a side street.
Out of the corner of his eye, Smoke saw Brute Pitman cut in behind the house, galloping across the neatly tended lawn.
“Coming up your way, Sally!” Smoke called, then had no more time to wonder, for the lawn was filled with human scum.
Smoke began pulling and levering at almost point-blank range. Lapeer taking a half-dozen round in his chest. Behind him, Smoke could vaguely hear the sounds of breaking glass and then the booming of a shotgun. An outlaw Smoke did not know was knocked off the porch to his left, half his face blown away.
“Goddamned heathen!” Smoke heard John say. “Come on, you sorry scum!”
Smoke dropped the Henry and jerked out his six-guns just as he heard gunfire from the rear of the house. He heard Brute’s roar of pain and the sounds of a horse running hard.
Splinters flew out of a porch post and dug into Smoke’s cheek from a bullet. He dropped to one knee and leveled his .44s at Tustin, pulling the triggers. One slug struck the so-called minister in the throat and the other took him in the mouth.
Tustin’s preaching days were over. He rolled from his saddle and hit the ground.
“We’ve beaten them off !” John yelled, excitement in his voice.
“You stay in the house and keep a sharp lookout, John,” Smoke called. “Sally! You all right?”
“I’m fine, honey. But Martha and I got lead in that big ugly man.”
Brute Pitman.
And Smoke knew his plan to ride into town must wait; he could not leave this house until Brute was dead and Rex and the others were accounted for.
Reloading his guns, Smoke stepped off the porch and began a careful circling of the house and grounds.
* * *
Louis took careful aim and ended the outlaw career of Studs Woodenhouse, the slug from Longmont’s gun striking the outlaw leader dead center between the eyes. A bit of fine shooting from that distance.
A rifleman from a second-floor window brought down two of Davidson’s gang. Another volunteer ended the career of yet another. Several of the men had left their positions, at the calling of Sheriff Poley, and now the townspeople had the outlaws trapped inside the ruined bank.
One tried to make a break for it at the exact time Mayor George stepped out of the office, his Dragoon at the ready. The Dragoon spat fire and smoke and about a half pound of lead, the slug knocking the outlaw from his horse and dropping him dead on the cobblestones.
“Bastard!” George muttered.
Four rounds bouncing off cobblestones sent the mayor scrambling back into the office.
Tie Medley exposed his head once too often and Sheriff Poley shot him between the eyes. The Hog, along with Shorty, Jake, and Red, slipped out through a hole blown in the wall and crept into the hardware store. There, they stuffed their pockets full of cartridges and began chopping a hole in the wall, breaking into a dress shop and then into an apothecary shop. They were far enough away from the bank building then to slip out, locate their horses, and get the hell out of that locale.
“Let’s find this Reynolds place!” Shorty said. “I want Jensen.”
“Let’s go!”
Smoke came face to face with Brute Pitman at the rear of the corner of the house. The man’s face was streaked with blood and there was a tiny bullet hole in his left shoulder, put there by Martha’s pocket .32.
Smoke started pulling and cocking, each round striking Brute in the chest and belly. The big man sat down on his butt in the grass and stared at Smoke. While Smoke was punching out empty brass and reloading, Brute Pitman toppled over and died with his eyes and mouth open, taking with him and forever sealing the secret to his cache of gold.
Smoke holstered his own .44s and grabbed at Brute’s six-guns, checking the loads. He filled both of them up with six and continued his prowling.
Sally and Martha watched as he passed by a rear window, blood staining one side of his face. Then they heard his .44s roar into action, and each listened to the ugly sounds of bullets striking into and tearing flesh.
Glen Moore lay on his back near the wood shed, his chest riddled with .44 slugs.
Smoke tossed Bruce’s guns onto the back porch and stepped inside the house.
“You hurt bad?” Sally asked.
“Scratched, that’s all.” He poured a cup of coffee and carried it with him through the house, stopping by John Reynolds’s position in the foyer.
“It didn’t go as King Rex planned.” Smoke sipped his coffee. “I got a hunch he and Dagget have turned tail and run.”
“Then it’s over?”
“For now. But I think I know where the outlaws holed up before they hit us.”
The gunfire had intensified from the town proper.
“Where?”
“That big house with the huge barn just outside of town.”
“That’s Jennings Miller’s place. Yes. Come to think of it, I believe he went to visit one of his children the other day.”
“When this is over, I’ll get the sheriff and we’ll take a ride over there. Does Dagget still have kin in this town?”
John grimaced. “Unfortunately, yes. The Mansfords. A very disagreeable bunch. They live just north of town. Why do you ask?”
“Probably never be able to prove it, but I’ll bet they helped Dagget out in casing the town and telling them the best place to hide.”
“I certainly wouldn’t put it past them.”
The firing had lessened considerably from the town.
“I’ll wire the marshal’s office first thing after the wires are fixed.”
A train whistle cut the waning gunfire.
“I’ll ask them to give any reward money to the town. I reckon that bank’s gonna be pretty well tore up.”
The train whistle tooted shrilly.
John laughed.
Smoke cut his eyes. “What’s so funny, John?”
The gunfire had stopped completely; an almost eerie silence lay over the town. The train tooted its whistle several more times.
“I wouldn’t worry about the bank building, Son. Like I said, it needed a lot of work done on it anyway.”
“Bank president and owners might not see it that way, John.”
“I can assure you, Son, the major stockholder in that bank will see it my way.”
“Are you the major stockholder, John?”
“No. My father gave his shares to
his favorite granddaughter when she turned twenty-one.”
“And who is that?”
“Your wife, Sally.”
24
Only two outlaws were hauled out of the bank building unscathed. Several more were wounded, and one of those would die in the local clinic.
Paul Rycroft and Slim Bothwell had managed to weasel out and could not be found.
Almost miraculously, no townspeople had even been seriously hurt in the wild shooting.
Rex Davidson and Dagget, so it appeared, were long gone from the town. The sheriff and his deputy went to the Mansford home and gave it a thorough search, talking with the family members at length. The family was sullen and uncooperative, but the sheriff could not charge anyone. After all, there was no law on the books against being a jackass.
The bodies of the dead were hauled off and the street swept and cleaned up in front of the ruined bank building. The townspeople began gathering around, oohing and aahing and pointing at this and that.
The sheriff had deputized two dozen extra men and sent them off to guard all roads and paths leading out of the town. People could come in, but you had damn well better be known if you wanted to get out.
The telegraph wires had been repaired—they had been deliberately cut by Davidson’s men, so the prisoners had confessed—and they were once more humming. A special train had been ordered from Manchester and Concord, and the small town was rapidly filling up with reporters and photographers.
Pictures were taken of Mayor George Mahaffery, holding his Dragoon, and the sheriff and his deputy and of the chief of police and his men. Smoke, Louis, and York tried to stay out of the spotlight as much as possible.
That ended abruptly when a small boy tugged at Smoke’s jacket.
“Yes, son?” Smoke looked down at him.
“Four men at the end of the street, Mr. Smoke,” the little boy said, his eyes wide with fear and excitement. “They said they’ll meet you and your men in the street in fifteen minutes.”
Smoke thanked him, gave him a dollar, and sent him off running. He motioned for the sheriff and for Louis and York.
“Clear the street, Sheriff. We’ve been challenged, Louis, York.” Then he briefed his friends.
“Why, I’ll just take a posse and clean them out!” Sheriff Poley said.
Smoke shook his head. “You’ll walk into an ambush if you try that, Sheriff. None of us knows where the men are holed up. Just clear the street.”
“Yeah,” York said. “A showdown ain’t agin the law where we come from.”
Since they had first met, Martha and York had been keeping close company. Martha stepped out of the crowd and walked to York. She kissed him right on the mouth, right in front of God and everybody—and she was still dressed in men’s britches!
“I’ll be waiting,” she whispered to him.
York blushed furiously and his grin couldn’t have been dislodged with an axe.
Louis and Smoke stood back, smiling at the young woman and the young ranger. Then they checked their guns, Louis saying, “One more time, friend.”
“I wish I could say it would be the last time.”
“It won’t be.” Louis spun the cylinder of first his right-hand gun, then the left-hand .44, dropping them into leather. Smoke and York did the same, all conscious of hundreds of eyes on them.
The hundreds of people had moved into stores and ducked into alleyways. Reporters were scribbling as fast as they could and the photographers were ready behind their bulky equipment.
“There they stand,” Louis said quietly, cutting his eyes up the street.
“Shorty, Red, Jake, The Hog,” Smoke verbally checked them off. He glanced up and down the wide street. It was free of people.
“You boys ready?” York asked.
“Let’s do it!” Louis replied grimly.
The citizens of the town and the visiting reporters and photographers had all read about the western-style shoot-outs. But not one among them had ever before witnessed one. The people watched as the outlaws lined up at the far end of the wide street and the lawmen lined up at the other. They began walking slowly toward each other.
“I should have killed you the first day I seen you, Jensen!” Jake called.
Smoke offered no reply.
“I ain’t got but one regret about this thing,” Jake wouldn’t give it up. “I’d have loved to see you eat a pile of horse shit!”
This time Smoke responded. “I’ll just give you some lead, Jake. See how you like that.”
“I’ll take the Hog,” York said.
“Shorty’s mine,” Louis never took his eyes off his intended target.
“Red and Jake belong to me,” Smoke tallied it up. “They’re all fast, boys. Some of us just might take some lead this go-around.”
“It’s not our time yet, Smoke,” Louis spoke quietly. “We all have many more trails to ride before we cross that dark river.”
“How do you know them things, Louis?” York asked.
Louis smiled in that strange and mysterious manner that was uniquely his. “My mother was a gypsy queen, York.”
Smoke glanced quickly at him. “Louis, you tell the biggest whackers this side of Preacher.”
The gambler laughed and so did Smoke and York. Those watching and listening did so with open mouths, not understanding the laughter.
The reporters also noted the seemingly high humor as the three men walked toward hot lead and gunsmoke.
“It’s a game to them,” a reporter murmured. “Nothing more than a game.”
“They’re savages!” another said. “All of them. The so-called marshals included. They should all be put in cages and publicly displayed.”
Martha tapped him on the shoulder. “Mister?”
The reporter turned around.
The young woman slugged him on the side of the jaw, knocking the man sprawling, on his butt, to the floor of the store.
Jordan Reynolds stood with his mouth open, staring in disbelief.
“Good girl,” John said.
A man who looked to be near a hundred years old, dressed in an ill-fitting suit, smiled at Martha. He had gotten off the train that morning, accompanied by two other old men also dressed in clothing that did not seem right for them.
Sally looked at the old men and smiled, starting toward them. The old man who had smiled at Martha shook his head minutely.
The three old mountain men stepped back into the crowd and vanished, walking out the rear of the store.
The reporter was struggling to get to his feet.
“Who was that old man, Sally?” Martha asked.
“I don’t know,” Sally lied. Then she turned to once more watch her man face what many believed he was born to face.
There was fifty feet between them when the outlaws dragged iron. The street erupted in fire and smoke and fast guns and death.
The Hog went down with three of York’s .44 slugs in his chest and belly. He struggled to rise and York ended it with a carefully aimed slug between the Hog’s piggy eyes.
Shorty managed to clear leather and that was just about all he managed to do before Louis’s guns roared and belched lead. Shorty fell forward on his face, his unfired guns shining in the crisp fall air.
Smoke took out Red first, drawing and firing so fast the man was unable to drag his .45 out of leather. Then Smoke felt the sting of a bullet graze his left shoulder as he cocked and fired, the slug taking Jake directly in the center of his chest. Smoke kept walking and firing as Jake refused to go down. Finally, with five slugs in him, the outlaw dropped to the street, closed his eyes, and died.
“What an ugly sight!” Smoke heard a man say.
He turned to the man, blood running down his arm from the wound in his shoulder. “No uglier than when he was alive,” Smoke told him.
And the old man called Preacher chuckled and turned to his friends. “Let’s git gone, boys. It was worth the train ride just to see it!”
The reporter that Martha h
ad busted on the jaw was leaning against another reporter, moral and physical support in his time of great stress. “I’ll sue you!” he hollered at the young woman.
Martha held up her fists. “You wanna fight instead?”
“Savage bitch!” the man yelled at her.
Lawyer John Reynolds stepped up and belted the reporter on the snoot with a hard straight right. The reporter landed on his butt, a sprawl of arms and legs, blood running down his face from his busted beak.
John smiled and said, “Damn, but that felt good!”
25
BANK ROBBERY ATTEMPT FOILED BY WESTERN GUNSLINGERS screamed one headline.
SAVAGES MEET SAVAGE END IN PEACEFUL NEW HAMPSHIRE TOWN howled another front-page headline.
Smoke glanced at the headlines and then ignored the rest of the stories about him. He was getting antsy, restless; he was ready to get gone, back to the High Lonesome, back to the Sugarloaf.
“Is that reporter really going to sue you, Father?” Sally asked John.
The lawyer laughed. “He says he is.”
“You want me to take care of it, John?” Smoke asked with a straight face.
“Oh, no, Son!” John quickly spoke up. “No, I think it will all work out.”
Then Smoke smiled, and John realized his son-in-law was only having fun with him. John threw back his head and laughed.
“Son, you have made me realize what a stuffed shirt I had become. And I thank you for it.”
Smoke opened his mouth and John waved him silent. “No, let me finish this. I’ve had to reassess my original opinion of you, Son. I’ve had to reevaluate many of the beliefs I thought were set in stone. Oh, I still believe very strongly in law and order. And lawyers,” he added with a smile. “But I can understand you and men like you much better now.”
York was out sparking Miss Martha, and Louis was arranging a private railroad car to transport them all back to Colorado. His way of saying thank you for his namesake.
“I’d like nothing better than to see the day when I can hang up my guns, John,” Smoke said after a sip of strong cowboy coffee. “But out where I live, that’s still many years down the road, I’m thinking.”
Revenge of the Mountain Man Page 21
