The Avenging Angels

by Michael Dukes

  Shepherd risked a peek. “Kings! I’ve already got one of your men in custody. He put up a scuffle and got clobbered. No reason for you to do the same. Now for the last time”—he raised his voice then, grating over the words—“will you come along peaceably?”

  Within the bank, Kings’s mind was swimming. He could feel the steady rhythm of his pulse accelerate. Under ideal circumstances, two-on-two, Kings would have met these men in the street, but now there appeared to be another piece in position, tipping the odds, however slightly, against him. His option, and there was only one, was clear—get out and get to the horses.

  “Hell with ’em,” he spat. “Let’s ease outta here.”

  Brownwell crept away from the window, staying out of the light. When he felt he had withdrawn a safe enough distance to be out of eyeshot, he swung around—too fast, and the barrel of Simmons’s brand-new Spencer shattered the globe of a lamp he didn’t know was there.

  The front of the bank disintegrated under the sudden fusillade. Windows imploded, doors were blown to flinders, red dust kicked up in puffs as lead thudded into brick. Blinded by muzzle flashes but otherwise unharmed, Brownwell threw himself down and scrambled for the back door.

  Yeager had his hands full, trying to maintain control of the animals. He was only too eager to throw the reins in Kings’s and Brownwell’s faces, shouting, “Reckon it’s time to go!”

  Kings hugged the cotton sack close to his chest. Fingers flying, he managed to button the top half of his buffalo coat around it, adding a good eight inches to his girth and sufficient padding should he find himself on the wrong end of a stray bullet. “Time to go!” he echoed.

  Brownwell reached a hand into his pack and came out with a stick of dynamite. Putting the reins between his teeth, he lit the fuse, and, as they booted their horses into motion, he chucked the explosive over the bank roof. If Brownwell had gauged the distance correctly, he imagined it would land right about where those lawmen would be organizing . . .

  As it happened, Brownwell’s aim was off by only a few feet, though it was considerably closer than Stringer might have felt comfortable with. He, Shepherd, Dobie, and another man had rushed the bank after the initial volley, only to find the two employees crouched under counters with their hands over their heads. Back in the street, confusion was being shouted down as other gun-wielding townsfolk joined them. When the dynamite landed, its hissing was scarcely audible over the warring voices.

  When the sound finally reached Stringer’s hearing, the spark was too close to stamp out, and the only measure left—to run, push against the crowd of bodies, and hit the dirt—seemed futile.

  Stringer was knocked off his feet by the blast, and it was only by pure luck that he wasn’t killed. Brownwell had grabbed the one stick whose fuse had been ruinously cracked by the day’s cold, which greatly diminished the force of the explosion. It did little damage other than raise pulses and set ears to ringing.

  Tom Shepherd thought the ranger had been killed, or at least severely maimed. Wispy smoke was licking up from his boots and trousers, but when the sheriff opened Stringer’s shirt, Shepherd was surprised to find only bruising.

  “My Lord, but if that ain’t a miracle,” he muttered. Stringer sat up, forcing out tubercular coughs, but Shepherd told him to stay down a minute.

  The older man waved him away, gasping, “I never had a fight I didn’t finish standin’ up.”

  “Captain—”

  “Sheriff, I once fought two days with a Quahada arrow in my hip on the Brazos River. Jesus ain’t callin’ my name over no kiddy’s firecracker.”

  Creasy and Davis reached the horses, held by Foss in an alley a block away. In the cramped space Creasy mounted first, then kneed his horse into the clear, allowing Davis enough room to swing a leg up. Reassembling then, the three drew their pistols and spurred back toward the chaos, firing overhead.

  Their appearance galvanized the townsfolk who had rushed to put out the flames. The outlaws screamed and whooped, jostling pedestrians, spurring their horses after any that broke off, and shouting things like, “Bring that stray back here!” and “Don’t that fire look pretty!”

  In all this confusion, they had blinded themselves to the fact that civilians directed by Walt Mincey were pushing wagons into the street, cutting off their nearest exit, and possemen rallied from the boarding house had skirted the buildings to their rear. Patrick Delaney, who led the charge, stepped out with a borrowed .50-caliber Sharps rifle. He centered on the meaty part between the closest robber’s shoulders and squeezed.

  His precision had devastating results for Charley Davis. The buffalo gun was designed specifically for long-distance shooting, and at a distance of forty yards, it may as well have been a cannon, because it blew a hole in Davis as wide as a fist. He dropped from the saddle and landed on his back.

  Creasy fired wildly at Delaney, missed, then leaned down and eyed the gaping exit wound in his friend’s chest. He knew the answer but asked nonetheless, “Charley, can you ride?”

  “I’m through, Bob,” were Davis’s last words. He coughed blood, and his eyes rolled back, as though watching his soul escape and ascend to be judged.

  Creasy twisted his rearing paint horse away, shouting at Foss, “Let’s get outta here!” He felt a sudden pain in his thigh, and about that same time a bullet punched through Foss’s right shoulder. Hearing a clatter and turning his head south, Creasy saw the fortifications and a half-dozen rifles gleaming hotly in the early morning light.

  Knowing there was no other option—knowing there were trees on the other side of those rifles—Creasy aimed his horse directly at the barricade. Gritting his teeth against the imminent barrage, he rammed hard with his spurs. He heard a voice that sounded miles away yell, “Fire!” just as the paint went airborne. Bullets struck Creasy, threatened to knock his body out of the saddle, but somehow he kept his seat. The paint came back down to earth, stumbled, and managed to resume its gallop. Shots sounded after them, but the gap had widened, and for the moment Creasy had avoided the inevitable.

  Foss had been on his heels from the moment of his wounding to the moment of flight, but on the cusp of jumping himself, Foss’s last nerve dissolved. Too late, he heaved back on the reins with a roar, meaning to wheel around and try another route, but his roan screamed and went to ground ten yards shy of the barricade. It scrambled to its feet and walked toward Davis’s horse, dragging its unconscious rider through the dirt by his left foot.

  Walt Mincey ordered a ceasefire, stepped over a wagon tongue, and jogged toward the animal with his rifle trained on the slackened body of Hardyman Foss. He slapped the man’s boot free of the stirrup and stooped to check the wound. “He’ll live,” he said to no one in particular, then straightened to watch the wall of a frame building next door to the wreckage cave in.

  Sam Woods stumbled out of the hardware store on legs that felt as sturdy as water. He looked like a man half out of his mind, wild-eyed and breathing hard, his ruined left arm swinging with every turn of his body as he searched for an enemy, an ally—anyone that might be moving toward him and not ducking away from the swinging barrel of his gun.

  Standing in the middle of Second Street, blood coursing down his arm and off his fingertips, he bellowed, “Kings!”, but the echo faded without a response. He tried again, going on to the next name that leapt to his mind, “Brownwell! Somebody! Dammit, I’m shot up . . .”

  And then . . . salvation.

  Bob Creasy was riding hard in his direction, torso reddened with blood. Grunting as more pain swept down his arm, Woods stepped farther into the road to wave him down. Creasy reached out to pull the wounded man up behind him.

  Deputy Bauer burst out of the very store Woods had emerged from only seconds before, his side aflame with a breathless cramp. He’d cut across two blocks at a sprinter’s pace in the hopes of running down the man who had ambushed him all the way over on the south end. They had traded lead for two whole minutes back there before a townsman stepp
ed out of his home to put a rifle slug in Woods’s elbow. Bauer himself suffered only a scratch, but Woods, wrecked wing and all, had managed to outdistance the deputy.

  Suddenly, Bauer heard the heavy sounds of a horse being slowed from a run to a stop, and then he spotted Creasy picking Woods up. Bauer levered a fresh round into the chamber and took careful aim. His shot smacked into Woods’s lower back. Creasy returned fire, but Bauer dove for cover.

  “Go!” Woods gasped, and they were off, having been flushed east on Independence Street. Hot blood coursed down the animal’s withers and flanks from the six wounds Creasy and Woods had between them.

  The three-man group of Gabriel Kings, Leroy Brownwell, and Andy Yeager moved south on Fourth at a trot, holding their horses for the race that surely lay ahead. So far, they had fared much better than their fellows, two of whom were in custody, two dead, and two more gravely wounded.

  The street was quiet, almost as if they were riding through a dreamscape, another world. The west end had been alive with gunfire for the last nine minutes, but that was not the case from this side of the scene. Faces turned away from windows as they passed, but it wasn’t an easy feeling that rode with the men—the contrasting calm only wound them tighter, made them expect a shot in the back at any second.

  Out of nowhere, Kings heard his name on the wind. Slowing to a walk so he could better place the location of whoever had done the calling, he thought it might have been Woods. He hadn’t sounded too far off, maybe a few blocks, but Kings didn’t raise his voice in reply for fear of marking their position.

  “Sounded hurt,” Yeager whispered. “Think we oughta ride to him?”

  Again they heard a shout for help.

  “I wouldn’t,” Brownwell advised. “Look, there’s trees yonder! Not two hundred yards. Sad to say, but it’s ever’ man for himself now.”

  At that moment a rifle cracked, and all three flinched at the sound. Like the call for help, it hadn’t been far away, but it wasn’t aimed at them. There was a reply from a pistol, and then, on its heels, a second-story window went up, and the snout of a shotgun angled down at them. Yeager fired across his body, the round shattering glass above the shooter’s head, then shouted over his shoulder, “That’s it, then!”

  They kicked their horses into a gallop, but the getaway was stalled at the intersection of Fourth and Independence when Creasy’s horse, laboring under its double load, nearly collided with Brownwell’s. Woods, slumped to one side behind Creasy like a sack of potatoes, smiled with delirium and said, “Hot damn, it’s the boys!”

  “You all that’s left?” Kings asked but went unheard above the commotion. When the teetering Creasy came alongside, Brown-well leaned over and snatched the frantic animal’s bridle.

  A shot rang out, whining nastily as it ricocheted off a metal street sign, and then another, this one of a higher caliber. That shot missed, too, but came significantly closer as Brownwell jerked, deaf in his right ear. Boardwalks rumbled as marksmen scrambled for position, spilling into the street from half a block away. It was Caleb Stringer, standing in the middle of the road, who fired the shot that nearly downed Brownwell.

  One man moved away from the pack and to the right to try for a clearer shot. Kings caught sight of the buffalo gun in his hands, with its unmistakable length, and a thought turned his stomach. If that fellow could fire and reload quickly enough, he could plink away at their backsides at his leisure . . .

  As the remnant of his shattered gang hurried away, the Virginian held his stallion steady, squeezing with his knees, and threw out his gun arm. Sighting down the barrel, he did not hear the report of a dozen rifles, nor did he flinch as a dozen bullets whapped wide, high or low. His mind shut down, and, in that moment, nothing else mattered but his pistol and the target.

  He feathered the trigger. The gun kicked, and the man with the Sharps jerked and fell into the man behind him. Kings waited long enough to see the results of his marksmanship, then turned John Reb and rammed with his spurs.

  The others were two lengths ahead. The stallion surged, closing the distance impossibly fast. At the head of the charge was Yeager on his smoke-gray mare, swinging his quirt and yowling like a banshee. Brownwell on his stocky chestnut was stirrup-tostirrup with Creasy and Woods, stiffening an arm against Woods’s shoulder to keep him from slipping.

  John Reb’s neck stretched, and his powerful haunches carried his rider past them with ease. Had Kings been of a mind to slow up and send Brownwell on, he wouldn’t have been able to. The black was soon gaining on the smoke-gray, and Kings felt the horrible sensation of riding down a giant funnel, as though the buildings on either side were closing in like double doors. The space through which their exit must be made was getting tighter and tighter.

  It was an all-out run for freedom, and, as the horsemen exceeded rifle range, with the edge of town and outlying wilderness well in sight and welcoming, it seemed apparent that the Avenging Angels—or what was left of them—had made it through. They had only to pass the livery barn, maybe pause to open the corral gate and scatter horses, effectively covering their tracks and eliminating almost all hope of a lawman’s chase . . .

  And then, from the semi-darkness of the livery, streaks of flame shot from the muzzle of a Gatling gun, sweeping across the street in a staccato roar. A heretofore inactive Paul Leduc cranked the lever with unrushed calm and watched the carnage, the effects of his accuracy, with a flinty look of satisfaction.

  Brownwell’s horse screamed and went down as .45-70-caliber rounds pocked its side and flanks in a red spray. Brownwell landed on his knees and came up clawing for his pistols, but he never cleared leather for the volley that riddled his groin, chest, shoulders, and neck. When the barrel of the Gatling slid away, the damage done, Leroy lunged at the carcass of his horse, wanting the rifle he had sheathed to help Woods. He toppled face-forward onto the bulk only to realize that the scabbard was trapped underneath. Life left him with a grunt of frustration.

  In all of Creasy’s years as a fugitive, he had never known such resistance, such mayhem. Always their robberies had been fast, hit-and-run operations. There had been some shooting from time to time, but never like this. He had never known this. Desperately, he wheeled his horse around, and, in the process, Sam Woods lost his seat.

  As he fell, Sam knew he was finished. He landed in agony on his wounded arm and rolled in the dirt, as if to outdistance the gunfire. All around him slugs whacked into the walls of buildings and exploded a trough in a shower of splinters and water. Woods got up, reeled blindly for some shred of cover, and then went down as he was jolted from behind, again and again, by fire.

  Creasy didn’t get much farther. Swinging the Gatling hard to his right, Leduc turned the lever and the barrels barked one last time. Spent and smoking brass dropped in the livery dirt, and Bob Creasy threw his hands into the air, falling headlong into the street.

  A haze of gun smoke blanketed fifty feet of road, and stillness descended like a giant bird as the Texas Ranger stepped out to survey his handiwork. He was sorry about the horse but felt nothing for the men who lay where they had fallen.

  A few brave townspeople emerged from cover. While there was still plenty of fear and shock to go around, more than one raised their voices to shout their thanks and admiration for the ranger who had finished the fight. But as he went from man to man, boot-rolling them onto their backs, Leduc’s grim and somewhat sickened expression hinted that it wasn’t finished after all.

  Gabriel Kings had gotten away.

  CHAPTER 22

  Kings and Yeager did not slow their horses until they were two miles outside of town. Drawing up at the crest of a steep hill, they knew they couldn’t linger very long.

  Snaking around the foot of the slope was the eastern road stagecoaches followed into Justicia. It would be unadvisable for them to take it—tracks would be easier to follow on a manmade path than through the trees. There was no other route left to the outlaws other than what they could blaze for themsel
ves. It would be rough going, because the trees were thick, and their getaway must be made as quickly as possible. Furthermore, separation was the order of the day—as undesirable as that might have looked to them, the tactic would improve their individual chances of escape, and a man could make his escape better if it was possible to do so at his own pace.

  “Where’ll you head?” Kings asked, eyeing the terrain below.

  “Eastward,” Yeager said, “homeward. I don’t think them boys’ll chase me clear over to Clinch Mountain. You?”

  “Jacksons’, if I can. Either of us makes it out the Territory, I’ll leave your cut below cabin number two.”

  Yeager shook his head. “Don’t know that I’ll be back that way anytime soon. Far as I’m concerned, I never heard of Texas. You might as well take it all with ya.”

  “I’ll set it aside then,” Kings assured him, then holstered his pistol to reach over his horse’s neck for one last handshake. Yeager stared at the proffered hand for a moment before edging close enough to squeeze it. They had been through a lot, these two, and were saying good-bye the only way they knew—with stony faces and firm grips.

  “I’ll send for ya sometime,” Kings said. “Ain’t gonna be right off, but I’ll send for ya.”

  “You don’t hear back from me, I’ll be restin’ with my fathers.”

  “That ain’t gonna happen.” Kings paused, then realized there was no more time. “So long, Andreas. Stay off the roads.”

  Yeager started to move off, then tugged on the reins and turned in the saddle. He had taken a bullet in the left shoulder, but he couldn’t afford to stop and treat it immediately. There was a thought in the back of his mind that he dared not entertain. How much longer could he ride? How much farther could he get? He was a quiet man by nature, one who rarely opened his mouth to speak, who never offered his opinion unless asked. It wasn’t in his nature to blame Kings for what had happened—wasn’t even in his mind, because Kings was his captain and a captain worth following—but his parting words seemed to blame another.