The Kid fought his way free of that confusion first and came up on his knees. A gun roared and a slug sizzled past his ear. He spotted Early over the barrel of his gun and pulled the trigger. Early doubled over and stumbled back a step as The Kid’s lead punched hotly into his guts.
Wolfram swung an arm like the trunk of a young tree and slammed it into the side of The Kid’s head. The blow sent him sliding across the sawdust-littered floor of the saloon.
He managed to hang on to his gun. As bullets thudded into the planks beside him, he rolled over and drilled the hard case who was firing at him. The Kid’s bullets turned the man’s face into a crimson smear.
“Kid, look out!” Diana screamed.
What felt like a mountain fell on The Kid. The crushing weight drove all the air from his lungs and made red lightning flash before his eyes. He knew that Wolfram was on top of him, but before he could squirm away, Wolfram’s arm looped around his neck from behind and tightened on his throat. The Kid felt his spine stretching and bending as Wolfram dug a knee into the small of his back and hauled upward with the arm around his neck, reversing the positions they had been in during the climax of their first battle.
The Kid couldn’t see anything except what was right in front of him. Diana and Owen Starbird sat at one of the tables. Diana was tied hand and foot and lashed to the chair to keep her from getting away, but Starbird was free. He didn’t have his crutches, though, so there was nothing he could do except sit there.
Or was there? The Kid was in too much pain and on the verge of blacking out from lack of air to really comprehend what was going on at first, but then he realized that Starbird was trying to stand up. The captain’s hands were on the table, and the muscles of his arms and shoulders and neck stood out as he strained to lift himself onto his legs. His face flushed red from the exertion. He rose higher and higher in his chair until he was balanced precariously on those wasted legs.
“My God,” Diana breathed. “Uncle Owen…”
Starbird was standing, one hand on the table, the other on the back of the chair where he had been sitting. With a look of intense determination on his face, he tried to take a step toward The Kid and Wolfram.
He fell flat on his face.
Diana cried out in mingled disappointment and pity.
But Starbird wasn’t through. His arms still worked just fine. He got his hands underneath him and levered himself forward, lifting his torso from the floor and dragging his legs behind him. Wolfram might have seen him coming, but he didn’t look up from the task of choking The Kid to death, which he was carrying out with fiendish glee.
The Kid saw Starbird’s struggle to help him, and encouraged the man on with his eyes.
When Starbird was close enough, he swung a fist and crashed it against the side of Wolfram’s head. The former pirate grunted in pain and surprise, and his grip on The Kid loosened just enough. The Kid drove an elbow back into Wolfram’s midsection with as much force as he could muster. At the same time, he twisted his body, and Wolfram’s arm came loose from around his neck. The Kid dragged air gratefully through his tortured throat.
As The Kid rolled away, Starbird smashed punch after punch into Wolfram’s face. Years of relying on his arms to get him around, either on crutches or in the wheelchair, had given him incredible strength. Then, while Wolfram was stunned, Starbird fastened both hands on the man’s neck and began to squeeze.
Wolfram bucked and flailed, but he couldn’t dislodge Starbird’s grip. The two men rolled across the floor, locked in their deadly struggle.
A few yards away, The Kid surged to his feet. He realized that he had dropped his gun during the fight with Wolfram. He looked for it as a bullet whipped past his ear. A woman screamed.
The Kid whirled and saw Black Terence Malone backing toward the batwinged entrance to the saloon. He still had Sophia in front of him, holding her there with one arm while he used his other hand to aim his gun at The Kid. Sophia was putting up such a fight he figured she had thrown off Malone’s aim and caused his first shot to miss. The Kid watched as she leaned over and sunk her teeth into Malone’s arm, causing him to jerk around and howl in pain.
Malone hit Sophia with the gun in his hand. It was a brutal blow to the head that made her go limp. As Malone let go of her and she slumped to the floor, The Kid spotted his gun lying a few feet away and dived for it. Malone threw a shot at him, but the bullet went over The Kid’s head. His fingers closed on the gun butt and he scooped up the Colt, but as he tilted the barrel toward Malone and pulled the trigger, the pirate flung himself through the batwings, out of the saloon. The Kid’s bullet knocked a slat out of one of the swinging doors.
The Kid was aware that a lot of gunfire was coming from outside the Rattler’s Den. Sam Rocklin and the men from Diamondback had arrived, and, along with Gray Hawk’s Yaqui brethren, they were engaged in pitched battle with Malone’s forces. The Kid hoped that the innocent citizens of Bristol would keep their heads down as long as the bullets were flying. In the larger picture, though, no one in Rattlesnake Valley would ever be safe until the threat of Black Terence Malone had been dealt with. Some risks had to be run if people were going to be free.
After all, the only people who were truly safe…were the ones who were already dead. They could never be hurt again.
Sophia was hurt, though. Blood welled from the gash in her forehead that the blow from Malone’s gun had opened up. The Kid hurried to her side and knelt to lift her and cradle her head on his thigh. Her eyelids fluttered, then stayed open. She gazed up at him with no recognition at first, then said weakly, “Kid?”
“That’s right,” he told her. “How bad are you hurt?”
“I…I don’t know. My head hurts like blazes.”
The Kid hoped that she had just been knocked out for a few moments and that Malone’s craven blow hadn’t done any real damage.
Elsewhere in the saloon, Gray Hawk had managed to climb to his feet. He was moving stiffly, which told The Kid that he was in pain. The old Yaqui might have some cracked ribs from that bear hug Wolfram had caught him in.
As for Wolfram, the massive former pirate lay motionless on his back, his tongue and eyeballs protruding slightly in death. Owen Starbird was still sprawled on top of him with fingers locked around Wolfram’s throat. Starbird looked like he had passed out.
Gray Hawk bent and pulled his knife from the chest of one of Malone’s gunmen. He shuffled over to the table where a wide-eyed Diana still sat, lashed to the chair. “I will cut you loose, señorita,” the Yaqui said.
“Thanks, Gray Hawk,” she said. She looked over at The Kid and asked, “Where did Malone go?”
The Kid shook his head as he gently pushed back some strands of rich brown hair that had fallen over Sophia’s eyes. “I don’t know, but he must’ve wound up in the middle of that battle going on out there. He may be dead now, for all I know.”
“Whatever happens to him, it won’t be as bad as he deserves,” Diana said as Gray Hawk’s knife began severing the cords that bound her to the chair and held her wrists and ankles tightly together. “The man was insane!”
The Kid nodded. “Eighteen years in prison helped make him that way, but my guess is that he was evil to start with.” He looked around the room, which stank of gunsmoke, and asked, “What happened to Parnell?”
“He’s gone,” Diana said. “I didn’t see him leave. He must have slipped out when all the shooting and fighting started.”
Sophia brought The Kid’s attention back to her by saying, “Kid, I-I think I could use a drink. As nice as it is lying here with you holding me, I need to stand up.”
“Sure,” he said. “Put your arms around my neck.”
She lifted her arms and draped them around his neck as he got a good grip on her. Then he straightened to his feet and brought her up with him.
Gray Hawk had cut Diana loose. She stood as well and rubbed her wrists to get the feeling back into her hands. Her steps were unsteady as she came toward The K
id and Sophia. All of them arrived at the bar at just about the same time, with The Kid standing between the two lovely young women.
“What happened to your bartenders and all your customers when Malone came in and took over the place?” The Kid asked Sophia.
“He told them to get out. He had his men round everybody up and ordered them to get in their houses and stay there until he told them to come out again. Nobody wanted to cross him, so they did like he said.”
The Kid nodded. “That’s what I figured. Will you ladies be all right for a minute while Gray Hawk and I check on Captain Starbird?”
“Sure,” Sophia said. She reached over and snagged a bottle someone had left on the bar. “You want a drink, Diana?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Diana said. She took the bottle from Sophia, lifted it to her lips, and downed a healthy slug of the whiskey. Then she handed it back to Sophia, who swallowed about half of the amber liquid that was left.
The Kid was glad to see that the two of them seemed to have called a truce in their ongoing dislike for each other. He and Gray Hawk went over to Starbird and lifted the man off Wolfram’s corpse. They carried him back to the chair where he had been sitting earlier and lowered him into it. Starbird was coming around. He shook his head from side to side and muttered incoherently.
“It must have taken every bit of strength he had to choke the life out of that monster,” The Kid said.
Gray Hawk nodded. “Truly, the señor is a brave, gallant man.”
The Kid couldn’t argue with that. Owen Starbird had saved his life. Wolfram would have broken The Kid’s back in another minute or two.
The gunfire outside had died away to an occasional sporadic shot. The Kid hoped that meant the battle was over—and that the men from Diamondback had won. He didn’t know for sure, so he quickly thumbed fresh cartridges from his belt into his Colt to replace the ones he had fired, then stepped to the batwings to look outside. The sun was up, but it was still low in the eastern sky, filling the streets of Bristol with rosy light.
That light didn’t soften the grimness of the sight that met The Kid’s eyes. Bodies were sprawled in the street and along the boardwalks. He saw Yaquis, he saw punchers he recognized from Diamondback, he saw hardbitten strangers who had to be some of Malone’s bunch of killers. The toll taken by this battle was a heavy one.
A flurry of shots came from somewhere down the street. Men shouted and cursed. The Kid stepped on the boardwalk and saw Sam Rocklin, along with some of the punchers and Gray Hawk’s Yaquis, running toward the saloon, firing over their shoulders at masked, duster-clad men who pursued them on horseback.
What the hell?
The Kid shouted, “Sam! In here!”, and the fleeing men veered toward the saloon. The Kid waved them on and fired his Colt over their heads at the riders. “We’ll fort up inside!”
Rocklin and the others swarmed into the saloon. The Kid dove through the batwings after them as bullets punched holes in the doors and shattered the remaining glass in the windows.
“Down!” The Kid bellowed. “Everybody down!”
He heard Sophia and Diana scream as he flattened out in scattered glass beneath one of the windows. Rocklin was beside him. They began firing at the riders, and some of the others were already at the other window, peppering the masked men on horseback as well. The riders wheeled their mounts and withdrew, but The Kid had a hunch they weren’t giving up. They were just regrouping for another attack on the saloon.
“Sam, what in blazes is going on here?” The Kid asked as a lull fell over the street. He took advantage of it to reload again.
“Beats the hell outta me, Kid!” the foreman replied. “I thought we just about had Malone’s bunch wiped out, when all of a sudden that other gang of gunnies came a-swarmin’ down on us from outside of town. I don’t know where they came from or who they are!”
Neither did The Kid, but he knew one thing as he lifted his head enough to glance out the broken window.
“Here they come again!” he yelled.
Chapter 29
The Kid twisted his head around to call over his shoulder, “Some of you get upstairs and cover those windows! The rest take the back! Don’t let any of that bunch get inside that way! A couple of you men grab Captain Starbird and help him behind the bar. Diana, you and Sophia stay with your uncle and keep your heads down!”
The Diamondback hands and the Yaquis scattered to follow The Kid’s orders. None too soon, because guns began to bang again and bullets flew through the empty spaces where the windows had been busted out.
Staying low, The Kid and Rocklin and the men at the other window returned the fire. The mysterious riders swept past, pouring lead into the saloon as they galloped by, then wheeled their horses around for another pass.
Each time, though, The Kid was gratified to see a couple of them tumble from their saddles.
The problem was that this new and unexpected enemy numbered at least forty, and The Kid doubted if the combined forces of the defenders inside the saloon added up to more than thirty. They had the advantage of being able to fort up in there, but at the same time, they were pinned down, and it was only a matter of time before the masked gunmen shot the building to pieces.
That didn’t take into account the possibility that they might decide to start a fire and burn the defenders out.
The riders withdrew again. The Kid guessed they were trying to decide the most effective way of dealing with the holdouts in the saloon. He risked a look and saw them down at the end of the street, gathered in a knot. As The Kid studied them, his eyes narrowed as he concentrated on one particular mounted figure. The man was tall and broad-shouldered, and even though he had a bandanna drawn up over the lower half of his face, there was something familiar about him. When The Kid saw the early morning sunlight reflect off something under the broad brim of the man’s hat, everything that had been bothering him for the past few days fell into place.
He stood up.
“Kid, what are you doin’?” Rocklin said. “Better get down. That bunch could start shootin’ again.”
“I know what I’m doing, Sam,” The Kid said. Holding his gun tightly, he went to the batwings and pushed one of them out a little. He raised his voice and shouted, “Parnell! Jefferson Parnell!”
At the end of the street, the masked figure he’d been studying stiffened in the saddle and then turned to look toward The Kid. Parnell’s eyesight was bad enough that he had to wear his spectacles, even when he pulled on the duster and mask of a mysterious marauder.
“Let’s talk this over, Parnell!” The Kid called. “Maybe everybody doesn’t have to die!”
Behind the bar, Sophia’s head popped up. “Parnell?” she repeated in amazement. “The newspaperman?”
Without taking his eyes off the enemy, The Kid said, “I’ve got a hunch he isn’t a real newspaperman. Or if he is, publishing a paper isn’t why he’s here in Rattlesnake Valley.”
Parnell separated himself from the rest of the gunmen and rode slowly toward the saloon. He said something sharply over his shoulder to the others, maybe ordering them to stay put while he parleyed with The Kid. Parnell brought his horse to a halt in front of the saloon and said, “Step out here where we can see each other while we talk, Morgan.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” The Kid said. “You could have a man drawing a bead on me as soon as I come out onto the boardwalk.”
“I probably have a dozen or more guns trained on me right now,” Parnell snapped. “I think it’s only fair that you have to worry about that, too.”
Rocklin whispered, “Don’t do it, Kid,” and when he glanced back he saw Diana and Sophia peering over the bar, both of them shaking their heads.
But he said, “All right, Parnell. If you or your men try any tricks, though, I can guarantee you’ll never make it back up the street alive.”
“No tricks,” Parnell promised. “I just want to indulge my curiosity and find out how much you know.”
&n
bsp; “I know enough,” The Kid said as he pushed the batwings aside and stepped onto the boardwalk. “I know that the river George Starbird uncovered is one of the best sources of water between San Antonio and El Paso. I also know that if somebody were to use dynamite and blast that pass closed in the mountains, then build a dam across the opening in the hills at the other end of the valley, within a year or two you’d have a mighty fine reservoir right here. The town and all the ranches would be covered up, of course, but there would be millions of gallons of water that could make a man rich. This is West Texas, after all. Water is money.”
Parnell tugged his bandanna down, revealing the angry glare on his face. “How did you figure that out?” he demanded.
“I’ve had a few engineering courses in my time,” The Kid said without elaborating. “As soon as I saw the layout of the valley, I knew there was something unusual about it. It just took me a few days to figure out that it’s shaped to be a natural reservoir. All anybody would have to do is close off those two openings. That would dam up the river. I don’t know how you found out about it, but you saw the potential. And when you came here to see if you could exploit it, you found a tailor-made situation to get what you wanted. Malone was crazy for revenge on Captain Starbird. All you had to do was poke both sides a little to make it happen faster. You brought in gunmen and had them hide out in the hills. They’re the ones who rustled Diamondback stock and took potshots at Diamondback hands. You wanted Starbird so mad and worried that he’d strike first, then he and Malone and all their men could wipe each other out, leaving the valley as easy pickings for you to take over.” The Kid shook his head. “Malone didn’t cooperate, even though he had no idea what you were doing. You sent Diamondback over to Trident last night for the final showdown, but Malone and his men weren’t there. They were at Diamondback, grabbing Starbird and his niece to use as hostages to force a showdown of their choosing, here in town. Just pure bad luck and bad timing, Parnell, or things might have played out the way you wanted.”
The Loner: Rattlesnake Valley Page 19
