Day of Reckoning

by William W. Johnstone

  “I’ve already checked it out half a dozen times,” O’Leary said. “But now that I know it’s actual goin’ to happen, I’ll be glad to scout it out again.”

  Rock Creek

  Duff, Meagan, and Ina Claire were waiting at the Rock Creek depot when the train pulled into the station. They watched as the passengers stepped down. Elmer and Wang were not among them.

  “Oh,” Ina Claire said. “Do you think they missed the train?”

  Duff pointed to the stock car, which was located just before the baggage car. An inclined access had been lowered from the car to the platform, and Elmer and Wang were leading their horses down the ramp.

  “Oh, there they are!” Ina Claire said happily. “Mr. Gleason! Mr. Wang!” she called loudly.

  Elmer looked over toward her and smiled. A moment later he and Wang joined Duff and the others.

  “Hello, darlin’,” Elmer said.

  “Elmer, I know we are friends, but you dinnae need to be callin’ me darlin’,” Duff said.

  For just a moment Elmer looked surprised, then they all laughed.

  “I was hoping you would send for me,” Elmer said. “And after those three came lookin’ for you, me ’n Wang made up our minds that we would come find you whether you sent for us or not.”

  “I’m a little surprised that it was only three men who came after me,” Duff said. “It could have been seven.”

  “Yeah. Well it was three, ’n we tried to tell ’em you wasn’t there, but the sons of bitches wouldn’t take no for an answer.” Elmer slapped his hand over his mouth. “Oh, damn, I cussed in front of you ladies again, didn’t I? I’m sorry as hell. I won’t do it again.”

  Duff laughed. “Elmer, dinnae be making promises ye can’t keep.”

  “I’ll damn well try ’n keep that promise. Son of a bitch, I just done it again, didn’t I?”

  This time everyone, including Wang, laughed.

  * * *

  “A medicine wagon?” Elmer asked, looking at the bright red and gold vehicle. “Are you tellin’ me you three has been travelin’ around in somethin’ like this, lookin’ for Callahan ’n his bunch?”

  “Indeed we have.”

  “Ha! I reckon you didn’t want him to see you comin’.”

  “Aye, that was my intention.”

  “Duff MacCallister, that don’t make no sense at all. Hell, they could see this comin’ from a mile away.”

  “The eye that sees large will not see small,” Wang said.

  “Now there you go again, sayin’ somethin’ that there don’t nobody understand,” Elmer said.

  “I understand what he is saying,” Ina Claire said.

  “Well then, darlin’, I wish you would explain it to me.”

  Ina Claire smiled. “It means that someone will see the medicine wagon, and because it is gaudy, and different from any other wagon, the wagon and the show become the whole thing and the people of the wagon are overlooked.”

  Wang smiled. “Xiaojie Ina Claire has the beauty of a new bloom and the wisdom of an ancient sage.”

  “What you are sayin’ is, this little girl is smarter’n me?” Elmer asked.

  Duff laughed. “Elmer, I dinnae believe for a minute he is saying that. I told you before that I consider you one of the smartest people I know.”

  “Now how can you say that when I got near-’bout no book-learnin’ at all? Oh, wait, what was that word you used? You said I ate knowledge, or somethin’ like that.”

  “The word that I used was innate. Knowledge is preserved in books. Intelligence is inherent,” Duff said.

  “Now if you ain’t beginnin’ to sound just like Wang, talkin’ in riddles like that.”

  Meagan put her hand on Elmer’s shoulder. “It means that you are far smarter than the mere words you can find in a book.”

  Elmer looked at the others, then he smiled. Making a fist, he raised it so that his thumb was pointing back toward his chest. “Well, this here smart feller thanks all of you for your kind words.”

  “Duff, now that Elmer and Wang are here, do we continue to travel with the medicine wagon?” Meagan asked.

  “Aye, I think for a while longer anyway, at least until Callahan and the others do something else so we can follow up on their action.”

  * * *

  That night the little group camped by the medicine wagon just outside of Medicine Bow. Wang had prepared their supper for them, and everyone enjoyed the meal, especially the wontons and the egg rolls. After the meal all gathered around the campfire, which they kept burning by occasionally feeding it another small log. The fire put out a golden bubble of light and snapped and popped anytime the little trapped gas bubbles in the firewood were ignited.

  “Meagan, how did you and Duff meet?” Ina Claire asked.

  “We met because of a mirror,” Meagan replied.

  “A mirror?”

  Duff chuckled. “Aye, lass, ’twas a mirror she was holding that caused us to meet. And ’tis a good thing, too, because without the mirror, I might have been killed.”

  Ina Claire got a confused look on her face. “How did holding a mirror save his life?”

  “A lot of men had come to town,” Meagan replied. “They were evil men, bound on killing Duff, but they didn’t care who else they killed. So the town, as much as Duff, was being held in siege that day.”

  “One o’ the men who came to town that day was a brigand by the name o’ Rab Malcolm,” Duff said. “He had killed someone close to me back in Scotland, ’n came to America with the Somerled brothers to kill me here. I killed the two brothers in New York, ’n then I got away from Malcolm, thinking he would go back to Scotland. But he didn’t. He came all the way to Chugwater to finish what he had started, and he hired some killers to come with him.”

  “What does that have to do with a mirror?”

  “Hold your horses, Ina Claire, I’m getting to it,” Meagan said. “Anyway Duff MacCallister knew the men were in town waiting for him, so he came in playing ‘Scotland the Brave’ on his pipes; a lone knight, you might say, standing up against the dragons of evil. There were evil men hiding behind the corners of the buildings, one up on top of Fiddler’s Green hiding behind the false front, and two more inside the saloon itself.

  “Then I saw two more men lying on the ground behind the watering trough, just in front of my shop. They cocked their pistols and started toward the edge of the trough. I didn’t really know Duff then, I just knew that he was one of the bravest men I had ever seen, taking on all of these men by himself. If he had no idea these men were here, they would have an advantage over him, and I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “I know what happened,” Ina Claire said. “You yelled at him, you warned him.”

  Meagan smiled. “Now, who is telling this story? You or me?”

  “You are,” Ina Claire agreed.

  “I had a customer in the store at the time. It was Mrs. Riley, and before the shooting started, she had been standing for a fitting in front of a full-length mirror. That’s when I got my idea, so I told her to move into the back of the shop until all the excitement was over. Then I unscrewed the knobs that held the dressing mirror on the frame and carried it to the front. Standing in the front of my shop, I turned that mirror on its side so that it had a lengthwise projection. I held it there, praying that Duff would see it.”

  “Here now, woman, ’n would ye be for letting me finish the story, seeing as what happened next happened to me?”

  “You’ve got the floor,” Meagan said, making a little sweep with her hand.

  “What Meagan didn’t tell you is that I was behind a watering trough myself,” Duff said. “But my trough was on the opposite side of the street. I slithered on my stomach to the edge, then peered around it. The first place I looked was toward Fiddler’s Green to see if I was going to have any trouble there, but the saloon was quiet. Then, looking across the street, I saw a woman in the window of the dress shop. I’d never met the lass, but I had seen her before. She was the
same pretty woman I had seen step down from the stagecoach the first day I came into town. I wanted to yell at her, to tell her to get down, that she was being foolish exposing herself as she was.

  “Then I saw exactly what she was doing. She was holding a mirror, and looking in the mirror I could see that there were two men lying on the ground behind the watering trough that was directly across the street from me. I had no idea they had been there, and had Meagan not held up the mirror so I could see them, ’twould have been easy enough for them to shoot me.

  “I watched as one started moving toward the end of the trough in order to take a look, and I aimed my pistol at the edge of the trough and waited.

  “‘MacCallister!’ Malcolm called from the darkness of the saloon. Malcolm, ye see, was the evil black heart who had come all the way from Scotland to kill me. ‘MacCallister!’ he called again. ‘Why don’t you come back out into the street, and I will as well? We can face each other down, just as Western men do. Oh, yes, I know all about the Western gunfighters, I have read of them in dime novels. What do you say? Just the two of us, alone in the street?’

  “‘You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?’ I called back.

  “‘Believe what?’

  “‘That it would just be the two of us.’

  “Malcolm laughed. ‘Ye think that because I have friends with me, that I would be for taking unfair advantage of ye, MacCallister? Alas, that is probably true. Tell me, what does it feel like to know that you won’t live long enough to see the sun set tonight?’

  “All the while Malcolm was talking, I was keeping one eye on the mirror and the other on the corner of the watering trough. Then my vigil was rewarded. When I saw the brim of a hat appear, I cocked my pistol and waited.

  “That was when I saw the man’s eye appear, I aimed, and touched the trigger. Looking in the mirror I saw the man’s face fall into the dirt and the gun slip from his hand.”

  “What about Malcolm?” Ina Claire asked, enthralled by the story. “Did Duff kill ’im?”

  “No, darlin’, I’m the one that killed ’im,” Elmer said.

  “You killed him? Then you were in town with Duff?”

  “No, ma’am, I kilt the son of a bitch when he come out to Sky Meadow to kill Duff.”

  Duff smiled. “Elmer’s telling the truth. Malcolm was about to kill me, ’n Elmer it was that saved my life.”

  “Oh, my, that’s a story you and Meagan can tell your grandchildren!” Ina Claire said.

  Duff and Meagan smiled at each other.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Centennial, Wyoming Territory

  Callahan and his men were camped about three miles outside of the small town of Centennial. One hour earlier the sun had set to be replaced by a vault of stars, from bright pin points of light that seemed close enough to reach up and pluck from the night sky, all the way down to a light blue dusting so faint that individual stars could not be seen. The moon was a brilliant silver orb, bright enough so that the Medicine Bow Mountains were quite visible. Within the campsite itself, the small fire projected a tiny bubble of wavering orange light.

  There were five men squatting around the fire, drinking coffee and eating hardtack that had been fried in bacon grease. Near the encampment an owl hooted his displeasure at having his space invaded. Farther away they could hear the howl of a coyote.

  They had come to Centennial to rob a bank.

  “There ain’t all that much money here,” Callahan explained. “But we’re down to practically no money at all, and we’re goin’ to need some money to get us by ’til we hit the big bank in Cheyenne.”

  “If there ain’t that much money in this bank, why is it we’re a-robbin’ it?” Morris asked. “Why ain’t we a-robbin’ a bank that has a lot more money?”

  “They’s lots of reasons why it is that we’re robbin’ this bank,” Callahan said. “First of all, like I said, we need the money. And second, on account of this bank is real little ’n all, it ain’t never been robbed ’cause there ain’t never been no one who thought it was worth robbin’. What that means is, there won’t be nobody expectin’ it to get robbed.

  “But the third reason, ’n this is a good one, the man that built this bank is the same man that built the First Federal Bank in Cheyenne. This is a lot smaller bank than the one in Cheyenne, but they are both laid out just the same, so robbin’ this one will give us a good practice,” Callahan said.

  “Why do we need to practice? Robbin’ a bank is robbin’ a bank, ain’t it?” Cooper asked. “What I’m sayin’ is, why waste time with a little bank, when we could just rob the one in Cheyenne ’n be done with it?”

  “Have you ever seen a football game, Cooper?” O’Leary asked.

  “A football game? No, I’ve heard of football, but I ain’t never seen me no game,” Cooper replied. “Why did you ask me that? What the hell does a football game have to do with robbin’ a bank?”

  “Well, football games is most played by colleges ’n such back in the East, but I’ve seen me a couple of ’em. It has a lot to do with robbin’ a bank. You see, here’s the thing about football. You have a team, and that team has to do everything together, sort of have it worked out in advance so as they know what ever’one is goin’ to do.

  “That’s what we’ll have to do when we hold up that bank in Cheyenne, ’n it’s what we’ll be doin’ when we hold up the bank here in Centennial. We’ll be practicin’ so that when we hit the bank in Cheyenne, we’ll know exactly what ever’one is to do.”

  “Yeah, well, I say let’s hold up this here bank,” Manning said. “I’m kinda anxious to have some money again.”

  “First thing we need to do is scout it out,” Callahan said.

  * * *

  In the small town of Centennial, the bank, made of brick, stood out on a street that was lined on both sides with somewhat flimsy looking buildings, thrown together from rip-sawed lumber. Some of them were leaning so that it looked as if a good stiff wind would knock them over. The sound of the hoof falls of so many horses echoed back from the buildings.

  The fact that there were five men riding together didn’t attract all that much attention, as cowboys from the nearby ranches often came into town in similar sized groups. The few citizens who were out on the board sidewalks, strolling from store to store, paid the riders no mind.

  “Let’s do it and be gone,” Manning suggested.

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Callahan said, holding up his hand. “Remember, we’re goin’ to do this one just the same way as iffen it was the bank in Cheyenne we was robbin’. So that means that the first thing we’re goin’ to do is take a ride up and down the street first, just to take a look around at ever’thing.”

  “Yes, that’s a very good idea,” O’Leary said.

  “Cooper, while we’re ridin’ down the street, I want you ’n Morris to be lookin’ out at ever’one you see on the left side. Pay particular attention to anyone you see carryin’ a gun ’n make a count of ’em. Manning, you ’n O’Leary will be doin’ the same thing on the right side o’ the street.”

  “What’ll you be doin’?” Cooper asked.

  “I’ll be keepin’ my eyes on the middle of the street, just in case anyone comes ridin’ up.”

  The five men rode slowly down the entire length of the street, then they turned their horses and rode back.

  “All right, what did you see?” Callahan asked.

  “Me ’n Manning seen three that was wearin’ guns on this side of the street,” Cooper said.

  “We only seen one on this side,” O’Leary added.

  “Any of them look like they knew how to use them?”

  “The old fart on my side looked like he didn’t even have the strength to pull his gun out of the holster, let alone use it,” O’Leary said.

  “Cooper?”

  “No,” Cooper answered. “They didn’t none of ’em look like they knew much more’n which end of the gun the bullet come out.”

  “H
ell, I coulda tole you soon as we come into town that we wasn’t goin’ to find nobody on the street to worry about,” Morris said.

  “That’s prob’ly true,” Callahan agreed. “But remember, we’re doin’ this as practice. When we get to Cheyenne, we’ll need to do the same thing as we just done, only Cheyenne bein’ bigger, they’s goin’ to be lots more people that’s not only wearin’ guns but that also knows how to use ’em.”

  “Yeah,” Cooper said, nodding. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”

  “Well, then, boys, what do you say we go into the bank here ’n get us a little travelin’ money?” Callahan suggested. “Manning, you stay out with the horses.”

  Stopping in front of the bank, Callahan, Cooper, O’Leary, and Morris swung down from their horses and handed the reins over to Manning, who remained mounted. He held the reins of all the horses with his left hand while in his right he held his pistol, though he kept it low and out of sight.

  When the four men went into the bank, Morris and Cooper went to either side, taking a position in the corner where the guards would be in the First Federal Bank. O’Leary stepped to the end of the counter and glanced toward the vault.

  The teller was the only other person in the bank, and he looked up at the strange actions of the four men with an expression on his face that reflected as much fear as curiosity.

  “Gentlemen, I’m the only one here now, so if you’ll just line up in front of my window, I’ll take care of all of you.”

  “You’ll take care of all of us now,” Callahan said. He pulled his pistol, which was the signal for the others to pull their guns as well. It really wasn’t necessary for them to draw their weapons, but this was a practice run for the bigger bank with its bigger reward, later.

  “What? What is this?” the teller asked, his voice quavering with fright.

  “Well, now, you seem like an intelligent enough man to me. I’m sure that you have figured by now, haven’t you, that this is a holdup?” Callahan asked. He handed a cloth bag to the teller. “Empty out your bank drawer and put all the money in this here bag!”