by Matt Cole
Finally, Henry stepped back from the bench with an expression of disgust, like he was sore at Solly for allowing himself to get killed in this manner.
The Daniels!
Nobody attempted to stop Henry Lowe now, as he ordered the entire gang into their saddles. Not only would nobody have dared, but none wanted to. Suddenly the Daniels brothers loomed large as a real threat to the band.
The scouts whom Henry had sent to Cibola Hills the moment he was informed of Solly’s death had, as usual, done their work stealthily and well. They reported to Henry that four strangers had rented the Cosgrove house on Beech Street, and Tex Murdock confirmed that their description matched the men he had seen at the ambush who had taken the life of several of the gang members, including Rhonda Lowe.
Another rider hammered up as they prepared to go. The outlaw brought the news that Milly Murdock had passed away overnight, without knowing that her husband had been killed two miles from home.
Henry’s face was a study in murderous fury. It seemed in his fevered imagination that everything and everybody around him was being tainted by this tribe from Missouri. He found it hard to believe that a bunch of amateurs had done him more harm than all the powerful posses that had hunted him over the years.
Their time was numbered, he vowed. There was no subtlety or stealth in Henry Lowe’s thinking now. The Daniels were bugs, and he was ready to use a mallet to mash them.
Quitting the hills, the outlaw gang galloped like Cossacks over the frozen plain towards the town.
Casey Daniels was pulling on his riding boots.
‘Two down, Frank! Two down and three to go. Who said that nobody could take that scum outfit? We are doin’ it in style too, huh?’
‘Sure, sure, kid,’ Frank replied impatiently from the doorway. ‘Get a move on, kid, we don’t have all day you know.’
‘Hey,’ Casey protested, ‘it is not even sun-up yet. What’s the rush?’
Breath fog gusted from Frank’s mouth as he turned his head. They would not see the sun today. Freezing northers had blown away the rain, and the leaden shape of the clouds threatened snow. Outside, Virgil and Hugh were saddling the horses. They were taking up the hunt again, bright and early. Frank predicted that Solly Murdock’s death would stir the gang to flight, retaliation or panic. He meant to be mobile and ready when they moved.
‘You are worse than a woman,’ Frank chided. ‘I’ll bet that girl of yours back home doesn’t take as long as you do to get dressed.’
Casey chuckled. The death of another outlaw had cheered them all and helped them push their brother’s death into the background.
‘Lucy? Heck, she takes no time at all gettin’ ready. Know why that is, Frank? She does not even think she is pretty. Can you believe that?’
Frank said dryly. ‘I have seen prettier women.’
Casey shied a boot at him. Frank was actually grinning as Hugh came up the steps, blowing into his hands.
‘Horses are ready, Frank. How are we holdin’ for ammunition?’
‘We’ll have to stock up later today, when the stores are open. That is, unless we are on the chase.’
‘Are we heading out to the hills around here now?’ Hugh asked.
‘Yeah. The fact that Murdock was on that road proved they are holed up out there in the hills for sure,’ Frank noted.
‘I hope they stand their ground, Frank. I would like to face them down and finish this once and for all,’ Hugh added.
‘I wouldn’t bank on that, Hugh. I have never met an owlhoot yet with any real guts when the fight was carried to him. I would not be surprised if those so-called badmen are makin’ far apart tracks for the next state right now.’ Frank turned his head. ‘Casey!’
‘Yeah, I know,’ Casey replied. ‘Get a wiggle on.’
‘Well, do it and quit talkin’ about it then,’ scolded Frank.
‘Needs a mammy, that kid,’ Hugh said with an affectionate smile.
Frank nodded. ‘I couldn’t agree more.’
Hugh sobered. ‘Are you feelin’ all right, Frank? I mean after last night?’
Frank thrust his big hands deep into his pockets. ‘Sure, I’m all right. Why shouldn’t I be?’
Hugh eyed his older brother. ‘The killing doesn’t bother you?’
Frank’s eyes were on the house opposite.
‘You get . . .’ he paused. ‘I’m used to it. That’s all.’
Hugh was tempted to go farther, but he did not. The air of mystery surrounding Frank might be less dense now than two weeks back, but there was still a lot about him they didn’t know. The shooting, for instance. Attorney Hugh had always known his older brother was handy with a gun, but not until now did he realize that Frank was exceptionally good with a gun. They were operating in the big league now, and Frank wasn’t just holding his own, but was setting the pace for the rest of them.
‘It’ll be good to get back home, Frank.’
‘Huh? Oh yeah, sure, Hugh.’ Frank pointed across the street. ‘Now, what do you think is ailing that varmint? Has he got a flea in his ear, or do you think he is just seized up from the cold?’
Hugh turned to look. Their neighbor had emerged to stand on his front porch, peering past the willows towards the main street. He stood motionless with head cocked to one side, hand cupped to his ear.
‘Looks like he is listenin’ to something,’ Hugh commented. He glanced towards town. ‘Can you hear anything, Frank?’
Frank could not. Due to the line of heavy willows along their street, the sound coming faintly from the main street had not reached their cabin yet, although it had caught the attention of the sharp-eared old man across the road. The man suddenly straightened up and blinked. Now he was not only hearing a strange sound in Cibola Hills’ early morning, but he could see the cause of it.
He started in waving his skinny arms and calling to somebody inside the house. Above the sound of his dry old voice, carrying sharply over the frozen air, the Daniels suddenly heard the sound.
It was the roar of a flooded river, but somehow different. It was the racing drumbeat of many hoofs. The instant he heard the noise, Frank knew he had made an error in judgment. It was as if he knew what was pouring down Main Street before he even saw it.
‘Inside! Hurry!’ he bellowed, seizing Hugh by the shoulder and heaving him through the door. He whipped out a Colt and beckoned imperiously to Virgil. ‘Run, goddammit! They are comin’!’
Virgil didn’t need any second urging. He was diving past Frank as the first wild rider showed beyond the willows. It was Henry Lowe himself.
Frank instantly recognized the outlaw leader from the older posters at the Blue Springs Creek jailhouse, but the main difference between the real man and the picture was his size. Lowe was much bigger than he had imagined. Henry Lowe sat his saddle with the grace of an Indian and used the rifle tucked under his arm with bewildering skill. The shot he ripped off at a racing run clipped the doorframe mere inches from Frank’s head.
Instantly, Frank spun inside and kicked the door shut. A man could get killed out there, even a Frank Daniels.
He darted to a window and knocked the glass out with his gun barrel, hoping to get a bead on Henry Lowe. The momentum of Lowe’s charge had carried the outlaw leader some distance past the house where the brothers were now holed up, while those coming behind came surging directly towards him across the ice-slicked grass.
As he threw up twin Colts and fired, shaking the building with the thunderclap of the shot, Frank made an impressive sight with his head tilted back, six-shooters flaming, everything about him defiant and unafraid. His brothers felt they were seeing him as he really was, the man of the gun facing his foes. The legend that all talked about.
Then all four brothers were totally absorbed in throwing lead. Two racing riders went down, but the others kept coming. The cabin shook to the impact of lead.
CHAPTER 10
A TIME TO KILL
The snow came about noon, and it came on suddenly. It sw
irled over the hills and the town of Cibola Hills, whitening the roof of the Beech Street house where the Daniels brothers were holed up, and the blood-spattered grass surrounding the house. It settled wetly on the besieging Murdock Gang, forever replenishing itself. Within an hour the snow had covered the ground and brought to the whole countryside a silent and stealthy cold that afforded a stark contrast to the hot violence holding Beech Street in its grip.
Frank Daniels lurched to his feet and hobbled to the fireplace to grab an iron poker to use as a makeshift cane.
‘Don’t look at me,’ he barked as he saw the eyes of his brothers on him. ‘Watch the damn outlaws!’
His brothers – Virgil, Hugh and Casey – switched their attention to the bullet-shattered windows, leaving Frank to limp towards the doorway of the first bedroom in the house. His pants’ leg was soaked in blood. Frank didn’t know where the slug that had slammed into his thigh about two hours prior had come from. He kept ripping up sheets to use as strapping, but he was still losing blood.
‘Don’t waste lead, kid,’ he cautioned Casey, the youngest, positioned hard by the front door of the house. ‘Make every shot count. You hear me? We are gettin’ mighty low on ammunition.’
‘And they know it, Frank,’ Virgil noted.
Casey’s narrow face was pale, his eyes unnaturally bright. The ambush at the river had been dangerous stuff, but this was desperate. There was no sign of the siege being lifted, and there was little hope they would get out of this alive. Every now and then they would hear Henry Lowe urging his men on, reminding them of lost family members and the virtue of vengeance. Not a towner had been sighted since the siege began. Cibola Hills was watching avidly but wanted no part of the fight. Who could blame them?
‘They know we are losin’, boys: that was what they know,’ Frank said through gritted teeth.
Casey ducked as a bullet zipped through the window and flattened itself with jarring impact against the far wall. He drew a bead on a dim shape and gently squeezed the trigger.
‘That’s the way you do it, kid,’ Frank said, moving on. ‘We got to make it last.’
‘Until what?’ smudge-faced Hugh muttered, but nobody heard him.
Reloading his rifle, Hugh was thinking of Kansas, with sun on the wheat fields and him in his buggy, heading for a fight – but the kind lawyers hold in courthouses. Not this kind. Not the kind where men would end up dead.
There were two dead outlaws outside, one on the grass in front of the house and the second in the alley. The snow was slowly covering them both. It continued to fall, pretty and silent, a gentle touch on a brutal day.
In the side room, Frank sat on a chest by the window to reload his rifle. He had a view of the next-door house and portion of the side street. The outlaws had taken over the houses on either side and across the street. Warm and reasonably safe there, all they had to do was keep the Daniels pinned down and wait for them to run out of bullets.
The defenders’ prospects did not look good.
Frank examined his leg. He was lucky the slug had missed the bone, but it was a serious wound nonetheless. By tomorrow, the leg would be the size of an Ozark ham, and maybe the wound would be heading for infection.
If he and his brothers lived to see tomorrow, that is.
Movement flickered in a window opposite. Frank lifted his rifle to his shoulder and waited. The movement was not repeated. The enemy had grown cautious. They knew the Daniels must soon run out of ammunition. All the outlaws had to do was wait.
‘Frank!’
It was Virgil, calling from the next room.
‘Yeah, Virg?’
‘I can see one of the sons of bitches on top of the feed store!’
Frank sighed. ‘Well, shoot him off it then.’
‘I might hit him, but I’m guessin’ you would be certain to hit him.’
‘I think you will do just fine,’ Frank urged.
‘Maybe,’ Virgil muttered, ‘but I had best leave him to you.’
‘Why?’
Frank’s leg throbbed. For a minute or two, he wanted to just sit quietly on this old chest and rest up.
Virgil’s face appeared around the bullet-ridden wooden doorjamb.
‘On account of you don’t miss, Frank.’
Frank stared down at his rag-swaddled thigh for a long moment before rising. Going through, he let Virgil point out the target. The roof-climbing man was an outlaw all right, a barely visible figure sprawled atop the grain store, working a repeating rifle.
‘Easy pickins for you, Frank, huh?’
‘Maybe . . .’ was all Frank said in response.
Frank was lining up his rifle as Hugh appeared in the front-room doorway. The two brothers watched him silently as he took aim. Even though Hugh and Virgil were fully aware they might not survive, they were watching closely, learning and absorbing from their older brother. They rated Frank as the best.
What the rat-faced sniper thought at that moment was not known. A good guess would be that he was figuring he was next to invisible, up there on his roof with the curtaining snow falling. He was almost certainly thinking in terms of bagging somebody with his repeater Winchester, when Frank Daniels gently squeezed his trigger.
The bullet took the outlaw in the head. It did not kill him outright, however. Instead, the shot jerked him to his feet to do a crazy jig on the roof, spinning and flapping his arms until Casey fired from the front room and sent him spinning from sight.
The response was a furious volley of lead from the hidden killers encircling the house. The guns thundered and stormed for maybe a minute before Henry Lowe was able to make himself heard.
‘I said save your lead!’ he roared.
‘But they got Brad, Henry,’ a rifleman protested adamantly.
‘Who cares? The idjit was askin’ for it, climbin’ up there.’
The shooting eased off abruptly and then ceased altogether.
‘That pilgrim is all heart,’ Frank commented, climbing to one knee with some effort. ‘And you boys think I’m tough on you! Jeez.’
The remark was meant to relieve the tension, and it succeeded. Casey, Hugh and Virgil exchanged smiles, something none of them thought was possible after the death of Urban.
A long silence was broken by Henry Lowe’s voice again: ‘Hey, you Daniels in there? You know you are goin’ to all die, right? Make it easy on yourselves and just give up!’
Frank waited, rifle at the ready. They saw figures moving behind curtained windows, but there was no chance of getting in a decent shot at any of them.
‘Frank Daniels!’
Henry’s voice sounded like a rifle sound. ‘The one who killed Solly Murdock. Give me a look at you, Daniels. You are a no good, good for nothin’ mongrel, sir. I spit at the mention of your name, Daniels.’
Frank did not hesitate with his reply. ‘I will do a deal, scumbag!’ Frank spoke calmly. ‘You show yourself, and then I will show myself.’
Just the sound of Frank’s voice was enough to set on edge Henry Lowe’s always edgy temper.
‘You figure your momma got it rough, Frank Daniels? Judas Priest, what happened to her was paradise alongside what I have in store for you and your brothers.’
The head and shoulders of an outlaw appeared above a slat fence by the house. Behind Frank, Virgil rose impulsively, swinging up his pistol.
‘Frank! I can’t miss!’
There was panic in Frank’s face as he swung from the hips. ‘Get down . . .’ he began but got no farther. Virgil was unaware that a window directly behind him silhouetted him clearly. There were marksmen in the outlaw ranks, and several of them opened up before Frank could drag his brother down.
All three brothers knew that Virgil had been killed, just by the way he was hurled backwards, looking down disbelievingly at the ruddy holes in his chest.
His collision with the wall shook the house, but his slide to the floor was only a whisper of sound against the boards and the echoing gunshots.
As Case
y and Hugh leapt to their brother’s side, Frank came up off his knee to blast four rapid shots into the building opposite them. As gunshots answered, he sprang to another window, fired, went to another window and fired into a doorway from where Henry Lowe’s voice had emanated.
Only then did he drop flat and turn his face towards his surviving brothers.
The kid was crying.
Hugh had aged a decade.
Virgil was dead.
Frank was methodical again as he fingered shells from his belt into his rifle. He had just wasted a lot of bullets, he knew. If he had hit anything, it would have been pure luck. They were running low on ammo, all of them, and he was wasting what he had. Nobody reproved him. It was doubtful that his brothers were even aware of him at that grim moment.
‘Get back to your posts,’ he ordered.
‘Damn you for an unfeelin’ bastard!’ Casey yelled. ‘Can’t you see that. . . .’
‘Nothin’ wrong with my eyesight, kid,’ Frank cut in. ‘And what I see is two men goin’ to pieces before my eyes, and a dog pack outside of hungry wolves gettin’ ready to mount a rush and tear us to bits.’
They thought he was just talking. But it was the truth. The outlaws were readying for another assault.
The storming volley that erupted simultaneously from all sides of the besieged house continued for a full, brain-numbing minute before the first figures appeared. They came on howling at the top of their lungs, and that was how two of them met their fates.
Casey and Hugh were slow to man their positions again, but Frank held off the outlaws single-handed, never shooting from one position twice, moving from window to doorway with lightning speed, ignoring a crippled leg and shooting with demonic accuracy.
With the long day dying and the snow continuing to fall, the outlaws maintained the pressure. Spurred on by Henry Lowe’s ranting voice, they rushed again and again, only to be driven back each time, while taking heavy toll of the Daniels’ ammunition reserves.
