Though preoccupied with returning to the hotel quickly, the girl couldn’t help but notice that despite the hour, Harmony was well and truly awake. Lights showed behind closed doors and windows along the main stem, while the Red Dog and Rawhide were still doing business, their batwings pinned open to the night.
The girl stopped opposite the Rawhide. Some twenty or thirty horses were racked up in the alley alongside the saloon that hadn’t been there when she’d come along the street twenty minutes ago. They looked like range horses and beyond the closed doors she could hear voices, but no laughing and joking coming from the crowded saloon. The girl found something sinister in this, something ominous in the fact that all those men were in town at this hour on this particular night.
She hurried on. Her sense of foreboding increasing now with every step. A matter-of-fact girl, Eleanor rarely bothered her head about intangibles. Yet tonight she was conscious of a quality in the atmosphere of Front Street that lay like a clammy hand on her skin. She didn’t really know what was going on, but guessed it had to do with Benedict and what he’d told her and Hank about the mine at Willow Flats.
She was hurrying past the darkened general store when a voice spoke her name. She stopped, eyes widening in surprise. Doc Christian emerged from the gloom. As immaculate at two in the morning as at noon, Doc was carrying a rain cape over his arm and behind him the girl glimpsed two large leather bags.
“Doc!”
“Miss Eleanor.” Christian was as formal as a judge. Only his eyes betrayed his sadness but those eyes were well hidden in the black shadow of his beaver hat. “I saw you along the street a little while back. I’m glad you came. You see I’m leaving town.”
Eleanor’s eyes widened with genuine regret. “Oh, Doc, I’m sorry to hear that. When did you make up your mind?”
“Just today. I decided there wasn’t much left for me in Harmony. I’m taking the dawn stage up to Pierro. They tell me it’s real sucker country up there ... and I guess my luck is about played out here.”
Eleanor came closer and laid a hand on his arm. “Doc, I’m sorry. Really sorry.”
“Don’t say that,” Christian said. “I always knew I really didn’t stand a chance with you, even before Brazos came to town.”
“Brazos? He has nothing to do with the way I feel about you! It’s just not so, Doc. He’s ... he’s just a friend.”
Christian extended a small manicured hand. “I’m not interested in that hick, Eleanor, but I am interested in you. I want to wish you all the best in your life and I want you to know that I consider it an honor to have known you.”
A hundred words came to Eleanor Barry’s lips. But looking into Doc Christian’s eyes she realized none of them would do him any good. She took his hand and said simply, “Goodbye, Doc. And thank you for saying what you just did. I know you mean it.”
She turned away and hurried off. Sadness over Christian’s departure stayed with her for some twenty or thirty feet only to be quickly superseded by a return of that same sense of dread that had been gripping her before. She was running by the time she reached the hotel. She hurried across the lobby, past the unattended desk and ran up the stairs to the door of the suite that Benedict and Brazos had moved into so Brazos could look after his wounded companion.
“How is he now, Hank?” she said quietly as Brazos answered the door to her knock.
Brazos jerked his thumb over his shoulder to where Benedict sat in a chair smoking a cigar. “Restin’ some I guess, but he still don’t look one hundred per cent.”
Eleanor looked at Benedict’s pale face then beckoned Brazos out in the corridor and softly closed the door. “Hank,” she said, “I wish you’d bring Duke around to my place like I suggested before.”
Brazos shook his head. “He’s lost a bucket of blood already, Eleanor. Anyway, we’re better off where we are.”
“Hank, I’m not sure you are better off here. There’s something going on in town tonight.”
“How come?”
“Well, for one thing there’s a big bunch of Two-Bar cowboys over at the Rawhide Saloon and for another—”
“At the saloon?” Brazos frowned heavily. “You sure?”
“Why yes, I saw the horses myself as I was coming by.” She rested a hand on his arm. “Hank, won’t you please tell me what’s going on tonight?”
Brazos wasn’t even listening. Striding down the corridor he went out onto the upstairs balcony and peered along the street in the direction of the Rawhide. He scratched at his bandages and pursed his lips, recalling how angry Benedict had been when he’d told him about his visit to Dutch. Duke suspected that Dutch was in on the dirty business with Maclaine and likely California Nick, and had accused him of giving the whole show away by going to her. Brazos hadn’t taken much notice of him then, but if Maclaine’s boys were over there now ...
He came slowly back down the corridor, plagued by indecision. He should really go and take a look at the Rawhide, but he didn’t want to leave the Yank until he started getting a little color back in his cheeks. Doc Kelly had said he’d lost more blood than was good for him on the ride back from Willow Flats, and the Yank sure looked it.
As Brazos reached the girl, Benedict groaned from beyond the door. Concern for the Yank quickly outweighing his disturbance at what Eleanor had told him, he quickly entered the room with her to find Benedict attempting to pour himself a glass of whisky. The Yank looked even worse.
“Duke, how do you feel?” Eleanor asked anxiously.
Benedict smiled, ever the charmer, but cold sweat was running down his face when he said, “Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t feel all that good, Miss Eleanor.”
Brazos and Eleanor exchanged a glance then went to the door together.
“I’d better go and get Doc to come back and have another look at him,” the girl whispered.
“Yeah, all right,” Brazos nodded. “But take care now!”
“I’ll be all right!” Eleanor touched his hand, shot a last worried look at Benedict then hurried out to look for Doc Kelly.
She got as far as the front door of the Harmony House Hotel. Hurrying out from the brightness of the lobby to the comparative gloom of the gallery, she had just one brief glimpse of a group of men stealthily mounting the gallery from the alleyway flanking the hotel before something struck the side of her face with stunning force. She felt herself falling, a flash of light, then blackness.
Twelve – Of Fools and Heroes
Dutch Amy emerged from the half gloom to stand over the unconscious girl, sucking the knuckles of the big fist that had laid Eleanor low. In the half light the gross, coarse-pored face looked if anything a little uglier than ever.
“She’s had that comin’ a long time, uppity little jade,” she growled. She turned and looked challengingly at the dark mass of men behind her. “Any objections?”
There were no objections, not even if Eleanor Barry was something of the darling of Harmony. No objections tonight, not from Evans Maclaine nor from hulking Curly Beetson, California Nick nor any of the twenty Two-Bar riders or from the gunslingers from the Rawhide Saloon. Not tonight; tonight they were with Dutch all the way. Many of them felt that what they were about to do should have been done days ago instead of letting Benedict and Brazos build up a head of steam.
Dutch Amy grunted in satisfaction at their silent support and hauling a big .45 from a holster on her hip led the way in. She always felt at her best when blood was about to be spilled. She was going to particularly enjoy spilling the blood of big dumb Brazos who’d seemed to get the better of her at nearly every turn, and his fancy-fingered partner who’d had the temerity to ask her one day didn’t she ever take a bath.
She halted at the bottom of the stairs and turned to face her little army.
“All right,” she rumbled, “there’s just the two of ’em up there. Ain’t no need to tell you how to go about it, just that each of them pilgrims is worth five hundred dollars apiece to whoever nails ’em.”
“He’ll make that a grand apiece,” chimed in California Nick, and drawing his big custom-made nickel-plated Peacemaker, motioned to an eager Curly Beetson to lead them silently up the stairs.
Eleanor finally drifted back to consciousness to find herself in the crashing, shuddering eye of a thunderstorm. Then somebody waved smelling salts under her nose and she jolted back to wakefulness to find herself in Parsons’ store, surrounded by people. And the detonation of sound rocking Harmony was not thunder, but the snarling yammer of gunfire coming from the hotel.
Instant fear filled her eyes. She leapt up from the bunk where Lars Lindgren had lain her after toting her across from the hotel five minutes before. Reefing a drape away from a window, she stared in horror across at the hotel. The second floor of the building was being lit by gunflashes and there were Two-Bar men with guns in the street.
“They’re puttin’ up some fight, them two,” Matt Parsons said with grim admiration as Eleanor swung back on them, the total paleness of her face emphasized by the dark, brutal mark of Dutch Amy’s fist. “But they cain’t last much longer.”
“And you’re just going to stand here and let them be killed?” she accused. “Is that it? There isn’t a man among you with the courage to go to their help—after all they’ve done for this town?”
Hard words, but true. They were sorry: sorry as hell. Seemed Hank Brazos had somehow turned into a real lawman after all. And Duke Benedict had turned out a likeable cuss. But hell and damnation, they weren’t gunfighters. Dutch Amy, Evans Maclaine and California Nick had nigh on thirty-five men over there. For anybody else to buy in on that would be just suicide.
Eleanor wasn’t satisfied with that. She went on berating them, trying to awaken some spark of manhood or responsibility. When that failed, she begged, with the Satanic chorus of the guns beating in her ears. Begging failed and she started insulting them again. Then almost hysterical by this, she realized she was wasting life-and-death time with these sheep and rushed out into the street to see if in all Harmony she might find some real men.
She didn’t find any. In fact, not one door opened to her in that frantic minute as she rushed from building to building, knocking, beseeching, imploring ...
And all that time, the sound of the guns. Somehow Hank and the wounded Benedict were still standing them off up there. Fighting so bravely, hoping for help—and no help coming. Exhausted, spent, utterly drained by horror and helplessness Eleanor slumped against an upright on the porch of the hardware store. Unable to watch what was going on at the hotel, she just stared with glazed eyes across the street at the Red Dog.
The doors of the Red Dog were pinned back and a solitary figure stood at the bar. Long seconds passed before something clicked in her numbed brain. Slowly her eyes began to focus on the slim, erect figure, the polished boots, the light shimmering on a glass of whisky held in the steadiest hand in Harmony.
Eleanor’s eyes widened, lit by a glimmer of hope. She shot a look at the hotel, then rushed for the saloon. She halted halfway across the street, her heart thudding sickeningly in her breast, a foreboding of defeat within her. Of course Doc Christian wouldn’t help her. Of every man in town, Doc had more reason to want Hank Brazos dead than anybody ... and he hated Duke Benedict.
But she had to try. It was her only chance.
“You’re crazy, Eleanor,” Doc Christian told her coldly, an unmoving stone in contrast to the wild and desperate emotion of her plea.
She was crazy perhaps. But still not as crazy as Doc Christian.
“The day of the fool,” the gambler said to his reflection in the dark bar mirror when she had gone out again to bear witness to Brazos’ final flaming minutes.
He drank his whisky, dabbed at his mouth, calmly checked his gun, before leaving by the back way and walking towards the rising crash of the guns.
“And I’m the biggest fool of all ...”
It was only the sound of a creaking stair that dimly reached the big room, yet there was some stealthy, not-quite-right quality in the sound that brought Brazos swiftly to the door.
Seated in his big chair, glass of whisky in his hand, Benedict saw the big man’s face pale, his hand fly to his gun.
“What the hell—?”
That was as far as Benedict got, for suddenly the hotel rocked to the crash of a gun, and even louder, the unmistakable bull bellow of Dutch Amy.
“It’s Brazos! Rush him!”
Brazos smashed a shot away, leapt back inside, crashed the door shut and drove home the bolt. Just that one brief glimpse of Dutch flanked by Beetson, Maclaine and California Nick, and backed up by a swarm of grim-faced men had been more than enough to tell him what he’d refused to believe before; he’d been wrong about Dutch Amy. Dead wrong.
“Looks like we’re in for a little rowdy fun, Yank,” he understated as Benedict came up with his guns in his hands. “Go take a look over the balcony and see if we can make it out that way while I stand ’em off.”
Benedict made to argue, but Brazos thrust him violently towards the doors opening onto the balcony. A shot came splintering through the door, and Brazos flung himself behind a heavy bureau and answered back with snarling lead.
A moment later the door burst open under a heavy shoulder and Rusty Wilson came hurtling through firing from the hip.
It was as stylish a charge as one could wish to see and it was only spoiled when Brazos drew a bead and shot the running man through the heart.
As Wilson went down like a chopped corn stalk, Curly Beetson came through behind him like he was on fast rails. The big ramrod had a Colt in each fist and he was using them as if bullets didn’t cost anywhere near six cents apiece.
The ferocity of the two-gun fire spoiled Brazos’ aim. He missed twice, then reeled back as Beetson’s pig eyes picked him out through the gunsmoke and a bullet ripped the heavy muscle of his left shoulder. Brazos ducked low and the bureau rocked under the smashing thud of the .45’s, wood splinters spattering the wall like little knives.
“Show yourself, you yellow Judas,” Beetson bellowed, then buckled in the middle as Duke Benedict’s Colts chorused from the gallery doorway. Unable to straighten, the Two-Bar ramrod leaned towards the doors and Benedict nailed his hat on hard with two more quick shots.
Brazos chimed into the action again as Beetson hit the deck and shadowy figures showed in the hallway. He punched off a shot and the answering volley was again drowned by Dutch Amy’s wrathful roar.
“Don’t hold back, you jackasses! Rush ’em!”
“Get out here, Reb!” shouted Benedict from the gallery, ashen-faced in the smoky light, with a gun in each fist. “Pronto, before they run over you.”
Brazos made it to the gallery in one crashing dive, hitting the floorboards with his shoulder and rolling to his feet. Benedict shouted to him to keep low and a second later he understood why. Lead came hunting from the street below, chopping into the balcony railing and stitching across the ceiling. Brazos glimpsed gun-toting figures in the street before he ducked back to join Benedict against the wall.
“They’ve got us coming and going,” Benedict said savagely and his voice was strangely uneven. One sharp glance told Brazos that he was plainly only keeping upright on willpower. Benedict had lost a lot of blood from that thigh wound.
The attackers had quit trying to get through the bedroom, but suddenly were showing at doorways and windows along the verandah, guns spitting spitefully. A bullet slammed into Brazos’ gun and sent it arcing over the railing into the street. Benedict flipped him a Colt and blasted in the same action as Chet Corbett came storming through a doorway twenty feet away. The shot took Dutch Amy’s gunman just under the armpit. Still triggering, Corbett kept going, broke across the railing, somersaulted over the edge and vanished.
“Great shootin’, Yank,” Brazos applauded, then stumbled as Benedict’s weight sagged against him.
“Make it cost them, Reb ..
.” Benedict panted then slid into unconsciousness.
Brazos placed the unconscious man in a seated position against the wall and took the gun from his limp fingers.
“You can bet on that, Yank,” he promised softly, then cut loose as another shadowy figure bobbed from a bullet-shattered window.
The violent minutes dragged on. Somehow Brazos managed to keep them from that final massed rush, but with Benedict out of it, with ammunition running low and growing weak from loss of blood from his shoulder and his side wound that had broken open again, he knew it could only be a matter of time. He could sense them preparing for the final rush in there. He could now barely see the length of the gallery for the gunsmoke which seemed even thicker out here than it had been inside.
Gunsmoke? His nose twitched. That wasn’t gunsmoke, that was fire smoke. And in the moment he grew aware of it, from deep within the hotel came a scream of pure terror.
“Fire!”
Brazos thrust himself to his feet. Through the walls now he could hear the sound of pandemonium, and beyond that, the hungry deep-throated roar of the flames as they went through the tinder-dry boards of the Harmony House Hotel, baked dry as the driest straw by a score of Western summers.
Terrified voices sounded above the others: “It’s comin’ up the stairs! We’re trapped!”
Then Dutch Amy’s big voice sounded again. “The gallery! Come on, we’ll go over the side!”
“But they’re out there!” an uncertain voice cried.
Suddenly that didn’t seem to matter to the attackers any more, for with death licking at their heels from behind, the guns of Benedict and Brazos seemed to pose the lesser danger. No power on earth could stop them from bursting out now, Brazos sensed. And with more men down in the street waiting for him, he had nowhere to g°.
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