“Now you’re bein’ smart,” the outlaw said. “Stand up and move over here, careful-like.”
While Bob was doing that, another of the robbers herded the two customers away from the tellers’ windows at gunpoint. The third man menaced the tellers with his gun and told them, “You fellas come out of those cages. We want everybody together. And make it pronto!”
Soon the robbers had the five people in the bank lined up along the railing in front of the president’s desk. The leader jerked his head toward the counter and told his companions, “Get everything in the tellers’ drawers, and then we’ll clean out the vault.”
“You got it, Ha—”
The man who started to reply cut it short just as he started to say the leader’s name. Looking a little embarrassed by his near slipup, he hurried to carry out the orders.
Bob Dempster looked at the others and nodded confidently, hoping they would take his meaning that they should cooperate with the bank robbers and maybe they would all come through this all right. Bob hated to think of the monetary loss, but it was more important that these innocents survived.
The female customer was an elderly widow named Mrs. Hettie Richardson, who raised chickens and made a small but livable income by selling their eggs. Cloyd Nelson was the other customer, who had driven a freight wagon for R. W. Guthrie in the past, but currently worked in Guthrie’s building supply warehouse. He was a short, brawny, middle-aged man known to have a bad temper, and if anybody was going to fly off the handle and cause a problem, Bob knew it would be him.
Unfortunately, Bob was wrong about that, because while he was watching Nelson warily, Mrs. Richardson reached into her bag and hauled out an old cap-and-ball pistol that had been converted to percussion. She held the gun in both hands, hooked bony thumbs over the hammer, and hauled it back to full cock.
“You scoundrels, get away from my money!” she cried, and the next instant she pulled the trigger.
The booming report was thunderously loud inside the bank. The boss outlaw’s hat flew off his head. The gun in his hand came up toward the five people gathered along the railing.
Cloyd Nelson yelled, “Mrs. Richardson, get down!” and lunged at her, apparently intending to grab her and pull her to the floor, out of the line of fire.
That put his back toward the outlaw, and the shot the man fired struck Nelson squarely between the shoulder blades. The slug’s impact threw the man forward into Mrs. Richardson.
Both of them toppled over the railing and sprawled on the floor behind it.
The two tellers dived for the floor, no doubt thinking that now the shooting had started, the air would be full of flying lead. That was highly probable.
Bob Dempster turned and dashed back through the gate in the railing. Another shot boomed. He heard the ugly, high-pitched whine of a slug passing close beside his ear.
After the outlaws had gotten the drop on him, Bob would have cooperated in the hope that no one would be hurt. Now, with the fat in the proverbial fire, his best chance seemed to be to fight back.
He flung himself behind his desk, snatched the .45 out of the still-open drawer, and triggered twice in the general direction of the bank robbers. His two employees were on the floor, as well as Mrs. Richardson and Nelson, so he didn’t have to worry about hitting any of them.
Return fire blasted at him. He heard the bullets thudding into the desk, but the heavy piece of furniture stopped them. He stuck the gun up and risked another shot without having any idea if he’d hit anything.
“Hank’s hit!” one of the outlaws yelled. “Let’s get outta here!”
“I got the money from the drawers!” another man shouted.
Boot soles slapped the polished wooden floor as the men rushed out of the bank.
Bob Dempster waited a couple of heartbeats to make sure they were gone, then looked over the desk. A haze of powder smoke floated in the air. Bullets had shattered the frosted glass that flanked the tellers’ windows, and there might be other damage he couldn’t see yet. He pushed himself up and called, “Mrs. Richardson! Are you all right?”
“Get this big ox off me!” the old woman wailed.
That big ox probably had saved her life, Bob thought, but with Nelson’s considerable weight pinning her to the floor, she wasn’t thinking about that. She had to be worried that he would suffocate her, which he just might. Bob hurried around the desk and called to the tellers, “Give me a hand here!” Both young men appeared to be unhurt.
They were trying to lift Cloyd Nelson’s limp form off Mrs. Richardson when more shots roared outside.
* * *
When Duff reached the street, he could tell the shots were coming from the direction of the bank. He pulled his gun from its holster and started running along the street toward the impressive brick building.
As he approached, he saw Thurman Burns, the deputy town marshal, hurrying toward the bank from the other direction. A young man stood near four horses tied at the hitch rail in front of the building. He didn’t seem to have noticed Duff, but he had seen the deputy. Using the horses to shield his movements, he drew his gun and aimed over the saddles at Burns.
“Look out, Thurman!” Duff shouted. The warning caused Burns to veer to the side just as the man behind the horses fired. Burns didn’t appear to be hit.
Duff paused to line up a shot of his own. He wasn’t a fast draw, but he was remarkably accurate in his aim. Not even Duff could hit every mark, though. Just as he squeezed the trigger, the man pivoted, so Duff’s bullet missed narrowly and struck one of the saddle horns instead, blasting it to pieces and spooking the horse on which the saddle was cinched. The animal started to caper around and pull against the hitch rail. That made the other mounts skittish, too.
The young man snapped a shot at Duff that kicked up dirt in the street a good twenty feet to Duff’s right. He grabbed the reins and tried to get the horses under control as three more men came barreling out of the bank, throwing shots behind them. One of the robbers was unsteady on his feet and had blood on his shirt.
Duff dropped to a knee behind a water barrel and leveled his revolver. Confident that the men had at least attempted to rob the bank and might have committed who knew how much mayhem inside, as well as taking shots at him and Deputy Burns, Duff felt no hesitation in shooting to kill. He squeezed the trigger as one of the outlaws tried to swing up into his saddle. The gun roared and bucked in Duff’s hand.
Blood and brain matter sprayed in the air as the bullet blew a fist-sized chunk out of the man’s head. His momentum carried him on over the horse’s back, where he spilled into an ungainly heap in the street. The horse broke away and stepped on him a few times in stampeding away with reins trailing in the dust.
Thurman Burns had taken cover in an alcove where a doorway was located. He fired around the edge of that alcove, not hitting any of the outlaws but coming close enough to distract them. That gave Duff an opportunity to aim again. His best shot was at the man who was already wounded, but still on his feet, and spraying lead around. He was hatless and had striking white hair, although he didn’t move like an old man.
Duff triggered two rounds. Both bullets pounded into the outlaw’s chest and drove him toward the boardwalk. The back of his boots hit the edge of the walk. He sat down, but didn’t fall over. Slowly his head slumped forward and he bent over until it looked like he was going to fall on his face, but he didn’t.
“Hank!” one of the remaining two outlaws shouted. “Hank, no!”
“Come on!” the other one urged. “Let’s go!”
They leaped into their saddles despite being caught in a cross fire between Duff and Burns. Desperation had given them wings. Bending low, they slashed at their horses with the reins and sent the animals charging into the middle of the street. Wild shots flew from their guns. All the bystanders on the street and the boardwalks had scurried for cover as soon as the shooting started. Duff hoped none of that flying lead found any of them.
The fleeing men wer
e bouncing around so crazily in their saddles and the horses ran in such a jerky fashion that drawing a bead on them was next to impossible, even for Duff. He fired a few more times, then grimaced in disgust as the two outlaws galloped out of Chugwater without ever slowing down. He straightened from his position behind the water barrel and walked toward the two fallen outlaws, keeping his gun trained on them, just in case.
The man Duff had shot in the head was clearly dead. Nobody could survive having so much blood and brains leak out of his shattered skull. The other man, the white-haired hombre, hadn’t moved since sitting down on the edge of the boardwalk. He had dropped his gun, which now lay between his feet.
Duff kept his gun ready while he reached out cautiously with his other hand and prodded the outlaw’s shoulder. That was enough to make the man flop over backward onto the boardwalk. The glazed, unseeing look in his eyes was unmistakable as he stared up at the awning over the walk.
“Are they both dead?” Deputy Burns called from the alcove.
“Aye,” Duff replied. “Dead as ever can be.”
Burns emerged from cover and blew out a relieved breath. He said, “That was some mighty good shooting, Duff, as usual.”
Duff ignored the compliment and asked, “Where’s Marshal Ferrell?”
“Rode down to Cheyenne on some business and left me in charge.” Burns rolled his eyes. “Sure enough, that’s when somebody tries to rob the bank.” He paused, then said, “The bank! Has anybody checked in there yet?”
“Just about to,” Duff said.
“No need,” Bob Dempster said as he stepped through the open doors. He was pale and obviously shaken, but didn’t seem to be hurt. “They killed one of the customers, Cloyd Nelson, and the other customer who was inside, old Mrs. Richardson, may have a broken rib from Cloyd falling on her, but the tellers and I are all right.”
“Did they get away with much money?” Burns asked.
“Just what was in the tellers’ drawers. A few hundred dollars, more than likely. I’ll have to make an exact count, to know for sure.”
“So, three men dead and an old woman hurt, all for th’ sake of a few hundred dollars,” Duff said.
Dempster nodded and said, “I’m afraid so. Greed has a high price.”
“Aye, ’tis true.” Duff looked at the white-haired outlaw with the empty stare and thought about poor Cloyd Nelson. “And all too often, ’tis the innocent who have t’ pay.”
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over 300 books, including the bestselling series Smoke Jensen, the Mountain Man, Preacher, the First Mountain Man, MacCallister, Flintlock, and Will Tanner, Deputy U.S. Marshal, and the stand-alone thrillers The Doomsday Bunker, Tyranny, and Black Friday.
Being the all-around assistant, typist, researcher, and fact-checker to one of the most popular western authors of all time, J. A. JOHNSTONE learned from the master, Uncle William W. Johnstone.
The elder Johnstone began tutoring J.A. at an early age. After-school hours were often spent retyping manuscripts or researching his massive American Western History library as well as the more modern wars and conflicts. J.A. worked hard—and learned.
“Every day with Bill was an adventure story in itself. Bill taught me all he could about the art of storytelling. ‘Keep the historical facts accurate,’ he would say. ‘Remember the readers—and as your grandfather once told me, I am telling you now: Be the best J. A. Johnstone you can be.’”
Visit the website at www.williamjohnstone.net.
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