Burning Daylight

by William W. Johnstone

  * * *

  The stars were out by the time Luke and McKinney reached the town. Some houses were dark because their inhabitants had already turned in for the night. Most of the businesses along the main street were closed. A few stores were still open, and of course the saloons had customers. Luke would have liked to stop in at the Plainsman and say hello to Glenda Farrell, but it was more important for him and McKinney to scout for any sign of Creager and the gang.

  “You think it would do any good for you to go talk to Sheriff Collins?” McKinney asked quietly as they rode along the main street, keeping to the shadows in the middle of it.

  “The sheriff and I weren’t on the best of terms when I was here before,” Luke said. “I’m not sure he’d believe me. And you can’t exactly come with me to back up the story.”

  A humorless chuckle came from McKinney. “No, Collins would throw me behind bars before I could get a word out. He’d like nothing better . . . unless it was leading me up the steps to the gallows.”

  “We’re not going to let it reach that point. As soon as we’ve dealt with Creager, you can fade out of sight.”

  McKinney glanced over sharply at Luke. “You’re not going to try to turn me in to the law? What about the reward? That’s the reason you came after me to start with.”

  “I admit, it’s hard to give up on that harmonica,” Luke said with a chuckle, “but the real reason I came after you was to satisfy my curiosity. I’ve done that. I’m not saying I admire you, Jack, and we’re not exactly friends, but in some ways you’ve gotten a raw deal. With what you’ve lost already—your wife and those boys—I think that punishment has to be taken into consideration, too.”

  A few seconds of silence hung between the two men, then McKinney said, “Maybe I was wrong about you, too, Jensen. Maybe all bounty hunters aren’t just out for blood money.”

  “Just remember one thing . . . if we cross trails in the future, the situation may not be the same. If there is a future, for either of us.”

  On that grim note, Luke angled his horse toward the two-story brick building he remembered as being the bank. McKinney followed suit. To anybody watching them, their actions wouldn’t appear suspicious. They appeared to be just two easy-riding cowpokes, maybe on their way to a night’s drinking and gambling.

  As they drew up at a hitch rack in front of a hardware store that was closed for the night, McKinney said quietly, “Creager never had an original thought in his life. He’ll use the plan I had for the bank in Stanton. They’ll go in the back and use dynamite to blow the door off the vault. It hasn’t happened yet. The whole town would be in an uproar if it had.”

  “That’s true,” Luke said. “Maybe we’d better take a look in the alley back there.”

  They swung down from their saddles and tied the horses. Since Luke was dressed in black, he would blend into the shadows alongside the bank—except for the white bandage around his head. To cover it up, he took out the bloodstained bandanna he had used as a makeshift bandage earlier and once again wound it around his head, tying it in place so the white cloth was covered. The range clothes McKinney wore were brown and blue and gray, so they wouldn’t stand out, either.

  They eased through the gloom and into a narrow passage between the hardware store and the bank. Drawing their guns, they slipped toward the alley at the back. The bank building, solid and imposing, was at their left.

  They were careful not to make any noise, placing each foot carefully in case there was any trash in the passage that could be knocked over. As they neared the far end, Luke’s keen ears caught the faint sound of voices coming from the alley. At the same time, McKinney put out a hand to stop him. Evidently the outlaw heard the same thing.

  McKinney put his mouth close to Luke’s ear and breathed, “Somebody’s back there. It’s got to be Creager and the others.”

  “I agree,” Luke whispered. “I’ll take this side, you take the other. We’ll stop at the alley and take a look around the corner.”

  They moved apart, pressing against the building on either side, and approached the end of the passage in complete silence. When Luke reached the corner, he leaned forward enough to peer along the rear wall of the bank to its door. On the other side of the passage, McKinney did the same.

  The shadows were so thick and black it was difficult to see anything. Luke’s eyes had adjusted to the stygian gloom, though, and after a moment he began picking out shapes in the very faint starlight. Counting them was impossible, but he estimated that at least a dozen men were clustered around the bank’s back door. That left a handful of outlaws unaccounted for. Luke strongly suspected they were scattered around to help cover the gang’s getaway once the bank had been looted.

  A rasping whisper reached their ears, “Got the dynamite, Donnelly?” That was Creager’s voice, Luke knew.

  “Right here, boss,” a man answered.

  “Then let’s get in there and get started. I want to turn this town upside down and shake every damn penny out of it!”

  Something heavy crashed against the door. They had some sort of battering ram, Luke realized. Probably a section of tree trunk. Whatever it was slammed against the outside door again, and the door gave way with a splintering of the wood frame around it.

  That racket covered any noises Luke and McKinney made as they stepped out into the alley and leveled their guns at the bank robbers.

  The outlaws knew they were there only when McKinney shouted, “Creager! Fill your hand!”

  So they weren’t going to give the gang members a chance to surrender, Luke thought fleetingly as he raised the Remingtons. Well, it probably would have been a waste of breath, anyway. The confrontation had been destined to come down to lead and flame from the moment Creager double-crossed Three-fingered Jack McKinney.

  Gun flashes split the night.

  CHAPTER 35

  The Remingtons roared and bucked in Luke’s hands as he poured lead into the outlaws. A couple of feet to his left, McKinney’s Colt blasted out a death song of its own.

  They had taken the outlaws completely by surprise, so a pair of heartbeats went by before any of Creager’s men could react. By that time, a hail of lead had scythed into them and smashed half a dozen of them off their feet.

  But then the ones who hadn’t been hit began to recover their wits. They clawed guns from holsters and returned the fire. Luke and McKinney had to scramble for cover. Luckily, the back alley provided some shelter. Luke dived behind a rain barrel while McKinney threw himself over a pile of crates and sprawled on the other side.

  “Close in now, Sheriff!” Luke shouted over the gun-thunder.

  The outlaws heard that and believed they were caught in the jaws of a trap, just as Luke intended. Several of them turned and threw shots blindly into the night. That took some of the heat off Luke and allowed him to aim his shots using the muzzle flashes directed away from them. A man screamed and another howled curses as Luke’s bullets found them.

  Boot leather slapped the hard-packed dirt behind Luke and McKinney. Luke knew there was a good chance the other outlaws who had been scattered around town were charging back to see what all the shooting was about. He rolled over and swung the Remingtons in that direction. Several shadowy shapes rushed along the alley toward him and McKinney, but Luke held his fire. He couldn’t be sure who they were and didn’t want to gun down any innocent, if foolhardy, citizens of Singletary.

  “Kill ’em!” Creager roared from behind the bank. From the sound of his bellow, he hadn’t been hit in the death storm of bullets. “Behind that barrel and those crates!”

  The newcomers opened up, settling the question of whether or not they belonged to the gang. Luke triggered the Remingtons as slugs smacked through the air around him.

  A normal man would have been at least half blinded by all the muzzle flashes, but Luke had been in many desperate gun battles and knew how to squint his eyes against the spurting jets of flame. His shots knocked down two of the fresh attackers, but that left
three men on their feet, and as the Remingtons’ hammers fell on empty chambers, Luke knew that he and McKinney were in a bad fix.

  Then the sharper crack of a rifle sounded behind the outlaws. Men grunted and fell forward as .44 rounds smashed into their backs. At that moment, the back door of the hardware store flew open, spilling light into the alley.

  An old man’s quavery voice yelled, “What the hell is goin’ on out here? Are the Yankees attackin’ again?”

  “Grandpap, get back!” a younger man’s voice cried inside the building.

  The light revealed five outlaws sprawled in the alley in various attitudes of death. Behind them, the Henry rifle still in his hands with a wisp of smoke curling from the barrel, was Aaron.

  “That damn kid!” Creager shrieked from the other direction.

  Luke rolled into the open and raised his head to see Creager charging toward them, the gun in his outthrust hand aimed at Aaron.

  “No!” McKinney said as he leaped up. He reached his feet just as Creager started pulling the trigger.

  Shots crashed and bullets thudded into McKinney’s chest, driving him backward in a jittery dance.

  Luke yanked the bowie knife from its sheath and threw it as he came up on one knee. The heavy blade revolved once and then buried itself in Creager’s chest with a resounding smack. Creager stumbled. The gun in his hand sagged. His eyes widened in horror as he looked down at the knife protruding from his chest.

  Then Aaron’s rifle cracked again. Creager’s head jerked back as a red-rimmed black hole appeared over his right eye. The back of his head blew out in a grisly spray of blood, brain matter, and bone fragments as the .44 round bored on through. Creager stayed upright for half a second, then pitched forward on his face, dead.

  Aaron screamed, “Pa!” as he dropped the Henry and ran toward McKinney.

  Luke wanted to get to McKinney, too, but first he had to make sure the threat was over. He holstered the Remingtons and scooped up pistols dropped by the men Aaron had shot. A quick check showed him that several rounds remained in each one. He stalked among the fallen outlaws, ready to fire if necessary.

  There was no need. All the men were dead.

  The silence seemed to echo in the night air, now that all the guns had ceased talking.

  That lasted for only a moment before shouts and running footsteps came from the street. The law and an aroused citizenry would be there shortly.

  Luke stepped over beside Aaron, who had lifted McKinney’s head and shoulders into his lap as he sat on the ground. McKinney was shot to pieces. Four or five of Creager’s bullets had struck him. But he was still alive, and his eyelids fluttered as he tried to look up at Aaron, who bent over him crying.

  “No . . .” McKinney rasped. “No, don’t . . . cry . . . son. I’m not . . . worth the tears.”

  “Pa!” The word sounded like the cry of a wounded animal.

  “You . . . you’re all right?”

  Luke hunkered beside McKinney. “He’s fine, Jack. He’s not hurt. You saved his life.”

  “He saved . . . ours.”

  “Yes, I believe he did. Again.” Luke smiled. “He’s a good boy. You can be proud of him.”

  “I am . . . proud of him . . . proud of both . . . my boys.” Blood trickled from the corners of McKinney’s mouth. “Aaron, you should’ve . . . should’ve stayed at the ranch . . .”

  “I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I had to see it through.”

  “Reckon I’m glad . . . you felt that way. Now you’ve got to . . . got to . . .”

  “Anything, Pa,” the youngster said, still sobbing.

  “You tell . . . your ma . . . and Thad . . . how much I love ’em.”

  “I will,” Aaron promised. “I swear I will.”

  “And don’t ever forget . . . how much . . . I love you . . . too.”

  “I won’t.” Aaron swallowed hard. “I love you, Pa. I never stopped—”

  McKinney’s head fell back. The breath rattled in his throat.

  Aaron leaned over him and cried again, “No! He . . . he can’t be gone.”

  “He is,” Luke said gently. He put a hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “But he heard what you were trying to tell him.”

  Aaron raised his head and asked, “How . . . how do you know that?”

  “Look at the smile on his face.”

  Seconds after Jack McKinney’s death, Sheriff Ross Collins, carrying a lantern and a shotgun, came stomping along the alley, only to stop and stare in shock at the bodies littered everywhere.

  One of the deputies following him muttered, “Ye gads, what a massacre.”

  “Jensen!” Collins exclaimed when he looked closer at Luke. “And . . . and Aaron . . . Is that your father?”

  “It is,” Aaron said, more composed now. “But you won’t arrest him, Sheriff. He won’t ever go to prison or be hanged!”

  An old man with a long white beard down almost to his waist peered out the back door of the hardware store and asked, “It’s not that damned Ulysses S. Grant again, is it?”

  Collins shook his head, blew out a breath, and said, “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, Jensen.”

  Luke did that for the next hour or so, while the undertaker and his assistants tackled the big job of cleaning up the mess in the alley behind the bank. While talking to Sheriff Collins, Luke found out that the old man in the hardware store was the grandfather of the owner, whose living quarters were in the back of the building. The old-timer had been wounded during the war when Yankee troops had marched through the farm he owned in Georgia and then had lost the farm to carpetbaggers after the war. He wasn’t right in the head anymore, and his grandson took care of him.

  The old man’s timely opening of the back door had provided enough light in the alley for those left alive to see what was going on. If he hadn’t done that, there was a good chance Aaron would be dead, gunned down by Creager.

  Instead Jack McKinney was dead. Luke knew that McKinney had willingly sacrificed his life for his son. McKinney was a bank robber and a killer, but honestly, Luke had known worse men in his life.

  He couldn’t help but wonder if McKinney had experienced some sort of premonition on that ridge, looking down at his former home and seeing his wife for the last time. Maybe he’d had a hunch that he wasn’t going to make it through alive.

  * * *

  The next day, with a new hat and freshly outfitted with supplies, Luke rode out to the McKinney spread and found Aaron hitching up a team of horses to a wagon. Luke had arranged with Sheriff Collins and the bank for most of the bounty money on Creager and the other outlaws to be deposited in Amelia McKinney’s account. Luke felt that was only right, since Aaron had killed several members of the gang, and those funds would give Amelia and her sons enough of a cushion that they’d have a decent chance to make the ranch a success.

  The bounties on Three-fingered Jack McKinney would go unclaimed. Luke knew Aaron wouldn’t want them, and neither did he. Amelia and her sons would find out about all of that when they got back from Stanton with Thad.

  Amelia came out of the house, dressed for traveling. “Mr. Jensen. I’m glad you stopped by. Aaron and I are about to start out for Stanton to bring Thad home, but I wanted to thank you before we go.” She managed a smile. “My boys wouldn’t be alive now if not for you.”

  Luke thumbed his hat back as he sat in the saddle. “I don’t know, ma’am. Some might say I sparked the whole thing and that Aaron never would have been in danger if I hadn’t come along.”

  “But Thad would have been, if he had stayed with his father. You know that’s true.”

  Luke shrugged, unable to disagree with her.

  Amelia went on. “Anyway, I think it’s a mistake when people say, ‘If only this thing had happened, this other thing would have happened . . . or wouldn’t have.’ Because we don’t really know, do we? All we know is what life has given us. What we’ve made of it. Everything else is as insubstantial as . . . as a puff of dust in the wind.”

>   “You’re right, ma’am. I hope what you make of it is good from here on out.” Luke glanced at the freshly mounded grave out beyond the barn, where Jack McKinney had been laid to rest that morning, then tugged his hat brim back down and nodded politely.

  Aaron helped his mother onto the wagon seat and climbed up beside her to take hold of the reins. Before he got the team moving, he reached into his pocket, took something out, and tossed it to Luke. “You’ve got this coming, Mr. Jensen.”

  Luke caught it and looked down at what he held in his hand as the wagon rolled away. He grinned, lifted the harmonica to his mouth, and blew a single sweet, pure note on it.

  Then he slipped the harmonica into his shirt pocket, turned his horse, and rode away.

  Keep reading for a special exceprt of the new series by

  William W. and J. A. Johnstone!

  CUTTHROATS

  A SLASH AND PECOS WESTERN

  Two wanted outlaws. One hell of a story.

  Not every Western hero wears a white hat or a tin star. Most of them are just fighting to survive. Some of them can be liars, cheaters, and thieves. And then there’s a couple of old-time robbers named Slash and Pecos . . .

  After a lifetime of robbing banks and holding up trains, Jimmy “Slash” Braddock and Melvin “Pecos

  Kid” Baker are ready to call it quits—though not

  completely by choice. Sold out by their old gang,

  Slash and Pecos have to bust out of jail and pull one last job to finance their early retirement . . .

  The target is a rancher’s payroll train. Catch is: the train is carrying a Gatling gun and twenty deputy U.S. marshals who know they’re coming. They’re caught and quickly sentenced to hang, but then their old enemy—wheelchair-bound bucket of mean Marshal L. C. Bledsoe—shows up at the last minute to spare their lives. For a price. He’ll let them live if they hunt down their old gang, the Snake River Marauders. And kill those prairie rats—with extreme prejudice . . .