Hired Guns

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  Luke held the shotgunner’s eyes for a long count before sweeping his gaze once more over the others, who seemed to be poised awaiting his response. Then, cutting back again to the shotgunner, he said in a calm, flat voice, “I believe I’ll decline that offer. It’s no trouble at all, thanks, for me to hang on to my hardware.”

  A pair of bristly brows pinched together above the piggish eyes. “You some kind of smart mouth or something? Or are you maybe a little short in the brains department? That was no stinkin’ offer—it was an order. And you’d best hop to it quick or there damn well is gonna be trouble, and plenty of it!”

  “Well, since you put it that way . . . If you’re so hell-bent on trouble, let’s quit wasting time and get to it!”

  With that, he wheeled and sprang back inside the church, slamming the door behind him. After a moment of startled inaction, several of the guns outside were put to use and a volley of shots roared nearly in unison, sending a leadstorm of bullets hammering against the door and pounding the frame all around it.

  A harsh voice knifed instantly through the gunfire, shouting angrily, “Hold your fire! Hold it, you fools—we’re supposed to take him alive!” As the shots began to falter, the voice hurled more commands. “Surround that church! If that’s where he wants to be, we’ll make sure he stays there!”

  But Luke was already in motion, having hesitated barely a second once he’d plunged inside. His first impulse had been to leap to one of the foyer windows and try to cover the men outside with his rifle, return the fire they’d been so quick to throw his way. But Luke quickly changed his mind, realizing the risk of getting trapped and knowing the longer he stayed in the church the greater the chance of that happening.

  So instead of trying to make even a momentary stand in the foyer, he had broken into a full-out run and raced toward the rear of the building, aiming to flee out the back. He didn’t know what awaited behind the place of worship, his vague recollection of what he’d seen from the livery barn doorway being that it was open ground, no other structures close around where he might find cover. But even if that was the case, it would at least still give him the chance to put up a running fight.

  Past the pulpit area, Luke reached a small, office-like room where he assumed the minister prepared his sermons and such. Whatever the case, it had an exit door and that was enough for Luke to give a little thanks of his own. He shouldered open the door and plunged outside. He could immediately hear shouts and curses as men came swarming closer to the front of the church, demonstrating understandable caution that he was in there ready to open fire on them. Good, let them take their time. The slower and more cautious the better. The main thing that mattered right now was that there was no one in sight to witness his exit out the back.

  Unfortunately, the other thing that wasn’t in sight was any sign of something Luke could use for cover. And he knew it wouldn’t be long before some of those men would be moving up on one side or the other of the church, until somebody reached a point where they were certain to spot him if he stayed exposed the way he was.

  Luke weighed the choices he had for his next move. Straight out from the back of the church, stretching for a dozen or so yards, was a patch of high grass and weeds that dropped off into a steep-walled ravine. Beyond was open country made up of choppy hills studded with rock outcroppings. Eighty yards off to the left and down a shallow incline was an empty corral area out behind the livery barn. To the right, just back from the rim of the ravine, was a cemetery. A combination of stone and wood markers stood within the border of a fence made of weathered, widely spaced wooden slats. Beyond the end of the cemetery and down another long, shallow incline, maybe a hundred yards away, were the backs of the buildings lining the near side of the town’s main street.

  Luke made his choice. If he could make it in among those buildings, he’d have a chance to play cat-and-mouse for a while with the men trying to close in on him. Long enough to, hopefully, find a way to eventually make it all the way clear.

  At the same time he’d have the chance to take a toll on them. Any other way would leave him too exposed, allow them to continue swarming until they were certain to run him down.

  Shoving away from the church, Luke broke for the cemetery as hard as he could run. He carried the Winchester in his left hand, gripped one of the Remingtons in his right. He dug his boot heels into the wet grass to keep from slipping as long tendrils of weeds slapped and clung to his churning legs.

  He made it amongst the tombstones before somebody started hollering, signaling he’d been spotted. Quickly following that came the crack and roar of more gunfire. Bullets whacked against the slats of the cemetery fence and whined off some of the stone markers. One of them chipped away a marble corner and broken bits of lead and stone sprayed like shrapnel, slicing and stinging the side of Luke’s face as he ran.

  And then the hoarse bellow of the bloated-faced man with the shotgun rolled up the slope again. “Watch where you’re shootin’, dammit! Aim low—cut away his legs, but keep him alive!”

  There it was again. The order to keep him alive. The first time Luke had heard it, in the din of the initial volley as he was scrambling to get back inside the church, he thought his ears must be playing tricks on him. What sense did it make for a pack of gun wolves to show up and come after him if they weren’t out to kill him? For that matter, who were they and why were they after him at all?

  All Luke knew for sure was that calling a halt to discuss the finer details of what this was all about wasn’t something he was ready to do right at the moment. Not as long as he had a chance to elude these hombres. Just because they weren’t fixing to kill him right away didn’t mean they weren’t prepared to get around to it later on. And what they might have in mind to do in between wasn’t exactly pleasant to speculate on. Bad as Luke wanted answers to whatever this was all about, he meant to try and find them in his own way and time—not have them dished out to him by Bloated Face and his bunch if they managed to get their paws on him.

  Luke kept running. He cleared the far end of the cemetery and began his angle down the slope toward the buildings on Main Street. Bullets continued to sail his way but they were more intermittent now, more carefully aimed. They gouged the ground around his feet and sliced the air just ahead and behind his pumping knees.

  The bunch from the front of the church were swinging his way in a frantic, jumbled mass, hoping to try and intercept him. More than once when somebody slowed to take a shot, one of the others running up from behind would inadvertently bump against the shooter and spoil his aim. A lot of cursing got hurled along with the lead.

  Luke could see that the only ones who stood any real chance of getting in his way to prevent him from making it to the buildings were the two skunks he’d spotted out in the middle of the street when he’d first stepped from the church doorway. One was heavyset, moving ponderously, the other was a stringbean with loose-limbed, awkward movements of his own. They were cutting over, trying to get in front of him, but both seemed somewhat tentative about a confrontation since they were out in the open and the rest of the gang was still a ways off.

  Without breaking stride, Luke decided to add to their tentativeness. Extending his right arm, he rapid-fired the Remington as he ran, emptying the whole wheel on the hapless pair. His arm was jarring too much for any real accuracy, he was aiming mainly to make them duck and scatter and allow him to reach his destination.

  The result was one of his shots blew off the hat of the stringbean, another nicked the heavyset one in the thigh. The rest of his slugs came close enough to rattle nerves but struck no flesh or bone. But he succeeded in eliminating the pair from blocking his way. The heavyset one dropped to the muddy ground, clutching his wounded leg, the stringbean tripped and fell over him. By the time they got untangled and tried to make it back up to their feet, Luke had reached the nearest of the buildings and disappeared around the corner.

  Chapter 9

  Luke pressed against the outside of the
building, taking a moment to try and catch his breath and to also reload the spent Remington. He backhanded away a smear of blood and rainwater from the cut on his cheek. He knew he’d managed to buy himself a few precious minutes. Nobody was going to be in a hurry to come around that corner after him, not any time soon.

  But that didn’t mean that some of them wouldn’t go rushing up the street in an attempt to get ahead of him. And sooner or later, somebody would have to follow the way he’d gone for the sake of catching him in a crossfire.

  The trick for Luke then, if he was going to succeed with his cat-and-mouse plan, would be to slip into one of the buildings in between without anybody seeing exactly which one. From there he could do some maneuvering of his own, popping in and out when and where they least expected, picking off a few of them—one by one—in the process.

  If he could keep that up long enough, work on their nerves, get them chasing their own tails, then he might be able to create an opening to make it to his horses in the livery barn for a chance to ride clear of this crazy town.

  Luke began working his way down the back ends of the businesses lining this side of Hard Rock’s main street. His mind raced, trying to picture the layout of the buildings as best he could remember from his single trip down the street. What he needed to best suit his plan was a large structure, preferably two stories high, with several rooms or sections inside. A hotel would have been ideal, but he couldn’t remember seeing anything so identified.

  The rain seemed louder back here, spattering off the roofs and back porch overhangs. But Luke could still hear the somewhat muted voices of the men moving out in the street now, angry curses and threats being spat as they surged along just as he’d expected, trying to get ahead of him in anticipation of whatever he might do next. He darted cautiously through the gaps between buildings, making sure he wasn’t seen from the street or that none of his pursuers were trying to work their way back through one of those gaps.

  Some empty beer kegs and wooden cases marked as having contained bottles of whiskey, stacked out back of one of the buildings Luke came to, were welcome indicators of what he’d been hoping for. A saloon. A big, gaudy, two-story saloon that should give him plenty of room to operate.

  The back door to the place was locked and opened inward, making it difficult for Luke to force the door with a shoulder block even if he’d wanted to risk the noise. Instead he pulled the Bowie knife from its sheath behind his right-hand Remington and used the stout, razor-sharp blade to start digging at the door’s latch. Trying to do so without making a lot of noise or leaving behind visible damage was nerve-wrackingly tedious. Luke kept glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one had started around the back way while the voices of the men out in the street were growing in anger and intensity.

  Finally, the latch popped and the door opened. He slipped into a cramped storage room with a single small window almost completely obscured by a stack of wooden boxes. The gloom forced Luke to pause for several seconds until his vision adjusted. When he could see well enough, he pressed the door shut and moved one of the wooden boxes over to hold it that way. Then he turned and carefully picked his way out through other stacks of barrels and boxes.

  Exiting the storage room, Luke found himself in a short, wide hallway lined by ornate wallpaper and brass candle holders. The latter were unlit, but thankfully, a door at the opposite end of the hall was standing open and this allowed illumination from a large room beyond to spill in.

  There were closed doors on either side of the hallway, but Luke ignored them. At the end of the hall he found himself gazing out at the main room of the saloon. It was spacious and fancily decked out. A long, brass-railed bar ran along one side, several gaming tables filled the center area, and a stage presumably for dancing girls extended out from a curtained doorway off to the right of the doorway where Luke now stood. Hanging from the center of the ceiling directly over the middle of the whole works was a glittering chandelier at least a dozen feet in diameter. On the other side of the stage, an open stairway led up to a second floor balcony that extended out above Luke’s head. At the front of the room, a set of high, wide windows bracketed the main entrance and looked out on the street, at the same time providing passersby a beckoning peek at the opulence within.

  Once again Luke had to wonder about Asa Patton’s assessment of Hard Rock being so close to the back end of nowhere. Although there were different ways to measure a place, a well-appointed business establishment such as this, even though it was a saloon, seemed to indicate a level quite above hardscrabble.

  At least it had indicated that, until some fairly recent point. As it stood now, some ransacking—apparently as part of the whole town’s emptying-out—had left the place decidedly worse for wear. Although things weren’t completely wrecked, the mirror behind the bar had been smashed, all the gaming tables and most of their accompanying chairs had been overturned and scattered, the curtains that opened onto the stage were mostly in tatters, and most of the glass in the front windows had been broken out.

  As a curious aside to all that, Luke couldn’t help noticing that several bottles of liquor that had lined shelves behind the bar still stood intact. There were gaps, many were missing altogether and the mirror that had been in back of them was in shards, but the remaining bottles stood tall and proud like soldiers ready for another battle.

  Luke shook himself from this bit of musing. He couldn’t afford it. What he had to concentrate on now was positioning himself to strike back at the gunmen. His gaze swept over to the stairway and then followed it upward to the second floor. He moved forward to get a better look at the layout up there, edging in behind an overturned table to stay hidden from anyone who might happen to glance in through the front windows.

  A balcony extended a third of the way out over the main floor and the near end of the bar. Narrower sections of it also ran along the two side walls. There were doorways visible behind the railing all the way around—opening, Luke guessed, into some sleeping rooms and also probably rooms for bar girls to entertain customers. This made the upstairs appealing to him for his present circumstance. He’d have a good vantage point, both inside and out, from up there. He could move from room to room, assuming at least some were adjoining, and still have reasonable escape routes out the front and rear or even from one of the side windows if necessary, since he wouldn’t be that high off the ground. Luke never lacked for confidence that, as long as he had his guns and plenty of ammunition, he always stood a chance of blasting his way out of a tight spot.

  His mind made up, Luke was ready to head upstairs. But before he did, there was one piece of business he meant to take care of first. Slipping away from the overturned table, he glided around the end of the bar. From a shelf behind it, he reached up and snagged one of the undisturbed bottles of liquor. Earlier, he had taken note of its distinctive label—it was a brand of brandy that he’d taken a liking to during one of his stays in Denver. Since it would likely be a while before Bloated Face or any of his bunch showed their ugly faces here, he might as well spend the time waiting in good company . . .

  Chapter 10

  It took a little over half an hour for them to start closing in on him again. The first indicator was a quick series of movement flickering across the busted-out saloon windows. Next came the clump of boot heels on the boardwalk out front. Luke thought he also might have heard some sounds from downstairs, toward the back, but couldn’t be certain.

  The outer front door was suddenly yanked open and flung wide. Luke tensed, ready with his raised Winchester, but the doorway stayed empty. The now exposed batwings hung undisturbed, no one yet ready to push on through.

  Then the familiar voice of Bloated Face called out once again. “We know you’re in there, Jensen. We found the jimmied door in back and we’ve searched all the other buildings on both sides of here. You got lucky and bought yourself a little time, but it’s over now. Make it easy on yourself and give up before somebody else gets hurt.”

&n
bsp; Luke made no response. He was crouched behind an overturned padded chair at the balcony railing just off center above the main room down below. A hallway running back deeper into the upstairs level was just off to his right. Half a dozen rooms branched off from it, in addition to some smaller rooms opening off the narrow walkway that wrapped around the sides.

  At the far end of the hall behind him, a steep, narrow stairwell led down to the first level. The door at the bottom was locked and Luke had jammed a straight-backed wooden chair under the knob to help secure it. No one would be coming through that way without some force and without making some racket that would give him warning.

  The chair he was hiding behind was in keeping with the furnishings of the rest of the upstairs that had been ransacked and tossed about much like the lower barroom. So anyone looking up from down there would not only be unable to see him but neither would the overturned chair appear as anything unusual to draw their attention.

  Luke stayed silent and waited. Peering around the edge of the chair seat and down through the balcony railings he had a clear view of the saloon entrance and three quarters of the barroom.

  “Blast it, Jensen, this is gettin’ tiresome!” hollered Bloated Face, showing his irritation and impatience. “You must have heard me say our orders are to take you alive, so maybe you think you can afford to be cocky. But nobody said nothing about not roughin’ you up plenty! So I’ll warn you right now that the more you drag this out and the more you piss me off, the rougher the treatment you’re gonna get when we do get our hands on you! You’d best do some thinkin’ about that!”

  Bloated Face went quiet again, waiting. And Luke continued to stay still and silent.

  Some mutterings from down below—through the broken windows and past the batwings—began to drift up to him. He could make out snippets of agitated conversation.