Hired Guns

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  “He’s got to be in there.”

  “He’s pretty slippery, maybe we missed him somehow in one of the other buildings.”

  “Well just standin’ here jawin’ about it ain’t gonna flush him, that’s for stinkin’ sure . . .”

  Luke smiled wolfishly. Confusion to the enemy. Where had he heard that saying before? No matter, it was a good one all the same. The more confusion and agitation he could stir up in that pack of varmints out there, the better it was for him.

  Luke heard the vague creaks and bumps of movement as some of the gang members entered down below at the rear, moving in through the same storeroom. But they were of minor concern to him at this point. They couldn’t get at him without using one of the two sets of stairs. He’d easily spot anyone attempting to climb the stairway down in the barroom, and trying to access the inside stairwell would create enough racket to warn him in time to deal with it. His main focus needed to remain on the front entrance—and, half a minute later, activity there proved he was correct.

  To give the devil his due, Bloated Face showed himself to be neither a coward nor a shirker. He pushed through the batwings and led the way in. The shotgun was still gripped in his meaty fists as his piggish eyes whipped anxiously in every direction. Three other grim-faced gents edged in behind him, fanning out slightly once they were through the doorway. Two of them brandished rifles, one held a drawn pistol. A fifth man, also prominently displaying a handgun, stepped over the sill of the busted-out window to Luke’s left and veered off to start making his way behind the bar.

  Hard as it was, Luke remained stone still, letting the men in the center advance cautiously. He was waiting, hoping intently for them to continue on just like they were . . . until they reached a certain spot in accordance with some of the other preparations he’d had time to make while he was alone in the empty saloon.

  And then they were there. Positioned almost too good to be true.

  Luke sighted on his target, held his breath, stroked the Winchester’s trigger. The rifle belched flame and lead and a silence-shattering roar. The heavy slug it hurled sizzled across the room and cleanly snapped the length of chain from which dangled the ornate chandelier in the middle of the ceiling. Down slammed the massive assembly of glass icicles and the outer ring of individual globe lamps, the twelve-foot span across its diameter wide enough to cover Bloated Face and all three of the men bunched around him. All were instantly driven to the floor as if swatted flat by a giant palm.

  As the chandelier came crashing down, the pistoleer who was moving up behind the bar remained in the clear. His reaction at seeing his cohorts get so brutally pounded down was cool and professional. He didn’t waste any time looking shocked. Instead he immediately swung his attention to find the source of the shot that dropped the chandelier. His eyes locked right away on the powder haze hanging in the air from Luke’s Winchester and his gun arm was rising just as fast.

  But Luke was far from inexperienced at the game himself. Even before he saw that his shot struck true and the chandelier was falling, he’d been aware that the man behind the bar would still be in the clear and therefore a potential threat. So while the chandelier was still in the air, he adjusted his aim and swung his sights to the bar area.

  The pistoleer was almost as fast as he was coolheaded. But his accuracy failed to match his speed. He got off a shot, but the bullet sailed half a foot over Luke’s head. In the same instant, Luke’s rifle roared once more—and once more his shot was true. The slug hit the pistoleer high in the center of his chest and slammed him back against the shelves behind the bar, leaving him to hang there a moment and then begin a slow slide into a limp, lifeless heap.

  Drawn by the shooting, another man clomped up on the boardwalk out front and recklessly shoved the batwings open. He never even got his eyes raised to where Luke was—let alone the muzzle of the Henry repeater he was carrying—before another slug from Luke’s rifle knocked him staggering back out into the street.

  Directly below him, through the floor, Luke could make out slightly muffled voices start to chatter excitedly.

  “He’s upstairs!”

  “He’s mowin’ down everybody out in the barroom!”

  And then one of the idiots foolishly began shooting up at the ceiling, as if he expected a bullet to penetrate and have any chance to hit Luke. He triggered three rounds before somebody’s hollering got him to stop. Crazy as the attempt was, the loud whaps! and vibrations pulsing through the floorboards right under where Luke was crouching were enough to make him do a little nervous shifting.

  “There’s a door back here that I think leads up a stairwell,” said one of the muffled voices. “We can go up after him that way!”

  This drew another wolfish grin from Luke. Having some of his pursuers try the stairwell was one more thing he’d had time to make some preparations for. Before that, though, he needed to take one more quick scan of the barroom below. One of the four men who’d been caught under the chandelier wasn’t moving at all, obviously knocked cold. The other three were doing some struggling to pull free, but were so stunned and battered that it amounted to pretty weak attempts. It was plain that none of them were getting out from under any time soon.

  Satisfied with that, Luke turned and hurried back down the hall. As he moved in long strides, he pulled from a slicker pocket the bottle of brandy he’d brought upstairs with him. It was now half empty and into the neck of the bottle was stuffed a wad of bed sheeting, two or three inches of it trailing loose, that he’d gotten from one of the rooms off the hall. Another piece of the sheet material, wetted with brandy, had served to clean and finally help stop the bleeding from the cut on his cheek.

  From the top of the stairwell, Luke looked down on the jammed door at the bottom. It was shivering violently and already starting to split apart under heavy blows from the other side. Luke had no time to waste. He leaned his Winchester against the wall and pulled a sulfur match from his shirt pocket. He snapped the lucifer to life with a thumbnail and held the flame to the tail of sheeting poking out the top of the bottle.

  As soon as the cloth was burning good, he hurled the bottle as hard as he could at the door. The glass vessel shattered on impact, its contents splashing out. The fiery cloth ignited the liquor. Blue alcohol flames instantly burst out all over the face of the door and in only seconds the paint and wood began to crackle from the heat as the fire took hold and spread wider.

  The pounding on the door abruptly ceased and then only curses sounded from the other side. With a wall of flame now in place to prevent his attackers from getting at him via the stairwell, Luke had no time to stay and savor the accomplishment.

  Once more wheeling around, he again raced the length of the hall and returned to his previous vantage overlooking the main barroom. As he covered this distance, he pulled from a slicker pocket a second liquor bottle—one he’d found empty in one of the second floor rooms and had partly filled with brandy from the first bottle then also rigged with a cloth wick.

  A glance at the barroom below showed that not too much had changed. One of the men under the fallen chandelier was still motionless. Two of the others, however—one of them being the durable Bloated Face, complete with a streak of bright blood flowing from a gash on the back of his head—had managed to pull almost all the way free.

  That was all Luke needed to see. He wasted no time snapping another match to life and igniting the wick on the second bottle. As soon as the cloth was wrapped in flames, he demonstrated he was nearly as accurate with an overhand toss as with a rifle shot. Down the flaming bottle arced, landing in the center of the chandelier and immediately shattering into outward blossoming fingers of blue fire that instantly touched off the spilled oil from the ring of broken globe lanterns. In a matter of seconds, the entire framework of the chandelier wreckage was afire, licking higher and wider. The men caught under part of it screamed and began flailing and kicking even more frantically to get clear.

  Luke had to keep on the m
ove. Voices downstairs from those who’d been turned back at the stairwell were being raised in increased anger and alarm. And more shouts were coming from out in the street. Based on the number of varmints he’d seen when he first stepped out of the church, Luke figured he had at least a half dozen more to deal with.

  But the sprawling saloon had served its purpose. It was time to take the game of cat-and-mouse to a new location. Luke didn’t know exactly where yet, he just knew it was necessary to move on.

  With this in mind, he turned again to the hallway behind him. Heavy smoke was rolling up out of the stairwell at the opposite end. Luke proceeded only partway this time before ducking into a doorway on his right. This placed him in a room where he judged one of the saloon’s soiled doves had entertained customers. Continuing to move quickly, he crossed to a doorway on the far side and barged through it into an adjoining room. The far side of this room was the outside of the saloon building and there was a tall, narrow, shuttered window there. Luke went to the window and pushed the shutters open a crack. He had tested them earlier to confirm they swung back freely on their hinges.

  Peering through the crack, he checked below to make sure that the space between this building and the next, an alley only about six feet in width, was clear of any activity. Same when he swept his gaze to either end. The building across the alley was a flat-roofed, single story structure, its top about the same distance lower from Luke’s window as the gap between the two buildings. In other words, an easy jump to make.

  Luke had determined all of this earlier during his exploration of the upstairs. It would have suited him better if he’d found a way to transfer to the building on the saloon’s opposite side, the one back in the direction of the livery. Unfortunately, the distance to that structure was too great and its design offered no reasonable purchase for Luke to grab hold of if he’d tried to make that jump.

  So that left the flat-topped building on this side. It wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do. It gave him a way out of the saloon and a way to move on in order to keep eluding his pursuers. For now that was good enough. It just meant he’d have to do some more dodging and maneuvering before he got his chance to make it back to the livery and his horses.

  Luke pushed the shutters open wide, braced one foot on the windowsill, then shoved out and away. As soon as he touched down on the opposite roof, he went into a smooth tuck and roll, Winchester hugged tight to his chest. He came up on one knee and froze there, head ducked low, eyes scanning alertly in all directions. First, he made sure no one happened to be looking out any of the saloon windows to see what he’d just done. Smoke was beginning to roll out both ends of the structure and the excited voices on the street were more frantic than ever. Luke didn’t dare move to the front of the roof to try and spot how many men were down there because it would have meant too much of a risk of being seen.

  He crossed to the opposite side of the roof to get a look from that vantage point, seeing if he had the chance to make another jump to the next building or if he’d have to drop to the ground before moving on. The next building being taller and again having no good purchase, it was evident the only way to proceed from this roof was to climb down from it. To do that, he moved to the back edge where he hoped he’d find a shed or perhaps a back porch overhang to aid in his descent.

  Unfortunately, nothing like that presented itself. The back of the building dropped off as flat and bare as the roof itself. Weeds and open prairie stretched beyond for dozens of yards before dipping abruptly into a gully of indeterminate depth. But the gully promptly seized Luke’s interest. If he could make it there, maybe it would be deep enough to use for cover and follow it back toward the livery barn and a chance to reach his horses without any more cat-and-mouse games among other empty buildings.

  He was gazing at the ragged rim of the depression, still considering its possible use when suddenly, at almost the exact spot he was studying, the heads of a horse and rider lunged up into view. And following behind, being led on a rope gripped by the rider, came two more horses—the paint and the dun Luke had arrived in town with!

  Once all the way up out of the gully, the rider nosed his little caravan straight toward Luke, advancing at a full gallop. When he’d reached the flat-topped building directly below where Luke stood looking down with his Winchester held at the ready, the stranger reined up sharply. All the horses skidded to a halt on the wet grass.

  Looking up from under the wide brim of a slouch hat with an Indian design decorating the band around the base of its crown, the rider said calmly, “Not that you ain’t doin’ a pretty good job so far on your own—but it appears to me you’re a fella who might could use a little help.”

  Chapter 11

  Due north they rode, pushing the horses hard. They passed quickly in and out of the gully Luke had had his eye on and he saw that part of it was indeed deep enough to have given him cover, but its length only ran a short distance in either direction before it narrowed and choked off into little more than a crack in the ground. It wouldn’t have taken him anywhere close to the livery barn.

  But that problem had been unexpectedly solved and now it felt mighty good to be back in the saddle again—his own saddle, no less—and pounding clear of the craziness he’d encountered in the town of Hard Rock. He still had a score of questions rolling around in his mind about what was behind all of that, but for now he was just glad to have some distance between him and the hot lead welcome that had been waiting for him there.

  Of course, he also had plenty of questions concerning this hombre who’d shown up out of nowhere to help him make a getaway. But if ever the old saying about not looking a gift horse in the mouth—literally, in this case—was worth following, then this was it.

  The stranger seemed to know the area and have a specific destination in mind, and that was good enough. Concentrating on putting the gun wolves farther behind them suited Luke just fine.

  As they rode, the drizzling rain turned gradually into a heavier downpour. What was more, the bank of thick, dark clouds rolling in over the mountain peaks directly ahead seemed to indicate no letup anytime soon. But Luke didn’t mind all that much. The moisture on his face felt cool and bracing, almost refreshing after scrambling around inside that closed, eerily empty saloon . . . empty, that is, until his attackers started showing up. The only bad thing about this heavier downpour, he thought as he cast frequent glances over his shoulder, was if it reached the town, too, it would help the gunmen back there put out the saloon fire and be able to give pursuit that much sooner. If they’d ever intended to fight the fire to begin with, that was. For all Luke knew they’d be inclined to let it burn and spread to the whole town. They hardly struck him as civic-minded types who cared about nurturing the community.

  Somehow, though, the thought of a whole section of the town burning bothered Luke. It shouldn’t be any skin off his nose, one way or the other. But it would be a shame, more of those deserted yet still sturdy buildings ending up in ashes. And it would leave him as the one who’d triggered it. But more reflection on the matter, since he was hardly in a position to go back and help beat down the flames, was a waste. He had plenty else to worry about.

  Before they’d gone much farther, the stranger in the Indian-band hat veered suddenly to the right and headed toward an outcropping of tall, ragged rock. Cutting in behind it, he led the way to a dry, sandy-bottomed pocket under the twelve-foot-high arc of a natural bridge that connected two halves of the overall formation. Here he reined up and promptly slid from his saddle.

  “There’s some room for the horses over toward the back, where they’ll have decent shelter, too,” he announced, crowding his mount toward where he’d indicated. “We can slap feed bags on ’em after they’ve cooled some and they’ll be fine.”

  As Luke dismounted and positioned his own animals, he got his first chance to study the man at any length. He saw that he was of average height, solidly built through the chest and shoulders, roughly forty years old. He had a
lean face, evenly featured, with long, coal black hair showing under the Indian-band hat and dark eyes that appeared intelligent and alert. A Colt Peacemaker was holstered on his right hip and a long-bladed Bowie knife in an Indian-beaded sheath hung on his left.

  “You figure on holing up here for a spell?” Luke asked as he swung down out of his own saddle.

  “A bit. Any objections?”

  Luke shrugged. “Not particularly. After the way you helped pull me out of that tight spot back there, I reckon I owe you not only my gratitude but the courtesy of letting you make the call.”

  The stranger grinned. “And I reckon you ain’t one to give up calling his own shots very easy. Am I right?”

  “Not exactly a habit I have, no,” Luke agreed.

  “The thing I got in mind, now that we’re in the clear,” explained the stranger, “is takin’ ourselves a breather and usin’ the opportunity to clear the air on some things. I expect we’re both bustin’ with questions and that means we’ll each have some answers owed in turn. Ain’t that about it?”

  Luke nodded. “Sums it up pretty good, I’d say. But are you sure we’re in the clear?”

  The stranger pulled a spyglass from his saddlebag. “Reasonably so. I’m aimin’ to shinny up higher on one of these rocks, though, and have a good look to make certain. But I didn’t see no sign of anybody lightin’ out after us, and I got half a hunch they might not even know yet that you squirted out the back of that saloon. Even if they did figure that much out and then that you’d made it to horseback, it’d take ’em time to run to the livery in order to saddle up their own mounts and give chase.”

  “Comes to that, this rain works in our favor,” Luke pointed out. “The way it’s coming down now, they’d never be able to track us.”

  The stranger twisted his mouth wryly. “Especially not this bunch. Trust me, you could carry a leaky paint bucket across a clean floor and they’d have trouble pickin’ up the trail. I been dodgin’ ’em for near to three months now, and they’ve never come within a quarter mile of me.”