“We have a duty to protect the prisoners,” Stryker snapped. “I’ll deal with those raiders.”
Matt had to give the lawman credit for being brave—or downright crazy. Stryker was going out to face the killers alone, and from the sound of the attack, there were a lot of them. Stryker would be facing overpowering odds.
Matt grabbed the bars of the cell door and called, “Marshal! Let us out of here and give us guns! We’ll help you!”
Stryker glared at him. “Forget it! You’re locked up and you’ll stay that way. I don’t need help from the likes of you two.”
Sam said, “It sounds to me like you do, Marshal. There must be a lot of those outlaws.”
Birdie ventured, “Marshal, maybe it’d be a good idea—”
“Deputy, follow my orders! Get in there and protect the prisoners!”
Birdie sighed and gave a reluctant nod. He stepped into the cell block and pulled the door closed behind him while Stryker headed for the front door of the office. “There goes a mighty brave man,” the deputy said.
“Or a damned foolish one,” Matt said. “Deputy, show some sense. What’s goin’ on out there? Is it an outlaw raid?”
“That’s what it looked like,” Birdie replied. “I saw a bunch of men on horseback before Marshal Stryker hustled me in here. They came chargin’ into town, shootin’ at everything that moved. I ain’t seen anything like it since Gettysburg.”
It was hard to imagine the mousy-looking little deputy taking part in that epic battle during the Civil War. Matt supposed there had been all types in the armies of North and South. He and Sam had been a bit too young to take part in that terrible clash, though they had seen more than their share of fighting since then. They had witnessed, from a distant hilltop, the great battle between the assembled Plains tribes and the Seventh Cavalry under Yellow Hair, George Armstrong Custer himself. Sam’s father Medicine Horse had lost his life in that fight. And during their wanderings in recent years, the blood brothers had swapped lead repeatedly with the forces of lawlessness and greed. Both of them held tightly to the bars now, and Sam said, “If you release us, Deputy, we promise to help fight off the attack on the town.”
Obviously, Birdie was torn. He let out a moan and said, “You know I can’t do that, even if I wanted to. The marshal give me strict orders to keep you boys in here.”
“He’s gonna get himself killed,” Matt pointed out, “if he’s not dead already. That means you’re in charge, Birdie. Let us out and give us our guns back. You know we can help.”
For a second Matt thought Birdie was going to do it, but then the deputy gave a stubborn shake of his head. “Nope. I just can’t.” He drew the pistol holstered at his waist. “But don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you fellas.”
Matt and Sam exchanged a glance. If the raiders wanted to break in here, Birdie wouldn’t be able to stop them. The idea that the blood brothers might be gunned down like helpless animals made their skin crawl and their souls cry out in protest.
Neither Matt nor Sam was particularly afraid of dying, but they wanted to go out on their feet, guns in their hands, fighting to the last breath.
It was starting to look like they might not get that chance....
* * *
Mallory knew where the marshal’s office was, too, just as he had known the location of the bank. As he spurred toward the squat stone building, the flames shot higher in the air at the other end of town, throwing a hellish red glare over the street and lighting up practically the whole settlement.
In that glare, Mallory saw the marshal emerge from his office. A couple of owlhoots were closer to him than Mallory was. They yelled and opened fire on the lawman, but they rushed their shots. The marshal was able to swing his shotgun up and fire both barrels. The buckshot slammed into the outlaws and their horses at close range, shredding flesh, knocking the horses down, driving the men out of their saddles. The horses kicked a little before dying, but neither of the raiders moved at all.
The marshal broke his shotgun open, shucked the empty shells, and tried to reload. Mallory was almost on top of him by then. Flame lanced from the barrel of Mallory’s revolver. The bullet knocked the marshal halfway around and made him drop the shotgun. He caught himself against one of the poles supporting the awning over the boardwalk and clawed with his other hand at the Colt on his hip. Smiling, Mallory fired again before the marshal could clear leather. This slug drove the lawman backward, but still he didn’t fall. Even with two bullets in his body he managed to stumble forward, haul his pistol out of its holster, and struggle to raise the gun.
Mallory had reined in a few yards away. He grinned at the marshal and said,
“You are one stubborn son of a bitch, aren’t you, badge-toter?” He extended his gun and aimed it deliberately. “I think I’m going to put this one right between your eyes. . . .”
The marshal’s pain-wracked face contorted with the effort he was making, but his muscles just wouldn’t work well enough anymore. Before his gun was even halfway up, Mallory fired again. The slug smashed into the bridge of the lawman’s nose and on into his brain. The marshal went down at last, flopping on his back in the dusty street. His gun slipped out of nerveless fingers.
Still grinning, Mallory waved some of his men over. “Get in there,” he told them as he used his gun to point at the marshal’s office and jail. “Kill anybody else you find and take all the guns and ammunition.” He spotted one of the dynamite men riding past. They must have finished down at the bank, although with all the commotion going on, Mallory hadn’t even heard the blast when the vault door was blown off. “Brody! When they get through cleaning out the marshal’s office, toss a couple of sticks of dynamite in there.”
“Will do, Boss!” Brody responded with a vicious grin of his own. Like all the members of Mallory’s gang, he had plenty of reason to hate all lawmen and everything about them.
Mallory rode on down the street, the flames of Hades rising into the night sky behind him.
* * *
The sounds of the shooting outside came closer and closer, and Birdie appeared to grow more and more nervous. Matt was about to try again to convince the deputy to release him and Sam, when the outer door of the office was slammed open. “Through there!” a harsh voice yelled. “See if there’s anybody in the cell block!”
Birdie didn’t wait for the raiders to come in. He threw open the cell block door. A change had come over him. He stood straighter, and the nervous look had disappeared from his face. Instead his eyes glittered like deadly points of fire, and the gun in his hand was rock-steady.
“Eat lead, you dirty owlhoots!” he yelled as he stepped into the doorway and his gun began to roar.
Matt and Sam both dove to the floor of the cell, knowing the raiders would return that fire.
That was what happened, but Birdie’s daring attack had surprised the outlaws so much that he was able to cut down a couple of them before they began shooting back. Birdie was jarred by a bullet, but managed to stay on his feet by leaning against the doorjamb while the revolver in his hand continued to spout flame. The deputy was hit again, and this time it was too much for him to withstand. He sagged to his knees. Half-a-dozen outlaws had entered the marshal’s office. Three of them were down, but the other three closed in on Birdie, ready to blast him to pieces.
A long-nosed mountain of a man appeared behind them and came crashing down on them. Buckner knocked all three of the outlaws off their feet. As he landed on top of them, the buffalo hunter grabbed two men by their necks and slammed their heads together. That made a sound like a watermelon dropping to the floor and busting open. Buckner hammered a fist down on the back of the third man’s head.
The air was thick with roiling clouds of powder smoke, but through the open door between the office and the cell block Matt saw several more outlaws charge in from the street. “Buckner, look out!” he yelled.
Buckner pushed himself up and swung around, but not in time to stop the raiders f
rom opening fire. Bullet after bullet tore through his buffalo coat and thudded into his huge frame. That didn’t stop him from roaring in defiance as he threw himself toward this fresh batch of enemies. With blood running down his hand like a river, he reached under his coat and yanked an Arkansas Toothpick from its sheath. More blood sprayed into the air as he waded into the men with the knife flashing back and forth. Those who escaped the deadly arcs of the long, heavy blade went down under the bone-shattering blows of Buckner’s other fist.
Despite this last ferocious attack, Buckner had suffered too much damage to stay on his feet for long. He fell to his knees, taking the last of the outlaws in the marshal’s office down with him. His sausage like fingers closed around the man’s neck and squeezed. The outlaw thrashed wildly, but couldn’t get free of Buckner’s death grip. He wasn’t strangled, though, because with one last convulsive heave, the buffalo hunter snapped his neck like a matchstick.
Silence fell over the smoky, blood-splattered marshal’s office, although the sounds of fighting and dying continued outside. After a moment, one of the men who had been wounded by Birdie groaned and forced himself upright. He reached under his coat and brought out a small bundle of some sort. Matt and Sam both watched, their eyes widening with horror as they recognized the bundle as two sticks of dynamite tied together. The outlaw fumbled a match from his pocket, snapped it to life with his thumbnail, and held the flame to the fuse dangling from one of the sticks. Then with a savage grin at the prisoners, he tossed the dynamite through the open cell block door and staggered out of the marshal’s office.
Chapter 4
“Son of a bitch!” Matt shouted as he watched the dynamite sail over Birdie’s body, hit the floor, bounce, and then roll a couple of feet. It came to a stop about halfway to the cell and lay there as the fuse continued to sputter and spark. Sam threw himself at the bars and extended his right arm between them as he sprawled on the floor. His fingers wiggled as they reached desperately for the dynamite. If he could get his hands on it, he might be able to toss it back into the outer office. If he could do that, at least the explosive cylinders would be a little farther away when they detonated.
But Sam’s attempt came up a few inches short. “I can’t get it!” he said. He lunged ahead, driving his shoulder hard enough against the bars to make him cry out in pain, but he still couldn’t reach the dynamite.
“Come on!” Matt told him. “Back against the rear wall. We’ll pull those mattresses off the bunks and prop them in front of us!”
Even as he spoke, he knew what he was proposing wasn’t likely to do much good. The cell wasn’t big enough, and the mattresses were filled with corn shucks or something like that. They wouldn’t stop the force of the blast.
And the fuse had already burned down more than half its length.
Sam ignored Matt’s warning and made another try for the dynamite. The tips of his fingers barely brushed the red cylinders. Sam roared in frustration.
At that moment, Birdie rolled onto his side and groaned. His shirt and vest were sodden with blood, but he wasn’t dead. His eyelids fluttered open. For a second, his eyes didn’t seem to want to focus. Then horrified understanding came into them as he saw the dynamite.
Matt and Sam watched in fascination, knowing they might have only seconds to live. There was nothing they could do to help as Birdie reached out with a shaking hand. He pushed himself toward the dynamite with his other hand and his feet. The fuse had about an inch left to burn when the deputy’s fingers finally closed around the sticks.
With a choked grunt of effort, Birdie pushed himself up and heaved the dynamite toward the door into the office. If it missed, hit the wall beside the door, and bounced back, they were doomed.
The dynamite sailed through the opening, landed on the floor, and rolled to the side. A sliver of a heartbeat later, a huge blast rocked the building on its foundations. The noise was deafening, mind-numbing. The wall between the office and the cell block bulged and then came apart. Flying chunks of stone and a thick cloud of dust filled the air.
Matt and Sam had scrambled for the rear wall of the cell as Birdie threw the dynamite into the office. They grabbed the mattresses and pulled them over their heads. Debris from the explosion sailed between the bars and pelted them like a hundred fists at once. The mattresses helped a little, but the blood brothers were still battered and shaken. Matt couldn’t hear anything except a vast ringing in his ears, and suspected that Sam was experiencing the same thing.
Gradually Matt became aware that debris wasn’t slamming into him anymore and the earth had stopped shaking underneath him. That meant he had lived through the explosion. He didn’t know how badly he was hurt, but he didn’t care about that right now. He just wanted to find out whether or not Sam was still alive.
Coughing and choking on the dust in the air, Matt shoved the mattress away from him. “Sam!” he yelled. “Sam, where are you? Are you all right?”
He felt around, and after a moment his hands fell on the sleeve of a buckskin shirt. He followed the arm in the sleeve up to Sam’s head. Sam wasn’t moving, but Matt found a pulse beating steadily in his neck. Relief washed through him. His blood brother was alive.
The rear wall of the jail seemed to be intact. Matt lifted Sam and propped him in a sitting position against it. Sam muttered something. The air was beginning to clear. Matt made out Sam’s face. It was bruised and scraped, but Sam didn’t appear to have any serious injuries.
Matt took stock of his own situation and decided that he was all right. He felt like he’d been in the saloon brawl to end all saloon brawls, but his arms and legs worked and he wasn’t bleeding except from some cuts and scratches. He realized that his hearing was coming back, too; otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to hear Sam muttering as he struggled to regain consciousness.
Looking around the cell, Matt saw that the force of the explosion had sprung the door open. Some of the bars were bent out of shape. Matt gazed past them and saw that part of the wall between the office and the cell block had been blown down. A hand and part of an arm stuck out from under the pile of rubble. “Birdie!”
Matt crawled to the door and grabbed the bars to pull himself upright. He stumbled out of the cell. Bending over, he began throwing chunks of rock and wood aside, working as fast as he could until he’d uncovered the deputy’s head and shoulders. Matt got his hands under Birdie’s arms and hauled him out from under the collapsed wall.
Birdie was covered with blood, but he was alive. He opened his eyes again as Matt pillowed the deputy’s head against his leg. “Did . . . did I get that dynamite outta here in time?”
“You sure did,” Matt told him. “You saved me and Sam, no doubt about it. Saved our lives.”
“G-good. That was . . . what the marshal . . . told me to do.”
Matt wondered briefly what had happened to Stryker. He would have bet a hat that the lawman was dead by now. Lots of folks in Buckskin were probably dead. Matt realized that the shooting had stopped outside. That meant the raiders were probably gone. He heard the crackle of flames and shouts of alarm, though.
The town was on fire. The bastards had torched it, Matt thought.
Sam stumbled up beside him. “You made it, brother.”
“Yeah.”
“Birdie?”
“He’s alive. Don’t rightly see how, but he is.” Matt jerked his head toward what was left of the office. “See about Buckner, if you feel up to it.”
Sam nodded and climbed over the rubble to reach the office. He came back a minute later shaking his head.
“Buckner’s dead. I have a hunch he was gone before that dynamite ever went off.
Those bastards must’ve put twenty slugs in him. It’s a wonder he lived as long as he did.”
Matt nodded. “Give me a hand with Birdie here. We need to get him to a doc.”
With Sam’s help, Matt got to his feet. He cradled Birdie’s limp form in his arms.
The little deputy didn’t weigh muc
h, and under normal circumstances Matt could have carried him without any trouble. These circumstances were hardly normal, though, and Matt stumbled a little as he made his way out of the destroyed marshal’s office. Sam’s strong hand on his arm steadied him.
They emerged onto the street, where the air was clogged not with dust from the explosion, but rather with smoke from the burning buildings. Most of the places that were ablaze were at the far end of town, but the flames were spreading. Matt saw people with buckets of water running back and forth as they tried frantically to contain the conflagration. Maybe they would be successful. It was too soon to say. Limp, lifeless bodies littered the street. Corpses were everywhere. Men, women, and children . . . old-timers . . . horses and mules . . . The slaughter had been indiscriminate. The raiders truly had killed anything that moved. Including Marshal Harlan Stryker. Sam pointed out the lawman’s body to Matt. Stryker lay on his back with a bullet hole between his eyes. Even without seeing it, Matt knew the back of Stryker’s head would be a mess where the slug had blown the marshal’s brains out.
Sam grabbed the arm of a man running past and shouted, “Where’s the doctor?
We need a doctor!”
The man turned his wide-eyed gaze toward Sam, pulled free, and stumbled backward, drawing his gun as he did so. “You’re one of those prisoners!” he yelped.
“You were probably in on the raid with those outlaws! And now you’ve killed the deputy!” He raised his voice in a howl. “Help! Help me, somebody! I got two of them! I got two of the outlaws! Help!”
Men heard the frantic shouts and began running toward them. Guns came out. Matt and Sam looked at each other, knowing that they had landed right back in danger. If the battle-shocked townies took the blood brothers for members of the gang, they would probably open fire, too eager to strike back at the varmints who had inflicted such damage on the settlement to even think about what they were doing.
Texas Gundown Page 3