John Henry rolled after him, holding on for dear life to the wrist of Gilmore’s knife hand. Gilmore brought a knee up in a crushing blow that would have incapacitated John Henry if he hadn’t writhed aside at the last second to take it on his hip and thigh. As it was, the vicious attack left his leg momentarily numb.
With his free hand he hammered punches into Gilmore’s head and body. Gilmore was fighting with the strength and rage of the insane, though, and he threw John Henry off. A quick roll put him on top of the lawman. He drove the knife down with all his power. John Henry was barely able to hold it off. The blade’s razor-sharp point pricked John Henry’s throat and drew a drop of blood.
“You . . . double-crossed me!” Gilmore panted. “Were you . . . workin’ for the mine owners . . . all along?”
“I work for . . . Uncle Sam,” John Henry responded, equally breathless. “I’m a . . . deputy . . . U.S. marshal!”
That took Gilmore by surprise. John Henry could tell by the way the outlaw’s eyes widened. But the revelation didn’t shock Gilmore into slipping. If anything, he struggled even harder to plunge the knife into John Henry’s throat.
In a desperate move, John Henry brought his right leg up and hooked it in front of Gilmore’s throat. He arched up off the ground as he straightened the leg and drove Gilmore backwards.
John Henry scrambled to his feet, and Gilmore did likewise. Gilmore still had the knife. He swung it wildly. John Henry ducked under the sweeping blow, stepped closer, and brought his right fist almost from the ground in an uppercut that caught Gilmore under the chin and lifted him as he flew backwards.
When he came down, there was no ground under his feet anymore. John Henry had knocked him right off the edge of the road.
Gilmore had time to scream for a couple of heartbeats before he struck the steeply slanting slope about halfway to the bottom. He bounced, flew into the air, and hit a couple of more times, turning as limp as a rag doll by the time he came crashing down on the level ground. John Henry, chest heaving as he dragged air into his lungs, looked down at the sprawled form, saw the grotesquely sharp angle at which Gilmore’s head now rested on his neck, and knew that the outlaw hadn’t survived the fall.
The horses hadn’t gone very far. When he had caught his breath, John Henry mounted one of them and led the other as he started back down toward Purgatory. He could see the town below him. The late afternoon air was quiet now. The battle against Gilmore’s gang was over.
He thought suddenly about all that gold bullion, and about Sophie Clearwater and Doc Mitchum as well. Then he heeled the horse to a faster pace, feeling an urgent need to get back to town and make sure everything was all right.
Chapter Thirty-six
By the time John Henry reached Purgatory, Marshal Henry Hinkle and Sheriff Elmer Stone were making themselves visible, striding around Main Street issuing orders about the disposal of all the dead bodies littered about. John Henry didn’t recall seeing either of the lawmen during the battle, but they were certainly in evidence now.
He ignored them and proceeded straight to the bank, where Jason True greeting him by exclaiming, “Marshal Sixkiller! No one knew where you were. I was afraid you’d been killed.”
“I went after Gilmore,” John Henry explained. “Probably shouldn’t have. Is the gold all right?”
True nodded and said, “All stowed away in the bank’s safe. What about Gilmore? Did he get away? Do we have to worry about him coming back?”
John Henry shook his head.
“No, in fact, Cy Shuster’s going to have some work waiting for him out of town, once he’s through here. That is, if the scavengers haven’t dragged off Gilmore’s carcass by then.”
“I hate to celebrate the death of any man, but in Billy Ray Gilmore’s case, I’ll make an exception.”
John Henry thought that was allowable, especially when True went on to tell him that three of the guards had been killed in the fighting. That paled next to the number of casualties among the outlaws, though. Eighteen of them were dead, and the five prisoners were all wounded, three of them seriously. Those dynamite arrows of John Henry’s had wreaked some serious havoc among the desperadoes.
With more than a dozen guards left to take care of the gold, John Henry figured it was safe to leave the bank. Dusk was beginning to settle over the town as he headed for the hotel. When he reached his room, he found the door open. Della was still sitting up in his bed, and Royal Bouchard was in the chair beside her, holding her hand.
“John Henry!” Della cried. “Thank God you’re alive. Royal saw you from the window when you rode back into town and said that you looked like you were all right. You are all right, aren’t you?”
John Henry grinned and said, “I’m fine. And you don’t have to worry about Gilmore. He and most of his gang are dead.”
“Good riddance,” Bouchard said. “I can take Della back to the Silver Spur now—”
“Actually, I’ve been thinking,” John Henry said. “It would probably be better if she wasn’t moved just yet, so why don’t the two of you just stay here for a few days? Meade can take care of the saloon, can’t he?”
Bouchard grinned and said, “He sure can. And I can take care of Della.”
“Is that what you really want, Royal?” she asked.
He didn’t hesitate in nodding and saying, “It surely is.” His hand tightened on hers.
“But what about you, John Henry?” Della asked. “Where will you stay?”
“I figured I’d spend the night at the bank. There’s still a fortune in gold bullion over there, and my job is to protect it until Wells Fargo takes over in the morning.”
Bouchard frowned and said, “You don’t think anybody else is going to make a try for it, do you? Nobody else in these parts had a big enough gang but Gilmore.”
“Sometimes it doesn’t take a gang,” John Henry said.
* * *
Three of the guards were in the bank along with John Henry that night. Fortified with good meals and several pots of coffee, they were ready to stay there until morning, when the Wells Fargo wagons would arrive. John Henry didn’t really expect any trouble, but as long as the gold was here, it was a target.
He was surprised when someone knocked on the front door about ten o’clock.
Only a small lamp was burning on one of the desks. John Henry motioned for the guards to stay where they were and drew his Colt as he approached the door. The curtains were drawn over the glass in the door so nobody could look in. He flicked one of the curtains aside and looked out.
Jason True, Arnold Goodman, and Dan Lacey stood on the boardwalk, along with Marshal Hinkle and tall, spare, middle-aged Harley Smoot, the bank’s head teller.
John Henry had no idea why the mine owners would be here, unless they wanted to check on the gold. That was feasible, he supposed . . . but why were Hinkle and Smoot with them?
John Henry turned the key and opened the door slightly.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“We need to check the safe,” Dan Lacey said urgently. “There’s been some sort of trick. Something’s been substituted for the bullion!”
“That’s loco,” John Henry said. “It’s just not possible. The gold’s been locked up in the safe all day.”
“We just want to look to be sure, Marshal,” Jason True said. “We brought along Mr. Smoot to open the safe. Once we’ve seen for ourselves that everything is all right, we won’t bother you again.”
“Well . . . all right.” The gold belonged to them, after all, John Henry thought. He didn’t see any way he could refuse to let them look at their own gold. He stepped back....
Lacey lowered his shoulder and drove forward, slamming the door open so that it struck John Henry and knocked him backwards. John Henry caught his balance, but before he could raise his gun he found himself looking down the twin barrels of the sawed-off shotgun that Lacey clutched in both hands.
Hinkle had charged into the bank right behind Lacey. He le
veled another shotgun he held at the guards and yelled, “Don’t move!”
Wisely, the guards obeyed. At this range, the sawed-off in Hinkle’s hands could sweep all of them off their feet in a deadly lead hailstorm.
True and Goodman stepped into the bank, prodded from behind by Harley Smoot, who also carried one of the shortened shotguns. John Henry knew as soon as he saw that that Gilmore’s other inside man had been Smoot, not one of the guards.
“Sorry, Marshal,” True said. “They forced Arnold and me to cooperate.”
“Drop your gun, Sixkiller,” Lacey ordered.
“What if I don’t?” John Henry asked coolly.
“Then I’ll blow your head off and we’ll kill those guards and True and Goodman as well. I’ll say that we caught you and the guards trying to steal the gold yourselves, and Jason and Arnold were killed in the crossfire before the marshal and I cut you down. Who’s going to doubt me?”
John Henry knew that was true. Lacey’s story was plausible enough to be believed, especially with Hinkle and Smoot to back him up.
“On the other hand,” Lacey continued, “if you do what you’re told, all we do is take the gold and nobody has to die.”
“You’d steal your own gold?” John Henry asked.
That brought a derisive laugh from Lacey.
“What gold?” he said. “Those boxes of mine are filled with lead ingots, not gold. My mine played out months ago. I’ve just been biding my time, waiting to make a big haul from the other two mines. Gilmore was supposed to help me do that, but you ruined that plan. Luckily, I had something else in mind in case Gilmore failed.”
“Yeah, me,” Hinkle said with a note of bitterness in his voice. “I might not be too happy about you playing both sides, Lacey, if I wasn’t going to come out of this a rich man.”
“And in the end, that’s all that matters, isn’t it?” Lacey said. “So what’s it going to be, Sixkiller? Are you going to be reasonable?”
Slowly, John Henry reached over and laid his Colt on a nearby desk.
“Good,” Lacey said. “Back away from it. Go over there with the guards. All of you drop your guns, and be quick about it.”
Facing the terrible threat of the sawed-offs, the men had no choice but to comply. They set their rifles aside and unbuckled their gun belts. At this range, the bank would look like a charnel house if those scatterguns started bellowing.
“Now we’re going to put you to work,” Lacey said. “There are three wagons parked in the alley out back. You’ll load the boxes from the San Francisco and the El Halcón into them. Just leave the ones from the Bonita. They’re not worth a damn anyway.”
“You paid off your miners to go along with the sham?” John Henry asked.
“As long as they got their wages, they didn’t care,” Lacey snapped. “Now move. With six of you working, it won’t take long to get the wagons loaded.”
And when that chore was finished, Lacey, Hinkle, and Smoot would kill all of them, John Henry thought. They wouldn’t want to leave witnesses behind to testify about who was really responsible for the robbery, although when the three men dropped out of sight anybody with half a brain could figure it out. In a court of law, though, there wouldn’t be any evidence to convict them.
Knowing that to finish the chore would be to sign his death warrant, John Henry didn’t get in any hurry to load the bullion on the wagons parked behind the bank once Smoot had opened the safe. The other guards seemed to have figured out the same thing he had, because they were dragging their feet, too. Of course, the crates containing the gold were heavy. The men couldn’t move too fast with them.
Lacey grew more and more impatient. He stood beside the wagon with the scattergun leveled and said, “Hurry up, damn it! I want to be a long way from here by morning.”
“You won’t get away with this,” True growled.
“Of course I will,” Lacey said with supreme confidence.
“No, you won’t. I’ll hunt you down.”
Lacey didn’t seem bothered by that threat. He just said, “We’ll see,” which reinforced John Henry’s conviction that the renegade mine owner didn’t intend to leave any of them alive to seek vengeance on him.
He was watching for an opportunity to make a play, but so far Lacey and his confederates had been too careful. Lacey stood beside the wagons, Smoot was just outside the doorway, and Hinkle was inside at the safe.
Most of the bullion was loaded. They were working on the third wagon now. John Henry knew he would have to take a chance soon.
He got help from an unexpected source. He and one of the guards were just about to swing another crate up into the wagon bed when a voice suddenly ordered, “Drop those guns!”
Lacey whirled toward the sound. At the same time Smoot took a step out from the doorway. Smoot was closer, so John Henry swung the crate toward him. The guard caught on instantly and helped. Smoot’s shotgun boomed, but the charge struck the crate instead of scattering, and an instant later the heavy crate slammed into the treacherous head teller and knocked him over backwards.
A pistol cracked and Lacey’s shotgun roared almost at the same time. John Henry left his feet in a diving tackle that caught Lacey around the knees from behind and upended him. Lacey went down hard, but he kept his hold on the shotgun and twisted around to slam the weapon’s butt against John Henry’s shoulder. John Henry gasped but got his other hand on the shotgun’s cut-down barrels. He thrust them skyward as Lacey triggered the other load.
Lacey let go of the now empty shotgun and slashed a punch across John Henry’s face. He heaved his body upward and threw the federal lawman to the side.
Hinkle rushed out into the alley through the bank’s rear door and swung his shotgun toward John Henry. With John Henry and Lacey so close together the blast would probably kill the mine owner as well, but Hinkle was obviously panic-stricken and ready to pull the triggers.
Shots cracked from both sides of him, making him stumble. The shotgun’s barrels sagged. Two more shots split the night, and Hinkle fell, jerking the triggers as he collapsed. The double load of buckshot blew both of his feet off, but he was beyond caring. He hit the ground with a soggy thud.
Lacey lunged at John Henry and grabbed the empty shotgun again. He forced it down against John Henry’s throat in an attempt to crush his windpipe. John Henry had both hands on the shotgun, too, and he held it off as Lacey bore down on it. For long, desperate seconds, the two men struggled. Then Lacey’s muscles abruptly weakened, and John Henry grunted with effort as he shoved the gun upward. The stock crashed into Lacey’s jaw. John Henry felt bone shatter under the impact. Lacey toppled to the side, moaning.
John Henry figured all the fight had gone out of Lacey with that broken jaw. The trouble might not be over, though. The next moment a match rasped and a lantern sputtered to life. Doc Mitchum held the lantern high, and the glow it spread over the alley revealed not only the revolver in his other hand but also the pistol held firmly in the grasp of Sophie Clearwater as she stepped forward.
“Don’t try to get up, Mr. Lacey,” Sophie ordered. “I’d hate to have to kill you because I want to see you behind bars, but I will if I have to.”
Realization burst on John Henry like an artillery shell. He looked up at Sophie and said, “You’re law.”
A faint smile curved her red lips.
“Not the same sort as you, Marshal,” she said. “Doc and I work for Wells Fargo. We were sent ahead to make sure the gold stays safe until our wagons get here for it. But when we found out a deputy U.S. marshal was on the job, too, we figured we’d let you do most of the work for us.”
John Henry grabbed hold of a wagon wheel and hoisted himself to his feet.
“You knew I was a lawman?” he asked.
“Not all the time. We just got word yesterday. You may not be well known in New Mexico Territory, Marshal, but you sure are back in Indian Territory, and Wells Fargo has contacts all over the country.”
John Henry looked over at
Mitchum and asked, “Was that you who made the shot from the hotel that killed Rankin?”
“That big bruiser about to wade into you with a bowie?” Doc asked with a chuckle. “No, that was Sophie. She’s a crack shot with a rifle, too.”
John Henry turned his gaze back to the lovely brunette and said, “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you, Miss Clearwater?”
“Life’s more interesting that way, wouldn’t you say, Marshal Sixkiller?” she asked right back at him.
She had a point there, John Henry thought.
* * *
Marshal Henry Hinkle was dead, and so was Harley Smoot. The crate full of gold bullion had landed on Smoot’s chest when he fell, and it was heavy enough so that several of his ribs had fractured under the impact. The sharp end of one of them had skewered his heart.
That left Dan Lacey as the only one of the plotters still alive. He would live to stand trial, and since his scheming had cost a number of innocent men their lives, John Henry thought there was a good chance Lacey would spend a long, long time behind bars, where he deserved to be.
The armored, heavily guarded Wells Fargo wagons rolled out of Purgatory the next day, bound for Lordsburg with the $50,000 worth of bullion from the mines belonging to Jason True and Arnold Goodman. John Henry was glad to see them go.
His job here was over, so he stopped by the hotel to say so long to Della and Bouchard before he pulled out. He shook hands with the saloon keeper and kissed Della on the forehead.
“The two of you take care of each other,” he told them.
“I think that’s just what we’ll be doing from here on out,” Bouchard said with a broad smile.
“Royal insists I’m going to retire,” Della said. “I’m willing to go along with that as long as he’ll still let me hang around the saloon and look pretty.”
“No one’s more qualified for that job than you are, my dear,” Bouchard told her.
“I’m pretty good when it comes to dealing cards, too, so I might work at that. I don’t want life to get too settled and boring.”
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