A Good Day to Die

by William W. Johnstone

  They were forming a crescent whose ends pointed east; their goal was to envelop the stagecoach on both sides, closing in on it with the tips of the horns and goring it preparatory to making the kill. Relentless, they were howling pack of hellhounds closing in on their quarry.

  Gripping the side rail bordering the stagecoach roof, Sam climbed up on its flat top, rifle in hand. If any of the passengers’ baggage had been mounted there, it had been shed sometime during the earlier pursuit, for the roof was clear and unencumbered.

  Sam lay prone, facing west. He hooked the sides of his booted feet under the side rails to brace himself in place. The first Comanche bullets were a few missiles buzzing by through empty air. They were still too far away for bows and arrows to do any damage.

  Sam opened up on the horsemen, firing from the prone position. He pointed the gun at a brave in the lead and shot him. A second shot felled the next.

  The number of enemy shots increased, some tearing into the rear of the vehicle. It was the cue for Donahue and Brewster to stick their rifles out the windows and open fire.

  The stagecoach plunged down a dip in the road, across a valley, and up the other side. Sam silently cursed each degree of slowness added by the slope. Sighting on a feather-bonneted brave on a tawny horse, he squeezed the trigger.

  The brave lurched when hit, dropping his rifle. After a pause, he slumped sideways, falling off his horse.

  Topping the rise, the stagecoach’s front and rear wheels left the ground for an instant. Sam felt it in the pit of his stomach. The wheels touched down, the coach’s upper works slamming against the undercarriage with a bone-jarring crash.

  Latigo shouted, “Gringo! The town!”

  Sam turned his head, looking east. Sunlight shone on the slim white obelisk of the church steeple, turning it to gold.

  Three Comanches crested the rise behind the stagecoach. Sam shot the one in the middle. Knots of braves began swooping over the ridgetop. So many bullets were flying, it was as though the Comanches were pegging hornets’ nests at the stagecoach, peppering it with hot lead stingers.

  Riders at the tips of the curving horn drew abreast of the stagecoach. Sam downed several on his right-hand side. Point. Squeeze. Shoot. Kill a man.

  Repeat. Point. Squeeze. Shoot. Kill!

  Donahue and Brewster kept banging away with their rifles. Donahue engaged in a running gunfight with a Comanche closing in on him, finally potting him.

  Ahead, the skyline of Hangtown rose into view: the white-steepled church and the Hanging Tree, a sketchy impression of jagged rooflines beyond.

  The Comanches kept coming, seemingly ready to follow the stagecoach into town.

  A sudden, savage attack on unwary townfolk might exact many casualties. Surely they could hear the shooting—unless they thought it was just a bunch of high-spirited cowboys shooting off their guns and whooping it up, giving the town a big hoorah before riding in—a not uncommon occurrence in Hangtown, especially on Saturday, when the ranch hands came in to blow off steam.

  Sam turned, wriggling forward across the roof and dropping down into the front seat. He hunched down to keep his head from being shot off. Latigo, too, was leaning far forward, his chest a hand span or two above his knees as he worked the long reins.

  Shouldering the rifle, Sam pointed it at the church belfry, the open-walled space below the bottom of the spire where the church bell hung. Its tolling was used to summon the faithful to Sunday services, but also to sound the alarm in case of fire or other emergency.

  Sam squeezed off a shot, missing due to a sudden bounce of the stagecoach. Cursing under his breath, he tried again.

  He was rewarded by the sound of a sharp ringing tone as a round struck the bell. Now he had the range. Sam fired again and again, each shot ringing the bell, shivering out a shrill alarm. A damned shame to use bullets to shoot a church bell instead of Comanches, but it had to be done.

  Roosting up in the rafters inside the spire was a number of bats, startled into flight. Bursting into light of day, they were ragged dark shapes like scraps of black paper taking wing skyward.

  The stagecoach burst through a gap, rattling past Hanging Tree on the north, towering over Boot Hill and the church and the well-kept cemetery on the south. The horses raced along a short open stretch leading to the west edge of town, where Hangtree Trail became Trail Street.

  Usually at that hour on the shank of a Saturday afternoon, the streets were pretty well cleared. Generally, visiting families would have departed for their outlying ranches and night-crawling fun seekers would not yet have started making their rounds.

  But Trail Street was crowded, a body of men massed in its middle, blocking it. And they were armed.

  The stagecoach plunged toward them.

  FIFTEEN

  Pandemonium was loosed in Hangtown by the ringing church bell and the stagecoach’s advent.

  First, a distant clamor in the west nagged at the attention of the militiamen and Ramrod riders facing off at opposite ends of Trail Street. A crackle of noise like exploding firecrackers was immediately followed by the strident ringing of the church bell as it was struck by a series of shots.

  “It’s a double cross! I’ll learn ’em, the dirty bastards!” Quentin pulled his gun, pointing it at Sheriff Mack Barton, standing at the other end of the street with his back to the courthouse.

  Clay threw out a hand. “Don’t!”

  Oxblood sidled his horse into Quentin’s, spoiling the latter’s aim. The shot went wild, thudding into the side of a building.

  Barton wasn’t the sort to mull things over. He turned, slapping leather, leveling his gun on the Stafford crowd. “No-account back shooters!” he said, looking for someone to plug.

  Before the situation could explode into all-out gunfire between the two sides, the stagecoach made its entrance, barreling east on Trail Street—an irresistible force, with its six-horse team on the gallop, trailing four horses on a lead rope.

  For the militiamen grouped in the street between the Cattleman Hotel and the Alamo Bar, it was run or be trampled. Rather than go under hooves and wheels, they scrambled for the sidelines. The sudden scattering kept the tense standoff from exploding into a battle royale.

  Quentin turned on Oxblood, demanding, “What did ya do that for? You made me miss!”

  Clay thrust a pointing finger west, shouting, “Indians!”

  The bunch of Comanches who’d been in the lead, close behind the stagecoach, rushed through the gap between the church and Boot Hill and into town, shrieking and shooting. Confronted by armed townfolk gawking on the sides of the street, they opened up on them with bullets and arrows.

  The initial rush caught many citizens flat-footed; the slow and the luckless were first to die.

  Among the Ramrod crowd, horses milled, their riders confused and unsure. Guns were drawn. Somebody shouted, “What do we do, boss?”

  “Get clear and shoot!” roared Vince Stafford.

  “Shoot who?”

  “Injins, ya blamed idjit!” Vince was good as his word, pointing his six-gun at an oncoming brave and banging away at him.

  More Comanches came tearing over the west ridge, some charging down the trail, others peeling off to the sides to ride through Boot Hill and around the church.

  Barton checked, holding fire on the Staffords. Comanches were pouring into town. Running half crouched to the corner of the Cattleman Hotel, he got around it and turned his gun on the braves.

  The stagecoach tore wildly down the street. Some militiamen were seriously brushed back by the coursing horses and the sides of the coach, knocking them ass-over-teakettle and sending them sprawling. Luckily no one was run over or seriously injured.

  Caught up in the heat of the chase, the leaders of the advance band of Comanches boldly attacked with lightning swiftness. Riding into Hangtown, they saw human targets, Texans, a plenitude of them. Rifle muzzles swung into line, spitting flame and hot lead. Archers quickly fitted arrows to bowstrings, drawing them taut
and loosing their shafts. Bullets and arrows struck home, taking their toll.

  A brave with a war lance turned his horse down a side street, chasing a fleeing man. Leaning sideways halfway out of the saddle, he speared the fugitive in the back, releasing the lance at the last second.

  The victim staggered a few steps forward of his own momentum before falling facedown, the lance sticking straight up out of his back. Tightly wheeling his pony around, the brave headed back up the street, leaning over to pluck the lance from the dead body.

  Deputy Smalls stepped out from an alcove holding a shotgun. He cut loose, blasting the spearman and spilling him into the street. Stung by buckshot, the pony screamed and raced away.

  Clay Stafford shouted, “Move aside, boys! Take cover!” The Ramrod riders spurred their horses mostly to the north side of the street, getting behind the courthouse front, out of the way of the fast-closing stagecoach. The Stafford crowd held more than its share of quick-triggered gunmen; they already had guns in hand.

  Sam Heller knew there was no point in running too far past the east limits of town, out in the open where Comanches could easily overtake and surround the stagecoach. Better to stay in town where there was plenty of firepower on the street to buck the invaders.

  Glimpsing the group of mounted men by the courthouse, unaware of their identity or the crisis that had gripped Hangtown in the aftermath of Damon Bolt’s killing Bliss Stafford, Sam saw the group as a godsend, there being strength in numbers.

  Several of the foremost raiders were close behind the stagecoach and would not be denied their prize, not even in the heart of the White Eyes’s stronghold.

  Indicating the courthouse, Sam said, “Go left at street’s end! Swing wide and head back into town!”

  The stagecoach slowed, Latigo pulling back on the reins in order to make the turn without overturning. The courthouse and jail zipped past as the stagecoach tore between them.

  Working the lever of the hand brake, the brake pads shrieked against the iron-rimmed wheels. Latigo turned the team to the left, curving around the plaza fronting the courthouse. Team and stagecoach slewed in a wide, dizzying arc, throwing up a screen of dust.

  For a heart-stopping instant the wheels on the coach’s right-hand side left the ground, female screams shrilling from inside.

  Sam one-handedly clutched a top rail on the stagecoach roof to keep from being thrown. The wheels touched down, joining the pair on the opposite side to churn up a thick plume of brown dust.

  The lead rope at the rear of the coach parted, loosing the four horses trailing after. They went straight, running out of town and racing east.

  Comanches chasing the stagecoach ran straight into a barrage launched by Ramrod riders. Crashing rounds of gunfire burst forth. The braves fired back, but they were outnumbered two-to-one by the gun hawks. Only half the braves survived that initial onslaught. Their charge took them beyond the town limits into the open.

  The cloud of dust kicked up by the stagecoach on its high-speed turn worked to its advantage, cloaking it in airborne murk. Latigo turned the stagecoach onto Commerce Street.

  A Comanche trio returned to the fray, emerging from the dust cloud in dogged pursuit. Firing back at them, Sam picked them off one, two, three.

  The stagecoach had shed most of its speed while making the turn. Sam motioned for Latigo to turn into a side street on their left-hand side. “In there!”

  Working the reins and the hand brake, Latigo wheeled the slowing stagecoach onto the street between the courthouse and the Golden Spur, providing a safe haven from the battle that continued to rage through the town. The vehicle jostled to a halt.

  Recovering from the shock of the surprise attack, the townfolk had begun to regroup and return fire. The number of militiamen already grouped en masse in the street quickly mounted an effective counterstrike against the raiders. Also well armed and geared for trouble were those of the Ramrod, who fought back hard and fast.

  In the grid of streets and cross streets comprising the heart of town, more braves spilled into the dirt, their ponies bolting free. The tide was turning.

  Quick to adapt, the Comanches retreated from the costly fusillade on Trail Street. Their fight was not yet done, however. Breaking up into small groups of twos and threes, they spread out through the rest of town in search of less well-protected citizens.

  A sodden drunk staggered out of an alley beside the Dog Star Saloon, where he had passed out sometime earlier. Confusing the pounding of his aching head with the racketing of gunfire and hoofbeats, he stood swaying just outside the alley mouth.

  Seeing him, a Comanche bowman shot an arrow into his chest. The drunk reeled, staring bleary-eyed at the feathered shaft protruding from his torso. He remained on his feet.

  A bowstring twanged for a second time, launching another arrow into the befuddled man. He dropped and died, bewildered by the cruel fate that had overtaken him.

  A woman in a boardinghouse on a cross street north of the Alamo Bar went to the window to investigate the source of the racket. Standing at an open second-floor window, she was shot by a Comanche rifleman. She fell to the floor, sinking out of sight below the windowsill, and died.

  Gunfire continued to pop elsewhere as the main clash on Trail Street subsided. From wounded townfolk came cries and screams, groans and mutterings, and calls for help. Wounded Comanches stayed grimly silent, due not only to their stoic nature but also the certainty they would live longer by not calling attention to themselves in the midst of their enemies.

  A hard-core group of militiamen formed around Sheriff Barton and Boone Lassiter, Hutto’s top gun. Among them were Hutto himself, Russ Lockhart, Deputy Smalls, and a steadily growing number of others.

  “The red devils! Why, they haven’t so much as shown their faces in Hangtree since before the war,” Lockhart said, sounding as much offended as shocked.

  “Well, they’re here now,” Barton said, reloading his six-gun.

  “Looks like we got ’em on the run,” somebody said.

  “Keep your gun ready and your eyes open. You can’t count on nothing where Comanches are concerned,” Barton instructed. “Be like them to fake breaking off the attack, only to regroup and hit us again one more time.”

  “It could have been worse,” Wade Hutto said. “If we hadn’t gathered to buck the Ramrod, they would have fallen on this town like wolves on a sheepfold!”

  “Wonder how Stafford’s bunch made out?” said a clerk from the feed store, wearing a white bib apron over his clothes and toting a Henrys repeating rifle.

  “If Vince caught a bullet it would solve a lot of problems.” The rancher sounded hopeful. He had a small spread on the South Fork of the Liberty River, not far—meaning too close—from the Ramrod Ranch.

  “You won’t be rid of Vince so easily,” Lassiter said, grinning. “He’s too blamed ornery to be that obliging.”

  “We don’t want to lose Vince just yet. We’ll need every manjack we’ve got if the Comanches return,” Barton said.

  “They wouldn’t dare!” Lockhart said.

  “Why not?”

  Nobody had an answer to that one.

  Sporadic outbursts of gunfire and distant screams from outlying parts of town continued to be heard.

  “Hell, they ain’t quit yet.” Deputy Smalls looked distinctly unwell—pale, pasty faced, and beaded with cold sweat.

  “You’re showing a little green around the gills, Deputy,” Lassiter said, chuckling.

  “I got excited and swallowed my chaw of tobaccy by mistake. I’m feeling mighty low down in the belly,” Smalls complained.

  Barton peered east on Trail Street. “Vince made it. He’s still with us.”

  “Someone’ll have to speak to him to arrange a truce until the Comanche threat is done,” Hutto said.

  “‘Someone,’ huh? Who could that be? As if I didn’t know!” Barton exclaimed.

  “You’re doing a fine job, Mack. You’re the only one can handle Stafford. He respects you.�
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  “Respects me enough to put a bullet in my back!”

  “That wasn’t Vince. Looked like Quent shot at you,” somebody said.

  “Oh he did, did he?”

  “Let’s get squared away first,” Hutto said quickly.

  “I’ll square Quent away,” Barton fumed.

  “We’ll have to comb the town street by street to make sure the Comanches are all gone,” Hutto said, trying to change the subject.

  “Street by street? Hell, house by house,” Boone Lassiter said. “It’d be just like those devils for a few of them to find a hiding place to set for a few hours and let things calm down before cutting up again.”

  On the side street, Sam finished reloading his Winchester and climbed down from his perch. Latigo reached into the box under the seat, hauling out the carbine, which had remained unfired since he first took the reins of the stagecoach.

  Sam put his face in a window of the coach. “How you folks doing in there?”

  “Brewster’s dead,” Donahue said dully.

  “Hell!” Sam looked in, seeing Brewster’s body slumped in a heap on the floor.

  “Sally and I are all right, but Junie started bleeding again, bad.” Mary Anderson’s dark eyes stared out of a strained white face. The front of June’s dress was soaked with dark, fresh blood. “We’ve got to get her to a doctor.”

  “We will, Miz Anderson.”

  A Comanche rode west on Trail Street, flashing past the gap between the courthouse and the Golden Spur. Latigo fired, and the brave spilled into the street, lying motionless. The horse kept going, running out of sight.

  Sam eyed the broken lead line tied to the rear of the stagecoach. “Looks like Don Eduardo is out four horses.”

  “He will love you all the more,” Latigo said dryly.

  “Blame the Comanches, not me!”

  “He has love enough in his heart for both.”

  A door in the east wall of the Golden Spur creaked open. Sam and Latigo spun, pointing their rifles at it.

  “Don’t shoot, it’s only me.” Standing in the doorway, Johnny Cross raised his hands and smiled.