Winchester 1886

by William W. Johnstone

  Jimmy moved to the end of the bar and signaled the barkeep, a thin Mexican with a well-groomed mustache, for a beer. The Winchester went atop the bar. The piano music stopped.

  As Jimmy lifted the glass of lukewarm beer, a voice said behind him, “Nice cannon you got there, mister.”

  Caught off guard, Jimmy stared into the face of Shirley Sweet.

  She laughed, but Jimmy had no laughter left inside him. He wiped the suds off his stubble and swallowed the beer. “You playing piano? Here?”

  “A girl’s gotta eat.”

  “What happened to your rifles?”

  Her head shook. “That, Jimmy Mann, is a long sad story. Should be told over a drink.”

  He turned, started to call out for another beer for the lady, although what he really wanted to do was send her out of Tascosa and out of the Canadian River country. He didn’t get a chance.

  The batwing doors pounded, and in walked someone Jimmy Mann did not want to see.

  “What are you doing here, Millard?” Jimmy called out to his brother, who had rushed inside and embraced him in a bear hug.

  “I could ask you the same question,” Millard said, swearing. “Haven’t heard from you since after Borden got killed. Thought you were dead yourself, feeding buzzards somewhere. You quit your job. You don’t write. You—”

  “I asked you—”

  “I work for the Fort Worth and Denver,” Millard shot out. “Remember?”

  Jimmy finished his beer and lowered his voice. “How’s the boy?”

  Millard slumped at the bar, saw the barkeep, asked for a beer, and noticed Shirley Sweet. He started to introduce himself, but seeing the rifle on the bar stopped him.

  “James is fine. Good boy. But we’ve all been worried sick about you. Is that . . . ?”

  Jimmy’s head shook. “No. But I’m gonna get that rifle. I’m gonna see that James gets it.”

  A silence filled the saloon, and Shirley took the moment to clear her throat.

  “Millard,” Jimmy said. “This is Shirley Sweet. Shirley, my big brother, Millard.”

  Neither the sharpshooter nor Millard looked away from Jimmy. Their eyes burned into Jimmy, and Millard was about to speak again when the saloon doors opened.

  “Millard,” Jimmy whispered, “do me a favor and escort Miss Sweet out of here. Off the streets. Into a building with solid walls. But not the bank. Or the livery. Or the undertaker’s.” He grabbed the ’86 Winchester and moved down the bar, watching two lean, young cowhands wander to a table in front of the piano.

  Jimmy paid them no mind. He focused on the stout man in a tight-fitting black suit, who had removed his black Stetson, and was wiping the sweat off his face while ordering a beer from the barkeep.

  “German Stevens.” Jimmy thumbed back the hammer on the Winchester, although he kept the barrel pointed at the floor and one eye on the back bar’s mirror, studying the two cowhands who had entered the saloon with the German murderer.

  “Ja.” The big man smiled, and pointed at Jimmy’s badge. “And ya are a peace officer. Ja.” His fat head nodded. “Ya vant me?” Stevens slipped his thumbs inside the sash near the twin revolvers. His fingers dribbled against his pants.

  Jimmy answered by shaking his head. “Not at all. But you know where the man I want is.”

  German Stevens laughed. “Indeed? Ack. Who is dis man?” He stepped away from the bar, widening his stance.

  “Danny Waco,” Jimmy said.

  The two gunmen by the piano were staring, hands hovering above their holstered Colts. Jimmy chanced another look in the mirror and frowned. Neither Shirley nor Millard had moved.

  “Tsk-tsk.” Stevens shook his head. “I do not know vere dis man is.”

  “No?”

  Stevens’s big head shook again. He tilted his fat chin at Jimmy’s rifle. “A Vinchester, no? Da 1886 model? Big gun. Go boom loud, no?”

  “A Winchester ’86, yes,” Jimmy said. “Danny Waco has one like it.”

  “I vud not know.” The killer’s left hand was coming out of the sash, ostensibly reaching for the beer the barman had served, but Jimmy Mann was not that green.

  He brought the Winchester up savagely, the barrel catching Stevens hard in the groin. Jimmy screamed, “Where is he? Where’s Waco?”

  Stevens, however, could not answer, nor could he even speak. The killer’s pale face turned even whiter, and he groaned as he sank to his knees, one Remington falling to the floor.

  Jimmy did not consider the German again. Even after he had shouted at the man-killer, he had started to whirl toward the two gunmen, bringing the Winchester up. Behind the bar glass shattered, though Jimmy never heard the pistol fire.

  He saw the cowhand holding the gun, saw the fool thumbing back the hammer on his Colt. The kid had rushed his shot. The other one was struggling with his revolver, which had caught in the holster.

  Jimmy saw it, then he saw nothing but white smoke.

  He had fired the Winchester from the hip. He ducked, stepped away and up, and levered the rifle.

  Someone screamed. The piano clanged. The punk he had shot had been slammed against it, moving it all the way to the adobe wall, and spraying the ivory keys with crimson as he slipped to the floor in a pool of blood.

  Jimmy fired again, taking time to bring the crescent-shaped butt plate against his shoulder and aim. He knew his bullet had been true, and dove to the floor, rolling over, working the hammer, aiming at German Stevens.

  The big gunman had managed to draw his other revolver with his right hand. His left hand clutched the edge of the bar—the only thing holding him up. The man’s face was pale. He had vomited from the wicked blow to his privates.

  He had the Remington up, but was having trouble cocking the hammer.

  Jimmy did not wait. At practically point-blank range, he pulled the trigger, and smoke blinded him. He couldn’t see the big gunman’s face, but saw the knees buckle, the back slam against the bar. Then he saw German Stevens, sitting against the bar, his legs stretched out, his head tilted at the side, a giant, bloody hole in his breastbone. The black cloth material smoldered from the gunshot soon erupting in flames.

  Every button on the dead man’s vest had popped off.

  His ears ringing, Jimmy stood, grabbed the German’s beer, and poured the brew on the dead man’s burning chest. The fire went out, and Jimmy turned to find Millard, standing in front of Shirley, protecting her—ever the dutiful, good brother. Quickly, Jimmy glanced at the other two men, both dead by the piano.

  Outside, something else sounded as if a war had begun on the streets of Tascosa.

  Jimmy Mann rushed outside to join the fight.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Never trust a fat Hun who drinks too much beer and sissy-tasting sweet liquor.

  That’s what Danny Waco should have remembered.

  He had followed German Stevens’s orders. Let the hired guns deliver the money to the bank, let them ride out with the stagecoach. Then he, Gil Millican, and Indian had walked into the bank to make a little withdrawal.

  They walked straight into an ambush.

  Those miserable John Laws gave them no chance. As soon as they were through the door, Waco—who had yet even to draw his piece—heard someone shout, “It’s Danny Waco!”

  And they started the ball.

  Indian caught the first three bullets, started to fall back, his Winchester Yellow Boy clattering on the floor. Waco took advantage, catching the dead man and using the massive body as a shield as he backed out the door. Waco’s revolver leaped in his hand, and he was blasting away, although the thick smoke made it downright impossible to see anything.

  He could hear, though, and he heard more bullets pumping into Indian’s body, but by that time, that big Sioux was beyond caring or feeling. The dead man must have weighed more than a mustang, and at six-foot-six, using the dead Indian as a shield, while firing a six-shooter, proved to be one mighty tough thing to do.

  A bullet even sheared off one of In
dian’s silver and black braids.

  Waco cursed, kept moving, kept backing up, kept shooting, even though the hammer kept striking empty chambers.

  As soon as he was out the door, Waco let Indian’s body fall and headed for his horse, the one he had tethered to the rail in front of the big stone building. He jerked the Winchester from the scabbard, thumbed back the hammer, and aimed, sending a .50-caliber bullet through the window.

  Gil Millican, miraculously, had made it out, too, though blood poured down his head from what once had been his left ear. His hat was gone, and as he turned, he staggered. The smoking Wm. Moore & Grey twelve-gauge, that beautiful shotgun Waco had used to kill that idiot lawman over in Denison, slipped from Millican’s grasp into the dust. Millican clawed for his revolver.

  Waco whirled. More men had opened fire from the rooftops, from the livery, and he could hear a war commencing inside the saloon.

  “Stevens!” he yelled. Immediately, Waco shut up. Like that drunken fat German could hear anything above the deafening roar of rifles and pistols from all over Tascosa.

  “Danny,” Millican groaned. He turned again, caught a bullet in his back, and fired into the bank’s door. He kept staggering, weaving, and heading right for the undertaker’s. A hearse was parked out front. One of those Rockfalls beauties, made in Sterling, Illinois, with shiny black wood, thick drapes, pretty tassels, and golden lamps.

  Fitting, Waco thought, as he swung up on the horse, put the reins in his teeth, and spurred the fast gelding into a lope. He blasted away with the Winchester as he rode, seeing more bullets slam Millican against the hearse and other bullets splinter that well-polished black wood and shatter the glass.

  He didn’t see his partner drop to the dust. He didn’t see anything but the road and a lean, leathery man with a bearded face and badge crash through the saloon’s batwing doors, take aim with a huge Winchester, and send a shot that tore off Waco’s hat and carved a furrow across the top of his head.

  He saw something else. A boy . . . no, a teenager. . . Running right down Tascosa’s boardwalk, stepping right into the sights of the .50-caliber Winchester.

  Jimmy saw the boy and thought it was his nephew. He even screamed out James’s name and lowered his Winchester ’86. Moving, becoming human again, he stepped in front of the kid, pushing him aside and feeling a massive lead slug tear through his stomach.

  Down he went, but almost immediately, Jimmy was up, on his knees, driven by hatred and the need to kill Danny Waco. He brought up the Winchester, firing as Waco galloped out of town. Jimmy pushed himself to his feet, staggered against the column, and saw the boy.

  It wasn’t James. Younger, this kid was, with red hair and freckles. Jimmy heard the boy’s mama calling out the name, but he couldn’t hear clearly. A young woman was running, tears in her eyes, hands lifting the hem of her skirt, chasing after her son. The boy was all right, though, and Danny Waco was getting away.

  Jimmy clutched his bleeding belly, managed to swing into the saddle, and spurred the gelding, catching a glimpse of Shirley Sweet and Brother Millard as they ran through the saloon’s doors.

  Deputy U.S. Marshal Jimmy Mann focused on the dust left by Danny Waco’s horse.

  Blood flowed down the back of Danny Waco’s sweaty neck. His spurs gouged the horse’s sides as he fired at one side of the street, then the other, and then knew enough to hold his fire. A Winchester ’86 had a limited capacity. It wasn’t one of those .44-caliber 1873 models, the kind some old boys used to say, “You could load on Sunday and shoot all week.”

  The horse cleared town, and nothing but the Staked Plains of the Texas Panhandle stretched ahead of him. If he could only make it past Boot Hill . . .

  He didn’t.

  The rifleman came up from atop that boneyard, and the rifle shot tore into the chest of Waco’s horse. Down went the horse, and Waco flew over the mount, landing with a thud, busting his left ankle. For a moment, he thought the horse would roll over on him, crush him, and kill him, but he came up in an instant and found the ’86.

  A bullet kicked up sand in front of him. He blinked, aimed, drew a bead on the gunman and killed him. More bullets sliced through the air. The townsmen, those cowardly John Laws, were racing after him. He cracked a shot at them and then saw the second assassin standing beside a crooked tombstone. The man’s shot creased Waco’s side, but didn’t spoil his aim. The Winchester kicked mightily, and the man went flying.

  Waco pushed himself to his feet, snapped another quick shot at the charging posse, and knew the only place he could run was up that hill.

  Except he could not run, not with a busted ankle, but he could walk pretty fast. He had to. If he didn’t he was dead.

  Well, he was dead anyway, but he could at least take a few more Texicans to the burning pit with him.

  Just like that time back in Ogallala, Nebraska, he thought. That posse had him dead to rights, too, but Danny Waco had showed them he was mighty tough to kill.

  But . . . he suddenly remembered . . . on that day, the Tonk saved me from a bullet or a noose, and I shot the Tonk dead.

  The cemetery wasn’t on much of a hill. Not in that part of the country. Certainly not as tough a climb as that hill in Ogallala. It was sandy and rocky, and he kept slipping, despite using the Winchester as a crutch. He staggered, felt two more bullets whine off rocks in front of him.

  More luck. Those Texas bushwhackers were shooting uphill, and that was a lot harder to do even for experienced marksmen.

  He reached the top. No gate, no fence, surrounding the boneyard. He came to a chunk of wood, already rotting—like the sorry cuss six feet under—and fell on his face. He rolled over, worked the rifle’s lever, and saw the man riding hard, flame and smoke belching from his Winchester.

  Some lawman called out for the fool to stop, but that hard-riding hombre refused to listen. The horse carried him up the hill. His rifle barked, and Danny Waco felt the bullet slam into his back.

  As horse and rider rode past, Waco rolled over onto his back, made a snap shot. The horse squealed as it reared and fell to its side, crashing onto three crooked crosses. The rider went off to the right. Smart man, diving in the opposite direction from where the horse was falling.

  Waco came up to his knees, had to strain, using practically every ounce of strength he had left to get that rifle up and cocked. The rider came up, and Waco’s Winchester roared. He saw the rifle the man was holding fly apart, and the man slam into the dirt.

  Laughing, Waco spit up blood. Then another shot caught him in his left arm, and he fell down.

  “Waco!” a voice yelled. “This is Sheriff Clete Stride. Come on down with your hands up.”

  Waco laughed. His left arm was busted. He couldn’t raise it if he tried. Ignoring the lousy law, he took his Winchester, pulled a couple cartridges from his vest pocket and fed them through the gate. He wasn’t sure how many shots he had left—if he had any. But he had at least two bullets.

  Determined, he crawled to the man he had shot.

  Below, that fool lawman kept calling up at him to surrender.

  Another voice yelled out, “Jimmy! Jimmy Mann! Are you all right?”

  That stopped Waco. He spit out another bloody froth and made himself crawl faster.

  Jimmy Mann. He tried to place the name, but it was hard, shot to pieces like he was, knowing it was the end of the line for Danny Waco.

  Jimmy Mann?

  Waco remembered him. That deputy for Judge Parker’s court. The lawman who had arrested him some years back. He stopped again, looked at the ’86 Winchester, and remembered something else. Yeah, that’s right. This big rifle. The one he had taken off that train in the Cherokee Nation. He remembered the express agent and laughed. He had killed that ol’ boy, that brother of lawman Jimmy Mann.

  He wondered how far the deputy U.S. marshal had been tracking him.

  They would die together atop Boot Hill in Tascosa, Texas.

  The man’s leg came up, bending at the knee. The lawd
og groaned, turned his head, and clutched his belly.

  Danny Waco laughed. He had got that John Law good. Busted his rifle, and the bullet still plugged him. The John Law lay there, bleeding like a stuck pig. Waco remembered something else. He had shot this lawman on the streets, out in front of the saloon. Had almost killed that fool boy, but the lawman had pushed the kid aside, taken that heavy .50-caliber slug.

  And he would take another one. In the head. At point-blank range.

  When he finally reached the lawman, Waco had to leave his own Winchester on the ground. He grabbed the arm of a cross and tried to use it to pull himself up. The cross collapsed, and Waco flattened against the rocks and dust. He coughed, cursed, and made himself stand, first to his knees, then using the rifle to pull himself up.

  Jimmy Mann tried to push himself up, but couldn’t. His eyes burned with hate.

  Danny Waco laughed.

  Weaving on his legs, Waco brought the big rifle to his shoulder. Blood seeped from multiple wounds. He had to blink some from his eyes and finally wiped his face.

  “I’ll . . .” It hurt to talk. “I’ll make you . . . one promise.” Waco spit out more phlegm. “Same I gave . . . your . . . brother.” He almost fell, but somehow kept his feet. “Promise . . . you . . . Jimmy Mann . . . promise you this. Your . . . funeral will . . . have . . . a . . . closed coffin . . .”

  He aimed and screamed in agony as he dropped hard to the ground. Cursing, he reached for his leg.

  “Jimmy!” a voice called out.

  Waco ignored what was left of his right knee and whirled, forgetting the lawman. “A . . . petticoat.” He laughed. “A woman”—he cursed—“shot me.” He could see her holding some odd-looking rifle, nothing like anything he had ever seen.

  A man came up alongside her, holding a shotgun. They stopped, crouched, waiting. He figured they couldn’t see him, not lying on the ground like he was, protected by some scrubs and what remained of tombstones.

  “I’ll fix . . . your . . . flint,” Waco whispered. “Both of . . . you. The lady . . . with the rifle . . . first.”