A quick count in his head told Smoke he had eight allies he could count on. He didn’t know how many men Bleeker had, but with Preacher, Eagle-Eye, Ace, Chance, Rinehart, Monte, Louis, and Frank Morgan siding him, Smoke would have been willing to take on almost any odds . . . except for the fact that there were a couple hundred innocent people in harm’s way.
As those thoughts were flashing through Smoke’s brain, Bleeker continued. “Big Rock is my town now, Carson, mine to do with whatever I want. And there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop me!”
“Your fight is with me, Bleeker,” the sheriff responded. “Leave those kids alone. Let everybody get out of the way, and then you and me can settle things between us, just you and me.”
Bleeker grinned as he shook his head. “That’s not the way it’s going to be. I’m going to loot this town and then burn it to the ground, and anybody who tries to stop me gets a bullet! You’re gonna watch the whole thing, too. I’m going to destroy everything you care about, you damn traitor, and then—only then—am I going to kill you!”
“I’m telling you again, I never betrayed you. I didn’t go to the law about that bank job you were planning in San Antonio, if that’s what you think happened. You’re wrong, Bleeker. You’ve gotten so twisted up from hate that you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Oh, I know, all right. I know good and well what I’m doing.” He turned his head and nodded to the man who was holding Peter Gallagher. Smoke realized what was about to happen, but even he wasn’t fast enough to prevent it.
Gallagher had just enough time to force a terrified squeak past the arm pressed across his throat before his captor pulled the trigger. The gun boomed and blew a bullet right through Gallagher’s brain. The other side of his skull exploded.
Bleeker roared with laughter and shouted, “That’s just the start! You’re all going to die, and it’s Monte Carson’s fault!”
The sheriff cried out a horrific sound as his hand stabbed toward the gun on his hip.
* * *
In the crowd not far from the bandstand, Big Steve Corrigan said quietly to Laird Kingsley, “What’re we gonna do now, laddie?”
Kingsley had already spotted the dark-haired, solemn-faced Litchfield boy up on the platform. “We’ll let those owlhoots do our work for us, if they will. And if they don’t—we’ll finish it.”
* * *
Frank Morgan’s hand closed around Monte’s wrist before the sheriff could finish his draw. “Not yet,” Frank warned him. “Too many folks are gonna get hurt.”
“They’re going to get hurt anyway,” Monte snapped. “Bleeker’s crazy!”
On the bandstand, the outlaw boss pointed to the street right in front of the platform and ordered, “Everybody who’s armed, pile your guns up right here, and do it now! If you don’t, my men will go ahead and open fire.”
Despite that threat, no one moved to comply. Western folks, even those who lived in the settlement, didn’t cotton to being threatened and pushed around. The whole situation was a powder keg waiting to go off, and Smoke realized bleakly that no matter what he did, he probably couldn’t prevent that explosion from happening.
Bleeker’s face darkened with rage when no one obeyed his order. He bellowed, “All right! Ray, let’s give these fools another example of what it means to defy me!” He flung a hand toward Grace Gallagher.
The man who had killed her husband turned from the bloody corpse crumpled at his feet and stepped toward Grace, who screamed again as the man’s gun rose toward her.
Before the weapon could come level, a rifle shot cracked somewhere along the street, and the gunman’s head jerked. He stood there for a heartbeat with blood welling from the hole that had appeared suddenly in his forehead, then his knees folded up and he collapsed.
By the time he hit the platform, two more shots had rung out, and a pair of Bleeker’s men spun off their feet, drilled cleanly.
The fuse had been lit—and it was a mighty short one.
Christmas Eve or not, hell erupted in Big Rock.
Ed Rinehart had no idea who had shot the three men, but there were still more outlaws on the bandstand menacing Mercy and the children. He shouted, “Mercy, get down!” as he yanked his pistol from his pocket and fired at one of the gunmen.
The bullet struck the man’s shoulder and shattered it. He fell, blood spraying from a severed artery, and Rinehart knew he would probably bleed to death in a matter of moments.
All the kids were screaming and crying. Mercy and Grace hovered over them, forcing them down and shielding as many as they could.
Bleeker roared in insane fury and turned his gun toward them, but before he could fire, Monte Carson leaped onto the bandstand and tackled him. Both men toppled off the front of the platform and crashed to the street.
It was chaos. People were pushing and shoving and trying to get out of the line of fire as more guns went off.
Smoke told Sally, “Get as many folks out of here as you can!” He hated to leave her side, but he knew that the rest of Bleeker’s men had to be dealt with.
Almost magically, a path seemed to clear as the citizens scrambled out of the way. He found himself striding forward, gun in hand, with Ace and Chance moving in from his right to join him and Preacher and Eagle-Eye angling in from the left. With clear shots at Bleeker’s men, flame spouted from the muzzles of their revolvers.
Frank Morgan joined the battle from one flank, Louis Longmont from the other. Their shots were swift and deadly accurate. An outlaw fell every time one of the gunfighters squeezed off a round.
Over all the chaos, the mysterious rifleman continued to pick his targets, drilling several more of Bleeker’s men. Smoke spotted a muzzle flash from the roof of the hotel and realized the unknown marksman was up there. Smoke didn’t know who he was, but clearly he was on the right side of this fracas.
On the ground in front of the bandstand, Bleeker and Monte battled desperately, hand-to-hand. Bleeker had managed to hang on to his gun, but as he tried to bring the weapon to bear, Monte grabbed his wrist and held it off. At the same time, he closed his right hand around Bleeker’s throat.
Bleeker pounded at the lawman with his left fist, but Monte hunched his shoulders, ducked his head, and endured the punishment. He threw all his strength into the dual effort to keep Bleeker from shooting him and to choke the life out of the man.
Bleeker landed a punch solidly, knocking him to the side. As he rolled in the street, Bleeker rolled with him, tearing loose from the grip on his throat. He planted a knee in Monte’s belly to pin him to the ground with his greater weight.
Using both hands, the sheriff grabbed the wrist of Bleeker’s gun hand and shoved the outlaw’s arm up, jabbing the revolver’s barrel into Bleeker’s throat. His eyes barely had time to widen in alarm before Monte slid his hand along the weapon and got a finger inside the trigger guard, on top of Bleeker’s finger. It didn’t take much pressure to make the gun go off with Bleeker’s own finger still on the trigger.
The gun roared and sent a slug blasting up into Bleeker’s hate-filled brain. The exploding gases made his head practically fly apart in grisly pieces. Blood and gray matter showered down on Monte before he could shove the dead man aside. He grimaced as he clambered free of the corpse.
The battle continued in the street, but not for long. Smoke and his allies were just too fast and accurate for their enemies, despite the fact that Bleeker’s men were all hardened killers. They fell with Jensen lead in them.
An eerie, echoing silence settled over Big Rock, broken only by the sobs and whimpers of the wounded. The earlier celebration was forgotten in the aftermath of battle.
Ed Rinehart scrambled across the platform to kneel beside Mercy.
She had her body draped across those of several of the orphans, including Caleb. Rinehart didn’t see any blood on any of them, but he clutched at Mercy anyway and lifted her. “Are you all right? Please, be all right!”
She turned her head to look at him. H
er beautiful green eyes were wide with shock, but he didn’t see any pain in them. She gasped, “I-I’m fine, Ed. But the children—”
She broke off as a child’s voice shouted, “It’s him! The man who killed my mother and father!”
Rinehart and Mercy were startled to realize that it was Caleb who had spoken. They saw him pointing toward the steps at the back of the platform.
A man stood there with a snarl on his face as he pointed a gun at Caleb. His finger tightened on the trigger.
CHAPTER 41
Rinehart’s left arm shot out and swept Mercy and Caleb down onto the platform as he lunged in front of them. He felt a hammer blow against his left shoulder as the stranger’s gun blasted. The bullet’s impact slewed Rinehart halfway around and knocked him to his knees.
Before the would-be killer could fire again, the short-barreled pistol in Rinehart’s right hand blasted. The man on the steps jerked back and would have fallen if he hadn’t been caught by a huge man coming up behind him.
The second man bellowed, “Laddie!” as he looked down at the wounded man in his arms. Blood welled from the bullet hole in the man’s chest as his mouth opened and closed without any sounds coming out.
The big man lowered him to the steps, then roared like a bull and charged Rinehart like one of those maddened, horned beasts.
Rinehart emptied the other rounds in the little pistol’s cylinder into the behemoth’s body, but they seemed to have about as much effect as insect bites would have had. The man shrugged off the bullets, swatted Rinehart’s empty gun aside, and reached down to grab the front of the detective’s coat and shirt. He hauled Rinehart into the air and shook him like a dog shaking a rat.
The shots had drawn Smoke’s attention. He looked up at the platform and saw Rinehart being shaken around like a rag doll, holstered his gun, put a hand on the bandstand, and vaulted up onto it.
The monstrous individual who had hold of Rinehart was several inches taller than Smoke and probably outweighed him by seventy or eighty pounds, but he didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the man’s shoulder with his left hand, hauled him around, and slammed a punch to the slab-like jaw.
Smoke was incredibly strong, even more so than the tremendous breadth of his shoulders would indicate. The blow knocked the big man back a couple steps and made him drop Rinehart.
Smoke saw blood on the detective’s left shoulder but didn’t have time to notice any more than that because the big man caught his balance and charged him, swinging ham-like fists at the ends of arms as thick as the trunks of young trees. Smoke blocked the first punch, but the second one got through and clipped him on the side of the head. Even though it was only a glancing blow, it packed enough power to spin him halfway around and knock him off balance.
He ducked a sweeping blow that would have taken his head off his shoulders if it had connected and stepped in to hook a fast left and right into his opponent’s midsection. It was like punching a wall. Smoke darted back as the big man tried to wrap him up in a bear hug that would have splintered his ribs.
Smoke could have drawn his gun and put a bullet through the man’s head, but as far as he could see, the man was unarmed. It occurred to him suddenly that the massive hombre was big enough to have dislodged that boulder from its resting place and started the avalanche. Smoke was almost certain that was what had happened.
Was he one of Bleeker’s army of hired killers? Something about that idea didn’t seem right. The brute wore a suit and looked more like an Easterner than the Western gun-wolves Bleeker had recruited.
He might be one of the killers from New York that Rinehart had mentioned. As soon as Smoke realized that, the whole thing made sense. He’d figured out two groups of murderers were in Big Rock, ruining the town’s Christmas Eve celebration.
The big man charged again. Smoke went low, diving at his knees and cutting his legs out from under him. The man’s weight and momentum carried him forward off the edge of the platform. Smoke rolled over, came up smoothly on one knee, and palmed out his Colt. He wasn’t going to shoot an unarmed man, but he didn’t mind walloping one over the head with a gun butt if he had to.
That wasn’t necessary. The big man was lying in the street with his head cocked at an unnatural angle and his eyes turning glassy. He had broken his neck when he landed. The behemoth’s own weight had done him in.
Gun still in hand, Smoke rose to his feet and looked around. The battle appeared to be over. A lot of bodies were sprawled in the street, but thankfully, only a few of them appeared to be those of people from Big Rock and the surrounding area. Nearly all of the slain were outlaws from Bleeker’s bunch or hard-faced men in dark suits, the rest of the gang that had been after Caleb.
Thinking about the boy made Smoke swing around quickly. He saw Rinehart sitting up with Mercy kneeling beside him, an arm around his shoulders to support him. Caleb stood on Rinehart’s other side. From the way Mercy was looking at the detective, Smoke knew that Chance might as well give up if he’d had any thought of courting the young woman. She had given her heart to the detective.
Caleb seemed like he was trying to make up for his lengthy silence. He was babbling away.
Rinehart’s face was pale from loss of blood, but his eyes were sharp and alert as he held up a hand to get the boy to slow down. “Wait a minute, Caleb. Wait a minute,” he urged. “You’re saying that you’re Donald Litchfield, right?”
“Yes, that’s my name, but I-I didn’t want to be Donald anymore. I like being Caleb. Nobody tries to hurt me when I’m Caleb. I’m afraid.”
“You don’t have to be afraid, Caleb,” Mercy told him. “Those men are dead now. They can’t hurt you anymore.”
“But Uncle William’s not.”
Rinehart stared at the youngster. “You mean William Litchfield?”
Caleb bobbed his head up and down. His face was solemn as he said, “I heard them talking that night in the house, while I was hiding. That man”—he pointed at the one Rinehart had shot—“told that great big man—” he pointed to where Corrigan lay on the street—“Uncle William would be unhappy if they couldn’t find me. He said the job wouldn’t be done if they didn’t find me.”
“Good Lord,” Rinehart muttered. He’d seen a lot of sordid things in his career as an investigator, but it looked like what Caleb was saying was almost too much for him to grasp.
Smoke had learned enough about the case to figure out what the little boy meant. It had been Caleb’s own uncle who had hired killers to get rid of Caleb—well, Donald Litchfield—and his folks. Hard to believe, sure, but some folks would do anything for money.
“Smoke, are you all right?” Sally asked urgently from the street in front of the bandstand where she had returned after shepherding some of the people at the celebration to safety.
Smoke turned and smiled at her. She was surrounded by Ace and Chance, Preacher and Eagle-Eye, Louis and Monte, and the tall gunfighter Frank Morgan. Even in the midst of the carnage, she was about as safe at that moment as anybody could ever be.
“I’m fine,” Smoke told her. “Looks like the rest of you are, too, thank goodness.”
He caught another movement from the corner of his eye and turned to see a man walking along the boardwalk toward them, carrying a Winchester with the barrel canted back over his shoulder. Tall, rangy, dressed in dark clothes, he had a thin moustache that curled up slightly at the ends and a rugged face that looked like it had been hacked out of mahogany.
“Luke!” Smoke exclaimed.
“Hello, little brother,” Luke Jensen drawled. He frowned slightly as he looked over at Ace and Chance. “You two, again? You make a habit of showing up right around Christmas, just in time to land in trouble?”
“Looks like we could say the same about you, Luke,” Ace replied. “I seem to recall you did the same thing last year.”
Smoke said, “That was you on the roof of the hotel with the rifle, picking off those varmints, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. I had just gotten to t
own when the trouble started, so I decided I’d find some high ground and figure out what was going on. It didn’t take all that long to determine who needed to be shot and who didn’t.”
Monte Carson said, “You were on Jim Bleeker’s trail, Luke?”
“It didn’t start out that way,” Luke answered with a shrug. “I was tracking down some other fellas who planned on throwing in with Bleeker. They wound up dead. Bleeker’s wanted down in Texas on suspicion of murdering a prison guard and his family. There’s a sizable reward for him, I discovered, and I’m sure most of the men with him have bounties on their heads, as well. Trying to find them seemed like it might be worthwhile.” The corner of his mouth quirked. “But it seems that you’ll get to collect the bounty on Bleeker, Sheriff. You earned it.”
“Don’t want it,” Monte said curtly. “Texas can have it.” He glanced around at the settlement. “I got everything I need right here in Big Rock.”
Mercy said, “Would you men quit jabbering and go fetch the doctor? Ed’s hurt!”
“I’ll be fine,” Rinehart said. “This is just a scratch.”
“Maybe a little more than a scratch,” Smoke said with a smile as he finally pouched his iron. “Looks like you lost quite a bit of blood. One of the town’s docs is bound to be around here somewhere. Let’s get you on your feet.”
Smoke got on one side of Rinehart and took most of his weight while Mercy stood close by on the other side and steadied him. They walked down the steps to the boardwalk, moving around the body of the man Rinehart had killed.
With a flicker of movement, someone stepped out of the shadows at the mouth of a nearby alley and lunged toward the detective. Smoke saw light shine on a knife blade. So did Mercy, who threw herself forward to get in the way of the unexpected attacker. She cried out and staggered back as the knife went in and out of her side. She lifted a hand and pressed it to the wound. Blood seeped between her fingers.
A Colorado Christmas Page 27