“Sounds like it, all right,” Bo agreed.
For the past several minutes, they had been riding up a long, gradual slope. Now, as they reached the top, the ground on the far side fell away at a steeper slant, with the trail angling back and forth down it to a broad, green valley. A stream twisted through the valley. About a mile from where Bo, Scratch, Jake Reilly, and Rawhide Abbott reined in, the buildings of Whiskey Flats were visible.
The settlement had one long main street that crossed the creek on a wooden bridge that divided the town neatly in half. The northern part, closest to where the riders sat their saddles, had a number of businesses along the main street, with nice-looking houses lining a couple of cross streets. Bo saw a church steeple and another building that he pegged as a schoolhouse in that section of town.
The other part, south of the bridge, also had a number of false-fronted businesses along the main street, but instead of homes, they were surrounded by adobe hovels, tarpaper shacks, and buildings of raw, hastily slapped-together lumber that probably served as cribs. It wasn’t hard to tell, even from a distance, that the part of Whiskey Flats lying south of the bridge was the less-reputable section.
“That’d be the red-light district, on the other side o’ the creek?” Scratch asked anyway.
“That’s right,” Rawhide confirmed. “There’s not much over there except saloons, gambling dens, and, uh, houses of ill repute.” Surprisingly, given her seemingly brash nature, she blushed a little at those words.
“So that’s the part of town I’m supposed to clean up,” Reilly mused, playing the part of John Henry Braddock.
“Hardly a day goes by without a gunfight, a knifing, or some back-alley murder,” Rawhide said. “The town fathers don’t want all the places shut down, just the worst ones. They just want the killing to stop.”
“Of course they don’t want all the saloons and cribs shut down,” Reilly said with a grin. “Chances are, most of the respectable citizens in town sneak over there one or two nights a week for a little discreet hell-raising of their own.”
Rawhide shook her head. “You might be right about that. I wouldn’t know.”
They had continued riding and were drawing closer to the settlement now. It was a nice-looking place, Bo thought. He vaguely remembered hearing about a town called Abbottville when he and Scratch had passed through this area years earlier. He hadn’t made the connection between that town and the one called Whiskey Flats until Rawhide had cleared it up with her little history lesson. The Texans’ last visit had been before the official name change.
The trail they had been following turned into the northern end of Main Street. In the middle of the day like this, quite a few people were on the boardwalks, the hitch rails were full, and wagons and buckboards were parked in front of many of the businesses. Whiskey Flats was a bustling place. Bo saw some of the townspeople looking at them curiously. Rawhide would be known to them, but he, Scratch, and Reilly were strangers, and strangers always provoked a lot of interest in frontier towns.
As they drew closer to a large livery stable and wagon yard, a man stepped out from the barn and looked like he was about to hail them. Bo saw that he was tall, well built, and had a close-cropped brown beard. He also wore a brown tweed suit, which meant he probably didn’t work in the livery stable. He might own it, though.
Just as the man lifted a hand to signal them to stop, gunshots roared not far away. Blast after blast ripped out, shattering the peaceful street scene. It sounded like a small-scale war had broken out south of the bridge, because that was where the shots were coming from.
“Sounds like a job for you right away, Marshal!” Bo called as he heeled his horse into a run.
Scratch, who was always ready for a ruckus, let out a whoop and followed right behind Bo. “Come on, Marshal!” he shouted over his shoulder to Reilly. “Let’s bring some law and order to Whiskey Flats!”
Reilly hesitated before charging after them, but only for a second, Bo noted. As the fusillade of shots continued to slam out, he thought wryly that the entrance of “Marshal John Henry Braddock” into Whiskey Flats was certainly going to be a dramatic one.
CHAPTER 9
The horses thundered over the wooden bridge separating the two sections of the settlement, steel-shod hooves ringing against the planks. Bo glanced over his shoulder and saw, not entirely to his surprise, that Rawhide Abbott was riding with them, whipping her reins back and forth as she lashed her horse in an attempt to keep up.
As they entered the southern part of town, clouds of powder smoke rolled from two buildings, one on each side of the street. It appeared that half a dozen or more gunmen were holed up in the buildings, blazing away at each other. The street had cleared, pedestrians on the boardwalks scurrying to get out of the line of fire, but there might be innocent bystanders in those buildings, and there was no telling where stray bullets might ricochet or who they might hurt. Bo, Scratch, and Reilly had to put a stop to this battle royal as quickly as they could.
It looked like Rawhide intended to help, because she swung down from her saddle, too, as the men reined in and dismounted to crouch behind a parked wagon loaded with hay bales. The hay would stop any wild slugs that came in this direction.
“I reckon those must be rival saloons,” Bo said to Rawhide over the continuing gunfire.
The young woman nodded. “Yeah. That’s Tilden’s Top-Notch on the left, the Lariat Saloon on the right. The hardcases who hang around each place don’t like the ones across the street. I don’t know what set off this free-for-all, but it was bound to happen sooner or later.” She looked at Reilly. “What are you going to do, Marshal?”
Reilly was wide-eyed and didn’t look much like the cool-headed lawman he was supposed to be. Bo said quickly, “We’ll do what the marshal always has us do in a situation like this. We’ll split up and come at them from behind. Right, Marshal?”
Reilly managed to nod. “Uh, yeah, that’s right, Deputy.” He was obviously trying to look and sound more decisive as he went on, “You take the saloon on the left, Bo. Scratch, circle around behind the one on the right.”
“Which deputy are you going with, Marshal?” Rawhide asked.
“Well, uh…” Reilly nodded toward Bo. “I’ll go with Deputy Creel, I reckon.”
“Then I’ll go with Deputy Morton,” Rawhide declared.
“Now hold on, ma’am,” Scratch said. “No offense, but I ain’t in the habit o’ goin’ into a shootin’ scrape with a female backin’ my play.”
“And I’m not your ordinary female,” Rawhide snapped as she drew her gun. “Seems like you boys should’ve tumbled to that fact by now.”
Bo could tell that she wasn’t going to be talked out of it, and even though he didn’t like the situation much more than Scratch did, they didn’t have any time to waste arguing about it.
“Go ahead, ma’am,” Bo told her. “Just be careful.”
Rawhide gave a snort that clearly indicated how she felt about that warning to be cautious.
The hay wagon was parked on the left side of the street, so Bo and Reilly didn’t have as far to go. Bo said, “We need to hit ’em as close to the same time as possible, so we’ll give you a couple of minutes to get in position, Scratch.”
The silver-haired Texan nodded curtly as he filled his hands with the ivory-handled Remingtons. “Good luck, partner.”
Bo returned the nod and said, “To you, too, amigo.”
Scratch would need the luck. No matter how tough and competent Rawhide was—or thought she was—Scratch’s very nature would force him to try to look out for her while at the same time dealing with the threats to his own hide. Might as well try to get the sun to come up in the west as to change that.
The two of them took off at a run toward an alley mouth across the street, while Bo and Reilly waited a minute behind the hay wagon. Reilly asked nervously, “Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?”
“As sure as an hombre can be when he’s about to cha
rge right into the big middle of a gun battle,” Bo replied with a tight smile.
“I, uh, never did anything like this before.”
“Just follow my lead,” Bo told him. “Those fellas inside the Top-Notch will likely be clustered up at the front of the building. We’ll go in the back and try to get the drop on them before they know what’s going in. Cover them as best you can, and maybe they’ll decide to give up the fight and drop their guns.”
Reilly swallowed hard. “And if they don’t? If they start shooting at us instead?”
“You’re the law,” Bo reminded him. “You’ll be justified in shooting back at them, Jake…or should I say, Marshal Braddock.” The Texan hefted his Colt. “Scratch and the girl ought to be ready by now. Let’s go.”
The two of them ducked into an alley on this side of the street. Reilly looked a little like he was about to be sick, Bo thought.
But it was too late for either of them to back out now. They had a job to do.
Bo just hoped that luck would smile on Scratch and Rawhide across the street.
In a way it was lucky that he had the gal along, Scratch reflected as he and Rawhide hustled along the narrow, trash-littered lane behind the buildings. She knew the town, knew which of the rear doors led into the Lariat Saloon.
Unfortunately, that door turned out to be locked. Scratch knew that he could shoot it open or kick it down, but if he caused a commotion like that, it would warn the men inside the saloon that a new threat was on its way in from the rear.
He looked around and spotted a window not far away. It was closed, though, and the sill was too high to reach easily.
Rawhide saw where he was looking and seemed to read his mind. As she holstered her gun, she said, “Give me a boost and I’ll see if it’s open.”
“A, uh, boost,” Scratch repeated.
“That’s right, Deputy.” Rawhide’s tone was acerbic as she went on. “I reckon you’re a mite too big for me to boost you up there.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Scratch pouched his irons, moved over to the window, and bent over, lacing his hands together to form a stirrup. “Hurry up. We don’t want Bo and the marshal gettin’ too far ahead of us.”
Rawhide put her hands on Scratch’s shoulders and placed a booted foot in his hands. That brought her bosom level with his face and made his ears start to warm up. With a grunt of effort, he lifted her as she pushed down on his shoulders. That embarrassed him even more, because now his face was practically shoved up against her lady parts. Luckily they had some nice thick buckskins covering them. Scratch loved women, but his tastes ran more toward widow ladies and the occasional unsatisfied wife—although he never pursued a gal he absolutely knew to be hitched. But he felt downright uncomfortable being this intimate with a girl young enough to be his granddaughter.
Thankfully, the experience didn’t last long. Rawhide grabbed the sill, shoved the pane up, and clambered through the window, her weight departing from Scratch’s grip. She turned around and stuck her hand back out, whispering urgently, “Come on!”
Scratch shook his head. “I’m a mite too old for acrobatics like that. Why don’t you just unlock the door?”
“Oh,” she said. “Yeah, I guess I could do that. Hang on.”
The shooting hadn’t let up any. Those old boys were wasting enough powder and shot to have stood off an attack by Comanch’, Scratch thought as he hurried through the door that Rawhide swung open for him. He drew his guns again as he saw that they were in a back room used for storage. From the sound of the shots, one flimsy door was all that stood between them and the combatants.
Rawhide had her nickel-plated revolver in her hand again, too. Scratch looked at her and asked, “Ready?”
She nodded but didn’t say anything. She didn’t seem to be afraid, but her mouth was tight. She knew as well as he did that they might be just about to bull their way into a hornet’s nest.
Scratch gestured toward the door. “You open it, and I’ll go through first.”
“Why you and not me?”
“Because I got two guns and you got a free hand,” Scratch answered. It seemed like a simple, practical matter to him.
Rawhide understood and nodded. She reached for the doorknob.
A simple twist opened it. She flung the door back and Scratch rushed into the saloon’s main room, brandishing the twin Remingtons. Rawhide was right behind him.
“Hold it!” Scratch bellowed, raising his voice to be heard over the shots. His keen eyes took in the scene in a heartbeat. A couple of poker tables had been overturned and moved up to the front windows to serve as cover behind which crouched six gunmen, three on each side of the batwinged entrance. Those batwings were riddled with bullet holes, but they still swung back and forth a little under the impact of fresh slugs. The reek of spilled liquor filled the air, along with the sharp tang of powder smoke, because most of the bottles that had been arrayed along the back bar in glittering ranks had been busted all to hell by flying lead. A couple of heavily made-up soiled doves peeked nervously over the bar from where they crouched behind the relative safety of the thick hardwood, and with them was a little bald man with bulging eyes and a prominent Adam’s apple. At the unexpected entrance of Scratch and Rawhide, the man’s fish-eyes rolled up in their sockets and he disappeared from sight.
The hardcases at the windows whirled around to meet this new threat. They found themselves staring down the barrels of Scratch’s Remington and Rawhide’s nickel-plated Colt. That didn’t stop one man from snarling and jerking up his own gun in an attempt to get off a shot.
Scratch’s left-hand Remington roared and bucked. He was almost as good a shot with his left hand as he was with his right, and at this range he didn’t have any trouble hitting what he shot at. The gunman was thrown back against the overturned table behind him as Scratch’s bullet shattered his upper right arm. The gun he had tried to use went flying from nerveless fingers.
Another man clearly thought about trying to get a shot off, too, but Rawhide told him coldly, “Just try it, mister.”
The man grated a curse, but he lowered his gun.
“Drop ’em!” Scratch ordered. “Now!”
One by one, the guns hit the floor. The eerie silence that followed the end of every battle filled the room.
It wasn’t too quiet, though, because shots still blasted from across the street, and one of the few surviving bottles behind the bar shattered. Scratch heard the whine of a ricochet through the room and knew that he and Rawhide were still in danger, even though they had disarmed the hardcases in the Lariat.
If Bo and Jake Reilly didn’t put a stop to all the shooting from the Top-Notch, and mighty damned soon, Scratch thought, he and Rawhide still stood a good chance of getting ventilated.
Bo and Reilly didn’t encounter anyone as they hurried along the alley and then turned into the lane behind the saloon. Everyone in this part of town was lying low while the bullets flew, and wisely so. Most of the buildings had a similar ramshackle look from behind, but Bo was able to pick out the one that housed Tilden’s Top-Notch Saloon. The barrage of gunshots coming from inside it was a dead giveaway, so to speak.
Bo tried the back door and found it unlocked. He looked over at Reilly and asked, “You ready?”
Reilly swallowed nervously and nodded. “Ready as I’m gonna be, I guess,” he said. “I can tell you now, though, I’m not cut out for this law-and-order business.”
“You’ll be fine,” Bo assured him. “And think how much more willing the townspeople will be to accept you as Marshal John Henry Braddock once you’ve put a stop to this ruckus.”
Reilly brightened a little. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “Nobody will doubt that I’m who I say I am after this.”
Bo hoped it worked out that way. He nodded and grasped the doorknob again, then smiled and nodded at Reilly. “Let’s go.”
Bo twisted the knob and eased the door open. Since it wasn’t locked, he and Reilly didn’t have to charge in. They could
take their time and see what the situation was. Motioning for Reilly to take it as quietly as possible, Bo catfooted into a narrow little passageway with doors opening off both sides. The door to the left was ajar and revealed a small office, while the other door was closed. Bo and Reilly slipped past them to a door at the far end of the corridor. The shots were louder now, so Bo knew the saloon’s main room was right on the other side of that door.
Still moving stealthily, he opened that one as well and stepped out into the barroom. The thunder of gunfire was almost deafening as seven men crouched at the front windows poured lead at the saloon across the street. No one was in sight behind the bar.
Bo and Reilly moved forward, their guns trained on the murderous hardcases. Suddenly, movement flickered to their right. A burly man in a tight tweed suit popped up behind the bar, a shotgun in his hands.
“Look out behind you, boys!” he shouted as he swung the Greener toward Bo and Reilly.
Reilly was between Bo and the bar, and in that shaved second of time, the Texan realized there was no way he could fire around Reilly in time to stop the man from pulling the triggers and unloading both barrels. At this range, a double load of buckshot would blow Reilly in half and probably kill Bo, too.
That dire thought barely had time to flash through Bo’s mind before Reilly’s gun arm came up in a blur and flame gouted from the muzzle of his Colt. John Henry Braddock’s Colt, to be precise, but in this perilous moment, Reilly wielded it with speed and precision worthy of the famous fighting marshal.
The man behind the bar twisted around as the slug plowed into him. The barrels of the shotgun tilted up as they discharged with a volcanic blast, blowing a hole in the ceiling. The man in the tweed suit disappeared as he collapsed behind the bar.
Sidewinders#2 Massacre At Whiskey Flats Page 7