Sharp pain lanced Randy’s left forearm and his right leg but he surged to his feet and fired at a shadow. The shadow replied and new pain flared in Randy’s side. He squeezed the trigger but all he heard was a sharp click. Dashing behind the counter, he began reloading as slugs chewed the wood to splinters. His fingers were unaccountably stiff.
Out in the street the conflict was at its fiercest. Guns blasted in riotous cadence. Out of the confusion Toby Gill appeared, his shirt discolored, weaving as if he were drunk. Randy tore his gaze from Gill and raised his eyes to the top of the counter. Almost immediately a pistol cracked and slivers stung Randy’s cheek.
Ducking, Randy crabbed to the end of the counter. He heard rustling but he couldn’t isolate where it came from. Cautiously peeking out, he spied Billy Braden slinking toward the spot he had vacated. Billy’s back was to him.
Randy had time to aim. He intended to shoot Braden in the head but at the exact moment his Colt spat lead and flame, another shadow flew from behind a table piled with bolts of cloth.
“Billy! Look out!”
It was Shasta Cunningham. The slug meant for Billy struck her instead, square in the bosom. She fell against Billy, blood gushing from her mouth and nose, and Billy threw her aside like a dirty rag.
Randy had a clear shot but he didn’t shoot. He couldn’t. The monstrous horror of what he had done paralyzed him. He saw Billy’s fancy Colt rise, saw smoke puff from the end of the barrel. Searing agony jolted his left shoulder, but it also jolted him out of his daze. Rising on his knees, he fired as Billy Braden fired again, fired as Billy doubled over, fired as Billy keeled headfirst to the floor, fired again and once more and then the hammer clicked on a spent cartridge and Randy felt himself melting, inside and out. His last thought was of Sally Palmer. His last sight was of Lin Cooley out in front of the store, a pistol in both hands, blazing away.
A minute earlier Lin had been in the jail, watching the tide of battle turn. He saw cowboy after cowboy go down, wounded or slain. Something had to be done or the gunfight would become a slaughter.
Lin dashed to the desk. He opened each of the drawers but did not find what he was looking for. A cabinet in a corner, though, proved a trove of weapons; several rifles and four revolvers. One was a Colt the same model as his, only plainer, and it was already loaded. He ran to the doorway. “Stay here.”
“Where are you going?” Dixie responded. “We’re safe here.”
“Those are my friends out there.”
Dixie clutched his arm. “Please,” she said.
Lin smiled and nodded, and then he was outside and racing up the street into the gun-smoke-filled jaws of earthly hell. Circle C hands were sprawled in the dust, some groaning or holding themselves.
Dingus Mechum was firing at the wounded, trying to finish them off.
Lin fired twice and Dingus pitched across the seat, half in, half out, his Henry falling from fingers gone limp.
Other outlaws appeared, one on a roof, another in the doorway of the feed and grain. Lin shot one and spun and shot the other. Clell Craven cut loose from the barbershop and Lin spun and banged off two shots and Craven stumbled and looked down at himself and died.
A slug nipped at Lin’s side, another at his shoulder. He turned and discovered the Twins were rushing him from behind, laughing as they fired, thinking they had him. But the backshooters reckoned without the Colts in his hands and when it was over he had been shot but they were dead.
Down the street two figures ducked into the stable.
Lin lurched toward it, his right leg giving him trouble. He reloaded his Colt and then the other and he was almost to the stable doors when they were flung wide, framing Black Jack and Ike Longley with the reins of their horses in their hands. “Going somewhere?” Lin asked.
Black Jack grinned. “Well, well. The Circle C pistolero. Do you want him, Ike? Or should I?”
Longley let his reins drop and lowered his hands to his Remingtons. “You and me, cowpoke. What do you say?”
Lin said nothing.
“Holster those six-shooters and we’ll see which one of us is best,” Longley proposed. “How about it?”
“Go to hell,” Lin said, and squeezed both triggers. It was kill or be killed and he had a lot to live for. Longley’s Remingtons streaked out and Longley answered him. Lin was jarred but not down, not yet, not until he banged off four more shots and Longley’s face smacked the dirt.
Lin’s legs folded and he lay staring at the grey sky and wondering how much longer he had to live. A bearded face filled his vision, and hollow laughter pealed as if from the depths of a well.
“I reckon I do the honors, after all,” Black Jack said, and leveled his revolver.
There was a shot. Just one. A hole appeared high on Black Jack’s cheek and his face disappeared. Another replaced it. A face far fairer. A hand gently touched Lin’s shoulder.
“Don’t you die on me!” Dixie Storm said.
In the sudden silence, Marshal Lunsford’s ears were ringing so loud, he barely heard his name being called. He walked to where Joe Elliot lay in a spreading red pool.
“Did we get them?”
Lunsford surveyed the carnage. Memories of Gettysburg washed over him; the blasted bodies lying in droves, the dead and dying horses, the sickly sweet smell of blood and the stench of ranker odors. “We got them.”
“Good.” Joe smiled. He tried to lift a hand but couldn’t. “Damn. This just ain’t been my year. If you see Lin, would you tell him I regret I won’t be able to work with him?”
“I’ll tell him,” Marshal Lunsford said, and the light of life faded.
Kip Langtree was over by the restaurant, tendrils of gun smoke curling from his revolver. “I never,” he said as the lawman walked over. “I just never.”
“No one does until they live through it,” Lunsford remarked. He gave the cowboy’s arm a sharp shake. “Snap out of it. I need you to ride to Beaver City and fetch the sawbones. If he won’t come, you by-God make him. Do you understand?”
Kip nodded. “He might be bruised some but he’ll be here.” Off he ran.
Lunsford spotted Dixie Storm and started toward her but stopped when an outlaw came crawling out from between buildings, a crimson smear in his wake.
“Help me! Please!”
“Zech Frame, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I’m hurt, hurt bad. I need a doc.”
“So do a lot of others, you son of a bitch.” Marshal Lunsford pointed his scattergun at Frame’s head and fired both barrels.
A year later Lin Cooley and Dixie Storm were married. They had four children and their ranch prospered.
Randy Quin survived the bloodbath at Nowhere as it became known, largely thanks to the efforts of Greta Svenson, who nursed him back to health. They courted for several years until Greta finally tired of waiting for him to propose and she asked him. They had no children but lived to a fine old age.
So did Marshal Paul Lunsford. He was reelected to four more terms and saw Oklahoma become a state and Nowhere become a true and legal town. In his waning years he could be found on his porch in the rocking chair that once belonged to Tom Taylor, rocking and remembering, rocking and remembering.
Ralph Compton Nowhere, TX Page 22