Catching a glimpse of movement from the corner of his eye, Jay suddenly spun, taking Tom with him. Caught off balance, Tom had no choice but to go with him as they both turned toward Tim Frazier, who had now regained his feet and was stabbing his Colt out in front of him.
Tom saw at once what Jay had done – he’d used Tom as a shield.
Tom bawled, “Tim – no!”
But it was too late – Frazier was already shooting.
He fired twice and both bullets slapped into Tom’s chest. The impact threw him back into Jay and Jay went backwards with him, then over in a spill to the dirt. He thrust Tom’s already-stiffening corpse off him and rolled to the left, where he’d kicked his pistol.
Even as his hand closed around it, Tim fired again. Dirt exploded frighteningly close. Then Jay had the gun, rolled back, thumbing back the hammer as he went, and then he was squeezing the trigger, thumbing back, squeezing again, and then repeating it all a third time.
All three bullets smashed into Tim Frazier’s chest. Frazier buckled beneath the impact and his legs went out from under him and he kind of corkscrewed himself into the ground.
All at once it grew very quiet.
Jay, shaking now, looked from Frazier to Cherokee Tom, two men whose deaths he had caused, and whose names he didn’t even know. Frazier was dead, Cherokee Tom was as near as dammit, but still breathing in a wet, gurgling manner.
As people started crowding into the alleyway, drawn by the gunfire, Jay dropped to one knee beside the half-breed and said, “Where do I find Kedrick?”
The ’breed’s dark eyes shuttled away from the clear, star-spattered night to Jay’s face. “You … don’t,” he managed. “Lee’ll be long … gone … before you get a chance at him.”
“Tell me where he’s staying,” Jay grated.
“You … go to hell.”
“You’ll be there before me, I’m thinking.”
Tom nodded loosely. “Ayuh. B-but at least we did what we set out to do.”
“Kill me? Not hardly.”
“N-not … that … ” whispered Tom. “Don’t … kid yourself that you’re so … special. You was just th-the … distraction.”
Jay frowned. “What’s that again?”
“Wh-where’s Smith?” Tom asked suddenly.
“He’ll be here soon enough, I reckon,” said Jay.
Tom nodded again. “Good,” he said, and died.
Jay sagged a little. He’d get nothing more from the half-breed. But what he already had was puzzle enough. What had Tom meant, that he had only been a distraction? And why was it important to him that Smith was on his way?
Again he thought about Kedrick. The gambler was planning something in town, and he didn’t want Smith around when it happened. He thought about the bank, the money it was holding right now, a large percentage of it Rancho Bravo money. Was he planning to hit the bank? Had Jay’s murder been designed to give Smith something else to think about while Lee and the rest of whatever gang he’d managed to throw together robbed the place and then got clean away?
It was suddenly even more crucial that he run Kedrick to ground. Theirs was an old score … and all at once Jay realized it was long overdue for the settling.
But that would have to wait, for just then he realized that the people behind him had started screaming and yelling, and when he stood and turned their way he saw that a fire had broken out on the other side of the makeshift street.
He paled.
The red-light district was mostly plank-built shanties interspersed with tents of varying styles and sizes. Ideal fuel for a fire to take hold. Unless he missed his guess, the red-light district would be lucky indeed to survive the hell to come.
Chapter Nine
Sego Lockhart hurried back through the dark night, the smell of kerosene still strong around him. In an alley directly across from the bank he found Lee Kedrick waiting for him, his saddlebags thrown over one shoulder and a sledgehammer leaning against the wall beside him. There was no need for Kedrick to ask how the plan had gone – the ominous crimson glow in the night sky told its own story.
“Got to hand it to you, Lee,” said Lockhart, breathing hard, “that was pretty slick thinking, hedgin’ our bets by settin’ the red-light district ablaze.”
Kedrick shrugged. “I wasn’t sure that a single killing down there would be distraction enough,” he replied. Then, “Talking of which, did you happen to see how Frazier and Cherokee Tom got on with Durango?”
“Can’t say,” replied Lockhart. “I was carryin’ that keg of kerosene, so I figures it was best to keep well out of everyone’s way.”
“Well, they should have been back here by now,” Kedrick fretted.
“You don’t think Durango could have gotten the best of ’em?”
“I don’t know. That man’s good, one of the best I ever saw.”
Lockhart considered that. “Frazier and Tom won’t talk,” he said. “I’d stake my life on it.”
“You might just have done that very thing,” said Kedrick. “That’s if they’re still in any position to talk.”
“You saying Durango might’ve killed ’em?”
“He’s faced longer odds and still walked away from it.”
“So what shall we do?”
“We do what we set out to do,” said Kedrick. “We rob the bank and get the hell out of town while everyone else is fighting to save the red-light district. Only this time we don’t wait for the others at Three Pine Hill, because they’re not going to show up. We just keep riding.”
He drew back into the shadows as a knot of townsmen ran past, headed for the red-light district, either to watch the spectacle of the burning town or try to help bring the fire under control. A few moments later Bear River Tom Smith went sprinting past, his deputies struggling to keep pace with him.
“You ready, Sego?” Kedrick asked without turning his head.
“I’m ready,” said Lockhart.
Kedrick’s face split in a cold grin. “Then let’s go rob us a bank,” he said.
As soon as Smith reached the red-light district he starting bringing order to all the chaos. Soon he had organized a bucket brigade, with man after man passing buckets filled with water toward the worst of the blaze at a feverish pace. But the very notion of fighting the fire was crazy by this time, for it had already spread too far, too fast. The best they could hope for now was to limit the damage as much as possible.
As he moved back and forth, bawling orders, Smith suddenly spotted two bodies stretched out some distance away. A few courageous townies had dragged the bodies of Tim Frazier and Cherokee Tom out of harm’s way before the fire could reach them. Curious, Smith strode across to them, then bent and inspected their faces, then their wounds. He had no recollection of the half-breed, but he pegged Frazier immediately; the man’s likeness was on a wanted poster in his office.
“The half-breed’s called Cherokee Tom, Marshal,” said one of Smith’s deputies, coming over. “I ran into him last year in Wichita. He’s a mean sonuver.”
Smith stood up and nodded. “So they were a matched pair,” he replied. “The other one wasn’t any angel. Looks like they had a disagreement and killed each other.”
“Nope,” said the deputy. “Not accordin’ to that whore yonder. She witnessed the entire thing. That’s what I was comin’ across to tell you.”
“So tell me,” said Smith bleakly.
“She said these two were herdin’ a third man into the shadows, to kill him, she thinks. Anyway, this feller got lucky, turned the tables on ’em and killed them both, then lit out.”
“Did she recognize the man?”
“Only that he was one of those Texans,” answered the deputy.
Smith thought briefly, then said, “Damn.”
He strode across to the whore, who had curly brown hair and a pale, rice-powdered face. “What did this cowboy look like, girl?” he demanded.
She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she replied. “After a while they al
l look alike to a girl like me.”
“Tall, hawk-faced, dark eyes, wears a black hat with a tall crown?”
She looked up at him as if he had just performed a miracle. “How did you know that?” she asked.
He turned away without replying. It had been no great stretch for him to link Jay Durango to the double-killing. He’d known there was going to be trouble – Jay’s association with Lee Kedrick, no matter how tenuous it might seem, had almost guaranteed it.
So – where was Durango now? But again, the answer to that question took no real figuring out. Durango was going after the man who had ordered him killed.
The minute Jay burst into the Drover’s Cottage Hotel, he spotted Dave Harmon on the other side of the lobby.
“Hell’s teeth, Jay,” said Harmon, “what the devil’s goin’ on out there?”
“Red-light district’s afire,” Jay replied.
Dave’s eyes went round. “We better get down there, lend a hand,” he began.
But Jay shook his head. “We’ve got other business to tend,” he replied. “Where’s Bob and Tully?”
“They’re upstairs with Billy, just like you ordered,” said Dave. “We were playin’ cards when we saw the fire, so I just came down to ask the desk clerk if he knew what was – ”
“Get the boys,” Jay interrupted. “And tell them to pack iron.”
“What?”
“Just do it, Dave! Now!”
Jay forced himself to wait as patiently as he knew how, but it was difficult now, for he fairly ached to settle old debts with Kedrick, and just maybe safeguard the RB money in the process.
At last there came the clatter of footsteps on the stairs, and a moment later Dave came down, still fastening his gunbelt, with Bob, Tully and a wan-faced Billy in tow.
“What’s going on, Jay?” asked the youngster.
“We’ve got a bank robbery to stop,” Jay replied. “Leastways, that’s what my instincts’re telling me. You stay here, Billy – ”
“The heck with that!”
“Billy, we ain’t got time to argue about it!”
“So let’s quit arguing and go!” said Billy.
Jay was caught on the horns of a dilemma. He said, “Billy, I promised your pa – ”
Billy stared into his face with such force that Jay almost recoiled. “You say there’s gonna be a bank robbery,” the boy snapped. “That means RB money’s gonna be stolen. Well, I’m a Calhoun, and that money’s as much mine as it is anyone’s. If I don’t have the right to protect it, who in hell does?”
Jay had no answer for that. The boy was absolutely right. Sucking a breath he said, “Come ahead, then – and try not to get yourself shot!”
The charge went off just as Lee Kedrick had planned it to, blowing outwards in such a way that it tore the lock off the safe without damaging its contents. He and Lockhart waited in the corridor outside the bank manager’s office for a few seconds after the blast, then Kedrick pushed open the door and walked, coughing, into a room filled with smoke.
“Open those saddlebags,” said Kedrick, and when Lockhart had done as he was told, the gamber started transferring stacks of paper currency from the ruined safe. Soon the saddlebags were bulging with cash.
“We’ve done it, Lee!” said Lockhart, with a crazy little chuckle. “Man, I never thought it’d be so easy to get rich...”
“Quit dreaming!” snapped Kedrick. “We’ve got to get away yet!”
That was true enough. But the whole thing had gone just as Kedrick had said it would, and Lockhart saw no reason why the rest of it shouldn’t go just as smoothly.
With everyone distracted by the fire, Kedrick and Lockhart had entered the bank from a rear door. That was where Lockhart had come into his own, for he had yet to meet the lock he couldn’t pick. Of course, there had been bolts on the other side of the door, two of them, one at the top, one at the bottom. But that’s why Kedrick had brought the sledgehammer.
Within moments they were inside the bank. And just a few moments later the safe had been blown and they were ready to pull out, with no one the wiser.
While Lockhart finished emptying out the safe, Kedrick ghosted through the darkened bank and checked Texas Street through the barred windows. The street was empty, but he didn’t want to put money on it staying that way. If just one person heard and recognized the dynamite for what it was, there was a better than even chance they’d go fetch Smith. But Kedrick intended to be long gone before that happened.
“All right, let’s go!” he said as he came back.
Lockhart glanced over his shoulder. “I’m not finished yet.”
“We’ve got enough.”
“I ain’t leavin’ the rest.”
Kedrick drew his gun and cocked it. “Those saddlebags are stuffed full of money,” he said softly. “More than we can spend in a year, I daresay. That’s enough.”
Lockhart stared into the barrel of the gun. “No need to get all het up,” he replied. “It just goes against the grain to leave all this loot … ”
“So fill your pockets,” Kedrick said, snatching the heavy saddlebags, “and let’s get out of here.”
Without waiting for a reply he went out into the alley, listening to the sounds of commotion drifting back from the red-light district. A few moments later Lockhart followed him out, stuffing cash into his pants’-pockets.
“Let’s go,” said Kedrick.
They ran back up the alley and started crossing to the opposite street, and the shadowy, disused back lot where they’d left their horses ready to ride, and that was when Kedrick saw them – a group of five men, silhouettes against the amber flicker of the burning red-light district behind them; five men, racing their way; five men, the leader of whom Kedrick would have know anywhere.
Durango!
Lockhart saw them as well, swore and said, “Come on – we can still make it!”
But Kedrick seemed not to hear him. He was thinking that Tim Frazier and Cherokee Tom had failed in the task he had set them, and that if they hadn’t succeeded in killing Durango, then it was an odds-on certainty that Durango had killed them.
And if he knew anything about Durango, he knew that this either ended here, tonight, or Kedrick spent the rest of his days looking over one shoulder.
So …
So it ended here, one way or the other, tonight.
As Lockhart stared at him in disbelief, Kedrick faced the newcomers, flung down the saddlebags and reached for his gun.
Chapter Ten
Kedrick drew, aimed and fired all in one fluid motion. Luckily for Jay the light was uncertain and he was a moving target.
Throwing himself behind a trough, Jay yelled, “Take cover!”, then scooped out his own Colt and returned fire.
Kedrick stood his ground, thumbed back and, picking another target, fired a second round. Behind him, Lockhart drew his own weapon but made no immediate attempt to use it. Instead he reached down, grabbed up the saddlebags and made a dash for the other side of the street, and escape.
He did start firing now, to give himself cover. The gun bucked and flamed in his hand, and more by accident than design he hit Tully, who cried out and buckled earthward. Billy, standing frozen nearby, saw him companion go down, and something inside him went cold and numb, and he realized that this wasn’t just something he had read about in the dime novels, this was real, where men – good men – could get hurt or worse.
He threw himself down beside Tully. Tully’s face was creased up in pain, but he managed, “I’m all right, boy! Get yo’self to cover!”
Relief washed through Billy, and before he knew it he was standing again, clawing his own gun from its holster, cocking, firing—
Lockhart felt something white-hot slam into his left shoulder and knock him off-balance. He staggered, stumbled, resisted the impulse to throw down the saddlebags, which suddenly felt three times their original weight, and turned with his gun back up.
Billy shot him again and this time the bullet smash
ed Lockhart in the chest and he flipped over backward, his own gun leaving his hand to spin and then spill into the dirt.
As the saddlebags smashed to the ground one of the hastily-buckled catches flew open, and dollar bills of all denominations began to fluttered free.
Jay took his eyes off Kedrick for just a second, anxious to make sure that Billy was unhurt, that the life he’d just taken had not left him too shocked. Billy looked back at him, older now in the face, but managed a nod, a wave of his gun-hand, and Jay knew he would be okay; never quite the same again, but okay.
Kedrick, meanwhile, determined now only to make the most of the distraction Lockhart’s death had given him, made it into the far alley, the money apparently forgotten. Out on the street, Jay saw him make his play and powered up, after him.
Reaching the mouth of the alley he slowed, went down onto one knee, called, “Give it up, Lee! It’s over! No need for you to die!”
The only reply was a pair of gunshots, each coming so fast they sounded more like one. Splinters chipped from the corner where Jay was hunkered. He flinched and cursed.
“Smith’s comin’, Jay!” cried Dave, as he and the others started doing what they could to make Tully more comfortable.
“Hear that, Lee?” called Jay. “The marshal’s on his way! Give yourself up now and it’ll go in your favor! Keep bustin’ off caps and I’ll shoot you dead!”
He chanced a glance over one shoulder. The fire had been contained, and a knot of townsfolk, with Smith at their head, were returning to town.
“You haven’t got the guts!” Kedrick cried from the other end of the alley, bringing Jay’s head back around.
“Try me!” he invited.
There was only silence for a long minute. Then Kedrick yelled, “All right – you and me, man to man! Right here, right now!”
Jay considered that, guessed at once that Kedrick had no intention of playing it square, but knew he’d never get a better opportunity to make the gambler show himself.
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