Smoot probably didn’t plan on fighting any long-range duels in that wheelchair, though.
The bartender handed the scattergun to Smoot, then pushed his boss toward the door where the batwings were still flapping. Before they got there, Smoot said sharply, “Hold it.”
He turned to look at Fraker, Macauley, and Kipp.
“Aren’t you three men coming along?” Smoot asked. “That signal means the town may be under attack by Indians at any minute.”
Fraker had a hunch Smoot didn’t want to leave them here in the saloon unattended. They were strangers, after all. They might raid the till.
As if they didn’t have much bigger plans than that, thought Fraker.
“We’re coming,” he said as he pushed himself to his feet. Best to play along for now. “Let’s go, boys.”
Satisfied, Smoot nodded to the bartender, who pushed him outside onto the boardwalk. Fraker, Macauley, and Kipp were right behind them.
The street was full of people. Maybe there was some purpose and order to what they were doing, but to Fraker it looked like they were running around aimlessly and yelling. An air of hysteria gripped the settlement.
This could be it, all right. All it would take was a single shot. Just one panicky townsman pulling the trigger, and then everybody would start shooting at everything that moved.
That would be their cue to duck down the alley beside the saloon and head for the back of the bank. Fraker knew how to get there, having planned out the route during the time they had spent in Redemption.
Breaking through the bank’s back door wouldn’t be a problem. Then Macauley could use his talented fingers and ears to open the door on the safe while Fraker and Kipp stood guard. There weren’t many safes that Macauley couldn’t crack.
Before they could do that, though, they had to be sure the townspeople were going to be occupied fighting the Indians.
“Hang on,” Fraker told his tense partners. “Let’s wait and see what happens.”
“These people are loco,” Kipp said. “They’re ready to blow the lid right off this town.”
That was true. But then a loud, commanding voice rang out, cutting through the clamor.
“Settle down! Everybody settle down! Get to your places! Josiah, where are you?”
Fraker looked along the street and saw a tall young man hurrying toward the west end of town, limping a little but not letting it slow him down. He was hatless, with his long brown hair hanging to his shoulders, and he carried a Winchester.
Fraker recognized the man as the kid marshal, only at this moment he didn’t really look like a kid. His face was calm but determined, and he seemed more a battle-hardened veteran.
He was followed by an old man with a white beard and a young blond woman, both of them carrying rifles, and as the light from a window fell across the woman’s face, Fraker was struck by how pretty she was.
That was the marshal’s wife, he recalled. The lawman was a lucky bastard.
He wouldn’t be if he got in Jake Fraker’s way, though.
It took the marshal several minutes of yelling before everybody heard him and he was able to restore order. Once he did, he started getting people in position to defend the town.
Most of them gathered at the western end of the street, inside buildings or behind barrels that had been stacked up to form barricades. Others were on the roofs.
The marshal didn’t stop at that. He placed men with rifles and shotguns here and there all along the street. Women and children had answered the call of the fire bell, too, and they were herded into several sturdy buildings that could be defended against an attack.
Fraker almost groaned in dismay when he saw that one of those buildings was the bank, which was made out of bricks.
Macauley and Kipp saw that, too. Kipp let out a curse and said, “Look at that, Jake. We can’t get in there now without them seein’ us.”
Fraker thought furiously. “Looks like there are only a couple of men guarding the bank right now,” he said. “Reckon the others plan to fall back there if they have to. What we’ll have to do is make our move before that happens. You and I will take care of the guards, Oscar, and then we can keep the women and kids under control until Luther gets the safe open.”
“Yeah, but there’s more chance for something to go wrong,” Macauley said.
“Damn it! Nobody ever said robbin’ banks was gonna be easy, did they?”
The other two shut up in the face of Fraker’s anger.
And a moment later, Fraker had something else to distract him.
He realized the marshal was striding straight toward them.
Chapter 18
“You three men,” Bill called as he approached the strangers standing on the boardwalk just outside the entrance to Smoot’s Saloon. “You need to find some cover in case there’s any shooting.”
“You mean if the Indians attack?” the tall, dark-haired, lantern-jawed one asked.
Bill ignored the flash of irritation he felt. He vaguely remembered seeing these three around town the past couple of days, but he hadn’t talked to them and didn’t know who they were.
They had to know what was going on, though. He wasn’t sure why they were standing around asking dumb questions.
“That’s right,” he said. “We can use some more men behind the barricades.”
The big sandy-haired one said, “This ain’t our fight, Marshal.”
This time Bill didn’t bother to suppress his anger. “It’s everybody’s fight who wants to live through it,” he snapped. “Now get out of the open, anyway. I don’t want to have to worry about those Pawnee turning you into pincushions.”
“Take it easy, Marshal,” the first man said. “We’ll be glad to help out. Come on, fellas.”
The other two looked a little reluctant, but they followed the man as he trotted toward a pile of barrels about midway along Main Street, where they joined a group of defenders that included Charley Hobbs and Phillip Ramsey.
Bill looked around. The street was mostly clear, with only a few men left scurrying into position. He glanced toward the mercantile. Eden and her father were over there, behind the building’s sturdy walls with half a dozen other men to help them if the fighting got that far.
Bill hoped they could turn the Pawnee back without the hostiles ever getting into the town itself, but they might not be able to accomplish that. The battle could wind up going from building to building.
And the Pawnee should have been here by now, he thought as he dragged in a deep breath.
Maybe the stories were right. Maybe the Indians had stopped out there, a mile or so from town, to wait for dawn before they attacked. It could be they didn’t like to fight at night after all.
But that thought had no sooner gone through his head than someone called to him quietly.
“Marshal! They’re comin’!”
Holding his rifle slanted across his chest, Bill hurried to the barrel barricade that was farther west than any of the others, just past the point where the buildings ended on Main Street. Mordecai Flint was there, along with Josiah Hartnett and a couple of other men.
The bottom row of barrels had been filled with sand, so they would probably stop bullets. They would definitely stop arrows and lances. The barrels on top were empty, so they provided cover only against the more primitive weapons. Bullets would punch right through them.
Bill crouched next to Flint and asked the deputy, “Can you see them yet?”
“Nope, but I can hear ’em,” Flint replied. “But there’s somethin’ mighty odd. Listen.”
Bill cocked his head and listened intently. In the silence that gripped the night, he heard the slow, steady sound of hoofbeats coming closer.
“They’re not charging,” he said in amazement. “They’re takin’ their time.”
“That ain’t all. I swear I hear wagon wheels creakin’, too.”
Bill caught his breath as he realized the old-timer was right. The strange sound mixed in with t
he hoofbeats came from at least one wagon, probably more.
“I never heard of a Pawnee war party traveling with wagons,” Hartnett said. “Of course, I’ve never fought Indians before.”
“I have,” Flint said, “and you’re right. That ain’t Injuns. If it is, they ain’t like any I’ve ever seen before.”
Relief flooded through Bill. He didn’t know who was out there in the darkness, coming closer to Redemption, but clearly it wasn’t the war party they had been expecting.
Hartnett gave voice to the same question that occurred to Bill. “Who the hell is it, then?”
Bill leaned forward and peered past the barrels, his eyes straining to pierce the shadows. He saw some dark shapes moving around out there, gradually getting bigger.
“There’s one good way to find out,” he said. “I’m gonna go ask ’em.”
Before Flint or Hartnett could stop him, he stepped around the barrels and strode toward the mysterious riders.
Bill’s pulse boomed like thunder inside his head. He had managed to put up a good front while he was arranging the town’s defenders, but he was scared, and even more so now that he was out in the open.
He heard Flint and Hartnett calling softly to him from behind the barrels, but he ignored them and kept going. If the riders approaching the town weren’t Indians, the only other possibility he could think of was the army. A group of soldiers might have wagons with them.
He could make out men on horseback now, followed by several wagons. The riders suddenly reined in and stopped short. Bill figured they had spotted him. He stopped, too, and raised his voice to call to them.
“Hold it right there, gents! Who are you, and what’s your business here?”
He worked the Winchester’s lever and threw a cartridge into the chamber. He figured the strangers would hear that metallic clack-clack and know that he was armed.
One man had been riding slightly ahead of the others. He started forward again, walking his horse slowly.
“Hold your fire,” he said. “If you’re from the town up there, we’re friendly. Not looking for trouble at all. This is Redemption, isn’t it?”
Bill swallowed. The voice obviously belonged to a white man, but that didn’t mean it was telling the truth. He lifted the rifle to his shoulder.
“Mister, I said hold it and I meant it! Come any closer and I’ll drill you. Now tell me who you are and what you’re doing here.”
The man stopped. Bill couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard a grim chuckle come from him.
“You sound a mite young, son,” the stranger said.
“Old enough to pull a trigger,” Bill snapped. “And old enough to be the marshal of Redemption.”
“So that is where we are. I thought so. I’m sorry, Marshal. Didn’t mean to get on your bad side. We’re looking for help. We’ve got trouble behind us.”
“Indian trouble?” Bill asked.
“Indian trouble,” the stranger confirmed. “My name’s Ward Costigan. This is Colonel William Bledsoe’s party of buffalo hunters, out of Dodge City. If you’ll allow us to come on into town, I can tell you all about it.”
Bill hesitated. The man who said his name was Costigan sounded like he was telling the truth, but it was hard to be sure about such things.
“How many of you are there, Costigan?”
“Thirty men,” the buffalo hunter replied.
“Well, there are more than a hundred guns pointed at you right now, including mine,” Bill told him. “So come on in, but if you try any tricks, you’ll be mighty sorry you did.”
Bill wanted to keep the newcomers covered until he was absolutely certain they didn’t represent a threat, but that turned out to be impossible. Once the townspeople saw that the men weren’t Pawnee warriors, they crowded around to ask questions.
The man he had spoken to, Ward Costigan, was a tall, rawboned man with shaggy brown hair and a mustache. Costigan wore a battered felt hat and a homespun shirt over corduroy trousers and high-topped boots. He didn’t carry a revolver, but he had a Henry rifle tucked under his arm and a pair of Sharps Big Fifties strapped to his horse.
The weapons told Bill that Costigan was one of the men who did the actual hunting. Others would be drivers and skinners. A few buffalo hunters had passed through Redemption while he’d been here, so he knew a little about such outfits.
The riders and wagons moved past the barricades and stopped in the middle of Main Street as the citizens crowded around them. Bill waited until Costigan had dismounted and then strode up to him and held out his hand.
“Costigan, I’m Marshal Bill Harvey.”
The buffalo hunter gripped Bill’s hand. “Pleased to meet you, Marshal. Maybe more than you know.”
“I doubt it,” Bill said. “You and your friends came hustlin’ into town because of that Pawnee war party that’s on the loose, didn’t you?”
“You could say that,” Costigan replied. “Fact of the matter is—”
Another man bustled up and interrupted him. “The fact of the matter is, that’s exactly what we did, Marshal,” this man said as he held out his hand. “I’m Colonel William J. Bledsoe, the leader of this hunting expedition.”
“Colonel,” Bill said with a nod as he shook the man’s hand. Bledsoe might have been a dandy under other circumstances, with his suit, tie, and derby hat, but right now he just looked tired, dirty, and unshaven.
“We ran into a cavalry patrol that warned us about the savages,” Bledsoe went on, “so we thought we’d better hightail for civilization.” He looked around at the barricades and all the armed citizens. “Obviously you already know about the Pawnee being on the warpath.”
“The cavalry was here, too. Captain name of Stone was in command.”
Bledsoe’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Really! We met the same bunch.”
“Captain Stone didn’t say anything about coming back this way, did he?”
“No, not at all.”
“I hoped maybe we’d have more help on hand if the Indians do show up here.”
“You do have more help.” Bledsoe waved a hand at his party. “Thirty good men and true. With your permission, Marshal, we’ll be staying here until we hear word that the Pawnee threat is over.”
“The town’s pretty full up,” Bill said with a frown. “I don’t think there are any empty rooms.”
“We’re buffalo hunters! We’re accustomed to roughing it. We’ll simply camp here if that’s agreeable.”
Bill looked over and saw that Roy Fleming had come up during the conversation. He said, “What do you think, Mayor?”
“I think that Colonel Bledsoe and his men are more than welcome,” Fleming said. He shook hands with Bledsoe and introduced himself. “Mayor Roy Fleming, Colonel. Welcome to Redemption.”
“We’re glad to be here, Mayor, I assure you.”
“What about supplies?” Bill asked. “We’re sort of limited in that area.”
“We have supplies of our own,” Bledsoe assured him. “Enough to last for a while, anyway.”
“Well, then, if it’s all right with the mayor, it’s all right with me.” Bill glanced at Ward Costigan, who stood there stony-faced with the Henry under his arm. “If there’s trouble, we can use the extra guns, that’s for sure.”
“We’ll do everything we can to help, Marshal,” Bledsoe said. “Don’t hesitate to call on us.”
Costigan turned away to tend to his horse. Bill had chores of his own to deal with. He sought out Hartnett and said, “We need to get all the guards back in place, Josiah, and the outriders, too.”
“The fellas who volunteered to be outriders are a mite more nervous now,” Hartnett said. “They’ve seen that something could actually happen, so some of ’em aren’t sure they want to go back out there.”
“Blast it,” Bill said in exasperation. “Didn’t they know the job was dangerous when they took it?”
“Sure, but they were all hoping the Indians wouldn’t really show up.”
&nbs
p; “The Indians haven’t shown up,” Bill pointed out.
Hartnett shrugged. “I’m just tellin’ you the talk I’ve heard, Bill. That Wetherby boy says he’s going back out there, but I don’t know if anybody else is.”
Bill clamped his mouth shut against the frustrated curse that tried to come out. After a moment he said, “All right. Reckon you can go back to the stable and saddle my horse, Josiah?”
“Wait a minute. You’re gonna ride patrol around the town?”
“Somebody needs to besides Aaron Wetherby.”
“But you’re the marshal. You’re in charge here. Folks look to you to take over whenever there’s trouble.”
“This needs doing,” Bill said. “If there’s nobody else to do it, the job falls to me.” He sighed. “Wish we had at least one more man to help out, though.”
A voice behind him said, “I’ll do it.”
Bill recognized the deep, powerful tone. He turned to see Costigan standing there, holding his horse’s reins. Clearly, the buffalo hunter had heard enough of the conversation to know what was going on.
“You just got here, Mr. Costigan,” Bill said. “If you’ve already been ridin’ all night, nobody expects you to go back out and stand guard.”
“I don’t mind. I’m not much for sleeping these days, anyway.”
Bill didn’t ask the man why that was. It was none of his business. Instead he said, “If you’re sure about this, I’m not in any position to turn down volunteers.”
“We’re agreed, then. I could use a fresh horse, though.”
Hartnett said, “I can provide that. I’m Josiah Hartnett. Own the local livery stable.”
The two men shook hands. Bill said, “Take Mr. Costigan on down to the stable, Josiah, so he can put his rig on another mount. I’ll be there in a few minutes. There’s something else I have to do first.”
“What’s that?”
Bill laughed and shook his head. “I have to tell my wife what I’m about to do. And I’m not sure but what I’d rather face those dang Pawnee.”
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