Danielle didn’t answer right away. Finally she said, “We’ll see.” Then she turned away from the townsmen and called out to Cherokee Earl, “The town knows whose side I’m on, Earl. Now what’s your deal?”
“You know I need that wagon, don’t you, Danny? That is why you took it, right?”
“Yep, that’s why,” said Danielle without mentioning the fact that her greater reason for taking the wagon had been to either trade it for Tuck Carlyle or at least to slow things down long enough to find a way to free him. Now that the time was at hand, she waited, saying no more about it. It was Cherokee Earl’s move.
“The deal is this, Duggin,” said Cherokee Earl. “I get the wagon and a free ride out of town with my money and silver. You folks get this deputy back with his head still sitting up on his shoulders. You can’t ask for better than that, can you?” As Earl spoke, he motioned Buck Hite forward. “Take over for me, Buck: I need somebody I can trust,” he whispered.
Buck stepped in, taking the offered shotgun from Cherokee Earl’s hand as Earl stepped back and let Buck take his place.
“Good man,” Earl whispered, patting Buck Hite on his shoulder before stepping farther back. From her position across the street, Danielle saw some movement behind Tuck Carlyle, but she didn’t manage to see the exchange take place.
“No deal,” Danielle called out to Earl, hoping her concern for Tuck’s well-being didn’t show in her voice. “I’ll give up the wagon for the deputy, but from there we go back to where we started. You’ve got to get out of this town the best way you can.”
Danielle had been checking her rifle while she spoke. She took out a cartridge, checked it for perfect roundness, checked the casing, then put it up into the chamber. She licked her thumb, rubbed the tip of the front sight, and did the same to the rear sight. Then she took a firm grip on the front comer edge of the building protecting her, making a shooting brace, and laid the rifle into the V of her thumb and index finger. “God help me, Tuck, this better work,” she whispered to herself.
“Get out of here the best way we can?” Earl called out from a few feet behind Buck Hite. “Hell, Danny, that’s no kind of deal at all!” Earl and Frisco began busily tossing bags of money and silver back across the floor to McRoy and Clifford Reed, who had moved from the front window to the back room. They caught the bags and loosely piled them near the rear door, where the horses stood nervously, ready to bolt and run should the opportunity present itself.
“That’s the best deal you’re going to get from me today, Earl,” Danielle said. “Take it or leave it.”
“I’ll leave it, Duggin,” Earl called out from the back room of the bank while he and the others stuffed the bags of money and silver into their saddlebags and readied the horses.
Holding the shotgun to the back of Tuck’s head, Buck Hite looked over his shoulder and saw what Earl and the men were doing. His face turned pale. “Hey, am I missing something here? You’re not leaving me holding the bag, are you?”
“Hell no, Buck,” said Cherokee Earl. “Whatever gave you that idea?” As he spoke, Earl tied more bags of money to his saddle horn.
“What gave me that idea is that you’re doing it!” Buck stared, wide-eyed.
“Buck, listen to me,” said Earl, slowing for a moment to explain things. “Somebody has to hold things down here while the rest of us get away. This time it’s you.... Next time, who knows, it might be me. But it’s always somebody’s turn, ain’t it?”
“So I’m staying here to face this whole town?” Buck couldn’t seem to grasp what was happening to him.
“You heard Duggin,” said Earl. “He ain’t going to make a deal that suits us. And like you said yourself, it looks like this is all we’re going to get.”
“So you’re just leaving me here alone?” Buck Hite had begun to sweat profusely.
“Why do you keep asking me that, Buck?” said Earl. “You’re my right-hand man. If I don’t leave you in charge, who’ll keep this whole thing from falling apart?”
“By God, I don’t know,” said Buck, “but it for damn sure ain’t going to be—”
“What about the rest of us—Eddie Ray, Fat Cyrus, and me?” asked Clifford Reed, cutting in. “Are we supposed to just stand here too, get shot to pieces while you and your men ride away with the money?”
“Well, no,” said Cherokee Earl, sounding put out with the man for asking. “When we throw this back door open, you do whatever you need to do to get away. Now have you got any more stupid questions?”
Clifford Reed looked stunned. He turned to Buck Hite. “Damn it, this ain’t right, Buck. I might not know much, but I know that this ain’t right!”
While turning his attention to the back room, where Cherokee Earl and his men prepared for their getaway, Buck Hite had not kept Tuck Carlyle directly in front of him in the open doorway. Tuck knew it, and he had inched as far to one side as he could. He looked toward the comer of the building where Danielle knelt, holding the big rifle poised for a precision shot. Unable to nod or give any kind of a signal, Tuck hoped his friend Danny Duggin could read the expression on his face and take action.
“Don’t move on me, Tuck,” Danielle whispered, her sights already fixed, her finger already beginning to squeeze the trigger. “Whatever you do, please don’t move.”
Chapter 22
“Get ready to open the door when I tell you to,” Cherokee Earl barked at Fat Cyrus and Eddie Ray Moon. The two bewildered outlaws looked helplessly at their leader, Buck Hite, for some sort of guidance. But they turned their attention back to Earl when he swung up into his saddle, cocked his pistol in their direction, and said, “You better do like you’re told, then grab yourself a horse and make tracks out of here.”
“Damn it to hell, Earl!” Buck Hite shrieked. “I ain’t going to forget this, I swear to God I ain’t!” As he raved at Cherokee Earl, he let himself take a half step farther out from behind the shield of Tuck Carlyle. “No matter where you go, no matter how long it takes—” His words stopped abruptly as Danielle sent a bullet spinning through his brain.
“Lord God almighty!” Clifford Reed shouted, seeing Buck Hite’s wide-brimmed hat sail off his head in a long, spraying mist of blood. The shot resounded from across the street. The impact flung Buck Hite’s body forward like a bundle of loose rags. The shotgun flew from his hands; so did the belt around Tuck Carlyle’s neck. Tuck didn’t hesitate. As soon as Danielle made the shot, he hurled himself forward, through the front doors, off the boardwalk, and into the street, coming up into a full run.
“See,” said Cherokee Earl, gesturing down at Buck Hite’s body, “he’s forgot it already.” Earl swung his cocked pistol at Fat Cyrus. “Now open this damn door, or you’ll be laying there with him!”
“Hell, I’ll open the door,” said Sadler, reaching down from atop his horse and grabbing the door handle. “Everybody ready?” He looked around at Fred, riding double behind him, then at Earl, McRoy, and Frisco.
“Hell, yes! Let her rip!” said Cherokee Earl.
Out front, taking Danielle’s shot as a signal, and seeing their deputy freed and rushing to safety, the townsmen opened fire once again. Bullets zipped through the bank building like hornets. As the men bolted their horses out into the back alley, where more gunfire awaited them, the bank manager, still cowering in the vault, eased forward across the floor, reached up with both hands, and began easing the vault door closed. Seeing what the man was doing, Fat Cyrus flung himself inside the vault, out of the hail of gunfire. “Please don’t shoot me!” shouted the bank manager.
“Shut the hell up! Scoot over!” Fat Cyrus screamed above the deafening roar of gunfire, shoving the manager back into the comer. “I’m worried about getting shot myself!”
Clifford Reed and Eddie Ray Moon made their way out of the bank building and onto the dirt street before the townsmen’s bullets began slicing through them. Clifford Reed fell first, managing to crawl a few feet before additional rifle fire tried to pound him into the
ground.
“You dirty sumbitches!” Eddie Ray Moon screamed as bullets nipped at him, taking off chunks of flesh and leaving bloody rosettes in their wake. “I dare any one of yas to come face me one-on-one. You damn cowards! Guess you’re too damn scared to do that, ain’t you?”
The firing stopped short. Eddie Ray Moon looked around, stunned to think that his words could have had such a powerful effect on these people. “Well, now! That’s more like it,” he said, a slight smile of satisfaction coming to his bloody face. “Let’s do this thing face-to-face. Give a man a fighting chance!” He lowered his bloody pistol into his holster and spread his wobbly feet shoulder-width apart, preparing himself for a showdown. “Now, send one of yas on out here,” he said.
“Ready ...” a voice said along the boardwalk.
Eddie Ray Moon’s smile melted at the sound of the voice followed by the sound of many rifles and shotguns cocking at once. “Now wait a damn minute!” he screamed.
“Aim ... ” said the voice as if not having heard Eddie Ray’s command.
“Well, shit,” said Eddie Ray. “I mighta known. There ain’t a real gunfighter in the bunch of yas.”
“Fire ... !” said the voice.
Danielle hadn’t stuck around to see Eddie Ray Moon and Clifford Reed die in the street. As soon as Tuck Carlyle ran out of the bank building, the belt around his neck trailing in the air behind him, Danielle met him in the street, her rifle in one hand and her Colt in the other. Already figuring out that the rest of the men would be making a break out the rear of the building, Danielle pitched her Colt to Tuck Carlyle, saying, “Come on, Tuck, they’re getting away!” Together they ran toward the alley. Yet even as the two hurried to catch Cherokee Earl and his men behind the bank, Earl, leading the others, had to rein his horse down hard as a rifle shot hissed past his cheek.
“What the hell is this!” Earl shouted, the men and horses bunching up behind him in the narrow alley. At the far end of the alley Stood Ellen Waddell, looking like some wild-eyed ghost straight out of a nightmare. Bareheaded, her red hair stood out sidelong on a passing wind. Having shed her riding clothes and hat, she wore nothing except the thin cotton nightgown the doctor had provided her. The wind pressed the flimsy cotton against her body, revealing her every curve and feature as if she were nude.
“You ‘weren’t leaving without me, were you, Earl?” she called out in a strange maniacal voice. “Me? The woman you had to have? The woman you couldn’t seem to live without?” A shot blossomed and exploded from her rifle, slicing through the air close to Cherokee Earl’s thigh. “Come take me with you, Earl! I’m free now. My husband is dead. Come take me, Earl.”
“You crazy bitch!” Earl fired his pistol twice, but was too far out of range. The shots kicked up dirt four feet in front of Ellen Waddell. Oblivious to the danger, she stalked slowly forward, levering another round into the rifle, her tender bare feet not noticing the sharp, stony ground. Earl slapped a hand to his rifle boot but found it empty. “Damn it! Somebody shoot her!” he shouted over his shoulder, where both horses and riders were waiting impatiently. The horses stomped back and forth, crowding and butting one another.
“I’ve got her, Boss!” said Avery McRoy, raising a rifle and taking aim, his restless horse keeping him from getting a good bead on her.
Ellen fired again. This shot grazed Cherokee Earl’s horse and sent it rearing upward in a frenzy, twisting and turning in the air. Earl lost his reins and fell backward, coming out of his saddle but getting one boot stuck in a stirrup. “Help me! Damn it!” he yelled after hitting the ground. But with his big horse turning on the other riders who were jammed together in the tight alleyway, it was all the men could do to keep from falling themselves.
“That’s all of you!” Avery McRoy shouted at Ellen Waddell. He fired, and he didn’t miss. His shot hit Ellen squarely in her left shoulder, sending her spinning backward until she crumbled to the ground, the rifle still grasped tightly in her hand.
Coming around the comer of the alley, Danielle and Tuck Carlyle saw what had happened. Danielle’s rifle came up to her shoulder and she fired into the tangle of men and horses. Avery McRoy flew from his saddle with a bullet through his heart. The others tried to turn their horses and make a run for it in the other direction, but Tuck and Danielle gave them no opportunity. They fired on Sadler and Fred, sending both men from the horse they were sharing. Fred hit the ground dead, but Sadler came up onto his knees with a rifle and bean screaming as he fired.
Frisco Bonham, seeing Sadler make a dying stand, turned his horse and heeled it hard in the other direction. He turned the comer of the alley toward the street just as Cherokee Earl’s boot came loose from his foot and left him sliding to a halt in a cloud of dust. “Hot damn! What a ride,” said Earl, reaching up for Frisco as Frisco slowed his horse enough to reach down and grab his stranded leader. “I hope one of you killed that crazy redheaded woman!” he shouted, swinging up behind Frisco.
“McRoy shot her,” said Frisco. “I don’t know if he killed her or not.”
“I hope to hell he killed her,” said Earl. “She’s been nothing but troublesome ever since I laid eyes on her.” He drew a pistol from his waist and checked it quickly as Frisco heeled the horse toward the street. “Get us past these townsmen. Then stop at the first horse you see unattended.” He looked around Frisco at the bags of money tied to his saddle horn, then stared back and forth along the street as Frisco turned the horse onto it and spurred the animal hard. Shots fired in their direction. Frisco leaned low on the horse, spurring it harder and harder, sending it out of town.
Cherokee Earl fired back at the townsmen until his pistol was empty. Then he snatched Frisco Bonham’s pistol from its holster and continued firing. “Give me that rifle, quick!” he demanded of Frisco.
“It’s not loaded,” said Frisco, still spurring the horse for greater speed.
“Stop up there!” said Cherokee Earl, pointing at a barn fifty yards ahead, where he saw a corral fence. Shots whistled past them from the direction of the boardwalk across from the bank. “Maybe we’ll find a horse there!”
“Good thinking!” said Frisco Bonham. He spurred the horse to the barn, then slid it to a halt. Looking all around the corral, he said, “Damn, you’re out of luck, Earl. There ain’t a horse in sight.”
“Hellfire!” Earl cursed and looked back toward the street through the center of town. “They’ll be coming any minute! Are you sure that rifle ain’t loaded?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” said Frisco. “I fired it out back in the bank. I’ve got bullets in my saddlebags, but I ain’t had time to reload it.”
“I see,” said Cherokee Earl. He poked the pistol barrel against Frisco’s head. “Get down, I’m taking the horse!”
“Do what?” said Frisco, not believing what he heard.
“I said, get the hell down from this saddle, or I’ll blow your stupid head off! I’m taking the horse. You’ll have to find you another one.”
“but where? How?” Frisco looked all around, then said, “What about my money? You’re not taking it, are you?”
“You tell me,” said Cherokee Earl. He poked the pistol barrel harder.
Frisco slid down from the saddle and looked up at him. “If it hadn’t been for me, you’d be laying back there in the alley, waiting for the town to come string you up.”
“I know,” said Earl, “and don’t think I ain’t grateful for it. It’s just time we split up and go our separate ways.... You need to stand on your own.”
“Like hell,” said Frisco. “I know when I’ve been double-crossed. I’ll find me a horse all right, and when I do, I’ll—”
“Then you better get to looking quick,” said Earl, cutting him off. He gestured his pistol barrel back toward town. “They’ll be getting here any minute.” He swung the horse around and spurred it out back onto the open trail. “Adios!” he called out over his shoulder in a grandiose manner, raising a hand in the air.
Frisco Bonham jus
t stared in bewilderment as his horse and money rode farther and farther away.
“Ellen, are you all right?” Danielle asked, once again holding Ellen Waddell’s head in her lap. Ellen looked up at her, struggling to remain conscious, the impact of the bullet through her shoulder having nearly knocked her cold.
“Did ... I get him?” Ellen asked. Danielle looked at Tuck, then back down at Ellen.
“Yes, ma’am, you got him. You got him good. Now I’m going to go find him and finish him off for you, all right?” The sound of gunfire from the street told Danielle there were still outlaws there, making their getaway.
Ellen smiled weakly but with much satisfaction. “That son of a bitch.... He’ll never do another woman ... that way.”
“He sure won‘t, ma’am,” said Danielle, handing Ellen over to Tuck. “Take her back to the doctor’s, Tuck,” she told him. “I’ll see what’s left to do out there.”
“Wait, I’ll go with you, Danny,” said Tuck.
“No,” said Danielle. “This is your town—stay and take care of it. I’ll be back soon.”
“You better, Danny,” said Tuck. “You told me we needed to have a long talk. I’m curious to find out what about.”
“And we will have that talk, I promise you,” said Danielle, turning to leave as scattered gunfire from the street continued.
“Be careful, Danny,” said Tuck, standing with Ellen Waddell in his arms. “We’ve both been lucky so far.... Let’s keep it that way.”
Danielle nodded in agreement. She ran to where Sundown stood at the hitchrail out front of the doctor’s office. In a moment, Danielle was racing the big chestnut mare down the middle of the street in the direction the townsmen stood pointing. Now that someone was on the outlaws’ trail, the townsmen all lowered their rifles and began shaking hands and slapping one another on the back for a job well done. A few of them ran to their own horses, mounted up, and heeled out in the same direction Danielle had taken, although knowing it would be difficult to catch up with the big mare.
Ralph Compton Death Along the Cimarron Page 24