Frank turned and ran back toward the rear of the building.
“Howie, was that you?” a man yelled.
Howie, if indeed that was Howie that Frank had just sent into the cold bony arms of death, did not reply.
A few seconds later the man shouted, “Howie’s down and so is Lucky. Morgan’s on the prowl. Got to be him.”
“Five thousand dollars and first go at the prettiest woman in town to the man who kills Morgan!” Sonny yelled.
Frank opened the back door of a building, and knew immediately by the smell he had stepped into the back room of the saddle shop. He could also smell the strong odor of fresh blood and relaxed bowels and bladder. He didn’t have to see the body of whoever it was to know the man was dead.
He walked through the workroom and into the showroom. There, he saw the sprawled body of the saddle-maker. The man had caught a bullet in the center of his forehead.
“One more local paying a heavy price,” Frank murmured. He wondered if the man was married with a family.
“Where’d the son of a bitch go?” The shouted question came from outside, jarring abruptly into Frank’s musing.
Hard gunfire rattled the morning, coming from the stone church’s location.
“Leave the church alone,” a man hollered. “That’s where all the women is. Don’t shoot at the church, you might hit one of them.”
“Well, them damn women is shootin’ at me!” a man shouted. “What the hell am I supposed to do?”
“Leave them be,” Sonny yelled. “We can deal with them later. Get that damn bank vault open.”
“Morgan’s disappeared,” another outlaw yelled. “I ain’t got no idea where he went.”
A shotgun boomed and a man yelled in pain. “The bitch done shot me in the ass!” the man hollered. “Oh, hell, my ass is on far!”
The shotgun boomed again.
“Jesus Jumpin’ Christ!” another man screamed. “She’s shot me in the ass! I’m ruined, boys. Somebody kill that damn woman!”
Frank smiled. He had a pretty good idea who that woman might be.
“Way to go, Clarabelle,” a woman yelled. “Shoot the scum again.”
“I was right,” Frank muttered.
“I want her,” an outlaw yelled. “That’s Sister Clarabelle. She’s my type of woman.”
“Lonesome Howard,” Frank whispered.
“Well, you can damn sure have her,” a man yelled. “You and her would make quite a pair. Ain’t neither one of you got a lick of sense.”
“Shut your blasphemous mouth, Stoner,” Lonesome hollered. “She’s a good Christian woman.”
“She’s a fat pig is what she is,” Stoner replied. “And you’re a damn idiot!”
“I’ll kill you when we get done with this town,” Lonesome yelled in reply. “I’ll kill you in the name of the Lord.”
“Shut up, the both of you,” Sonny shouted.
Frank chanced a glance out the busted front window of the saddle shop. None of the outlaws were in sight. He had no target . . . yet.
The gunfire in the town had dwindled down to only sporadic firing.
“Whoopee!” an outlaw yelled. “I done found me a high-yeller nigger gal! I likes them young nigger gals. I—”
A shotgun blast shattered the morning, followed by a man’s thudding to the boardwalk. Frank smiled. He had a hunch that Grandmother Marvella had given the outlaw a taste of her shotgun.
“Johnny!” a man yelled. “Johnny!”
“Johnny’s dead on the boardwalk,” a man yelled. “He caught a full load of buckshot in the belly. Damn near tore him in two.”
“Who killed him?”
“Some damned old nigger woman. Looked like she was about a hundred years old.”
“You shoot her?”
“Naw. I couldn’t get a shot off.”
Frank wondered briefly why Marvella didn’t take Bessie to the church. He didn’t have to wonder long. Clarabelle suddenly hollered, “You damned godless heathens! Leave this town, all of you!”
“If we don’t?” Frank recognized the voice of Brooks Olsen.
“Marvella and me will wipe out the whole filthy lot of you!”
Clarabelle had hooked up with Marvella. Frank smiled at that. Now that was quite a pair, for sure.
“You fat pig!” Brooks hollered. “I’m gonna shoot you personal. Right in your big fat ass just to see you jump and holler.”
“Then I’m gonna hop on and poke that good-lookin’ high-yeller girl!” Martin yelled.
“The hell you will!” Bessie yelled.
Frank finally got a chance to put lead in an outlaw when one showed himself near the mouth of an alley. Frank lifted his rifle and sighted the man in, squeezing the trigger. The outlaw rose up on tiptoe for a couple of seconds, then pitched forward onto the boardwalk. He drummed his boots for a moment, then passed on into eternity.
“Where’d that shot come from?” Sonny hollered.
“I don’t know,” a man shouted. “I couldn’t tell. Somewheres acrost the street.”
“Where’s that doctor who lives here?” Sonny yelled. “I got two men with buckshot in their asses.”
“I ain’t seen him, Sonny,” Brooks called. “I reckon he’s out of town.”
“And we have plenty more buckshot where that came from, you sorry pieces of buffalo turd!” Clarabelle yelled.
“Ain’t she somethin’?” Lonesome Howard shouted. “I mean to tell you boys, that there is my kind of woman.”
“And you’re a damned old hypocritical fool!” Clarabelle yelled.
“I think I love you, Sister!” Lonesome hollered.
“That makes me want to puke!” Clarabelle quickly yelled.
“I’m gonna grab you up and tote you off into the woods, Sister,” Lonesome shouted. “We can be the modern-day version of Adam and Eve.”
“Now I am gonna puke!” Clarabelle said.
“You’ll learn to love me, Sister. I’ll grow on you.”
“Like a big ugly wart!” Clarabelle shouted.
“My God, ain’t she somethin’!” Lonesome said. “Talk dirty to me some more, Sister. I’m gettin’ all excited.”
“Crazy son of a bitch!” Frank muttered.
“You fellas ready to blow that safe?” Sonny yelled.
“Not yet,” came the reply.
“What the hell’s the holdup?”
“A fuse long enough for us to get clear.”
“Hurry up, will you!”
“We just about got it. Couple more minutes and she’ll blow.”
“Get clear, everybody!” Sonny yelled.
Frank slipped back outside and headed for the ditch behind Main Street. He didn’t want to be close to the bank/stage office when the dynamite blew. He had a hunch the explosion was going to take out several buildings and kill or maim anyone close to the blast. And he suspected the huge safe would still be intact.
Frank made the ditch without being spotted, and found a relatively dry part of the depression in which to belly down. Wouldn’t be long now.
“You better hunker down, Sugar Bugger,” Lonesome called to Clarabelle. “When that dynamite blows, it’s gonna be like the end of the world for a few seconds. I wouldn’t want nothin’ to happen to a single hair on your precious head.”
“Sugar Bugger!” Clarabelle hollered.
“Yep. You my precious Sugar Bugger,” Lonesome yelled.
Clarabelle then told Lonesome to kiss a certain part of her rather vast anatomy.
“I’m gettin’ more and more worked up, my precious flower.”
Frank couldn’t make out Clarabelle’s reply, but he was certain it was less than complimentary. “You’re an idiot, Lonesome!” an outlaw yelled.
“I’m in love!” Lonesome hollered. “Praise the Lord.”
In the ditch, Frank grimaced at the words from the Bible-quoting killer.
“Everybody ready for the big blow?” an outlaw yelled.
“Everybody get down!” Sonny called. �
�Light the fuse!”
“It’s sputterin’!”
Frank braced himself.
Thirty-one
The explosion created a concussion that blew out every window along Main Street. Bricks, glass, and chunks of wood were blown high into the sky, and hens stopped laying and nearby cows stopped giving milk. When the debris began raining down the larger chunks knocked holes in roofs and awnings and killed two outlaws by landing on their heads.
The stage office/bank building and both buildings on either side of it were completely destroyed.
The huge safe was moved back about a foot, but was undamaged except for a few scratches.
“Damn!” Frank whispered when the ground stopped shaking and his hearing returned.
He raised up and peered over the edge of the ditch just in time to see an outlaw he knew was part of Sonny’s group run into the alley, both hands filled with six-guns. Frank shot him.
He shoved a couple of fresh rounds into his rifle and rolled out of the ditch, scrambling toward the buildings.
Lonesome Howard came stumbling out of an alley, shaking his head. “Sweet Pea, darling, are you hurt, my precious flower.”
Clarabelle gave him a blast from her shotgun.
Luckily for Lonesome, it was a shell filled with birdshot, and most of the shot missed him.
“Take that, you heathen!” Clarabelle yelled.
“Does this mean you don’t love me anymore, Sugar Bugger?” Lonesome yelled, running back toward the debris-littered alley.
Clarabelle gave him another blast just as Lonesome reached the alley, the buckshot missing him and knocking holes in the building.
“You bitch!” Lonesome hollered. “I could have give you a good life. Now I’m gonna have to kill you for rejecting my affections and breaking my heart,”
“The man has become as crazy as a lizard,” Frank muttered.
The debris that was once part of the empty building on one side of the stage office/bank began moving and an outlaw hauled himself out of the rubble and stood up, looking dazed and very disoriented.
“Where’s that damn horse that threw me?” he said. “I ain’t never seen a horse that I couldn’t ride. Put a loop on him and get him over here.”
“Get down, you damn fool!” a man yelled at him.
The dazed outlaw took one step and the floor gave way. He fell up to his waist in the jagged hole and was stuck there.
“Can’t you people do anything right?” Sonny hollered.
“Oh, go to hell, Sonny!” one of his men yelled.
“Who said that?” Sonny shouted.
No one replied.
The assault against the town of South Raven appeared to be a standoff. The town had lost three buildings along Main Street from the explosion, and one house due to fire. The outlaws had about a dozen men dead. Only one woman had been taken by the outlaws, and as far as Frank could tell, only three or four local men had been lost.
Frank tried the back door to a building, and it was unlocked. He stepped into the storeroom of a dress shop and walked to the front. The show window was gone, shattered by the blast. Frank slipped to the front, broken glass crunching under his boots, and looked out. He could hear the sounds of hooves fading away from the far edge of town. Several of the outlaws were heading out, giving up on the plan to take over the town.
For whatever reason, something that would surely never be known, a lone outlaw chose that instant to try to run across the wide main street. A dozen guns barked, and a dozen bullets fired by local men hit the outlaw and sent him spinning around and around in the middle of the street. He was dead before he hit the dirt.
The old adage that had been repeated dozens of times came to Frank’s mind. You don’t buffalo a Western town. Westerners just won’t let it happen.
Frank listened intently as the sounds of several more galloping horses reached him. More outlaws were giving up the fight and hauling their ashes out of town.
“Let’s get the hell out of here!” a man yelled. “This ain’t workin’ out.”
“I’m with you, Shorty,” an outlaw yelled. “I’m pullin’ out.”
“Come on, Sonny,” yet another man called. “It’s all over. Let’s get out while the gettin’ is good.”
“Yeah,” Lonesome Howard shouted. “I’m with you boys. Let’s get goin’. Morgan? You hear me, Morgan?”
Frank waited silently in the shop.
“I’m gonna make it my life’s ambition to hunt you down and kill you. You hear me, Morgan?”
“You’re at the end of a long list, Lonesome,” Frank murmured.
“Get to the horses, boys!” Sonny yelled. “There’s always another day and another town. We’re done here.”
“Get me out of here!” the outlaw stuck up to his waist in the floor yelled. “Goddamnit, don’t leave me here.”
“You’re on your own, Davy,” a man yelled. “Sorry. Good luck to you.”
“You rotten no-goods!” Davy yelled, trying without success to work his way out of the hole in the floor.
“So much for honor among thieves,” Frank said.
“We’ll take care of Davy,” Clarabelle yelled. “We’ll hang him!”
“I’m gonna kill you too, Sugar Bugger!” Lonesome Howard yelled from the far end of town. “You’ll regret spurning my love.”
“Oh, go to hell, you crazy windbag!” Clarabelle shouted.
There was near silence in the town for several minutes, the only sounds the rapidly fading hooves of the outlaws’ horses as they made their getaway from the town that had proved itself too tough for them.
Davy had ceased his struggling and cussing, resigning himself to being taken prisoner.
Frank stepped out of the dress shop and stood on the boardwalk, looking up and down the wide main street. No shots came at him. The town was clear of outlaws . . . live ones anyway. All except for Davy.
Frank heard the clop-clop of horses’ hooves, and looked up toward the other end of town. Doc Raven was driving into town. He reined up and stood up in his buggy, staring in amazement at the carnage in his town. He spotted Frank and sat back down, clucking at the horse, driving up to Frank.
“What the hell happened, Frank?”
Frank quickly explained, ending with, “The townsfolk beat them off, Doc. They stood together proud and solid.”
The stone church began emptying of women and kids and the elderly. Bob walked up to Doc Raven and Frank.
“You reckon they’ll be back, Frank?” Bob asked.
“I doubt it. They got a pretty good licking this time around. I don’t think they’ll want seconds. Is Dog all right?”
“Fit as a fiddle. I just gave him a couple of biscuits I had in my pocket, and he gobbled them right down.”
Doc Raven looked over at the ruins of the stage office/bank and smiled. “That safe cost me a lot of money. Looks as though it was worth the price paid.”
“Get me out of this damn hole!” Davy shouted.
“Let me get my office ready to receive patients,” Doc said. He glanced over at Davy, who was frantically waving his arms. “The locals first,” he added.
* * *
Frank walked the town, checking each business and home for any dead or wounded. Mrs. Harvey’s throat had been cut, the last brutal act of Sonny’s gang. Frank covered her with a blanket and walked on. The general store has been looted, and the farmer’s wagon that had been behind the store driven off, loaded with stolen supplies. Several more homes had been looted by the outlaws, but all in all, the town of South Raven had come out of the assault looking pretty good.
The bodies of the dead outlaws were buried in a mass grave.
“Don’t worry about rebuilding,” Horace Vanderhoot said. “We shall pay for everything.”
“Yes,” Delbert Knox agreed. “Whatever the cost. This tragic event was our fault. It’s the least we can do.”
“Has anyone seen Fuller Ross?” John Garver asked. “Not that I really give a damn what happened to him.�
��
No one had.
“I hope the outlaws got him. I hope I never see him again,” Mavis said bitterly.
Her remark pretty well summed up the feelings of all the Easterners.
Frank saddled up, and for over an hour tried to pick up the trail of the fleeing outlaws. But when they scattered, the gang broke up and rode off in all directions. Frank gave it up and rode back to town. He strongly suspected that he would see many of the survivors again. Especially Sonny. Many would be carrying a powerful grudge against Frank.
“I’ll be pulling out in the morning,” he told Bob. “There is no more I can do here. I don’t think Sonny and his gang will be back.”
“Well, I’ll shore be damn sorry to see you go, Frank,” the old liveryman said. “But I understand. And I’m with you about them outlaws. I think they took them a good bite of this town and didn’t like the taste.”
Frank smiled. “I believe you’re right about that, Bob. I’m going to provision up now. But first I’m going over to Doc Raven’s office and turn in this deputy U.S. marshal’s badge. I never did like to tote a badge around.”
In the doctor’s office, Frank held out the badge. Doc Raven smiled and said, “Oh, you can have that. It’s no good.”
“What do you mean?” Frank asked.
“A deputy U.S. marshal was through here about ten years ago. His horse threw him; startled by a rattlesnake. The fall broke the man’s arm. I set it. The marshal was so grateful he gave me that badge as a souvenir. It’s worthless.”
“You mean . . .” Frank didn’t finish it, just looked at the doctor.
“I thought it might give you more confidence if you didn’t know the truth.” Doc Raven chuckled. “It worked, didn’t it?”
Frank started laughing. He was still laughing as he walked out of the doctor’s office.
Thirty-two
Frank said his few good-byes late that afternoon, and pulled out before dawn the next morning, the packhorse Bob had given him trailing on a lead rope. Frank headed south. Days later he reined up in front of the general store in a tiny village in Nevada. Wasn’t much to the town: a combination store/saloon and a couple of other buildings. Frank stepped down from the saddle and slapped the dust from his clothing, then walked into the store.
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