The Last Gunfighter: The Drifter

by William W. Johnstone

  "Gatling guns?" Jiggs blurted. "Good God! Are you joking?" He stared at first one wagon, then another. "By the Lord, you're right, Marshal. What are those people going to do? Put on some sort of a demonstration?"

  A couple of seconds after Jiggs asked his question, a tremendous explosion rocked the town. A huge cloud of dust enveloped the road leading out of the main street and up to the mines. The immense explosion was so powerful it cracked windows and sent some people stumbling off the boardwalk and into the street.

  "The road's blocked!" an excited man yelled from the other end of the street a few seconds after the explosion. Then he started coughing when the enormous cloud of dust began settling over the main part of town, covering everything.

  The men in the wagons began cranking the Gatling guns, and lead started flying all up and down Main Street. Several men and women were hit and knocked spinning by the gunfire.

  Pistol fire joined the rapid fire from the Gatling guns.

  On his belly on the boardwalk, Frank watched as half a dozen men, all carrying guns and cloth bags, entered the bank.

  "Bank robbery!" Frank yelled, and rolled off the boardwalk and into the street just as the carriage from the Browning estate turned onto the main street from a side street. Frank could do nothing except stare in horror as a dozen rounds of lead raked the carriage. Vivian was knocked out of the carriage to lie still and bloody in the dirt.

  Twenty-one

  Frank snapped off a lucky shot that hit the gunner in one of the wagons in the shoulder, knocking him back. But in a heartbeat another man had taken his place and was cranking out the lead, spraying death in all directions. Frank tried to get up and make his way to Vivian, but the intense fire from the Gatling guns forced him back. He crawled behind a water trough as the bullets howled and whistled all around him.

  Frank glanced over to where he'd last seen Jerry. The deputy was apparently all right, and had taken shelter in a store, returning the gunfire as best he could whenever the hail of bullets ceased for a few seconds. All the stores up and down the street, on both sides, were missing windows. The wounded were moaning, and many were crying out for help. There were men and women and a few children among them.

  One of the bank clerks staggered out of the bank, his chest bloody, and fell facedown on the boardwalk. A young child, a girl, sat in the dirt beside her fallen mother and cried. Many of the horses that had been tied at hitch rails in front of various stores had broken loose and bolted. Others were badly wounded, screaming and thrashing on the ground, unable to get up because of their grievous wounds.

  While the gunners were changing magazines on the Gatlings, Frank dropped one of the outlaws, who was exiting the bank with a bagful of money. Frank shot him twice, once in the belly, once in the chest, ending the man's outlawing days forever.

  Jerry shot another one leaving the bank, shot him in the throat with a hurry-up shot. The .45 round almost took the man's head off. He fell back against the front of the bank building and lay kicking and jerking and trying to push words out of his ruined throat, the bag of money beside him forgotten in his horrible agony.

  Frank rolled away from the trough and under the raised boardwalk, squirming his way a few yards closer to one of the death wagons. He shot the gunner in the head just as another charge of dynamite was lit and tossed. The barber shop exploded in a mass of splintered wood and broken glass. The peppermint-painted barber pole was blown a hundred feet into the air. It came down in the alley behind the barber shop and landed on the slant roof of a privy, crashing through and almost conking a man on the head who had taken refuge in there. He jumped out of the privy and took off, running toward the edge of town.

  The main street was once more covered in dust and smoke and confusion. The Gatling guns resumed their spitting out of misery and destruction. Frank nailed another outlaw coming out of the bank, his shots turning the robber around and around in a macabre dance on the boardwalk. He dropped his bulging sack of money just before he slumped to the street and died beside the bag of money that cost him his life.

  Frank heard a shotgun boom inside the bank, and an outlaw was knocked through the big front window, dead from the shotgun blast before he hit the boardwalk.

  Frank took that time to jump up and make a run closer to one of the wagons. He made it to a dead horse and jerked the .44-.40 rifle from the saddle boot. Before he went belly down on the ground, he chanced a look toward Vivian. She had not moved. Frank was suddenly filled with a terrible rage. He levered a round into the chamber of the rifle and sighted in the new gunner cranking the Gatling gun. Frank shot him in the chest and knocked the man out of the wagon. No new gunner came forward to take his place. The bank robbers were running out of men.

  Frank ran toward the wagon and jumped in. He swiveled the Gatling and began cranking, the rounds literally tearing the wagon at the end of the block to splinters, all mixed in with the blood and shattered bone of the two outlaws who were inside the wagon.

  The outlaws who were not dead or wounded, or being held prisoner by various townspeople, were in the saddle and riding hell-for-leather out of town, toward the pass.

  Doc Bracken was busy working on the wounded citizens, pointedly ignoring the calls for help from the wounded outlaws.

  "Help me, Doc!" one called.

  "Go to hell, you bastard," Doc Bracken told him without looking up from the bloody little girl he was working on in the middle of the street.

  "I'm hard hit, Doc," the outlaw pleaded.

  "Good," Bracken replied. "Go ahead and die. Rot in hell."

  Frank hurried over to Vivian and knelt down. She had taken two rounds in the chest from the big-bore Gatlings, but she was still breathing.

  "Hang on, Viv," Frank said. "Doc Bracken's coming over soon as he can."

  "Tell him not to waste his time, love. I'm all torn up inside."

  "Hush, now, Viv. Don't talk like that."

  "Talk while I have time to talk. I'm in no pain, Frank. It's all numb inside of me, but it's difficult to breathe. I've been lung shot, haven't I?"

  Frank had seen the pinkish-looking fluid she'd coughed up. "I don't know for sure, Viv."

  "I think I am. Let me talk while I still can, Frank. Don't interrupt, please?"

  "I won't, Viv."

  "You own five percent of Henson Enterprises, Frank. I saw to that just last week. The papers are filed, and it's all legal. Dutton can't do a thing about it except gripe. Money will be deposited in your name in a bank in Denver every month. It's all spelled out in the papers. Mayor Jenkins has them. He's a good, trustworthy man."

  Frank waited while Vivian coughed up more fluid. It was pinkish in color. Holding her, he felt his hand at her back grow wet. He lifted one side of her jacket and found another bullet hole. He knew that unless the slug had veered off, it had probably blown right through a kidney.

  "Is the sun going behind a cloud, Frank?" she asked. "It's getting darker."

  "Yes, love. Clouds are moving in. It's going to rain, I reckon."

  There was not a cloud in the sky.

  Doc Bracken came over and looked at Vivian for a few seconds. He lifted his gaze to Frank and shook his head. The doctor's eyes were filled with sorrow.

  Frank felt as though an anvil had fallen on him.

  "Look after Conrad, Frank," Vivian told him. "Promise me you'll do that."

  "I will, Viv. I promise."

  "He's home right now. I gave him a sedative. He probably slept right through the shooting."

  "I'll do my best to take care of him, Viv."

  "Let's get her to my office, Frank." Bracken had placed a cloth over Viv's major chest wound. "Stops the sucking, Frank. She might have a chance."

  Bracken waved some men over and they gently picked Viv up and carried her away. Frank stood up and looked around him. The main street of town resembled a war zone. There were at least two dozen men, women, and children dead or wounded. There wasn't a window left intact. The barber shop was gone, and the buildings on either
side of it were heavily damaged.

  Jerry walked up, a bandage on his head. "You hurt bad?" Frank asked.

  "Naw. I just got conked on the head by a flying board, that's all. Bled like crazy for a few seconds. Angie thought I was bad hurt. How's Mrs. Browning?"

  Frank shook his head. "Real bad," he said softly. "She caught three bullets in the chest."

  "I'm sorry, Frank. Jimmy?"

  "Dead. That's him between the seats in the carriage."

  "The driver is dead, too. He's on the other side of the carriage."

  "Let's go see what we can do to help and get the prisoners over to the jail."

  "We might have some trouble keeping a lynch mob from taking the prisoners."

  "I couldn't blame them for trying," Frank replied. "But that's not going to happen in my town."

  Frank and Jerry rounded up the surviving outlaws and marched them over to the jail and locked them down. "Stay here," he told Jerry. He left the office and walked up to a group of businessmen. "You're all deputized," he informed them. "Your job is to stay at the jail and guard the prisoners. You will prevent a lynching. Is that understood?"

  It was, and the men agreed, although quite reluctantly.

  "Fine. Get over to the jail and relieve Jerry. Tell him I need him out here, now. Move!"

  Jerry joined him in the street and Frank said, "Let's get a tally of the dead and wounded. You start that while I find Jenkins and see how hard the bank was hit."

  "Will do, Frank."

  Men were shooting badly injured horses, putting them out of their misery.

  "They didn't get away with a nickel," Jenkins told Frank. "We recovered every dollar. How many dead do we have?"

  "I don't know yet. Jerry's checking on that now. But it's going to be high."

  "Mrs. Browning?"

  "Doc Bracken said she was still alive, but unconscious. She's hard hit."

  "Was it the Pine and Vanbergen gangs that hit us, Frank?"

  "Yes. Selected members. The rest of the gang was scheduled to pull something else."

  "For God's sake, what? And where?"

  "The one doing all the talking didn't know. Or said he didn't"

  "You believe him?"

  "He's pretty damned scared, Mayor. There's a chance he's telling the truth."

  A citizen ran up to the men, nearly out of breath. "We've got over twenty dead so far. Mayor, Marshal," he gasped. "About that many wounded."

  "Dear God!" Mayor Jenkins breathed. "How many of the wounded are critical?"

  "Near'bouts all of them."

  "All right, mister. Thanks," Frank told him. "Go sit down over yonder and catch your breath."

  "No time," the citizen said. "One of the dynamite charges was tossed into Miss Rosie's place up on the hill. Some of her girls is still buried under the rubble. Maybe eight or ten of them. And Miss Rosie's missin', too."

  "My wife's been griping and raising hell about that whorehouse for months," Jenkins said. "She wanted it gone, but not this way."

  Frank swung into the saddle of the first horse he came to and rode up to Rosie's House of Delights, or what was left of the place, picking his way around the blocked road. There were dead and badly injured soiled doves on both sides and in front of the ruined old two-story home. There were plenty of men helping to search for and dig out those trapped, so Frank rode on.

  No one had thought to look for dead or wounded at the small mining claims that dotted the area around the town, and Frank had a hunch that had also been part of the gang's plan. Many of the men working the smaller mines had found pockets of gold, and did not trust the bank to hold it for them. They kept it in hidden places around their shacks. Ned Pine and Vic Vanbergen would have had spies working the town, buying drinks for thirsty miners, and would know some of the claims that were producing.

  Frank's worst hunch paid off. The roar of the Gatling guns, the booming of the dynamite, and the screaming of the wounded had managed to cover the sound of the attack on a number of the small mines ... and the attacks had been especially vicious. There were dead men and women nearly everywhere Frank looked.

  Frank found one dazed but unhurt young man. "You have a horse, boy?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Get on it and ride into town. Tell my deputy what's happened up here." Frank stared at the confused-looking teenager. "Do you understand what I just told you?"

  The young man blinked a couple of times. "Ah ... yes, sir."

  "Move, boy!"

  Frank did what he could for the wounded and waited for help from the town to arrive.

  Soon Jerry rode up with about a dozen men, and for a moment they sat their horses and stared in disbelief at the carnage.

  "A couple of you check out those mines up ahead for dead and wounded," Frank said. "Rest of you get down and help me identify these bodies."

  "The telegraph is out, too, Frank," Jerry told him. "I guess the gangs pulled down the wires just as they were hitting the town."

  "It was sure a well-thought-out plan, Jer, no doubt about that."

  "They didn't care who they killed. I've never seen anything so vicious."

  "The death count still rising?"

  "Yes. By the minute, it seems like. A lot of women and kids were killed." Jerry shook his head. "Most of the stores on Main Street were damaged. Several of them will be closed for a long time while repairs are made."

  "Some of them probably won't ever reopen. God!" Frank exclaimed. "Look at the bodies."

  "We're going to have to match up the names of some of these people with records from the assayer's office."

  Frank nodded his head. "We'll be lucky to match up half of them. Jerry, did you see Kid Moran do anything to aid the outlaws?"

  "No. Not a thing. And he's gone. So is Big Bob Mallory."

  "Figures. How about Charles Dutton?"

  "I guess he's still in town. I haven't seen him."

  "Any chance of getting Doc Bracken up here?"

  "Not a chance, Frank. He's operating fast as he can, and the wounded keep piling up. He's moved his operatin' to the church buildin' on Willow Street."

  "All right. See if you can get a couple of wagons. We'll move the wounded into town."

  "How about the bodies?"

  Frank sighed. "I guess we'll leave them where they fell for the time being. Let's see to the living first."

  "Frank, I haven't seen Conrad Browning."

  "Vivian told me she gave him a sedative this morning. He slept through the attack. I'd better go check on him and get him up and moving. He might not get another chance to see his mother alive."

  "Don't give up on her, Frank. She's a strong woman with a powerful will to live."

  "She took three rounds in the chest, Jer. Looks like one went through a lung and another punched through a kidney."

  "But she's still alive."

  "Yeah. Take over here, Jer. I'll be in town."

  Frank rode into town and checked on Vivian. She was still clinging to life. He went to the Browning estate and got Conrad up and moving. He made coffee while Conrad washed his face and dressed. Then he told him what had happened.

  The young man went white in the face with shock. "Mother?"

  "She's still alive."

  "Take me to her, Marshal."

  "Of course."

  Frank took Conrad to the doctor's office, where a local woman who was Bracken's nurse was sitting with Vivian. A very subdued Conrad took a chair by his mother's bed and reached out, touching her and finally taking her hand into his.

  Frank slipped outside, leaving the mother and son together. He stood alone for a few moments, then carefully rolled a cigarette and smoked it, but he got no pleasure from it. The tobacco was bitter tasting on his tongue, all mixed up with the lonely feelings of sorrow and regret, for himself, for Conrad, and especially for Vivian. And, he thought with a sigh, forcing himself to admit it, for all the things that might have been and now can never be. Never, ever be.

  Jerry rode up and dismounted, walking
over to Frank. "How is she, Frank?"

  "Doc Bracken says there is no hope, Jer. Conrad is in there with her now."

  "How is he holdin' up?"

  "Being a very strong and brave young man. But I don't think that's going to last for any length of time."

  "They were real close, weren't they?"

  "Yes."

  "Frank, I hate to bring this up now, but I've got to. We've got forty-two people dead and seventy wounded, some of them real serious. We can't get word out, the telegraph is down, and the road is blocked by the outlaws about three miles out of town."

  "What?"

  "They want the money in the bank, Frank. All of it. We just got that word. And they know to a penny how much Jenkins had in his bank."

  "How the hell could they know that?"

  "One of the tellers was involved. Young man name of Dean Hill. His girlfriend came to the office and told me about him. She's over there now. Wants to talk to you."

  "All right. Where is this Dean Hill now?"

  "He rode out with the survivors of the holdup."

  "I'll make you a wager. If he isn't dead by now, he will be very shortly."

  "No bet. The young man has served his purpose. No point in keepin' him around. Those outlaws damn sure aren't goin' to share with him."

  "Let's go see this girlfriend. Not that she'll be able to tell us much. How long do the outlaws think they'll be able to keep the pass closed?"

  "Forever, Frank. She told me they plan on warning anyone wanting in that there is a smallpox epidemic in town. No one is allowed into town."

  "Pretty good plan Vic and Ned worked out."

  "Yeah. What are you goin' to do, Frank?"

  "See this girl. Then I'm going to open the road ... or die trying."

  Twenty-two

  Frank talked briefly with the frightened young lady in his office. She told him basically what she had told Jerry. She ended with, "What do you suppose will happen to Dean?"

  Frank didn't want to tell her that her beau was probably already dead. "He'll have to stand trial, miss. I don't know what the judge will do." If he is alive he'll spend the rest of his life in prison, he thought.