by Len Levinson
“Fight back? I’m not armed!”
“You’d better get armed.”
Mayor Randlett stepped backward, his mouth hanging open. A bullet whizzed over his head and he dropped to his stomach on the floor.
Stone returned to the window and looked outside. The outlaws had turned around and were riding back through town, heading the other way, shooting at cowboys, drifters, and layabouts running for their lives in the downtown area.
In the church, groups of worshipers stamped out the flames and smothered the torches with their coats. Some of the men had drawn their pistols and were gathering around Stone.
“How many of you are armed?” Stone asked.
About half the men in the church, numbering approximately twenty-five, raised their hands.
“The town is evidently under attack by a band of outlaws who have something to do with Deke Casey,” he told them. “We’ll have to get weapons for those of us who don’t have them, and the only weapons I know about are in my office. We’ll go there through the back alley, with the women and children in the center, and the armed men on the outside. If they come at us while we’re in the open, take cover and make every bullet count. Let’s go.”
Mayor Randlett raised his hand. “Just a moment,” he said. “I’m not sure we want to get into a shooting war with those men out there.”
“What other choice have you got?”
“Maybe we can wait until they go away.”
“They’ll go away all right, after they’ve finished killing whoever they want to kill, and doing whatever they feel like doing. There may not be anything left here when they leave. Is that what you want?”
Mayor Randlett looked confused. “Well … no.”
Stone faced the members of the congregation standing in front of him. “You people’ll have to make a choice, and you have to make it right now. Are you going to fight for your town, or aren’t you? Those outlaws are shooting to kill. They’ll do anything you let them do, and that includes killing you, burning down your town, and stealing everything you own. Are you going to let them do that, or are you going to fight?”
There was silence in the smoky church for a few seconds, as gunshots sounded in the distance. Then Phineas Mathers, owner of the Double M Ranch, spoke: “I say we fight!”
“So do I!” said Martin Caldwell, owner of Caldwell’s General Store.
“Me too!” added Dr. Bill McGrath.
“How do the rest of you feel?” Stone asked.
Most of the men nodded or said in low, grim tones that they’d fight. Stone could see that they were frightened, but he’d led frightened men before. The only thing to do was take charge and set the proper example.
“Let’s move out!” he said.
He marched toward the rear of the church, passing the coffin where Sheriff Rawlins lay in state, and the crowd of townspeople followed him. Opening the back door, he looked outside. The alleyway was clear. He stepped out, a pistol in each hand, and headed down the alley toward his office.
The townspeople shuffled behind him, women and children in the center, and the armed men were on the outside, ready to repulse an attack. They passed the privies and outbuildings scattered behind the main buildings of the town, and heard gunfire a short distance away.
Stone was in front, holding both his pistols in his hands. He could smell smoke and knew part of the town was on fire. Somehow they had to get to his office before the outlaws spotted them.
Then suddenly the gunfire stopped and everything became silent. Mayor Randlett was walking beside Stone, and he said, “I wonder what’s happening now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe they’re leaving town.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that if I were you.”
Brad Culhane raised his hand in the air, and his outlaw gang gathered around him in the darkness, smiles on their faces, smoke trailing from the barrels of their guns. Except for them, the main street of Petie was deserted. Several bodies lay dead or wounded on the sidewalk, and two buildings were smoldering. In front of them was the Petie Savings Bank.
Culhane was pleased with the way the attack had gone. There’d been no resistance and it appeared that the town was theirs.
“Let’s git that money!” Culhane hollered.
The outlaws dismounted and tethered their horses to the hitching rail in front of the bank. Pulling out their pistols, they walked to the front door. Culhane twisted the knob, but the door was locked. He and his men aimed their pistols at the lock and opened fire. The door splintered and blew apart, bits of wood flying in all directions.
“That’s enough!” Culhane said.
The door was shattered and the lock mangled badly. Culhane kicked the door and it opened wide. He stepped into the bank cautiously, holding his pistol aimed straight ahead, but no one was inside. His men followed him, walking behind the tellers’ cage, opening drawers, dumping papers and records onto the floor, looking for money.
A door was at the rear of the tellers’ cage, and Jubal Davidge shot the lock off it. He pushed the door open, leading a group of outlaws to the offices in back. They kicked chairs out of their way, tipped over desks, tore pictures off the walls, and threw the pictures into the hall.
“I found the safe!” yelled Clint Fulton.
Culhane and ail the other outlaws stopped what they were doing and headed toward the office where Fulton was. It was the largest office in the bank and had a huge wooden desk in its middle, with the big black safe in the corner.
“Who’s got the dynamite?” Culhane yelled.
Sand Kelly stepped forward, carrying the saddlebag full of dynamite. The other outlaws left the office as Kelly and Culhane placed bundles of dynamite sticks all around the safe.
“Light the fuses,” Culhane said.
Kelly lit the fuses, and then he and Culhane joined the other outlaws in the hallway. They pressed their fingers into their ears and squinched their eyes.
The dynamite exploded with a terrible boom, smoke and debris filling the hallway. The outlaws waited a few moments, then rushed into the room.
The door of the safe was blown off and coins were scattered all over the floor. The outlaws got down on their hands and knees, scooping up the coins and dropping them into gunny sacks while Culhane reached into the safe and pulled out intact bags of money.
“Not a bad haul,” he said with satisfaction.
The men cleaned every coin off the floor and took all the bags out of the safe. Then they checked the other offices to see if any more money was lying about, but there was none. Evidently all the money had been locked in the safe.
“Let’s get out of here,” Culhane said.
He walked toward the front door of the bank, and his men followed, carrying heavy sacks filled with money. They came to the sidewalk, and looked up and down the street. Culhane spotted the lights of the Paradise Saloon.
“Let’s have a drink,” he said.
“Don’t you think we should git out of here?” Jubal Davidge replied.
“I’m thirsty,” Culhane told him, “and besides, we got nothin’ to worry about. The people in this town ain’t got no fight in them. They’re runnin’ for the hills right now. We can do whatever we want here.”
Culhane walked across the street toward the doors of the Paradise Saloon and threw them open. It was deserted inside, playing cards scattered across tables by gamblers who’d fled out the back door. Bottles and glasses of whiskey were everywhere. Culhane lifted a bottle off a table and raised it to his lips. It was his first drink of whiskey since they’d finished the bottles they’d stolen in Centerville, and it was delicious.
His men crowded into the saloon, grabbing bottles off tables or going behind the bar and opening fresh bottles.
Jubal Davidge sat down at the table with Brad Culhane. “I want me a woman,” he said.
“What’s yer hurry?” Culhane asked, sprawled out on a chair, his hat pushed to the back of his head.
“Ain’t had a woman
for a long time.”
“We got all night. Enjoy yer whiskey, and after that we can find us some women. Bet there was lots of them in that church we was at.”
Davidge drank some whiskey, his throat gurgling noisily. Culhane looked around at his other men, who’d taken over the saloon. One of them, Pinky Daniels, was playing “Dixie” on the piano, and a few of the others sang along with him.
“Wonder where the sheriff is?” Davidge asked.
Culhane snorted. “Prob’ly about ten miles out of town by now, headin’ for the hills with the rest of the damned cowards who live around here.”
Stone approached the back door of his office and pulled his key ring out of his pocket. Behind him were the townspeople, augmented by other men and women who’d been hiding in the vicinity. Stone unlocked the door and passed through the jail area, entering the main office. He opened the gun racks and took down the rifles, passing them to the men filling up the office. Then he unlocked the cupboards that held the ammunition.
He heard footsteps on the sidewalk outside and spun around, aiming his two pistols in that direction. A figure stopped in front of the door and knocked softly. Stone advanced toward the door and opened it. Toby Muldoon stood there, carrying his new guitar.
“They robbed the bank,” Muldoon said, “and now they’s in the Paradise Saloon. I was at the back door listenin’ to ’em, and I heard ’em say they was gonna start lookin’ for the women after they finished gittin’ likkered up. They’s a mean-lookin’ bunch if I ever saw one.”
The women turned to one another and went pale. Some of them hugged their husbands, hoping to find comfort and strength, but their husbands were looking at John Stone, waiting for him to tell them what to do.
Stone took the last rifle down from the rack and loaded it up. Jennifer Randlett stood in the corner and watched him in the darkness. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing, and was calm and deliberate, unlike the rest of them.
Stone jacked a round into the chamber of the rifle and looked up. “We should hit them right away, while they’re in the saloon. One bunch of us’ll cover the back door, and another bunch’ll go in the front. We’ll have to leave some armed men here, to protect the women and children.” Walking across the room, Stone opened the foot locker filled with the dynamite taken from Deke Casey’s saddlebags. “We’ll bombard them with dynamite first,” he continued. “That ought to soften them up. Then we’ll attack. Are there any questions?”
A hand arose in the darkness. “I own that saloon,” a man said. “Sounds to me like there won’t be much left of it when you’re finished.”
‘That’s right,” Stone said, “it’ll probably sustain a considerable amount of damage, but there’s no easy way out of this mess. Any other questions?”
Nobody said anything. Stone divided the men into three groups. The first group, led by Andy Thomaston, owner of the Diamond Restaurant, would guard the women and children left behind in the sheriff’s office.
The second group, commanded by Phineas Mathers of the Double M Ranch, would watch the rear of the saloon, to stop any outlaws who might try to retreat.
The third group, under Stone, would assault the saloon from the front.
“Pick your shots and make them count,” Stone said to them. “Remember that you’re fighting for your town, your families, and everything that you’ve worked for all your lives.” He looked at them and smiled. “Good luck to all of you. Move out.”
Phineas Mathers led his group out the rear of the office and into the alley outside, heading toward the back of the Paradise Saloon. Stone opened the front door and looked both ways. The street was deserted except for a few bodies lying around. He motioned with his hand and ran across the street to the alley on the other side, and the town’s male citizens followed him. They were young and old, tall and short, armed with rifles or pistols, some wearing suits, others dressed in range clothing. They disappeared into the alley and emerged at the rear of the building across the street, where Stone had shot Mike Chopak nearly a month ago.
Stone moved forward through the yards behind the row of buildings that faced the street, and the townspeople came behind him, the wan moonlight shining on the barrels of their guns. Stone held his rifle in both his hands and carried sticks of dynamite stuffed into his shirt. Several other men carried dynamite also. Mayor Randlett, slouching along behind Stone, was so afraid his teeth were chattering.
Finally they came to the buildings opposite the Paradise Saloon. Stone silently split the men into three groups and sent them through three alleys toward the street.
The men streamed through the alleys and arrived at the edge of the sidewalk. Before them were dead bodies lying in the street in front of the Paradise Saloon. Light blazed out the windows of the saloon, and laughter rang inside. Stone pulled a stick of dynamite out of his shirt. He wanted to wait a few minutes, to give Phineas Mathers and his men time to get into position. Taking a deep breath, he looked at the swinging doors of the Paradise. His men were ready, waiting for his signal. It was like the war and brought back memories of other attacks on other nights. He wondered if he’d be alive when this one was over.
Inside the saloon, Brad Culhane and his men were continuing their drunken celebration, bags of stolen money all around them. As far as they knew, they’d captured the town and chased the inhabitants away.
“Let’s git started,” said Jubal Davidge, sitting at a table with Brad Culhane. “I want to git me a woman.”
“Wait till I finish my whiskey,” Culhane replied. “We just got here, for chrissakes.”
“We been here too long. I’m gittin’ nervous. It’s too quiet.”
“Davidge, if somebody gave you a pot of gold, you’d think there was somethin’ wrong. You’re never satisfied with what you got. Have another drink and you’ll be all right.”
“I don’t want another drink. I want a woman.”
“You’ll git all you want—don’t worry about it. Just lemme finish this bottle. Then we’ll git started.”
“Somethin’s wrong,” Davidge said, looking suspiciously from side to side. “Seems to me like these folks should’ve put up more of a fight.”
“You got a lot to learn about folks, Davidge. The fact is that most of ’em are cowards who run at the sound of the first shot. So relax. I’m gittin’ tired of yer bellyachin’.”
Davidge scowled as he lit a cigarette. I don’t like this, he thought. We’re wastin’ too much time.
Stone decided that Phineas Mathers and his men should be in their positions behind the Paradise Saloon. He raised his hand and pointed across the street, then moved out of the shadows.
The men carrying dynamite followed him silently across the street, passing dead bodies lying in the muck. Stone and the citizens of the town stepped onto the sidewalk, advancing on their tiptoes toward the doors. Stone stood next to the window and peered inside the saloon.
He saw the outlaws sitting around, drinking whiskey out of bottles, having a good time, and some were counting money, their eyes glittering with greed. Stone motioned for the citizens to prepare their dynamite, and they pulled the sticks out of their shirts, striking matches against the bottoms of their boots and lighting the fuses.
Stone edged toward the door and lit the fuse connected to his dynamite and, when it was fizzing, nodded to the others. Together they heaved their dynamite over the top of the swinging doors.
“Down!” Stone shouted.
He and the men with him dropped to the sidewalk, hearing shouts of panic inside the saloon. Two seconds later the dynamite exploded, and the ground shuddered beneath Stone’s stomach. Orange light erupted through the window and doorway, followed by clouds of smoke and horrified screams.
“Now!”
Stone jumped to his feet and charged through the doors of the saloon, into the swirling smoke and broken furniture. He saw figures moving in the darkness and fired his rifle from the waist, working the lever as quickly as he could.
His men poured
through the doorway behind him, shooting at anything that moved. Most of the outlaws had been killed or wounded in the initial explosions, and the rest were dazed and disoriented. The men of Petie mowed them down, showing no mercy, the sound of gunshots and screams reverberating off the shattered walls.
“Hold your fire!” Stone shouted.
The men eased their fingers off their triggers as the smoke cleared. A scene of total devastation faced them. Blood and gore were everywhere, furniture and men had been blown to bits, coins were scattered all over the floor, and the painting on the wall was split in two. A few wounded outlaws who miraculously hadn’t been killed feebly begged for help.
“My saloon is ruined,” said a voice in darkness.
“We’ll help you rebuild,” replied Mayor Randlett. “Don’t worry about that, but first we’ve got to put out the fires in this town.”
Mayor Randlett gave orders for the fire brigades, and Stone moved back into a corner, sitting on a chair, reaching for his bag of tobacco. He heard the whimpers of the few wounded outlaws who’d miraculously survived, and saw the townspeople run outside to fight the fires. Dr. McGrath arrived with his black bag and began to treat the wounded outlaws.
Dr. McGrath noticed Stone in the corner. “Are you all right, Sheriff?” he asked, kneeling beside the body of Jubal Davidge, whose shirt was soaked with blood.
“I’m not your sheriff anymore,” Stone replied. “It’s time I was moving on.”
“You can’t leave us now,” Dr. McGrath argued. “It wouldn’t be right. Didn’t you say you’d stay until we found somebody else to maintain law and order around here?”
“You have found somebody else,” Stone said. “Yourselves.”
Chapter Ten
The next evening, Stone was seated with Mayor and Jennifer Randlett in the dining room of their mansion on the hill. The main course was baked ham and yams with collard greens, and the men drank fine bourbon whiskey.
The room was lit by candles, and the light flickered on Mayor Randlett’s corpulent face. “John,” he said, “what can we do to make you stay?”