A couple of the Dogs were so keyed up over the coming fight that they jumped at the unexpected intrusion. Others stiffened, not liking a stranger at their backs during a showdown.
The crowd buzzed at sight of the intruder.
“Who’s that?”
“Don’t know him—you, Slim?”
“Never seed him before.”
“Why, he’s just a kid!”
“So’s the Viper.”
“He can’t be bucking the Dogs . . . can he?”
“There’s easier ways of committing suicide!”
“I’d like to know him better—he’s handsome,” sighed Risha, a comely young sporting gal fresh on the street.
“Shut your mouth, slut!” snarled Chazz, her thick-featured escort.
“Who’re you to be callin’ me names?” Risha demanded, turning on him. “We ain’t married . . . Thank the Lord!” she added in a too-audible aside.
A couple of nearby bystanders laughed.
Chazz raised a hand, saying, “Keep running your mouth and you’re gonna get a beating, Risha—Wha’!”
He recoiled from the thin sharp-pointed stiletto Risha had pulled from somewhere on her person and now held pointed at his belly. She looked like she knew how to use it and was ready to do so.
“You want some of this, try layin’ hands on me, Chazz,” Risha challenged.
Chazz threw his arms up into the air but not before backing several paces away from Risha, out of lunging reach of that too-sharp-pointed knife of hers.
“I’m through with you, gal . . . we’re quits!”
“Ya’ think?” Risha spat with a short bitter laugh.
Chazz scuttled away in red-faced confusion, saying over his shoulder, “Find yourself another honey man!”
Derisive laughter pursued him, not only Risha’s, but from others who witnessed the back and forth.
When she was sure Chazz was gone and not coming back, Risha made the stiletto disappear by reaching into a side-slit in her dress and returning the dagger to its sheath clipped to a lacy round garter band holding one of her stockings up.
“Not much honey in that fellow,” Risha said, “and less man!”
A gaggle of other River Street sporting ladies who had gathered to watch the fight now grouped around her.
“You’re better off without him, Risha, you can do better,” said Marie, a fellow working girl and sympathetic friend.
“Don’t I know it! He talked big about getting me on the Big White Boat, but he couldn’t even get himself on.”
A third lady in the group looked around cautiously before saying, low voiced, “From some of the stories I’ve heard, girl, you’re better off never setting foot on that boat—and that goes for all of us!”
The Unknown—for so Johnny Cross was to Gun Dogs and onlookers alike—had created quite a stir by horning into the middle of a showdown. Or perhaps not entirely unknown, for a gleam of recognition showed in Valentine’s keen artist’s eyes, which he quickly hooded.
Sexton Clarke seemed too interested in the newcomer’s dramatic entrance to have taken note of his companion’s fast-stifled reaction. An amusing development, if the youngster showed fight!
The Gun Dogs were in a tricky situation. They didn’t want to take their eyes off the trio they’d come to get, but they had to see who was at their backs. When they saw the intruder was one lone man, little more than a fresh-faced kid from the looks of him, their spirits instantly revived.
They wouldn’t have felt so well had they known George St. George was behind their backs, but he was well out of sight keeping to the shadows and keeping watch on Sexton Clarke.
Crabshaw stood angled so he was at a tangent to both Johnny and the trio. He stood with thumbs hooked into the top of his gunbelt, trying for a posture of dominance.
He stared Johnny slowly up and down, then hawked up a glob of phlegm and spat it on the planks at Johnny’s feet. He would have spat on Johnny’s boots if he could have reached that far.
“This ain’t none of your business, sonny,” he said, making a contemptuous shooing gesture. “Now run along and roll your hoop somewhere else before you get hurt.”
That won some laughter from his men and some in the crowd.
“I’ll roll you,” Johnny shot back, pulling some oohs and aahs from the onlookers—a reaction that was not a happiness for Crabshaw, Marston, or the Dogs.
Viper Teed, prickly and with a short fuse to start with, started to burn, his face flushing. He held his peace because he held Gator Al, Belle, and Spindrift—especially Spindrift—as the threat and the newcomer as a suicidal clown.
Marston stuck his horn in. The trio worried him but not this loco kid. “I don’t know if you’re drunk or what, Junior, but if you’re putting on a show to impress that swamp cat”—here he indicated Belle Nyad—“you’re fixing to get yourself kilt over nothing, because she plain flat-out don’t like men! Got no use for them, haw haw haw!”
“You’re a fine one to talk about manhood, Miracle Marston,” Belle returned. “As for that tub-of-guts partner of yours, I doubt if Pigfeet could even find his under all them belly rolls!”
The crowd was more shocked than amused by this effrontery. An intoxicated woman hooted shrill laughter until a quick-thinking companion clapped a hand over her mouth and dragged her deeper into the crowd and out of sight.
“That’s killing talk, Belle,” Marston said, face red and swollen.
“Let her have her fun,” Crabshaw said, waving it off with a dismissive gesture. “It’ll give us all something to remember her by.”
He glared down at Johnny. “As for you, kid, since you’re so set on getting your guts shot out, start something!”
“Let me have him, chief,” Viper Teed begged, face twitching, hands clenching and unclenching over his guns.
“You the one they call Viper?” Johnny asked, knowing the answer, raking the other with a coolly hostile gaze.
“He’s mine, Crabshaw! He—”
“Hold your horses, Vipe. That’s an order,” Crabshaw said, holding up a meaty hand with palm showing.
Viper Teed restrained himself with difficulty, all but jumping out of his skin in his eagerness to kill.
“Now I get it! It all makes sense to me now why some young pup sticks his nose into our business,” Crabshaw said, his manner smug and knowing. “He wants to be you, Vipe! The kid thinks he’s fast and wants to build a reputation by burning you down!” Crabshaw ripped out a huge belly laugh.
“Very funny,” Viper Teed said tightly. “Somebody’s going to die laughing!”
“Ha ha,” Johnny said.
Viper Teed almost drew then, held back only by the last of his fast-shredding discipline. Crabshaw or not, he would reach the breaking point in a span of heartbeats. Crabshaw knew the signs, knew he’d better slip the chain of his most dangerous Gun Dog and let him tear out the throat of this arrogant challenger.
“Take him, Vipe!” Crabshaw said.
Viper Teed went for his guns.
Something slammed him, sending a great confusion descending upon him. His guns were in his hands, clear of the holsters, leveled on the challenger, but strangely the Viper couldn’t recall pulling a trigger.
Yet there had been gunfire, two shots coming so quickly together that they seemed as one. Loud, too, like a thunderclap or a bomb going off.
The noise of it staggered Viper Teed. He was standing still, he thought, while the world around him reeled and swayed.
The stranger stood opposite him, upright, a gun in his left hand. It was pointed at Viper Teed, smoke curling from the muzzle.
The Viper, frowning, confused, opened his mouth to wonder aloud, What in blazes is going on?
A mass of red blood spilled from his open maw. Viper Teed looked down, saw a rapidly blossoming bloodstain on his left breast.
Viper Teed had never gotten off a shot, and the confusion that had fallen on him was the last of life rushing away from him. He was dead before he hit the pier p
lanks.
Echoes from the double gunshots rang out in the stunned silence.
Then things started moving again:
“Crabshaw!” shouted Gator Al. He held the tomahawk in his hand poised for throwing. He called out Crabshaw’s name because he wanted to turn him around to make a better target.
Crabshaw gave his head a toss as if literally shaking off the stupefaction that had seized him at seeing his top gun shot dead. Hauling his hogleg clear of the holster he turned toward Gator Al to burn him down.
He was the recipient of a hurled tomahawk in the face. There was a thunk as the tomahawk struck home square in the middle of Crabshaw’s forehead.
Crabshaw’s reflex trigger pull sent a bullet thudding into the planks underfoot. He lurched sideways as he went down, barreling into one of his men and causing him to blow a shot fired at Wake Spindrift.
Spindrift’s arms were crossed over his chest as his hands plunged under his jacket to haul out the twin-holstered. 44s he wore under each arm. Those hands came out shooting, pumping lead into the Dog who’d shot at him and missed, throwing him into a crazy Dance of Death.
Three Gun Dogs slapped leather, drawing on Johnny Cross.
Johnny had a gun in both hands now. He dropped into a crouch and cut loose on his three foes, squeezing off shots alternately from the gun in his left fist and his right.
Each shot told, hitting a man. The three Dogs wheeled like spinning tops as they whirled down into oblivion.
Tully Marston still held his hat in front of him with a hand inside its high crown. He held a gun inside. Seeing Gator Al drawing his gun, Marston opened fire, shooting through the top of his hat into the other’s torso, emptying his gun into him.
Gator Al backpedaled and went down, gun in hand. His torso was shattered, red life leaking out of him from a line of bullet holes in his chest.
Raising himself up on an elbow, he brought his gun in line with Marston.
Marston frantically worked the trigger of his concealed gun, receiving only a series of metallic clicks for his pains. He’d already emptied the gun into Gator Al.
Gator Al grinned savagely as he thumbed back the hammer of his piece.
Gun and hat fell from Marston’s hands as he saw death coming for him. He threw his hands in front of his face and shrieked wordlessly.
Before Gator Al could fire, a slug took off the top of his head.
It had been fired by a Dog gunman on the left of the line facing the Dead Drunk.
He was shot by Roe Brand standing at the downstream side corner of the saloon front. The Dog hadn’t even seen Roe there.
The Dog swayed with the impact of being hit. He jerked a few shots at Roe, missed. Roe fired, not missing. The Dog cried out, spinning off-balance, angling to one side. He hit the pier safety rail hard and broke through it, falling off the side into the water.
He was still alive when the gators got him.
Tully Marston couldn’t believe he hadn’t been hit. He giggled at the stroke of luck that had reprieved him from death at Gator Al’s hands. A tremendous roaring blast swatted him like a fly.
He’d been blasted with buckshot from the shotgun attachment of Belle Nyad’s over-under pistol. It well nigh cut him in half.
Wake Spindrift cut down a Dog shooting at him from the right-hand side of the pier. Spindrift advanced slowly, guns blazing in both hands.
The Dog’s life dissolved in a mass of bullet holes, blood, and gunsmoke.
Spindrift stumbled, shot from behind. He staggered forward, trying to stay on his feet. A second shot brought him to his knees.
The shots had come from the Dead Drunk, from either a Gun Dog who’d been planted there earlier and escaped notice, or from a Barbaroux partisan and assassin.
The back shooter stood sideways in the doorway, hanging back so he was out of Roe Brand’s line of fire. He shot again and Spindrift flopped facedown.
His gun swung toward Belle as she turned to fire, but she would never get her gun around in time.
Johnny caught the play and snapped a few well-placed shots into the man in the doorway. The back shooter crumpled, falling in a heap across the threshold.
Belle slammed a few rounds into his body to make sure of him.
The Gun Dogs had been all but cleared out. Only Blue Fane remained. His eyes seemed ready to pop from their sockets as he looked around for his comrades and saw only the dead and dying.
He’d had enough. He dropped his gun, cried, “I’m hit!” and threw himself flat on the boards, unmoving.
Belle Nyad saw him go down in the absence of gunfire. She crossed to Blue Fane, pointed her gun at his head.
“Quit playing possum. Look up or I’ll put a bullet in you,” she said.
Blue Fane put hands flat on the planks, raising his upper body, lifting his head and craning his neck. “Please—don’t shoot—”
Belle put a bullet in his skull.
“Now you’re hit,” she said.
Johnny Cross looked at her.
“I like a clean slate,” Belle said.
Johnny nodded. Hell, why not? Had things gone the other way Blue Fane would have done his share of the killing.
A haze of gunsmoke hung over the pier, the smell of gunpowder heavy in the air, momentarily overpowering the somewhat rank river scent.
Gator Al was dead, Wake Spindrift badly wounded. But the Gun Dogs on the pier were all dead.
Johnny looked around. The crowd of onlookers had gone to cover when the shooting started. Neither Sexton Clarke nor Valentine was in sight.
Johnny pulled first one of the guns stuck in the top of his pants, then the other, fitting them into empty holsters. He wanted fully loaded pieces to hand in case something jumped. The guns he’d been using he stuck in his waistband. He hated to throw away good guns.
The Battle of the Pier was over, but the action was not yet done.
A commotion was developing on River Street.
A freight wagon appeared in the east, driving west. A long freight wagon pulled by a team of six horses yoked in tandem.
Crawdad Kate was at the reins. The wagon’s hopper was covered with canvas tarpaulins, concealing its cargo. Kate drove at medium speed with no signs of undue haste, nothing to excite suspicion.
The wagon was being rapidly overtaken by a dozen hard-charging riders sweeping along the street at a breakneck pace. They were not chasing the wagon, they were in a mad rush to get to the pier.
They were the main body of the Gun Dogs, having finally been dragged half-sober from the whiskey bars, hauled away from the gambling tables, or rousted from whatever whores’ beds they’d been sporting in.
They were coming to reinforce their comrades already present at the Dead Drunk to take Gator Al Hutchins, Belle Nyad, and Wake Spindrift, they thought. Their mad plunging haste was spurred by the sound of gunfire crackling over the water that they’d heard while riding to the pier.
They knew Crabshaw and Marston would raise holy hell about their not being present for the action, even though it wasn’t their fault. The surfacing of the three swampers had come as a surprise while the Gun Dogs were off-duty and at liberty to raise hell in the sin bins of River Street.
Informants had come to pass the word that the much-wanted threesome was to be found in the Dead Drunk. Crabshaw and Marston had roused what men they could and hurried to the pier, leaving henchmen behind to round up the rest of the bunch and get them in place pronto!
The reinforcements now came charging along, riding in a column by twos as they raced west on River Street. The pier neared but a maddening obstacle lay athwart their path: a long freight wagon moving in the same direction at moderate speed.
Good riders all, the oncoming Gun Dog column now began to come apart on command, dividing from head to rear.
The wagon was in the middle of the road with room to pass on both sides. The Gun Dog column executed a maneuver by which the double-ranked column would split in two, dividing into two separate single files.
&n
bsp; One file would pass the wagon on the left, the other on the right. Once the wagon was successfully cleared, the twin files would reunite to reform the double column and complete the ride to the pier.
The head of the column closed on the rear of the wagon, the lead rider on the column’s right peeling off to the right of the wagon, the lead rider at column left peeling off to the left of the wagon.
The next pair of riders in tandem performed the same operation, and the riders behind them, and so on, unzipping the double column into a pair of singles files fast flanking the wagon. A right smart maneuver.
The lead riders drew abreast of Crawdad Kate. Kate grinned at the rider on her left. She drew a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun out from under a blanket covering her wide lap and blew the lead horseman out of the saddle.
Then she reached over in the opposite direction and did the same to the rider on her right.
The pair of fear-maddened lead horses quickened their pace, pulling ahead.
The shotgun blasts gave the signal for the real massacre to begin. The canvas sheets covering the wagon’s hopper were thrown back, revealing a cargo of murder-minded gunmen crouched down on the floor bed rising to do mayhem.
They were a mixed band of swamper Nightrunners, River Rats, and Tonkawa Indians and breeds. There were five on the left-hand side of the wagon, five on the right. They were armed with repeating rifles, shotguns, and six-guns.
They cut loose at point blank range on the Gun Dog riders flanking them. The opening salvo sounded like the height of a Fourth of July fireworks display going off. Twin sheets of lead raked Dog riders off their horses and out of life.
Bill Longley was there, broad-brimmed hat jammed on his head, a gun in each hand, blasting away. Flaring gunfire underlit his dark-eyed face making him look like a grinning young demon from hell.
The slaughter was sudden, brutal, and thorough. Not a Gun Dog rider escaped.
Kate reined the wagon to a halt. Swamper gunmen jumped down to the ground to deliver the coup de grâce, the death stroke, to the downed Dogs.
As always when there was killing to be done, young Bill Longley was at the fore.
Seven Days to Hell Page 27