by Bill Russo
The shots kept coming at the brave Ivory, with Croaker and Fingers edging closer to him by the second.
Soon the death shots were fired – not at Big Blake Ivory, but at Croaker Kelly; who fell while clutching his chest where a blossom of red rapidly stained his shirt. Chief Don Jose Alvarado was the marksman. He had been upstairs with Big Red. After hearing the gunfire, he threw his pants on and joined the fray as quickly as he could.
The last gangster standing, Fingers Dugan, had strangle holds on two girls as he backed his way out of the piano lounge, towards the door.
Frustrated, Big Blake didn’t have a clean shot so he held his fire. Don Jose also was unable to discharge his weapon for fear of hitting the girls.
Fingers kept backing up towards the exit. He was within twenty feet of it, when young Chalky Hidalgo blocked the doorway; his fist filled with his white handled Remington 1875 SSA, Single Action Army revolver.
Chalky fired high. The slug went soaring into the ceiling - exactly where the sandy haired deputy had intended it to go. Startled at the gunfire behind him, the retreating killer relaxed his grip. The two girls were able to break away. Freed of the fear of hitting the women, Chalky put his next round directly into the feeble gray matter of Fingers Dugan.
“Nice shooting Chalk!” said a grateful Don Jose. “How’d you know what was going on? With the storm outside, you couldn’t have heard the shooting.”
“As soon as you went downstairs, Miss Red telephoned me at the jailhouse,” responded Chalky. “She said you might need some help.”
Chapter Thirteen: The Rainy Night Flight
While the sheriff, Chalky, and two more recently arrived deputies started the grim task of identifying bodies and tending to the wounded, Divitt Brant joined his gang in the opposite wing of the building.
“There’s been a little adjustment of the plan boys. Forget about the piano lounge and the gambling room – it’s too risky. We’re just going to grab the proceeds from the main bar and then duck out the back door. Have your guns ready but don’t shoot unless I give the order.”
“What’s up?” queried Dart, “Why the change? And if we go out the back, how are the other guys going to be able to join up with us?”
“I think that the crossfire coming from the other side means that the citizens in the East Room fought back. Fingers and the other two are either dead or captured. Unless we want the same, we are going to have to move fast. We’ll walk up to the bar with our guns drawn, make them hand over the receipts and make a fast getaway.”
Without encountering opposition the four remaining gangsters collected five sacks of folding money and then three others that were bulging with gold coins. Clutching the loot and shooting indiscriminately into the panicked crowd, they fled the building following Brant’s lead to the getaway car.
The continuous, heavy rain was turning the road into a bathtub. With floodwaters edging up to the hubcaps of the whitewall tires, the beefy Packard grudgingly slogged down Main Street. Heading towards Pistol Hill, Brant intended to connect with Interstate 44 and then on to Route 35 towards Texas and Mexico.
Straining to be heard over the din caused by the pounding rain beating on the car, Dart shouted…“So Divitt, you’re pretty sure that Fingers and the others were caught and killed?”
“Sure Dart. From all those gunshots back and forth, it’s obvious that they got into trouble.”
“And that’s why we changed the plan?” Dart queried, his face presenting a look of doubt.
“Course that’s why we changed it. No sense us getting croaked too!”
“The only problem with what you’re saying Divitt, is that you moved the car behind the building and it was supposed to be out front. It seems like maybe you figured from the beginning that those guys were not going to make it out alive. Looks like you sacrificed them.”
“Well what if I did!” Divitt suddenly raged. “The place was too big. There was no way we could have knocked if off without using Fingers, Croaker, and Tea as a diversion.”
“You guys have got nothing to complain about,” he added. “We’ve got probably ten grand or more and now we only have to split four ways, not seven.”
For the moment nothing further was said, but Dart, Kid Utica and Smoke Tarrette shared a single thought – Brant had callously sacrificed the other three members of the gang.
They recalled too, the stories they had heard of how Brant had killed his partner Roll Stockdale by cheating in a duel. Without speaking, each knew the mind of the other two. They were not going to give Divitt Brant a chance to double cross them.
The powerful car inched forward - weighed down by its four occupants and impeded by a road that had become a waterway.
Ultimately, about half way up Pistol Hill, the mighty twin six cylinder motor could push the vehicle no further.
Brant gunned the accelerator but it only made the wheels spin so fast in their muddy ruts that the rubber began to melt.
The car began to creep sideways on the road, swerving toward the narrow shoulder leading to a drop-off of better than 500 feet.
Realizing that the Packard had become useless, Brant ordered the others to pick up the loot and start walking. It took less than five minutes to realize that staying with the vehicle until the weather cleared was a better option.
Back at the Whiz Bang House, the sheriff had discovered that the carnage in the East Room was nothing more than an inhuman smokescreen, touched off so that the other members of the gang could easily plunder the rest of the establishment.
As he was sorting out the dead while Doc Galen tended to the wounded, Sheriff Don Jose Alvarado promised that he’d hunt down whoever was responsible for the bloodbath and have them hanging in the town square by Sunday night.
With Chalky and Alvarado in the lead car, a quickly organized posse of 14 automobiles containing two persons in each, fired up their engines in front of the Whiz Bang Theater and took off in pursuit of the killers.
In single file the motorcade and its band of 28 angry men struggled to make headway against a swiftly moving river that hours ago, before the rain, had been Main Street. The straining cars thrashed through hubcap deep waters, leaving behind a bubbly, foaming wake.
At midnight, three hours after the firing of the first shots, the posse was creeping towards the half way point of Pistol Hill. The rain had lessened and there were breaks in the clouds, allowing for an occasional glimpse of a moon so new that it was barely a sliver.
Less than a quarter mile in front of them, splayed on the side of the soggy road dangerously near the drop off, was the Packard with the four fugitives.
“Hey Divitt, the rain has almost stopped. Why don’t you start the engine and see if we can get moving again?” suggested Kid Utica.
Smoke Tarrette added his weight to the recommendation.
“The road is still too muddy,” grunted Divitt Brant. “We have to wait another four or five hours before it will be safe enough to travel.”
“If we try to move the car now, we could end up slipping off the ledge,” cautioned Dart Davis. “I’ll get out of the car and take a closer look.”
His shoes squishing into ankle deep mud, the wiry Dart crept gingerly towards the rear tires to see how near to the edge they actually were. As he noted that the car was less than two feet from the cliff, he saw something else.
In the darkness below, it looked like somebody had hung an enormous string of Christmas tree lights. A long unbroken set of twinkling white circles was draped across the roadway less than a mile away. Quickly Dart realized that the glowing pinpoints of illumination were car headlights – the posse!
“Brant, Kid, Smoke! Get out here quick!”
As the trio spilled from the Packard, Dart explained the state of affairs.
“The only cars that would be out tonight are ones that are looking for us,” he reasoned.
Taking command of the troupe, he ordered the others, including Divitt Brant,
to mask the car.
“Cover all mirrors, headlights, and anything that can reflect light,” he ordered. “We have the advantage because we can see them and they don’t know that we’re here. We’ll wait until they get within about fifty feet and then open fire.”
When the job was done they counted their weapons. Between them they tallied 12 handguns and several hundred rounds of ammunition. Smoke Tarrette spoke for all of them when he said he wished they had thought to bring along a few machine guns.
“We’ll be okay,” said Divitt Brant hopefully, brushing aside the rain from his hairy, bearlike face.
“Brant’s right,” Dart affirmed, “There’s no light coming from that new ‘sliver moon’ so there’s almost total darkness. We’ll be invisible and have the element of surprise on our side. Let’s get set up down the road a bit, where there are trees to hide behind. Brant and I will stand about thirty feet apart and shoot from one side of the road. Smoke; you and Kid Utica will do the same on the other side. Put a gun in each hand and use ‘em both.
They don’t know how many men we’ve got. They’ll figure that they are up against at least eight guys.”
Chapter Fourteen: Showdown on Pistol Hill
Like a crawling funeral procession the fourteen car posse inched up Pistol Hill fighting against the pounding, wind-swept rainstorm. The lead vehicle, piloted by Don Jose Alvarado, began to cough and sputter.
“What’s wrong Sheriff? Why is the car conking out?” The questions came from deputy Chalky Hidalgo sitting in the passenger side, his Remington poised and ready for action.
“It’s the rain Chalk. The water has soaked the ignition wires. We’ve been acting as a plow, taking the worst of the deluge and shielding the other vehicles. We’re going to have to fall back. I’ll pull over and let Bart Tremmers’ car take the lead.”
After a pause of a few minutes to discuss the problem, Deputy Tremmers put his vehicle in the lead position. At his side was the other regular deputy, Aaron Jones.
Under the partial cover afforded by a grove of Redbud trees, the engine wires of the sheriff’s car dried slightly. The hacking and belching of the Model T’s four cylinders began to diminish as the sturdy little auto fought to regain its full complement of 20 horsepower.
Flicking his headlamps by a prearranged signal, a slot opened up and Don Jose slid his Ford into the seventh space of the slow moving line.
“When we get to the top of the hill, Bart is going to stop and we will retake the lead,” Alvarado explained to Chalky.
The sheriff had no idea that he would not be reaching the crest, for his quarry was just ahead with guns ready, waiting to attack. As the pinpoints of light beneath them gradually became larger, the four desperadoes fortified themselves behind Redbud trees. The Redbuds, with their small trunks and arching limbs were poor barriers against bullets, but the hardy little 30 foot trees were the only cover available on the narrow shoulders of the steep roadway.
Divitt Brant and Dart Davis secreted themselves to the left of the oncoming procession. Smoke and the Kid were veiled by the slim arbors to the right. The lead car inched closer to the groves shielding the fugitives.
The torment had stopped and the sky was clear but opaque. The new ‘sliver moon’ failed to send even a tiny slice of illumination that could warn the posse of the imminent ambush.
When the lead Model T was so near that it was about to pass beyond him, Divitt Brant opened fire. Alternating rounds triggered from both his hands quickly found homes in the flesh of Deputies Tremmers and Jones who died without having a chance to clear leather.
Almost before the sharp report of Brant’s pistols faded away, the two men in the second car quickly met the same fate when Dart Davis opened up on them.
By that time the two dozen men in the remaining twelve vehicles had their weapons drawn and were desperately, blindly firing through open car windows, in the general direction of the shots.
In the confusion, Kid Utica and Smoke Tarrette threaded their way downwards through the stand of slim trees to launch an attack on the occupants of the third and fourth cars. Although able to squeeze off a few shots, four more citizens of the posse came to the same quick death that took the first four.
From his position in the seventh car, Sheriff Alvarado realized the intent of the killers to pick off the posse one car at a time. He jumped from the Ford and dashed for the protection of the Redbud trees, ordering everyone else to do the same.
Don Jose’s decision to seek shelter in the grove leveled the battlefield and halted the sitting-duck slaughter which had claimed eight of his force of 28.
During the next few hours shots rang back and forth between the quartet of killers and the posse. After four more of his number had been killed and three wounded by the blind, but lucky firing of the gang, Don Jose ordered a retreat.
He sent everyone except for himself and Chalky back to Whiz Bang City.
Just before the first rays of the dawning morning began to brighten the distant horizon, the caravan of retreating vehicles inched its way backwards down the hill. With their lights off, and a volley of cover provided by the pistols of Chalky and Don Jose, the procession made good its escape with no further bloodshed.
The sheriff was fairly sure that the efforts of his posse had claimed the life of at least one of the killers. He didn’t know how many there were, but he reasoned that there must be about five in the gang – at most six.
The old soldier in him prompted the ‘Don’ to remember his days with Pancho Villa. The general’s force of 10,000 men had been unable to claim victory that day. Almost half of Villa’s men were killed in the melee and the other half either surrendered or turned traitor – leaving Villa with just 200 men still faithful to him.
The 200, led by Don Jose himself, managed to do more damage to the enemy than had the whole army. It was the bee sting attack that he organized, that turned the trick.
Don Jose ordered the posse back because there were too many men, presenting too large a target in too narrow a space. He was certain that he and Chalky stood a better chance by themselves.
He formed a plan and started to tell his deputy about it when he realized there were two cars in the mucky road, yet he had sent back all but his own Model T.
The door of the second car swung open and a large, dark man emerged with a six-gun in each hand.
“I started to leave, but I got to thinking you might need me.”
It was Big Blake Ivory. He had chosen to return and fight along with the sheriff.
“Why’d you send us back Don Jose?” wondered Ivory.
“The men were ready to fold Blake. Almost half our posse was killed and those still alive were terrified. With the arrival of dawn, there would have been too many visible targets. We’d have lost six or eight more men in less than an hour. We’re better off with a smaller, focused group.”
“I get it Don Jose. Before the sun starts hitting us here, I’m going to try and sneak up the hill a little bit and see if I can learn anything about what we’re up against.”
Before the sheriff could say a word against the plan, the brave piano man had already begun silently slithering towards the killers.
Moving as nimbly as a tight-rope walker despite being well over six feet tall with a bulk of more than 260 pounds, Blake threaded through the trees until he saw the outline of a hulking Packard luxury sedan.
Ducking behind a clump of Redbud trees, his sharp eyes scanned the area. It was a few minutes before daybreak – the time where there are no shadows and no direct light: only a glow emanating from the atmosphere picking up rays from below the horizon and sending them indirectly towards the earth.
In the distinctive, ephemeral dimness he spied the shapes of three men silhouetted against the brightening Redbud grove.
Each of Blake’s large hands grasped a Remington 1875 – a white handled revolver just like the weapon favored by Don Jose. Carefully he sighted down the bar
rels, lining them up with the two closest figures.
He pulled the triggers and waited for the sound of the gun and the clouds of powder smoke. He heard nothing but empty clicks. Both weapons had misfired due to being soaked during the rainstorms and the flooding.
Dropping quickly to the ground Blake scampered back towards Don Jose and Chalky. He was expecting to be fired upon but apparently the noise of the trigger clicks had been cloaked by the brisk wind.
Soon, the gun toting piano player reached Don Jose and gave a report of what had happened.
“Unless somebody was hiding out somewhere else, there are only three of them,” smiled Don Jose. “That makes things pretty even. Good work Blake. After we make sure that our weapons are still in working order, we’ll start up the hill and capture or kill that trio.”
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Meanwhile back at the side of the Packard, the three silhouettes, who were Dart Davis, Divitt Brant and Kid Utica, were still waiting for the road to dry out enough to drive off.
The fourth gang member, Smoke Terrette was killed shortly after the start of the shooting.
Brant was in no hurry to leave and Dart agreed that they should wait a while longer before attempting to mount the hill. He pointed out that the sky was darkening again and the rains might resume.
“We’re better off in this spot for a while Kid, instead of chancing getting the car stuck for good somewhere else,”
Nervous and jumpy, Kid Utica wanted to set out immediately. He started bemoaning the history of Pistol Hill.
“You don’t know it Brant but the sheriff of Whiz Bang city is even colder than you. There used to be a lot of robberies up here. It was easy money. You could just sit on the hill and wait for some old clunker to stall out at the top and grab some easy money.
After a couple of the suckers got knocked off, that sheriff started lying in wait and when he captured some of the guys robbing the cars, he strung ‘em up here right on the spot. No trial. - no chance to escape.
He just hung those guys instantly and then left ‘em swinging till they rotted and fell off the ropes. I don’t want to end up like that I’m getting out!”
Brant listened with increasing anger as the Kid got more and more agitated. Finally, Divitt looked over at Kid Utica and said, “Okay. You can go,” as he drew his pistol and shot the Kid three times in the head.