by Paul Bagdon
They came at the barn from both sides at first, but then shifted a cluster of men to the back. There was less smoke back there and our boys picked them off with almost ridiculous ease. Dansworth gathered his troops on the far side of the burning house.
“They’re gonna try a rush to the front,” one of our guys said. “They got a lotta men, even if the sonsabitches can’t shoot.”
“Drop horses an’ pick the bastids off onna ground,” a voice from the hayloft called out. “We don’t want that herd gettin’ real close.”
Arm an’ I were at a window in front of the barn. Arm nudged me with his elbow. “Now?” I didn’t need to answer. I stood an’ the two of us hustled over to the cart, one on each side, and hauled back the tarp.
The Gatling gun stood there looking like a piece of some kinda farm machinery, ’cept for the barrel out in front. I shoved a couple of cases of cartridges outta the way an’ half crouched behind the crank. All the barrels were loaded an’ ready.
The enemy swept toward us like an insane wave of gunfire, bellows an’ screams, an’ smoke from our house. I truned the crank and fired maybe eight or ten rounds. It turned stiffly but smoothly and the blaze of fire from the barrel was almost blinding. I swung the whole thing to the left an’ then began yanking on that crank. The clatter of the Gatling gun sucked in an’ swallowed all the other sounds in the fight. Horses an’ men went down like stalks of wheat cut by a sharp scythe. Arm kept loading and I kept firing.
It was a massacre, is what it was. But we hadn’t gone to them—they’d come at us to take what was ours, to burn our house, to kill us all.
Some of them spun their horses to run but I kept on cranking. My right arm was cramping from pulling that handle, but I didn’t give a damn. When I realized there was no return fire, I stopped. My face was burning from blowback an’ both eyes were tearing to clear themselves. I ran my sleeve across my eyes and was able to see a bit better.
The ground between the house an’ the barn was littered with dead men and dead horses. “Jesús,” Arm breathed.
“We okay?” I shouted out, my voice a rasp in my throat.
We hadn’t lost a man. I sat on a case of cartridges for a bit an’ then pushed myself to my feet. My balance was a little screwed up an’ my right arm felt like it’d been whacked with a bat.
“Lookit that,” I said quietly to Armando.
“Ees too many dead, no? But the horses—they are ours, no?”
“They are ours—but…yeah, they’re ours.
We’re entitled to keep what’s ours.”
“Sí.”
A few of our men moved out onto the battlefield and put bullets into the heads of those who weren’t quite dead yet. I turned away. It was a mercy, of course—what the hell could we do for them? But putting a .45 into the skull of a man on the ground twisted my gut.
“Ees no other way.”
“No,” I agreed.
A voice echoed from next to our burning house.
“You and me—now. I shoulda blown your brains out the first time I saw you. I’m talking one-on-one—in front of the house. You got the balls to face me, Walters?”
I didn’t bother to shout out an answer. Instead I walked past the Gatling gun and half the distance to the house. This, ’course, was dumb. Dansworth or any of his boys left alive could have put an end to me real easy. But, I’d thought about Dansworth an’ I didn’t think that’d happen. He was an arrogant l’il pissant—but he was good with that fancy .45 of his. I had a bit of a rep an’ Dansworth wanted it. He walked out from next to the flaming house.
He had a cigar in his mouth, off to the side, an’ he strolled as if he were going to a church meeting an’ had plenty of time to get there. He looked real fancy; it was obvious that he gave the orders but wasn’t involved in the battle.
“How many of those scum you had hiding her you lose?” Dansworth called.
“Not a one. An’ you? How many of them losers you ride with can still walk?”
“Doesn’t matter. There’s lots of them looking for work.”
“Coward work,” I said. We were walking closer together.
Dansworth took a long draw on his cigar an’ then tossed it aside. It bounced a couple of times and then lay there, smoldering.
“I hear you’re pretty good,” Dansworth said. I didn’t answer.
“I’m better. I’m going to kill you right here.”
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s get to it, then. I gotta care to my mare an’ colt.”
Dansworth pulled an’ then stopped, coughing. He spit a bit of blood at first, an’ then it gushed out like water from a good pump. My round destroyed a bunch of his teeth an’ kept on travelin’. Tell the truth, I don’t remember drawin’—not exactly. I seen his fingers move an’ I pulled an’ fired, kinda crouched down, if he was faster’n me.
He wasn’t.
The spigot of blood from Dansworth’s mouth stopped after a couple seconds. So did everything else ’bout him. Arm came up next to me.
“Maybe now the Busted Thumb is okay? We can do the business we like, no?”
“Pard,” I said, “let’s go check our horses. All the gunfire mighta riled ’em some.”
“Sí,” Arm said.
Other Leisure Books by Paul Bagdon:
OUTLAW LAWMAN
OUTLAWS
BRONC MAN
DESERTER
PARTNERS
Copyright
A LEISURE BOOK®
January 2010
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Copyright © 2010 by Paul Bagdon
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