A Town Called Fury

by William W. Johnstone

  “The two of us are the only ones who snuck into the house, but there are more men waiting outside.” He didn’t tell her that, right now, only Ezra Dixon and Zachary Morton were nearby, unless Wash had gotten back with the rest of the posse. She didn’t need to know yet that the odds against them might still be incredibly long.

  Jason wanted to press his face to the bars too and kiss Megan, or reach through the bars so that he could stroke her red hair. He wanted that physical contact to assure himself that she was real. But she would be out of that cell soon enough, he told himself. He turned to Matt, who was still fumbling with the lock on Jenny’s cell.

  “Isn’t the key there?” he asked.

  “I’ll find it, I’ll find it,” Matt snapped. “I didn’t think it would take this long—Ah!”

  Jason heard the lock click open. He looked across the corridor to the other cells, where Olympia Morelli and Abigail Krimp were watching with anxious expressions on their faces. “It’ll just be a few minutes and then we’ll have you out of there, ladies,” he assured them.

  Matt tossed the keys over to him. Jason caught them and began trying them in the lock on Megan’s cell. He was luckier than Matt had been; the third key he inserted into the padlock opened it. He swung the door open and Megan rushed out to throw herself into his arms. Jason hugged her tightly for a moment, burying his face in her thick hair.

  As wonderful as it felt to embrace Megan like that, he knew he didn’t have any time to waste. He turned away from her and hurried across the corridor. Abigail’s door was closer, so he went to work on it first, searching for the right key.

  This one took longer. While Jason was doing that, Megan picked up one of the revolvers that had been dropped by the dead guards. She averted her eyes from their corpses and stepped over to Matt and Jenny, who were still hugging each other.

  “Jenny, you’d better get one of those guns,” Megan said. “We may have to shoot our way out of here.”

  “Sh-shoot?” Jenny said. She looked at Matt.

  He nodded. “Alba won’t let you go without a fight. You’ve been through Indian battles before, Jenny. You’ll be all right.”

  Jenny managed to nod. It was true that she had been on hand for the fights with the Comanches and the Apaches, but she had spent her time loading guns for the men, not using them herself.

  Megan picked up the other guard’s revolver and pressed it into Jenny’s hands. Jenny clutched it tightly and swallowed. Her eyes were big with fear.

  Jason got Abigail’s door open. “Give me one of those shotguns,” the older redhead said as she emerged from the cell. “If any of those bastards gets in my way, he’ll get a double load of buckshot.”

  Jason unlocked the door of Olympia’s cell and gave her the other shotgun. With two Greeners and four handguns, they made a pretty formidable group, at least under normal circumstances. That much firepower wouldn’t do much good, though, in the face of Alba’s bandit horde. If it came to a pitched battle before the rest of the posse arrived, the six of them wouldn’t have a chance.

  Jason gathered the others around and said, “We need to find an out-of-the-way place to hide you women until the sun comes up. That’s when the posse will be moving in. Matt and I have to figure out some way to distract Alba and his men when that happens.”

  “Why don’t you try to take Alba prisoner?” Megan suggested. “His room is at the top of the tower.”

  That confirmed what Jason had guessed earlier, but unfortunately, it didn’t do them much good. “Alba’s probably got several bodyguards close by,” he said. “We couldn’t get to him without raising a ruckus, and that would alert the rest of the gang. We were mighty lucky to reach the four of you without having anyone spread the alarm.”

  “Why don’t the women wait right here?” Matt suggested. “The guards probably won’t be changed until morning, so no one will discover that they’re free. And they can cover the bottom of those stairs with the guns they have, no problem. If anybody starts to come down them besides us, they can blast ’em.”

  Jason thought it over for a second and then nodded. He’d had plenty of problems with Matt in the past, but he had to give the other young man credit where credit was due. Matt’s words made sense.

  “That’s a good idea. We’ll drag these corpses all the way to the end of the hall, where they can’t be seen from that first landing.”

  The women turned their eyes away from the gruesome spectacle of Jason and Matt hauling the bodies of Flores and the two dead guards down to the far end of the corridor. They couldn’t do anything about the blood Flores had spilled onto the stairs during his tumble down them, but if any of the outlaws started to descend, they might not notice that. Jason figured plenty of blood had been spilled in this old stone heap of a house since it was built many years earlier.

  “All of you get in one of the cells,” Jason told the women. “But first close all the other doors and hang the padlocks on the hasps so that they look like they’re still fastened. Then pull the door of the cell you’re in almost closed. If you’re quiet, you’ll be able to hear if anyone starts down the stairs a long time before they get here.”

  Abigail nodded in understanding. “Don’t you worry about us, Marshal,” she said. “Any of those bandits come anywhere near us, we’ll blast ’em.”

  Jason didn’t doubt it for a second. He knew Megan and Abigail were capable of keeping their wits about them and fighting for their lives. He thought Mrs. Morelli probably was too, and even Jenny seemed to have settled down some. She held onto the Colt Megan had given her, and her hand wasn’t shaking anymore.

  Jason hugged his sister and kissed her on the forehead, then turned to Megan and drew her into his embrace for a kiss on the mouth. Knowing that they might never see each other again, they each packed plenty of passion into the kiss. A few feet away, Matt was bidding farewell to Jenny in similar fashion, leading Abigail to smile and say to Olympia, “I’ll bet you wish your husband was here, hey, Mrs. Morelli?”

  Olympia shook her head. “No, I’m glad Michael’s not here. He’s a healer, not a fighter. I wouldn’t want him getting hurt by those outlaws.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s true. Everybody contributes in their own way.”

  Once the good-byes had been said, Jason and Matt headed up the stairs while the women retreated into one of the cells. Both of the young men glanced back one last time before they went out of sight.

  “They’ll be all right,” Matt said.

  “Of course they will,” Jason said.

  Both of them sounded like they were trying to convince each other, and themselves.

  They had to put any thoughts of the women out of their heads as they climbed to the ground floor of the old stone house. They heard men’s voices and laughter coming from somewhere nearby, and went the other way, trying to avoid whoever was up at this early hour of the morning. Probably an all-night drinking session or poker game, or both, was going on, Jason thought.

  They slipped along dark hallways. Candles were lit here and there and stuck on wall sconces, but the flickering light they cast was soon swallowed up by shadows. Jason found a window and peered out. The sky was gray now. It wouldn’t be long until dawn.

  Matt put a hand on Jason’s arm to stop him and sniffed the air. Jason did likewise and noticed the same thing Matt had—the smell of coffee brewing and biscuits cooking. Somewhere not far off, someone was in the kitchen getting breakfast started. The new day would be beginning soon, and with it would come the arrival of those ships bearing the Chinese warlords. Jason thought it likely those warlords would have a considerable number of fighting men with them. He and the other rescuers really needed to be out of here with the women before those potential reinforcements for Alba arrived.

  Jason tried an unlocked door, and felt his pulse quicken as he peered into a dim room that had quite a few crates and kegs stacked around it. Those containers might hold food or other supplies, but as he picked up one of the kegs and carried it out whe
re he could get a better look at it in the light of the hallway, he saw that he was holding a keg full of gunpowder, at least according to the markings on it.

  Matt hissed a warning and pushed Jason back into the room. “Somebody’s coming!”

  They retreated into the room and Jason pushed the door nearly all the way closed, leaving it ajar only a tiny crack. If the men who were approaching stopped at this storage room, the jig would be up. Jason and Matt would have to fight and probably die.

  From the sound of the footsteps, the group included several men. They were talking among themselves, and Jason heard one of the men address another as jefe—chief.

  That would be Juan Alba, Jason thought. If Alba was down here, that meant he wasn’t up in his tower room any longer. Jason reached out in the dark room, touched Matt’s arm, and whispered, “Grab a couple of those kegs of powder. We’re going up into the tower.”

  They waited until Alba and the other men had passed the room and moved on out of earshot. Then Jason eased the door open, saw that the corridor was empty, and motioned for Matt to follow him. Each of them carried two kegs of powder as they retraced their steps back toward the staircase that ran between the tower and the basement corridor where the cells were located.

  This old house was a warren of twisting and turning passageways, so a few times Jason was worried that he and Matt had gotten lost. Finally, though, they came to the staircase and recognized it as the one they had been on earlier. They started climbing, being as quiet about it as they could in case someone was up in Alba’s room at the top of the tower.

  The big room was unoccupied when they reached it. Large windows commanded a great view on all four sides of the tower. They could see far out into the Gulf, as well as down to the stable and the courtyard in front of the house.

  Jason saw something else too. At the top of the grassy slope leading to the sand dunes, something red fluttered a little in the dawn wind. Wash’s bandanna, Jason thought. He pointed it out to Matt and said, “That means the posse is ready to attack. All they’re waiting for is our signal.”

  Matt had set down one of the powder kegs. He patted the other one and said, “I reckon this is it?”

  Jason nodded and said, “That’s right.”

  The sun was about to come up like thunder.

  Chapter 30

  Jason raised the window overlooking the courtyard while Matt tore strips off the sheet on Alba’s opulent bed and twisted them together to make a fuse. Jason used his knife to gouge a small hole in the top of the keg. When Matt forced the strip of twisted cloth through the hole, it made a crude fuse. An oil lamp was burning on the table next to the bed, its flame turned low. Matt carried the keg over to it and looked at Jason.

  “Ready?”

  Jason nodded. Matt held the end of the fuse in the flame until it was burning. Then he tossed the keg to Jason, who stood beside the open window.

  Jason caught the keg, turned, and threw it out the window, putting plenty of strength behind the throw so that the keg sailed high over the courtyard, arching through the air. As he watched it, he wondered if the members of the posse could see the burning fuse. Even if they couldn’t, they would know soon enough that the time had come to launch the attack.

  The keg hit the ground, bounced a couple of times, and rolled to a stop against the gate. It was a perfect landing, exactly how Jason wanted it, except for one thing.

  The fuse had gone out before it reached the powder.

  “Damn it!” Matt exclaimed. He had hurried over to the window to stand next to Jason. “What do we do now?”

  Jason spotted movement in the courtyard below. One of the bandits, a Mexican in a big sombrero, was walking toward the gate. The man must have seen the keg fall and wanted to find out what was going on.

  Jason jerked his pistol from its holster. He wished he had his rifle, but he had left it with his horse. The Colt would just have to do.

  “We’ll have to set it off this way,” he said as he lined up his shot. Beside him, Matt got the idea and yanked his own gun out. Both of them aimed at the keg and fired, Jason first, but Matt so closely behind him that the two shots sounded almost like one.

  Down below, the bandido recognized the keg for what it was, heard the shots, and let out an alarmed yell as he tried to turn and run.

  He was too late. The powder keg exploded with a thunderous roar and a gush of smoke and flame. The heavy gates were blown outward and ripped off their hinges, and the force of the blast picked up the fleeing outlaw and flung him ahead like a rag doll. His sombrero flew in the air and his arms and legs flailed helplessly for a second before he slammed face-first into the wall of the house. The impact burst his head open like a melon. He left a bloody streak behind him as he slid down the stone surface.

  Jason and Matt looked toward the sand dunes and saw the members of the posse gallop into view, racing toward the house. Outlaws poured out of the stronghold in response to the explosion. As they gathered in the courtyard in consternation, Jason said to Matt, “Throw another keg down there!”

  Matt grabbed one of the powder kegs and heaved it out the window. Jason tracked it with his Colt and squeezed off two shots, missing with the first one. But the second bored into the keg and set off the powder inside just as it landed in the middle of the startled outlaws. Several of them were blown to pieces by the blast. Arms and legs and other body parts flew high into the air, trailing a shower of blood. Others were cut down by the deadly spray of splinters from the wooden keg. Most of the men who weren’t killed outright by the explosion were knocked off their feet.

  Jason saw Wash, Dixon, Zachary Morton, and the other members of the posse as they charged through the blasted gates into the courtyard, firing all around them as they galloped in. Most of the outlaws who were caught in the open were still too stunned from the explosion to put up much of a fight. The men from Fury cut them down. Bullets scythed through the ranks of the bandits.

  Not all the members of the gang had come charging out into the courtyard, though. Some of them were still in the house, and they opened fire on the posse. Jason saw a couple of the men topple from their saddles. The others leaped off their horses and hunted cover. Within moments a pitched battle had developed, the posse men laying siege to the old house and the remaining outlaws defending it.

  Matt grabbed Jason’s arm and yelled, “Look!” He pointed out the big window on the other side of the room, toward the Gulf.

  Jason turned and saw the ship sweeping over the waves toward the shore. It had to be the vessel belonging to the Chinese warlords. Jason didn’t know much about sailing, but he estimated that it wouldn’t be long before the ship reached the stronghold. There had to be a dock of some sort at the base of the cliff, with stairs leading up from it. If the warlords and their men charged up the stairs and entered the fight on Alba’s side, that would swing the odds and put the members of the posse in even greater danger than they already were.

  “We’ve got to end this fight in a hurry,” Jason said. “Grab those kegs and come on.”

  Caught up in the excitement of battle, Matt forgot about his natural inclination to argue with Jason and did as he was told, picking up the kegs and following Jason down the staircase.

  They met several of the outlaws charging up the stairs. Some of the gang must have figured out that there were enemies in the tower and were coming to flush them out, not knowing that Jason and Matt were already on their way down. As the two groups almost collided, Matt called out, “Fury! Get down!”

  Jason dropped out of the way as Matt heaved one of the kegs downward as hard as he could. It crashed against the chest of the outlaw in the lead and knocked him backward. He got tangled up with the other men, and suddenly all four of the bandits were tumbling down the stairs.

  Jason and Matt followed, the guns in their fists flaming as they fired into the group of outlaws. With all that lead flying around, Jason hoped a stray slug didn’t hit the powder keg Matt was still carrying. If it did, they would
both be blown to Kingdom Come.

  They leaped over the sprawled, bloody bodies of the outlaws, all of whom were either dead or wounded so bad that they were out of the fight, and continued down the stairs. Jason picked up the keg Matt had thrown and carried it with him. When they reached the ground floor, they followed the sound of shooting to a large chamber where the outlaws were using windows and rifle slits to fire at the members of the posse.

  Jason and Matt paused just around a corner to reload, then exchanged grim nods. They leaped out and rolled the powder kegs across the room toward the outlaws. Their shots added to the deafening roar of gunfire in the room.

  That roar turned into a tremendous blast a second later as both kegs exploded when the bullets fired by Jason and Matt slammed into them. The two young men from Fury jumped back just in time. When they looked around the corner, clouds of smoke and dust blinded them, and their ears were ringing so much from the explosion they couldn’t tell if anyone was still shooting or not. Gradually, though, the dust settled and their hearing came back, and then they could tell that the double explosion had cleared the room of defenders. The bodies of the outlaws littered the floor, some whole, some in pieces, but all bloody and motionless.

  The battle was over.

  “Go tell Wash and the others to gather their horses and get ready to ride!” Jason told Matt, not really aware that he was shouting because his hearing wasn’t completely back to normal yet. “I’ll get the women!”

  Matt nodded and ran through the devastation toward the door that led out into the courtyard. Jason went the other way, toward the staircase that would take him down to the cells.

  He kept his eyes open as he hurried along the stone passageways. There could still be outlaws on the loose inside the house, although it seemed certain that most of the gang had been wiped out by the three explosions and the battle with the posse.

  When he reached the stairs, he clattered down them with his gun clutched in his hand. He ducked around the last landing, crouching low in case an enemy was waiting for him. The staircase was empty, though, so Jason hurried on down to the corridor where the cells were located.