Stepping awkwardly into the room, the sheriff’s experienced eye instantly took in the situation. A frightened Raya and Mary Alcott stood to one side. In front of him was a black-haired, dark woman who held a rifle pointed at him. Intent on protecting Raya and Mary, Harker brought his gun to bear on the beautiful outlaw.
He was squeezing the trigger when the unexpected happened. Suddenly lashing out, Raya hit his gun arm. The impact caused Harker to lose his balance. The broom handle slid sideways on the polished floor, and his gun fell from his hand as he toppled sideways. Hitting the floor in an embarrassing sitting position, the sheriff looked up into the dark muzzle of a rifle and the sardonic smile of the female outlaw.
Vejar was agonizingly aware that he had no gun, and any plan he might come up with would be impractical because Raya was held hostage. He asked Klugg, ‘Give me a few minutes to talk to Anstey. How else are you going to get into the bank? You’d need dynamite to blow that heavy door off its hinges.’
With a cynical chuckle, Klugg said, ‘All that interests that hombre is money.’ He added grudgingly, ‘Go ahead then, Fallon.’
It was ironic that Anstey had as much a hunger for money as Klugg had, yet Vejar believed that deep down Hiram was a decent man. Though the banker regarded the boys with shotguns as a safeguard against his bank being robbed, it wasn’t likely that he could bear the thought of a girl being shot in cold blood because of the stance that he was taking.
‘I’m coming up to the door alone, Hiram,’ Vejar called in warning.
‘You won’t make me change my mind,’ Anstey’s voice said defiantly.
‘I think that I will,’ Vejar said. ‘They are holding Raya Kennedy captive, Hiram. If we don’t go along with them they will shoot her. They’ve already killed one girl hostage.’
‘Was that the shot that I heard earlier?’ Anstey enquired querulously.
‘Yes. The best thing you can do is open this door, Hiram.’
‘Which will mean my bank being robbed,’ Anstey complained.
‘I give you my word that I will do everything in my power to get your money back,’ Vejar pledged.
After what to Vejar seemed an eternity, Anstey said despondently, ‘I’ll take your word on that, Vejar. Now stand back.’
Vejar took a few steps backwards as he heard the bank door first being unbolted and then unlocked. Coming up behind him in his lithe, cat-like way of moving, Klugg waited with Vejar. The door opened a little and in his urgency to enter the bank, Klugg was passing Vejar when the blast of a shotgun came from inside. Reeling back, the right side of his face peppered with shot and beginning to bleed, Klugg prepared to fire into the bank through the gap in the door.
Overwhelmed by fear for the two boys and Anstey inside, Vejar momentarily forgot Raya’s perilous situation, and leapt at Klugg. He had one arm around the outlaw-leader’s neck, when Jack came from behind to smash him hard over the head with the barrel of a Peacemaker.
Collapsing as unbearable pain filled his head, Vejar heard another blast from a shotgun as he fell unconscious to the boardwalk.
‘I’m so sorry, George.’
Harker heard Raya’s whispered apology as, with as much dignity as possible, he clambered up from the floor. Feeling weakness threatening to overcome him yet again, he was in a cold sweat. But he held the outlaw woman’s dark-eyed gaze, defying her to fire the rifle. An awed Raya and Mary held their breath as the sheriff stood waiting fearlessly.
A sudden movement by Gloria Malone brought gasps from the other two girls. In a practised, fluid movement, Gloria let her right arm drop, using a flip of her hand to twirl the rifle, then caught it so that the butt and not the muzzle pointed at Harker.
Holding out the weapon to him, she said, ‘I guess my heart is no longer in this, Sheriff.’
‘Then you are under arrest, ma’am,’ Harker said, as he took the rifle from her.
Gloria gave a reverse shrug, a slumping of shoulders that signalled her indifference.
*
Turning away from the teashop window, disbelief registered on his ruddy features, Henry Drake announced to the others, ‘Dang me if Harker isn’t coming back with Raya, Mary Alcott, and what I assume is the woman desperado.’
The others clustered around him excitedly to watch the man and three women cross the street. They greeted Harker and the two Yancey women as they came in through the door. Face pale from exertion, the sheriff passed the rifle to Randall and pointed to Gloria Malone, saying. ‘Keep her under guard at all times, Walter. When things are right out there I’ll take her down to the jail and lock her in a cell.’
‘There’s been some shooting at the bank, George,’ Dr Thurston said, helping the exhausted sheriff into a chair.
‘I heard it,’ Harker answered. ‘But I’m not up to doing anything about it right now.’
Henry Drake complimented him. ‘You’ve done plenty, George.’
Vejar regained consciousness to find the Jack outlaw lying dead in the street beside him. The huge area of Jack’s chest that was bloodied told Vejar that he had died from a shotgun wound. Everything around him was still and quiet. The door of the bank was open. Raising himself up on to his knees, Vejar lowered his head to send a rush of blood to aid his spinning brain.
After a minute or so in this position, he got up and made his unsteady way into the bank. An ashen-faced Hiram Anstey sat slumped in a chair behind his huge desk. Eyes staring fixedly, the banker was speechless, pointing with a shaking hand at a safe that was open and empty.
The lad named Len was sprawled on the floor with his upper back against a wall. A cursory glance told Vejar the boy was dead. Jonathan was lying face down across the teller’s desk. Turning him over gently, Vejar saw blood pumping thickly from a stomach wound. Laying the boy carefully on the floor, Vejar ripped a hand towel from a hook on the wall, folded it into a pad and pressed it against Jonathan’s wound to staunch the bleeding.
‘Hiram,’ he shouted. ‘Get hold of yourself and come over here.’
It took three more angry shouts from Vejar before the banker came over shakily to look at the bloody pad in distaste before Vejar could get him to hold it in place. Then Vejar looked around the bank for a weapon, but Klugg and Staley had taken the shotguns as well as the money.
‘I’ll send Doc Thurston along as soon as possible,’ Vejar told Anstey.
Going out of the bank, he turned down an alleyway that took him to the rear of the buildings, aware that another passageway would bring him out to where the outlaws’ horses were hitched. Vejar hurried, desperately wanting to find Klugg, Staley and Gloria before they could leave town. Though he was unarmed, he accepted that this was a time for action.
Nearing the end of the passage, he saw the outlaws’ four horses still hitched. Mitchell Staley stood packing bulging moneybags into the saddle-bags. Neither Klugg nor Gloria was anywhere in sight. Moving silently, Vejar came within a few feet away from Staley. The outlaw was so intent on his task that he was oblivious to Vejar’s presence.
Vejar was taking a few more steps, when Staley sensed someone behind him and turned. Vegar’s left hand grabbed and held Staley’s wrist in a vice-like grip, while using the edge of his right hand to deliver a powerful blow to the throat. Eyes protruding so that it seemed they would burst from their sockets, Staley coughed repeatedly until the coughing changed into a wheezing, choking sound. A pitiless Vejar kneed his adversary in the groin. Stepping back as Staley began to fall, Vejar lashed out with his right foot. His boot caught the collapsing Staley full in the face with such force that it sent the outlaw’s head back, snapping his neck. The sharp crack of the breaking vertebrae was resounding in the street when the louder reporter of a six-shooter drowned it out.
A bullet that missed Vejar by less than an inch, entered the head of the horse nearest to him. Shrieking out in pain and panic, the horse reared up on its hind legs, flaying the air with its front hoofs. The diversion gave Vejar the opportunity to snatch the dead Staley’s gun from its holst
er. The horse fell with its head suspended from the hitching rail by reins that had twisted around its neck. One of its eyes was just a black hole that slowly wept blood, while the remaining eye stared accusingly at Vejar as the animal breathed its last.
Vejar forced his attention back on whoever had fired at him. The street was deserted. Klugg had to be in hiding, standing guard over Staley while he stashed the stolen money away. He had been unable to fire at Vejar without the danger of hitting Staley.
Uncertainty about Raya’s safety deterred Vejar from searching for Klugg. Holding Staley’s .45, Vejar moved into the street waiting for Klugg to show himself. But the outlaw leader stayed hidden as an alert Vejar made his way to the teashop. Astonished to see both Raya and Gloria there, Vejar was embarrassed when Raya impulsively rushed forward to hug him in full view of George Harker. But Harker shook him by the hand while Henry Drake explained how the sheriff had rescued Raya and captured the female outlaw.
Vejar told them, ‘Either Jonathan or Len got the outlaw with a shotgun.’
‘Are the boys safe and well?’ Randall anxiously enquired.
‘I’m sorry, Randall,’ Vejar replied. ‘Len is dead, and Jonathan badly hurt.’ He turned to Thurston. ‘You’ll be at risk, Doc, but will you come to the bank with me?’
Replying without hesitation, Thurston said, ‘I’ll fetch my bag.’
‘I’ll take John down to the bank. You are needed here, Fallon.’ Harker said.
‘No.’ Gloria unexpectedly spoke up. ‘You are in no shape to deal with Klugg, Sheriff. He’s as quick and as deadly as a riled rattler.’
‘Whose side are you really on, Gloria?’ Raya asked wonderingly.
‘Right now I’m not sure,’ Gloria answered with a self-deprecating grin.
‘Gloria spoke the truth, George. You look after things here,’ Vejar said, picking up his own gun, spinning the chamber before holstering it. ‘The women must stay in the church.’
‘Until it’s over,’ Harker agreed. ‘I’ll stay by the window with my rifle and pick Klugg off if he tries to collect the horses and saddle-bags across the street.’
‘Don’t underestimate Klugg, George, he’s clever,’ Vejar advised, as Thurston returned with his bag.
‘Take great care,’ Raya called after Vejar, as he and the doctor went out of the door.
When the door had closed behind the pair, Raya walked over to join the sheriff at the window. She enquired, ‘I am sorry about what I did in the church, George, but Gloria wouldn’t harm us.’
‘Don’t worry about that.’ Harker’s eyes took on a distant look as he said. ‘Raya?’
‘Yes?’
‘Fallon Vejar coming back has kind of changed things, hasn’t it?’
Deliberately misconstruing what he’d said, Raya said, ‘Yancey certainly hasn’t known another day like today.’
‘What I’m saying, Raya,’ Harker went on, ‘is that I won’t hold you to anything.’
Keenly aware of her own muddled feelings about Vejar, Raya was saved from further talk on the subject as Klugg boldly emerged from the passageway beside the church. Startled, Harker was raising his rifle when Gloria spoke from the centre of the room.
‘Lower your rifle, Sheriff.’
Raya saw that Gloria had picked up the dead outlaw’s .45 that Vejar had left on a table, and was aiming it at Harker. Randall, Drake and the Chuas watched in shocked helplessness.
‘What are you doing, Gloria?’ Raya gasped.
‘I won’t see Ken Klugg shot down in the street like a dog,’ Gloria answered.
Lowering his rifle, Harker used a movement of his eyes to have Raya look to her left out of the window. Her heart missed a beat as she saw Vejar and Dr Thurston heading their way.
A feeling that was a blend of expectation and apprehension had been growing stronger in Vejar on his way along the street, reaching a peak as the teashop neared. His reflexes came instantly into play when he heard Harker’s voice shout a warning.
‘Fallon. Klugg is in the mouth of the alley beside the church.’
‘Get into Chua’s place fast, Doc,’ he ordered, Thurston who had removed a bullet from Jonathan, whom they had left at the bank.
Halting, Vejar turned to face the passageway and Ken Klugg. The right side of his face was swollen and as red as raw meat. Taking a step forward, Klugg said, ‘This hasn’t been a good day, Fallon.’
‘Not for you, Ken,’ Vejar agreed. ‘I guess you’ve lost.’
Shaking his head, Klugg said, ‘No, that’s what is bothering me. There is no winner or loser here, and that just ain’t right.’
‘What are you saying, Ken?’ Vejar asked, as they shortened the distance between them. ‘It’s simple, Fallon. There’s my money there, packed on my horses. The problem is that I can’t take it because you will stop me, and I can’t let you stop me.’
‘So, this is a showdown between you and me?’
‘That’s what I’m saying,’ Klugg said with a nod. ‘But I want a gentleman’s agreement. If you get me, then I want to be buried on that little hill just outside of town. If I get you, I want to be free to take my money and ride out of here.’
Keeping his eyes on Klugg, Vejar called to the sheriff, ‘Do you hear that, George?’
‘I hear, Fallon. I’m out of this, anyway. The Malone girl is holding a gun on me.’
Old loyalties die hard, Vejar acknowledged, as he thought of Gloria. Then the situation he was in suddenly hit Vejar hard. This was a long way from being the first time he had faced a man in a shoot-out, but Klugg’s speed on the draw meant there was nothing between them. Vejar was vividly aware that within minutes one of them would die.
Klugg made his move, lightning fast. Vejar drew, certain that he had shaded the outlaw leader, but a bullet hit him, the impact knocking him off balance. Staying on his feet, Vejar realized that he had been hit in the left shoulder. There was no pain yet, but when he put his hand to the shoulder it came away covered in blood. Bracing himself for Klugg’s finishing shot, he turned, determined to be facing the man who killed him. But Klugg lay dead in the dust. A small stain on the front of the outlaw leader’s shirt made it evident that Vejar’s bullet had found his heart. Clutching his shoulder as pain kicked in, Vejar walked to the teashop, feet dragging.
Early the following morning, Sheriff Harker made his way towards the Alcotts’ home. There was a slight break in the rhythm of his walk as he came closer to the house. It was as though the sheriff had lost confidence in himself. Yesterday had ended better than anyone could have wished. Randall’s nephew was already on the mend, and the bank raid had failed. But the death of young Len had marred the day. His own injuries all but forgotten, he had locked up Gloria Malone in the jail while Doc Thurston had attended Vejar’s shoulder wound. That wound had been serious enough for the doctor to insist that Vejar remain in the Chua place for the night.
Herbert Alcott opened the door to Harker, inviting him in. He found Raya in the kitchen cooking breakfast. Turning to greet him with a smile, her face paled and her expression changed when she saw the look on his face.
‘What is it, George?’ she enquired, her voice shaky.
Harker beckoned to have her walk out to the front door with him, not wanting any of the Alcott family see Raya’s reaction to his reply. He told her, ‘Fallon had gone when I got up this morning.’
‘Oh,’ Raya said unhappily. Then she brightened. ‘I’ve heard that he killed the Poole brothers. He probably wanted to get away because of that.’
‘That was self-defence. Fallon wouldn’t have faced any charges,’ Harker explained. ‘There is something else, Raya. I found Gloria Malone’s cell unlocked this morning, and she had gone. Fallon had a key to the jail.’
Raya bit her bottom lip and fought back tears as understanding dawned on her. She looked to where the worn trail out of Yancey meandered off to the foothills. She wondered wistfully, ‘Do you think that we’ll ever see either of them again, George?’
‘Maybe not. But the
y are two of a kind, Raya, and I’m sure we’ll often hear about them,’ Harker said, tentatively placing an arm round her shoulders. He waited anxiously, then tightened his arm as Raya cuddled against him.
By the same author
Badge of Dishonour
Breakout at Salem Gaol
Canyon of Crooked Shadows
Danger in the Desert
Death Dances at Yuma
He Rode With Quantrill
Logan’s Legacy
Midnight Lynching
Missouri Blood Trail
Railroad Rangers
San Carlos Horse Soldier
The Forgotten Man
The Hunting Man
The Long Journey
The Peaks of San Jacinto
The Protector
Copyright
© Terry Murphy 2006
First published in Great Britain 2006
This ebook edition 2012
ISBN978 0 7090 9828 7 (epub)
ISBN978 0 7090 9829 4 (mobi)
ISBN978 0 7090 9830 0 (pdf)
ISBN978 0 7090 7911 8 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of Terry Murphy to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Broken Star (2006) Page 10