Eight Hours to Die

by William W. Johnstone

  And Wellman didn’t doubt for a second that Dav would follow through on that threat if they defied him. Dav had lusted after Lucinda Hammond for a long time, but there were plenty of women in the world and he would give her up if that was what it took to get what he really wanted.

  Power. Dominance. To be the ruler of all he surveyed.

  That son of a bitch.

  Wellman found the strength to pull himself to his feet. He stumbled down the steps. Dav had almost reached the gate in the fence around the mansion’s front yard. Wellman lurched toward the long shape that lay in the grass and reached down to pick it up. He lifted the shotgun and stumbled after Dav and Lucinda.

  “Let her go!” he cried again. “Let her go or I’ll kill you, Dav!”

  The sheriff must have heard something in Wellman’s voice that alarmed him. Still holding tightly to Lucinda, he twisted around and brought up the gun in his other hand. Wellman realized, too late, that his threat was an empty one. He couldn’t use the shotgun. At this range, if he cut loose with it he would kill Lucinda, too.

  Dav didn’t have any such qualms. The gun in his hand roared once and then again as flame gouted from its muzzle. Wellman felt the bullets strike him like hammer blows, driving him backward. The shotgun slipped from his fingers and thudded to the soggy ground. Wellman’s balance deserted him. He went down, landing in the grass with his arms outflung at his sides.

  “Looks like I’ll have to find some other scribbler to write stories about me,” Dav commented with a laugh. “Well, he wasn’t all that good at it anyway.”

  For the first time tonight, Lucinda began to cry. Wellman heard Dav’s scornful words, and then her sobs. She was crying for him, he realized with a shock. She was crying because Dav had killed him. Somehow that made the horrible pain in his chest a little easier to bear.

  He clung to that thought as the rain beaded and trickled down his face and darkness crept in from all around him.

  * * *

  John Henry stayed on the move, even though there weren’t really all that many places to go in the sheriff’s office and jail. But he circulated among the defenders, talking to them and trying to keep their spirits up, and he went upstairs to the cell block fairly often to check on Buckner, too.

  During one of those visits, while Buckner sat on a three-legged stool with the rifle across his knees, he asked, “Have you seen Aaron tonight?”

  “Kemp? I ran into him earlier, just as all this was getting started.”

  “I reckon he’s dead, then,” Buckner said grimly.

  John Henry shook his head.

  “He wasn’t the last time I saw him. I knocked him out and dragged him into an alley. Didn’t see any reason to kill him. Not then, anyway.”

  “What about later?”

  “I’ve traded shots with several of Dav’s men,” John Henry answered honestly. “I didn’t recognize any of them as Kemp, but the light wasn’t that good most of the time.”

  Buckner sighed.

  “Aaron ain’t a bad sort, you know. He’s like me . . . He got used to takin’ the easy road. That meant breakin’ the law sometimes. Once you’ve done that, it’s hard to get back on the other side. But he never shot anybody who didn’t have it comin’. I’m talkin’ about gents who were a lot worse than we were. I don’t expect a lawdog like you to see it this way, Sixkiller, but all owlhoots ain’t the same.”

  “I know that,” John Henry admitted. “But it’s not up to me to decide such things. My job’s just to bring ’em in and let the courts sort things out.”

  “And if they don’t want to be brought in?”

  John Henry shrugged and said, “My authority extends to the use of force.”

  “Which is law talk for shootin’ ’em.”

  John Henry shrugged again.

  “Sooner or later, everybody’s got to make up their mind which side they’re on.”

  “Well, I won’t ask you not to shoot Aaron if it comes down to that,” Buckner said. “I don’t reckon that’d be right.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Which ain’t the same thing as sayin’ that I’ll shoot him. I just hope I’ll never have to make that choice.”

  John Henry changed the subject by saying, “Any sign of trouble up here?”

  “Not a bit. Haven’t heard anything goin’ on up there on the roof.” Buckner paused. “You know, you ought to turn Gil Hobart loose, too. He’d help you, like I am.”

  “I’ll think about it,” John Henry said. He had already considered the possibility of freeing the former jailer in return for a promise that Hobart would fight on their side. Right now it didn’t seem to be necessary, though, as the standoff continued.

  The hours of the night dragged by. Men yawned from time to time, but no one was really in any danger of dozing off. The defenders were all too keyed up to sleep. They knew it was possible, even likely, that these were their last hours on earth. Going through something like that did a lot to clear a man’s mind of any clutter.

  Finally, gray light began to filter through the cracks around the window shutters. Dawn was approaching. John Henry used a knife to open the cans of peaches in the storeroom and passed them around. It wasn’t much of a breakfast, but it was better than nothing. They had coffee, but no water with which to brew it.

  John Henry blew out the lamps as the light from outside grew brighter. While he was doing that, Kate came over to him and said, “It’ll be eight o’clock in less than an hour. Dav’s deadline.”

  “You think we ought to surrender?” John Henry asked.

  Kate laughed and shook her head.

  “I’d rather die fighting than be lined up in front of a firing squad or whipped to death.”

  “He wouldn’t do that to you.”

  “He was willing to blow me up along with the rest,” she pointed out. Her voice took on a bitter edge as she went on, “But you’re probably right. I’m sure the sheriff would have some other, more suitable punishment in mind for me.”

  John Henry didn’t want to add to her worries, but he figured she was right about that.

  There was still a can of peaches on the desk. He picked it up and handed it to her.

  “Why don’t you take this up to Buckner?” he suggested.

  “You think so?” she asked.

  “Wouldn’t hurt.”

  Kate nodded, took the peaches, and went up the stairs. Maybe Buckner would work up the courage to tell her why he had changed sides. Maybe not. That wasn’t really any of his business, John Henry told himself.

  A short time later, he took out his watch and opened it. His instincts were telling him time was up, and he saw that they were right. The watch’s hands had just ticked over to eight o’clock.

  “Somethin’s happenin’ across the street!” one of the men at the loopholes called excitedly.

  John Henry went to a window and unfastened the shutters. He pulled one side back enough to look out. Turnage and Peabody Farnham were beside him. The rest of the defenders crowded to the other window.

  John Henry saw men moving around behind the false front of the hardware store, but he couldn’t tell what they were doing.

  “Should we take some potshots at them?” one of the men asked.

  “Hold on,” John Henry said. “I want to see what Dav is up to.”

  He frowned as he heard some heavy thudding sounds. A moment later he figured out what they were as the men on the roof put their shoulders against the false front and heaved. They had been knocking loose the supports that held the false front in place, John Henry thought.

  With a squealing of nails, it came free and toppled forward, crashing down on the awning over the boardwalk in front of the store. The awning sagged under the weight but didn’t collapse.

  That left the deputies on top of the building exposed, but John Henry called, “Hold your fire!” before the defenders inside the jail could open up on them. Dav’s men scurried back away from the edge.

  “What in the world are the
y doing?” Turnage asked.

  A second later they all got the answer to that question as something rose into sight on the roof of the hardware store, lifted by several of Dav’s men. Two thick beams had been nailed and lashed together to form a crude cross.

  And hanging from it, bound by her wrists and ankles, was the figure of a woman.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  “Oh my God!” Turnage said in a voice thick with horror. “That’s Lucinda Hammond! That bastard! That unholy bastard!”

  “The widow of the man Dav gunned down awhile back?” John Henry asked.

  “That’s right.” Turnage leaned forward intently. “Can you tell if she’s still alive?”

  “I think so,” John Henry said. “Yes, she just moved her head. She’s alive.”

  “Thank God for that, anyway,” Farnham muttered.

  Dav’s men scuttled back away from the cross, which remained upright. They must have nailed together some sort of frame that would hold it up, John Henry thought.

  A shout came from across the street.

  “Hello, the jail! You hear me in there?”

  “That’s Dav,” Turnage grated.

  John Henry opened the shutter a little wider and called, “We hear you!”

  “Take a good look at Mrs. Hammond! If you don’t come out and surrender, I’ll leave her hanging up there for as long as it takes! You think she’ll make it through the day? I don’t! She’s already having trouble breathing!”

  “He’s not giving us any choice,” Turnage said. “We can’t let that poor woman hang there and die.”

  “If we surrender, he’ll kill us all,” Farnham said. He looked over his shoulder at his son. “I can’t do that.”

  “We have to go out sometime,” another man argued. “Might as well make a fight of it. And maybe he’ll spare Miz Hammond if we do.”

  The animated discussion went back and forth, but John Henry didn’t take part in it. As far as he could see, both roads facing them led ultimately to death.

  So he was doing his best to find a third trail, one that might not wind up with all the defenders dying.

  Dav shouted again from across the street, saying, “It’s up to you! But the sun’s going to be mighty hot before the day’s over!”

  Lucinda Hammond lifted her head and cried, “Don’t listen to him! Don’t give up! Don’t let him make you—”

  From somewhere behind her, the black snake of a bullwhip struck, curling around to lash across her legs, which were left mostly bare because the dressing gown she wore sagged away from them. She screamed in pain.

  Several of the men inside the sheriff’s office started toward the door. John Henry didn’t blame them for reacting that way, but he snapped, “Hold it! Nobody’s going out there yet.”

  “This is unbearable,” Turnage said. “I’m sorry, Marshal, but he’s won. We can’t allow him to torture her.”

  “We’re not going to,” John Henry promised. “Hold everybody together, Alvin. I’m counting on you.”

  “All right,” Turnage said with obvious reluctance. “What are you going to do?”

  “Take the fight to Dav,” John Henry said. He hurried to the storeroom and found a bucket, then carried it and one of the Winchesters up the stairs to the cell block. He was aware of Turnage, Farnham, and the other men watching him curiously, but he didn’t take the time to explain his hastily formed plan.

  When he reached the corridor between the cells, he found Buckner and Kate standing there. An unmistakable tension existed between them, hanging in the air so thickly it was almost like a physical presence.

  “What’s goin’ on down there?” Buckner asked. “We heard some yellin’.”

  “Dav’s using Mrs. Hammond as a hostage to try to lure us out.”

  Kate’s eyes widened. She exclaimed, “Oh dear Lord! That poor woman. What’s he done?”

  Quickly, John Henry sketched in the details.

  “I did the right thing by changin’ sides,” Buckner said. “Dav’s gone plumb loco.”

  “He always was,” Kate said. “He just hid it from everyone until after he was elected. Then he set out to destroy us.”

  John Henry said, “He’s not going to get away with it.” He handed Buckner the keys. “If you’re sure we can trust him, turn Hobart loose. He can cover us.”

  “Where are we goin’?” Buckner asked, his eyes narrowing.

  “Out there,” John Henry said. “After Dav.”

  “He’s probably got riflemen posted around the jail, waitin’ for us to make a break.”

  “That’s why we’re going to make it more difficult for them.”

  John Henry went into the cell that Buckner had occupied and started ripping up the bedding. He tore pieces off the mattress, too, and stuffed them into the bucket along with the torn-up sheet and blanket.

  When he had filled the bucket, he doused the contents with coal oil from a can of the foul-smelling stuff that sat in a corner, where it could be used to fill the lamps. Then he went into the wrecked cell, avoiding the mangled body of the deputy who had been killed in the collapse of the roof, and found some broken pieces of board long enough for him to lean them in the hole in the roof. They formed a makeshift ramp.

  “What in the world?” Kate asked.

  “Hand me that bucket,” John Henry told her.

  She did so. Buckner and Hobart came up behind her, looking equally puzzled.

  John Henry climbed up the boards until he could reach up and set the bucket on the roof at the edge of the jagged hole. He got a match from his pocket and struck it, then dropped it into the oil-soaked bedding. Flames shot up immediately, followed by thick gouts of gray smoke.

  The morning breeze caught the smoke and began spreading it across the roof.

  John Henry turned his head to look down at the others.

  “Buckner, you’re coming with me. Hobart, you follow us as far as the roof, and when Dav’s men start shooting at us, you give us some covering fire. When we’re clear, throw the bucket off the roof so it doesn’t catch the building on fire.”

  “Where are we headed?” Buckner asked.

  “We’ll have to jump to the building next door. The building on the other side of it is only one story. If we make it to the roof of that one, we can get to the ground from there. Then we go after Dav. Simple as that.”

  “Yeah, simple,” Buckner said. “Also downright crazy.”

  “Well, I never figured on living forever,” John Henry said. He pulled an extra Colt from his waistband and tossed it down to Buckner. “You coming?”

  “Right behind you,” the former deputy said. He turned and handed his rifle to Hobart. “You with us, Gil?”

  “Damn right,” the gravelly voiced jailer said.

  John Henry scrambled up through the hole on the roof. The smoke from the bucket wasn’t thick enough to hide him completely, but it had to be obscuring the vision of the riflemen posted around the jail. Shots began to crack as the men opened fire.

  John Henry broke into a crouching run. Buckner pulled himself through the hole and lunged after him. Hobart emerged from the opening a couple of seconds later and stretched out on the roof. He began firing through the smoke as well, aiming at the sounds of the other shots.

  The edge of the roof came up pretty quickly. John Henry had his Colt in his hand, because he didn’t want to risk it falling out of his holster. He leaped into the air, planted a foot on the low wall around the edge of the building, and launched himself into space with all the power he could muster behind the jump.

  The breathtaking sensation of flying through the air rushed through him, but it lasted only a second before he landed at the edge of the other roof and threw himself forward. He heard yelling and figured Buckner must have let out a shout when he made his jump. An instant later Buckner hit the roof, too, and rolled forward.

  Bullets whined over their heads.

  Hobart’s rifle continued to crack, though, and John Henry heard a man let out a howl of pain
somewhere not far away. One of Hobart’s shots must have scored.

  The smoke was drifting over this building as well. Buckner coughed and said, “You all right, Marshal?”

  “Yeah,” John Henry replied. “Let’s go.”

  They gathered themselves, sprang up, and sprinted for the far edge of the building. This jump was easier, except for the fact that the roof of the next building along the street was slanted instead of flat. When they leaped across the gap and sprawled on it, they began to roll toward the edge.

  John Henry used his toes to stop himself, then holstered his gun and slid down the rest of the way. He and Buckner hung side by side from the eaves and then dropped to the alley floor.

  It felt pretty good to have solid ground under his feet again, John Henry thought.

  He drew his gun and said, “All right, we’ll circle around and see if we can get to the hardware store.”

  “I’m with you, Marshal,” Buckner said. “This is gonna save me some prison time, right?”

  “Maybe,” John Henry said with a quick grin. “If you live through it.”

  With guns up and ready, they hurried along the alley and around the rear corner of the building. The shooting continued from the top of the jail as Hobart attempted to pick off some of the deputies.

  John Henry and Buckner ran along the narrow side street on which they found themselves. They had to get well away from the jail before they cut back over and tried to cross Main Street.

  Dav or someone on his side must have figured out what they were trying to do and moved to cut them off, because suddenly two deputies came running around the corner of a building ahead of them. The men skidded to a halt and opened fire.

  John Henry crouched and fired twice, and so did Buckner. One of the deputies doubled over and collapsed. The other one ran for cover, dragging a bloodstained and bullet-creased leg behind him.

  “He’s liable to get back and tell Dav where we are,” Buckner said.

  “Dav’s probably got that figured out by now anyway,” John Henry replied. “One way or another, we’ll have to fight our way through to him.”

  “If we can kill him, that’ll end this fight,” Buckner said. “The rest of the bunch will cut their losses and run.”