Sundance frowned. “I don’t think so, not just yet. I believe we oughta just ride in, peaceable as can be, and get the lay of the land first.” He put his hat back on and settled it low. His eyes sparkled with hatred and remembered shame. “Then, if we don’t get what we want, we’ll have some fun and do some damage.”
He spurred his bronc, and the others followed, raising a cloud of dust in still, dry air.
* * *
Matt and Timmy O’Leary, thirteen- and fourteen-year-old brothers, pulled their ponies up in front of Sheriff Monte Carson’s jail in Big Rock.
“Sheriff Carson, Sheriff Carson, come quick,” the younger boy cried from his saddle.
Monte stepped to the door of the jail, pipe in one hand and cup of coffee in the other. “Okay boys, calm down and tell me what’s got you so riled up.”
Matt, the older of the two, pointed over his shoulder toward the city limits. “Big cloud of dust, ’bout five or six miles out of town. Looks like it might be that gang we was watchin’ for.”
Monte’s eyes narrowed as he looked south. “You boys did good. Ride on down to the blacksmith shop and ring the fire bell like we planned. That’ll let everyone know the time has come.”
“Gee, Mr. Carson, you’re gonna let us ring the bell?”
Monte smiled. “Sure. You gave the warning, so you get to ring the bell. Tell Smitty I told you to do it. He’ll understand.” He pointed with the stem of his pipe. “Afterwards, you get your butts on home and stay off the street ’til I tell you it’s okay to come out.”
“Sure thing, Sheriff. Let’s go, Timmy. I’ll let you ring it first, then it’s my turn.” The rode off, kicking their ponies to a gallop.
Monte took a deep drag on his pipe, then he spoke to his deputy. “Jim, looks like it’s about that time. Hand me my Greener, will ya’? We got to get to our stations as soon as we can.”
Monte took his ten-gauge scattergun from Jim and sat in his chair on the boardwalk in front of the jail. He put his coffee cup down, loosened the rawhide thongs to his Colts, and leaned his chair back against the wall. He placed the Greener across his lap, both hammers jacked back, stuck his pipe in his mouth, and waited. I hope we’re doing the right thing, he thought, worrying about what could happen to his town.
* * *
Louis Longmont drew three cards to a pair of queens. As he spread them out, he noticed he had drawn two sevens and another queen. Other than a shallow breath, he displayed no emotion at all over his good fortune. He picked up his cigar and fingered a stack of chips, ready to bet his hand, when he heard the fire bell begin to ring.
He rolled his eyes and swore softly to himself. Yet another reason to hate Sundance Morgan. He flipped the pasteboards to the table facedown and said to the man seated across from him, “Your pot, James. Game’s over.”
Coming to his feet, he motioned to his barkeeper and the women around his saloon to take their places. Two of the girls took small belly-guns out of their handbags and sat at tables on either side of the batwings. His young waiter took an old shotgun with rusted barrels off a rack and went upstairs, finding a spot next to a window overlooking the street below. Jonathan, the barkeep, put a. 44 Colt in his waistband behind his back and stood, wiping the bar with a rag and whistling to himself.
Louis drew his pistol and opened the loading gate, spinning the cylinder to check his loads. After he finished, he holstered his gun and called, “André. Come out here please.”
When the chef appeared, apron tied around his ample stomach, Louis said, “André, under no circumstances are you to come out of the kitchen. Do you understand?”
“But sir,” André answered, “I want to do my part. What if you get shot? What will I do?”
Louis smiled. “André, the world can easily do without a gambler and roustabout like me, but civilization can ill afford to lose a master chef of your talent. Believe me, I will not abide you risking your life in this matter.” Louis hesitated, sniffing the air. “Now, if my nose does not deceive me, you have a soufflé in the oven that needs your immediate attention.”
André smiled at the compliment and departed to his beloved kitchen, swaggering as he walked away.
* * *
Sundance rode into Big Rock, his men spread out behind him, riding six abreast, forty-three men in all. They were a rough bunch and he knew it. All wore their guns tied down low, and most carried rifles or shotguns braced upright on their thighs or lying across saddle horns.
Something is terribly wrong in this place, he thought. He had ridden through dozens of Western towns in his years on the owlhoot trail. Some were big, and some small enough to throw a stone from one end to the other, but none was like this one. There were no people on the streets, no children or dogs, and no cowboys on horseback or folks in buckboards loading supplies.
George Stalking Horse spurred his mount up to trot side by side with Sundance. “Boss,” he said out of the corner of his mouth, eyes narrowed and suspicious. “I’m beginnin’ to feel like Custer must have felt ridin’ into Little Bighorn.”
“I know the feeling, George. Something ain’t right here, that’s for sure.” Sundance looked to one side as they neared the jail, and saw the only sign of life in town. A man was sitting, his chair tilted back and legs outstretched on the hitching rail. His pipe was emitting a thin trail of smoke, and his hand was on the shotgun in his lap.
Bull, riding on Sundance’s other side, whispered, “Boss, take a peek at his short-guns.”
Sundance turned and saw the rawhide thongs pulled back from the hammers of a pair of Colts. He gritted his jaw. He didn’t like the looks of things.
Pulling his mount to a halt, he thumbed his hat back and grinned at the man with a badge pinned to his shirt, the effort hurting his lips. “Howdy, Sheriff. How’re things?”
The lawman raised his head, glaring at the riders from under his hat brim. “Hello, Sundance. Things are just fine. How about with you?”
Sundance was startled when the sheriff called him by name, and suddenly he realized that meant he probably had known they were on the way and the reason for his visit. He remembered the sheriff’s name. “Tolerable, Sheriff. Carson’s your handle, ain’t it?”
Carson let his chair fall forward until all four legs were on the porch. While doing so, he slowly let the barrel of the shotgun lean over until it pointed directly at Sundance’s belly. “Yep. I’m honored that you remember.” He laughed derisively, low in his throat. “Last time you was here, you left in such a rush, I didn’t get to give you your ear back.”
Sundance sucked in his breath and his face blanched at the insult. His hand twitched and hovered over his Colt, but the end of the Greener never wavered an inch, and Carson’s eyes burned a hole in his face.
Carson continued, a smirk on his lips. “I tried to save it for you, but a dog ate it before I could get to it.”
Sundance did his best to bridle his temper. Those twin barrels of the scattergun looked like cannons. “Speakin’ of that incident, Sheriff, where is Smoke Jensen these days? I’d kinda like to pay him a visit.” His voice broke when he spoke, making him even more angry that he’d lost control.
Carson said, “I know you’d like to pay him a social call, Sundance, but I bet he’ll like it a bunch more’n you will.” He tilted his head toward the mountains. “He heard you were coming, so he went up into the high lonesome to wait for you. Said to give you his regards, and to tell you he’d be somewhere close to that tall peak to the east.” Carson spat on the ground, as if talking to the gunman gave him a bad taste in his mouth. “Course, don’t none of us who know you think you’ll have the guts to go up after him.” He glanced at the assortment of riders behind Sundance. “No matter how many men you have backin’ you up.”
Sundance turned his horse to face Carson and leaned forward in the saddle. “You know, Sheriff Carson,” he muttered, venom in his voice, “you shouldn’t let your mouth overrun your ass. I got over forty men with me here, and you got ... what? Two shots
in that express gun of yours?”
Carson continued to smile insolently at the outlaw. “I’m not worried. You see, the first barrel, the one on the right here, is loaded with buckshot. That’s for you. I figger there won’t be enough of you left to fill a coffee cup after I unload on your belly.” His smile turned to a snarl when he saw sweat running down Sundance’s cheeks, staining the bandanna around his neck. “The second barrel, the one on the left is also loaded with buckshot, but it’s for that big, stupid-looking gent ridin’ next to you, the one with the jug-handle ears.”
Bull’s eyes widened, and his hands clenched and unclenched in helpless anger. He knew that if he drew, he’d be dead before he cleared leather. In his high, woman’s voice, he spat, “What about the rest of these men, Sheriff? They’ll kill you where you sit, before you reach for those pistols.”
Carson laughed, infuriating Sundance even more, but clearly making the rest of his gang edgy. What was this man so confident about? Sundance wondered. He was facing forty men with guns.
“We’ve been ready,” Carson said, continuing to chuckle over Bull’s voice. He yawned elaborately, covering it with the back of his hand. “You asked about the rest of your men?” He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly.
Doorways all along the street filled with citizens armed to the teeth with rifles, shotguns, and pistols. Heads popped up on roofs and behind eaves and elevated storefronts, and gun-toting men appeared in alleys and between buildings.
From behind, Sundance heard a deep voice say, “Hey, back-shooter, remember me?”
Sundance twisted in his saddle to glance over his shoulder. He saw a tall, slim man, dressed in a black split-tail coat and a ruffle-front shirt, with two Colts slung low on his hips. Then he recognized him as Louis Longmont, hands hanging at his sides, fingers flexing in anticipation.
“That’s correct, Lester Morgan, I’m calling you a coward,” Louis shrugged his shoulders minutely, then the gambler proceeded to give the outlaw a solid cussing.
Sundance cursed under his breath, looking wildly around at all the townspeople and their guns. “Now’s not the time, Longmont,” he answered hoarsely, trying to control his jittery horse.
Longmont spread his arms. “When is the proper time for you, coward? How about those sons-of-whores who ride with you? Are they chickenshit like you? Don’t any of you men have any balls?” he added sarcastically.
Several of the men on horseback yelled and cursed and drew their weapons, unable to take the insults any longer. Sundance held up his hands, trying to stop them, warning it was a trick, but his men were too angry to listen.
The street erupted with the sound of gunfire, booming and echoing off buildings while both men and horses screamed, some hit hard by flying lead. Clouds of gunsmoke billowed away from flaming gun barrels, filling the town with deafening noise.
Carson’s scattergun exploded as he pulled both triggers and rolled out of his chair, scrambling quickly behind a nearby water trough. His shot cut one of the outlaws almost in half, blowing him out of his saddle.
Bull filled his hands with iron, sawed-off shotguns both firing at Carson, molten buckshot tearing into the water trough, sending water and splinters into the air. Pellets penetrated the wood to lodge in Carson’s left arm and shoulder, knocking him backward. He grunted in pain and rolled on his side, clawing for his Colts.
Sundance leaned over his horse’s neck and spurred hell-for-leather down the street, firing twice at Louis as he galloped by. One of his slugs took Louis’s hat off, the other burning a path across his waist, cutting a shallow gouge in his flesh.
Louis did not flinch from the pain, standing calmly while he took careful aim, firing both his Colts at Sundance, one after the other. Shots came so fast they sounded like one continuous explosion. One of his .44 bullets sliced a chunk out of Sundance’s butt, the only target he gave Louis as he spurred away. Sundance screamed in pain and dropped his Colt to grab his ass, although he managed to stay in his saddle.
Bull, his shotguns empty, reined his horse into an alleyway, hitting a man with the animal’s shoulder, knocking him to the dirt. Bull jumped off his mount and grabbed the stunned man’s rifle, then stood over him and shot him in the head. Wheeling, he grabbed his saddle horn in one huge hand and made a running vault onto the galloping horse’s back. As he rode out of town, he fired the rifle one-handed at a figure silhouetted in a window, showering him with bits of glass and splinters, missing his target.
Perro Muerte was having his own troubles. Wounded in the arm and thigh in the initial volley of gunfire, his horse shot out from under him, he was kneeling in the dusty street, firing his Colt at anything that moved. When his hammers clicked on empty chambers, he reached down into the bloody mess that had been the man Carson blew to pieces. He picked up a blood-splattered rifle and wheeled around. A member of the gang, Charley Wilson, was riding by, firing pistols with both hands. Without hesitation, Perro Muerte swung the rifle in a horizontal arc, slamming Wilson backwards out of his saddle and shattering his jaw. Perro Muerte got lucky and managed to grab the mount’s reins. Dropping his rifle, he stepped into the saddle and clung to the frightened animal’s side for dear life as it galloped down the street.
Slim Johnson didn’t have to worry about returning to New Mexico and being hanged. As he was riding out of town, firing over his shoulder, one of the ladies who sang in the church choir stepped out of a doorway, leveled her husband’s Henry repeating rifle, and blew him to hell. The bullet entered the killer’s left ear and exited his right, taking most of the side of his head with it. Johnson was dead before his body hit the ground, to bounce and tumble in the dirt like a rag doll.
As Toothpick spurred down the street, ducking and leaning to the side to avoid bullets, he saw Louis standing on the boardwalk shooting at Sundance. Toothpick drew his long knife from its scabbard and threw it at Louis with all his might as he passed. He laughed with delight when he saw the blade embed itself in Louis’s chest, knocking him backward. He fell on the boardwalk.
The battle of Big Rock lasted only a few minutes, but when it was over, twelve desperados lay dead or dying. Three townspeople were killed and six were wounded.
* * *
Monte Carson got to his knees, his Colts and express gun empty, and peered through the gunsmoke, nose wrinkling at the smell of cordite and blood and voided bowels. Moaning, crying, and pleas for help echoed down the street, but his attention was drawn to his friend, Louis, whose body he could see lying on the boards with a knife stuck in his chest.
“Oh no! God don’t let this be,” Monte cried as he stumbled and limped painfully around the bodies of men and horses, running to see if he was too late to help.
He bent over the body and grabbed Louis’s shoulders, blood from his own wounds dripping onto his friend’s chest. “Louis, Louis, can you hear me?” he yelled, shaking the unconscious man.
Slowly, after a moment, a hand came up and touched Monte on the shoulder. “Of course I can hear you, Monte. I’m wounded, not deaf.”
“What . . . ?”
Louis grabbed Monte’s arm and pulled himself to a sitting position. He grunted and jerked the knife out of his chest, then reached into his coat and removed a sterling silver flask with a knife hole in it. “Damn,” he said with feeling, as amber liquid spilled in the dirt, “that was twelve-year-old scotch.”
Monte grinned and sat down hard next to the gambler. “Well, Louis,” he rasped though a raw throat, “how’d we do?”
Louis glanced at the number of bullet-ridden bodies lying in the street. “This town did fine, my old friend, just fine.”
He gazed toward mountain peaks in the distance. “The rest is up to Smoke Jensen.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Pearlie heard booming echoes of shotguns and higher pitched cracks and pops of short guns being fired in the distance while he was still several miles from Big Rock.
Jessica Aldritch, sitting next to him on the buckboard seat, cocked her head.
The sky at these lower altitudes was a brilliant azure blue with small puffs of white clouds scattered from horizon to horizon like tufts of cotton waiting to be picked.
“Mr. Pearlie, what is that noise? It sounds like thunder, but I don’t see any storm clouds.”
Pearlie’s eyes narrowed, a frown on his face. “’Tweren’t thunder, Mrs. Aldritch. That there was gunfire . . . a lot of it, and it’s coming from Big Rock:
“Big Rock? Isn’t that where we’re going?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Do you think it might be Indians?”
“Not likely, ma’am. What few Injuns we got left ’round here might attack a small party if they was hungry enough, but there ain’t hardly a band anywhere in these parts big enough to try to take on a whole town.”
He shook his head, torn between his desire to whip the horses into a gallop and rush to help his friends in town, and his duty to protect the two women Smoke had entrusted to his care.
He hesitated a moment, unsure how much he should tell the widows about their present situation. He drew back on the reins and brought their wagon to a halt.
Aileen Aldritch, bundled in back under bearskins and wrapped in a buffalo robe Pearlie borrowed from Puma Buck, raised her head and looked around, a dazed expression on her face. She was not yet fully recovered from the ordeal she had endured at the hands of the men at the mine. “Jessica, why are we stopping? Have we arrived at our destination already?”
Jessica twisted in her seat. “No, Mamma Aldritch.” She looked at Pearlie with a quizzical expression. “Mr. Pearlie is just giving the horses a rest. You go on back to sleep. We’ll wake you when we get there.”
Pearlie sat still, reins in his hands, forehead wrinkled in thought, considering his options. Finally, he decided his best course of action was to relate his concerns to Jessica.
“Mrs. Aldritch, I think those gunshots are from a band of desperados, a bad bunch from down South.”
“You mean outlaws?”
Vengeance of the Mountain Man Page 18