Clete raised his voice and said, “Everybody just take it easy. No trouble here, no trouble. We just want the money. Tellers, clean out your drawers. Put everything in the sack.”
With practiced efficiency, Tom Murdock had taken a canvas bag from under his coat. He shouldered aside the townie at one of the windows and thrust the bag across the counter toward the stunned teller.
“In the sack,” Tom snarled at the teller, who swallowed hard and started plucking bills from his cash drawer and stuffing them into the bag.
Denny approached the female customer, who was fairly young and pretty. She was pale and trembling at the moment. She tried to shrink away from Denny as he stepped up to her, but she had her back against the counter and there was no place for her to go.
“Pretty,” Denny said. His gun was in his right hand, but his left was free. He raised it and started to take hold of her neck. There was nothing he liked better than caressing a pretty woman’s neck.
Chick said, “Not now, Denny, we ain’t got time for that.”
“Pretty!” Denny insisted, as if that explained everything.
“I know that, but—”
The woman screamed as Denny’s hand was about to close around her throat.
Chick exclaimed, “Dadgum it, Denny!”
And on the other side of the counter, the teller shouted, “Leave her alone, damn you!”
His hand dropped below the counter, and when it came up, there was a Colt Lightning in it. The teller jerked the trigger three times fast, and the double-action revolver sent all three .41-caliber rounds crashing into Denny’s face. The bullets turned the big man’s features into a hideous red smear as his head rocked back.
“Denny!” Chick cried. Enraged, he started firing. His bullets sprayed the woman and the teller, knocking them both off their feet as blood welled from their wounds.
“Son of a bitch!” Clete bellowed. “Tom, grab all the money you can!” He turned back to the bank president, who had started impulsively to his feet, and shot the man in the belly.
Grant looked around wildly, unsure what to do. He had taken part in several robberies with his brothers, but none of them had gone this bad, this quickly. None of the gang had even been wounded in those jobs, let alone killed. Denny wasn’t dead yet—he had fallen to the floor, where he was thrashing around—but he couldn’t last long, shot in the head like that.
The other teller had thrown himself on the floor and lay there behind the counter with his arms held protectively over his head, as if that would stop a bullet. Tom Murdock didn’t take the time to shoot him. Instead, as Tom leaned over the counter, he reached into the cash drawer and grabbed as many greenbacks as he could, stuffing them into the canvas sack. They would get something out of this foul-up, by God!
But who could have predicted that that meek little teller would try to turn into Wild Bill Hickok? The fella must have been sweet on the woman, and all he had thought about was protecting her from Denny.
The air inside the bank was thick with gunsmoke now. The sharp tang of it stung Clete’s nose as he swung toward the doors.
“Let’s go, let’s go!” he called. He was confident that Otter would be covering their retreat.
“But Denny—” Chick began.
“He’s done for!” Clete yelled. “Come on!”
The five men charged out through the double doors, guns up and ready for trouble.
They weren’t ready for what they got.
Reacting instantly, Smoke twisted in the saddle to search for the source of the shots. They were coming from the direction of the bank, and as Smoke spotted the seven horses tied at the hitch rack in front of that establishment, his mind leaped to the conclusion that the bank was being robbed.
The sight of a stranger, a tall, lean Indian in a black hat, standing next to those horses was more evidence supporting that theory.
The fact that the Indian jerked a rifle to his shoulder and pointed it at Monte Carson confirmed the hunch.
That lookout was aiming at the wrong man. He should have paid more attention to the hombre on the big gray stallion. Smoke’s Colt appeared in his hand as if by magic, and two shots blasted from it so close together they sounded like one.
Even though Smoke was firing from the hip and the distance was fairly long for a handgun, his almost supernatural abilities sent both slugs hammering into the Indian’s chest. The rifle in the Indian’s hands went off as his finger jerked involuntarily on the trigger, but the barrel was already pointing harmlessly at the sky as he toppled backward against one of the horses.
The animal shied and bumped into the other horses, and they got skittish, too. All seven mounts started jerking at their reins, trying to get loose and bolt.
Monte drew his gun and broke into a run toward the bank, but instead of dismounting, Smoke heeled his horse into motion. The stallion pounded down the street. Smoke arrived in front of the bank just as several men burst out through the doors.
The strangers were all carrying guns. The one in the lead saw Smoke and opened fire on him. Smoke ducked and snapped a shot at the man. The slug caught the bank robber in the shoulder and drove him halfway around. He stayed on his feet, though, and continued shooting.
One of the other men, a short, bearded, thick-bodied varmint, bulled forward and swung up a sawed-off Greener. Smoke saw the scattergun and went diving out of the saddle just as the awful weapon boomed like a huge clap of thunder. One of the horses screamed in pain as buckshot peppered its hide.
Smoke had landed in the street, rolled over, and come up on one knee. He had to throw himself to the side in order to avoid being trampled.
At the same time, bullets were still flying around him. Clouds of dust swirled, kicked up by the hooves of the fear-maddened horses. It was utter chaos in the street and on the boardwalk, as gun battles often were.
From the corner of his eye, Smoke caught a glimpse of Monte Carson kneeling behind a rain barrel and firing at the outlaws. One of the bank robbers, a tall, lanky man with fair hair under a thumbed-back hat, clutched at his middle and folded up as one of Monte’s bullets punched into his belly.
Smoke had two rounds left in his Colt, since he always carried the gun with the hammer resting on an empty chamber unless he knew he was about to encounter trouble. He fired again and saw one of the outlaws go spinning off his feet as the bullet tore through his thigh.
Smoke shifted his aim and fired his last shot. It went into the chest of the man whose shoulder he had broken with a bullet a few seconds earlier. The man dropped his revolver, staggered a few steps to the side, and pitched off the boardwalk to land on his face in the street.
That left two of the outlaws on their feet, including the man with the sawed-off. He had broken the weapon open and was trying frantically to thumb more shells into it.
The remaining outlaw had a canvas bag clutched in his left hand and a Colt in his right. He threw a couple of shots at Smoke and lunged toward the horses, obviously hoping to grab one of them and make a getaway.
Smoke had to dive forward onto his belly to avoid the shots as the slugs whipped through the air above his head. He looked up and saw that the man had gotten hold of a horse and was trying to swing up into the saddle.
Smoke surged up onto his feet and jammed his empty Colt back in its holster as he went after the man trying to escape. With a diving tackle, he crashed into the outlaw and drove him away from the horse and off his feet. Both men sprawled in the dusty street as iron-shod hooves danced perilously close to their heads. Greenbacks flew from the canvas bag as it hit the ground.
The bank robber lashed out in desperation at Smoke, who avoided the first blow but then caught a knobby fist on the jaw. He threw a punch of his own, hooking his right into the man’s belly. The man gasped and tried to lift his knee into Smoke’s groin, but Smoke twisted aside and took the blow on his thigh. He swung his left and landed it solidly on the man’s nose. Blood spurted hotly across Smoke’s knuckles.
The man arch
ed his back and threw Smoke off. As Smoke rolled away, the outlaw grabbed up the gun he had dropped and aimed it at Smoke.
A shot blasted from the boardwalk, and the man crumpled, dropping the gun again. Smoke glanced over and saw Monte Carson lowering his revolver after the shot that had probably saved Smoke’s life.
But that still left the shotgunner, who had snapped his weapon closed again and now swung it toward Smoke and Monte. Smoke’s Colt was empty, and so was the sheriff’s, as became evident when Monte jerked the trigger and the hammer fell with a harmless click. Smoke and Monte were close enough together that the outlaw might be able to cut them both down if he fired both barrels.
“You damn meddlin’ sons o’ bitches!” the outlaw roared as he brought his sawed-off to bear.
Before he could jerk the triggers, his head seemed to explode in a gory spray of blood, bone fragments, and brain matter. The scattergun fell unfired from his nerveless fingers, and his body dropped to the ground right behind it.
Unsure what had happened, Smoke looked along the street and saw two men sitting on horseback a couple of blocks away. One of them, a lean, white-bearded figure in buckskins and a broad-brimmed felt hat, lowered a Sharps carbine from the barrel of which curled a tendril of powder smoke.
The old-timer hitched his horse forward, rode up to Smoke, and grinned as he said, “You just can’t stay outta trouble for any time at all, can you, boy?”
CHAPTER 3
“Preacher!” Smoke exclaimed. “You sure know how to show up at the right time.”
“Always have,” Preacher said, still grinning. “Might should’ve showed up a few minutes earlier, though, since you only left one of the varmints for me to kill. Heard the shots as we was ridin’ in. Sounded like a right smart fracas. How come you was killin’ ’em?”
“They tried to rob the bank,” Smoke explained.
Preacher nodded. “Thought it might’ve been somethin’ like that when I saw all them greenbacks scattered around.”
Preacher’s companion galloped up, threw himself out of the saddle, bounded onto the boardwalk, and swung a fist that crashed into the jaw of the lone surviving outlaw, who had pulled himself up onto his knees and was trying to lift his gun with a trembling hand. The young owlhoot went over backward, knocked cold by the powerful blow.
“While you two were flapping your gums, that varmint was about to shoot Preacher in the back,” Matt Jensen said, looking exasperated.
“No, he wasn’t,” Preacher replied. “I figured you’d take care of him, Matt.”
With a shake of his head, Matt asked, “What if I hadn’t been paying attention?”
“I knew you would be,” Preacher said simply. “Smoke and me taught you well enough.”
“Well, I suppose that’s true,” Matt said with a shrug.
He was the tallest of the three men, a fair-haired, handsome youngster in a black Stetson and a faded-blue bib-front shirt. Most women naturally took a liking to Matt Jensen, and he returned the feeling.
With troublemakers, it was different. Matt carried a holstered Colt .44 double-action revolver on his right hip, and a Bowie knife was sheathed on his left. He didn’t hesitate to use the weapons when he needed to, and he was almost as fast and deadly with a gun as his adopted older brother Smoke.
As Smoke thumbed fresh cartridges into his Colt to replace the ones he had fired, he said, “We’re much obliged to both of you for your help, aren’t we, Monte?”
“We sure are,” Big Rock’s sheriff agreed. He was reloading, too. As he snapped the cylinder of his gun closed, he went on, “I’d better check on the rest of those varmints and make sure they’re all dead. Gonna be wounded in the bank who need tending to as well, I’ll bet.”
“Why don’t you go see about that?” Smoke suggested. “Preacher and Matt and I will take care of the chores out here.”
Monte nodded and said, “Thanks.” He hurried into the bank, which was ominously quiet.
Smoke and Matt went quickly from body to body, checking for signs of life. The young outlaw Matt had knocked out was the only one of the bank robbers still alive. He was wounded in the left leg and had lost quite a bit of blood, but Smoke thought he would probably live.
He rolled the unconscious outlaw onto his belly, pulled the man’s arms behind his back, and used the outlaw’s own belt to lash his wrists together for the time being. That way if he came to, he wouldn’t be able to cause a problem.
Dr. Hiram Simpson, the local sawbones, came running from his office and joined several other townspeople in crowding into the bank to see what they could do to help. Monte Carson emerged from the building a few minutes later, his features pale and drawn.
“It’s pretty bad in there,” he told Smoke, Matt, and Preacher. “Jasper Davenport, who just took over running the bank, is dead. Didn’t even make it in the job for a month before those blasted outlaws gunned him down. Mitchell Byrd’s dead, too, and Elaine Harris is wounded. Got a dead outlaw in there with most of his face shot off. I reckon that’s probably what started the battle. Appears that Mitch got his hands on a gun and shot the desperado.”
Smoke trusted Monte’s assessment of the situation. He asked, “Does it look like Miz Harris will make it?”
“The doc didn’t say,” Monte replied with a shake of his head.
Smoke pointed a thumb at the unconscious outlaw.
“Well, when he’s through in there, this fella’s going to need some attention. Matt and I can go ahead and haul him over to the jail for you if you want, though.”
Monte nodded and said, “That’d sure be giving me a hand. I’m obliged to you boys.”
“Get his feet, Matt,” Smoke said.
Smoke and Matt were both very strong, so they didn’t have any trouble lifting the bank robber and toting him down the street to the sturdy building that housed Monte Carson’s office and Big Rock’s jail. All the cells were empty at the moment, so they carried the man into the one nearest the cell block door and placed him on the bunk. As soon as they had stepped out, Monte swung the barred door shut, closing it solidly.
Preacher had followed them into the sheriff’s office.
“Beats me why you don’t just let the rapscallion bleed to death,” he commented when Smoke, Matt, and Monte left the cell block. “Saves the bother and expense of a trial and a hangin’.”
“That’s not the way the law works, Preacher,” Monte said. “It’s mighty good to see you again, by the way. You, too, Matt.”
“It’s good to be here,” Matt said. “It’s been too long since the three of us have gotten together.”
Monte asked, “You fellas want some coffee?”
“I figure we’ll go over to the café and have some lunch before we head out to Sugarloaf,” Smoke said. “So no thanks to the coffee, but we’re obliged for the offer. Were you able to find out what happened inside the bank, Monte?”
The sheriff nodded.
“There were a couple of customers who didn’t get hit when the bullets started flying, and the other teller, Fred Reeves, was all right, too. They all hit the dirt, or the floor, rather, when the shooting started. Seems the outlaw who was still inside the bank tried to molest Mrs. Harris. Mitch Byrd had a Colt Lightning on the shelf under his counter. He grabbed it and shot the owlhoot, but that set off the others. I reckon it’s only pure luck that it wasn’t an even bigger massacre in there.”
Smoke shook his head regretfully.
“It’s too bad we weren’t able to save more of the citizens,” he said. “But at least the gang didn’t get away.”
“Did you recognize any of the bank robbers, Monte?” Matt asked.
“A couple of them looked familiar to me,” the lawman said. “I must’ve seen their pictures on reward dodgers. I’ve got a big pile of those posters in the desk. I’ll go through them later and see if I can match up any names with the faces. Could be you and Preacher have some rewards coming, Smoke.”
The old mountain man snorted disdainfully.
“I don’t care about no dadblamed ree-ward,” he said. “I’ve had fortunes come an’ go through my fingers so many times over the years, money don’t mean nothin’ to me as long as I’ve got enough for a meal and a snort o’ whiskey now and then.”
“And Sugarloaf’s doing just fine,” Smoke put in, “turning a profit every year, and I expect that to keep up as long as we don’t have a bad drought. Maybe Matt should claim the rewards.”
“Me?” Matt exclaimed. “I didn’t do anything except wallop one of them.”
“Those wanted posters all say dead or alive,” Monte pointed out. “You ought to at least get paid for the one you laid out, Matt. I’ll look into it.”
“All right,” Matt said, “but I didn’t do it for the money. I was just trying to save Preacher’s scrawny old hide.”
“I told you, I knowed he was back there—”
Smoke cut in on the old-timer’s protest.
“Come on, let’s get something to eat, and then we’ll head for the ranch.”
They were about to leave the sheriff’s office when the door opened and Dr. Simpson came in.
Smoke paused long enough to ask, “How’s Miz Harris doing, Doc?”
“I think there’s a good chance she’ll pull through,” Simpson replied. “She was wounded in the arm and the hip. The arm wound should heal cleanly. The injury to her hip may result in her having a permanent limp. It’s too soon to say. She’s been taken down to my house, and my nurse is looking after her.” The sawbones turned to Monte Carson. “I was told you have a wounded prisoner here, Sheriff.”
“Sure do,” Monte agreed. “I’ll take you back to his cell.” He raised a hand in farewell to Smoke, Matt, and Preacher. “See you boys later.”
When they were on the boardwalk outside, Matt chuckled and said, “Sheriff Carson must be having trouble with his eyes if he called you a boy, Preacher.”
“I reckon so,” the old mountain man agreed, “since he didn’t notice you was a snot-nosed, wet-behind-the-ears kid, neither.”
Smoke grinned and said, “Come on, you two. You can continue this squabble after we’ve had a surroundin’.”
Texas Bloodshed Page 23