by Ken Farmer
“So far, so good,” said Mason. “Everybody’s holed up…Sewells is a good place to start.”
“All right, folks, take your initial positions…Sheriff, when we’re in place, it’s your town, you call for the Rudabaugh’s,” suggested Bone. “When they start coming out of their warm places to the street…we start moving. Got it? Sound is going to really carry in this cold air with almost no wind.”
They all nodded. Padrino and Loraine took the opposite flanks with their semiautomatics, Bone in the center with his hand cannon, and Mason and Bodie on either side of him. They were spread from boadwalk to boardwalk in a half-circle, Padrino and Loraine were the pincer positions.
Bone looked at the others. “The crossfire angle from Padrino and Loraine will be deadly and our fire in the middle should cut anybody down they miss…and they don’t miss, I guarantee you.”
“Have to give the bad guys a chance to surrender, though,” said Mason. “I’m the law…gotta do it.”
“I’m going to count to five…That’s all they get,” added Bone. “Bone’s law.” He nodded at Mason.
“Rudabaugh!…Harlan and Frank Rudabaugh! It’s Sheriff Flynn. Come out!…You got the guts!” He glanced at Padrino. “With your gunhawks, too!”
The door to Sewell‘s burst open, Frank and Harlan looked down the street the half block at the five.
“You’ve been waitin’ on me…Here I am!”
“Just the five of you?…Haw! You’re a dead man, Sheriff, you hear me?” shouted Frank back. “A dead man!”
“Talks cheap, Rudabaugh…but that’s all ya’ll do, ain’t it?…Girls.”
“Maybe some of your hired help have more guts than you two.” He glanced at Bone. “Meet us in the street, you got the cojones…You gonna hide inside all day?”
Down the street five blocks at the corner of Archer and Knox, on the other side of Belknap Street, Hoodoo, Nickel Jim, an’ Dog heard the yell. They stepped out of the sheriff’s office and Apache, Rio, Luke and Boone appeared out of the Coolwater Saloon two blocks closer. Doc, Joshua and Black Jack Webb came out of Barber’s Mercantile.
Harlan motioned them all to come their way.
“You gonna hide behind that trash you brought with you like little ladies?…Figured you’d be gutless like your little brother was. Hidin’ up in the hills and drygulchin’ good citizens…All you Rudabaughs are the same…Back shooters and ambushers.”
“Wow, that doesn’t get them, nothing will,” commented Bone. “Well said, Sheriff…well said.”
Frank and Harlan had donned their coats and stepped out of Sewell’s into the frigid air.
“That’s got to be a shock to the system, coming from a nice warm restaurant into subfreezing weather,” commented Loraine.
“Let’s hope so,” answered Bodie, who was next in the arc from her.
The Rudabaugh gang all had their guns in their hands as they moved to the middle of the street.
“You shoulda brought some scatterguns, Sheriff,” said Harlan.
“Don’t think we’ll need them with your bunch…Why don’t you Rudabaugh boys step out in front of your hired hands or are you afraid?” said Flynn.
“Who’s yer friends?” asked Frank as he and his brother worked toward the front of their group of men.
“Oh, just three of my deputies, a Texas Ranger and a buddy,” replied Mason.
“A split tail and an old man…looks like he could be yer great great grandpa. Why don’t you sit this one out, Methuselah, hate to see an old man git hurt,” said Harlan.
“Ooo, Mistake…Twice,” commented Bone as he grimaced.
“We started to let that old man and the lady take care of ya’ll all by their selves, but we decided we didn’t want to miss out on the fun,” said the Sheriff.
“Boys, I’m Deputy Bone. Now, I’m only going to say this once, then the clock starts ticking. You got till I count to five to throw those irons in the street, kneel down, and put your hands behind your head.”
“Haw…”
“Two…Three…”
They started walking toward the outlaws.
“Hey, hey, what happened to one?” asked Black Jack Webb, standing next to Harlan glancing at the two brothers.
“Four…”
None of the gang moved. The Rudabaughs looked at their men and grinned as Bone’s line slowly advanced toward them.
Frank spoke, “Let’s do what we set out to do…”
“Five.”
Rapid .45 caliber fire instantly exploded from both flanks into the group of outlaws, Bone’s .50 cal roared with a deafening boom, while Flynn and Bodie’s .45s snapped off round after round.
Six men were on the ground, two dead outright, one of them was Harlan Rudabaugh and four others were writhing in pain in the red-stained sleet.
The panicked gunhawks scattered like a covey of quail and were firing wildly in the general direction of the advancing line of death. The survivors slipped and slid through the sleet and ice-covered ground to whatever cover they could find at the side of the street.
Several dove behind frozen wood water troughs, two more tried to hide behind barrels of farm implements and other tools in front of Barbers, the other two jumped into the alleyways on both sides of the street.
On a prearranged cue, the law officers fired another salvo and ran to cover on each side of Archer Street. Bone, Bodie and Loraine were on the south side with Mason and Padrino on the north.
Bone ducked behind another one of the frozen water troughs, Loraine managed to find protection in the inset entry of Lollie’s Millenary, Bodie laid flat on the boardwalk behind a line of canopy posts, his .45 extended out in front of him.
On the other side, Mason took cover behind the opposite water trough from Bone and Padrino knelt down inside the entry to Newly’s Gun Shop.
Loraine and Padrino slammed new mags in their semiautomatics and popped off a rapid four shots each. It sounded almost like one shot.
Bone raised up and fired three rounds into the water trough that Hoodoo Brown was behind. All three of the massive 500 grain bullets with no more than a half inch between them, went completely through the trough and the gunslinger behind it like a knife through butter.
Padrino crept along the street toward the mercantile and saw the Apache Kid duck down the alley beside the store. He went into the one next to Newly’s and slipped toward the rear of the building.
He flattened himself against the near wall and peered around the corner to see the Indian creeping his way. Padrino stepped out into the open alley behind the stores and confronted the Apache Kid.
“Give it up, Kid, it’s all over,” Padrino said.
“Waugh…Apache kill ancient one an’ escape.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but that’s not going to happen.”
The Indian whipped out his long Green River knife, dropped into a crouch and crept toward Padrino. “We fight…Apache way.”
The retired Marine holstered his .45 behind his back and drew his K-Bar, the official combat knife of the Marine Corps, grinned and shook his head. “Your mistake, Indian.”
“Me no Indian, pindah-lickyoee dog…Me Apache…You die.” He lunged toward Padrino…
Loraine, like Padrino had fired four rounds at the implement barrels in front of Barbers across the street. She fired four more at the same barrel, shredding it and many of the grubbing hoes and shovels inside it and popped another mag in the grip of her Kimber.
Dog Mulvaney, who was behind the barrel raised up and threw his pistol into the street and held his hands over his head. “I give, I give.” His face and hands were covered with imbedded wood splinters from the oak barrel and bleeding profusely.
“The hell you say, you gutless piece of…” said Frank Rudabaugh, who was behind him, hiding behind another barrel. He shot the man in the center of his back, between his shoulders, pitching him forward to drape over the shattered barrel of implements.
That was his last mistake as Sheriff Flynn put a .45
round in the middle of Frank’s forehead. He slammed back against the front window of Barber’s, crashing through it into the display of bolts of various colored material on sale.
Bodie elbow crawled toward the corner of the building where he had seen one of the gunhands duck.
Black Jack Webb stuck his head out around the corner, saw the ranger and snapped off a shot as he crawled his way.
Padrino and the Apache circled each other, knives held low. There was a grin on the Master Guns face which disturbed the Indian.
“Why pindah-lickyoee smile? White-eyes have nothin’ to smile about when dead.”
“So you say,” replied Padrino as he continued to grin.
The Kid lunged again, the retired Marine flipped his K-Bar in the air, caught it with his left, like a border shift, stepped sideways, grabbed the Indian’s knife arm, just above his elbow as he went past and jerked him forward.
The Apache Kid lost his balance enough for Padrino to spin around, throw his left leg over the back of the Indian, straddling him like a horse. He grabbed the front of his long black hair, pulled his head back and slit his throat with the razor-sharp K-Bar in his left hand in one smooth move.
The Kid gasped as he tried to breath, but only gurgled instead. Padrino held him to the ground between his knees with his right hand on his head until he quivered in death and was still.
He raised up and looked down at the Apache Kid. “Shouldn’t play with knives…especially with an old combat Marine…You’re not the first to find that out.”
The bullet plowed a hole into the wood right beside Bodie, who rolled hard to his right off the boardwalk to the street and fanned three rounds at Webb’s position at the corner. Two found home. Black Jack spun around and down to the frozen ground—he didn’t move any more.
Suddenly the silence was deafening as the clouds of white gunsmoke from everyone’s weapons except Bone, Loraine and Padrino’s, slowly drifted off to the south.
Everyone got to their feet and looked around at the carnage. There were six lying in the street where they stood, surrounded by blood, one was draped over a barrel and one was behind a perforated water trough that was spraying water into the street where it instantly froze—another was lying in Barber’s window.
Webb lay in the middle of the alley. Dog Mulvaney was crumpled near Frank where he had fallen after Rudabaugh shot him in the back.
“I count ten, got two missin’…”
Bone interrupted Mason. “Padrino! Where’s Padrino?”
“Here, Bone,” he said as he came out of the alley across the street, next to Barbers. “Had to take care of the Indian…He wanted to play with knives. Tried to tell him it was a mistake.”
“That leaves one,” said Mason.
Loraine walked out into the street, putting her Kimber in its holster. “I didn’t see where everybody went.”
Nickel Jim Coleman crept from between the buildings to the entrance behind Loraine, his .45 aimed at her back. He thumbed the hammer back.
His head burst into a huge red mist cloud like dropping a watermelon from a three story building, spraying the white sleet all around him with chunks of skull, gray brain matter and blood. He dropped to the street like so much wet laundry where he stood. The boom of a big .50 caliber long gun sounded from down the street.
Everyone looked up the street toward where the shot came from. They could see a black face in the distance, with shining white teeth, beside a cloud of gunsmoke drifting off. He was waving his hand at the group from the open loft door in the top of Mom’s Livery five blocks down the street on the other side of Belknap, past the sheriff’s office.
“Slim!” the Sheriff exclaimed with a big grin.
“He grabbed that big Sharps when I turned them out yesterday. Said they were going to hide up in Mom’s loft,” said Padrino.
Loraine turned around and looked down at what was once a desperado and shook her head.
Bone ran up. “You okay, Baby?” he asked as he took her in his arms.
She nodded. “Am now.”
Faces began to appear from doorways and out upstairs windows as the citizens of Jacksboro came out to see the result of their sheriff’s handiwork.
“Don’t know about ya’ll, but I’d like to get out of this cold and try some of Ruth Ann’s pancakes,” said Bone.
“The first thing you always think about is your stomach, Bone,” commented Loraine looking up at her husband.
He grinned. “Uh-uh…Not the first, Pretty.” Bone kissed her.
§§§
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
WILSON RANCH
“They’re all fine,” said Lucy suddenly at the breakfast table.
“Oh, thank God…I so wanted to be there with them,” added Fiona, looking up from her plate of ham and eggs.
“I’m sure you did, but with the way the weather turned off, it’s doubly a good thing Mason wouldn’t let you go…He loves you, you know?” commented Mary Lou.
“I know he does and I love him, but I’m still a Deputy US Marshal.”
Lucy grinned. “A pregnant Deputy US Marshal.”
Fiona returned her smile and nodded. “You’re right, of course.”
“They’re dealin’ with the cleanup right now after taking care of their horses…They went against twelve of the brigands.”
“That’s more than two to one. Oh, I needed to have been there.” Fiona got to her feet and grabbed the coffee pot from the stove. “Anyone?”
“Bone laid out what he called a ‘firefight plan.’ Something he learned in the Marine Corps, I would surmise. It worked well and didn’t last long…about three minutes altogether. They met in the street east of Sewells.”
“Loraine was saved from being shot in the back by the last surviving outlaw when the Chickasaw Freedman shot him from the loft of Mom’s Livery, west on Archer Street,” added Lucy.
“That’s Slim Parker…Mom’s Livery? That’s a good five hundred yards west, past the sheriff’s office, from Sewells…Goodness, hell of a shot,” said Fiona.
SEWELL’S RESTAURANT
“Seems to be getting a little warmer, but I’m sure the horses are enjoying being in a warm stable down at Mom’s rather than that icy cave,” said Bone as he opened the door for everyone to go in.
“I imagine they were ready to get out of there and where they could get somethin’ to eat,” commented Mason.
“Heck, it’s liable to be seventy degrees by tomorrow…this is Texas, as ya’ll know,” said Bodie.
“Well, it’s still cold as a well digger right now,” commented Padrino.
“Oooh, it’s nice in here,” added Loraine as she removed her sheepskin jacket and hung it on a peg next to the door.
Bone handed his to her to hang also. Padrino hung his tan canvas Carhartt beside theirs.
The morning smells of bacon, ham, pancakes, cinnamon rolls and coffee permeated the restaurant.
Gomer, Emma Lou, Lisanne, Buster and Slim Parker were already ensconced at a table, eating on pancakes, ham, bacon and eggs like they hadn’t eaten in twenty-four hours—they hadn’t. They waved.
Molly, Ruth Ann Sewell‘s sister, walked up to the group. “Ya’ll come on over. I’ve got some tables pulled together. Ruth Ann said everything is on the house.”
“That’s very kind of her, Molly, but does she know what she’s letting herself in for with Bone?” asked Loraine.
Molly giggled. “She said it didn’t matter…ya’ll earned it, gettin’ rid of that scourge that was holdin’ the entire town hostage.”
“Just doin’ my job, Molly. It’s what I was elected for. We don’t need any special treatment,” said Mason.
“Except for havin’ plenty of her pancake batter made up,” added Bone.
“Have no fear, she does…Now ya’ll take your seats an’ I’ll be right back with the coffee pot.”
They all sat down just as Molly returned with a gallon-sized blue-swirl graniteware pot she had to hold with two hands. Their places already had
large white ceramic mugs in front of each chair.
Molly walked around the table, filling each mug almost to the top. “As you see, there is already sugar, honey and a small pitcher of milk on the table. I’ll be back to take your orders soon as I put the pot back on the stove.”
Newton padded along after Molly when she came out of the kitchen.
“Newton! Is this where you’ve been?” asked Mason as he ruffled the border collie’s ears.
“He came in with Emma Lou when she was carrying food down to the jail. Gave him some steak scraps and bones. He’s been here since…Don’t think he liked our visitors much,” said Molly before she turned and headed back to the kitchen.
“Don’t blame him,” commented Padrino. “Unsavory characters, to say the least.”
None of them wasted any time wrapping their cold hands around their warm cups and having a long sip.
In a moment, Molly came back with her notepad. “All right, let’s have it…ladies first.” She looked at Loraine.
“Bacon and pancakes, Molly. Do you warm your syrup?”
“We do, and it’s local sorghum, too…Sweet, um-mmm.” She grinned.
“Sounds good.”
“Bone?”
“How about a whole side of bacon and bring pancakes till I say calf-rope.”
“Shakespeare said it better, Bone…’Lay on, McDuff, and be damned he who first cries, 'Hold, enough!’…Macbeth,” said Padrino.
Bone looked up at Molly. “Did you have any trouble following what I meant?”
She shook her head and grinned as she replied, “Not at all.”
“See Padrino, I know you think you understood what I said, but what I meant was maybe not what you heard.”
“I didn’t,” said Bodie.
“See?” commented Bone.
Loraine folded her arms on the table and placed her forehead on top of them and just shook it back and forth.
“How about pancakes and bacon all the way around, Molly, we’ll make it easy for you,” said Mason.
“I can do that,” she said. “Be right back with the first round.”
“When do ya’ll want to head back to the Wilson Ranch?” asked Mason. “Kinda like to see my honey.”