Powder Burn

by William W. Johnstone

  When Lynch and the others pulled up in front of the store, the Sams brothers were mildly surprised and somewhat relieved when only Lynch dismounted and came inside. It was immediately obvious, however, that he was not there to buy anything. Before Dewey could greet him, he asked bluntly, “That deputy that was in here yesterday, did he come back this way?”

  Astonished, Dewey replied, “Why, no, he didn’t, least not that I know of. I mean, we ain’t seen him.”

  “You told my man that deputy said he was goin’ to Tishomingo to see the Injun policeman. Is that right?” Dewey nodded. “Did he ask you about seein’ us?”

  Dewey hesitated, not certain he should tell him that the lawman did inquire about whether or not he had seen any strangers in the territory recently. At the same time, he was not sure it was a good idea to lie to the tall baleful outlaw. And at this point, he was certain he was an outlaw, else he wouldn’t be concerned about Tanner asking about strangers. And the tone of his voice, combined with the cold squint of his eyes, seemed to indicate that he was accustomed to being obeyed. “Well,” Dewey stammered, “not about you fellers. He just asked if we’d seen any strangers.” Then he quickly added, “I told him no, we hadn’t.”

  “I thought so,” Lynch muttered to himself. He had a strong feeling that it wasn’t mere coincidence that the deputy marshal who had shot his son down had suddenly shown up in Indian Territory right where he and his men were hiding. It was the only reason Lynch had taken the time to stop at the trading post on his way to look for Will Tanner. Now he felt his hunch was confirmed. The son of a bitch is tracking me, he thought. He killed my son and now he’s tracking me! Lynch and his men had given the Kansas posse the slip. In all of Indian Territory, he wondered, how could the Oklahoma lawman have known that he would show up here, on Blue River? Could he have gotten it out of his son before he shot him down? As soon as he thought it, he scowled and cursed himself for even thinking it. Mike would never betray his father. Still, it was a possibility, and made it even more imperative that Will Tanner must pay with his life. The scowl on his face gradually turned to a smirk as he thought, Now, Will Tanner, you ain’t tracking me no more. I’m tracking you.

  He turned and marched out the door without another word to the two uneasy brothers, his mind working on several different possibilities. Maybe since Sams had not seen Tanner again, the deputy might still be in Tishomingo. If that was the case, he was as good as dead, because Lynch would find him and kill him. He knew he was counting on a long-shot possibility. Tanner would not necessarily have returned from Tishomingo on the same trail he rode down there on, but Lynch figured the odds were that he might. Even if he did, it was another long shot that he would have stopped at the little store again. But that was the only possibility that offered Lynch the opportunity to corner the lawman right now because he had no idea where else to look for him. He had to still be in Tishomingo—he had to, because his son’s soul cried out for vengeance.

  No longer in mortal fear of their lives, Dewey and Jake walked out on the porch after Lynch and stood there while he climbed back on his horse, wheeled the gray gelding, and charged up the path through the bluffs. His gang, having never dismounted, followed silently, causing Jake to comment, “That’s a hangin’ party, if I’ve ever seen one. I hope to hell Will Tanner ain’t still in town.”

  Dewey didn’t reply right away as he watched the last of the four ride up the path. “Damned if that last one ain’t a woman,” he finally decided. It was hard to tell at a glance, since Hannah was dressed in men’s trousers and a heavy coat, her hair in one long ponytail down her back.

  * * *

  Tom Spotted Horse stepped out of the small shack he used as an office, preparing to go home to supper. He paused to squint at the riders just coming into view as they rounded the curve around the stables at the north end of the short street. When they passed the feed store, they spread out, four abreast, proceeding cautiously. He recognized them now as the men he had seen before and reported to the marshal in Fort Smith. Damn white outlaws, he thought. When he had seen them before at their campsite on the river, he had been satisfied that they were passing on through his territory. Now it looked like he was going to have to deal with them after all.

  When they passed the post office and continued toward him, he stepped back inside his door, went to the rack that held his Spencer carbine and his double-barreled shotgun. He wasn’t sure if he was about to have trouble or not, but in case he did, he figured the shotgun would give him the most firepower the quickest. After slipping a buckshot shell into each barrel, he put a handful of shells in his coat pocket, then returned to stand in the doorway to wait.

  Spotting the short, broad-shouldered Chickasaw policeman standing in the door of the weathered shack, Jack Lynch wheeled his horse to face him. The others followed suit, forming a line to pull up before the door to sit facing him. “You the law here?” Lynch asked.

  “I am,” Tom answered. “What is your business here?”

  “My business is a deputy marshal named Will Tanner,” Lynch said. “He rode in here yesterday. Where is he now?”

  Sullen as ever, even in the face of such odds, Tom answered gruffly, “How the hell would I know? I don’t keep track of everybody that rides through town. He ain’t here now, so maybe you just ride on out of here, too.”

  Not happy with Tom’s answer, Lynch pressed further. “Did he say where he was headin’ when he left here?”

  “He don’t say and I don’t ask,” Tom said. “I told you I don’t know where he went, white man, and I don’t care. Now, you got no more business in Tishomingo, so ride back the way you came.”

  Lynch was in no mood to put up with the sullen Indian’s surly manner. “I don’t take no orders from no damn Injun,” he said. “Maybe I need to teach you some manners when you’re talkin’ to a white man.” He possessed an overpowering desire to kill someone in payment for the death of his son. Although it was Tanner he wanted, he would settle for the Indian policeman’s blood on his way to Tanner.

  “Maybe you and your trash best get outta my town,” Tom replied, and brought his shotgun up waist high. That was as far as he got before a .44 slug from Mace Weaver’s Colt Peacemaker slammed into his right hip, causing him to go down on his backside in the doorway. He responded automatically by squeezing the trigger on his twelve-gauge shotgun, sending a wide pattern of buckshot to spray a deadly pattern over the outlaws closest to the door. Rafe Yeager, who was still wearing a sling on his wounded shoulder, caught the brunt of the shot in his chest. Mortally wounded, he fell backward off his horse to land in the street.

  Stung by the wide pattern of flying buckshot in his shoulder and arm, Jack Lynch pulled his pistol and threw a series of quick shots at the lawman lying in the doorway, backing his horse away at the same time. Mace and Hannah followed suit, firing at the wounded Indian while trying to back their horses out of range of the shotgun. Tom Spotted Horse pulled the other trigger, his shot resulting in inflicting flesh wounds in two of the horses, but no further harm to the outlaws still backing away while firing wildly at the doorway. Because of the rearing and bucking of their wounded horses, it was impossible to shoot accurately. As a result, their shots tore hunks of wood from the doorjambs and the planks of the little porch, but found no purchase in the wounded Chickasaw policeman, who managed to drag himself inside and shut the door.

  “We got the son of a bitch trapped in there now!” Lynch yelled, and pulled the rifle from his saddle sling while still fighting to settle his frightened horse. “Shoot that shack to pieces!” Mace and Hannah followed his lead, quickly guiding their horses to charge into the blacksmith’s shop across the street, where the three outlaws flushed the alarmed smithy from behind his forge. With nothing for a weapon but his tools, the blacksmith scurried out the back and ran for his life. Mace took a second to send a harmless pistol shot after him. The three outlaws then set in to fire a continuous barrage of lead upon the shabby building.

  “What about ol�
�� Rafe?” Mace asked during a pause to reload his rifle.

  “What about him?” Lynch replied, taking aim at the front window. “Ain’t nothing we can do for him. He’s done for.” They had no way of knowing that for sure, but he had not moved since being knocked from his horse.

  “Why don’t you go over there and see if he’s all right?” Hannah suggested sarcastically. Equally as anxious to settle with Will Tanner as Lynch was, she was contemptuous of the mess he had made of the confrontation with the Indian policeman. With the right kind of persuasion, the Indian might have come out with more information as to the whereabouts of Tanner. She was distracted from those thoughts in the next second by a burst of return fire from the window of the shack. Tom Spotted Horse had managed to drag his wounded hip to the gun rack to get the Spencer carbine. She ducked down behind the anvil to avoid the .50 caliber slugs zipping over her head. “We’re wastin’ our time tryin’ to smoke out this damn Indian,” she shouted over the gunfire. “We scared hell outta the blacksmith. Now he’s run off and he mighta been able to tell us which way Tanner went when he left town, but you’re so damn anxious to shoot somebody. That Indian ain’t gonna be any use to us if he’s dead.”

  Her comments caused Lynch to pause and turn to stare at her, the fury and frustration still twisting his face in anger. In his rage, he was tempted to settle with the scornful female and be done with her sarcasm, especially since what she said was probably true. The blacksmith most likely saw all comings and goings at the policeman’s office, since his forge was right across the street. And it might have been much easier to get the information out of him than the defiant Chickasaw.

  “What are we aimin’ to do?” Mace asked when he realized that both Hannah and Lynch had stopped shooting. He looked at Lynch, recognizing a deadly stare that he had seen on other occasions. Someone usually died soon after. Glancing at Hannah then, he saw the now-familiar smug expression of confident defiance. For a long moment, the two stared at each other, and it suddenly struck him that a showdown was threatening, even in the midst of the shoot-out going on. He could not help gaping in amazement. It seemed that even Tom Spotted Horse had become aware of the change of their intent, for he stopped shooting as well.

  A wicked smile began to slowly form on Hannah’s face and she asked, “Well, are you gonna try it?” The Winchester she had been firing was now leaning against the anvil, and she stood facing Lynch with her right hand hovering a few inches over the handle of her .44.

  He didn’t answer for a moment, remembering the lightning-fast draw she had exhibited back at the cabin when he had sought to call her bluff. And looking into her eyes at this moment, it seemed that she was praying that he would try her. His rifle was in his hand while hers was not, but he had not ejected the spent cartridge from his last shot. And he felt sure that she knew it, and was confident that she could draw her pistol before he could chamber another round. Suddenly he relaxed. “You’re crazy,” he said. “What kinda crazy talk is that at a time like this?” He turned his back to her, focusing on the building across the street again. “You might be right, we might be doin’ nothin’ but wastin’ cartridges, but I aim to kill that damn Injun before I leave here.”

  “Well, we ain’t doin’ so good so far,” Mace said. “We’ve done shot that shack so full of holes it’s a wonder it’s still standin’. And it looks like he’s got plenty of ammunition to keep us from gettin’ in there to get him. Maybe we can get behind him. I’ll circle around and get a look at the back of that shack. If there’s a back window, we might could get at him that way.”

  “Might could,” Lynch said. “It’s worth a shot and it would sure beat settin’ here behind this forge, shootin’ up all our cartridges.”

  Mace gave Lynch a nod, then withdrew cautiously to the back of the shelter where their horses were tied. Climbing into the saddle, he rode out behind the shop and took a wide circle around behind the police shack. It didn’t take but a glance to send him back to report. “There ain’t no window in the back,” he said. “There ain’t nothin’ but a little door at the top of the loft, right under the roof. It was open, but it ain’t big enough to crawl through, even if you could get up that high.”

  “Damn,” Lynch swore.

  “I reckon we could burn him out,” Hannah said. Ready a few moments before to shoot her new partner, she was now becoming impatient with his lust to shoot the Chickasaw policeman. She didn’t care if Tom Spotted Horse lived or died, but she decided to help Lynch kill him if only to get on with a search for Will Tanner.

  “How we gonna do that?” Mace wanted to know.

  She pointed toward a can in the corner of the shop, well away from the forge. “That looks like the kinda can kerosene comes in,” she said. “And we’ve got coals still burnin’ hot in that forge. Looks like we’ve got everything we need to make some torches.”

  Lynch paused to give it some thought. “Maybe,” he finally said. “But it ain’t gonna be so easy to get close enough to set ’em without gettin’ shot.”

  “Get a couple of torches made up,” Hannah said, “and I’ll get ’em inside that shack.” Mace said there was a small loft door near the peak of the roof, and it was open. It was no doubt there to give the office ventilation, especially if it was heated by a stove. And a stovepipe protruding through the side wall of the office verified that. Seated on her horse, she felt sure she could reach high enough to shove a torch through the small opening.

  “How you gonna get two torches inside without throwin’ ’em through the door,” Lynch asked, “or the window?”

  She told him her plan. “He can’t see anything behind that building,” she concluded. “There ain’t even a window. He couldn’t see out of it if there was, draggin’ himself around with that bullet in his hip. And he sure as hell can’t see that little door up near the top of the roof. Just find something to make a torch out of. I’ll get it in the shack.”

  “All right,” Lynch quickly agreed, and started looking for materials to make a torch. It might work, he figured. There might be a shelf or full attic over the office, which would prevent a torch from falling down in the office, but if there was, the roof could still catch on fire. At any rate, he was willing to let Hannah try it. If it didn’t work, then maybe the irritating woman might get shot in the process, and that wouldn’t be bad. “Here’s just the thing,” he announced when he spotted a barrel containing a half-dozen ax handles. Mace took the cap off the kerosene can and confirmed that it indeed held the inflammable liquid. There were plenty of rags in another barrel in a corner of the shop, so Hannah and Lynch fashioned two torches while Mace kept Tom Spotted Horse occupied with his rifle.

  When the torches were finished and soaked thoroughly with kerosene, it was obvious that they would be too difficult to handle if they were both lit from the coals still glowing in the forge, so only one was set aflame. Hannah got up on her horse, and Lynch handed her the two missiles. She gave Mace a threatening glance and said, “Make sure you don’t shoot me.” Confident in what she was undertaking, she rode out the back of the shop then, made a wide circle around an outhouse, and came up beside the back wall of the police building.

  As she had figured, she was just able to reach up far enough to get an ax handle through the open loft door. So she lit her second torch with the first one, then shoved one after the other through the opening. As soon as the second one dropped inside, she wheeled her horse and galloped away to safety. She dismounted when she reached the shelter of the smithy’s shop again and joined her two partners as they eagerly watched for the results of her assault. In what seemed an extra long few minutes, they stared at the shack, their rifles aimed at the door, waiting for some sign of smoke. Finally, a light wisp of smoke drifted out of the loft door. “It’s caught onto somethin’,” Mace said. There was a lull in the shots from the window of the office, causing them to wonder if maybe Spotted Horse was done for.

  “There ain’t enough smoke to run him outta there,” Lynch said. “He might jus
t be playin’ possum, hopin’ we’ll come out in the open.” They continued to watch the door.

  * * *

  Inside the police shack, Tom Spotted Horse was startled when an ax handle, wrapped in flaming rags dropped from the sleeping platform overhead. Forcing himself to move, he dragged himself over and grabbed the handle before any damage was done. Then he managed to open the door just enough to shove the torch outside. His actions were enough to draw a series of rifle shots from the blacksmith shop. He quickly closed the door again and dragged himself back to his position by the window. His wound was serious, but as long as he could remain alert, he knew they couldn’t get to him. His options were to change, however, for he began to smell smoke from overhead, and guessed that the torch had caught the straw pallet on fire. He could only hope that the pallet would burn up, catching nothing else on fire, for because of his shattered hip, he was unable to climb the ladder up to the sleeping loft. There was nothing for him but to wait and see if it went out.

  It wasn’t long before he knew he might be in a more serious situation because the office began to fill up with smoke. Worse yet, looking up he could see flames lapping the edges of the pine boards of the sleeping loft. Helpless to stop the fire, he pulled himself up as close as he could to the front wall, hoping that the fire would burn itself out on the platform above him. He thought of the ammunition in the cabinet below the gun rack. He was not in a good spot if fire got to it.

  * * *

  In the blacksmith shop across the street, the three outlaws watched eagerly as the fire progressed. Having tied their horses at the rear of the open shelter covering most of the shop, Lynch and Rafe had joined Hannah behind the forge, that being the only real cover. From their vantage point, they could see that the roof was beginning to catch fire as flames leaped out the loft door. “He ain’t gonna be able to stay in there much longer,” Mace said. At this point, they knew the policeman was finished. He was either going to get shot if he tried to escape the burning building, or burn to death if he didn’t. As if to add emphasis to that thought, there was a sudden explosion of fire inside the shack, throwing a sheet of flame across the interior of the building, breaking the glass in the front window, and blowing the door open. The center of the overhead platform, where the second torch still lay flaming, had collapsed onto the hot stove in the middle of the office, causing the explosion and startling the three observers. “Hot damn!” Mace blurted, caught up in the excitement of the moment.