The Avenging Angels

by Michael Dukes

  “Finer woman’n any of us could ever hope to latch onto, to hear him tell it. Name of Miss . . . Belle . . . Jackson.” Creasy said her name as if each syllable tasted of honey.

  “Back in Virginia, I suppose.”

  “Not so—she’s out on the Frio River.”

  “That a fact?”

  “Uh-huh. I guess her papa’s got himself some land out there.”

  “You ever been there?”

  Creasy shook his head and took back his smoke.

  “Be a good place to hole up.”

  “Fine place to hole up,” Creasy agreed. “Just about the only door in this world left open to him—save a jailhouse door—and his own personal lady to drop in on. No charge for her services. Helluva place.”

  There was a group of miners in the street below—two of them in the middle, liquored-up and circling like roosters, a fistfight in the making, with their rowdy co-workers egging them on. This spectacle presently diverted Creasy’s attention from the subject of Belle Jackson. Where the hell are these iron-fisted lawmen Simmons went on about? he wondered.

  “Well, I reckon I’m gonna be turnin’ in,” Foss said. “Got us a big day tomorrow. You comin’?”

  “In a minute. Think I’ll wait to see the winner.”

  “What time is it?”

  Creasy held his watch up to the moonlight. “ ’Bout a quarter to the big day.”

  “Well, soon as one of them fools kills the other, you best bed down. We got orders from His Majesty.”

  They congregated in that very room five hours later, before the sun was up—some standing, some sitting, some coiled over chairs, pushed into one corner while the working girls still slumbered in the other. The men who had not been informed of their role in the robbery eagerly anticipated the coming layout of the plan.

  Kings leaned on the sill, fully armed and dressed save for his coat, and made it clear to them that, although they were indeed the challenged party in this affair, he had no intentions of meeting their adversaries on the defensive. He specifically asked Brownwell, Yeager, and Woods if their former commanding officer, General Stuart, had ever turned down the opportunity to draw first blood.

  “Hell, no,” Brownwell said firmly, and Kings repeated, “Hell, no.”

  Squatting by the door, Osborn half-raised a hand. “What d’you have in mind, Kings?”

  “Leroy, Andy, and I will be takin’ our morning coffee on Fourth Street, eight o’clock. At a quarter past, we’ll pay our bill, get on our horses, and ride down to the bank. Simmons, you said there’s a back door to this place.”

  “Yep.”

  “Where?”

  Simmons squinched one eye and took a moment to recollect. “Right corner of the building, I believe. There’s enough room in the back alleyway for you boys to hide your horses. No fence or posts to tie ’em to, so one of you is gonna have to stay back there and hold ’em.”

  “Andy, that’ll be you, seein’ as how it only takes one to cover a teller, and Leroy’s got a street howitzer in his saddle boot. I’ll deal with the cashier and be go-to-hell if I’m fooled by stories of time locks.”

  He turned to the next three. “Sam, you, Dick, and Simmons are to squat in front of the sheriff’s office where you can’t be seen. Soon as a few of ’em get up and movin’, follow ’em around for a bit, see what they’re about, but don’t let ’em feel you breathin’ down their necks. Shootin’ starts, you head ’em off where they are and cut ’em down.”

  “That case,” Brownwell said, looking at Simmons, “lemme exchange weapons with you for today. My shotgun’ll do ya better for street shootin’ than that Spencer.”

  Simmons, clearly edgy, shrugged to show his indifference. “All right, then. I ’preciate it.”

  Kings faced Creasy. “You ever been to a magic show, Crease?”

  Creasy looked puzzled. “Yeah, when I was a kid.”

  “And what was the secret to the magic man’s success? A diversion. While you’re lookin’ over here, somethin’ else is happenin’ over here. That’s you and your boys’ job. You fellas kick up a big enough fuss on one end of town, that’ll divide the attention of these john laws and better our chances.”

  “What’d you have in mind?”

  Kings threw a glance at Brownwell, a bare trace of a smile on his face. “Well, hell, what’s New Year’s without fireworks?”

  “I may have a few poppers in my saddlebags to he’p with that.”

  “Makin’ our job easy, then,” Creasy said.

  “Now, how about afterwards?” Davis asked. “When and where are we s’posed to meet up to get our due and proper?”

  Yeager looked up from the floor. “In two months, we’ll rendezvous at the Mission. You’ll all get your cut there.” He glanced at Kings for approval and received a nod.

  The lull returned as the men waited for him to continue, but he was apparently through talking. Bedsprings creaked as one of the women shifted, then resettled with a sigh.

  “All right, boys,” Kings said, as much to himself as to them. “Let’s be about our business.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Tom Shepherd stepped out of his office. He drew the LeMat from its holster, rechecked every load, and secreted the heavy-barreled pistol in the deep pocket of his overcoat. It was an uncommon habit that had stuck with him from his days as an outlaw, always keeping a hand on his weapon and his weapon inside his coat whilst out on the street. Indoors, it stayed in the holster on his belt, but even as he and his deputies made their morning rounds, the touch of the LeMat, for no special reason, was comforting.

  He lingered on the front step until the last man out closed the door behind him. They talked for a bit—Shepherd, Dobie, Bauer, and Arballo—until the lazy morning conversation played out. Then, one by one, the deputies separated, meandering down certain paths until Shepherd was left alone outside the office. He decided to take a stroll up First, to the High Grade Hotel, where Stringer was. He meant to talk to him some more about the plans they had gone over yesterday.

  The air was brisk, and it did more to wake Shepherd up than the two cups of coffee he’d just drunk. As gusts of warmth streamed from his lungs and licked up before his face, he felt strangely alive, his thoughts far from the impending firestorm. Even stranger, he thanked the Lord, as he did every morning, for his time inside Huntsville Unit, for the preacher who brought him to the beginning of wisdom, and, finally, for leading Shepherd to this place and this job.

  On the opposite side of the street a black-bearded man trailed Shepherd by half a block, mingling with passersby on the boards. When Shepherd stopped to share pleasantries with a grocer, the man hid behind a signpost and waited until he continued on.

  A few minutes later Shepherd approached the butcher shop, which was located beside the stage station. Directly across the street was the High Grade.

  The sheriff paused to let a wagon roll by, his head turning to watch the wheels run southward. Instinct, perhaps guided by the hand of God, prodded him to keep turning.

  The black-bearded man stopped suddenly on the boardwalk behind him. Their eyes met, held. Then the stranger tried to swing the double barrels of a sawed-off shotgun from under his long coat.

  Shepherd pulled the LeMat.

  Having covered the length of Fourth Street three abreast, the horsemen funneled single file down an alleyway between buildings, emerging unseen midway between Chivington and Martin Streets, with the rear of the bank directly across. Kings and Brownwell dismounted to approach on foot while Yeager, still in the saddle, stationed the animals within fifteen feet of the bank’s back door.

  He turned their heads back toward Fourth, with himself positioned in the middle. When the last hoof had shifted, Yeager twisted in his seat and watched as Brownwell and Kings closed on the rear steps.

  “Make one noise and I’ll blow your stalkin’ guts out your back.”

  Shepherd had Osborn up against the doors of the butcher shop and was holding him in place with a forearm under the chin
and the barrel of the LeMat against his belly. Osborn’s sawed-off was on the ground with both hammers uncocked and the muzzles still cold.

  “I’m backin’ you into Mr. Henderson’s shop here,” Shepherd said. He released Osborn’s chin for a second to wrench the left-hand door open, then continued, “You’re gonna stay real quiet ’til I get you into the back room, and then you’re gonna tell me what your boss’s next move is. Do that and I might recommend you just get a stretch in the pen. Move!”

  Osborn shuffled backward into the butcher’s, deliberately moving his heels at a snail’s pace. “You can take that offer with ya to hell, Sheriff,” he said, still backpedaling, then spat in Shepherd’s eye.

  Shepherd flinched, and Osborn attempted to break loose, but the lawman was quick to recover. With an advantage in height and strength, he managed to wrestle the outlaw to the ground, left hand firmly gripping the collars of Osborn’s coat and shirt.

  Shepherd addressed the proprietor, gaping down from behind his counter: “Mr. Henderson, open up your meat locker.”

  The scene might have struck Henderson as comical if he’d had time to look at it that way—Tom Shepherd bodily dragging a strange man through his store—but the butcher, still holding his cleaver, leapt at the sheriff’s command.

  Once inside the locker, Shepherd holstered his pistol and squatted to get both hands under Osborn’s armpits. He grunted as he hauled the prisoner to his feet, then grunted again as he ducked to evade a backhanded swing. Bobbing back up, Shepherd smashed a right at Osborn’s face and watched him fold to his knees. He moved quickly, clamping Osborn’s wrists in irons, then looped the chain securely around a meat hook hanging from the ceiling. “Now, then! Will you cooperate?”

  Osborn leered through the blood streaming from his nose. “Again, I must respectfully tell you to go to hell,” he said, then lunged to catch a heel around Shepherd’s leg. The lawman stepped away quickly and closed the door behind him, ordering Henderson to keep it locked until he returned.

  Then, pistol once again in hand, Shepherd was out the door and sprinting across the street to the High Grade.

  Brownwell’s boot thundered into the back door. As soon as it flew open, Kings surged into the bank and raised a gun on the cashier, who half-turned, then froze with fear. The metal deposit box in his hand slipped, clanked heavily against the walnut counter, and spilled a mess of coins all over the floor.

  “Everything okay back here, Loyal?”

  The teller appeared, unknowingly walking his chest into the hard, unyielding barrel of a Spencer rifle. His face went from a healthy winter pink to shirt-collar white.

  Kings glanced briefly at the teller, saw that Brownwell had him covered, then returned his attention to the petrified cashier. “In spite of what you both may think,” he said, “neither of us wanna use these guns. And we won’t, so long as you help us do what we come here to do and refrain from foolishness. Sound fair?”

  Before either could reply yea or nay, Kings asked his man, “You the cashier?”

  The cashier’s eyes slid toward the teller, but Kings’s short bark retrieved his focus. “Do not look at him, Loyal! If you ain’t the cashier, I’ll ask him, but for now, I wanna know . . . are you the one can open that safe for me?”

  “Best thing you can do for yourself at this moment is answer him, friend,” Brownwell said. The cashier nodded.

  “That’s all I wanted to know, Loyal.”

  Kings guided him by the shoulder into the vault. They came to the safe, and Kings dropped a cotton sack with shoulder straps at the cashier’s feet. He commanded, “Open her up.”

  Behind them, Brownwell’s eyes snapped at the teller when the man asked, “Could you lower that gun, please? I am not armed and—”

  “Shut up.”

  “—I don’t mean to fight you.”

  “You’re fightin’ me now, mister. Just shut up, and you won’t have to worry. We ain’t in the murderin’ business.”

  The arrow point of the smaller hand had come to rest on the VIII on the watch face belonging to Bob Creasy, but the larger was stubbornly positioned three ticks away from the VI. Davis’s timepiece, on the other hand, had it at one minute to the appointed time.

  Creasy shrugged. “Fireworks are goin’ off a little earlier’n expected,” he said and slipped a match from behind his ear. He struck a flame off the back wall and put it to the end of the fuse. It spat as the flame caught and began to hiss as the spark inched toward three red sticks bunched beneath the floorboards of the sheriff’s office.

  Then they ran like hell.

  Deputy Whitehead went stiff, trying to identify the noise. He was just fitting the key into the lock on the weapons cabinet, holding a broke-open shotgun between his body and left elbow and carrying a spare pistol in his belt in addition to the one on his hip. When the shooting started, he wanted to be ready.

  The sound was faint, and Whitehead followed it as best he could, treading softly. It led him to the rear of the office, past the holding cell that Cutting was anxiously sweeping out.

  Whitehead’s movement caught Cutting’s eye, so he paused in his diversion and leaned out of the cell to watch. Something unseen appeared to be leading Whitehead like a dog on a leash, and Cutting knew something was afoot when he saw the deputy set down the shotgun, go to one knee, and then to his elbows. All he could see of Whitehead were the soles of his boots and his rear in the air.

  Dropping his broom, Cutting stepped out and asked what the hell was going on, but Whitehead waved him silent. Whitehead drew his hip gun and, with his left hand, fitted the head of his knife into the crack between the floorboards. He had located the source and found the noise to be a mysterious hissing, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense. It was far too cold for a snake to be . . .

  The hissing faltered. A white light pushed its way up from beneath the floorboards, and Deputy Whitehead heard no more.

  At the sound of the explosion, Deputy Arballo turned and started running, drawing his pistol as he hurled dumbfounded citizens out of the way. From behind a buggy parked across the street, H. E. Simmons tracked him, waiting until the Mexican was in the open. From thirty feet away he threw Brownwell’s shotgun to his shoulder and fired, the blast muffling the screams of a woman standing close by. The deputy staggered, his right side peppered and his upper thigh perforated. He collapsed in the middle of the road but managed to keep a hold on his six-shooter.

  Simmons broke open the shotgun, fumbling a few shells from his pocket that fell through the spokes of the front buggy wheel. He knelt to retrieve them and heard the air above his head pop as a bullet from Arballo’s pistol just missed. The deputy was sitting up, yelling through the pain and steadily returning fire.

  Rattled, Simmons finally succeeded in securing one shell. He jammed it in, snapped the breech, and edged out from behind the buggy. Arballo, finally given a clear shot, raised his gun again.

  The two men fired at nearly the exact same moment. Though none of the eyewitnesses would ever agree on who the honor went to, it was Arballo who fired first, but he himself couldn’t know it because the bullet had scarcely left his gun when Simmons’s double-ought spray knocked him back.

  An instant later, Simmons lurched into the open, limply dragging his double barrels along the ground. The severity of Arballo’s last shot was still uncertain to the dazed and huddled townsfolk, who continued to watch as Simmons tottered four more eerie steps. Finally, he pitched onto his face, never to move again. When the coroner finally turned Simmons’s body over, he and every citizen that dared to gather around found a neat blue hole, dead center between the eyes.

  A cloud of gun smoke hung in the air, then dissolved against a sudden breeze. The street was still only for a moment before one man stood up and took a look around, then another. But the day seemed reserved for gunfire, for only a few seconds went by before another volley sounded from uptown.

  Too late, Dobie came around the corner, breathing hard, his face twisted in exertion. He pau
sed, ignoring the questions of the crowd, checked on Arballo, then started running again, swearing aloud to himself that he wouldn’t be late a second time.

  “Ain’t gon’ be late, ain’t gon’ be late, ain’t gon’ be late . . .”

  A voice from outside clapped like thunder: “Gabr’el Kings!”

  Brownwell, who was nearest the entrance, approached the bank’s narrow, windowed doors with caution. Flattening himself against the wall, he peered through the glass, searched, and finally pinpointed a figure behind a stack of crates. Slid across the top of one was the barrel of a rifle. Behind the figure, a thick column of gray smoke roiled above the rooftops, staining the clear morning sky. There was shouting from upstreet, and, here and there, clots of people were forming, their collective attention drawn to the site. Men spilling water over the edges of buckets and pails hurried to the burning wreckage.

  Brownwell heard footsteps, and then his periphery was muddled by Kings’s black form crouching on the other side of the entryway, both pistols in his hands, a white strap of the cotton sack over his shoulder. He rose up on his toes to examine the shape the entire situation seemed to be taking.

  Caleb Stringer stayed where he was—not letting them see him, waiting for backup. How many men were there likely to be inside? Two or three at the most, with perhaps one more in the alleyway, holding the horses. He scanned the windows of the dry-goods store to the right, then the vacant structure to the left.

  He called out again, “Gabr’el Kings, I’m a captain in the Texas Rangers, appointed to bring you before a justice of the peace to answer for your crimes, and I have the men to back me! Will you come peaceably?”

  Nothing from the bank. A flicker of side movement caught Stringer’s eye. He looked and, to his relief, saw that it was Shepherd, who had appeared out of nowhere and was crouched behind a similar form of cover to Stringer’s immediate left, the big LeMat pistol extended in both hands. Several yards behind the sheriff, that colored deputy of his was standing flat against a false-fronted building, rifle raised. Whether there were any more close by, Stringer did not know, but he felt the very human clutch in his stomach loosen a degree.