Blood and Bullets

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  CHAPTER 39

  As is often the case following a hard nighttime storm, the following morning dawned bright and clear.

  Josh and Charlie rose with the first light, rousted and fed the women, then took care of the horses before loading up the pack animal once more. They were on their way before the bottom edge of the sun had fully cleared the horizon.

  “We’ll be spendin’ part of the day still down here in Mexico, ridin’ over some rocky ground that won’t leave a trail anybody short of an Apache could follow,” Charlie told the women as they were finishing up their breakfast. “Then, in the afternoon, we’ll cut north again—northwest, to be exact. Come night, we’ll be back in Texas. That’ll be our last night on the trail. After that, we’ll be in Bright Rock where we’ll be stayin’ for a spell and makin’ our homes together.”

  “The old, abandoned town might not look like much at first,” Josh added. “But we plan on fixin’ up a couple of the buildings right nice. Like Charlie said, we’re gonna turn ’em into homes where you gals will come to know and appreciate us.”

  “I already have a home. You dragged me away from it,” Kate said bitterly.

  “There’s a difference between a place to live and a home with a husband and family,” Charlie said. “I aim to show you what that difference is.”

  A surprisingly quiet Cleo just listened and gazed over the rim of her coffee cup with an odd, faraway look in her eyes.

  * * *

  North of the border, Firestick and Moosejaw also broke camp with the sun and were on their way south a short time later. They took time only to tend the horses and to make a small, quick fire over which they boiled some coffee. Otherwise they settled for beef jerky that they ate once in their saddles and on the move.

  They didn’t speak more than twenty words during all of this. There was no need. They each knew what to do, and the grim expressions on their faces said all that needed saying.

  * * *

  In the foothills of the Vieja Mountains north of Buffalo Peak, Pierce Torrence and his group also rose early. They went about their morning rituals unhurriedly, taking time for a substantial breakfast before tending to their horses and then packing their gear and striking camp.

  “I want to ride into town a little earlier than I first indicated,” Torrence had announced during breakfast. “Closer to, say, ten than noon. That will still give the businesses time to have deposited the money they took in over the weekend. The bank will be nice and plump for the picking, and the town in general should still be a bit groggy in the aftermath of their big festival.

  “We follow our standard routine. Letty goes in first. Black Hills and I follow, and we all make our withdrawal from behind drawn guns. Romo stays outside guarding the horses and watching the street. That will include deciding on a decent-looking horse from the nearest hitch rail that we can use to carry the hostage we’ll be taking with us.”

  “Who’ll pick the hostage?” Leticia asked.

  “Me,” said Torrence. “I’ll grab the best choice from whoever happens to be in the bank when we’re ready to haul out.” He paused, let his gaze rake meaningfully over the others. “You all know I normally don’t advocate gunplay unless it’s absolutely necessary. But this time I’m saying to play it a little different. Anything you see wearing a badge—fill it full of lead. The law dogs in this burg are former mountain men, remember, so likely better than average at tracking. Understood?”

  “Fillin’ a law dog full of lead,” echoed Romo, smiling broadly. “You don’t have to tell me twice, boss.”

  * * *

  Beartooth had decided to spend the night at the jail. In the absence of Firestick and Moosejaw, he meant to remain in town as much as possible.

  The way things stood now, the duel was still scheduled to take place at two o’clock this afternoon out near Buffalo Hump Butte. Beartooth wanted to believe that the discussion with Oberon Hadley the previous evening might have accomplished something, might have given the devoted aide some serious reluctance about going through with his part. But at the same time, he had a sinking feeling it hadn’t been enough.

  Victoria, who’d returned to the ranch last night with Miguel and Jesus, was due back in town sometime this morning. She planned to make a final appeal to Hadley by suggesting the idea of the deloping option. Though Beartooth had scoffed at the ridiculous-sounding practice, he secretly hoped that maybe—just maybe—it might provide a last-minute alternative to him having to kill Hadley. Much as the deputy disliked Shaw, he had no hard feelings against the man he was slated to face in his place. In fact, he found that he’d formed a grudging respect for the big, ugly, stubbornly loyal jackass . . .

  * * *

  In his room at the Mallory House, Rupert Shaw rose earlier than was his custom. In spite of his aches from the previous day’s horse fall, his spirits were high and he felt very energized. At his room’s washbasin, he even hummed a bit as he went through his morning ablutions. Any observer with knowledge of the man’s alleged injuries—particularly the cracked ribs and fractured arm—who witnessed the way he moved and leaned over the basin with no strain and the dexterity with which he handled a hairbrush in his right hand, would surely have found these acts at least surprising, if not highly suspicious. Only when he was finished at the washstand and had dressed, bending freely at the waist and using both hands to pull on his socks and trousers, did he carefully re-wrap the splint to his forearm and then hang it in a sling suspended from around his neck.

  That accomplished, he walked over to the door that accessed the room adjoining his and knocked loudly. After a minute, the door opened and a tousle-haired Oberon Hadley poked his head into the opening.

  “Sorry if I woke you, chum,” Shaw greeted him. “But it’s time to get on with what has the makings of a most memorable day. I’m not sure what accommodations are available in this establishment, what with the proprietress abducted and all, but I trust breakfast can still be arranged. If so, I wish to have something sent up to my room and I ask that you join me.”

  Hadley blinked puffy eyes and backhanded a yawn. “As ye wish, sar. As soon as I get . . . Hold on here—you’re all dressed already. Ye should have woke me sooner so I could have assisted, what with your bad arm and all. How did ye manage?”

  “Quite tediously and awkwardly. I’m sure you would have found it amusing to watch.” Shaw smiled. “But I can’t bother you with every little thing. I managed, and well enough. Though I will need some help getting my boots on.”

  “To be sure, Captain.”

  “But that can wait. First, let’s get some breakfast in us. After that, I need to make a trip to the bank and arrange for some traveling cash. While I’m out, I’ll also purchase our stagecoach tickets for the first transport out of this loathsome place once you’ve acted in my stead and taken care of that wretched deputy. I doubt even that will be enough to jolt my beloved Victoria out of her foolish romantic daze, but at least I will have saved her from the clutches of that backwoods ruffian.”

  Hadley’s scarred forehead puckered with deep seams. “About that, Captain . . .”

  “Yes? What is it?”

  But the big man couldn’t meet Shaw’s penetrating gaze. First he dragged his huge paw of a hand down over his face. Then he shoved it back the other way and ran it through his close-cropped hair. Sighing, turning back into his own room, he said, “Never mind, sar. I’ll get that breakfast ordered.”

  CHAPTER 40

  Four riders reached the outskirts of Buffalo Peak a handful of minutes past ten. Gazing down the length of Trail Street that stretched before them, they saw only a moderate amount of activity. At the far end, the last of the wranglers who’d participated in the previous day’s rodeo were gathering up their gear and their horses and getting ready to head back to the ranches they’d ridden in from. Behind the Baptist church, a few people, mostly women, were beginning to clear away chairs and tables left over from the picnic.

  While Torrence, Black Hills, and Romo lagg
ed behind, Leticia rode on ahead down the street. Clad in a long, tan-colored duster and a slouch hat, she drew no particular interest from the scattered few moving around on the boardwalks to either side.

  In front of the bank, she reined up and dismounted. Once she had tied her horse to the hitch rail, she shed her duster to reveal that underneath she was wearing a well-fitted pale yellow dress with a scooped front that displayed a rather daring amount of cleavage. Quickly folding the duster and shoving it under one of the thongs that held the bedroll in place behind her saddle, Leticia next removed her slouch hat and shook loose her mane of dark hair. Hanging the hat on the saddle horn, she turned to step up on the boardwalk and march into the bank with a smile on her lips and her prominent breasts thrust proudly out ahead of her. Inside, the attention she had failed to garner out on the street was instantly replaced by the total focus of every man in the bank.

  When Torrence and Black Hills entered only a couple of minutes behind her, not a single head turned to look at the new arrivals—until their guns suddenly flashed into view, aimed at the startled faces of the tellers behind their screens of flimsy, wide-spaced bars. Torrence announced in a loud voice, “This is a holdup! Everybody do exactly as you’re told and nobody has to get hurt. You’ll all live to tell your grandkids about it!”

  “And that includes you, sweetheart,” Leticia cooed to Ezra Ballard, the plump, elderly bank guard, as she swept a nickel-plated revolver from the folds of her skirt and shoved its muzzle under his nose. “Drop that shotgun—slow and careful—then get over there with the others.”

  Using his left hand and gripping it near the end of its twin barrels, Ezra lifted the shotgun resting in his lap, leaned over, and laid it gently on the floor beside the stool where he was sitting. Then he stood up and shuffled obediently the way Leticia was urging him. Even in that tense moment, he still couldn’t keep his rheumy old eyes from drifting to her breasts.

  After Torrence had locked the front door and pulled the window shades, he helped Leticia herd all of the tellers and customers, along with Ezra, to one end of the bank’s lobby. While they were doing this, Black Hills kicked open the waist-high swinging gate that led to the area behind the tellers’ counter. When bank president Jason Trugood came barging out of his office, he was immediately met by Black Hills’s long-barreled Colt jammed in his face.

  “Welcome to the party,” growled Black Hills. “You’re just in time to help me fill up a bag with all that money you’ve got cluttering up the joint.”

  “You’ll never get away with this!” Trugood blustered.

  “Reckon you must see things different than I do,” Black Hills countered. “Because it looks to me like we already are!”

  In the lobby, all those now gathered there were being ordered to lie facedown on the floor. Mostly there was stunned silence among them as they obeyed. One of the tellers, a frail young woman, sniffled quietly. One of the customers, however, a well-dressed dandy with one arm in a sling, attempted a show of protesting loudly.

  “This is an outrage!” he sputtered. “You can’t make people grovel on the floor like animals. Where is the law enforcement to prevent such treatment?”

  “You’d better hope they don’t show up, Fancy-pants,” Torrence told him. “Because if they do, bullets are sure to start flying and then a lot of innocent folks might end up on the floor permanent-like. Which is going to happen to you for sure if you don’t shut up and do as you’re told!”

  Huffing indignantly, the man in the sling lowered himself to the floor.

  “Alright. Keep them there and keep them quiet,” Torrence said to Leticia. “I’m going to help gather up the money.”

  As he hurried behind the tellers’ counter, Torrence couldn’t keep from smiling smugly. It was all going well, according to plan. In a matter of minutes, they’d be riding clear with a haul of easy money.

  What he couldn’t know was that, outside, the potential for trouble was taking shape. That shape was the towering form of Oberon Hadley coming across the street from the Mallory House, seemingly headed for the bank.

  From where he stood leaning casually against an awning post just off center of the bank’s front door, Romo tracked the approach of the big man. He was in place for the purpose of handling just this kind of unexpected problem. He’d done so in the past and was prepared to do so once again, though he found himself wishing the size of what he was going to have to deal with wasn’t quite so damn big.

  By the time Hadley stepped up on the boardwalk, there was no doubt that the bank was his destination. As he started to reach for the door handle, Romo flipped the butt of the cigarette he’d been smoking out into the street and said, “It’s locked. They’re closed for a little while.”

  Hadley looked over at him even as his hand closed on the doorknob. “What’s that ye say?”

  “The bank,” Romo said. “It’s closed. The door is locked.”

  Hadley confirmed this by trying the knob and finding it wouldn’t budge. “What the bloody hell? They were open earlier. I saw people going in and out.”

  “True enough,” Romo agreed in an easy, relaxed manner. “I was on my way in myself. That’s when some clerk-lookin’ fella stuck his head out and said he was lockin’ the door. But only for a short time, he said—some kind of emergency staff meetin’. Whatever that means.”

  Hadley frowned. “In the middle of the morning? With customers inside? That’s bloody odd, wouldn’t ye say?”

  Romo grinned sheepishly. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know, to tell the truth. Afraid I ain’t never had much truck with banks. Never had enough money to need one.”

  “No matter, they wouldn’t lock up and hold a staff meeting with customers inside,” insisted Hadley, his frown deepening. “I have a friend in there and I know for a fact he hasn’t come back out yet.”

  Romo stood a little straighter, easing his weight off the post. He was beginning to feel edgy about this hombre and the fact he was being stubborn when it came to accepting the simple explanation for why the bank was closed. “You sure about that friend of yours?” he said, keeping his tone light, just being curious. “They wouldn’t let me in, so I don’t think they are allowin’ customers to remain inside while they’re havin’ their powwow. Maybe your friend came out and you just didn’t notice.”

  Hadley regarded him for a minute. Romo had trouble reading his expression. He thought he might have seen brief ticks of annoyance and maybe suspicion. Enough of the latter, in fact, to cause him to shift his gun hand ever so slightly closer to the revolver on his hip.

  But then, abruptly, the big Englishman grinned. “That must be it. Me friend must have finished his business sooner than I expected,” he said affably. “I’ll be havin’ to look elsewhere for him, then. Good luck with your wait, chap. Hope it’s not too much longer.”

  With that, he turned and ambled away. Not back across the street, but on down the boardwalk toward a string of stores and shops.

  Romo breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back against his post again, though still a bit unsettled. Damn, they were taking their time in the bank. What the hell was keeping them?

  * * *

  Twenty yards down the boardwalk, Hadley stepped into the recessed doorway of a hat shop. He pressed his back against the door, having no intention of opening it and entering the shop. He stood very still, his mind churning, replaying the exchange he’d just had with the man in front of the bank. Something was wrong. He might be a stranger to America and its ways, but locking the door to your business during prime hours to allegedly hold an emergency meeting with your staff while customers were also still inside—and Captain Shaw was still inside, Hadley was certain of that—just didn’t seem logical.

  Hadley pictured the way all the shades were drawn over the bank windows, long before the day’s heat had built to an uncomfortable level or before the afternoon sun would be slanting directly down on them. And how the man out front was positioned . . . a lookout perhaps? Then there were the four hors
es tied close and ready at the hitch rail . . . ready to be ridden away hard in a getaway?

  The former sergeant thought about the rousing “dime novels” he’d read to pass the time during the trip across the country. He knew, of course, they were wildly embellished accounts of daring, imaginative exploits. But, at the same time, he’d also read enough newspaper articles detailing events of a similar nature—gunfights, raids, stagecoach and train holdups—to know there was a real-life core to those gaudy embellishments.

  With sudden conviction, Hadley knew that a bank robbery was in progress . . . and Captain Shaw was in the middle of it! Acting with the speed of that thought, Hadley’s hand darted inside his coat and under his vest and reappeared gripping his short-barreled .38 revolver.

  Although not a man to act on impulse, neither was Oberon Hadley a man to stand by and fail to get involved when warranted. But what was prudent in this situation? What action should he take if there were four armed robbers with who knew how many innocent customers and bank employees at their mercy if shooting broke out?

  He replayed in his mind’s eye the street scene he’d taken in upon first exiting the hotel. Hardly anyone out and about and none who looked like strong candidates to stand against violent criminals. Farther back up the street, nearly to the end, the adobe jail building had stood silent and deserted looking. Where in the hell was that deputy? Whatever other feelings Hadley might have about the man he seemed destined to face in a duel later this day, he marked him as strong and competent, the kind of man you’d want to stand shoulder to shoulder with in case of a confrontation.

  Suddenly, all of Hadley’s contemplation was shoved aside by a shout coming from the direction of the bank, followed immediately by the tramp of feet on the boardwalk and the rapid-fire voice of a man barking orders.