Blood Bond 5 (17 page)

Parley had returned to the marshal's office for sawed-off shotguns and bags of shells. He passed them around.

“This is not going to be pleasant,” Sam said.

He was right.

Unknown to Matt and Sam and Deputy Parley Davis, a few of the ladies of the town had met secretly during the last few days and formed their own plans as to the protection of life and property. Armed with rifles, shotguns, and various types of pistols, including a few Dragoons, the ladies took their positions inside the Crossville Cattle Exchange Bank, the general store, the dress shop, and a few other businesses. The outlaws who had foolishly decided to attack and loot and attempt to destroy this Western town were going to be in for the shock of their lives. And for some of them, it was going to be a very brief shock . . . the last thing they would know on this earth.

An outlaw known only as Chub kicked in the back door to Miss Charlotte's Dress Shop and stomped in, both hands filled with guns. “Git over there agin that damn wall!” he ordered the ladies. “After I see what's in the money box, I'll pleasure myself with a couple of you. So you might as well strip and save me the trouble of rippin' them rags offen you.”

Mrs. Hortense Pennypacker told the unwashed lout what he could do with his orders, and where he could stick them. Before the startled outlaw could reply, Mrs. Pennypacker lifted a double-barreled shotgun and blew Chub slap out the back door.

Miss Charlotte picked up the outlaw's guns from where he had dropped them from lifeless fingers and checked the loads. Full. She smiled grimly and moved to the front of the store. “Courage, ladies,” she said. “Decency and justice will prevail and sustain us through this ordeal.” She lifted both pistols and fired through the show window just as one group of the outlaws began their wild, screaming charge up the main street. The .45 slugs knocked an outlaw off his horse and put him dead in the dust.

Matt and Sam lined up a racing rider and fired as one. The outlaw threw up both hands and tumbled from the saddle. One boot twisted and hung in the stirrup, and the man was dragged to the point of being unrecognizable to the edge of town, across the bridge, and beyond.

Singer was quick to realize that his plan was not going to work. “Get back in here!” he told his bodyguards. “It's going sour. Move. Quickly!”

“It just started!” Neyburn protested, stepping into the land office.

“Nobody trees a Western town,” Blue said, coming in right behind him. “I told ever'body concerned it wouldn't work.”

“Stop bickering,” Singer shushed them over the rattle of gunfire. “Let's just keep our heads down. There is always tomorrow.”

“Not for them boys out yonder,” Donner said bitterly, his eyes on the dust-churned street.

Doc Blaine was standing inside the dubious protection of the entrance to the barber shop, choosing his targets carefully and firing with deadly accuracy.

A wild-eyed outlaw who had been thrown from his frightened horse, and sensing that things were not going well for his side, ran up the alley in a panic and burst into the rear of Wo Fong's laundry. Wo Fong was waiting by the door. Wo very forcefully laid a heavy iron to the side of the man's head, and the outlaw dropped to the floor, his head busted open and his skull fractured. Wo Fong carefully barred the back door to his shop, picked up the dying man's guns, and moved to the front of his establishment, muttering dark curses in his native tongue. Wo Fong wasn't all that familiar with a six-shooter, but he'd seen other men use them, and figured he could, too.

Les and Willie ran from the rear of the Mexican Cafe, across the alley, and onto the boardwalk by the edge of Wo Fong's. Wo turned at the sound, lifted both .45s, and started blasting through the window.

Wo didn't do much damage, but he sure scared the pee out of the two young gunhands as he let the lead fly just as fast as he could cock and pull the trigger. Les got his hat blowed off, and Willie lost the bootheel on his left boot, the impact of the .45 slug bending his spur and driving part of it through the leather and into his foot. It knocked him down and brought a shriek of fright from the man, sure he had lost his foot.

Wo started yelling in Chinese, and that only made matters worse for the gunmen, both of them now certain they were under attack from hordes of wild-eyed foreign savages.

Les and Willie took off for the protection of the creek bank, Les minus his new hat and Willie limping badly.

Wo Fong returned to the dying outlaw, took off his gunbelt and reloaded. He slung the belt around his narrow hips and stood ready to repel any other intruders.

Paul Mitchell and Bobby Dumas ran onto the back porch of the pastor's residence by the church. Bad move. William and Melinda Fowler had reached their limit of patience when it came to lawlessness. Paul opened the back door, and the reverend shot him with a load of birdshot, the lead taking him in the chest and belly. The light loads didn't do a whole lot of permanent damage, but they damn sure ruined Paul's day. Certain he was mortally wounded, the gunhand howled in pain and spun around, his chest and belly bloody. He ran over Bobby and knocked the man off the porch just as Melinda stepped out and tossed a pot of hot coffee on Bobby, the scalding liquid splashing on Bobby's back and the side of his face. Shrieking in more pain than his buddy was enduring, Bobby joined Paul in running away.

William reloaded and let fire another load of birdshot. Most of it missed but for the rest of his life, Bobby would carry lead in his ass.

“Bastards!” William muttered.

Sour-faced Lawyer Sprague had taken his rifle and moved to a window of his second floor office. A combat-hardened veteran of the War Between the States, Sprague was methodically choosing his targets and dropping a man with each round fired. The lawyer despised lawlessness, and despite his chosen profession, had absolutely no sympathy for those who chose the outlaw trail. “Contemptible scum,” he said.

Farmer John, after seeing very quickly that the attack was doomed to failure, got him a bottle and a glass and retired to the darkness of a far corner of the saloon. “Bloody day,” the hired gun muttered as he filled a glass. “But none of my blood is gonna be spilt.”

Most of the older and wiser guns-for-hire felt the same way, and they stayed out of this attack.

“Stay down!” Bob Coody told the two men with him. “It's a deathtrap out yonder.”

“We're tryin' the bank,” they told him.

“You're damn fools if you do.”

“Hell with you.” The two ran across the dust-filled street and up the alley, heading for the rear of the bank.

“Idiots,” Bob said, and headed for the livery and his horse. He was getting gone from this town for this day. But he passed by the house where young Billy was protecting his ma and his puppy. Billy lined him up and pulled the trigger. The .22 slug slammed into Coody's gunbelt and discharged several .45 caliber rounds. Coody did a wild dance as he tried to both run and rip off his exploding gunbelt. Billy put another slug into Coody's thigh, and the man yelled and pitched forward into the murky safety of the cavernous livery. “Jesus!” Coody said, limping toward his horse. “What fool dreamed up this plan?” He saddled up and got out of there.

The two who decided to try the bank slammed open the back door and charged in. They had only a few seconds to realize the error of their decision. Four shotguns roared, and the two were slung back outside, one dead before he hit the ground and the other badly wounded.

The dust from frightened, rampaging and riderless horses was thick in the air, and the gunsmoke was arid, hanging close in the streets. But the battle was very nearly over . . . at least this round of it.

Matt and Sam cautiously looked around for any of the known gunhands. But few of them had ever even shown up for this disaster, perhaps sensing that is what it would turn into. They might be paid gunmen and in some cases cold-blooded killers, but that did not make them stupid. Just a little short in the morals department.

A hired gun staggered out of an alley and screamed curses at Matt and Sam. He lifted an empty hand and tried to cock the pistol that wasn't there. “Damn you!” he shouted hoarsely. “Damn you both to the hellfires.” Then he collapsed face-down in the street.

“Do you know that fellow?” Sam asked.

“I never saw him before in my life,” Matt replied, punching out empties and reloading.

“Name is Barton,” Parley said. “He's a drifter and a no-good. When he does work, he works for Ladue.”

“It's beginning to get a bit clearer now,” Sam said. Doc Blaine had holstered his pistols and was now carrying his black bag. The undertaker and his helper were wandering from body to body, the helper carrying a tape measure and jotting down measurements.

Farmer John had left the saloon and was standing on the boardwalk, sipping at a glass of whiskey. Dud, Proctor, and Donner joined him. They stood silently, looking at the carnage that lay still and bloody in the street. Only a few who had attempted to tree the town were still alive.

“They's four back here in this alley,” a shout came. “One is still breathin'.”

“Wo Fong's got one in his cleanin' place,” a woman hollered. “He busted his head with an iron.”

“Two behind the bank,” a man yelled.

“One behind Miss Charlotte's,” a woman called.

Matt and Sam and Parley walked the street and the alleys, looking at the dead and wounded. They stopped in front of Singer's Land Office and looked in through the open door. The four bodyguards were sitting in the outer office, Singer sitting alone in his big office.

“It didn't work out quite like you planned, did it, Singer?” Matt called.

Ralph Masters' flashpan popped. The newspaperman was busy taking pictures of the dead. Somebody had propped Chub up on a board with his rifle in his dead hands and was charging two bits to anyone who wanted to pose for a picture.

Miss Charlotte had kept Chub's pistols.

“Somebody get that one the horse dragged,” Parley ordered. “Toss him in a wagon and bring him back here.”

“Eighteen dead and four still breathin', Parley,” a citizen reported. “I ain't never seen nothin' like this.”

“I hope I never see anything like it again,” the young deputy replied.

“You will,” Lawyer Sprague said, walking up, still carrying his rifle. “The worst is yet to come.” He looked in on Singer. “Isn't that right, Singer?”

“I don't know what you're talking about!” Singer said hotly. “This is a terrible, terrible thing that happened to this lovely town today. A tragedy, I say. I have never before witnessed such an overt act of wanton brutishness. I . . .”

“Oh, blow it out your backflap, you big windbag,” the lawyer said, and walked on up the street.

“You'd better leave town while you're still able,” Sam told Singer. “I think your time is growing rather short.”

Singer glared at him and said nothing.

Parley walked across the street, and the blood-bonded brothers walked on. They climbed the stairs to the hotel, which had not received a single bullet hole this time around, and went into the dining room.

“Coffee,” Matt said, just as the chef stuck his head out of the kitchen. Matt started laughing. The chef wore a Prussian-style helmet complete with high plume.

He frowned at the brothers and disappeared back into the safety of his kitchen.

Sam wiped his eyes and said, “The way things are going, that helmet is not such a bad idea.”

Matt stared at him for a moment, working up a mental picture of Sam in a Prussian helmet, and busted out laughing again.

Sam did his best to look hurt. “I think I would appear quite dashing.”

“Oh, I do, too, Sam. I do, too.

One of the badly wounded gunmen still lying in the dirt of the street lifted himself up on one elbow and took a shot at young Parley. The shot missed the deputy, busted one of the front windows of the dining room, and shattered the vase of flowers on the table where Matt and Sam were sitting. Both men hit the floor. The bullet stopped when it impacted against the brand new coffee urn. It now had a hole in it, spewing hot coffee. The chef hollered as he hit the floor of the kitchen, cussing in French and German.

The gunman shook his head at his bad marksmanship and then lost consciousness, the six-gun slipping from his hand.

Sam looked at Matt, both of them under the table. He pointed a finger at his blood brother. “I told you weeks ago that we should have headed south. But no, you wanted to see the Idaho Territory.”

“You didn't have to come along, you know.”

“I promised your parents I'd look after you.”

The men crawled out from under the table and moved to another table, this one a bit more protected. They stopped at the coffee urn and held their cups under the stream of coffee gushing from the urn, filling them full.

“You got any pie?” Matt hollered, seating himself at the table.

“The kitchen is closed!” the chef shouted.

“Look there,” Sam said, cutting his eyes. “Someone is getting desperate.”

A lone rider was walking his horse up the street. The man was dressed all in black, from his hat to his polished boots, and carried his rifle across his saddle horn. Even at this distance Matt recognized the rider.

“Gates,” Matt said.

The chef came out of the kitchen with two huge wedges of apple pie. “I changed my mind,” he explained. “The shooting wasn't the fault of you gentlemen. And the pie is delicious.” Then he picked up on the direction his only customers' eyes were taking. “Who is that?”

“Wilbur Gates,” Sam said. “Nobody really knows where he's from. But he's a long-distance shooter. And I've never known him to miss.”

The chef tossed the plates of pie on the table and beat it back to his kitchen. He was still wearing his helmet.