Trigger Gospel (22 page)

Prying the boards off with their rifle barrels, they made short work of getting inside the barn. They brought their horses in with them and stabled them alongside the Sontag string.

Across the away, a man bounced out of the door and started for the barns. Latch dropped him in his tracks. It brought a crashing fusillade from a dozen guns. Slugs screamed all about them, splintering the stable partitions and thudding dully into the timbers of the barn. Bitter Root cursed as one slapped the dust out of his vest.

“Push somethin' up there and barricade that door!” Bill commanded hoarsely. “They'll rush us any moment now!”

Bags of oats were stacked high in a corner. They toppled the pile over so it fell across the doorway. Link and Maverick grabbed one end of an old wagon box; Scotty and Tonto caught up the other end. Together they tossed it on top of the bags of oats. It made an excellent barricade.

Sprawled out behind it they began to pour a murderous fire into the store. It went unanswered for a moment. From around a corner of the building then eight men appeared. A little, bandy-legged man, a six-gun in either hand, led them in a concerted rush at the barn.

“It's Little Arkansaw!” Bitter Root screeched. “Til handle him!” Disdaining the protection of the barrier, he stood up and began to pump his rifle.

From the rooms above the store came a rain of gunfire. A slug hit an iron strap on the wagon box and glanced off to tear a ragged hole through Bitter Root's right shoulder. He shook himself like a terrier, and, undaunted, continued to blaze away. A blood-curdling yell burst from his lips as he saw Little Arkansaw go down and roll around in the dust.

Little Bill and the others were firing rapidly. The men who had dashed around the corner of the store held their ground doggedly for a minute or two, though it passed belief that any of them could escape being hit. Aside from Little Arkansaw, who had evidently been left in charge, they may never have figured importantly in Smoke Sontag's plans, but they could fight. One of them bent down to pick up Little Arkansaw. A bullet smacked him. A leg buckled under him. He grabbed Little Arkansaw, however, and dragged him out of the line of fire. The others retreated with him.

“We stopped that!” Bill ground out fiercely. He looked his men over. Scotty Ryan lay stretched out on the floor. Bill flung himself down beside him. “Scotty —where did they git yuh?”

There was no answer. Scotty's hair was matted with blood.

“He ain't bad hurt!” Bill exclaimed after a hasty examination of the wound. “Somebody toss a bucket of water on him!”

It had the desired effect. Latch wrapped a shirt sleeve around Ryan's head.

“See what yuh can do for Bitter Root!” Bill muttered.

“I don't need none of yore fussin'!” the old man grumbled. “I'm still goin' strong! It was a woman got me from thet corner window up there, damn her hide!”

“I noticed that,” Bill ground out. “There's two or three of 'em up there. They been doin' all that shootin'. I draw the line at turnin' my guns on a woman, but “

“But nuthin' I” Bitter Root growled. “The hissin', spittin' cats, they're wus then any man yuh ever faced! Right when the shootin' was the heaviest I saw one of 'em toss her empty rifle away and stand there and throw a water pitchur at us! Wimmen like them will cut yore heart out!”

“I'll put a stop to that,” Bill promised. “It won't take me long to git 'em out of there.”

“What do yuh aim to do?” Cherokee queried. The firing had ceased momentarily.

“I'm goin' to smoke 'em out,” Little Bill snapped. Cupping his hands to his mouth, he shouted: “I'm givin' yuh two minutes to git your women out of there! I'm touchin' a match to the Grocery!”

“Go to hell!” a voice screamed back at him.

Bill had his watch out. His face was stony. The Kid wormed his way back to him.

“Say, you're bluffin' about this, ain't yuh?” he snarled. “The Grocery is worth money to us!”

“Our hides is worth a lot more,” Bill answered him. “This thing has been a stand-off so far. The minutes are clickin' away. First thing we know we'll have Smoke's bunch tearin' into us. I said I'd give that crowd across the road two minutes—and I meant it!”

“That's just two minutes too long!” Cherokee cried. “There's a cellar under the rear of the store. Like as not they've got horses there. They can go out that way and give us the slip while we stand here gabbin' “

“The Kid's right!” Luther exclaimed. “They've pulled out and set the place afire themselves!”

“They have for a fact!” Latch cried. “That's flames lickin' along the roof!”

Bill put his watch away. The two minutes were up.

“Come on!” he ordered. “We'll find out whether they've pulled away or not I Bitter Root, you stay here with Cherokee and Scotty. Luther and Maverick will go round one side of the store with Latch. The rest of yuh come with me.”

They darted across the road without a shot being fired at them. A few seconds later they met in the rear of the store. Two horses were tethered in the open cellar. Fresh droppings told them that six or seven horses had been quartered there a few minutes ago.

“They're gone, all right!” Luther got out breathlessly. He started into the cellar only to have Bill stop him.

“There's one of 'em that didn't git away,” the red-haired one muttered.

“Yeh, he'll never be no deader,” Latch declared, turning the body over with his boot. “By the looks of things some of the rest must be pritty well shot up.”

“Well, watch yourselves!” Bill exclaimed. “We're goin' in. If we can beat that fire out we'll do it.”

“Why bother?” Luther demanded. “We ain't no better off here than we are across the road as long as that barn stands there!”

“There's nothin' to stop us from burnin' the barn down,” Bill told him. “She'll go in a hurry. We can hold off fifty men then.”

Bill led the way up to the first floor of the store. The moonlight pouring in through the shattered windows enabled them to see well enough.

“What's that?” Link gasped, freezing in his tracks.

From above came a thudding, scraping sound. It stopped for a moment and then began to move down the stairs.

“Stand back!” Bill warned tensely as he stuck out a foot and pushed the door open. A low gasp of astonishment broke from his lips as a woman backed down out of the smoke-filled stairway. She was dragging Little Arkansaw's dead body.

She straightened up with a scream of hatred as she caught sight of them.

“You wolves,” she cried viciously, “you killed my man! I hope you rot in hell for it!”

Without warning she sprang at Luther and tried to wrest his rifle out of his hands. Latch pulled her away.

“Give her a hand with that thing, Maverick, and git her away from here!” Bill ordered. “Look out she don't pull a knife on yuh!”

He ran up the stairs to the second floor. The others followed. One corner of the roof was ablaze, the flames eating down through the ceiling and one of the side walls.

“We can put that fire out on the roof!” Bill told them. “Soak some blankets and crawl up this ladder with me; Luther, you git an axe or two and knock down that side wall! You'll have to move fast!”

In a few minutes they had the blaze on the roof under control. As they worked, the firelight made them easy targets. Not a shot was fired, however, those of Smoke's men who had not been wounded having evidently ridden off to meet him.

“How yuh makin' it down there?” Bill called to Luther.

“We got the fire blocked off!” Luther answered. “If yuh can spare a man or two we'll beat it out!”

“I'll git the boys from the barn!” Bill ran to the front of the building and got Cherokee's attention. “Git the horses out of there and set that barn afire!” he shouted. “Yuh can put our string in back of the store! Git up here then! We need yuh!”

He stood there a moment, wondering whether Scotty and Bitter Root were in any shape to give the Kid a hand. He had almost instant proof of it as the three men hustled the horses out of the barn. Bitter Root and Scotty rode out then, leading Six-gun and the rest of their own ponies. The Kid was evidently busy firing the barn.

The two men did not wait for him. As they disappeared around the side of the store it was still for a moment. With a start, Bill realized that here was a chance for Cherokee to pull out. His jaws clicked together grimly as the thought burned into his brain. Rifle trained on the barn door, he waited.

The Kid seemed to be a long time about it if he were only firing the hay.

“He could slip out the back way,” Bill muttered.

He listened intently. A sound reached his ears. At first he thought it came from directly to the rear of the barn. He caught it again, however, and realized that it was the distant drumming of driving hoofs. He narrowed his eyes in a piercing squint but could see nothing. It was not necessary to have the proof of his eyes to know what it meant.

“It's Smoke!” he droned.

Suddenly below him the barn burst into flame from one end to the other. Cherokee ran out into the road. The roaring flames crowded out all other sounds.

“Come on, git up here, Kid!” Little Bill yelped at him. “I'm waitin' for yuh!”

B
ILL
ran back to the others with his news. Working feverishly, they extinguished the fire in the wall.

“Four men up here is enough!” he exclaimed. “Luther, you and Link and Flash stay with me! The rest of yuh git downstairs! Do as Latch tells yuh I They won't come at yuh from the front until the fire burns down! Just watch the rear and the cellar! We'll be all right if the barn don't set this place to burnin' again.”

The blazing barn was lighting up the plain half the way to the ridge.

“Be ready for 'em when they first show up,” Bill advised the three men who remained with him. “They'll come too far, not realizin' we can see 'em. We'll take advantage of that mistake.”

With the constant fear that flying sparks from the barn would ignite the store to disconcert them, they waited with nerves taut.

“There they are!” Flash announced. “The whole bunch of 'em!”

“Let 'em come on!” Bill cautioned. “That's Smoke ahead there. Grat's just in back of him. I don't sec nothin' of Beaudry.”

“I do …. He's over there nearest the ridge,” Luther muttered. “He's pullin' up, too! Knows they're seen, I reckon!”

Bill had a brief glimpse of the man Luther indicated.

“It's him, sure enough!” he acknowledged, his mouth hard. “He's droppin' back so far I'm losin' sight of him—”

“They'll all be droppin'back directly,” Flash declared. “We better take a crack at 'em before it's too late.”

“Wait,” Bill insisted. “They won't turn around until they've thrown a little lead at us. We'll let 'em have it when we see 'em raise their rifles.”

He could count only thirteen men, including Beaudry, who had disappeared in the direction of the ridge.

“That's what I make it,” Link agreed. “Unless Beaudry's got some reinforcements back there we ain't outnumbered much.”

The roof of the barn fell in, sending up a shower of sparks that fell all about them. One, as large as a man's hand, ignited the tar paper roof. Link scrambled to his feet to put out the flame. Bill yanked him down roughly.

“Don't do that I” he stormed. “Get careless like that and you'll be picked off! Crawl over there on your hands and knees, and keep your head down!”

For a few seconds after the barn roof had fallen in, the flames leaped higher than ever. The Sontags reined in their ponies sharply, obviously realizing that they stood revealed, but before they wheeled around they flung their guns to their shoulders, as Bill had foreseen, and began to pump them savagely.