A Good Day to Die (35 page)

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Authors: William W. Johnstone

BOOK: A Good Day to Die
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T
WENTY-FIVE
You've got to hand it to Hangtown. No sooner does it get shut of one round of killings, than it gets set for another,” Sam muttered.
“I'm getting set,” Johnny retorted. “My name's penciled in on this dance card.”
They stood near the Alamo Bar, off to one side, facing Four Corners, where the next big gunfight was shaping up.
Johnny was checking his hardware. One fully loaded gun was stuck in the top of his pants over his left hip. He transferred it to the empty holster on his right hip.
Sam stood puffing away on a corncob pipe, liking the way the taste of the rough-cut tobacco caught in his throat. He held the pipe with the bowl cradled in his left hand. His right hand hung down easily by his side, brushing against the butt of the holstered mule's-leg.
Their horses were tied to a hitching post. Red Hand was stretched facedown across the back of Johnny's horse.
“One loaded gun,” Johnny muttered. “Feels like I'm comin' to the party half dressed!”
Sam drew the Navy Colt worn holstered under his left arm and proffered it to Johnny. “Try mine.”
Johnny took it. “Thanks.” Instinctively he checked the .36 revolver, making sure it was loaded.
Sam smiled, not offended by Johnny's caution. Only a damned fool took a gun that wasn't his without inspecting it first.
“Red Hand's carcass should be worth something. Keep an eye on it for me, will you?” Johnny asked.
“Sure.”
“See ya.” Johnny started across the street.
“'Luck,” Sam said, giving the other a two-fingered salute.
 
 
The Comanche raiders had fled. The victorious townfolk were not minded to take up pursuit. Most were simply glad to be alive. Others had yet to slake their thirst for blood. Chief among those was Vince Stafford.
Now that the battle of Red Hand was done, Vince was moving fast to strike hard against the man he regarded as his main antagonist. Damon Bolt.
The sun was up. It was already hot. A light breeze from the west blew much of the smoke and dust out of town. The air was still hazy, and stank of cordite, blood, and death.
Four Corners bore all the marks of the war zone it was. A number of small fires burned where flaming debris had fallen on rooftops, porches, or boardwalks, sending up long, thin fingers of gray-black smoke. The street grid was pocked with the craters of exploded dynamite caches and strewn with the dead bodies of horses and men.
Wooden walls were riddled with bullet holes. An intact pane of window glass was not to be found for blocks. Glass shards littered the streets, reflecting sunlight like a diamond mosaic.
From all sides came a mixed chorus of the shrieks and groans of the wounded and the dying. A disemboweled horse lay on its side shrieking, legs churning empty air.
Vigilant and bloody-minded citizens roamed among fallen Comanches, delivering the coup de grâce to those still alive or any who looked doubtful.
A shot sounded and the wounded horse stopped shrieking. Frown lines in Sam Heller's face smoothed out. The horse's outcries had been getting on his nerves. He was glad someone had put it out of its misery.
Men were sure pure hell on horses. They were hell on each other, too, but at least they had a choice. The horses didn't.
Maybe the men didn't have a choice, either, but that was the way of it,
Sam told himself.
The Ramrod bunch, what was left of them, was mustering in front of the feed store to take their fight to the Golden Spur. They gathered around Vince Stafford as if by some law of gravitation, all the lesser satellites falling under his heavy sway.
Of the top guns, Dan Oxblood, Kev Huddy, and Clay Stafford were intact and unwounded. Ted Claiborne had been hit several times. None of the wounds was mortal, but he was out of action. Among the next rank, Duncan, Kaw, and Lord were unhurt or had received minor flesh wounds. Five other lesser, mid-range Ramrod gun hands were in shape for the showdown. Vince Stafford was unharmed, as was Quent.
Vince took stock of the situation and found it good. Most of the citizenry was still staying off the streets. Sheriff Barton and his men were busy at the Big Corral, shoring it up to prevent any horses from escaping.
Vince gripped a rifle, holding it horizontally across the tops of bowed, spindly thighs. An oversized horse pistol was strapped to his hip.
“I come out of that scrap all right, by God! I got my two strong sons to side me and more'n half my men alive,” he crowed. His face scrunched up, squinting across the street at the Golden Spur.
Clay and Quent Stafford fell in alongside Vince, flanking him, Clay on his left and Quent on his right.
Clay's face was tiger striped with blood streaks from where a glass shard had opened a cut on his forehead. A blue bandanna was knotted around his forehead. It was stained a purple-wine color, but the makeshift bandage had stemmed the flow of blood from the wound. His hair was disarranged. It stood out in yellow-white spikes, some stained red. His face was taut, haggard, his eyes watchful. A smoking six-gun was held at his side.
Quent loomed large, a brutish hulk dwarfing his wizened father and tall, lanky younger brother. The battle had left not a mark on him. His little piggy eyes were bright and glowing. His wide mouth twisted into a leering grin.
“Where's the gunfighter?” Vince asked.
“Right here,” Dan Oxblood said, stepping forward into the front rank. He took off his hat, running his fingers through sweat-damp, brick-colored hair. His face was soot smeared from the smoke. Green eyes glinted. No tremor disturbed those quick gunfighter hands.
Vince began to rally his troops. “Get set, men. We gone clean up on the Golden Spur crowd.”
“Now, Boss?” somebody asked.
“There'll never be a better time,” Vince said. “The townsmen have had a bellyful of killing. Them that's still alive ain't gonna risk their precious skins to save the gambler's hash. We finish it here and now.”
“What about all them Mexes forted up in the Spur?” asked another.
“If any of 'em buck us, kill 'em,” Vince snapped.
“They won't fight. What's Damon to them?” Clay said.
Quent spat. “Might as well clean up on them, too. They's already too many of the dirty greasers around.”
“Their money's as good as anybody else's, and we got beef to sell them—”
“Hell, brother, them beaners ain't got a pot to piss in. To hell with 'em.”
“Shooting at them's the best way to make them throw in with Damon,” Clay argued. “Why go picking fights when you don't have to?”
“'Cause that's what I like to do,” Quent said stubbornly.
“Clay's right. Don't go burnin' down nobody less'n they throw in agin' us,” Vince said, laying down the law in his best because-I-said-so tone of finality.
Quent changed the subject. “And the girl, Pa? Damon's whore? What about her”
“I'll tend to her later.”
“You still bulldogging that, Pa?” Clay said, not bothering to hide his disgust.
“You know me, son. Once I set my mind to a thing, it's done. That's the way it is and that's how it's always going to be, as long as I'm in charge of this outfit. And that's gonna be a long, long time.”
“Let me do it, Pa. I'll fix her,” Quent said, licking his lips. A little spittle drooled down the corner of his chin.
“Keep your mitts off her, boy. An overgrowed galoot like you don't know your own strength. You git your paws on her pretty neck, you're liable to snap it like a twig.”
“I might—after ...” Quent's little round eyes were hot, dreamy.
“That's too quick,” Vince said, his voice strident. “She's gotta live as a warning and a reminder of what happens to those who trifle with a Stafford. She worked woe on poor Bliss and I'm gonna do the same to her and she ain't never gonna forget it. And this town ain't never gonna forget it, either.”
A couple dead Comanches and townsmen lay sprawled on the street in front of the gambling hall. The façade of the building was shot up. Shadows that could have been figures flitted behind boarded-up front windows.
“Looks quiet,” a Ramrod rider said.
“I pray the gambler still lives,” Vince said fervently. “Don't do me out of the pleasure of killing him myself!”
“Don't trouble yourself, Pa. Damon's not dead,” Clay said, sour-faced.
“How do you know?” the old man demanded.
“Because there he is.” Clay gestured north toward the street between the Golden Spur and the courthouse.
Damon Bolt rounded the corner of the Spur, stepping into view, Creed Teece beside him. They halted, facing the Staffords and company, hands hanging low over holstered guns.
Vince bristled like a mountain cat getting its back arched for a fight.
A courthouse door opened. Out came Ace High Olcutt, poker faced, his complexion looking a little grayish. Moving alongside Damon, he stood with him and Creed Teece. Olcutt turned hard eyes on the Stafford crowd. He swept back his coattail, out of the way of the gun holstered on his hip. His hand hovered over the gun butt.
Damon smiled. “Decided to get in the game after all, eh, Ace High?”
“You know me, I'm a gambling man. I got to be where the action is.”
“Glad to have you. I made a bet with myself on you, and it looks like I won.”
Keeping his eyes on the Stafford party, Creed Teece said, “I take back what I said about you being a yellow belly, Ace High.”
“Thanks,” Olcutt said sarcastically.
Flint Ryan and Charley Bronco came out the front doors of the Golden Spur and took up a stance on the front porch. Ryan held a rifle. His long, thin horse face looked tired. His eyes were heavy lidded. Suddenly he showed a bucktoothed grin.
Charley Bronco was hatless, long dark hair hanging down to his shoulders. His face was sweaty, almost feverish. His slitted eyes glittered. He was a little unsteady on his feet, swaying slightly. His fringed buckskin shirt was stained with dark blood on his left side where he'd been hit. He'd been tagged high in the left arm, too. The arm hung down straight along his side. His right hand hovered over the gun on his right hip.
Barkeep Morrissey appeared at the window to the right of the front door, wielding a double-barreled shotgun.
Luke Pettigrew showed in the window at the left, thrusting a double-bored shotgun muzzle through the space between a couple boards nailed across the window frame.
Johnny Cross eased into view, anchoring the southeast front corner of the building, a .44 on his right hip and the Navy Colt worn butt-out in the top of his pants on his left hip.
“Hey, hoss,” Luke called to him.
Johnny grinned. “So you made it for the showdown, huh?”
“Wouldn't miss it,” Luke said. “Hell, I can't miss—not with this here scattergun.”
“The way you shoot, I ain't so sure.”
 
 
“Spread out, men,” Clay Stafford said tightly. The Ramrod gunmen stepped to the sides to confront the Golden Spur bunch across the street. “You know what to do, Red.”
Dan Oxblood's left hand hung loosely at his side, over his six-gun in its black leather holster decorated with silver stars and sunbursts. His tone was mild and conversational as if he were passing the time of day. “I got Creed covered.”
“You do, huh?” Creed Teece called, his voice as flat and even as his level-eyed gaze.
“That's right.”
“Tell me another one.”
“Gambler! This's Stafford, Vince Stafford!” the old man shouted.

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