Golden Riders (5 page)

Wild-eyed crazy . . . ?
Prew had to think about that one for a second. Finally he shrugged again.

“I expect they're all headed for Boot Hill now?” he queried.

“No,” said the bartender, “they all lived through it, don't ask me how. They say it's hard to kill a lunatic.” He pointed a big finger off along the street out front. “They're all in our jail. But it's likely they'll swing by morning. There're some townsmen mulling it over right now. Add some whiskey into the mix, I'd say they'll be reaching for ropes most anytime.” His hand went below the bar and came up with change for Prew's gold coin. “They liquored up right here on loaded mescal before they did their deed,” he added matter-of-factly. He dropped the change onto the bar top.

Prew, sweeping up the change, said, “Man, that must be some powerful mescal.”

“I'll say so,” said the bartender. “The owner had me take it off our offerings till mescal season next year. Said this was just too strong a mix for these desert pilgrims.” He gave a tight, thin smile. “But I myself will have to slip in a drink or two before I go casting judgment. It's out in the woodshed—what's left of it.”

“That's the only way to know for sure.” Prew nodded, raised his shot glass, drained it, filled it up, and drained it again. “Hearing all this makes me curious about it myself.” He paused thinking how powerful the mescal must be to have sidetracked his brothers so quickly. Then he said, “Say they're about to hang those three?”

“Oh yes,” said the bartender. “They'll swing for certain.”

“Well. . . .” Prew sighed, swept the bottle of rye up, corked it, and touched his hat brim toward the bartender. “I suppose if a man's got to swing, drunk is the best way to do it.” He turned and walked out the rear door. He saw the Bluebird stand up from the shadows as he closed the door behind him.

“Well, Bird,” he said, walking up to the waiting half-breed. “I found out what happened, and where my brothers are.”

The Bluebird only nodded, seeing Prew's lips move.

“They're in jail,” Prew said, the two of them walking purposefully to their horses, “and we're going to get them out, right now. Get your stuff.” He motioned the Bluebird toward his saddlebags.

As the Bluebird took out a homemade bundle of four
dynamite sticks from his bags he turned to Prew and saw him hold up three fingers.

“I want all three of my brothers out of there alive—do you understand me?”

The Bluebird looked at Prew's three fingers and only nodded; he turned back to the saddlebags.

“All right, get it ready to blow,” Prew said. “I'll get their horses out of the barn. He turned and unhitched his horse's reins. Before leading his horse away, he looked at the woodshed where the bartender had placed the jugs of mescal. “One more thing I've got to do,” he said. He patted the Bluebird on his back as the Indian pulled out two more bundles of dynamite sticks and tucked them under his arm. Bluebird only nodded without looking around.

At the wall of iron bars separating the three Garlets' cell from the cell housing the Ranger's two prisoners, John Garlet, Cutthroat Teddy and Jake Cleary huddled and whispered back and forth in the slice of moonlight slanting through a rear window. Behind John Garlet, Foz and Tillman lay sleeping beneath a steady rise and fall of snoring and mindless babble. Behind Bonsell and Cleary, Casey Stans, the prospector, lay on the plank floor, using his wadded-up hat for a pillow. The sheriff had placed him in the cell to keep him from sleeping on the street.

Jake Cleary gave the sleeping prospector a guarded look, then turned back to John Garlet.

“Don't worry about that old desert rat,” John Garlet said in a lowered voice, still sounding woozy and somewhat disoriented. “He's with us, leastwise until we say he can leave.”

Bonsell and Cleary gave each other a dubious look.

“All right, here's the way I see it,” said Cleary, knowing he could spend all night waiting for John Garlet's
head to clear. “You hombres
did not
rob the bank, so get that part out of your mind right now.”

“We meant to,” said John, a little confused.

“
Shhh,
just hush saying that,” said Cleary. “Don't even let it in your mind. You rode in here, the barkeeper sold you some mescal liquor that would stagger a bull ram. You had no idea in hell what you were doing when you went into that bank.”

“That part's true,” John said, scratching his throbbing head. “One minute we were drinking big swigs, the next, Tillman and me were on our backs in the dirt where we run each other down in an alley.”

“That must be some powerfully good stuff,” Cutthroat Teddy put in. He sat lowered on his haunches, his bandaged left hand hanging between his knees, his two shortened fingers throbbing like the beat of a drum.

Cleary eyed Bonsell and said in a gruff whisper, “Pay attention, Teddy. Stick to the matter at hand.” Then he looked back at the striped shadowy moonlight crisscrossing John Garlet's face. “One question, is your brother Prew coming for you?” he asked.

“Hell yes, you can count on it,” John said, knowing that much for certain. “I'm surprised he's not here already.”

Cleary let out breath in relief and relaxed a little.

“Then that's that,” he said. “It doesn't matter if the law says you're guilty or not. You'll be out of here soon as Prew hears about it. He don't want to leave you here and risk a lynching while the law scratches its butt deciding what to charge you with.”

“Yep, that's kind of how I see it,” John said, sort of understanding the conversation in spite of his mind still floating on a sea of mescal.

“My question is,” said Cleary, “can I count on you and your brothers letting me and Cutthroat out, too?”

“We all ride for the Golden Gang,” said John. “How can you even ask me something like that?”

“Sorry, John,” said Cleary. “The shape you're in I wouldn't want to get forgotten about here.”

“You won't be forgotten . . . uh,” said John, leaving his words hanging under a confused stare.

“Damn it,
John
, it's us—me and Jake Cleary. Look at me,” said Cutthroat Teddy, seeing the outlaw struggle to remember who he was talking to.

“Okay,
okay
,” said John, raising his eyes to Bonsell's shadowy face through the bars, “I forgot for a second. I know it's you. I'm not a damned idiot.” He paused and cupped his unsteady hands to the sides on his head. “I'm getting sober here.” He paused again, then said, “But I swear I can hear a bug crawling down the wall.”

Cleary looked around the dark cells, seeing no sign of any crawling things.

“Get yourself sober,” he coaxed John.

“I'm trying,” John said. “I'm just coming and going. One minute I'm here, the next I'm somewhere else.”

Cleary and Bonsell looked at each other again. Bonsell stifled a laugh and grinned.

“That has got to be some awfully good stuff,” he repeated.

Cleary gave him a sour stare.

“What . . . ?” said Bonsell. “You hear about something that makes a man act like this and you ain't even curious?”

“No,” Cleary said, tight-lipped. “I've been as drunk as I wanted to be my whole damned life. I don't need no Mexican
whoopiee
potion making me walk upside down.” He shook his head and looked around again as if searching for bugs crawling on the walls. “You young outlaws are killing us, dragging the whole profession down.”

John Garlet sat staring blankly at the floor, his head in his hands.

“John,” said Cleary. He waited, got no response.
“John,”
he said again. “John,” he said a third time. When John looked up from his hands and back through the bars at him, Cleary said, “Can you get up, walk around some?”

“Where we going . . . ?” John asked as if in a dreamlike state.

Jesus . . .

Cutthroat Teddy even took it seriously, seeing that the outlaw had gained little ground toward reclaiming his senses.

“John, get up and walk around the cell some,” he said. Then he turned to Cleary as John struggled to his feet. “He was all right a minute ago,” he said in amazement.

“This ain't
a minute ago
,” said Cleary. “This is
now
.”

“I'm over here,” John whispered for no reason at all, having staggered his way toward the rear window.

“We know that, John,” Cleary whispered. “Keep quiet.” He spoke with slow calm words, like a man
hoping to steer a lunatic away from a high ledge. “See if you can wake your brothers, easy like—”

Cleary stopped short at the sight of a black silhouette blocking the moonlight at the rear window.

“Get back,” said a stiff voice from the darkness outside, “I blow these bars out.”

“Get back where?” John said dreamily. He looked baffled.

“No! No!” said Cleary, trying to shout in a whisper. “Not yet! Let us get ready!”

“Get down . . . ,” said the voice as if ignoring Cleary's desperate pleading. “Here goes.”

“Wait! For God's sake,
wait
!
What's
wrong with you
?” shouted Cleary, hearing the sudden sizzling sound of a wick burning outside the window. Seeing nothing would stop the sizzling wick, he shouted at John, throwing silence to the wind. “Get your brothers under the bunk! Get down yourself; take cover!” even as he spoke, he and Cutthroat Teddy flung themselves to the floor and belly-crawled under their bunks.

Cleary grabbed a thin straw mattress, pulled it under the bunk with him and hugged it to himself quickly. He drew a deep breath like a man going underwater and held it as the whole jail building seemed to jump a foot off the ground and hang there. Before squeezing his eyes shut he saw the world turn into a spinning, churning fireball. He heard a sound like cannon fire, and in the roar of it he felt a second blast, this one louder, harder.

In the midst of the two blasts he saw John Garlet fly away, spread-eagle on a section of bars that had ripped
loose from between the two cells. He thought he caught a glimpse of the devil's red-blue hand reach sidelong out of some netherworld and slap him out from under his bunk like a matron's broom sweeping away a mouse. Behind the blast, the world slammed back into place with the breath of hell's fire and brimstone.

In his hotel room a block away, the Ranger awakened fast and felt himself suspended in air for a split second. Then he felt himself and his bed jar back down onto the plank floor.

Dynamite . . . Jailbreak . . .
Was that one blast or two? he asked himself as he batted sleep from his eyes.

Almost before the hotel had stopped trembling he rolled from the bedside to his feet. Grabbing his Colt, holster and all from the bedpost, he slung the gun belt over his shoulder and grabbed his trousers from a chair back. He stepped into his boots as he buttoned his fly. He stamped his boots into place and grabbed his Winchester rifle from against the wall on his way to the door. From the direction of the blasts came a relentless round of bullets exploding randomly.

On his way down the newly replaced steps to the hotel lobby, Sam saw men and women alike running along the hallway from their rooms in housecoats and slippers. The boards of the hallway floor were likewise new, still unpainted, having replaced the tread and risers left cracked and broken behind the hooves of Foz Garlet's galloping horse.

Sam made it to the stairs ahead of the other awakened guests. He descended the stairs and was out the
front door in the dirt street as the townsmen hurried here and there staring in disbelief at the black fire-streaked smoke boiling and billowing along the rooftops.

While men gathered to form a bucket brigade at the town's water troughs, Sam ran up the street under a low looming cloud of smoke. From inside the smoke, bullets continued to explode. He crouched beside the town doctor who kneeled over Sheriff Schaffer lying prone in the dirt. Schaffer's face was black; smoke curled from his scorched shirt.

“I'm all right, Ranger,” the sheriff said, gasping for breath.

“I've got him,” the doctor said, looking up at Sam. “Get the horses out of the barn!”

Sam looked around at the chaos growing along the street. Men and women ran back and forth. Bullets still exploded from within the black smoke; debris and bits of burning wood lay strewn everywhere. Following the doctor's orders, Sam moved on through the smoke, seeing one of the outlaws, John Garlet, still lying spread-eagle, pinned to the ground by the section of ripped-out bars.

But he didn't stop to check on the downed outlaw. Hearing the sound of whinnying and neighing coming from the direction of the livery barn, he hurried on through the smoke. But he didn't have to turn the frightened animals loose. At an alleyway leading back to the barn, he heard the thunder of hooves running toward him and jumped aside just in time to see horses emerge from the roiling smoke. Like apparitions fleeing a nightmare, the animals raced past him, smoke gusting from their nostrils.

When he spotted his black-point dun running out of the smoke, he took a chance, leaped out, grabbed its mane with his left hand and swung up onto its back as the horse cut away from the others and turned onto the street. Feeling the weight, the sudden clutch of a human hand, the big copper dun tried slinging him off sideways. But Sam held fast, allowing the horse to buck and fight for a second. Then he settled it with a firm familiar hand, made it realize it was him, his feel, his touch, his weight and scent atop it.

“Easy, Copper, easy, boy . . . ,” he said, realizing from the graveled strain in his voice how badly the black smoke was getting to him. Beneath him the dun settled, grudgingly at first, careful not to be tricked. Sam, reaching farther up the dun's neck, took another handful of mane and leveled the horse's gait into a slower, waning pace, then down to a trot, the Ranger's grip holding firm control.

As soon as the dun settled under him, Sam tapped his knees to its bare sides and set it at a run to the end of the street and back around to the livery barn. In front of the barn the smoke from the explosion had drifted away enough for him to look into the long empty barn and out the rear door into the purple night. He heard no whinnying, no neighing from within the smoke-streaked barn, and he knew the stalls were empty, or any horses still inside were dead.

Bullets continued exploding; a big explosion rose straight up inside the fiery smoke with a whistling sound that ended in an orange-red ball of fire high up the darkness. With another tap of his knees, Sam spun
the dun and headed back to the gathering chaos on the dirt street. Smaller fires had already sprung up everywhere. Flames danced on bits of strewn debris along the street and alleyways. Townsmen called out to one another as they ran back and forth, some with buckets of water, others with shovels.

“This one's alive, Dr. Croft!” Sam heard a man call out. The man stood holding the section of iron bars off John Garlet's chest. The outlaw's clothes emitted curls of smoke.

“Get the bars off him,” the doctor shouted, standing crouched, dragging the sheriff away by his shoulder.

Sam slid from his dun's back beside an overturned buggy in the street. He took one of the loose buggy reins, hitched the dun and hurried over to help the doctor. The townsman standing over the outlaw struggled and managed to raise the section of iron bars and turn them over. He dropped the bars into the dirt.

The doctor and Sam kneeled over the smoldering, half-conscious sheriff. Pressing the end of a stethoscope to Schaffer's chest, the doctor listened intently. He turned his eyes up at the Ranger in relief.

“I think he's going to be all right,” he commented. As some townsmen ran up to them, he said, “Our sheriff's alive. Get him to my office. I'll be right along.”

As the townsmen carried Schaffer away, the doctor hurried over and stooped down beside John Garlet. He raised Garlet's hand and moved it back and forth slowly as if inspecting it. “Why was this man walking the street at this time of night?” he asked no one in particular.

“He was in the jail, Doctor,” Sam said. “There were five prisoners and a prospector in the cells.” As Sam spoke he looked over at the thick flame-streaked black smoke and where the new jail had stood. Bullets still exploded from the burning remnants of the mercantile store next door.

“I expect they're all dead men now,” the doctor said. He laid Garlet's limp hand down on his chest. “This one looks like he's broken every bone in his body.” John Garlet lay flat in the dirt with the imprint of the bars stamped on him, head to toes.

As the doctor shook his head and stood up, his medical bag in hand, his stethoscope hanging around his neck, a voice up the street called out to him from in front of a burning building.