Ralph Compton Death Along the Cimarron (31 page)

“It's Danny Duggin!” said Eddie Ray, seeing the horse and rider pound toward him. He raised his hands and waved the shotgun back and forth above his head. “Hurry up, Danny! The raid's already commenced!” he shouted. “Get on in there—you're missing everything!”

Before he realized what was happening, Danielle swept past him on the big mare, jerked her boot from the stirrup, and kicked Eddie Ray solidly in the jaw, sending him sprawling. While Eddie Ray rolled on the ground, still grasping the shotgun, Danielle slid the mare down to a halt and leaped from the saddle into the wagon seat. She grabbed the discarded traces and slapped the horses' backs. “Yieee!” she shouted, sending the horses lunging forward into a run down the middle of the street.

Feeling the wagon slide a bit sideways turning the comer around the livery barn, Danielle caught sight of several townsmen encircling the bank with their rifles and shotguns in hand. When she'd hitched the wagon and jumped down with her own rifle, she heard Cherokee Earl's gruff voice shout from the boardwalk out front of the bank, “Where the hell is the wagon?” Then rifles, shotguns, and pistols began to explode all at once.

Danielle made it to the front corner of the livery barn in time to look across the street and see Eddie Ray Moon hurrying to the door of the bank on all fours, his shotgun still in hand. Rifle shots from a rooftop across the street followed him in a jagged row, ripping up splinters from the boardwalk.

“Boys, that damn Danny Duggin stole our wagon!” Eddie Ray shouted loudly.

“What?” said Cherokee Earl, who'd just stepped out the door and been met by whistling bullets slicing past his head. He had been carrying two bags, one full of silver bars and the other full of money. But he dropped the silver bars and backed inside the shelter of the bank, his big Colt blazing in his hand, returning fire.

In the back room of the bank, Tuck Carlyle had regained consciousness enough to realize what was happening. He'd managed to inch his way closer to the rear door when the shooting began out front. Sadler the guard saw Tuck reaching out for the partly opened door. “Where do you think you're going, lawdog!” he growled, raising a boot and slamming the door shut. He pointed his cocked rifle down at Tuck's face.

“Don't shoot him,” Cherokee Earl commanded. “He's our free ride out of here.”

Sadler stared at Earl, along with the others, while bullets pounded the front of the building. “They've got our wagon, damn it!” Earl shouted above the roar of gunfire. “We'll have to trade him for it if we're going to take everything here with us.”

“Forget taking everything, Earl,” said Buck Hite. “Let's grab whatever we can carry! They've got us pinned down here like ducks in a shooting gallery. Let's load these horses down and get the hell out of here!”

“Like hell,” said Earl. “I planned this job to be big, and by God it's going to be big!” He glared at Buck Hite. “Show some guts here, Buck. We don't have to settle for less. Let's be bold as brass! Any objections?”

“No, sir,” Buck Hite said, looking down at the smoking Colt in Earl's hand. “None at all.”

“Good!” Earl said sarcastically. He looked back at Sadler and said, “Bring the deputy up here and stick him in the door where the town can see him.”

Sadler dragged Tuck through the bank, then pulled him to his feet with Earl's help. Earl held Tuck by his lapels and said close to his face, “Your friend Danny Duggin took our wagon, lawdog. Now we're going to give you a chance to see just how good a friend he is.”

“I'm not telling Danny to deal with you, Earl, if that's what you're thinking,” Tuck said defiantly. Blood ran down his cheek from the short gash the pistol barrel had left on the side of his head.

Cherokee Earl grinned. “I knew you'd say that. You lawdogs are all alike ... always looking for a way to be some kind of half-assed hero!” He looked at Eddie Ray Moon, held out his hand, and said, “Eddie Ray, give me your belt and shotgun.”

“My gun belt? My shotgun?” Eddie asked, looking worried, afraid he'd be blamed for letting the wagon get away from him. “Why, Earl?”

“No, not your gun belt, idiot!” said Earl, snatching the shotgun from his hands. “Give me your trouser belt. Come on, hurry up!” He snapped his fingers impatiently.

“All right,” said Eddie Ray, reluctantly unbuckling his belt and pulling it loose. He looked to Buck Hite for support, seeing none. “But now my britches are going to fall down.” He clasped his trousers at the waist to keep them up. Bullets continued to whistle in from across the street and pound the front of the building. At the broken front window, Clifford Reed and Avery McRoy returned fire. Behind them their horses stamped back and forth in fright on the bank's polished floor.

“They've surrounded us now, Earl,” shouted Fred from the back room. Three bullets pounded the back door like someone knocking with an angry fist.

“Somebody get these horses in the back room,” Earl demanded. He turned Tuck around and drew Eddie Ray's belt snug around his neck. He striped the length of the belt back along the shotgun barrel until he held it gripped in place, his finger across the triggers. The tip of the barrel pressed securely against the back of Tuck's head at collar level. “Now, let's see what this town really thinks of you, Deputy! Get over here in the door!”

“Go to hell!” Tuck said, standing firm.

But it did him no good to resist. “Not without you, I won't!” said Cherokee Earl. He yanked hard on the belt around Tuck's neck and pulled him fully into the open doorway, into plain sight from all directions. “Here's your deputy, folks!” Earl shouted, standing directly behind Tuck. Firing stopped immediately. Cherokee Earl gave his men an I-told-you-so look, then grinned and shouted out to the street, “That's it, gentlemen. Hold that fire! If I hear one more shot out there, I'll make a dead lawdog out of this boy. I swear I will.”

There was a tense silence for a second. Then Danielle said in her best man's voice, “All right, Earl, what is it you want?”

“Why, Danny Duggin!” said Cherokee Earl in feigned surprise. “Is that you out there?”

“You know it's me, Earl,” Danielle said flatly. “Now what's your deal?”

Cherokee Earl wasn't ready to make a deal just yet. “What are you doing, siding with the townsfolk? I thought you were in with us on this raid.”

“I changed my mind,” said Danielle, her firm tone of voice unchanged. “Now what's your deal?”

“Imagine my sore disappointment,” said Earl, still putting off any serious discussion about Tuck Carlyle, “looking out there and seeing you on the side of law and order. It nearly shook my faith to the foundation.” He cackled aloud behind Tuck Carlyle.

Danielle shot a glance along the boardwalk where townsmen looked at her with uncertainty. “Don't worry,” she said. Lowering her voice to the men huddled with their rifles and shotguns behind wooden shipping crates and rain barrels, she added, “He's looking for any opening he can find.”

“Who are you, mister?” asked Angus O'Dell, the owner of the town's mercantile store.

“My name's Duggin, just like he said. ”I'm a friend of Tuck Carlyle.” Danielle nodded toward Cherokee Earl standing hidden behind Tuck Carlyle. ”If I was riding with these outlaws, would I have taken off with their getaway wagon?”

“He's got a point there, Angus,” said John Dash, the town barber. Along the boardwalk heads nodded in agreement.

Angus O'Dell asked Danielle, “What about the wagon then, Mr. Duggin? Are you going to give it back to them?”

Danielle didn't answer right away. Finally she said, “We'll see.” Then she turned away from the townsmen and called out to Cherokee Earl, “The town knows whose side I'm on, Earl. Now what's your deal?”

“You know I need that wagon, don't you, Danny? That is why you took it, right?”

“Yep, that's why,” said Danielle without mentioning the fact that her greater reason for taking the wagon had been to either trade it for Tuck Carlyle or at least to slow things down long enough to find a way to free him. Now that the time was at hand, she waited, saying no more about it. It was Cherokee Earl's move.

“The deal is this, Duggin,” said Cherokee Earl. “I get the wagon and a free ride out of town with my money and silver. You folks get this deputy back with his head still sitting up on his shoulders. You can't ask for better than that, can you?” As Earl spoke, he motioned Buck Hite forward. “Take over for me, Buck: I need somebody I can trust,” he whispered.

Buck stepped in, taking the offered shotgun from Cherokee Earl's hand as Earl stepped back and let Buck take his place.

“Good man,” Earl whispered, patting Buck Hite on his shoulder before stepping farther back. From her position across the street, Danielle saw some movement behind Tuck Carlyle, but she didn't manage to see the exchange take place.

“No deal,” Danielle called out to Earl, hoping her concern for Tuck's well-being didn't show in her voice. “I'll give up the wagon for the deputy, but from there we go back to where we started. You've got to get out of this town the best way you can.”

Danielle had been checking her rifle while she spoke. She took out a cartridge, checked it for perfect roundness, checked the casing, then put it up into the chamber. She licked her thumb, rubbed the tip of the front sight, and did the same to the rear sight. Then she took a firm grip on the front comer edge of the building protecting her, making a shooting brace, and laid the rifle into the V of her thumb and index finger. “God help me, Tuck, this better work,” she whispered to herself.

“Get out of here the best way we can?” Earl called out from a few feet behind Buck Hite. “Hell, Danny, that's no kind of deal at all!” Earl and Frisco began busily tossing bags of money and silver back across the floor to McRoy and Clifford Reed, who had moved from the front window to the back room. They caught the bags and loosely piled them near the rear door, where the horses stood nervously, ready to bolt and run should the opportunity present itself.

“That's the best deal you're going to get from me today, Earl,” Danielle said. “Take it or leave it.”

“I'll leave it, Duggin,” Earl called out from the back room of the bank while he and the others stuffed the bags of money and silver into their saddlebags and readied the horses.

Holding the shotgun to the back of Tuck's head, Buck Hite looked over his shoulder and saw what Earl and the men were doing. His face turned pale. “Hey, am I missing something here? You're not leaving me holding the bag, are you?”

“Hell no, Buck,” said Cherokee Earl. “Whatever gave you that idea?” As he spoke, Earl tied more bags of money to his saddle horn.

“What gave me that idea is that you're doing it!” Buck stared, wide-eyed.

“Buck, listen to me,” said Earl, slowing for a moment to explain things. “Somebody has to hold things down here while the rest of us get away. This time it's you.... Next time, who knows, it might be me. But it's always somebody's turn, ain't it?”

“So I'm staying here to face this whole town?” Buck couldn't seem to grasp what was happening to him.

“You heard Duggin,” said Earl. “He ain't going to make a deal that suits us. And like you said yourself, it looks like this is all we're going to get.”

“So you're just leaving me here alone?” Buck Hite had begun to sweat profusely.

“Why do you keep asking me that, Buck?” said Earl. “You're my right-hand man. If I don't leave you in charge, who'll keep this whole thing from falling apart?”

“By God, I don't know,” said Buck, “but it for damn sure ain't going to be—”

“What about the rest of us—Eddie Ray, Fat Cyrus, and me?” asked Clifford Reed, cutting in. “Are we supposed to just stand here too, get shot to pieces while you and your men ride away with the money?”

“Well, no,” said Cherokee Earl, sounding put out with the man for asking. “When we throw this back door open, you do whatever you need to do to get away. Now have you got any more stupid questions?”

Clifford Reed looked stunned. He turned to Buck Hite. “Damn it, this ain't right, Buck. I might not know much, but I know that this ain't right!”

While turning his attention to the back room, where Cherokee Earl and his men prepared for their getaway, Buck Hite had not kept Tuck Carlyle directly in front of him in the open doorway. Tuck knew it, and he had inched as far to one side as he could. He looked toward the comer of the building where Danielle knelt, holding the big rifle poised for a precision shot. Unable to nod or give any kind of a signal, Tuck hoped his friend Danny Duggin could read the expression on his face and take action.

“Don't move on me, Tuck,” Danielle whispered, her sights already fixed, her finger already beginning to squeeze the trigger. “Whatever you do, please don't move.”

“Get ready to open the door when I tell you to,” Cherokee Earl barked at Fat Cyrus and Eddie Ray Moon. The two bewildered outlaws looked helplessly at their leader, Buck Hite, for some sort of guidance. But they turned their attention back to Earl when he swung up into his saddle, cocked his pistol in their direction, and said, “You better do like you're told, then grab yourself a horse and make tracks out of here.”

“Damn it to hell, Earl!” Buck Hite shrieked. “I ain't going to forget this, I swear to God I ain't!” As he raved at Cherokee Earl, he let himself take a half step farther out from behind the shield of Tuck Carlyle. “No matter where you go, no matter how long it takes—” His words stopped abruptly as Danielle sent a bullet spinning through his brain.