Showdown (13 page)

It was the middle of the afternoon before Frank once more reached the outskirts of Freetown. Only a couple hours of good daylight left. The two buildings where he had determined the hostages were being held were heavily guarded, front and back. He would not attempt to breech that security . . . not yet. First he would take out any outlaw he could find wandering alone around the edges of town—if any were that stupid.

Frank smiled as his eyes touched several small buildings behind the line of stores on his side of the old town. Single- and double-hole outhouses.

“Why not?” he whispered. “That's a dandy place to start.”

Staying in the timber, he shifted positions until he was about a dozen or so yards behind an outhouse in the center of the short block. He knelt down and waited. Sooner or later somebody would have to make a visit to the outhouse. Frank almost laughed aloud at the possible ramifications of his plan. He struggled to contain his laughter and waited.

A few minutes passed in silence before the back door to a building opened and a man walked out and began quick-stepping to the outhouse, obviously in a hurry to get things done. Frank waited until the door had closed before making his move. He stepped out of the timber and ran to the outhouse. Using a piece of wood he'd picked up in the timber he wedged the stick against the door, one end firmly in the ground.

“Who the hell is that?” the muffled voice of the man in the outhouse asked.

Frank growled ominously and scratched at the door.

“Jesus!” the outlaw said softly, his voice just carrying to Frank. “What is that?”

Frank snarled and then slipped back into the timber and waited.

A few minutes passed and the man tried to open the door. He could not. The door was wedged shut tightly.

“Hey!” the man yelled. “Hey!”

His shouts were muffled and did not carry into the occupied buildings.

“Damnit! Somebody come help me get out of here!” the outlaw yelled. He shouted and squalled his frustration and began beating on the door. “There's a damn bear out here, or something that ain't human. Get me out of here.”

The back door opened and two men stepped out. One shouted, “Andy? What the hell's wrong out here?”

“Barlow?” Andy shouted. “Watch it. There's a bear out here.”

“A bear?” Barlow asked, looking all around him. “I don't see no damn bear.”

“You sure it was a bear?” the other man asked.

“Damn right it was, Caswell,” Andy shouted through the door. “An' the door's stuck tight, too. I can't get out of this crapper. An' with that damn animal out there, I don't know that I want to get out.”

“I don't see no tracks of any bear, Andy,” Barstow said. “Are you sure you didn't fart real loud and scare yourself?”

“You go to hell, Barstow!” Andy yelled.

“Barstow,” Caswell said, looking hard at the outhouse door and then all around him. “I'm thinkin' it might have been that damn Morgan, foolin' around out here. No bear drove that stake into the ground and wedged that door shut.”

Barstow jerked his pistol out of leather, and Caswell was only a few seconds behind him. “They's still bounty money on Morgan's head, Cas, and I aim to collect it. I want to shoot that bastard in the belly and listen to him holler 'fore he dies.”

“What the hell are you two talking about?” Andy hollered.

“Morgan,” Caswell said. “He's the one been makin' noises like a bear.”

“I don't believe it,” Andy said. “I think it was maybe that critter the Injuns talk about. That big hairy creature.”

Caswell and Barstow exchanged glances. “He's maybe got something there,” Barstow said. “I hadn't thought of that.”

“This is his territory for a fact.”

“But would he have enough brains to drive a stake into the ground to block a door?” Barstow asked.

“Get me the hell out of this stinkin' place!” Andy yelled. “If that hairy monster is out there, I want to be able to shoot it.”

The door was unblocked and Andy stepped out, drawing his six-gun and looking all around him. “That hairy thing is 'posed to be half human,” he said. “He'd have enough sense to block a door.”

Frank eased down the hammer on his rifle. Why shoot somebody if he could scare them away? He smiled at that thought. Then his smile faded. But would it work? And if it did, would enough of these hard cases be spooked enough to pull out?

He'd never know if he didn't try it.

Frank stayed in the timber and worked his way around to the town's dump. He let his eyes do the searching while he remained in cover. The first search produced nothing he felt he could use. He shifted positions to the rear of the dump, and after a few minutes spotted a rolled-up bundle that looked like ragged old blankets and something else he couldn't determine from where he was. Looking carefully all around him, he ran to the huge pile of discarded trash and grabbed up the bundle, quickly moving back into the thick brush and timber. He unrolled the bundle and smiled at the contents: three old ragged blankets and an old bearskin rug that had probably seen its better days a couple of years before it was finally thrown out.

“Perfect,” Frank muttered.

The blankets and quilts and bearskin rug smelled awful and to Frank's mind, that only added to the perfection of his find. Frank bundled them up and carried the stinking articles back to the timber at the rear of the block of stores.

He glanced up at the skies. Maybe an hour of good daylight left. Then Frank would put his plan to the test.

He was looking forward to it. Frank had to stifle his laughter at the thought.

* * *

A gunslick who called himself Dakota Dan stepped out of a building after eating his supper and stood for a moment while he rolled a cigarette. The light was fading fast, and Dan was a bit jumpy after listening to the yams from the other men concerning hairy monsters. Andy was certain that a hairy monster was prowling the edges of the town, and Caswell and Barstow were leaning toward the same belief. Dan's grandpa had been a mountain man, and Dan clearly remembered the tales the old man had told about great hairy monsters, half man, half beast, that prowled the Northwest. Huge beasts about six and a half feet tall, incredibly strong and with a powerful body odor. Dan inhaled deeply and looked all around him. He needed to visit the outhouse, but was reluctant to do so. He'd forgotten to bring a candle with him.

Dan's innards grumbled and he headed for the outhouse. Monster or not, he had to go to the crapper.

A few minutes later, Dakota Dan had done his business and stepped out into the darkness, hitching up his britches. Suddenly, Dan was knocked to the ground by a large hairy beast with a terrible body odor. The beast snarled and growled and scratched Dan's neck with what appeared to be long fingernails. Dan was so terrified he fainted. The great hairy beast slipped away into the darkness of the timber . . . on moccasined feet. Frank had changed back at the lean-to.

Just as the “beast” was slipping away into the timber, two men stepped out of the building, one of them holding a lantern, and spotted Dan sprawled on the ground. “Sonny!” one of them yelled. “Dan's down!”

The building emptied of men, all quickly gathering around Dan. Sonny waved his hand under his nose and said, “Whew! Damn, what a foul odor. What the hell is that stinking?”

“Dan,” a gunfighter called Ot said. “And it looks like bits of hair all over him.”

Sonny squatted down and poked at Dan. Dan didn't move.

“Is he dead?” someone asked.

Sonny picked off some of the hair from Dan and looked at it. “What the hell caused all this?”

“Monster,” Caswell said. “The beast is amongst us, boys.”

Frank didn't hear any of this conversation. He had slipped deep into the timber, fearful that the foul odor of the bearskin would betray his presence. Besides, the stinking old skin was about to make him sick.

“There is no such thing!” Sonny said. “That is a native myth, nothing more than that.”

“You a city boy, Sonny,” Carl Depp told him. “You might have been borned in a small town, but you told us you've lived in New Yawk City all your life; that your daddy and mommy took you and your sister to the city when youse was chilen.”

“That's right, Sonny,” a gunhawk called Idaho said. “We're all Western borned and raised. We growed up hearin' stories about this here critter.”

“And there ain't none of them very nice neither,” Russ added. “Why . . . them things has been known to haul off and eat folks. I think maybe that's what run all them darkies from this town.”

“Yeah, and they a little spooked to begin with,” Sandy said.

“They shore as hell ain't no more spooked than I is!” Miller said. “This damn thing—whatever the hell is it, and I ain't sayin' it's one o' them things—has got me as jumpy as a one legged man in an ass-kickin' contest.”

Frank had cached the stinking bearskin a few hundred yards from the town and slipped back to listen.

“And I heard tell of a time when some men was held trapped in a cabin for hours by about a dozen of them hairy things. Why, they was a-howlin' and a-throwin' big rocks and tryin' to break into the roof and all sorts of turrible things.”

Grining, Frank picked up a couple of rocks.

“Are you men serious?” Sonny demanded. “This . . . monster thing is a myth, that's all. There is no truth to it.”

“Then you tell me this,” Hamp Jennings said. “If it was a human man, how come he didn't take Dan's gun. It's still in leather.”

The growing group of hard cases pressed closer, several of them holding lanterns. No one said anything for a moment, but everyone looked around them, doubt and some fear slowly developing in their eyes.

A rock suddenly arced downward, hitting a gunslick on the side of his head and dropping him like a brick.

“What the hell was that?” Jimmy Deggins shouted.

Another rock sailed through the air and slammed into a man's shoulder, bringing a grunt of pain from the impact.

Frank let out a roar from the timber, and while the animal-like roar was still echoing around the night, quickly changed positions.

“I tole you!” a man shouted. “I said they throwed rocks. Them creatures is out there. I tole you they was.”

Frank hurled a piece of thick branch he'd found on the ground into the tightly gathered group, the rotten wood striking a man on the back and nearly knocking him to his knees. Frank again changed positions.

Sonny jerked out his pistol and fired into the dark brush and timber, emptying the six-gun. Other outlaws followed suit, splitting the night with muzzle flashes and hot lead. Frank had bellied down on the ground, behind a tree.

“I bet we got him!” Ot shouted. “Ain't nothin' gonna live through that.”

Frank closed his hand around another rock and let it fly. The rock hit a just-awakening Dan on the knee and brought a howl of pain.

“Think agin!” a gunny called Blane said, quickly reloading. “You cain't kill them creatures. The Injuns say they're spirits!”

“Nonsense!” Sonny said, reloading his pistol. “All that is pure nonsense. Nothing more. You men get ahold of yourselves.”

Frank left his hiding place and made his way to the far edge of town. He ran across a clearing and eased up to a dark building. Pressing his ear to the wood, he listened. He could detect no signs of life inside the building. No whispers, no breathing, no moving around. He picked up a chunk of rotting firewood and threw it through a window, then took off at a run, making his way unseen to the other side of the rutted street.

“What the hell was that?” Barstow yelled, stepping away from the group. “Dick, raise that lantern up high, will you?”

Frank found an empty whiskey bottle in a pile of trash and hurled it with all his strength. The bottle smashed through a storefront window across the street.

“They's more than one of them things!” Dick said. “I think they's a entar pack of 'em.”

“Now, just wait a damn minute!” Sonny yelled, silencing the group of hard cases. “That's probably the same bunch who attacked Jeff and Claude. Think about that before you all get hysterical.”

“Well, who could it be?” Jake asked.

“A bunch of niggers probably,” another said.

“Aw, hell.” Depp waved that off. “They ain't got the sand and grit to attack us. They're all a bunch of cowards.”

“Don't you believe that for a second,” Sonny said. “That's crap. I spent some time with a colored unit during the war. They're just as brave as any of us.”

“It ain't nothin' human,” Barstow insisted. “Them's monsters out there. I bet you all it is.”

Frank tossed another rock, arcing it high in the air just as a guard stepped out of a building and onto the boardwalk for a smoke. The rock landed on the boardwalk about a foot from the man and bounced high and hard, hitting him on the knee.

“I been shot!” the man hollered, sitting down to try to relieve the pain. “Oh, damn, boys. Somebody shot me.”

Sonny led the group around to the front. “Nobody shot you, Devon,” he said, holding up a lantern. “It was a rock.”

“A rock!” Devon said. “Who the hell is throwin' rocks?”

“Monsters,” Dan said. “Them creatures that attacked me.”

“Monsters?” Devon asked. “I don't believe in them things.”

“I didn't used to,” a gunfighter called Teddy said. “But I damn shore do now.”