14.
GUNSMOKE AND STARLIGHT
FLAGG’S boots crunched gravel as he moved into the fog of darkness toward the saloon’s rear. It was the same sound he’d heard inside a few minutes ago.
A man had been out here, walking around. If it had been one of the deputies, the man would have shown himself by now.
It could have been the barman, Baskin.
Flagg blinked sweat from the corner of his right eye, felt the dampness inside his gloves as he squeezed the rifle’s forestock with his right hand. Turning around the saloon’s east corner, he moved into the even heavier darkness of the back alley. Directly behind the saloon stood a single brick privy at the base of boulders that had tumbled down from the northern ridge and been sheathed in rabbit brush and gnarled piñons and junipers.
Flagg smelled a trap. It was time to call the deputies. He couldn’t take Hawk down alone. He liked the sound of it, liked how it would look in the papers, but only a fool would try.
He tried to speak, but words wouldn’t rise from his dry, tight throat. Fear held them tight in his chest. One sound from his lips would make him an instant target.
Stiffly, sucking shallow breaths through his mouth, he walked between the privy and a pile of stacked pine and mesquite to the far corner of the building, then stopped, staring up along the far side toward the street. He ran his gaze back to the building’s rear, where a narrow, crumbling awning slanted toward the alley.
A timbered door stood half-open. In a second-story room on the building’s far side, a lamp burned in a window. The smell of mesquite smoke tinged the breeze.
Relief began to loosen the muscles in Flagg’s neck. Baskin had come downstairs for wood from the stack flanking the door. It had been the barman’s hatted profile in the window.
Vague disappointment followed close on the heels of Flagg’s relief. He lowered the rifle slightly, continued walking slowly toward the street.
He hadn’t taken two steps before a Spanish-accented voice rose behind him. “Taking some air, Senor Flagg?”
Flagg whipped around, bringing the Winchester to his shoulder. In the shadows to the right of the privy, a match flared, flickered as a hand closed around it. Smoke puffed in the darkness.
“Rojas?”
“Sí.” The Mexican’s voice was pinched slightly with pain. “I, too, decided to take some air. It is a lovely evening, and fresh air—she is good for an old man’s battered body, uh?”
As Flagg moved toward him, Rojas’s figure took shape, sitting on a boulder next to the privy, an old-model pistol wedged behind the waistband of his breeches. The bandito leaned back against another, taller rock, one boot hiked on a knee.
He had a pinched look on his wizened face as he stuck the brown-paper quirley to his lips. The coal glowed bright in the darkness.
Flagg kept his rifle aimed at him. “How long you been out here?”
Rojas smiled knowingly. “Not so long, senor.”
“You seen anyone—?”
A cold-steel voice rose behind Flagg, cutting off his question: “Only me.”
Flagg froze. Blood surged in his ears, and the arteries in his neck throbbed. He stared straight before him. Rojas stared back at him, the old man’s thin, chapped lips stretching a grin, his single eye flashing.
Behind Flagg, a boot crunched gravel.
Flagg wheeled, swinging the rifle around and crouching, pulling his index finger back against the trigger as he saw the tall, broad-shouldered figure before him.
Flagg’s rifle cracked, flashing and roaring. An eye wink later, the steel-plated Russian in Hawk’s right hand spoke, stabbing flames.
The bullet seared through Flagg’s right arm, plowing through bone—a burning, tearing pain. Jerking sideways with a grunt, Flagg dropped the rifle and fell to his right knee. He clapped a hand over the bloody hole just above his elbow and turned his head back toward Hawk.
The Colt in Hawk’s left hand flashed. The bullet tore through Flagg’s left arm, in nearly the same place as on the other.
“Uh-ahhh!”
Gritting his teeth, Flagg stumbled back, fell, and hit the ground on his butt. Blood flowed from both arms, the misery setting his entire body on fire and dropping a veil of exploding fireworks over his eyes.
Holding both pistols straight out before him, Gideon Hawk stared down at the wounded marshal. Flagg writhed before him, cursing and crossing his bloody arms on his chest, clamping the wounds in his hands, the blood oozing between his fingers.
“You crazy son of a bitch!”
Rojas shuffled toward Hawk, grinning down at Flagg. Hawk jerked his head at the old bandito. “I told you to stay put!”
“It’s not every day I get to witness such sweet justice, amigo.”
“You’ve witnessed enough. Go back to your crib before I pump one into you.”
Rojas had lifted his chin and turned his head to one side, listening as shouts rose in the night. Running footsteps grew louder. “You better, too, before more powder smoke obscures the stars.”
Rojas turned and limped off into the shadows behind the privy.
Hawk sneered at the marshal. “Go home, Flagg. Take your men with you. You’ll only get them killed.” He turned, grabbed his rifle from the rock he’d set it against, and strode off into the alley’s western shadows. “I won’t give you another chance.”
Movement caught his eye, and he looked toward the saloon’s rear stoop, A man ran around the corner, vagrant light flashing off the rifle in his hands. “Hold it!”
“It’s him!” Flagg raged, kicking his legs while holding both arms. “Kill the son of a bitch!”
The deputy raised his rifle. It flashed and barked, lighting the alley briefly, the report glittering in Flagg’s gray, pain-etched eyes. Hawk ducked as the slug spanged off the boulder six inches to his left, spraying rock shards and whistling in his ears.
Bolting behind the boulder, he ran up the gradually rising ridge, weaving around scarps, mesquite and cedar snags, an old chicken coop, and the collection of ancient, abandoned adobes that seemed to be as much a part of the ridge as the rocks and shrubs.
Behind him he could hear the deputies yelling, Flagg shouting curses and orders.
Hawk ducked down behind a heap of old mine tailings a hundred yards above the saloon, and held the Henry across his chest, waiting.
Flagg was raging.
Hound-Dog, crouched beside him, held him down with a firm hand on his shoulders, so the man didn’t thrash out every ounce of blood from his body.
“After him, goddamnit! What the hell are you waiting for? After him! He ran up the ridge, probably heading for his fucking lair!”
“Hold still,” urged Tuttle. “For Chrissakes, you’re gonna—”
As he kicked his legs like an enraged child, Flagg’s eyes blazed up at Press Miller. “That’s an order! Kill that son of a bitch!”
Miller, crouched around Flagg with the others, his face showing exasperation and revulsion at the blood leaking out both of the marshal’s arms, glanced at Hound-Dog. “Get him inside. The rest of us’ll try and overtake Hawk.”
“I want every man on his trail!” Flagg bellowed.
“Marshal, you’re in shock,” Miller said reasonably, fingering his rifle’s receiver. Having seniority over the other deputies, he was the second-in-command. “If we leave you here untended, you’re gonna bleed out. Hound-Dog’s had some medical experience. I’m gonna leave him here with you.”
As Flagg kicked his right boot savagely, insisting that Hound-Dog go, too, Miller glanced at the others, jerked his head, then rose and strode into the shadows. The other four deputies followed, holding their rifles high in both hands as they traced Hawk’s course around the scarp and headed up the ridge.
Hound-Dog looked down at Flagg.
The marshal winced and bellowed, cursing, casting his gaze from one bloody arm to the other. “Thought I’d turn tail.” He chuckled crazily. “I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch!”
Hound-Dog ripped his neckerchief off, began looping it over Flagg’s right arm. “Don’t waste your energy, Marshal. Soon as I get your arms wrapped, I’ll take you inside and try to figure out how much damage that crazy bastard did to ye.”
When Tuttle had both of Flagg’s arms wrapped with neckerchiefs, he slipped his hands under the marshal’s arms, tugging him to his feet. He had to do most of the lifting. Flagg was growing weak from blood loss and shock.
One arm around the man’s waist, Tuttle led Flagg to the saloon’s back door, then inside and up the stairs at the back of the main hall. The second-story hallway was dark, but a thin line of light beneath a door at the far end revealed five other doors. Choosing one at random, Tuttle threw it open and led Flagg inside to a bed.
Flagg sagged onto the mattress, the leather springs complaining. He froze when the muffled cracks of a rifle sounded, rending the quiet night. The six or seven shots seemed to have been fired by the same rifle.
Flagg glanced at Tuttle, who’d frozen beside him, shaggy eyebrows arched as he listened. Snarling, the marshal grabbed the big deputy’s broad arm and squeezed, gritting his teeth. “Go find out what’s going on, Hound-Dog. I want to know what’s going on!”
He’d no sooner bellowed the last word than his eyes grew heavy. The snarl faded from his lips, and his shoulders slumped, as if the muscles and tendons had suddenly dissolved.
“Easy, Marshal.” Hound-Dog eased the man down onto the bed. It wasn’t hard. Flagg was almost out, his breath growing shallow, eyelids fluttering.
Behind Tuttle, a door latch clicked. He rose quickly, wheeling toward the room’s open door as he drew his Colt Army from the cross-draw holster on his left hip, raking the hammer back.
Near the doorway, keeping close to the hall’s far wall, the barman appeared in his canvas breeches and underwear shirt, suspenders hanging down his sides. He held a rusty bull’s-eye lantern up high in his right hand.
Lowering the pistol, Tuttle said, “The marshal’s been hurt. There a sawbones in town?”
Baskin raised the lamp a little higher as he moved forward and peered into the room. The copper lantern’s light fell across Flagg’s bloody, unconscious body. The barman’s own eyes were swollen nearly shut. That and his broad, purple nose gave him a bizarre, owl-like look.
He glanced at Tuttle, pursing his lips with satisfaction. He snorted, “No,” then turned and sauntered back down the hall. Shortly, a door closed and latched with a solid thud.
His own breath coming hard and raspy from enervation, Hound-Dog peered around the dark room, found a gas lamp on the dresser, and lit it. With his bowie knife, he’d cut away both of Flagg’s bloody sleeves and was examining the wounds when voices rose from the alley.
The voices moved inside, echoing around the main hall and obscured by boots pounding the floorboards then hammering the stair steps and growing louder, making the entire building shake.
Press Miller’s face appeared in the doorway. He was sweating and breathing hard, his hat askew. He shook his head as he stepped into the room.
“He fired at us from up the ridge. There’s no way we can take him in the dark. He knows the terrain too well.”
The others filed in behind him and spread out around the bed. Miller shuttled his gaze from Flagg to Tuttle. “How’s he look?”
By way of answer, Tuttle spoke to the group, urgency pitching his voice. “I need my saddlebags from the livery barn. I also need hot water, whiskey, and all the cloth you can find.” He glanced at Villard. “Franco, I’ll be needin’ your stiletto to dig those bullets out.”
All the other men except Miller and Villard shuffled out of the room and down the stairs. Villard hiked his right boot onto a chair, jerked his trouser cuffs above his boots, and slid a slender, bone-handle stiletto from the well.
As Villard handed the knife to Tuttle, Flagg opened his eyes. They were red-rimmed and rheumy, spoked with pain lines. His glance found Miller staring down at him.
Flagg cleared phlegm from his throat, curled his upper lip. “You get him, Press?”
“First thing in the mornin’,” Miller said. His nostrils flared. “When you open your eyes tomorrow, first thing you’ll see is Hawk’s head starin’ at you from that washstand over there.”
Flagg sneered and grunted as misery shot through him. His eyes held on Miller’s. “Tough talk. You make good on it . . . or I’ll see you only work as a deputy town marshal in a backwater mining camp.”
Tuttle and Miller shared a glance. Then, his face flushed, Miller turned, hefted his rifle, and went out.