CHAPTER 18
Smoke felt the difference in the air as soon as he stepped out of Jonas Madigan’s house that morning. It was only a little cooler than it had been the day before, but it held a still heaviness that promised change.
Maybe Windy Whittaker had been right.
The meeting had broken up the night before with two men, Harold Lomax and Cliff Lawson, heading for the bank to relieve Shug Russell and Enoch Jones. Lomax and Lawson would stand guard during the night. Another pair of men would be relieving them soon, if that hadn’t happened already. Sarge Shaw had drawn up a roster of guard shifts. Smoke trusted him and was more than happy to let him do that.
Also before the men left the livery barn, Smoke had asked them to keep what he had told them to themselves. He knew it would be difficult for some of the men not to say anything about the Bishop gang to their wives. If word got out, he wasn’t going to be overly surprised. He wanted to postpone a panic as long as possible, but the volunteers had to be aware of what they were facing. It wouldn’t be fair to them, otherwise.
For now, most of the men seemed to know what they were supposed to do in case of an attack. Smoke had suggested that they figure out what to do about their families if they had to go and fight. Apple Jack had suggested that they gather at the bank, since it was the sturdiest building in town. The front window that had been cracked in the explosion had already been boarded up, and it would be easy enough to nail some boards over the other window to make it more secure.
The bank was also the most tempting target for the outlaws, which was why a dozen volunteers had been given the assignment of heading there right away in case of trouble and holding it at all costs.
Several men were tasked with moving wagons into the street at both ends to block it and prevent outlaws from mounting a devastating charge through the center of town. Those wagons were positioned in strategic alleys with teams already hitched to them, ready to be led into place.
The rest of the men, more than thirty in all, would scatter to various defensive positions around town. Everyone knew to keep their guns and ammunition handy.
As far as Smoke could see, they had done everything they could to get ready for a raid . . . a raid that might not happen, he reminded himself as he walked toward the marshal’s office. But they couldn’t count on that.
When he walked into the marshal’s office, he was surprised to see that Windy’s normally tangled thatch of white hair had been combed, and it looked like the bushy white whiskers had been trimmed a little, too. Not only that, but the old-timer was wearing a clean flannel shirt, too.
“What are you getting all spiffed up for?” Smoke asked with a grin.
“Dagnabbit, can’t a fella decide to clean up a mite?” Windy demanded.
Smoke noticed something else. “I see you’re wearing a badge, too.”
Windy looked down at the star pinned to his fringed buckskin vest. “Yeah, I found this in the desk,” he said. “Ted Cardwell used to wear it when he was the deputy. You’ve been tellin’ folks that you deputized me, but I didn’t figure it’d hurt to wear the badge, so’s people who ain’t heard the news yet would know I got at least some authority around here.”
Smoke nodded and said, “I think that’s a very good idea.”
He understood now why Windy had tried to make himself look more respectable. Before, the old-timer had been just an eccentric local character. Now, he held an official position, and it made sense that he’d want to look the part.
“No trouble overnight, I suppose?” Smoke went on.
Windy shook his head. “Nary a bit.”
“The bank’s open again this morning, I noticed.”
“Yeah. Just to look around town, you wouldn’t know anything had ever happened.” Windy paused, then added, “Well, unless you spotted them fellas standin’ guard on the roof o’ the bank.”
Smoke took an envelope from his pocket and placed it on the desk. “This is the letter Jonas has written to the governor asking for help from the Rangers. I told him I’d make sure it goes out in the mail pouch on the stage. What time does the coach usually get here?”
“Around the middle of the day, unless ol’ Luther Blassingame gets in a hurry for some reason. I hope he gets here, switches teams, picks up the mail and drops off any passengers, and heads back south before the storm rolls in.”
“You still believe there’s a blue norther on the way?” Smoke asked.
Windy snorted. “It ain’t a matter of believin’. It’s comin’, sure as shootin’. Didn’t you feel the change in the air this mornin’?”
“I have to admit, it does seem a little different out there.”
“That’s because one ring-tailed roarer of a blue norther is rollin’ right toward us like a runaway freight train. It’ll be here before the day’s over, Smoke. You can mark my words on that.”
“I suppose we’ll find out, one way or another. Right now, have you had breakfast yet? If not, I’ll stay here for a spell while you go have some of Mrs. Shaw’s flapjacks.”
Windy stood and hitched up his baggy denim trousers. “That sounds like a mighty fine idea. This is liable to be a busy day. Quien sabe when I’ll get a chance to grab some grub again!”
* * *
Even though he knew it probably wouldn’t do any good, Luther Blassingame leaned over and turned his head to shout through the coach window, “If any of you fellas got guns, now’s the time to use ’em!”
To his surprise, one of the drummers stuck an arm and his head out the window, thrust a long-barreled Remington. 44 revolver toward the outlaws, and fired. The gun went off with a heavy boom. Blassingame wondered for a second where the gent had been carrying the Remington. In his sample case, more than likely.
Then Blassingame turned his attention to trying to get more speed out of the team. The horses were already running valiantly, straining against their harness, but Blassingame knew the effort was doomed. Even on a straightaway like this, those draft horses couldn’t outrun the outlaws’ speedy mounts.
But miracles had been known to happen in this world, even though they were rare. If he could just manage to stay in front of the pursuers for a while, maybe somebody else would come along to help him and the passengers. Maybe they would run into a cavalry patrol, or a whole company of Texas Rangers . . .
Might as well hope those horses would sprout wings and fly to the moon, he thought bleakly. That was just about as likely.
Despite knowing that, Blassingame continued to pop the whip and shout encouragement to the team. Behind him, the drummer’s Remington blasted several more times. Then the man cried out in pain, and when Blassingame glanced back, he saw the drummer withdrawing an empty hand into the coach. A couple of fingers were gone, sheared off by the bullet that had knocked the gun out of the hand, and blood spouted from the stubs where the fingers had been.
A shot like that was pure luck, and whether it was good luck or bad depended entirely on which side of it a fella found himself.
Up ahead, a gully that meandered across the plains swung over fairly close to the trail, maybe fifty yards away. Blassingame wondered if he and the passengers could abandon the coach and take cover in that gully. Maybe the outlaws would be content to loot what they could from the vehicle and leave him and the passengers alone.
Blassingame didn’t think that was likely—from everything he had heard, Snake Bishop was a loco, kill-crazy human buzzard who would kill a man for the sport of it, and his followers weren’t much better—but what other chance did they have? The outlaws were close now, still sending a hail of slugs after the coach, and Blassingame knew it was only a matter of time until they shot him off the box.
Without wasting any more time thinking about it, he hauled on the reins and sent the coach plunging off the trail toward the gully.
The terrain might look pretty flat, but once off the trail, it was a lot rougher for the stagecoach. It bounced so hard that Blassingame lifted up off the seat a few times. It seemed like the whole thing might fly apart at any moment. Blassingame had to slow down to keep from losing control entirely.
“When we stop, run for the gully!” he shouted to the passengers. “I’ll cover you!”
That was crazy, but those gents were his responsibility, and even though he had originally planned to dive into that gully and try to hide as fast as he could, he realized he couldn’t do that. If he slowed down the outlaws, it might give the passengers a better chance to get away.
Not that any of them actually had much of a chance. He knew that . . . but Luther Blassingame wasn’t the sort of man to give up a fight as long as he had breath in his body.
There was the gully! Ten feet deep and thirty or forty wide, it was choked with brush. If a fella got down into that growth, he might be able to give those outlaws the slip. Blassingame hauled on the reins again, pulling the team sharply to the left, so that the coach swung around and stopped sideways to the gully. That would give the fleeing passengers a little shelter, maybe.
Bullets thudded into the vehicle and sent splinters flying. Blassingame dropped the reins and bent over to grab the Winchester poor J.J. had dropped when the varmints killed him. He worked the rifle’s lever and twisted on the seat to face the charging horde as he yelled, “Get out, get out! Run!”
He expected to feel the coach shift under him as the passengers jumped out and fled, but it didn’t move. After firing a couple of shots as swiftly as he could work the Winchester’s lever, he realized that as many times as the coach had been hit, all three men might be dead by now. The vehicle’s thin walls wouldn’t stop many bullets.
Placing a hand on the seat, Blassingame vaulted down on the far side of the coach with a spryness that belied his years. A fella was capable of a lot when he was being shot at. He landed hard and awkwardly but didn’t fall. Grabbing the door handle, he jerked it open.
The sight of three bloody, bullet-riddled corpses met his horrified gaze. The passengers were all dead.
So he was free to get the hell out of here if he could, he realized. He turned and ran for the gully. The hoofbeats of the outlaws’ horses sounded mighty loud . . .
More shots crashed. Blassingame felt the hammerblows of the slugs as they struck him. He was close to the gully’s edge. Somehow he stayed on his feet, and momentum carried him forward. Then a third bullet hit him, twisted him around, and suddenly he was rolling down the steep, sandstone slope. Brush clawed at him as he came to a stop.
Pain the likes of which he had never experienced raced through Blassingame, but he knew that if he just lay here, Bishop’s men would come to make sure he was dead.
The part of his brain that wasn’t too stunned to think seized on a desperate idea. Forcing uncooperative muscles to work, he fumbled with the long duster he wore and wrestled it off. It was ripped by the brush, torn by bullets, and stained with blood. He thrust it into the brush and looked around for his hat. He found it and put it at the top of the duster. Tugging off his bright red bandana, he left it there, too.
Then, using his toes and elbows, he pushed and dragged his screaming body deeper into the brush until he couldn’t move anymore. Lying on his belly, his head dropped forward and he tasted dirt in his mouth. It was in his eyes and nose, too. He made himself lie still.
A man yelled, “There he is! See!”
Instantly, guns began to go off again. It sounded like a war, there on the edge of that gully.
But none of the bullets found Luther Blassingame. He knew they had spotted his coat and hat in the thick brush and believed they were filling his body full of lead. He was ten or fifteen feet away, though.
He didn’t budge as they whooped and laughed and fired their guns into what they believed was his riddled corpse.
Then, as the shots faded, a man called, “He’s dead, Snake! He’s got to have a pound of lead in him, at least.”
“Then leave him there and come on.” That had to be Snake Bishop himself. “We still have an appointment in Salt Lick.”
That was the last thing Luther Blassingame heard as a tide of darkness washed over him and swept him away.