CHAPTER 23

Smoke had been in some terrible snowstorms on the northern plains, but this one matched any of them for sheer ferocity. The wind was so hard it felt as if it were about to knock him over, and the little pellets of snow battered and clawed at him like giant grains of sand in the world’s worst sandstorm. He was blinded and could no longer see Sarge Shaw, even though the man was only a few feet from him.

The insane, banshee wail of the wind drowned out all other sounds, at least at first. Then Smoke’s hearing adjusted a little, and he thought he heard someone calling his name from a great distance.

All around him was a white maelstrom. Out of that madness came a hand, groping blindly. It brushed against Smoke’s arm and then closed around it in a tight grip. Smoke reached out, found what felt like a shoulder. He drew the man closer to him.

“Sarge?”

“Is that you, Smoke? Are . . . there?”

“Right here,” Smoke answered the wind-whipped question.

He was able to see Shaw now, as a dark, vague shape in the thick curtains of snow.

“We need to . . . inside!”

Smoke knew Shaw was right. A man couldn’t survive for very long in this storm with no shelter. The wind stole his breath, and the temperature was plummeting even more.

Smoke could barely hear himself as he shouted, “What happened to Bishop?”

“Nobody would . . . weather like this!”

Smoke understood the sentiment, even if he couldn’t make out all the words. You couldn’t raid a town in weather like this. Any sane man would have agreed with that, too.

The problem was that Snake Bishop wasn’t necessarily sane.

Proof of that came in the shape of a dark figure on horseback that suddenly loomed over them. Flame lanced from the muzzle of a gun, visible even through the blizzard. Smoke tipped up the barrel of the Winchester he held and fired one-handed. He couldn’t tell if he hit the raider, because the horse lunged on past him and Shaw, disappearing with its rider as abruptly as it had appeared.

Smoke thought he heard more shots nearby, but he couldn’t be sure. A second later, Sarge Shaw sagged against him and gasped, “I’m hit!”

Smoke got his free arm around the former non-com and put his mouth close to Shaw’s ear to ask, “How bad is it?”

“Don’t know.” The words came out through teeth gritted against the pain. “It’s my right leg.”

“Come on. Let’s get you to the bank.”

Some of Salt Lick’s women and children had been gathering inside the bank already, Smoke knew. He had seen them hurrying through the street and into the sturdy brick building while he and Windy were going around town to warn the men at the various barricades. Somebody there ought to be able to tend to Shaw’s wound, if Smoke could find the place in this white hell.

As he and Shaw struggled through the blowing snow in what he hoped was the right direction, Smoke thought about what had happened and tried to figure out what to do next. The timing of the blizzard’s arrival had destroyed most of his defensive plan in little more than the blink of an eye.

The only thing to be thankful for was that the terrible storm had to be as disorienting for Snake Bishop’s gang as it was for Salt Lick’s defenders. Nobody could see to shoot except at extremely close range, and even then, it would be a chancier proposition than usual.

There was one more thing to hope for, Smoke realized. Some of the defenders would have made it to the bank before the storm hit. Other men might head for there, knowing that it was the best place to fort up.

And Bishop would still want to loot it, too, which meant he had to show up there sooner or later.

Smoke intended to be there when that happened, ready to get Snake Bishop in his gunsights.

For now, though, he just wanted to help Sarge Shaw to safety and see about getting the man patched up.

They stumbled through the snow. With the wind blowing so hard, their progress felt like they were struggling through a giant wave such as the one the blizzard had resembled just before it struck. Smoke had a veteran frontiersman’s instinct for directions, so he believed they were headed for the bank . . . but in this blinding white tempest, there was no way to be sure.

Suddenly they bumped into something. Keeping one arm around Sarge Shaw, he used the hand holding the Winchester to explore the obstacle. It was a hitch rail; Smoke had no doubt of that even though his fingers were starting to go numb from the cold. Keeping his right hand resting on the rail, he urged Shaw to the left. After a moment, they came to the end of it.

Now was the time for another leap of faith. The hitch rail had been something solid to hold on to, at least. But it offered them no shelter, so they had to step out into the swirling madness again. Smoke tried to move as straight as possible toward where the boardwalk should be.

One step and then part of another, and then their shins struck something hard and immobile. The edge of the low boardwalk that ran in front of the buildings, Smoke thought. He swept his arm back and forth through the snow. Nothing blocked their path right in front of them.

“Step up!” he shouted to Shaw. “Can you manage it, Sarge?”

“I can . . . manage,” Shaw replied. His voice sounded weaker, and Smoke wondered how much blood he had lost.

They made it onto the boardwalk. Snow was already starting to drift on the planks. Smoke moved forward, half-carrying Shaw now. The former non-com was no lightweight, but Smoke possessed enormous strength in his arms and broad shoulders.

Again they came up against a solid object, this time rising in front of them. Smoke felt it. Relief went through him as he realized he was touching a brick wall . . . and the bank was the only brick building he knew of in Salt Lick.

He became aware of a faint glow to their left. Light coming through the cracks around the boards in one of the bank’s front windows? Had to be, Smoke decided. He felt along the way in the other direction and didn’t find the doors. That meant they were on the other side of the window from the entrance.

“Move to your left,” he told Shaw.

The man didn’t say anything, but he shuffled his feet slowly to the left, limping heavily as he did so. Smoke had a hunch that Shaw was just about played out and might lose consciousness at any second. They needed to get inside before that happened.

The side of Smoke’s right hand slid across something cold and smooth. Window glass. The light was brighter here, right in front of the window. The glow coming through the glass lit up Shaw’s haggard face. Shaw’s eyes were closed, but he was still moving. He hadn’t passed out yet.

A few more awkward steps and they were past the window. Smoke saw another, dimmer glow. The bank’s front doors had glass in their upper halves, also boarded up, he recalled, but not tightly enough to prevent any light from coming out. He had to risk leaning his rifle against the wall while he fumbled for a doorknob. Feeling the cold, brass knob, he grasped it, twisted, and shoved. He kicked the door open and Sarge Shaw practically fell through it. Smoke caught his balance and held Shaw up while his eyes struggled to adjust to the brighter light inside the bank lobby.

Three men stood there, pointing rifles at them.

No, two men and a girl, he corrected himself. One of the rifle-wielders was Tommy Spencer. She lowered her weapon and cried, “Mr. Jensen!”

“Mickey!”

That scream came from another female voice. As Smoke’s vision began to clear, he saw Charlotte Shaw rushing forward from a group of people gathered toward the rear of the lobby.

One of the men with Tommy circled around Smoke and Shaw to close the door and keep the bone-chilling wind out. Smoke turned his head to say to the man over his shoulder, “My Winchester’s just outside to the left. Grab it, would you?”

“Sure thing, Marshal,” the man replied.

The other man who had confronted the newcomers set his rifle aside and hurried to help Smoke with the wounded Sarge Shaw. Charlotte reached them and took hold of Shaw as well, saying, “Oh, Mickey, you’re hurt!” Her eyes were wide with fear for her husband.

Shaw had perked up a little at the sound of his wife’s voice. He opened his eyes and said with a trace of his usual acerbic personality toward her, “I’ll be all right, woman. It’s just . . . a scratch.”

The amount of blood soaking his trouser leg proved the wound was more than just a scratch. But the fact that Shaw was still conscious and reasonably alert, at least for the moment, was a good sign, Smoke knew.

A middle-aged man Smoke recognized as Salt Lick’s doctor came up with a black medical bag in one hand. With the other, he motioned toward the bank president’s desk.

“Somebody clean that off,” he ordered. “Then you can put Sarge on there, Marshal.”

Abner Hawkins himself rushed over to the desk where he conducted business. With a sweep of his arm, he shoved everything on the desk into the floor behind it.

“I can sort all that out later,” he said. “Bring the sergeant over here, men. Quickly.”

Smoke and a couple of other men lifted Shaw onto the desk. His legs hung off from the knee down. Tommy brought over a chair and propped it under Shaw’s feet to support them. Charlotte sat in a chair at the other end of the desk and got her arm under his head and shoulders.

“Don’t let him die, Doctor,” she said.

Shaw said, “I’m not . . . gonna die. It ain’t that bad . . . I tell you . . .”

No sooner had he gotten those words out than his eyes rolled up in their sockets and he lost consciousness.

The doctor said, “Tommy, you stay close here, in case I need a hand.” Then he got busy using a pair of scissors he took from his medical bag to cut away the blood-soaked trouser leg.

Seeing that Shaw was in good hands, Smoke stepped back and, out of habit, unbuttoned his coat and swept it back on the right side so he could reach his gun easier. He looked around the bank lobby to see who else had made it here before the storm hit.

Several dozen women and children were in the group in the back of the room, near the massive vault door. Smoke was glad that many had reached safety here.

Of course, it might just be temporary safety, depending on what Snake Bishop did. But at least those women and young’uns were out of the storm. The bank lobby was snug and warm at the moment.

Smoke also saw the six men whose assignment it had been to come to the bank and serve as its last line of defense if the outlaws raided the town. He was glad they had made it here, as well.

Among them was Edward Warren, editor and publisher of the Salt Lick Tribune. Smoke had already spotted Warren’s wife Evelyn and their deep-voiced son Ralph in the group of women and children.

Warren approached Smoke. He carried a shotgun and somewhat surprisingly had a gun belt strapped around his hips. A Colt .45 revolver with walnut grips rode in the attached holster. Smoke had considerable experience with such things, and he could tell that the revolver had seen a fair amount of use.

“Thank heavens you’re all right, Mr. Jensen,” Warren greeted him. “How badly is Sarge hurt?”

“Bad enough to knock him out of the fight, but I think there’s a pretty good chance he’ll survive.” Smoke paused, then added, “From that injury, anyway.”

Warren nodded. “I understand. None of us know what awaits us during this storm, do we? How bad is it out there? We all heard the wind, of course. No one could miss it. And it had already started snowing a little when we got here.”

“It’s pretty bad,” Smoke said slowly. “As bad a snowstorm as I’ve ever seen, or at least it could be, depending on how long it lasts. One thing about these Texas northers, sometimes they blow through pretty quickly, according to what Windy’s told me. They don’t just sit there and keep dumping snow for days or weeks on end. But right now . . . a fella can’t see more than a foot or two in front of his face, and he’d freeze to death in a hurry if he was out in it for very long.”

“What about Snake Bishop’s gang? I assume it was one of them who shot poor Sarge.”

Before Smoke could answer, Warren suddenly shook his head and rubbed a hand over his face in a weary gesture.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Jensen. The questions just keeping coming out of me, don’t they? It’s because of my training as a newspaperman, I suppose. That’s a large part of the job, asking questions.”

“I reckon it is,” Smoke said. “And to answer your last one, Bishop’s gang and that snowstorm hit the town at almost exactly the same time, one from the south and one from the north. I traded shots with one of the outlaws but don’t know if I hit him. I never saw the man who wounded Sarge. The bullet just came out of the storm.”

“Just a stray shot,” Warren mused.

“You could call it that. Now let me ask a question.” Smoke gestured toward the gun on Warren’s hip. “Have you packed an iron like that in the past?”

Warren glanced down at the Colt, but before he could answer, Ralph’s deep, gravelly tones came from behind him.

“Has my pa packed an iron? Marshal, haven’t you ever heard of the Caprock Kid?”

Warren turned and said, “Now, Ralph, there’s no need to bring that up—”

“But Pa, you were a famous gunfighter! Maybe nowhere near as famous as Mr. Jensen here, of course, but still . . .”

Even under these desperate circumstances, Smoke had to chuckle. Wasn’t that just like a kid, to brag on his pa and keep him a mite humbled at the same time?

Warren looked back at Smoke and said, “I was never a famous gunfighter, Mr. Jensen. I got in a few shooting scrapes when I was young and foolish, growing up down around Sweetwater and Big Spring, but I put all that aside when Evelyn and I got married.”

“A good woman can cause a man to put aside his foolishness, all right,” Smoke said with a nod.

“My father was in the newspaper business, so I’d grown up with ink in my blood, as they say. That’s what I started doing, and I’ve been at it ever since.”

“But he still goes out and practices with that Colt at least once a week,” Ralph said. In a quieter tone, he added, “He’s gonna teach me how to shoot, too, but Ma doesn’t know that yet.”

“And let’s keep it that way,” Warren said. To Smoke, he went on, “What are we going to do now? Just wait out the storm and hope that it drives off those outlaws?”

Smoke shook his head. “They’re not going to leave, even if Bishop wasn’t intent on looting the town. It would be suicide for them to try to go anywhere. I’m afraid they’ll be here as long as this blizzard is . . . and when it moves on, they’ll pick up where they left off.” Smoke glanced around the room. “Windy’s not here, is he?”

“I haven’t seen him.”

“Or Jonas Madigan?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“So those two old-timers are out there somewhere,” Smoke said, “and there’s no telling what sort of trouble they might be getting into.” He put a hand on Warren’s shoulder. “You’re in charge here . . . What did they call you when you were the Caprock Kid? Ed? Eddie?”

“Ned.”

“All right, Ned. You and the other fellas here protect the bank and the women and kids. I’m going to see if I can find out what else is going on in town.”

“By yourself? I can come with you—”

“Or I can,” Tommy Spencer volunteered. The girl had edged up while Smoke and Warren were talking, and she looked eager to get into the action.

“Both of you are needed here,” Smoke said firmly. “As far as I know now, this is the only real stronghold left in town, and we need to hold it.”

“All right,” Warren said with only a faint grudging tone in his voice. “You can count on us, Mr. Jen—”

That was as far as he had gotten when the bank’s double doors unlocked, letting in an icy gust of wind, a cloud of swirling and whipping snow, and three men with guns gripped in their fists.