CHAPTER 25
After leaving Lomax’s hardware store, Windy kept a tight grip on the horse’s reins as he led the animal down the street. The horse’s big body offered some protection from the wind. Just as important, it provided Windy with an anchor to something real. Alone in the storm, he could have gotten completely disoriented in a hurry.
Of course, he and the horse could get lost, too. Having the animal with him was no guarantee that he could find the bank.
Something told Windy that was where Smoke would be. Smoke would want to make sure the folks who had taken shelter there were all right.
Once that was done, Smoke might venture out into the storm to hunt outlaws. Windy sure wouldn’t put it past him. But he hoped he could catch up with Smoke first, maybe even join him in that hunt.
But first he had to find the blasted bank.
It was on the same side of the street as the hardware store. Windy used the hitch racks to guide him. But there were gaps between those racks, so whenever he came to one, all he could do was try to keep going straight and trust to luck.
The first couple of times, that worked. His reaching hand found another of the rough wooden rails as he groped through the blowing snow.
But then, on the third try, it seemed like it was taking him an awful long time to find the next hitch rack. Could he have veered away and missed it? Was he out in the middle of the street now, without even knowing it?
Part of Windy wanted to yell for help, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good. Even worse, if some of Bishop’s men were wandering around in the blizzard, as seemed likely, a shout might attract their attention and draw them to him. Windy knew good and well that if any of the owlhoots spotted him, they would shoot to kill. It was always that way with Bishop’s bunch. They were kill-crazy, just like the man who led them.
Windy stopped in his tracks and brought the horse to a halt as well. He stood there for a moment with the wind and snow battering him as he tried to figure out what to do next. Should he try to turn back and retrace his steps to the hardware store? At least there he would have some protection from the storm.
But that was impossible, he realized. He might wind up going around and around in a circle in the middle of the street and never even know it.
Blind or not, he had to push on.
He had taken a few more steps when he thought he heard somebody shouting not far off. He was about to yell back at them when he caught himself. He didn’t know who was out there . . . but it might be somebody he didn’t want to know he was here.
And it was possible he hadn’t actually heard anybody. It could have been his imagination, or a trick of the storm, instead of real voices. Knowing that, Windy forced himself to take a couple more steps.
Then, in one of those flukish moments that could happen in any blizzard, the wind let up for a moment and the blowing snow parted like the Red Sea, and there, standing twelve feet away, were two men with horses, right in front of a building Windy recognized as Rufus Spencer’s livery stable.
He had missed the bank, overshooting it and wandering all the way over on the other side of the street. But before Windy could even think about what he ought to do next, one of the men yelled, “Whittaker!” and started shooting at him.
Windy caught a glimpse of the coiled whip fastened to the man’s belt and sticking out under the bottom of his coat. That was Snake Bishop himself Windy had almost blundered into.
Bishop recognized him, too, and that was bad, really bad. Bishop made it a habit to kill anybody who crossed him, and that included running out on his gang.
Those thoughts flashed through Windy’s mind so fast that muzzle flame had barely bloomed from Bishop’s gun before the old-timer was twisting aside with the spryness of a much younger man. Even an old body was capable of a lot when survival was on the line.
Windy felt the hot breath of a bullet on his whiskered cheek. At practically the same time, he heard the slug thud into something behind him. The outlaw’s horse he’d been leading screamed in pain. Windy dropped the reins and ran, turning and heading in the direction he thought the bank lay.
More gunshots crashed as Bishop fired wildly after him, but Windy didn’t feel any impacts. The snow had closed back in around him. Bishop couldn’t see him now and was just shooting in his general direction.
Windy couldn’t see, either. Nothing but blowing snow all around him. If he missed the bank again . . . if he ran along the street and out of town, right into the teeth of the storm . . . they would find his frozen carcass somewhere out on the prairie when this was all over.
But he couldn’t stay where he was, so he stumbled on into the swirling madness.
* * *
After leaving the bank, Smoke stayed on the boardwalk and worked his way slowly along to the next business. When he got there, he found the door unlocked. He twisted the knob and stepped inside, calling, “Hello! Anybody here?”
This was an apothecary, he recalled, and in the dim light that filtered in through the front window, he could make out the shelves on both walls with bottles and boxes on them containing various potions, nostrums, and pills. There was a counter in the back where the proprietor mixed medicines.
But no one was here. The owner was either next door in the bank or had taken shelter somewhere else. Smoke backed out and closed the door behind him.
The next two businesses were similarly deserted, but a light burned in the window of the one after that. When Smoke opened the door, the intense smell of leather told him immediately that he was in the saddle shop.
“Throw your hands in the air or I’ll blast you, you damn owlhoot!”
The angry command came from a man who stood at the back of the shop pointing a Sharps rifle at Smoke. Lifting his hands, Smoke called, “Hold your fire, friend. I’m not part of Bishop’s gang.”
“Marshal Jensen? Is that you?” The man pushed a pair of spectacles higher on his sharp-pointed nose. “Dadgum it, Marshal, I nearly blew a hole in you. I thought you were an outlaw come to rob and kill me.”
“No, I’m just trying to check on everybody I can,” Smoke explained as he closed the door behind him to keep the storm out. He recalled the saddlemaker’s name. “Are you all right, Mr. Bailey?”
“Yeah, so far,” the man said. He lowered the Sharps. Smoke remembered being told that Bailey was an old cowhand who had turned to making saddles when he got too old and stove-up to sit in one all day. He did other leather work, as well.
Bailey went on, “It’s blowin’ and snowin’ like a son of a gun out there. Did the owlhoots make it into town?”
“Some of them did,” Smoke answered. “Three of them tried to bust into the bank a little while ago.”
“Yeah, I thought I heard some shootin’, but there’s so much racket goin’ on, it was hard to tell for sure. What happened to the fellas who caused the ruckus?”
“We’ll bury them when it thaws out,” Smoke replied. “For now, they’re keeping cool in an alley.”
Bailey chuckled. “Can’t say as I’m surprised.”
“Quite a few folks have forced up in the bank. You can join them if you want to. Stay on the boardwalk and keep a hand on the wall, and you won’t get lost.”
“And leave my shop undefended against that lowdown bunch?” Bailey snorted. “Not hardly, Marshal. No offense, but me and this ol’ buffalo gun of mine are stayin’ right here.”
“It’s your choice,” Smoke said with a nod. “If you do decide to head for the bank later, be careful and sing out when you get there. Some of the fellas inside might be getting a little trigger-happy by now.”
“I’ll do that,” Bailey promised.
Smoke turned back to the door and opened it. He stepped out onto the boardwalk and was about to pull the door closed behind him when a gun roared somewhere nearby. The slug smacked into the door jamb and chewed splinters from it.
Smoke crouched and swept his Colt from its holster. Another spurt of muzzle flame lanced at him. The bullet thudded into the wall behind him. There were two guns targeting him, one straight ahead and one to the left. Smoke threw a return shot at the one in front of him and then pivoted, dropping to a knee as he fired twice in the direction of the second man.
Somebody yelled in pain and no more shots came from that side, but if Smoke had hit the would-be killer in front of him, the man wasn’t wounded badly enough to knock him out of the fight. In fact, he was charging closer, the gun in his hand crashing again and again as he sent more slugs clawing at the air around Smoke.
A heavy, almost deafening boom sounded close by. That was the old saddlemaker’s Sharps going off. Bailey had moved up into the doorway, taken aim at the muzzle flashes of the man launching the frontal attack, and sent a .52 caliber round rocketing at him. The thick snow muffled the echoes of the shots, so as soon as they sounded, silence followed almost instantly.
“I reckon you must’ve gotten him, since he’s not shooting anymore,” Smoke told Bailey after a moment.
“If that Big Fifty hit him anywhere, he’s down and out,” Bailey declared. “There ain’t no such thing as a minor wound from this here buffalo gun.”
Smoke knew that was right. A man struck by a round that heavy would soon bleed to death or die from the shock, if it didn’t kill him instantly.
Smoke straightened to his feet and told Bailey, “Get on back inside if you’re determined to stay. And you’d better reload that cannon of yours.”
“That’s exactly what I figure on doin’! What about you, Marshal?”
“I’m going to keep checking on everybody I can find,” Smoke said.
And he had no doubt that some of those he encountered would be members of Snake Bishop’s gang. But already, with help from some of the townsmen, he had started whittling down the odds . . .
* * *
Snake Bishop bit back a curse as the hammer of his gun clicked on an expended cartridge. He had emptied the gun at Windy Whittaker, but he didn’t know if he had hit the treacherous old pelican or not. The storm had closed in and hidden everything more than a few feet away.
Which meant the only things Bishop could see were Paco O’Shannon, the two horses, and the wall of the livery stable. He became aware that O’Shannon was shouting at him, “What is it, Snake? What are you shooting at?”
O’Shannon had his gun drawn, ready to join in the fight if need be. Bishop motioned for him to pouch the iron and said, “It was Whittaker! Didn’t you see him?”
“Who?”
“Whittaker! Windy Whittaker!”
“That old man who rode with us for a month or two before he ran off?” O’Shannon sounded as if he barely remembered the old-timer. “That was years ago!”
“It was him, all right!” Bishop said. “The traitor!”
“And he’s here in Salt Lick?”
“I saw him just now, no more than a dozen feet away!”
“Well, I didn’t see anything,” O’Shannon said. “Did you get him?”
“I don’t know. The snow got too thick again.”
“What’s he doing here, of all places?”
“I don’t know that, either, damn it! But I saw him, I tell you!”
“Take it easy, Snake. I believe you. But whether Whittaker’s around or not, we need to get out of this storm!”
Bishop couldn’t argue with that. He said, “Can you get one of those doors open?”
“Let me see. Hang on to my horse . . .”
Bishop didn’t care for the way O’Shannon made it sound like he was giving him an order, but under the circumstances, he ignored it. He took the reins from O’Shannon and stood there holding both horses while O’Shannon tugged at one of the big doors in the front of the livery stable. The snow had started to drift against the door already, which made opening it more difficult.
But after a couple of minutes, O’Shannon had tugged the door open enough that he was able to get his fingers in the gap, and then he dragged it out more. That let him wedge a shoulder behind the door and shove even harder. The door scraped through the snow until the gap was big enough for Bishop to lead the horses into the barn. O’Shannon hurried in after them and pulled the door closed as much as he could. Wind still whistled around it.
They were out of the full force of the storm, though, and that was a relief.
It was close to pitch dark in the barn. Only a faint glow came through the cracks around the door, along with the icy wind. Bishop was able to make out their surroundings once his eyes had adjusted. He heard horses moving around and stamping their feet in the stalls. The rich, earthy, mingled smell of hay and manure would have been enough to tell both men they were in a barn, even if they hadn’t already known that.
“I don’t reckon anybody’s here,” O’Shannon said after a moment. His voice echoed a little in the cavernous building. “This should be a good place to wait out the storm.”
“Who said we were going to wait it out? There’s a town waiting out there for us to loot it.”
“I don’t mean any disrespect, Snake—”
“Then don’t give me any,” Bishop snapped.
“But we can’t loot anything in the middle of a blizzard like this,” O’Shannon went on stubbornly. “The weather’s just too bad. We have to wait until the storm blows over. Then we can tree this town like we’ve treed all the others.”
For a second, Bishop felt a wild impulse to haul out his gun and blow O’Shannon to hell for daring to argue with him. Any show of defiance or disrespect filled Bishop with blinding, white-hot rage. It always had.
But he knew that he needed O’Shannon, so he hauled a tight rein on his temper and drew in a deep breath.
Later, when this was over, if he still felt the same way, he could have O’Shannon tied to a couple of posts and use the blacksnake whip at his waist to peel away the man’s hide, bit by bloody bit. Sure, Paco O’Shannon was the closest thing Snake Bishop had to a friend in this world, but in the long run, that didn’t matter.
Not nearly as much as enforcing his will.
“We’ll just have to hope we have men left,” Bishop said. “We may be the only ones who survive. But you’re right, we can’t do anything right now except wait. Let’s see if we can find some empty stalls for the horses. I’m sure they could use some grain or at least some hay. But don’t unsaddle them, in case we need them in a hurry.”
“Sure, Snake. That makes sense. Give me the reins, and I’ll take care of them.”
That was more like it, Bishop thought as he handed over the reins of both horses. O’Shannon led the animals toward the row of stalls along the barn’s left-hand wall.
He was passing a dimly seen door with the horses when that door suddenly flew open and a man charged out into the barn, yelling incoherently. Bishop could see him just well enough to know that he was big, had a bushy black beard, and wielded a blacksmith’s hammer that was sweeping down swiftly at Paco O’Shannon’s head.