CHAPTER 27
Paco O’Shannon let out a startled yelp and tried to jerk out of the way of the blacksmith’s hammer, which would have crushed his skull like an eggshell if it landed on his head.
O’Shannon was only partially successful at avoiding the blow. The hammer caught him on the left shoulder. He screamed in pain as he crumpled to the ground and clutched at the injured shoulder with his other hand.
Bishop struck then, lashing out with the whip he had snatched from its loop at his waist. The whip uncoiled in the gloom like the striking snake for which it was named and wrapped around the wrist of the man wielding the hammer. It left a bloody gash when Bishop snapped it back.
The bearded man cried out and dropped the hammer. He made a grab for it with his other hand, but the whip cracked again. The man jerked back instinctively, lost his balance, and fell. Blood welled from the nasty cut the whip had left on his right cheek, not far from his eye.
Bishop had intended to pluck out that eye with his second stroke, but it was a rare miss he attributed to the poor light in the livery barn. But it didn’t matter; the man had no chance of reaching the hammer again. Bishop tossed the whip to his left hand and drew his gun to make sure of that.
“Stay where you are,” he said coldly. “If you move, I’ll kill you.”
He was a little surprised at himself because he hadn’t gone ahead and pulled the trigger. Most of the time, he smashed the life out of anyone who got in his way, and a part of him wanted to empty the gun into the man who’d attacked O’Shannon.
But the cunning part of Bishop’s brain, the part that never stopped working, told him to wait. Maybe he could seize some sort of advantage from this unexpected encounter.
O’Shannon groaned. “Damn it, Snake, he broke my shoulder!”
“I wish it had been your head,” the bearded man said. His upper lip curled in a snarl. The cut on his cheek and the bloody stripe on his wrist had to hurt, but he showed no sign of it.
“Shut up,” Bishop snapped. “Can you move your arm, Paco?”
O’Shannon tried, but the effort just made him gasp. “N-no, I can’t.”
“You may be right about it being broken, then.” To the bearded man, Bishop said, “Who the hell are you?”
“Rufus Spencer. I own this stable and the blacksmith shop next door. I don’t have to ask who you are. You’re Snake Bishop.”
“That’s right. And if you know who I am, you know you’re lucky to be alive. Cooperate and maybe you’ll stay that way for a while.”
Bishop hung the whip back on his belt and kept the blacksmith covered with the gun as he went over to O’Shannon.
“Let me give you a hand up,” he said. He got his left hand under O’Shannon’s right arm and lifted him to his feet. O’Shannon cursed bitterly under his breath.
“I swear, I’m gonna kill that big son of a—”
“Not yet,” Bishop cut in. “A man who owns a livery stable and blacksmith shop is a leading citizen in a town like this. Maybe we can make use of him, once this storm is over.”
“If you reckon I’ll help animals like you, you’ve got it all wrong,” Spencer said. “Do whatever you want to me. Do your worst, I don’t care.”
“I’m betting at least some of the townspeople do care, and they’ll want to keep you alive. Maybe enough to increase our chances of getting out of here.” Bishop holstered his gun and went on, “Stay right where you are there, sitting on the ground, while I tend to my friend’s arm. If you look like you’re even thinking about moving, I’ll kill you. You’re not that important to me.”
Spencer scowled but didn’t say anything. He stayed where he was, with a trickle of blood running down his cheek into his beard from the cut Bishop’s whip had left behind.
“This is going to hurt like hell,” Bishop told O’Shannon, “but we need to fix that arm where it can’t move around and do any more damage to your shoulder. Better grit your teeth.”
“Just do what you can,” O’Shannon said, still sounding a little breathless from the pain.
Carefully, Bishop took hold of the other outlaw’s arm and moved it so that O’Shannon’s hand was stuck in the waistband of his trousers. He took a coil of rope from a peg where it hung on the wall and cut a length of it with his knife. Then he wrapped that piece of rope around O’Shannon’s torso and under his right arm, so that it held the left arm motionless.
While he was doing all that, he stood where he could keep an eye on Spencer the whole time.
“I’m sure it still hurts like blazes,” Bishop said, “but that ought to keep it from getting even worse before we can find a doctor for you.”
“Thanks, Snake,” O’Shannon said through teeth he had gritted against the pain, as Bishop had suggested. “You reckon there actually is a doctor in this town?”
“In a place the size of Salt Lick, I imagine so, yeah.” Bishop looked at their prisoner. “What about it? Is there a sawbones in this town?”
“Go to hell,” Spencer rumbled.
“We’ll find out later, from somebody who’s got more sense. We can’t go out in that storm right now, anyway.”
The wind was still howling and the light that came through the cracks around the door was fading, showing that it was going to be an early night. While he could still see what he was doing, Bishop lit a lantern that was hanging from a nail on one of the posts supporting the hayloft. The yellow, flickering glow didn’t reach all the way to every corner of the cavernous barn, but it helped.
The lantern didn’t put out much heat, either, but it helped that there were at least a dozen horses stabled in here. They gave off heat. Bishop’s breath fogged in front of his face, but he didn’t think any of them would freeze to death before morning.
Several empty crates were stacked against the wall. Bishop put one of them where O’Shannon could use it for a seat, then kicked another over so he could sit on it. With both of them sitting there facing Spencer, who was still on the ground about twenty feet away, Bishop drew his gun again and said, “All right, I reckon now we wait. You happen to have a bottle around here, blacksmith?”
“I wouldn’t give you anything to drink except maybe poison,” Spencer said.
“No reason to be like that. We’re stuck in here together. Might as well be civil to each other.”
“Go to hell.”
Bishop fingered the whip at his waist. “Or maybe we could pass the time some other way . . .”
Spencer drew in a deeper breath, obviously frightened of the whip but not wanting to show it. Bishop moved his hand away, and the blacksmith relaxed slightly.
No need to rush things, Bishop told himself. From the sound of that storm, it was going to be a long night.
* * *
The last time Smoke had seen Jonas Madigan, the former lawman, had been at the marshal’s office with Miriam Dollinger. Then later, when Smoke and Windy checked at the office, Madigan and Miriam were gone. Smoke had a hunch Miriam had persuaded Madigan to return to his house.
He hoped that was the case. Madigan and Miriam could ride out the storm there safely enough. Of course, there was still Snake Bishop’s gang to worry about, but the storm was the more pressing threat.
Smoke knew his mind wouldn’t be at ease until he checked for himself. When he left the bank, he pushed his hat down tighter on his head and buttoned his coat, then drew his gun and stuck it and his right hand through the gap between two buttons on the heavy sheepskin garment. He wanted to keep his hand warm enough that he could use the gun accurately if he needed to.
Bending his head forward against the vicious wind, he headed toward the cross street where Jonas Madigan’s house was located.
Finding it was going to be difficult in this weather, but Smoke still had faith in his instincts. Something inside him always told him which direction he was going. He stayed on a northbound course as he walked through the blowing snow. The stuff was piling up on the ground, even with the wind blowing so hard, so after a while he felt almost like he was slogging through sand.
When he thought he had gone far enough, he turned and went due west, keeping the wind on his right shoulder. He came to the boardwalk on the far side of the street. Had he gone too far? Not far enough? Using the buildings as a guide, he found that he was almost at the corner.
Madigan’s house was on the other side of the cross street. Smoke cut over to that side and stepped up onto the boardwalk into the welcome protection from the wind that the buildings provided. For a few minutes, anyway, he wouldn’t have the storm clawing at him quite so fiercely.
The light had grown dimmer. The hour was somewhere after the middle of the afternoon; Smoke wasn’t going to the trouble of digging out his watch to check. Time didn’t have much meaning in a situation like this. Everything broke down before the storm, during the storm, and after the storm.
Maybe by the next morning when the sun came up, the world would be back to normal. But Smoke wasn’t going to count on that.
In the lee of the buildings like this, the wind wasn’t quite as loud. Smoke lifted his head suddenly as he thought he heard something. Gunfire? Maybe the boom of a shotgun? He couldn’t be sure.
Even if he had heard shots, he couldn’t do anything about them. He had to trust that the citizens of Salt Lick would defend themselves if they were attacked. He had confidence in Windy Whittaker and Ned Warren. Apple Jack was a good man, too, and so was Rufus Spencer. Smoke couldn’t be everywhere at once, couldn’t do everything . . . probably couldn’t save everyone from Bishop’s gang . . . but he was going to try.
He was passing the last business on this part of the street when the door opened and a man called, “Damn it, get in here! You’re gonna freeze to death, wanderin’ around out there.”
Smoke still wanted to check on Madigan, but he supposed it wouldn’t hurt anything to make sure whoever was in here was all right, too. With his head still down and his shoulders hunched against the cold, he stepped through the door. It slammed closed behind him.
The air inside the building wasn’t very warm, but compared to being out in that storm, it felt downright cozy in here. Smoke lifted his head, saw that a lamp was burning on a desk. Leatherbound law books filled a set of shelves behind the desk, telling him that this was a lawyer’s office.
Unfortunately, the man sitting at the desk was slumped forward, his arms stretched out and a pool of blood spreading on the blotter where his head lay. Smoke knew instantly that the man was dead, and the three men standing around in the office had killed him.
He had stepped right into a nest of owlhoots.
“Hey!” one of them yelped. “He ain’t one of us!”
“Gun him!” another man shouted.
Two of the outlaws stood to Smoke’s right; the third man was to his left. He hated to put a bullet hole in a perfectly good coat, but he pulled the trigger and fired a shot at the man to his left.
Even aiming through a coat, Smoke’s accuracy was deadly. The man staggered back and clutched at his chest. Blood welled between his fingers.
Smoke whirled and moved to the side, his actions so swift it was hard for the eye to follow them. The Colt came out from under his coat and blasted again. Flame spurted from its muzzle and lit up the gloomy office. One of the remaining outlaws doubled over as the slug from Smoke’s gun punched into his guts.
The third owlhoot got a shot off, but he rushed it and the bullet whined well wide of Smoke. Once again, Smoke’s gun thundered in the office’s close confines. The bullet smashed into the outlaw and flung him back against the wall behind him. He hung there for a second as the gun he held slipped from suddenly nerveless fingers and thudded at his feet. Slowly, he began to slide toward the floor, leaving a bloody smear on the wallpaper at his back.
Still moving quickly, Smoke kicked all the fallen guns into a corner, well out of reach of any of the outlaws. All three men lay crumpled and unmoving. Smoke checked them carefully. All three were dead, as he’d expected.
When time was short, it was easier to just go ahead and shoot to kill.
With the acrid tang of powder smoke biting at his nose and eyes, he checked the man sitting at the desk, too, lifting the unlucky gent’s head enough to see the bullet hole in the left temple. This man was one of the citizens of Salt Lick Smoke hadn’t met, but he felt the loss anyway. One more innocent cut down at the hands of ruthless outlaws and killers.
He couldn’t do any more here. After replacing the spent shells he had fired with fresh cartridges, Smoke left the lawyer’s office and continued his snowy trek to Jonas Madigan’s house.
Once again, Smoke’s instincts didn’t let him down. The white picket fence in front of Madigan’s house was almost impossible to see in the blowing snow and bad light, but he found it. He went up to the porch and was relieved by the sight of a yellow glow in the front window. He raised his hand and knocked on the door, not wanting to barge in.
It was never wise to surprise an old lawdog like Jonas Madigan. He might react with hot lead.
But when several moments went by and there was no response, a frown creased Smoke’s forehead. He was about to try the knob and go inside anyway if it was unlocked, when the door suddenly opened in front of him.
“Oh, Marshal Jensen!” Miriam Dollinger exclaimed. “It’s you.”
He could tell by the look on her face that something was wrong. She stepped back so that he could come in, and as he did, he asked, “How’s Jonas?”
“He . . . he’s resting right now, Smoke, but it’s not good.” She closed the door and went on, “Right after you and Windy left the marshal’s office, Jonas started feeling worse. He wanted to stay there so you could find him in case you needed his help, but I persuaded him to come back here and lie down. We . . . we barely made it here before the storm hit. He let me take his boots and gun belt off, but other than that, he won’t get undressed. He says . . . he says he has to be ready for trouble.”
The way her voice kept catching told Smoke how upset she was. From what he had seen of Miriam Dollinger so far, she was pretty calm and level-headed most of the time. Jonas had to be in bad shape to get her this worked up.
Nodding, Smoke said, “That sounds like him, all right. It’s hard for an old war horse like Jonas to settle down if he knows something is going on.”
“What’s happening in town? I thought I heard some shooting earlier. Did the outlaws attack? Have they been driven off?”
“They attacked, all right,” Smoke told her, “but they got here at the same time as that storm, so it wrecked their plans. They haven’t been able to raid the town the way they normally would. But they’re out there, all right, spread out around town ready to rob and kill as soon as they get the chance. I’ve run into a few of them, and from the sound of it, they’ve caused some trouble elsewhere in town.”
“The ones you encountered . . . ?”
“They won’t bother anybody else,” Smoke said simply.
“Good.” The vehemence in Miriam’s voice surprised him. “Maybe it’s not very Christian of me to be glad that they’re dead, but they meant to harm my friends and neighbors. I think they got what was coming to them.”
“I won’t argue that point,” Smoke said. “They called the tune. The only thing the rest of us can do is dance to it.”
Miriam frowned. “But if those outlaws are wandering around despite the storm . . . some of them could come here.”
“They could, although I suspect that most of them have already hunkered down to wait out this blizzard. I don’t reckon they know this is Jonas’s house, so they won’t have any reason to seek it out. You probably ought to blow out all the lamps anyway. It’s almost full dark now. Light will just attract attention that you probably don’t want.”
“That’s a good idea. I’ll do that.”
“And I’m going to speak to Jonas for a minute,” Smoke added.
Miriam didn’t try to stop him as he went to the door of Madigan’s bedroom. That door stood open. Smoke figured his old friend might have overheard some of the conversation between him and Miriam, but Madigan appeared to be asleep, stretched out on the bed fully dressed except for his boots and gun belt, as Miriam had said. A blanket was spread over his legs.
Madigan’s eyes opened. He said, “Smoke?”
“That’s right.” Smoke stepped closer to the bed. “I hear you had a bad spell, Jonas.”
“It was . . . nothing.” The strain in Madigan’s voice gave the lie to his words. “Miriam worries, though . . . so I try to humor her.”
Smoke bent and blew out the lamp on the bedside table.
“I don’t know if you heard or not. Bishop’s gang made it to town. They split up and attacked just as the storm hit. I’ve taken care of a few of them so far, but most of the bunch is still roaming around Salt Lick.”
The room was dark enough that he barely saw Madigan moving as the old lawman sat up and said, “I’d better get back out there—”
Smoke put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “No, what you need to do is stay right here so you can protect Miriam. That lady’s worth looking after, Jonas.”
Madigan grunted. “You ain’t tellin’ me anything I don’t already know, Smoke. But the town’s my responsibility, too.”
“Not any more. Windy and I are looking after it, and so are a lot of other folks. Good folks who’ve stepped up to battle the invaders. So you just rest and try to get to feeling better. With all the lights out, maybe the house won’t draw any attention.”
“Yeah. Like out on the prairie, when we had to . . . have a cold camp . . . so as not to let the Comanche or the Kiowa know . . . where we were.”
“Exactly.”
“Only those redskins . . . had a whole heap more honor to them . . . than Snake Bishop and his bunch.”
“That’s sure enough true,” Smoke agreed.
“Can you . . . put my Colt there on the nightstand . . . where I can reach it easy?”
“Sure.” Smoke had seen the coiled gun belt on the chair next to the bed when he came in. He slid the revolver from the holster and placed it on the nightstand as Madigan asked.
“And there’s a shotgun . . . in the corner . . . Put it on the bed . . . here beside me.”
“You’re liable to get gun oil on the covers.”
“Can’t be helped. I got to be ready.”
Smoke did as Madigan requested. Miriam came into the room and said, “I’ve checked all the doors and windows and made sure they’re fastened.”
“Don’t you worry about a thing,” Madigan told her. Smoke could hear the effort Madigan put into making his voice sound strong and confident. “We’re ready if there’s any trouble. Any of those blasted owlhoots show up here, we’ll give ’em a mighty warm welcome, you can count on that, Miriam.”
“I know. I’m not worried, Jonas . . . as long as I’m with you.”
Smoke waited for a moment, then said, “I hate to leave, but—”
“No, you need to get back out there,” Madigan said. “Salt Lick needs you, Smoke, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you got my letter and came to see me.”
Smoke chuckled. “It’s been an eventful visit, hasn’t it?”
“Just like old times,” Madigan replied with a soft laugh of his own. “Good luck, Smoke. See you in the morning.”
“See you in the morning,” Smoke responded.
And neither mentioned the distinct possibility that one or both of them might not make it until then.