Chapter Sixteen
John Henry kept turning, twisting out of the way as slugs sizzled through the air near his head. His gun came up and he triggered a pair of return shots at the wagon, then left his feet in a dive that carried him behind a water trough. He heard bullets thudding into the trough’s thick wooden side.
His hat had flown off when he hit the dirt, but it had landed within reach. John Henry snaked his left arm out and snagged it. He waited for a brief lull in the firing, then popped up long enough to send the hat sailing through the air toward the arched opening at the rear of the Conestoga.
The gunmen inside the vehicle reacted instinctively, as John Henry expected they would. They started shooting at the hat, which was just a vague, light-colored shape as it spun through the darkness. At the same time, John Henry surged to his feet and ran alongside the wagon, firing three more shots through its canvas cover. He heard a man scream in pain.
Those shots emptied John Henry’s revolver, because he always carried the hammer on an empty chamber. He bounded to his right, onto the boardwalk, and as he did, he heard another shot from the wagon. The hot breath of the bullet fanned his cheek. He darted into an alcove where the entrance of a store that was closed down for the night was located. That gave him a little cover.
He knew he had scored at least one hit; the scream from inside the wagon told him that much. But at least one of the bushwhackers was still in the fight. Lead-chewed splinters from the building wall near John Henry’s head as he thumbed fresh cartridges from his shell belt into the Colt. Under the circumstances, he filled all six chambers this time.
Along the street, people were yelling, wanting to know what all the shooting was about, but everybody who had been outside had scurried for cover when the bullets began to fly and they weren’t venturing back out into the street. That much was good, anyway, John Henry thought. He didn’t have to worry as much about hitting an innocent bystander.
He went down on one knee, thrust the barrel of his gun around the corner of the alcove, and fired two shots at the wagon. That canvas cover was full of holes by now. The wagon’s thick sideboards would probably stop most bullets, but the canvas might as well not have been there.
A dark shape leaped down from the rear of the wagon. One of the bushwhackers was fleeing. John Henry snapped a shot at him, but the man broke into a run and didn’t slow down.
Maybe that was a trick. Maybe the second ambusher, even though wounded, was waiting in the shadows inside the wagon for John Henry to step out and give chase.
Or maybe the second bushwhacker was dead, and the other one was just cutting his losses and trying to get away before he caught a bullet, too.
John Henry didn’t believe in being foolhardy, but he wasn’t the sort to sit back and wait when somebody tried to kill him, either. He left the cover of the alcove in a rolling dive that carried him into the street. As he used his momentum to come back up on his feet, he swung the Colt toward the wagon.
No shots came from the vehicle. John Henry’s gut told him there was no longer a threat lurking inside it.
He set off in pursuit of the other bushwhacker, his long legs carrying him swiftly along the street.
He caught a glimpse of the man ducking around a corner and pounded after him. As John Henry approached the corner he slowed, knowing that the bushwhacker might have doubled back in an attempt to take him by surprise. He turned into the cross street moving low and fast, but no shots rang out. John Henry pressed himself against the building wall to his left and listened intently.
Shuffling footsteps and the rasp of someone breathing hard sounded ahead of him. The gunman was still on the move, even though John Henry couldn’t see him. He moved along the boardwalk, moving now with the lethal grace of a big cat stalking its prey.
Every few steps, John Henry stopped to listen again. When he didn’t hear the unsteady footsteps and the labored breathing anymore, two possibilities occurred to him. One was that the man he sought was wounded and had succumbed to his injuries, either passing out or dying.
The other was that the would-be killer was waiting for him.
As John Henry paused to consider his next move, thoughts raced through his head. He was convinced that the men who’d come after him were members of Billy Ray Gilmore’s gang. Gilmore had set the marshal on him, and when that hadn’t done any good, he had allowed a couple of his men to seek revenge for what had happened to Rudd and Logan.
The two bushwhackers weren’t Rudd and Logan themselves, though. With bullet holes in their feet, neither of them would have been able to move as spryly as the man John Henry had seen jump down from the wagon and run off along the street.
None of that really mattered right now, John Henry told himself. The only important thing was that somewhere in the darkness lurked a man who wanted to kill him. John Henry supposed he could turn and walk away, but it wasn’t like him to leave such a threat on his back trail.
He stepped out to the edge of the boardwalk where he’d be nice and visible and advanced steadily, well aware he might as well have painted a target on his chest. That was the quickest way to draw out the second bushwhacker. His every sense was on highest alert.
He heard the rustle of cloth at the same instant he spotted a flicker of movement in the shadows along the wall about a dozen feet in front of him. He threw himself forward onto his belly as a pair of muzzle flashes lit up the night. The gun in John Henry’s hand roared and bucked as he thrust it in front of him. In the flickering glare from its explosions, he caught a glimpse of a man standing behind a barrel that sat next to the wall. The bushwhacker rocked back against the boards as John Henry’s slugs smashed into his chest.
The man’s gun clattered on the planks. He rebounded from the wall and pitched forward to lie sprawled across the boardwalk, one hand hanging limply over the edge.
Two rounds were left in John Henry’s gun. He kept it trained on the fallen man as he climbed to his feet. He approached the man carefully and used his left hand to fish a match from his pocket. He snapped the lucifer to life with his thumbnail and held it high so the flickering glow from its flame washed over the boardwalk.
The man lay facedown in a spreading pool of blood. John Henry kicked the dropped gun into the street, then got a boot toe under the man’s shoulder and rolled him onto his back. Just before the match flickered out, he saw the lifeless eyes staring up at him.
John Henry dropped the match and started reloading his gun again, this time leaving one of the chambers empty as he usually did. This fight seemed to be over. He hoped so, anyway.
A door creaked open behind him. An old man’s voice asked nervously, “Who’s there? Don’t move, mister! I got a greener pointed right at you!”
“Take it easy, old-timer,” John Henry said. “I’m not looking for any trouble with you.”
“Gents go to shootin’ holes in each other right outside my door, I’d say it’s trouble, all right,” the man replied. “Is it over?”
“It is,” John Henry confirmed. “Is this your store?”
“My shop,” the old-timer said. “Leather goods. Saddles, bridles, holsters. I got a room in the back where I sleep. Which is mighty danged hard to do when all hell’s breakin’ loose right outside!”
“I’m sorry,” John Henry said. “The other fella started it, though. He and a partner opened fire on me, around the corner on Main Street.”
“And you done for both of ’em?” The old-timer sounded like he had a hard time believing that.”
“Evidently,” John Henry said. “I’m not sure about the other one, but this hombre is dead.”
“That’s pretty good shootin’.”
“Good enough to keep me alive, anyway. Do you have an undertaker in this town?”
The old man snorted.
“Of course, we got a undertaker. What sort o’ uncivilized place do you take us for?”
“How about going and fetching him for this varmint while I check on the other one?”
The old man stepped closer. John Henry could see him now, skinny, bald, with a drooping white mustache, a long nightshirt flapping around his spindly shanks. The shotgun he carried appeared to weigh almost as much as he did. He had the weapon’s twin muzzles pointed down now.
“Reckon I can do that,” he said. “You sure you don’t need help with the other rapscallion?”
“I don’t think so,” John Henry told him.
Keeping his gun in his hand instead of holstering it, he walked back to the corner and turned onto Main Street. He saw that several people were gathered around the wagon where the bushwhackers had hidden, and one of them was holding up a lantern.
Several of the townsmen drew back skittishly as John Henry walked up.
“It’s all right, fellas,” he said. “No need to worry, my problem’s not with you.”
“You’re the one who shot the fella in the wagon?” one of the men asked.
“I am. Is he dead?”
“Dead as can be,” another man replied. “Got a bullet hole in his shoulder, but that’s not what killed him.”
“No, it was the slug that blew half his head away did that,” the first man said. “It left enough for us to recognize him, though. Just barely. Mister, you killed Junior Clemons.”
“And who would that be?” John Henry asked.
“You don’t know? Hell, he’s one of Billy Ray Gilmore’s men!” The man squinted at John Henry in the lantern light. “Son of a—You’re the man who shot Rudd and Logan in the foot, too!”
The townsmen began backing away, as if they were afraid to get too close to the stranger who had ridden into Purgatory and started attracting bullets right off the bat.
John Henry couldn’t say as he blamed them for feeling that way.