“Hell’s teeth!” shouted Angel.
He ran into the jumbled room where Dick Webb lay sprawled, the six-gun still ready in his left hand. The boy’s face was white with pain and his eyes looked slightly fey, as though his thoughts were not altogether there. He needed better attention than the doctor could give him in this mess, Angel thought. But there was no time for that now. He grabbed the water bucket and ran towards the back of the building, hurling the water at the place where he could see the first reaching yellow tongues of flame, seeking an entrance between the curling, blackening floorboards.
The sound of them was a steady, whirring roar, and over the stink of smoke was a resiny, sharp tang that told Angel the fire had been started with coal oil. The water forced the flames into retreat for a moment, and then he saw Doc come stumbling across the broken brick, over the fallen bodies of their attackers, another water bucket in his hands slopping over. Angel took it from him and hurled it into the center of the once-more vigorous flames.
Again there was the hiss of defeat, the clouds of steam from the frustrated fire, but now there was no more water, and nothing with which to fight the flames but an old sack. Angel beat at the surging flame with the smoldering sack, sparks flickering up along the door jambs, flames following them around him as he worked, coughing, retching, hearing the slight fizz of his own hair singeing, driven back remorselessly by the increasing heat. His clothes were scorching now and he could no longer get near the dancing, wicked spread of flame that was advancing eagerly into the narrow corridor fanned by the draught of wind that came through the broken walls and doorway. Small pieces of charred wood and ash floated in the heavy, hot air. It would only be minutes before the entire jail was an inferno from which nothing could escape. Angel fell back from the roiling black smoke, his eyes gummed with dried tears that never formed in the immense heat.
“Can’t stop it!” he shouted, falling back near Day and the kid. They looked at each other, but said nothing. Dick Webb got to his feet slowly, painfully, hitching at his belt with one hand.
“That’s all, then,” he said, to no one in particular, cocking the gun in his left hand. There was another, stronger, sweeter smell now, and they gagged on it. The bodies sprawled in the shattered corridor were beginning to burn.
Angel touched Day’s shoulder and gestured with his chin toward the heavy bar on the door. There was no place left to go but out through there, out towards the waiting guns of the Fischer riders. Dead if they stayed, dead if they didn’t. He looked at Dick Webb. The kid’s face was grim: he wanted to go out fighting. Angel’s brain raced furiously. He had to find some way to stop the kid rushing out with a gun in his hand to certain, sudden death.
“Angel!”
He heard the voice through the angry roar of the flames and knew it was Big Ed Fischer.
“I hear you!” he yelled back.
“You’re finished, Angel!” screamed Fischer. “Come on out while you can—or burn, damned if I care which!”
“We’re out of chips, kid,” Angel said softly.
Dick Webb looked at him, his face surprised, contempt creeping into his eyes.
The kid looked at Doc who was watching Angel with a puzzled expression.
“We can make a run for it, Frank!” Doc coughed. As he spoke, one of the heavy roof beams crashed to the floor at the far end of the corridor. A long spiraling shower of sparks climbed up into the star-studded velvet of the sky.
“We’ve got maybe a minute,” Angel said tightly. He raised his voice to a shout. “All right, Fischer!” he shouted. “We’re coming out!”
There was a ragged shout of triumph outside, then they heard Ed Fischer’s voice again. “Throw out your guns!” he shouted.
Angel nodded to the other two, tossing his own six-gun out as he unbarred the door and swung it open. After a moment, with a look of utter contempt plain now on his face in the bright redness of the flames, Dick Webb followed suit. Angel nodded to Day, who threw his Sharps away from him as if he suddenly detested it.
Frank Angel swung wide the heavy door and stumbled out into the street, followed by the other two. The whole area was bathed in a terrible bright red light from the burning jail behind him, and with the added draught caused by the opening of the door, the flames surged higher and higher, as if rejoicing in their victory. Coughing, retching, eyes streaming from the smoke, the three men came out into the street where Ed Fischer stood triumphant, a Winchester repeater cradled in his ham like hands, alone in the middle of the glaring dusty street.
“Get out here where I can see you!” he yelled. “I’m going to enjoy this!”
Behind the three men there was a roaring rumbling crash as the roof of the jail finally collapsed, great lumps of flaming wood and ash floating high like giant fireflies in the night sky, huge spirals of glowing sparks wending upwards into infinity. They could see now that a ring of townspeople, their faces strained in the flickering red light, were standing watching the awful denouement of their resistance. Fischer seemed oblivious of everything: the fire, the people, everything except the three men who stood now helpless in front of him, their clothes smoldering with tiny burns, faces grimed from the billowing smoke.
“Get over here!” he yelled, gesturing abruptly with the Winchester.
“I want everyone in this stinking town to see you!”
“You better let us move away from here, Fischer,” Angel said. “Or we’ll fry in this heat!” He moved forward a few tentative steps.
“You’ll fry all right,” Fischer gloated. “But in Hell!”
He gestured again with the rifle: move! and Angel made a cautious half circle around to the side, his eyes on the ground as if afraid to stumble.
“Now they’re going to see something!” Fischer gloated, triumph in his voice. “Now I’ll hang you and they’ll watch, and they’ll remember who hanged you and why. They’ll all think twice before they ever challenge a Fischer again! It’s still my town, Angel! Still my town!”
His head was thrown back toward the sky as he shouted the last words, glorying in them like some victorious, insane animal.
“You-don’t have to hang us, do you?” Angel croaked, and Doc Day’s head came up sharply as he heard the tone in Angel’s voice. He could have sworn there was fear in it. He shook his head in disbelief, but Angel’s next words confirmed it.
“Please,” Angel begged. “Just let us ride out of here. We won’t give you any trouble. We’ll—”
“Listen to him!” screeched Ed Fischer, waving a hand at the people who still stood, stock-still, watching. “Listen to him! Get over here, all of you! I want you to see him crawling, begging for his life!”
Nobody moved.
“Get over here!” Fischer shouted again, turning his head towards the unmoving spectators. “Get over here!”
And in the moment that he turned his head, Frank Angel moved.