CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

“Will Granger won’t commit, one way or t’other,” Matt Rhodes said. “He’s a man who plays his cards mighty close to his chest.”

Ruby looked like she’d been struck.

“Then he won’t help us,” she said.

“I didn’t say that,” Rhodes said. “I said Will wouldn’t state his intentions.”

The old man’s words hung in silence for long moments. Then Hamp Sedley surprised everyone.

“All right, we’ll do it ourselves,” he said.

Ruby and Sally Bailey stared at the man in openmouthed shock.

“Well look who just grew a backbone,” Ruby said.

“Don’t read too much into it,” Sedley said. “I just want this damned thing over with.”

“I’m with you there, Reb,” Rhodes said. “So we push this thing, and there’s not much time to be lost.”

Three blank faces looked at the old man and he said, “Will told me he was just about to head for the sheriff’s office to shackle your friends for their execution. We’ll go over there right now and see how the pickle squirts.”

“It’s thin,” Sedley said, “mighty thin. Suppose this Granger feller won’t throw in with us, what then?”

“Then we’ll be no better off than we are right now,” Rhodes said.

“Or we could be dead,” Sedley said. “Did the blacksmith say who’ll be along of him?”

“He sure did, sonny. Feller by the name of Ed Bowen, a Texas gun who’s faster an’ two shades meaner than the devil hisself.”

Ruby’s breath exhaled in a rush and she frowned her uncertainty.

“Well, Hamp, you still got that backbone you found real sudden?”

Sedley’s face was strangely calm, as was his voice.

“Kiss my ass, Ruby,” he said. Then to Rhodes, “Ready to take a walk in the rain, Yankee?”

“Yeah, Reb, let’s get ’er done.”

“We’re going with you,” Sally said.

“The hell you are,” Sedley said.

“The hell I am,” Sally said, her determined little chin jutting.

“That goes for me as well,” Ruby said.

“And I say you stay here,” Sedley said. “Hell, me an’ the Yank could be dead a couple of minutes from now.”

“Then we’ll pray over your broken, bleeding bodies,” Ruby said.

“Ruby, I—”

Sedley didn’t finish his sentence. A single gunshot from the ridge broke it off and put a period at the end.

“That’s Cobb, I reckon,” Rhodes said after a while.

“Sounds like he’s busy killing folks,” Sedley said. “So while he’s occupied, let’s go.”

Lightning flared and there was no letup in the hammering rain that covered the street like a coat of mail.

“Hold on just a second,” Rhodes said.

He stepped into his office and came out with a handful of shells he began to feed into his rifle.

“We might be outnumbered, but I don’t want to be outgunned,” Rhodes said.

Sedley’s jaw hardened as his impatience grew.

“Hurry it up, for God’s sake,” he said.

Another shot, this time from the street.

“Now I’m ready,” Rhodes said, holding the Winchester across his chest.

“Let’s hope we’re not too late,” Sedley said. “That shot could have come from the sheriff’s office.”

He hurried past the old man into the pelting rain . . . and the others followed.

Like two runaway trains on the same track, Sedley and Cobb collided in the street.

The gambler was the first to recover from the surprise and fired first.

Any man who uses a gun is entitled to one lucky shot in his lifetime and Hamp Sedley was awarded his.

Despite the rain, despite the ashen-gray day and the frenzied flash of lightning, Sedley’s bullet ran true and crashed into Cobb’s left shoulder.

Cobb had never been shot before, and he shrieked his pain and outrage and went down on one knee, the corded muscle of his neck straining against the skin.

But now his men were firing.

Ruby fell under Lee Dorian’s gun and Sedley, who was now shooting wild in Cobb’s general direction, took a bullet that tore a chunk out of his left bicep.

Matt Rhodes worked his rifle well and stood his ground, but with old eyes, his shooting had little effect.

He was hit hard and thumped onto the street in a sitting position, blood pumping from his chest.

Sally ran around Sedley, flung her arms into the air and yelled,

“Moon goddess hear me well,
thrust those demons back to hell!”

“Are you crazy!” Sedley screamed.

He grabbed Sally by the arm, dragged her onto the boardwalk and forced her to lie flat on her stomach. Sedley threw himself on top of her. Then, holding the protesting girl down with his weight, he fed cartridges into his Colt, his trembling fingers dropping more than he loaded.

Ruby crawled through the mud of the street and pulled herself onto the boardwalk, bullets kicking around her, splintering wood.

“How bad are you hurt?” Sedley yelled.

“How the hell should I know?” Ruby said.

“Then lie down and stay down,” Sedley said.

“What are you doing to that girl?” Ruby said.

“Lying on top of her. Hell, she was standing in the street trying to cast spells.”

“Let me up,” Sally yelled.

“Hamp, you’re a damned pervert,” Ruby said. “Let her go.”

A trickle of blood ran from the corner of her mouth and her breathing came hard and fast.

Walsh and Kane edged closer to the boardwalk, firing as they came.

Bullets split the air around Sedley and the women, and wood chips flew into the air.

Sedley raised himself up and fired at the gunmen and they retreated a few steps. Neither of them was hit.

Rhodes was down with a fatal wound, but the old soldier had sand and he wasn’t out of it.

He called to Cobb by name, and then threw the Winchester to his shoulder.

Rhodes fired and clipped a half-moon of flesh out of the top of Cobb’s left ear.

Cobb reacted like a man who’d just been stung by a hornet.

He clapped a hand to his ear and his eyes widened as it came away bloody.

Screaming in rage, Cobb got to his feet and charged Rhodes.

The old man tried to lever his rifle again, but it was beyond his fading strength.

Cobb staggered to the Rhodes, shoved his gun into the old man’s face and triggered a shot.

Blood and bone fanning from a black wound just under his right eye, Rhodes fell onto his back and lay still.

Revolver in hand, Hank Cobb, bent over and staggering, headed for the livery. Shot for the first time in his life, his scheme to become the king of Holy Rood in ruins, his only thought was escape.

Even when Sedley took a pot at him as he went by, and missed, Cobb didn’t return fire or slow his pace.

His need for a horse was greater than his desire to kill a tinhorn gambler.

Behind Cobb a volley of gunfire rattled. Angry bullets whined around him and kicked up vees of mud at his feet.

He turned his head and his eyes popped, showing the whites.

At least a dozen men, firing an assortment of contraband weapons, were spread out across the street, firing as they came.

Walsh was down on all fours, coughing up black blood.

Beside him Jonas Kane was taking hits but still getting his work in, his face grim and determined.

After a quick, terrified glance at the oncoming townsmen, Lee Dorian took to his heels and ran after Cobb.

“Hold them off, Lee,” Cobb yelled over his shoulder. “I’ll saddle the horses.”

Dorian was showing yellow, but he fought down his fear and took up a position in the stable doorway and fired his rifle at the men in the street.

“For God’s sake hurry, boss,” he shrieked. “I can’t hold them for long.”

A few of the townsmen hesitated and looked for cover, but most stood their ground and shot back at Dorian.

The gunman yelped as a bullet burned across his thigh, drawing blood.

“Boss—”

But Cobb, riding bareback on a rangy buckskin, galloped past him.

“Get your own damned horse,” he yelled.

Then he was gone, spurring the buckskin along the wagon road. Within moments, he vanished into the sheeting rain and lighting shimmered around him.

Dorian, knowing that he’d no time to bridle a mount, stepped out of the livery, threw down his rifle and then his holstered Colt.

He glanced at Jonas Kane dead on the ground and raised his hands as the townsmen got closer.

“Don’t shoot! I’m out of it!” he screamed.

Then Lee Dorian, a man killer by trade, a woman killer by inclination, looked around at the men ringing him and saw his death in their faces.

He called out to one of the men by name.

“Luke, can you make this go away?”

The man called Luke shook his head, his eyes merciless.

And a dark, wet stain appeared in Dorian’s crotch and spread down his legs.

“Damn you all . . . rabbits!” he yelled.

Guns roared.

Hit by bullets and buckshot, Dorian jerked this way and that like a puppet manipulated by a child, his body almost torn apart.

He dropped to the ground, twitching, and the man called Luke put the muzzle of his rifle between Dorian’s eyes and fired.