The two Texas Rangers who had been assigned to guard the army payroll being handled by the Wells Fargo express agency in Giddings, Texas, were named Lawton and Earle. They were tough, efficient lawmen who knew their job and were prepared to use their guns and die if necessary, to uphold their oath of office.
They stood with cocked and loaded rifles at the door of the express agency, eyes alert as two soldiers carried the strongbox into the building. Giddings was a bustling town and the streets and boardwalks were crowded with people and traffic, making the Rangers’ job just so much harder. The box would stay at the agency overnight before being transferred to the army post out on the Colorado River. As the soldiers struggled to carry the green-painted, iron-bound box through the doors, Lawton and Earle took a last look around the street and backed through the doorway, rifles covering all the time.
The agency handled other business than express work, and was, in fact, also agent for the stage line that ran from Giddings out into the Frontier lands. So, while the Rangers would have preferred to close down the agency for the rest of the day, there was nothing they could do about people coming and going, booking passage on the stage or making enquiries about fares and luggage rates.
The man who called himself ‘John Colt’ was aiming to take the stage to a godforsaken mountain settlement, no more than a way-station, named Beefstew Crossing. He was a man only about five-eight, slightly built but with a look of wiry strength about him. His clothes were worn but clean and neat and a black longhorn moustache drooped from his upper lip. Hard brown eyes stared at the booking clerk through the grille at the agency counter as he lifted his left hand and used the thumb to push his Stetson to the back of his head, revealing jet-black hair. He shook his head slowly, glancing around at the hard-faced Rangers as they stood guard at the low wooden fence between the rear of the agency building and the safe room. The clerk told him how much his baggage would cost to be freighted.
“Hell!” Colt breathed. “I don’t want to buy the damn stage line! All I want to do is get to Beefstew Crossing!”
The clerk was long-used to complaints about fares and had adopted a bored, take-it-or-leave-it attitude that bordered on the insolent. He merely shrugged at Colt’s outburst.
“Them’s the charges, mister,” he told Colt. “Thirty-five dollars for a seat on the stage and another fifty-seven-forty for your baggage—if you’ve got as much as you say.”
“As much!” echoed Colt. “Hell, man, I’ve only got a warbag and two valises and a saddle ... That don’t take up much room.”
“It takes up fifty-seven dollars and forty cents’ worth,” the clerk said briskly. “You want to book passage or not?”
Colt shook his head, tapping his fingers on the counter as he thought about it. He glanced towards the Rangers. “A man sweats his tail off for three months pushin’ dogies up to the railhead and this hombre wants to take more’n half my pay off me in less’n three minutes ... Don’t seem right, what d’you say?”
The Rangers just stared at him in cold-eyed silence: it wasn’t their problem. Colt sighed and began to dig deep into his denim shirt pocket, turning back to the clerk.
“All right. Make out the tickets,” he growled, still fumbling at his pocket.
The clerk wearily dragged a stack of tickets towards him and began to fill out the details. Colt started counting out his money, glanced towards the Rangers, but they had lost interest now. To them, he was just another bellyaching stage line passenger and they were used to them since they had been given this chore of guarding the express boxes. They were both big men, but Lawton was blond with blotchy skin, while Earle was swarthy, Indian-like. He glanced at his companion now and wiped a forearm across his sweat-beaded forehead.
“Sure could use a cold beer,” Earle said quietly.
“Better not,” Lawton cautioned. “We’ll be relieved in two, three hours.”
“Yeah!” growled Earle feelingly.
He looked through the dusty window pane, longingly, at the saloon across the street where a sign had been painted on the window: ‘Iced Beer On Tap.’ He sighed audibly and licked his lips. Lawton frowned at him and, for that fraction of a second, their attention was not on their job ... or on John Colt at the counter.
But Colt had been watching them all the time, even when he was counting out the crumpled greenbacks for the clerk. He stopped pushing the money under the grille and the clerk looked up irritably to tell him that there wasn’t enough yet, but he froze with his mouth open and jaw sagging.
John Colt moved like a cat, turning away from the counter and going into a half crouch as his right hand moved towards his hip in a blur, and a strange-looking gun seemed to leap into his small hand. It had two barrels, one on top of the other, and one was much fatter than the normal gun-barrel. The clerk didn’t know it then, but that big gun, called ‘the Manstopper’ by its inventor and maker, held eight .45 caliber cartridges in the cylinder and a twelve-gauge shot-shell in the center of the ring formed by the cartridge chambers. He didn’t know it when he first saw the gun, but he was about to find out just how deadly that weapon was, especially in the competent hands of someone like ‘John Colt’.
“Drop ’em!” Colt snapped to the Rangers and the big men stiffened only momentarily before their surprise gave way to their training.
They both spun together, rifles coming up to cover Colt and he didn’t hesitate. The big gun roared in his hand and Earle dived for the floor as lead smashed the window he had been gazing through only a second or so before. His gun exploded but the shot was wild. Lawton made a headlong dive, twisting and firing in mid-air, his lead punching into the wall behind the clerk’s cage. The clerk hit the deck fast, trying to dig his fingers into the dirty floorboards. He aimed to stay well out of the fracas: he wasn’t being paid to draw cards in a shootout. He winced and jerked as the guns continued to blaze away above him ...
Colt had lunged sideways and dropped to one knee, shooting with his forearm braced across his body. Earle suddenly reared up and backwards, arms flying wide, his rifle crashing through the remains of the window before he slammed into the wall and, eyes bulging, hands clawing into his chest, slid slowly to the floor where he spread out onto his face, coughing.
Earle’s violent actions commanded Lawton’s attention momentarily but he spun back and triggered, levering fast. Colt rolled across the floor towards the rear of the agency and as he rolled, he fumbled briefly at the hammer of his strange gun, moving a small metal toggle. He spun behind the end of the counter as Lawton’s Winchester hammered and lead blew slivers of wood from the protection he sought. The shaking clerk covered his head with his arms as Colt came up, lined up his sights swiftly and triggered. The whole room shook with the thunder of the shot-shell’s explosion and Lawton spun across the floor as if kicked by a mule. Excess shot pattern chewed at the walls and spattered against the door.
Colt got to his feet and, without glancing at the still bodies of the Rangers, lunged for the terrified clerk. The man started to plead for his life as Colt impatiently hauled the man to his feet. He shoved him violently towards the safe room at the rear of the building.
“Get that door open, pronto!” Colt snapped.
He heaved the clerk against the heavy door with its iron hinges and steel lockplate. The man was shaking with terror and, watching Colt with his bug-eyes all the time, fumbled out his keys. They jingled like sleigh bells as he searched for the right one with quivering fingers. He inserted it in the lock and cast a swift glance towards the street door. The action had erupted so swiftly that only now were a few hesitant townsfolk approaching the front of the agency to see what the shooting was all about.
“Move!” bawled Colt.
The clerk pushed the heavy door open and Colt impatiently threw his weight against it, getting it wide. He grabbed the clerk and threw the man bodily into the room, following fast, his eyes going around the walls at the express packages, singling out the iron-bound army payroll box. He slammed the clerk against a set of shelves, walked to the pay box and shot the heavy padlock loose with two fast shots. The clerk winced, clung to the shelves, as Colt kicked the smashed metal off the wrecked hasp and lifted the lid. There were two leather pouches inside, emblazoned with the army’s insignia and buckled tightly, bulging, the corners of some greenbacks showing under the flap. Underneath the pouches were canvas sacks of coins. Colt stuffed the pouches inside his shirt, grabbed up two sacks of coins and swung towards the door as he heard hurried footsteps in the outer office.
Sheriff Al Mayfield came running into the agency, gun in fist, but stopped dead when he saw the two sprawled bodies of the Texas Rangers. Colt took the opportunity to lunge out of the safe room and he flung one of the sacks of coins at the lawman as he made a dive for the side door of the agency. The coins caught the sheriff on the shoulder and Mayfield staggered back, caught his heels on Lawton’s body and went down hard, his gun exploding into the air. Townsmen were starting to crowd through the street door now and Colt fired a shot over their heads. They scattered, yelling and pushing in their hurry to get out of the agency.
Colt kicked the side door open and plunged straight out into the alley beyond. His horse, a long-legged, deep-chested sorrel, was already there with trailing reins and open saddlebags. Colt leaped into the saddle, dropping the second sack of coins into one open bag, snatching up the reins with his free hand, heels already slamming into the sorrel’s flanks. The well-trained horse was moving down the alley at a fast clip within seconds of Colt hitting leather.
John Colt swung round in the saddle, fired his last two shots back at the mob that was spilling into the alley-mouth from the main street. Some scattered but others had guns in their hands now and they began shooting. Colt crouched low over the horse’s neck as Sheriff Al Mayfield staggered out of the side door of the express agency and fired off several wild shots.
As he reached the end of the alley, Colt rammed his Manstopper into his holster, wheeled the sorrel into the street beyond and let out a rebel yell that echoed through the town. He quit Giddings with lead whining over his head and singing about his ears ...
Back in town, Al Mayfield, face flushed angrily, rammed fresh loads into the chamber of his smoking six-gun and yelled at the men who crowded around him.
“Don’t stand gawkin’! Saddle up and get after him! We got horses as fast as that sorrel of his!” The men began to scatter back into Main, some already sprinting for the livery. “Saddle my bay, Charlie!” the sheriff called after them and ran back to the side door of the agency where the shaking, white-faced clerk was standing, wringing his hands.
“He downed both Rangers without hardly missin’ a beat!” the man bleated. “I’m lucky he didn’t kill me, too!”
Al Mayfield grabbed the man’s shoulder and heaved him out into the alley.
“Don’t stand there wastin’ your breath ... I’ll get the details later! Get yourself a horse. You’re ridin’ with the posse!”
The clerk shook his head in bewilderment. “But I don’t ride „ these days, Al. You know that. I get back-pains.”
“Too damn bad! It’s your company’s responsibility, that dinero ... Now go find yourself a horse!”
Mayfield shoved the clerk roughly towards the street and the man staggered off, shaking his head. Mayfield waited for him to go then hurried into the agency, closing the door behind him. He ran across the room to the front door and closed it, locking it swiftly. Then he holstered his six-gun and walked back to where the bodies of the two Rangers lay ...
Outside the livery, the posse formed up, more and more men joining as they came riding up with shotguns, rifles and pistols: it wasn’t often that the staid, law-abiding town of Giddings saw much excitement and the townsmen were champing at the bit, itching to get after this lone gunman who had dared to take on two Texas Rangers and the sheriff of Giddings. And they wondered what in hell was keeping Al Mayfield? What was he doing in the express agency behind closed doors, for Pete’s sake, while that ranny with the queer gun was putting more and more distance between himself and the waiting posse.