29

He ejected the shell, chambering the next round, while Dillard was still reacting. The sheriff jumped back two feet, fumbling a big cedar-handled revolver from under his coat, looked around, heard the action of the lever, and stared up at the window.

“You’re lucky you’re slow,” Siringo said. “You almost ran square into that first slug.”

“Who the hell are you?” Dillard was shielding his eyes from the sun with his free hand.

“The deciding vote in the next election, if you take one more step toward the house.”

“Siringo?”

“Yup.”

“Where’s Hammett?”

“The other end of this Roscoe,” said a voice directly beneath Siringo’s feet.

The sheriff lowered his gaze. “You men are in serious trouble, threatening an officer of the law.”

“I see it as defending the Constitution. Get back in your car and don’t come back here without a piece of paper signed by a judge. Your best bet’s J.C. MacNamara. He’s on Kennedy’s list.”

“You admit you stole it?”

“I did,” Siringo said. “Hammett’s just my accomplice.”

A lazy grin spread across the red ham face.

“There’s no call for all this gun stuff. Give me the notebook and we’ll say it was all just a misunderstanding. Mr. Kennedy said he ain’t interested in pressing charges so long as he gets back what’s his.”

“We’ll take our chances in court, if it’s all the same to you. The prosecutor can enter it as evidence.”

“That’d be the Honorable Oliver Wentworth,” said Hammett.

The sheriff’s smile fled. “Be reasonable!”

“I thought that’s what we was being,” Siringo said. “You’re the one standing out in the hot sun in a wool suit when you could be enjoying the breeze on the way back to town.”

“How do I know you won’t shoot me in the back?”

Charmian spoke up. “You have my word they won’t. I know these men better than you do.”

“A woman’s word don’t—”

A shot rang out below. Dillard’s homburg flew off his head. He scrambled back into his automobile.

“This ain’t the end of it!” he shouted over the roar of the motor. He swung the vehicle around and headed back the way he’d come.

“That was neat,” Siringo called out to Hammett. “I didn’t know you was a trick shot.”

“I’m not. I was aiming at the car.”

*   *   *

“How many of these guns work?” Siringo asked.

They were in the main room of the house, where most of London’s collection of firearms was on display.

“All of them,” Becky said. “I make it a point to keep them clean and oiled. Daddy showed me how.”

“What about ammo?” said Hammett.

Charmian opened a drawer in one of the display cases. It was lined with cardboard boxes labeled with different calibers. “Do you think they’ll be needed?”

Siringo said, “I hope not; but you can’t hope your way out of a fix. I know Dillard. I met plenty of him in the old days. They do things the hard way. He’ll come back with an army and that warrant—if he remembers to get the warrant.”

“There won’t be any trouble if you’re not here when he does,” Becky said.

Charmian scowled. “Don’t be a child. They’ll take us prisoner and use us to smoke Mr. Siringo and Mr. Hammett out into the open.”

Someone knocked. Gripping his Colt, Siringo went to the window beside the front door. “It’s just the hat-hater.”

Charmian opened the door. The ranch hand had his own hat off and a slash of white bandage across his nose, sharply contrasted with his sunburned skin. He stiffened when he saw the man who’d broken his nose standing behind his employer.

“It’s all right, Ivan. We’re all on the same side.”

“I heard shots.”

“We’re okay, but we’re expecting trouble later. How many of the hands are conversant with firearms?”

“Convers—?”

“Can they shoot?” barked Siringo.

“I can work a gun if I have to, but I’m not an expert. Yuri is; he hunted tigers in Siberia. I can’t say about the rest.”

“Round ’em up.”

Charmian said, “Tell them it’s voluntary. I can’t ask them to put themselves in danger just because I pay them to work the ranch.”

“Miz London, there ain’t a thing all them men wouldn’t do for anybody named London. If it wasn’t for your husband, I’d still be in San Quentin. Every one of ’em’s got a story like it.”

“Thank you. These men are in charge. I hope you can put any bad feelings behind you.”

Ivan stared at Siringo for a long moment. Then he held out his hand. “Sorry about the hat.”

“They don’t last long here.” Siringo accepted his powerful grip. “Sorry about the nose. I was saddle sore and took a bigger swing than intended.”

The ranch hand grinned, displaying some gold plate.

“I guess where you’re concerned a man has to look out for either end.”

When he left, Hammett and Siringo began snatching weapons off the walls and from cases. When they were finished, the dining table was an arsenal of shotguns, rifles, revolvers, and semiautomatic pistols, representing many manufacturers from many countries. Siringo pulled the drawer filled with cartridges out of the display case and laid it across the arms of a rocking chair. “Start loading,” he said.

All four got to work.

*   *   *

“What are you doing?” Becky demanded.

She found Hammett seated in her father’s study, working his bandaged foot into a high-topped brogan he’d found in a cupboard.

“Working a jigsaw puzzle, can’t you tell?” Wincing, he laced the shoe tight.

“You’re going to make your injury worse.”

He stood, testing his weight on the foot. “Time enough to recover after today. Meanwhile it gives me support.” He grinned at the unmatching footwear. “I may not make the cover of a gents’ magazine, but I’m no good to anyone wobbling around on a cane.”

“What are you going to do?” She followed him into the main room.

“Mr. Siringo and I discussed it. I’m setting up shop in the stable. That way we can catch anybody who tries to charge the house in the crossfire.” He selected a gas-loading Mauser rifle from the weapons on the table and hefted it. The boxes of ammunition had been sorted and placed beside the firearms they belonged to. He loaded the magazine, racked a cartridge into the chamber, and put the box in his pants pocket.

Siringo came in, accompanied by Charmian. “You was in the army,” he told Hammett. “How are you at drill?”

“Better than I was at driving an ambulance. I never killed anyone on the parade ground.”

All four picked up as many firearms and boxes of ammunition as they could carry and went out into the front yard, where the ranch hands waited in a ragged line. Hammett approached Yuri, the Russian with the imperial whiskers, and showed him a bolt-action rifle of Scandinavian manufacture. “Know how to load it?”

The slope-shouldered worker snatched it and the box from Hammett’s other hand, slid open the breech, poked a long brass-shelled cartridge with a copper nose inside, and slammed the bolt home.

Hammett went down the line, handing out rifles, handguns, and ammunition until he ran out, then got more from Charmian and Becky. Standing there afterward, some holding long guns, others with revolvers and pistols stuck under their belts and in the bibs of overalls, they looked like peasant rebels.

Hammett had raided a dump in back of the house of empty coffee tins, lard buckets, and glass jars. He rammed kindling sticks from the fireplace into the ground, hung the vessels on top, ordered the men to stand thirty yards away, and had them fire one by one, indicating to each which target he was to shoot at. When everyone had fired six times, he told them to put up their weapons and inspected the results.

He signaled them to follow him to the yard where they’d stacked their farm implements in a pyramid. He disarmed Ivan and two men whose names he didn’t know and told them to take their pick from the stack. “If you can get close enough to lop off someone’s head with a scythe, do it,” he said. “Otherwise I don’t want any one of you birds within a hundred feet of a trigger.”

Siringo took command, sending Ivan to the house to watch the back and sing out if anyone tried to dry-gulch Yuri while he guarded the front, Ivan to the stable for the same reason regarding Hammett, and distributing the others among the pigpens and other outbuildings.

“And you, Mr. Siringo?” asked Charmian. “Where will you be?”

He pointed at the concrete-block silo. “I saved the best view for myself.”

She glanced down involuntarily at his bad leg. He grinned.

“I trust my old complaint over Hammett’s new one. Anyway, last time I was under siege, I had to go down to get out. This time I’m going up.”

“And I?”

“You and Becky load for Yuri and lay low.”

She raised her chin. “I’m as good a shot as Jack was. We hunted pheasants together from the time they were imported from China until he was too ill to go.”

“Pheasants ain’t men.”

“I agree. They’re twice as fast and they can fly.”

“Okay, I know when I’m licked. Becky, you’re loading for your stepmother. Ivan can load for Yuri. That way we got guns on both sides of the house, which I like better.”

“I can shoot, too,” Becky said.

“Somebody has to load.”

“But why me? Why not Roberto?”

“Who’s Roberto?”

“I am Roberto.” This was a stocky Hispanic who had proven as inept with percussion arms as Ivan. He was armed with a hay hook.

Siringo shook his head.

“Roberto scares the pants off me with that corkscrew. That’s worth something. Anyway, you’re the youngest here, and outranked.”

“Very well.” But her eyes blazed defiance.

Hammett cradled his Mauser and took out his flask. Siringo scowled.

“If that don’t improve your aim, put it up.”

“What’s the difference? It’s a suicide play any way you look at it.”

Siringo took the flask from him and raised it. “Pinkerton men.” He drank.

“Good-bye, my lover, good-bye.” Hammett took it back and swigged.

Charmian held out a hand. He lifted his brows.

“Jack taught me to drink, too.” When she had it, she smiled. “Gentlemen; Becky. To the call of the wild.” She emptied the flask.