Rattlesnake Wells, Wyoming Read online

  “Stay down!” Bob ordered. “Too many tents and other obstacles in the way for them to shoot low at us.”

  As Gray Whiskers leaned slightly out of the doorway and returned fire with an old Henry repeater, Bob made a quick assessment of the three nephews. The two older ones looked strong and savvy. The fourteen-year-old looked gritty and eager, though he still lacked his late teen height and muscle spurt.

  Silently agreeing with the uncle that they could in no way let the teenager mix seriously in the conflict, Bob said to the nephews, “Give me some names.”

  The two older boys were Peter and Vern, the youngest was Lee.

  “Okay. Good.” Bob pointed at the converted Navy Colt Peter was holding. “You any good with that?”

  “Darn good, sir.”

  “He is for a fact,” Vern confirmed. “I’m better with a rifle.”

  Looking at Peter, Bob nodded toward the doorway where Gray Whiskers was continuing to fire intermittent rounds. “You think you can make it back out there where I was?”

  “You bet.”

  “Then do it.” Bob cut his eyes to Vern. “You come with me. I’m going out the back and taking one of your horses to flank those skunks. I need you to cover me.”

  “What about me?” said Lee.

  Bob pointed. “You go over there by the doorway and reload for your uncle and brother. Stay back a safe distance.”

  “I can shoot, too. I can shoot good.”

  “And you can reload, like I said. That’s just as important. All three of you shooting and stopping to reload means giving the other hombres a break, see? With you reloading and always having a gun ready, there’s no pause for them to take advantage of. Understand?”

  “I . . . guess so,” said Lee, reluctantly accepting his role. “I never thought of it that way.”

  “Well, that’s the way it is,” Bob told him. “Stay low and hold up your end, okay?”

  “Yes sir.”

  In a matter of minutes, Bob and Vern slipped out the back of the tent. Vern quickly slapped a bridle on the horse of Bob’s choosing, a blaze-faced black gelding, and the marshal mounted bareback.

  “Okay, I mean to sweep out and come in at ’em from the side. Surprise ’em, hopefully,” Bob said, talking fast. “They haven’t spotted us so far, so hold your fire for as long as you can. When I make my move or whenever they spot me and swing some guns in my direction, give ’em something else to worry about. Okay?”

  Vern brandished a lever-action Winchester with the same kind of confidence his brother had shown with the Navy Colt. “I darn well will, sir.”

  Bob dug his heels into the sides of the gelding and the black shot away, swinging wide around other tents and sheds and a rickety fenced-in area that held some goats and hogs.

  * * *

  A runner he was not. Just past the intersection of First Street, Fred slowed down. Out of breath, he veered over to the side of the street and leaned on the hitch rail out front of the Starbuck Territorial Bank to rest.

  * * *

  On Gold Avenue the air was thick with fibrous layers of gun smoke hanging nearly motionless in the still air. The intensity of gunfire being traded up and down the street hadn’t diminished nor had the amount of reckless trampling and damage the riders were dishing out as they spurred their horses back and forth and in and out of flimsy structures and tents.

  Suddenly, the thing Bob had been dreading as much or maybe more than the wanton destruction or flying bullets made its appearance. As he completed his sweep and turned the gelding toward those administering the wreckage, he saw the tongues of flame licking upward out of a flattened tent.

  Fire! One of the most devastating, town-destroying, life-ruining forces on the frontier.

  “Bastards!” he spat out, his teeth bared in rage. At all costs, he had to end the battle and end it fast. Stop the shooting and concentrate all his energy on the fire before it got the chance to spread uncontrollably.

  Bob dug his heels harder into the gelding and rode straight for the nearest of the hell-raisers posing more of a threat to his town than ever.

  Somehow, the rider sensed him almost as soon as he started his charge. After shouting to get the attention of a nearby cohort, the rider twisted in his saddle to face the lawman, at the same time swinging a rifle up and around.

  Bob fired at the rifleman, but missed. As he was steadying his aim for another try, he heard the crack of a different rifle, distinguishable from all the other guns going off because it didn’t come from out on the street but rather from in back of the tents and buildings down the line.

  Vern was covering the marshal with his Winchester and doing so with all the accuracy he’d laid claim to.

  The raider suddenly flung out his arms—rifle falling from his grasp—and pitched from the saddle.

  The reprieve was short-lived. The other raider held one arm extended at full length and fired a long-barreled revolver at Bob. One of the slugs cut close enough that Bob heard the unmistakable sound of its passing, a sound that anyone who’s ever heard it never forgets.

  Bob ducked down low on the gelding’s back and swung the horse to face the new threat. In the sudden maneuver, the gelding’s feet got tangled in some of the wreckage and stumbled, lurching sharply and nearly dropping to its front knees. Although Bob was a skilled rider, the jolt threw him off the gelding’s back.

  Once again he hit the ground rolling. The impact knocked only some of the wind out of him as he made sure to fiercely maintain a grip on his Colt. He was damned if he’d let a little horse spill knock him out of the battle. Not with so much at stake.

  He shoved determinedly back to his feet, only to find the raider was nearly on top of him. Still mounted, the varmint was clearly aiming to ride right over him, knock him back down, and trample him into the dirt like the rest of the wreckage scattered all around them. Only a desperately nimble last-second dodge saved the marshal from being slammed back down by the raider’s horse.

  As he jumped to one side, Bob grabbed hold of the rider’s leg, clamped it in the crook of his free arm, and pulled as hard as he could, intending to yank the rider from his saddle and either shoot him or brain him with his Colt. Only trouble was, the rider was in a better position to use his own handgun as a club. He beat the marshal to his intentions.

  The pistol barrel clanging off the side of his head sent Bob to the ground yet again. As before, he clung to his Colt . . . but wasn’t in such a big hurry to clamber back to his feet. He stayed on the ground, waiting and watching as the raider wheeled his horse around for another trampling attempt. Before the man could spur the animal forward, the marshal fired upward from his prone position.

  Chapter 4

  Had he kept on running, it was likely Fred would never have noticed the activity taking place in the alley that ran along the north side of the bank building. Four horses were tied at the rear where none really belonged. What was more, just as he glanced down the alley, a man ducked inside through the side door that was only used by bank personnel.

  It was way too early for any of the bank people to show up for work, except for Abraham Starbuck, owner and president, who was notorious for arriving each morning well in advance of his employees. But the man Fred had caught a glimpse of definitely wasn’t Starbuck. Not only that, neither was he at all recognizable to Fred, who knew each member of the bank staff quite well. And the way the man was dressed—shabby, dusty trail clothes with a gun belt around his waist—absolutely did not fit the employee dress code that fastidious old Starbuck strictly enforced.

  Something was damned fishy.

  All of a sudden, Fred forgot about his queasy stomach and being out of breath. Every instinct told him something bad was happening at the bank . . . and he was the only one in a position to do anything about it. The commotion taking place in New Town—either staged as a purposeful distraction or a mighty suspicious coincidence—had the marshal and most other able-bodied men drawn away from that part of town. Leaving to go fetch some of
them was out of the question.

  It was up to Fred to stay right where he was and deal with whatever was going on.

  Drawing his six-gun from its holster and holding it at the ready, he started down the alley toward the door he’d seen the strange man go through. With nerves jumping around under his skin, he drew closer to the door, fearful it might suddenly fly open just as he reached it. The continuing gunfire from up north didn’t help his nerves any.

  One of the horses tied at the end of the alley suddenly chuffed and stamped its feet. Fred gave a little start, but his gun hand stayed steady.

  A moment later, he had cause to move his gun hand quickly. At the end of the alley, a man stepped out from behind the corner of the building and reached to gentle the horse that had snorted. He wasn’t a man, really, just a kid barely into his teens, but he was wearing a gun low-slung on his hip. A cigarette hung from one corner of his pinched mouth, slicing the lower part of his narrow, hard-looking young face.

  Fred got a real good look at those features when the kid turned his face and looked straight at him. Centering the muzzle of his .44 square on the young man he reckoned to be a lookout posted with the getaway horses, Fred figured bank robbers were paying a call inside.

  “Hold it right there,” he ordered, forcing his voice steady and firm. “Don’t move a muscle.”

  The kid didn’t listen. He was young and scared, probably more nervous than Fred. He knew he’d messed up by not watching the alley more closely and letting Fred get as far as he did. He was either more frightened by repercussions from his partners inside than by Fred’s .44 or one of those young gunnies who thought he was fast enough on the draw to pull it off.

  Whatever the case, he went for his gun and Fred had no choice but to shoot him. He fired twice, planting both slugs an inch apart in the fool’s chest, sending him into a spinning fall. Before hitting the ground, the boy managed to draw his gun and trigger a round into the side of the building with a dying spasm of his fingers.

  Close enough to the bank’s side door, which wasn’t latched all the way tight, Fred heard a gruff voice call out from inside. “Benny! What the hell’s going on out there?”

  Fred didn’t answer right away. His mind raced. Four horses meant three robbers were inside. Likely, they had been waiting to overpower Abe Starbuck when he showed up and had forced him to let them in.

  “Benny! Answer me, dammit!”

  “Benny can’t answer,” Fred called back. “He’s dead. He didn’t give me any choice, but you’ve got a choice, unless you want to end up the same way. Throw your guns down and come out with your hands up!”

  “To hell with you! Here’s the only part of my gun you’re gonna get!”

  Whoever was doing the talking fired four rapid-fire rounds into the door’s inner side. If he meant for the slugs to blast through and hit Fred or whoever else might be standing outside, he stupidly failed to take into consideration that the door was reinforced with sheet steel. The door banged and shuddered, but nothing went through. It would have served the shooter right—and suited Fred just fine—if one of the bullets had ricocheted back on the shooter.

  Obviously wasn’t the case. The man wasted no time going back to hollering. “We’ve got your bank president in here. We’re fixin’ to make him just as dead as you made Benny unless you’re willin’ to make a deal.”

  “No deals. Turn Starbuck loose and come on out like I told you. That’s your only chance.”

  “Who the hell are you, anyway? You speak for the whole town?”

  “I’m Marshal Robert Hatfield,” Fred said, wishing that was true. Better yet, wishing the marshal was there instead of him. “And, yeah, I speak for the town.”

  Although no response came right away, he heard some muttering and murmuring from inside.

  “Maybe you speak for the town, Marshal, but you sure as hell don’t speak for Mr. Bank President here. Listen to what he has to say.”

  “M-Marshal, p-please do what this villain s-says,” came a quavering voice that sounded only vaguely like the normally firm-toned Abe Starbuck. “You must do what he demands or they will surely kill me!”

  The other voice followed immediately. “You heard him, Marshal. You stand back, let us ride out of here with him as hostage, and we’ll let him go as soon as we’re clear of town. That’s the only way you’re gonna keep him alive. You force us to blast our way clear, I’ll make sure my first bullet goes into your banker man.”

  Convinced the quavering voice he’d heard was Starbuck, Fred’s mind churned. He was vaguely aware that the shooting to the north had stopped, but he couldn’t worry about what that meant. He had his hands more than full right where he was. “No good,” he called back in response to the bank robber’s proposed deal. “You’ll get clear of town then dump Starbuck after killing him anyway. That’s not a deal I’ll bite on.”

  “It’s the only one you’re gonna get. The only one that’ll leave your banker man alive.”

  “I’ve got the bank surrounded and a sharpshooter on the roof. You’re trapped. The only way for you to come out alive is to release Mr. Starbuck unharmed. You follow him with your guns thrown down and your hands in the air, just like I said at the start.”

  “I think you’re bluffin’, damn you!”

  “Think what you want. But in the end you’ll—” Almost too late, Fred discovered that his bluff had already been called.

  * * *

  Marshal Hatfield’s bullet skimmed the side of the raider’s face, nipping off a piece of his left ear and knocking off his hat, making it pop straight up like a cork out of a bottle. The hombre jerked back in alarm, yanking so violently on his reins that his horse reared high on its hind legs.

  When the animal came back down, the raider decided he’d had enough and swung his horse away, spurring it back into the midst of his cohorts. “That’s enough,” the hatless raider shouted to the others. “We’ve done our part. We’ve kept ’em busy as long as we can. Let’s get the hell out of here!”

  * * *

  Fred never could say exactly what caused him to look away from the side door of the bank and turn to glance toward the mouth of the alley where it fed out to Front Street. When he did, he saw a man with a gun aimed right at him, leaning around the front corner of the bank.

  With a speed fueled by desperation and a survival instinct as old as mankind, Fred reacted. He jerked around with his own gun and got a shot off before the man at the mouth of the alley fired on him. Fred’s bullet failed to hit the would-be back shooter, but it came close enough. It struck the corner of the brick bank building and splattered chunks of brick and mortar against the side of the man’s face, causing him to twist sharply away as he triggered a round that sailed high and harmless over Fred’s head.

  Instantly, Fred realized he’d be in a serious pickle if he stayed where he was, trading shots with the man at the mouth of the alley.

  * * *

  The marshal sat up with the intent of firing after the retreaters, but when he raised his gun hand it suddenly felt like it weighed a ton. He left it resting on his thigh and concentrated on catching his breath for a minute.

  A minute was all he got . . . and it was damn near the last minute of his life.

  As the raiders beat a full retreat and the townsmen came boiling up the street through the clouds of gun smoke and dust, Bob caught a faint click of sound from behind him. Spinning around on his rump, he spotted the bloodied rifleman Vern had knocked out of the saddle. On his knees, the raider once again raised a weapon—a revolver drawn from the holster on his hip—and aimed it at the marshal.

  To his misfortune, the man’s wound made him slow and jerky, giving Bob enough time to raise his Colt and snap-fire a round before his would-be assassin could pull the trigger. A red-rimmed black hole appeared in the center of the man’s forehead, slamming him backwards to land flat and limp in the puddle of gore that had spouted out the back of his head with the exiting bullet.

  The Colt abruptly felt very
heavy in Bob’s hand once again. With no time to stop and catch another breath or for the men out in the street to pause and enjoy their rout of the raiders, the best he could do was return the Colt to its holder. They still had a fire to put out!

  * * *

  Moving with speed and decisiveness born of desperation, Fred lunged past the side door and calculated that while he was trading words with one of the robbers, one of the others had taken Starbuck’s key and gone to the front. Seeing that Fred had indeed been bluffing, that robber had slipped out and attempted to catch him by surprise.

  It had almost worked.

  With no way to escape and nowhere to hide in the narrow alley, he grabbed the handle of the unlatched door, pulling it open along with him as he threw himself against the side of the building and pressed tight. Temporarily, the steel-reinforced door gave him a shield against anyone shooting at him from either the mouth of the alley or from inside.

  The effectiveness of his move was put quickly to the test when the would-be back shooter down the alley opened up and sent three rounds pounding against the door. Once again, none of them came close to penetrating.

  The robber from inside the bank—the leader, it seemed—called out, “Hold it. Hold it, you jackass! All you’re doin’ is sendin’ ricochets in at us! How the hell did you miss him in the first place?”

  “You wouldn’t believe how fast that slob can move!” came the reply. “It’s just a matter of time now. He tries to make it out from behind that door, I guarantee I won’t miss his fat ass again!”

  Working up a healthy dose of anger over the disparaging remarks about his weight, of which he was damn well aware but didn’t like hearing about from others, especially lowdown back shooters, Fred was caught off guard by an unexpected move from the robber inside the bank. The door suddenly banged hard against his forehead, flattening his nose and pinning him against the rough bricks of the bank’s outer wall.

  “Come on! Come on! I got him pinned!” came the voice of the robber boss. “Get your ass down here and finish him!”