Part 4 (2/2)

Yakima dove behind a stock trough and whipped his rifle over the trough's lip, aiming in the direction of the three bullets but seeing little except men milling inside the smoke cloud with here and there a fresh puff and a stab of gunfire adding to the growing, thickening web.

On impulse he fired at a horseback rider, hoping the rider was a desperado and not a stage guard-it was no longer possible to tell who was who in the chaos of men, horses, and gunfire-and cast a look up the street beyond Charlier's.

His glance went back to the tavern. A black-haired girl was hunkered down behind the well coping in the street before the tavern, a water bucket in one hand. She held the other arm above her head as if to s.h.i.+eld herself from the gunfire.

Anjanette.

She had gotten trapped at the well when the desperadoes thundered into town.

Beyond, Wolf and the paint stood where he'd left them, at the base of the mercantile's loading dock. Both horses bucked against their reins knotted around the hitchrack. A man stood at the hitchrack, and suddenly the black bolted away from the mercantile.

The man followed Wolf into the street, then grabbed the saddle horn with one hand as he held the reins in the other and, hopping on one foot to keep pace with the skitter-stepping stallion, shoved his boot toe into the stirrup and swung into the saddle.

Wolf buck-kicked defiantly, reluctant to carry anyone but Yakima. The desperado held fast to the apple and slammed his pistol b.u.t.t across the top of Wolf's head.

”b.a.s.t.a.r.d!” Yakima growled as he lunged forward.

At the same time, obscured by gun smoke, a rider cut around the stone well coping, stretched out from his saddle, and grabbed Anjanette around the waist. The girl gave a clipped cry as the man, his laughter booming beneath the gun pops, pulled her across his horse's withers.

Anjanette shouted, ”Let me go, you son of a b.i.t.c.h!”

Yakima snapped the Winchester to his shoulder, then let it sag in his hands. He might hit Anjanette.

She flailed with her arms on one side of the horse while kicking her legs against the opposite stirrup fenders. Holding her down with his right hand, triggering pistol shots with his left, the man spurred his screaming dun straight down the street toward Yakima.

Yakima let his Winchester hang low in his right hand and set himself to lunge for the girl. When the dun was twenty yards away, the laughing rider extended his revolver straight out from his shoulder, aiming at Yakima's head.

As the bullet plunked into an adobe wall, the horse's left shoulder slammed into Yakima's side. He grunted as the air burst from his lungs, and pinwheeled toward the other side of the street, piling up against a stock trough.

”Help!” Anjanette screamed above thundering hooves and gunfire, as the dun galloped on through the wafting smoke and sifting dust.

Yakima pushed up on his elbows, saw Wolf lurching toward him, the rider crouched low in the saddle, lips stretched back from his teeth.

Drawing air into his battered chest, Yakima rose to his knees and reached for his Winchester, keeping his eyes on Wolf. ”That's my horse, you son of a b.i.t.c.h!”

The sentence hadn't died on his lips before a man shouted, ”Move 'em out, boys!”

As the stage began careening eastward along the street, adding more dust to the gauze fogging the air, Yakima whipped his head to the right. Wolf was within twenty yards and closing, shaking his head and bucking defiantly as the desperado ground his spurs into the black's flanks.

Yakima stood and brought the Winchester to bear on the man in the saddle-a slender, hatless hombre in a frock coat and with a long, black mustache hanging down both sides of his mouth. He crouched forward, clamping his left arm to his b.l.o.o.d.y side.

Yakima snapped off a shot. Lead skidded along the side of his head, just above his ear, snapping his own shot high. At the same time, a pistol popped to his right, and Wolf and the desperado bolted on past Yakima and down the street behind the fleeing stage.

Ignoring another slug that whistled over his head, Yakima ran into the street. Thirty yards ahead, Wolf lurched to one side, buck-kicked, and craned his neck to peer back toward Yakima.

The mustang's black eyes were wide with fear and fury.

Again, the rider slammed his pistol atop Wolf's head and rammed his heels into the black's sides, cursing wildly. As Wolf stretched into a gallop, Yakima spat a curse through taut lips and drew a bead on the rider's back.

The rifle boomed. At the same time, Wolf jerked to the left, and the slug flew wide, shattering a window up the street.

The rider continued gouging the black with his spurs. Wolf loosed a shrill whinny, and the horse and rider tore around a bend and out of sight.

Yakima wheeled frantically, looking around for a horse. A riderless dun stood against the side of Ma Chavez's cafe, cowering under the brush arbor, ears p.r.i.c.ked, trembling. Yakima ran toward it.

A rifle exploded to his right, blowing up dust at his boots.

”Hold it, breed!”

Yakima whipped his head around. Sheriff Speares knelt in the street before the bank, racking a fresh sh.e.l.l into his Winchester's breech while aiming the barrel at Yakima. ”You ain't goin' nowhere nowhere!”

Chapter 6.

Yakima stared at Speares through a red veil of anger. ”Put that rifle down, fool. They took Anjanette.” He turned his eyes toward the hills where the gang had disappeared. With each pa.s.sing second, the desperadoes were putting more ground between him and Anjanette and Wolf.

Speares curled his upper lip and stared at Yakima through the swollen mask of his face and the thick gauze over his nose, which was nearly as large as a child's clenched fist. Around him, a good ten men lay in b.l.o.o.d.y heaps, gun smoke wafting in the air. It was impossible to tell which were the Wells Fargo guards and Speares's deputies and which were the desperadoes.

Near the tavern, a horse sat back on its haunches, like a dog, struggling to rise while blood gushed from several wounds. Another horse lay dead.

”Don't play me fer no fool,” Speares growled. ”I know you're one o' them them. I seen you take out Fisk.”

Speares canted his head toward the man lying draped across the stock trough fronting the bank. It was one of the deputies Yakima had seen in Speares's office the day before. Blood washed down the side of the trough beneath the deputy's chest, the tin star drooping on his s.h.i.+rt.

Yakima slid his eyes back to Speares. ”If I shot him, it was because he was shooting at me me.”

Speares snapped his rifle to his shoulder, squinting down the barrel. His voice broke as he shouted shrilly, ”Shut the h.e.l.l up and drop that rifle! Stretch out on the ground, belly down. Now!”

Yakima stared back at the man, his chest rising and falling sharply. He wanted to take a chance, dodge right, and snap his rifle up, but Speares had him dead to rights. And Yakima would be no good to either the girl or the horse if he was dead.

He crouched, set the Yellowboy in the street, then, holding his hands shoulder-high, palms out, turned, dropped to his knees, then leaned forward and planted his chest and belly in the dust.

”Hands to the back of your head!” Speares shouted.

As Yakima did as he was told, another voice said in a horrified, bewildered tone, ”What . . . what a horror. They took the stage . . . and the strongbox. . . .”

Speares said, ”Shut up, Franklin” and moved toward Yakima. Out of the corner of his left eye, Yakima watched the sheriff crouch beside him, lift the Colt from his holster, then stand and wedge the revolver in his cartridge belt.

The sheriff had just opened his mouth to speak when one of the bodies near the harness shop moved. The desperado-a beefy man with long red hair and a beard-spat a curse from clenched teeth as he rose up on his arms, as though he were about to attempt some exercises. Blood and viscera stringed down from his bulging belly.

Speares swung his rifle around, taking three steps back from Yakima-out of Yakima's kicking range-and fired the Winchester. The bullet carved a black hole through the redhead's cheek, throwing the man sideways onto his back, where he expired with a loud fart and a deep sigh.

Speares swung back toward Yakima, loudly ejecting the smoking sh.e.l.l and seating fresh. ”If you don't want the same, get up and start movin' toward the jailhouse.”

”Christ,” the man called Franklin said bewilderedly, as Yakima gained his feet. Yakima didn't have to look to know he was the dapper little man who'd been in the tavern last night with Speares. The banker. ”So many . . . dead.”

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