High Wild Desert (23 page)

“Harvey . . . ,” Adele said. She stood watching with tears on her cheeks as he walked to the front door and swung it open. He stopped for a moment.

“I can't be
half right
, Adele. It's all or none. I won't sit here feeling new and righteous while two good men die in the dirt. Neither you nor I either one could live with that.” He gave her a thin smile of regret and said, “I love you, Adele . . . I have all along, I just wish I'd known it sooner, instead of being the no-good stupid son of a bitch I was—if you'll pardon my language,” he added. He touched his fingers to his bare forehead in farewell.

Adele stood with her fingertips pressed to her lips and watched him step out and close the door behind himself.

Lang turned on the boardwalk, the sound of gunfire still going strong. Instead of running toward the gun battle, he looked back and forth, then ran in the opposite direction, to where a two-horse buckboard sat out in front of an essaying office. Without a second of hesitation, he jumped into the driver's seat and slapped the reins on the horses' backs.

Ducked down behind a large ore barrel inside the essay office, a miner raised his head and watched his buckboard go racing away, leaving a stream of dust twisting in the air behind it.

“Damn it all! One of them is getting away in my wagon!”

“Stay down, forget your damn wagon!” a voice called out from behind another ore barrel. “They're killing each other out there!”

Chapter 23

The gunfire had grown far too hot and heavy for the Ranger and his wounded deputy. During a short lull while Fenderson's gunmen reloaded, Sam had looped Dankett's arm over his shoulder and dragged him from behind the wooden nail kegs to a building still under construction three doors up and across the street. Bullets from the gunmen followed the two lawmen as they fell through the open storefront. Sam guided Dankett through sawdust and discarded nails, until they stopped behind a stack of boards. He stripped the bandolier of ammunition from Dankett's shoulder.

“Don't worry about me, Ranger,” Dankett said. “I'm just bleeding a little.”

Sam didn't answer. He untied the deputy's bandana from around his neck, wadded it up and stuffed it inside Dankett's shirt against the wound in his side. He planted Dankett's hand on it.

“Keep this in place, Deputy,” he said as gunfire began to erupt heavier from the alleyways and cover on either side of the restaurant.

“How am I supposed . . . to shoot Big Lucy?” Dankett said.

“I'll take care of her, Deputy,” Sam said. “You lie still for a minute, try to stop bleeding on us.” As he spoke, he noted how few loads were left in Dankett's bandolier.

Seeing the Ranger looking at the low shotgun ammunition, Dankett gave a crooked smile beneath his lowered hat brim.

“I put out a powerful barrage, Ranger,” he said weakly.

“Yes, you did, Deputy,” said the Ranger. “Now lie still.”

Both of them ducked down as a rifle round whined through the empty storefront and thumped into a workman's ladder leaning against a wall. Checking his own ammunition, Sam realized that he too was running out of bullets.

“Listen to that, Deputy,” Sam said, taking note that after their reloading, the gunmen were not firing as heavily as before. “It sounds like we're not the only ones running out of bullets.” He looked around, then said, “Can you hold out here awhile, Deputy? I need to get to the window and throw some fire back at them, else they'll get bold and try rushing us.”

“You go ahead, Ranger, and take Big Lucy with you. I've still got this ol' six-shooter,” Dankett said, growing weak from losing blood. He patted his holster, then drew his Colt and laid it across his lap.

“Good man,” Sam said. He stood in a crouch, bandolier and shotgun in one hand, his Winchester in his other, and ran to a large open window frame at the front of the store, where he dropped behind a knee wall and took position.

“There he is,” said Sergio Oboe to the men huddled beside him inside the restaurant. He had shot a glance through the front window and seen the Ranger drop out of sight in the storefront across the street.

“Where's the other one?” Dade Burke asked, a bandana tied around his upper arm where he'd taken the deep bullet graze.

“Dead, most likely,” Oboe said. “I put one in his side, saw him go down with it.”

Oboe looked all around the disheveled, bullet-riddled restaurant. The back door stood open, the way fleeing customers had left it. Among the last ones making an escape through the back door had been Tom Singleton and Hugh Fenderson.

“The boss is out of here,” he said. “I say we rush him, right now while we can.”

“We're awfully low on bullets,” said Harkens, huddled beside him, against the restaurant's front wall.

“Right,” said Oboe. “And if we are, so are they.” He levered a round into his rifle. “I still want that reward money, even if I have to split it with you buzzards.”

Burke looked puzzled and asked, “Why is it he wants the Ranger dead? I forgot.”

“The Ranger killed his cousin,” Harkens said, reloading his six-shooter, the barrel still smoking and hot in his hand.

“No,” said Oboe. “It was his
nephew
, damn it. And he didn't kill him, just sent him to Yuma Penitentiary to rethink his future. What's wrong with you men, you can't remember why you're killing a sumbitch?”

“I'm killing him for the bounty on his head,” Harkens said. “Plain and simple.” He clicked his loaded gun shut and wagged it in his hand. “That's as much reason as I ever need.”

“Amen to that,” said Sergio Oboe. “Let's rush him, then. Get this done, have Polly Corn boil us up some coffee afterward.” No sooner had he spoken than a rifle shot exploded from across the street, sending a bullet slicing through the restaurant's open window, slamming into the far wall. “Damn Ranger!” he cursed, ducking his head, jumping away from the window frame.

“It ain't the Ranger, Oboe. Look at this!” said Harkens, managing a peep over the window ledge.

“Damn!” said Oboe, peeping around the corner of a bullet-riddled window frame. “He's got help coming.”

Another bullet sliced through the open window. The gunmen looked out and saw the buckboard racing up the street, fishtailing toward them in a twisting spiral of dust.

“Who the hell's this?” said Oboe. “I thought everybody here knew better than to get involved against Hugh Fenderson.”

“I know him,” said Harkens, raising his rifle, leveling it out over the edge of the window frame. “It's Cisco Lang—some idiot who thinks he's an outlaw.”

“An outlaw?” said Burke in disbelief. “What's he doing helping the Ranger?”

“Beats me,” said Harkens, taking aim at Lang, who stood in the buckboard, reins in his left hand, firing and levering a Winchester in his right. A large satchel hung by a strap from Lang's shoulder.

“Beats me too,” said Oboe. “Kill the son of a bitch, before he breaks his own neck.”

The gunmen laid down a deadly barrage of gunfire on the approaching buckboard. The two wagon horses, nicked by the bullets slicing past them, veered and made a hard, sharp turn in the street. Lang wasn't able to control them with the reins. As the horses made their turn, the buckboard jackknifed and slid sidelong in the dirt, raising dust. Lang flew from the buckboard and landed hard, the upturned buckboard barely missing him as it sailed over his head and landed tumbling in the street in front of him.

From the open window frame, the Ranger winced at the sight of Lang rolling in the street; he saw the freed wagon horses in flight down an alleyway.

“Cisco, you fool . . . ,” he said under his breath. As the gunfire from the restaurant waned, Sam ran from the protection of the storefront to where Lang lay dazed, yet struggling to rise onto his feet.

“Stay down!” Sam shouted. He knocked Lang back to the dirt as two bullets whizzed past them. Big Lucy was strapped down his back and his rifle in hand. “Follow me,” he said, crawling, half dragging Lang a few feet until they found shelter behind the buckboard lying on its side in the middle of the street.

“What are you doing out here, Cisco?” the Ranger asked, looking him over for any gunshot wounds. “I left you in a cell.”

“Yes, you did,” Lang said, getting his breath back after being hurled from the buckboard. “Coyle killed Teague and chased Rudabough out the door. He left the key, said you were pinned down out here. I brought you this.” He swung the satchel from around his neck, shoved it out to the Ranger and pulled the flap open. “You'll need to talk to the mercantile owner, tell him I wasn't robbing him.”

Sam's eyes brightened at the sight of the ammunition boxes. Then he looked back up at Lang as he grabbed a box and opened it while bullets thumped into the buckboard and whizzed overhead.

“I'm much obliged, Cisco,” he said, shoving bullet after bullet into the Winchester. “I'll give you some cover. You get yourself out of here.”

“I'm not going anywhere, Ranger,” Lang said. “I'm here to help. I brought a rifle with me.” He looked all around for the rifle that had flown from his hand.

“Here, Cisco, take Dankett's shotgun and loads,” Sam said, pulling the shotgun strap and bandolier from around his back and shoving them to him. “He's over there, wounded.” He gestured toward the open storefront. “Don't shoot him by mistake.”

“I'll be careful,” Lang said, pulling the bandolier around his shoulder and gripping the shotgun in both hands. “Tell me what you want. I'm good for it.”

“I'm betting they're just as low on bullets as I was,” Sam said. “If I'm right, they're going to break and run when we charge.”

“
Charge . . . ?
” said Lang. A sick look came to his face. But he caught himself, swallowed a knot in his throat and said, “Sounds good to me.”

•   •   •

Behind the long row of buildings facing the street where the gun battle raged, Sonny Rudabough stopped beside a dusty telegraph pole long enough to look back and see if he'd managed to lose Oldham Coyle. But before his eyes could search the alleyway behind him, a rifle bullet thumped into the pole only inches from his head.

“I'm on you, Rudabough!” Coyle called out. “You're not going to lose me. You better get to that paint horse and get the gun loaded.”

“Yeah, you running son of a bitch,” Deak shouted. Raising his belly gun with both hands, he let out a yell and fired it three times in the air.

Sonny Rudabough cursed under his breath, turned and kept running, the empty Colt in his hand.

But at the livery barn over a block away, even as the sound of gunfire roared from the street, Blind Simon turned in his saddle and tilted his head slightly.

“Hold it,” Simon said to Dave and the others. “I just heard Deak yelling . . . heard his gun too.” He held the reins to Chic Reye's horse in his hand, Reye lying low in his saddle, an arm around his stomach wound, which had been freshly bandaged.

“You're crazy as hell, blind man,” Reye said in a weak, testy voice. “There's a gun battle going on. Don't act like you . . . can hear through all that.”

Karl Sieg looked at Dave, and Blind Simon turned his dark spectacles in Dave's direction, as if looking at him.

“Well?” Sieg said. “Do you suppose Oldham and Deak have gotten tangled up in all this?”

“I don't know,” said Dave, giving a troubled look toward the sound of the gun battle. “Oldham said get their horses and meet them here. That's what we've done.” He paused, then said, “Damn it! What's keeping them?”

“Deak's my pard,” said Simon. “I've got to go find him.”

“Nobody moves. We're waiting right here, Simon,” said Dave. “Just like I said we would.”

“I'm not,” said Simon, jerking his big Colt from its holster, the reins to both his horse and Reye's in his other hand. Before anybody could do or say anything, Simon spun his horse and spurred it in the direction of the gunfire, trusting the horse beneath him to see what his own eyes could not.

Behind him, hanging on to his saddle horn, Chic Reye let out a long scream, bouncing, swaying, seeing the corner post of a building coming straight at him until, within a hairbreadth, both horses cut sharply into a narrow alley and pounded away toward the street.

Dave Coyle and Karl Sieg sat stunned atop their horses, hearing Reye's tortured pleading voice move away from them down the dark alleyway.

“Jesus, God in heaven,” Karl Sieg said as if in awe. “I have never seen anything like that in my life.”

“Neither have I,” Dave said, equally stunned. After a second he shook his head as if to clear it. “We better go stop them. There's no telling where they'll end up.”

•   •   •

At the far end of the alley, on the street, the Ranger and Lang heard the sound of the two horses' hooves behind them as they advanced, firing fast and furiously on the bullet-chewed front of Polly Corn's restaurant. Shooting the Winchester from his hip, the Ranger had taken them closer, noting the waning intensity of return fire from Fenderson's gunmen. Beside him fifteen feet away, Lang had fired blast upon blast from Big Lucy, each shot lifting chunks of wood from both building and boardwalk. From the rear of Polly Corn's, three gunmen scurried away across the sand like fleeing rats.

“That's it, I'm out of loads,” Lang said, blood running down his forearm from a bullet wound.

“What's this?” Sam said, turning with his rifle as the horses rounded into sight out of the alley.

“Yiiii-hiii!”
Blind Simon shouted, his Colt blazing away at anything in front of him. Sam started to take aim and fire his Winchester. Yet, upon seeing Simon's shots flying wild, he backed away to the side, Lang following suit.

The two riders raced past them, Reye looking over at them wide-eyed in terror. A loud scream,
“Heeelp meeee!”
resounded from his gaping mouth.

From the front of Polly Corn's restaurant, a shot rang out. The Ranger swung his Winchester around and fired, knocking Sergio Oboe back inside the open front doorway, but not before Oboe's rifle shot lifted Lang and hurled him to the ground. Sam raced the fifteen feet between them and stooped down beside Lang.

“It's my leg,” Lang said, gripping his calf just below his knee.