Luddy rounded a corner of the building and Smoke fired through a windowless frame. The slug hit the hired gun in the shoulder and knocked him down, the big shoulder joint smashed. Luddy lay on the ground and flopped and hollered in pain, his gun hand useless.
Smoke stepped out of the building just as Earl began pouring lead through the thin walls. He worked his way up the alley and stepped out to the edge of the street just as Earl was jerking out a spare gun he’d tucked behind his belt.
“You do like to waste ammo, don’t you, Earl,” Smoke called.
Earl cussed, spun around, and fired, the slug slammed into the building behind Smoke. Smoke drilled him clean and dropped him to his knees.
“Give it up, Earl,” Smoke told him. “The party’s over.”
Earl tried to lift his .44. “You dirty son of…” He never finished it. The hired gun fell forward in the dirt.
Smoke walked around the building just as the boardwalks began filling with citizens. He stepped up and kicked the pistol out of Luddy’s left hand.
“Damn fool,” Smoke told him. “Give it up and live, man.”
“You ruint me!” Luddy gasped through his pain.
“Maybe now you’ll get a decent job and quit trying to kill people,” Smoke replied, just as Doc Garrett rounded the corner.
“Go to hell! “Luddy said. “I don’t need no damn sermon from the likes of you.”
“Whatever,” Smoke said, and turned his back to the man. He walked around to the rear of the building. Dick and Patton were still alive and moaning. They lay on the ground and glared hate up at Smoke. But they were smart enough not to try to reach their guns. They could still run their mouths, however, and they did, expelling a lot of wind cussing Smoke.
Smoke turned to the smithy. “Go get those two young men who wanted to brace me.”
“They’re gone, Smoke. Both of them left out pale as ghosts. I think they got the message. Their gun belts are still hangin’ on the pegs.”
“Somebody help me with these men,” Doc Garrett said. “Pick them up and take them to my office.”
“Hell with them,” a man said. “They can get there under their own steam. I ain’t helpin’ nobody who works for Clint Black.”
“Sorry bastard!” Luddy cussed the man.
“Look who is calling who sorry,” the citizen said, then turned around and walked away. “My breakfast is gettin’ cold.”
Smoke waited around until Harris returned and told him what had happened, including the incident with the young men in the cafe.
“How many still alive?”
“Some gunslick called Luddy. The other three are dead.”
“Luddy Chambers,” Harris said. “He’s a bad one. You going to press charges?”
“I didn’t know you had any laws in this territory about calling a man out.”
Harris sighed. “Well, we do, sort of.”
“Doc Garrett said the bullet smashed his shoulder joint. He’ll only have limited used of that arm for the rest of his life. And when word gets around that Luddy Chambers has a crippled gun arm, he’ll either hunt him a hole and change his name, or get dead.”
“You’re right about that. There was no attempted stagecoach holdup, by the way.”
“I figured Clint had one of his men tie into the line and send that message to get you out of town. But if he did, why not send Bronco or Austin or Yukon in after me? These ol’ boys today were not the best he has on the payroll.”
“What could he be up to?”
“You tell me. He’s your brother.”
“A fact I wish I could undo,” Harris said with a grimace.
“I’m going back to the Double D. I’ll see you in a couple of days.”
“Smoke? Thanks for pulling those gunnies to the edge of town. I find myself respecting you more and more each day. And if the day comes when my brother braces you…put him down. He’s stepped way over the line.”
“Maybe it won’t come to that.”
“You know it will,” Harris said, and then walked across to Doc Garrett’s office.
“I’m afraid you’re right,” Smoke muttered.
The attack came that evening, about an hour after supper—a time that no one would expect any raid. Smoke was sitting on the front porch, drinking a cup of coffee and laughing as he sat watching two half-grown hounds play and mock-fight with each other, rolling and tumbling on the ground. Suddenly the hounds stopped and tensed, the hair standing up on their backs. They started growling.
“Get to guns!” Smoke yelled, jumping out of the chair and overturning his cup of coffee. The sounds of pounding hooves reached him. “Take cover!”
He turned at his name and Sally tossed him his gun belt and then a Winchester. “Don’t you worry about us in here,” she calmly told him, then closed the door.
He wouldn’t. Sally had been working with the twins and both of them had turned out to be pretty fair hands with a rifle. They weren’t very good with short guns, but put a shotgun in their hands and watch out. He didn’t have to check the rifle, he’d made it clear that if he found an empty weapon in the house—other than it being cleaned—he’d raise enough hell so it wouldn’t happen again.
Raul was back home, staying in the main house, and Smoke could see him on the bed by the window; his aversion to guns was long gone after his beating and dragging. Smoke could see the muzzle of a Winchester sticking out of the bedroom window.
The cook was a frontier woman who wouldn’t back up from a grizzly bear. Smoke had seen ol’ Denver making calf eyes at her—and she returning them—and knew that Denver would be in the kitchen with her, both of them firing from there—the woman with rifle, pistol, or shotgun.
Then there was no more time for thinking. It was action now, as fifty or more riders came fogging into the front yard, circling the corral, the bunkhouse, and the main house, and bringing with them thick, choking clouds of dust.
Smoke knew then what they planned. They planned an all-out assault on the ground, on foot.
“Be careful in the house!” he yelled over the shooting. “They’re going to take us on foot.”
“We see them,” Sally returned the yell. “You take care of your own business.”
Smoke smiled. Hell of a woman, his Sally.
A shotgun roared from the side of the house and a terrible scream followed the blast. “My legs!” a man hollered hoarsely. “My legs are tore up. I think they’s blowed plumb off. Help me. Oh, you damn Eastern hussy bitch you!”
The shotgun roared again. There was no more screaming.
Smoke arched an eyebrow as he searched for a target. He had a .44 in each hand. The man shouldn’t have called the Duggan woman that. She sure took umbrage at the remark.
A man came running out of the dust and Smoke cut him down. He hit the ground, tried to lift himself up, then collapsed to the dirt. A slug whined off the stone of the house and went whistling wickedly off into the cooling air. Mask-and-duster-wearing riders continued to circle the grounds, dragging broken limbs behind them to keep the dust whirling. Smoke lined one up and shot him out of the saddle. He hit the ground, bounced, and then was still.
The hound pups had scampered under the porch, out of harm’s way. They began barking furiously and Smoke turned in time to see a man swing one leg over the porch railing. The man looked up, his eyes wide with horror at the sight of Smoke, standing calmly, a .44 pointed right at the raider’s head. That was the last thing he would see on this earth.
Raul’s Winchester barked and a man slumped to the ground just outside the bedroom window. Raul called him a lot of very ugly names in the lilting Spanish language.
The boys in the bunkhouse were laying down a withering fire that was taking its toll. Through the dust, Smoke could see half a dozen bodies sprawled on the ground.
“That’s it!” a man yelled. “To your horses. It ain’t workin’.”
“Hold your positions!” Smoke yelled. “Stay put until they’re gone.”