The sheriff had deputized two dozen extra men and sent them off to guard all roads and paths leading out of the town. People could come in, but you had damn well better be known if you wanted to get out.
The telegraph wires had been repaired—they had been deliberately cut by Davidson’s men, so the prisoners had confessed—and they were once more humming. A special train had been ordered from Manchester and Concord, and the small town was rapidly filling up with reporters and photographers.
Pictures were taken of Mayor George Mahaffery, holding his Dragoon, and the sheriff and his deputy and of the chief of police and his men. Smoke, Louis, and York tried to stay out of the spotlight as much as possible.
That ended abruptly when a small boy tugged at Smoke’s jacket.
“Yes, son?” Smoke looked down at him.
“Four men at the end of the street, Mr. Smoke,” the little boy said, his eyes wide with fear and excitement. “They said they’ll meet you and your men in the street in fifteen minutes.”
Smoke thanked him, gave him a dollar, and sent him off running. He motioned for the sheriff and for Louis and York.
“Clear the street, Sheriff. We’ve been challenged, Louis, York.” Then he briefed his friends.
“Why, I’ll just take a posse and clean them out!” Sheriff Poley said.
Smoke shook his head. “You’ll walk into an ambush if you try that, Sheriff. None of us knows where the men are holed up. Just clear the street.”
“Yeah,” York said. “A showdown ain’t agin the law where we come from.”
Since they had first met, Martha and York had been keeping close company. Martha stepped out of the crowd and walked to York. She kissed him right on the mouth, right in front of God and everybody—and she was still dressed in men’s britches!
“I’ll be waiting,” she whispered to him.
York blushed furiously and his grin couldn’t have been dislodged with an axe.
Louis and Smoke stood back, smiling at the young woman and the young ranger. Then they checked their guns, Louis saying, “One more time, friend.”
“I wish I could say it would be the last time.”
“It won’t be.” Louis spun the cylinder of first his right-hand gun, then the left-hand .44, dropping them into leather. Smoke and York did the same, all conscious of hundreds of eyes on them.
The hundreds of people had moved into stores and ducked into alleyways. Reporters were scribbling as fast as they could and the photographers were ready behind their bulky equipment.
“There they stand,” Louis said quietly, cutting his eyes up the street.
“Shorty, Red, Jake, The Hog,” Smoke verbally checked them off. He glanced up and down the wide street. It was free of people.
“You boys ready?” York asked.
“Let’s do it!” Louis replied grimly.
The citizens of the town and the visiting reporters and photographers had all read about the western-style shoot-outs. But not one among them had ever before witnessed one. The people watched as the outlaws lined up at the far end of the wide street and the lawmen lined up at the other. They began walking slowly toward each other.
“I should have killed you the first day I seen you, Jensen!” Jake called.
Smoke offered no reply.
“I ain’t got but one regret about this thing,” Jake wouldn’t give it up. “I’d have loved to see you eat a pile of horse shit!”
This time Smoke responded. “I’ll just give you some lead, Jake. See how you like that.”
“I’ll take the Hog,” York said.
“Shorty’s mine,” Louis never took his eyes off his intended target.
“Red and Jake belong to me,” Smoke tallied it up. “They’re all fast, boys. Some of us just might take some lead this go-around.”
“It’s not our time yet, Smoke,” Louis spoke quietly. “We all have many more trails to ride before we cross that dark river.”
“How do you know them things, Louis?” York asked.
Louis smiled in that strange and mysterious manner that was uniquely his. “My mother was a gypsy queen, York.”
Smoke glanced quickly at him. “Louis, you tell the biggest whackers this side of Preacher.”
The gambler laughed and so did Smoke and York. Those watching and listening did so with open mouths, not understanding the laughter.
The reporters also noted the seemingly high humor as the three men walked toward hot lead and gunsmoke.
“It’s a game to them,” a reporter murmured. “Nothing more than a game.”
“They’re savages!” another said. “All of them. The so-called marshals included. They should all be put in cages and publicly displayed.”
Martha tapped him on the shoulder. “Mister?”
The reporter turned around.
The young woman slugged him on the side of the jaw, knocking the man sprawling, on his butt, to the floor of the store.
Jordan Reynolds stood with his mouth open, staring in disbelief.
“Good girl,” John said.
A man who looked to be near a hundred years old, dressed in an ill-fitting suit, smiled at Martha. He had gotten off the train that morning, accompanied by two other old men also dressed in clothing that did not seem right for them.
Sally looked at the old men and smiled, starting toward them. The old man who had smiled at Martha shook his head minutely.
The three old mountain men stepped back into the crowd and vanished, walking out the rear of the store.
The reporter was struggling to get to his feet.
“Who was that old man, Sally?” Martha asked.
“I don’t know,” Sally lied. Then she turned to once more watch her man face what many believed he was born to face.
There was fifty feet between them when the outlaws dragged iron. The street erupted in fire and smoke and fast guns and death.
The Hog went down with three of York’s .44 slugs in his chest and belly. He struggled to rise and York ended it with a carefully aimed slug between the Hog’s piggy eyes.
Shorty managed to clear leather and that was just about all he managed to do before Louis’s guns roared and belched lead. Shorty fell forward on his face, his un-fired guns shining in the crisp fall air.
Smoke took out Red first, drawing and firing so fast the man was unable to drag his .45 out of leather. Then Smoke felt the sting of a bullet graze his left shoulder as he cocked and fired, the slug taking Jake directly in the center of his chest. Smoke kept walking and firing as Jake refused to go down. Finally, with five slugs in him, the outlaw dropped to the street, closed his eyes, and died.
“What an ugly sight!” Smoke heard a man say.
He turned to the man, blood running down his arm from the wound in his shoulder. “No uglier than when he was alive,” Smoke told him.
And the old man called Preacher chuckled and turned to his friends. “Let’s git gone, boys. It was worth the train ride just to see it!”
The reporter that Martha had busted on the jaw was leaning against another reporter, moral and physical support in his time of great stress. “I’ll sue you!” he hollered at the young woman.
Martha held up her fists. “You wanna fight instead?”
“Savage bitch!” the man yelled at her.
Lawyer John Reynolds stepped up and belted the reporter on the snoot with a hard straight right. The reporter landed on his butt, a sprawl of arms and legs, blood running down his face from his busted beak.
John smiled and said, “Damn, but that felt good!”
25
BANK ROBBERY ATTEMPT FOILED BY WESTERN GUNSLINGERS screamed one headline.
SAVAGES MEET SAVAGE END IN PEACEFUL NEW HAMPSHIRE TOWN howled another front-page headline.
Smoke glanced at the headlines and then ignored the rest of the stories about him. He was getting antsy, restless; he was ready to get gone, back to the High Lonesome, back to the Sugarloaf.