The Road to Ratchet Creek (16 page)

“Let's ask young Johnny if he can fix something up.”

Cole looked at the girl for a time, then asked, “You reckon he can do it—and keep quiet about it after?”

“I'm willing to bet on it,” Calamity replied.

“You will be betting on it,” Cole pointed out. “And your life's the stake.”

Without a moment's hesitation Calamity came to her feet. “I'll go get him in right now.”

On her return with John, Calamity explained the full plan. Watching the boy, Cole felt impressed at the way in which he took the news. Lines wrinkled John's forehead as he thought on the problem and asked surprisingly intelligent questions considering his youth. At last he felt that he knew all that was necessary and promised to get down to some hard thinking. Cole promised to obtain anything John might need and warned the boy of the need for complete secrecy. Then the marshal left John to the problem and hoped that an answer might be forthcoming.

The meeting went smoothly enough, with adequate plans made to ensure the shipment's safety
during the night in Ratchet Creek and on the journey to Promontory. The U.S. cavalry guard which was to bring it to Ratchet Creek had to return to its parent regiment, but Cole, Burkee and ten men would form a protective screen for the stagecoach. After some discussion it was decided that they would use the high country trail as being less likely to be suspected as their route. Calamity watched the banker and thought she detected a hint of disappointment on his face.

All through Monday and Tuesday Calamity continued to give the impression of being infatuated with the banker. Yet she raised no further hostility on the part of Monique or Millie. Both girls seemed to regard her with a tolerant, pitying manner and she felt sure that Cole had guessed correctly at the reason for their change of attitude.

While the others laid the foundations for their plot, John worked on his part of the affair. As promised, he had all he needed; although some of his requests struck Calamity and Cole as odd. Clearly he did not intend to stick to the bare essentials of Calamity's scheme. Yet, as she watched him work, the girl felt he might have gone off the trail a mite. However she allowed him to carry on, for the basic element of his idea struck her as sound. John worked with that quiet, almost awesome, concentrated manner which would in the future enable him to design and produce the pilot
model of an entirely new type of rifle for the Winchester company in thirty days,
including twelve days travelling time between the factory and his home in Ogden.

On Wednesday afternoon Cole and Calamity visited the banker at his office.

“We've got trouble,” the marshal said. “I've just got reliable word that the Hopkins gang're after the shipment.”

If Sedgewell had a rival, it was Rule Hopkins. So far the two outlaw gangs had stayed clear of each other's territory. However such a large sum might easily cause Hopkins to break the unspoken truce.

“That's bad!” Hewes gasped.

“It's worse than you think,” the marshal went on. “Somebody at the Wells Fargo office's slipping them word of our plans.”

“What do you mean to do?” Hewes asked. “I'd say hold up the shipment and ask for military aid.”

“Nope,” Cole answered. “We're going through with it. Only we'll need your help.”

“Anything I can do, I'll do it.”

“We aim to send the gold out in the feeder-run coach to Shadloe, in secret.”

“But the feeder run doesn't have a guard along,” Hewes objected. “If the driver should learn——.”

“The driver already knows,” Calamity interrupted. “It'll be me.”

“But it's risky!” Hewes gasped.

“Nobody but us three here'll know,” Cole pointed out. “We'll make the change over here at the bank. I've got it all worked out. The gold'll be loaded in secret on to Calam's stage and done in the open, with fake boxes, on the special.”

Listening to the marshal's plan, Hewes admitted that it might stand a chance of working. Not until Calamity and Cole left the bank to make their arrangements did the girl remember about the mining stock. When she asked, Cole told her that the banker had made no mention of it.

“Could be he didn't want to come out and admit he'd been taken for a sucker with it,” Calamity remarked, and did not guess how close to the truth she came. “I'm going to see Monique now. You reckon Johnny can do his part with that Millie gal?”

“After what he's fitted up for you, I'd say he can do damned nigh anything he puts his mind to,” Cole replied.

On arrival at the saloon, Calamity joined Monique and took satisfaction in the thought of the shock she would hand the little singer. What Calamity aimed to tell her ought to wipe the smug condescension from Monique's face. After a few pieces of casual chatter about nothing in particular, Monique gave the required opening. Calamity figured herself a better than fair poker player, with a face which showed only such emotion as she wished. At that moment she wore a dejected,
worried expression that often came in handy when bluffing in the noble game.

“You look worried,” Monique remarked, studying Calamity's face.

“Look, Monique,” she replied. “I need advice——.”

“I'll give it if I can,” the singer promised.

“It's—There's—Well, I've got a feller real interested in me. He wants me to go away with him.”

Watching Monique, although her head remained bowed, Calamity saw the singer stiffen and show apprehension.

“Why don't you go with him?” Monique inquired in a strained hiss.

“He's married, but his wife's real mean to him. Only he figures I can handle her happen she hears and tries to cut up rough. Gee, Monique, he's been real good to me and I love him. What should I do?”

Only a few weeks before, a saloongirl had come to Calamity with a similar problem. So she knew the kind of words to use and even managed to look the confused girl-in-love well enough to fool Monique.

“Do?” the singer said hardly louder than a whisper.

“Sure. He's fixing to meet me at Shadloe when I get there with the stage feeder-run tomorrow. Then we'll go East together.”

Although seething with fury, Monique managed to hold it in check. “I would say don't go, Calamity,” she gritted out. “But it's your choice.”

At almost the same moment Millie Hackerstow stared in disbelief and growing fury at John Browning. He came to ask her advice: “as a bank teller she must be real smart.” His problem was what he should do about hearing Calamity and the banker planning to run away together the following day.

“H
EY
M
ONIQUE,” GREETED
C
ALAMITY AS THE SINGER
came toward the feeder-run coach halted outside the Wells Fargo office. “I didn't figure you'd be riding with me this morning.”

“I have business in Shadloe,” Monique replied and darted a surprised glance at Millie Hackerstow who already sat inside.

“Then pile in, gal,” Calamity said cheerfully, “and I'll get you to it.”

The feeder-run coach was a cheaper version of the fabulous Concords which made the major journeys, used to serve smaller towns off the main stage routes. Six horses pulled it, but less spirited animals than those hauling the vehicles on the “Big Run.” Nor, as a usual thing, did the feeder-
run stagecoach carry an armed guard. Wishing to maintain a normal appearance and avoid attracting attention, it had been decided to dispense with the messenger despite what the coach carried.

Watched by almost all the town, well-armed men had guarded the unloading of the “treasure chests” and stored them in the bank's vault the previous evening. What nobody saw was the arrival of a similar number of identical boxes at the bank's rear entrance in the small hours of the morning. Nor, as far as precautions could make sure, did anyone witness the loading of the first arrivals into the rear boot of the feeder run coach. Down at the bank, again a center of attraction, Cole and the armed deputies supervised the loading of the second lot of boxes on to the special stagecoach.

When the loading had been completed, the coach drew away from the bank. Armed riders formed a circle around the vehicle, with Marshal Cole in the lead. As the party went by, Calamity tagged along in the rear. She felt like a poor relation following the quality at a fancy wedding. Once outside town, the first coach turned on to the high country trail and Calamity continued along the low land route. In one way the poorer quality team helped her, for it did not make a high speed. To keep to the plan she must try to stay level with Cole's party a mile away on the higher ground.

After looking around carefully to make sure she
was not observed, Calamity looped the reins on the box floor and held them with her foot. Then she turned and drew up the tarpaulin cover on the roof. From its shape a casual observer might have concluded that freight of some kind lay underneath. The conclusion was wrong. In throwing back the tarpaulin from the side, Calamity exposed John Browning's invention for protecting her life. At first glance it looked like a Winchester rifle, adjusted to point downward and slightly out from the side of the coach in a forward direction. It rode in two Y-fittings, like some dude's fancy fishing pole on rod-rests, the front one roomy underneath for a good reason. Fitted at the muzzle was a metal funnel, its wide end toward the mouth of the barrel and the spout removed. The funnel rode on slides and a rod ran downward to connect, via a toggle link to the lever. At the rear of the lever, a spring connected it to the butt. Nor did the alterations end there. Built into the triggerguard, a catch depressed the trigger. While the hammer lay back in the firing position, it was prevented from flying forward by a peg between the striker and breech-pin's piston. A cord ran from the peg, through a hole in the driving box and was fastened to the brake handle.

Much thought and hard work had gone into the designing of the weapon and all Calamity's tact had been needed to dissuade John from coming along to see how it worked. Only by explaining
that his presence might spoil the whole plan did she manage to keep him out of what would likely be a mighty dangerous situation.

Nothing happened for some time. The team plodded on at a pace Calamity might have found irksome under different conditions. Try as she could, she failed to see any sign of the other party. The idea was that, if Hewes took the bait, Cole and his men would hear the shooting and come charging down to Calamity's rescue. As she approached the scene of the hold-up, things started to go wrong. Wafted on the wind came the sound of distant shooting. Not just a single discharge as might come by accident, or through somebody taking target practice, but a regular fusillade.

Staring upward, Calamity brought her attention to the trail only just in time to see that the rock, removed after the previous hold-up, had been dragged back to the center of the trail. However the team were travelling slowly enough for her to halt them by use of the reins alone. Looking just as big and bulky as before, the masked man rose from behind a rock at the right of the trail. Ignoring him for a moment, Calamity looked to the left and saw the rifle's barrel lined in her direction from behind an oak tree some seventy yards up the gentle slope.

“Raise 'em and no trouble!” mumbled the masked man. “Drop the whip.”

“You're wasting your time,” Calamity told him. “There's nothing on here worth stealing.”

“That's what you say,” the man answered and walked forward. “Jump down!”

Which was just what Calamity wanted. After Johnny had fitted the rifle in place that morning on their return from the bank, Calamity looked along its barrel to learn where its bullets would fly. Studying the man, she figured the right moment to be almost on hand.

“Can I put the brake on first?” she asked mildly.

“Do it,” he ordered, satisfied that she would obey as she did when told to drop the whip.

Raising her right foot, Calmity waited a second and thrust hard at the brake handle. Doing so pulled on the string and jerked the peg away, allowing the depressed main-spring to propel the hammer on to the breech-pin's piston. Just as effectively as when the trigger was pressed, the hammer struck home and the rifle cracked.

Startled by the unexpected shot and a bullet flying close by his head, the masked man took a hurried step to the rear. He walked into danger. As the gasses from the burning powder gushed out in the wake of the bullet, they struck the inner surface of the funnel and thrust it forward. In turn the movement pulled on the rod which drew down the lever and ejected the empty cartridge case. Then the spring at the rear of the lever contracted and closed the mechanism. In doing so it also caused the catch to engage and force back the trigger. Released from the seat, the hammer flew
forward and drove the firing pin against the base of the bullet. Once again powder ignited and lead sped from the barrel. The masked man stepped back into its path. A screech of pain broke from his lips, he jerked under the impact hard enough to throw the hat from his head. Any lingering doubts left Calamity. Even with the bandana still around his lower face, she recognized the banker. Again the rifle cracked as the cycle of mechanical movement cleared the chamber and fed in another round. Hewes spun around as another bullet tore into his shoulder. The two pebbles he had used to disguise his voice rolled from under the bandana as he crashed to the ground.

Expecting at any moment to feel a rifle bullet crash into her, Calamity thrust herself erect. The expected shot sounded from the left, but its bullet drove into the tarpaulin cover. Even as Calamity sprang from the coach, leaping well out to avoid the lead from John's invention, she guessed what had happened. Hearing the shots from under the tarpaulin, the second member of the hold-up thought a hidden guard used it. Instead of shooting Calamity, whoever handled the rifle first tried to silence the more dangerous threat.

“Dixon!” screamed two voices inside the coach as Calamity landed. The door flew open and her passengers erupted, with Millie in the lead.

Without waiting to see what the girls meant to do, Calamity drew her Colt and dived under the
coach. On top the rifle fired four more shots before its mechanism broke down, the rod connecting funnel to lever buckling and jamming. Millie sprang to Hewes' side and a moment later Monique joined her. At first the realization did not strike the girls. Then they looked at each other, at first with disbelief, then in fury.

“Get away from my Dixon!” Millie screeched.

“
Your
Dixon!” Monique howled back. “You poor fool, he only used you!”

“It's you he was using!” Millie yelled and slapped the little singer's face.

Rocking back on her heels, Monique let out a squeal like a scalded cat. Then she launched herself across the moaning Hewes full on to Millie and they went down in a hair-grabbing, struggling tangle of flailing arms and waving legs.

Ignoring the sounds of female strife behind her, Calamity prepared to deal with the rifle-user. On one occasion she had seen the Rio Hondo gun wizard, Dusty Fog, demonstrate long range shooting with a revolver. Since then she had practiced the method he used to make hits on a man-sized target at one hundred and fifty yards. While unable to duplicate such super-skilled shooting, Calamity figured she could place her lead close enough at half that distance to at least worry whoever held the rifle.

Naturally one did not stand erect to shoot at
long range. Not even adopting the classic duellist and target-shooter's stance gave a sufficiently steady position for the aiming. Lying prone was the only answer. In fact Calamity also preferred to use a rest. She might have supported the gun on one of the rear wheel's spokes but the horses, while not spooked by the shooting, fiddle-footed enough to make the coach shake and ruined any hope of using part of it. Resting both elbows on the ground, she braced her right wrist with the left hand, then took careful aim. Satisfied, she squeezed the trigger and make the luckiest shot of her life.

Through the haze of powder smoke which followed the explosion of the charge, she saw the rifle suddenly slam aside. On the heels of the bullet's arrival came a startled yelp which Calamity heard despite the cat-squalling noise of the fighting girls behind her. From the pitch of the distant voice Calamity decided that it did not come from a male throat.

Then everything fell into place. Suddenly Calamity remembered a question not asked when Sheriff Jergens brought word of Hewes' alibi after the murder attempt. Neither she nor Cole had thought to ask if the banker's wife had been with him on the night in question. The mystery of the unseen second “man” became clear. Hewes could disguise his appearance to such effect that nobody
recognized him, but the same did not apply to his wife. So she remained hidden and backed him up with her rifle.

The realization that she faced another woman cheered Calamity. While she had felt some qualms about tangling with a rifle-armed and desperate man, she figured she could take her chances in a shooting match with any woman. So she hurled herself from under the coach and started a swerving dash toward the tree behind which Hewes' accomplice hid.

Behind Calamity, Monique and Millie tore at each other like a pair of enraged bobcats. Despite her lack of education in such matters, Millie gave as good as she got and the fight showed no signs of abating. Bleeding from the two wounds, the banker lay silent and unconscious.

No shots came at Calamity as she ran up the slope. Skidding around the tree, she saw the rifle lying on the ground. Striking the oak's trunk, her bullet had bounced off to burst the Winchester's magazine tube. Although no bullets had been hit, the magazine spring was broken and thrust out of the ruptured tube. Seeing a rapidly departing back, Calamity realized that her assailant had not stopped to make a fight when finding that the rifle no longer worked.

Racing after the fleeing shape, Calamity knew for certain that she followed another woman. While the running figure wore a Stetson hat,
jacket, levis pants and boots, the running style was definitely feminine. Then the shape disappeared into a dip and Calamity went after her. Ahead was a clearing with the trunk of a fallen tree in the center. Beyond it two saddle horses and a pack mule were tied to a sapling. Already Evalyn Hewes had freed one of the horses and swung into its saddle.

Not knowing if Hewes were dead, Calamity wanted Evalyn alive to tell where the money taken from her and John was. So the girl thrust away her Colt and bounded across the clearing. Leaping on to the log, Calamity hurled herself through the air. She hit the side of the horse, grabbing hold of Evalyn's arm and jacket collar. Letting out a shriek of rage, Evalyn tried to throw Calamity off but felt herself dragged out of the saddle. Her Stetson flew through the air and the startled horse lunged away to charge off into the trees.

As soon as Calamity's feet hit the ground, she released her hold and jumped clear. Evalyn lit down on her rump and sat glaring up as Calamity drew the Colt to cover her.

“You sure fell for that,” Calamity said. “I don't know what all the shooting was, but I'd bet Solly Cole come through.”

“You bitch!” Evalyn hissed, “You lousy, stinking bitch.”

“I've been called a whole heap worse,” Calamity answered cheerfully. “You sure fell for
our trick, though. And for a couple of boxes filled with lead.”

“L—Lead?”

“Yep. We met the coach outside town yesterday and changed the boxes over.”

“Tricked!” Evalyn spat out, rising and shrugging off the jacket which Calamity had half removed while hauling her from the saddle. “And by a lousy, man-chasing lobby-lizzy like you. If you weren't holding that gun——.”

“That's soon altered,” Calamity replied, twirling her Colt into leather, unbuckling the belt and tossing it aside.

Like a flash Evalyn jumped forward and drove a punch at Calamity's belly. Against nine girls out of ten it would have been a devastatingly effective attack, coming as a complete surprise. Nor did Calamity, the tenth girl, entirely avoid its effect. Ready for treachery, she started to jerk back as soon as Evalyn moved. The fist caught her in the pit of the stomach and doubled her over; but not with its full, crippling power. Up drove Evalyn's knee, aimed at the center of Calamity's face. Once more the rearward movement saved Calamity from the worst of the attack. Evalyn's knee struck her forehead, flinging her back against the fallen trunk. With a screech of triumph, the woman sprang into the air, her feet driving down in Calamity's direction. Desperately the girl twisted away, feeling Evalyn's boots thud down alongside
her body. Then Calamity swung her arm, catching behind Evalyn's knees and hooking her feet from under her. Landing on the trunk, Evalyn bounced from it to the ground.