The Savage Gun (23 page)

In the office, Ollie barked orders.

“Army, get the hell out there and see what's going on. Dick, you back him up, and Red, you report back soon as you know.”

The three men rushed from the room. Red glanced back at the sacks of gold. Ollie scowled at him and doubled up one of his fists. Red trailed after Army and Dick as they burst through the office door and raced down the hall.

Army stopped just short of the bar, his eyes wide in disbelief.

Dick stumbled over a man crawling on his knees and almost crashed into Army.

“That's my damned horse,” he yelled.

Dick shoved Army aside and pointed to John.

“That's him, Army. Shoot him. That's the Savage kid.”

Red's vision was blocked when he first entered the room. All he saw was a bunch of wild people hollering and running around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off. He split to the right to avoid being struck by one of the waiters heading for the rear exit. Then he jumped out of the way as the dun charged straight at him. He crashed into an overturned table, clawing for his pistol.

“Everybody out,” John yelled and fought his way through the crowd. All the men at the bar ran toward the door, past Ben, who was as confused as those fleeing the stampeding horses.

The musicians dropped their instruments and fled the bandstand, all running toward the door. The piebald wheeled and charged into the crowd, scattering them like flung manikins. Some fell in a tangle of arms and legs, all yelling in fright, all clawing to get away from the slashing hooves. The dun reared up and flailed the air with his forelegs before dropping down. People streamed from the cantina, falling over each other to escape the melee.

Army drew his pistol and tried to find his target, swinging it right and left as he searched for a shooting lane. Dick brushed past him, cursing a blue streak of invective, brandishing his pistol at anyone in his path, and there were at least three innocent people between him and John Savage.

“You sonofabitch,” Dick yelled and aimed his pistol at John.

John never blinked. He hammered back and squeezed the trigger of his Colt. The explosion propelled sparks of burnt powder square into Dick's face just before the bullet cracked his nose and turned his brains to mush. The back of his head flew off in a rosy spray of brains and bone that flew all the way back to where Army was standing, splattering him from head to foot.

Dick's momentum carried him almost to John's feet and he crumpled in a heap, splashing the sawdust with blood and trickle from his brain. One eye popped from its socket and glared up at John, sightless as a boiled egg.

“Get him,” Red shouted as he ducked for cover behind an overturned chair near the door that led to the back office. “Shoot him, Army.”

“Look out,” Ben cried. “You got two of 'em aimin' right at you.”

John saw Red drop behind the tipped-over table. Army was still trying to find a stationary target. But John wasn't standing still. And the two horses were looking for a way out of the chaos, running over fallen patrons and charging at walls as if trying to locate a door. Most of the people had streamed out into the street, but there were some lying on the floor, moaning, others who had been injured, crawling along the edge of the room hoping they wouldn't catch a bullet or get struck by a flying iron hoof.

Army ducked down behind the end of the bar. John saw him disappear and ran to his left, toward the center of the room. Ben kicked away a man who was trying to encircle his legs with a pair of bloody arms. The man's sleeves had been ripped off by one of the girls trying to hold on to him when the piebald kicked her halfway across the room. He lost his sleeves and then the horse kicked him with both hind feet, ripping skin and gouging holes in his shoulder muscles.

“Please help me,” the man pleaded.

“Help yourself, mister,” Ben growled.

John fired a shot toward Army, trying to get him to pop his head up from behind the bar. The bullet ripped across the bartop in a scream of torn wood and buried itself in the wall behind Army.

Red peered out, saw his chance, and, crouching, crabbed to the door to the back office. He slipped inside and stood up, ran down to the office.

Ollie was standing there with his pistol in his hand. Rosa had her pistol aimed at the door.

“Almost blew you to pieces when you come through that door, Red. What the hell's goin' on out there?”

“That kid's there, and the old man, too. Dick's dead, and Army's cornered. He won't last another five minutes. Is there a back way out of here?”

“Yes,” Rosa said, her voice a hiss.

“I'm lightin' a shuck,” Red said. “Give me my share, Ollie. That kid'll be in here before you can say Jack Robinson.”

Ollie exchanged glances with Rosa. Her eyes narrowed and she nodded slightly.

“Why, sure, Red,” she said. She picked up a bag of gold dust.

Red's eyes widened. He licked his lips and holstered his pistol.

He started toward the desk.

“So long, Red,” Ollie gruffed and put the barrel of his pistol square in the middle of Red's forehead. He squeezed the trigger. Red's hair caught on fire as his face collapsed under the impact of the .44 bullet. Blood spurted from his forehead and the back of his head came apart in a cloud of rosy spray. Brain matter splattered the door.

“Let's get out of here, Ollie,” Rosa said quickly, stuffing the gold back in Ollie's saddlebags. “There's a door out back.”

“Where we going?” he asked.

“Denver. I've got a buggy out back, the horses already hitched, and two horses tied on.”

“What?”

“I planned to go away with you tonight,” she said. “I just didn't know it would be like this. There's a new hotel in Denver, the Brown Palace. I made reservations for us. So we could celebrate.”

They both jumped when they heard another shot.

Ollie grabbed up the saddlebags, slung them over his shoulder. Rosa took a small strongbox from the safe, closed it, and spun the cylinder, locking it.

“This way,” she said.

Beyond her desk was a wall panel. Rosa pressed a recessed part of the panel and it slid open, revealing a door. She opened it and stepped aside. Ollie stepped outside. Rosa closed the panel. It slid shut smoothly. There was a Concord standing outside, four black horses hitched to it. Tied to the rear were two horses, already saddled. Ollie climbed in, then helped Rosa up. She set the strongbox on the floor, unwrapped the reins from around the brake.

“I'll drive,” she said. “I know the quickest, safest way.”

“Pretty damned slick,” Ollie said.

“It was my surprise for you, Ollie. I knew you'd have the goods when you came back. This team has been hitched for the last two nights.”

“You're some woman, Rosa,” he said.

She made a clicking sound and rattled the reins over the backs of the horses. They started out, stepping high until she put them into a canter. They wheeled down the alley, past the stables and hotels, and into the night.

Ollie leaned back, fished for a cheroot in his pocket, stuck it in his mouth.

“Under the seat, there's a lunch basket,” she said. “Food and a bottle of Old Taylor.”

“I can't get over you, Rosa. You think of everything.”

“I hope you don't get over me, Ollie. We could go a long way together.”

“What about the cantina?” he asked.

“It'll be in good hands. We'll come back when it's safe for both of us.”

Ollie wondered when that would be.

He had made a mistake, not knowing that Savage kid was up in that mine. He should have killed him, along with the others. And that old man, too.

Too late now, he mused. Maybe their paths would cross again someday and he'd get the chance to blow that kid straight to hell.

Army hunkered down as low as he could and scrunched back in the corner. He waited, holding his pistol at the ready. That last shot had torn up the bar, but hadn't even come close.

“Ben, run those damned horses out, will you?” John said as he circled the room, hunching over, using the downed tables as cover.

“Gladly,” Ben replied and stepped over the man with the bloody arms. He held his pistol high and went after the piebald, first. “Everybody out,” he shouted, then ran straight at the horse. It shied from him. Ben held his arms outstretched and herded the animal toward the doors. It bolted straight for them and tore both doors from their hinges as it dashed through. The dun, seeing the other horse go out that way, wheeled and galloped toward the exit, stomping two people who were lying there, their arms folded over their heads.

“Heeya!” Ben shouted as the dun cleared the doorway.

He turned back to look at John.

John was nowhere to be seen.

The room grew quiet, except for a few moans from injured people.

Ben wondered who would break first, John or the man he had called Army.

He did not have to wait long.

John rose up from behind a tabletop near the bar. He ran toward the back door, but he was looking over in the corner behind the bar.

Army stood up then, aiming his pistol.

John fired on the run, his pistol held hip high. He thumbed the hammer back and shot again, so fast, the shots seemed to come together, with only a split second separating them.

“Damn you.” Army grunted as the first bullet caught him in the belly, just above his belt buckle. He squeezed the trigger of his pistol just as John's second shot blew a hole through his rib cage and blasted his heart into blood bait for catfish. Army's eyes rolled in their sockets and remained fixed as his legs folded up and he collapsed in a heap. His gun fell into the sawdust, a tiny tendril of smoke spiraling upward from the barrel. His shot had gone high and tore a hole in the opposite adobe wall.

“That Red feller ran through that back door,” Ben said. “That's likely where Ollie and that Rosa woman are.”

John walked cautiously down the hallway. The door was open to the office and Red's body lay sprawled on the floor. There was no one else in the room.

Ben came in, looked at the body.

“Right between the eyes,” he said.

“That Ollie don't care who he shoots, does he?”

“They're gone, ain't they?” Ben said. “They're plumb gone.”

John didn't say anything. He stood there, drew a breath and thought about how close he had come. He had gotten seven of them. But one, the one he wanted most, was still alive.

Where had he gone? Was Rosa with him? Likely, he thought.

“What are you going to do now, Johnny?” Ben asked, after several moments had passed.

John opened the gate to the Colt and started ejecting the spent shells. He stuffed fresh cartridges into the cylinders and closed the gate.

“Right now? I don't know, Ben. But I'm going to hunt Ollie down. And kill him.”

“The woman, too? What about her?”

“Rosa? In a way, she was the most treacherous of all. She sat back here and let Ollie do her dirty work for her. Then she helped him escape. She's got to pay for what she did, same as Ollie.”

“You'd . . .”

“Shoot a woman?”

“Yeah, I guess that's what I was going to say.”

“One like her, Ben, yes. Same as shooting a snake.”

John looked at the barrel of his pistol. Held it up to the light. He read the Spanish words again.

“ ‘Neither draw me without reason,' ” he translated, “ ‘nor keep me without honor.' ”

“Por seguro,”
he whispered in Spanish. He blew on the muzzle and then his lips just touched the rim of the barrel. It was like a tender kiss.

Ben stared at him and felt a sudden chill as if someone had just walked over his grave. Or someone's grave.

Maybe Ollie's. Maybe Rosa's. Maybe both.

Ben almost felt like taking off his hat and bowing his head.

It was that kind of moment.