Simon Hawke - The Six Gun Solution

“What is it?” Cooper asked.

“I’ve got two men on the root across the street,” said Tilley.”Armed and wearing black commando gear.”

“Damn it.” said Delaney. “It’s gotta be the S.O.G.”

“They spot you. Tilley?”

“I don’t think so,” came the reply. “I picked them up on my starlight scope They’re watching the street below and covering the front entrance.”

“Geordy, you get that?” Cooper asked.

“I got it,” Georgeson said. “I’m downstairs, by the back stairway, covering the back entrance. You want me to check outside?”

“Negative.” said Cooper. “Stay put. Tilley-”

“Hold it.” Tilley said, “I’ve got activity. Two men heading this way from the southeast. One of them answers Stone’s description, the other one’s dressed like a cowboy. Hold on. I’ll see if I can… there’s movement in the alley, heading toward the back! Heads up, Geordy!”

“Shit!” Delaney swore, throwing open the door and drawing his revolver.

“Cover the front!” Cooper shouted to him. Then he spoke quickly into his communicator. “Tilley. watch your back, they may clock up to the roof!”

Cooper drew his disruptor and moved to the window as Delaney ran out into the hall and down the stairs.

“Finn should have been back by now,” said Lucas, tensely.

“You think maybe something happened?” Andre asked.

Lucas exhaled heavily. “We’re not going to find out waiting around here.” He got up, tossed down the whiskey he’d been drinking, picked up his laser rig and strapped it on underneath his coat.

“Be interesting if Wyatt Earp catches you wearing that in town.” said Andre.

Lucas grimaced. “I’ll tell him it’s a fancy Buntline Special,” he said. “And then I’ll hit him over the head with it.”

Andre got up and started heading toward the door. “You’re right, we’d better go check on him.”

“Aren’t you bringing anything?” asked Lucas.

“Hey, you know me. I always pack.” she said, lifting her long skirt. Beneath it, she wore high-button shoes and black lycra tights There was a laser pistol in a holster strapped to her right thigh and a commando bowie in a sheath strapped around her left leg.

“Interesting outfit,” Lucas said, with a grin. “What else you got hidden under there?”

“You’ll find out on our wedding night.” she replied.

“Cute.”

“Come on, greenhorn. Let’s go find that crazy Irishman.”

They went down the stairs and out the front door.

“Here they come.” said one of the snipers on the roof of Hafford’s Saloon, across the street. He rested his rifle and chambered a round.

“About damn time.” one of the others replied. “Let’s finish this.”

“The girl, too?”

“Yeah, the girl, too. That’s what Ringo said, ain’t it?”

“I don’t like shootin’ a woman.”

“You want to take it up with Ringo?”

“Hell, no.”

“Then let ’em have it!”

As they stepped down off the sidewalk, Andre stumbled.

“Damn heels!” she swore. A shot cracked out and a bullet struck the wood post behind her. More shots followed in rapid succession.

“ Shit!” cried Lucas. “It’s an ambush! Come on!”

They started running.

Up on the roof, the riflemen suddenly stopped shooting.

“What in the hell.” one of them said. staring down at the street.

“Where’d they go?”

“Shoot, God damn it!”

“At what?”

“Son of a bitch! Where in hell did they go?”

“I don’t know! One minute there they were, and then they were Just

… gone!”

“Check the street, for God’s sake! They gotta be down there somewhere!”

“Where? We can see the whole blamed street from here! They plumb vanished!”

“I’m gettin’ outta here.”

“Wait…

“You wait! I ain’t stickin’ around for the Earps to come and see what all the shootin’ was about.”

“Heck, me neither!”

“I just can’t understand it. We had ’em right in our sights! Where the hell did they go?”

Lucas and Andre suddenly stopped short.

“Holy shit,” said Lucas.

One moment, they’d been running down a dark street in the middle of the night, with bullets whistling past them. Suddenly, the shooting had stopped and it was broad daylight, around two or three in the afternoon.

“We’ve crossed over!’ Andre said, looking all around her. They were about half a block away from the Grand Hotel. Nothing looked different, except that in a matter of a few steps, they had moved from night into day, from one timeline into another.

“We’ve got to go back.” said Andre.

“And get our asses shot off?” Lucas said. “Besides, how do we know if we can go back?”

“You’re hit!” Andre exclaimed, seeing the blood on his shoulder.

Lucas shook his head. “It’s just a flesh wound. I’m all right.”

“Damn,” said Andre. “What happens now?”

“Shit,” said Lucas, looking down the street. “I’m afraid I know.”

She followed his gaze. Wyatt. Virgil and Morgan Earp, together with Doc Holliday, had just stepped off the sidewalk on Hafford’s Corner. Virgil Earp was carrying a cane in his right hand. Doc Holliday held a shotgun in one hand and his nickel-plated Colt in the other. Morgan Earp held a six-gun at his side. They started walking north on Fourth Street, heading across it diagonally toward Fremont Street. And with them was the Montana Kid.

Jenny ran down Fourth Street, past Hafford’s Corner and Spangenberg’s Gun Shop, heading toward Fremont. The Aztec Rooming House, where Finn Delaney lived, was on the corner of Fremont and Third. She held her skirts up as she ran, past the Post Office and around, The corner of the Capitol Saloon. Turning left on Fremont. She ran past the Papago Cash Store and Bauer’s Meat Market, with the alley between it that led to the back entrance of the O.K. Corral, which fronted on Allen Street. She passed the Assay Office and Fly’s Boarding House, past the vacant lot between Fly’s Boarding House and Photo Studio and the Harwood house, and she was almost to the corner of Third and Fremont when she heard the shots.

She stopped short, breathing hard. Her heart was hammering in her chest like a wild thing trying to claw its way out. She heard gunfire, but she also saw strange flashes of light, incredibly bright, thin beams lancing out across the street, from one rooftop to the other. Lasers, she thought. Like the weapons that the Master used. She was too late. It had already started. She turned and started running back the other way. All she could think of now was Scott, and Wyatt Earp was on his way to arrest him. Running as fast as she possibly could, she raced back down Fourth Street, heading toward the hotel. Somehow, she had to keep Wyatt from arresting Scott. Scott’s friends were in trouble and they needed him.

She stopped as she passed Spangenberg’s Gun Store. She ran up onto the sidewalk and snatched up one of the wooden chairs George Spangenberg kept outside the shop, so that he and his customers could sit around and chew tobacco and pass the time of day as they watched the street. She grunted and swung the chair with all her might, smashing through the front display window of the store. She had to pull the chair out and smash it through again to make the hole big enough, then she climbed through, tearing her skirt on the jagged shards of glass and cutting herself in several places. She ignored the pain. She climbed into the store and ran around behind the glass display counters. George had locked them. With a small cry of frustration, she quickly looked around, picked up one of Spangenberg’s hardbound account books and used it to break through the glass.