David Robbins - Nevada Run

The Buick bounced and bucked as it hit yet a third obstacle, and then the smoke was thinning.

Blade’s hands inadvertently tightened on the steering wheel. They were on the short flight of cement steps leading up to the Palace’s seven glass doors! “We’re going to hit!” he cried, keeping the accelerator on the floor.

Faces were visible on the other side of the doors, astonished visages of shocked mobsters.

Blade ducked his head to spare his eyes from the flying glass.

With a resounding, thunderous crash, the Buick rammed into the center of the row of glass doors. The glass shattered, the metal frames buckling like so much paper. Beyond the doors was a hastily constructed wall of furniture and boxes similar to the barrier Don Pucci’s men had erected in the Golden Crown. Its momentum hardly impeded by the doors, its engine roaring, the Buick plowed into the barricade, sending chairs and boxes and busted pieces of furniture in every direction. Several mobsters were hit by the grill and battered aside. Curses, shouts, and screams arose. And still the Buick hurtled onward.

Blade spied a group of hit men to the left and slewed the Buick toward them. They frantically attempted to evade the dreadnought, but he ruthlessly mowed them down.

Guns started firing, peppering the Buick’s thick frame.

Fifteen yards off were rows of slot machines.

Blade slammed on the brakes. The Buick screeched to a jarring halt, its rear end whipping around and colliding with one of the slot machines, its front end facing the incensed mobsters. “Out!” he shouted, and shoved his door open.

The Buick’s windshield dissolved in a spray of lead.

Blade vaulted from the car, rolling on his left shoulder and rising in a crouch with the Commando leveled. He squeezed the trigger, firing a burst into a charging cluster of hit men. Scrambling backwards, he reached the slot machines and ducked behind the nearest one.

Geronimo and Helen were coming around the passenger side, shooting on the run.

Blade stood, providing covering fire.

“Get them!” someone was bellowing. “Nail those sons of bitches!”

Helen took cover in back of a slot machine.

Geronimo blasted the Browning one more time, then dived for shelter.

Shots were thudding into the slot machines.

Giorgio’s trigger men were assembling for a mass charge.

“Grenades!” Blade yelled, reaching into his right front pocket. He extracted one of his grenades and crouched close to the floor.

Geronimo and Helen did likewise.

Blade peeked around the edge of the slot machine. The mobsters were just starting forward, about 30 of them. “On the count of three!” he directed.

The slot machines were being struck again and again.

“Two.”

There was a loud, defiant whoop from the hit men as they charged the slots.

“Three.”

As one, the Warriors pulled the pins on their grenades and rose, their arms already sweeping back, then arcing around. The grenades sailed over the Buick, perfectly thrown, landing on the carpet in front of the onrushing mobsters and rolling under their pumping legs.

Blade, Geronimo, and Helen flattened.

The three concussions combined to produce an awesome shock wave, and the floor seemed to heave upward and settle down again.

Bits of flesh and chunks of bodies were blown across the room. Several legs rained to the carpet.

“Oh me!” Blade commanded, heaving erect and racing for the rear of the casino. He wanted to draw Giorgio’s men away from the front entrance. Two hit men appeared and he killed them both.

Geronimo and Helen were pouring a lethal hail of lead into any and all targets.

Blade noticed a door to his left. He sprinted toward it.

A mobster popped up from behind a table ten feet to the right, a shotgun in his hands, aiming at the giant.

Blade started to whirl, knowing he would be too late, expecting to feel the buckshot tearing through his body.

Helen saved him. Her carbine boomed, and the mobster, hit in the face, was flung backwards.

Blade dashed to the door. He wrenched on the knob and pulled it wide, intending to seek temporary sanctuary in the corridor beyond.

A dozen or so trigger men were rushing down the hall toward the door, coming to the aid of their colleagues.

“Hey! Look!” one of them shouted. “Who’s he?”

Blade spun, desperately seeking somewhere they could defend against the mobsters.

Another group of soldiers was storming across the casino.

They were trapped!

Hickok glanced to the right, in the direction of the scream. Was that Mindy? He raced along the corridor, hoping the scream would be repeated so he could pinpoint the room.

It was.

A second, subdued shriek punctuated the hall, emanating from a room to the right.

Hickok reached the door in two bounds. He tried to twist the knob, but the door was locked.

So what!

Hickok took a step back, then kicked, planting his right foot next to the doorknob.

The door held firm.

Frowning, Hickok struck with his foot twice more, and on the second kick there was a splintering crunch and the door frame split from the base to the top. He tensed his left shoulder and slammed into the center of the door. He was elated when it swiveled inward, the lock dangling from only one screw.

Dear Spirit!

Hickok’s elation turned to dismay at the sight he beheld: Kenney was straddling Mindy on a bed, striving to choke the life from her with a ragged strip of yellow bedspread.

Mindy was feebly swatting at Kenney’s arms.

Kenney glanced up in shock at the Warrior. He released his grip and tried to reach a pistol under his left arm.

Hickok’s reaction was instantaneous. He drew his right Colt and snapped off a shot.

The slug ripped through Kenney’s right eye and out the rear of his head, the impact twisting his body to the right and knocking him to the floor.

“Mindy!” Hickok exclaimed, running to the bed and holstering his Colt.

Mindy stared at the Warrior in transparent relief. She clawed at the strip of bedspread, gasping for air.

Hickok swiftly removed the crude garrote.

“Hickok!” Mindy exclaimed, her voice raspy and hoarse. She was up and hugging him in the twinkling of an eye.

Hickok embraced her awkwardly for a moment. “There, there,” he consoled her, feeling her tremble in his arms. “You’re okay. You’re safe. Everything is hunky-dory.”

Mindy placed her face in the crook of his neck. Moist tears touched his skin. “Oh, Hickok!” she gasped.

“That’s my handle. Don’t wear it out,” he said light-heartedly.

“Hickok!” Mindy stated again, as if his name was a tonic to her tortured emotions.

“We can’t stay here,” Hickok advised her.

“I’m scared,” Mindy blurted. “That man almost killed me!”

“His killin’ days are over,” Hickok assured her.

Mindy stepped back, courageously composing herself. “Who else is with you?”

“Blade, some ornery Injun with a penchant for bull-slingin’, and your mom,” Hickok disclosed.

Mindy brightened. “My mom is here!”

“In the Golden Crown, across the street,” Hickok said.

“We’ve got to find them.”

Mindy rubbed her tender neck, taking deep breaths. “Give me a minute. I feel weak.”

“That’s to be expected,” Hickok remarked, glancing at the doorway.

“We really must skedaddle.”

“In a second,” she said. “You know, it’s funny. I used to occasionally view being a Weaver at the Home as a dull vocation. But no more! I’ll never gripe about my lot in life again! From now on, I—”

“Save it,” Hickok said, cutting her off. He took hold of her right hand and walked toward the corridor. “I’m tickled pink that you’ve found your niche in life. I truly am. But this isn’t the time or place for yakkin’ about it.