William Johnstone - Texas Bloodshed

“Stay right where you are, mister,” Clete ordered. “We’re just here for the money, not to kill anybody.”

What he left unsaid was that he and the others wouldn’t hesitate to kill anybody who interfered with them getting that money.

The other five men spread out and closed in around the customers. Ed Garvey swung his sawed-off toward the tellers, both of whom raised their hands in meek, fearful surrender.

Clete raised his voice and said, “Everybody just take it easy. No trouble here, no trouble. We just want the money. Tellers, clean out your drawers. Put everything in the sack.”

With practiced efficiency, Tom Murdock had taken a canvas bag from under his coat. He shouldered aside the townie at one of the windows and thrust the bag across the counter toward the stunned teller.

“In the sack,” Tom snarled at the teller, who swallowed hard and started plucking bills from his cash drawer and stuffing them into the bag.

Denny approached the female customer, who was fairly young and pretty. She was pale and trembling at the moment. She tried to shrink away from Denny as he stepped up to her, but she had her back against the counter and there was no place for her to go.

“Pretty,” Denny said. His gun was in his right hand, but his left was free. He raised it and started to take hold of her neck. There was nothing he liked better than caressing a pretty woman’s neck.

Chick said, “Not now, Denny, we ain’t got time for that.”

“Pretty!” Denny insisted, as if that explained everything.

“I know that, but—”

The woman screamed as Denny’s hand was about to close around her throat.

Chick exclaimed, “Dadgum it, Denny!”

And on the other side of the counter, the teller shouted, “Leave her alone, damn you!”

His hand dropped below the counter, and when it came up, there was a Colt Lightning in it. The teller jerked the trigger three times fast, and the double-action revolver sent all three .41-caliber rounds crashing into Denny’s face. The bullets turned the big man’s features into a hideous red smear as his head rocked back.

“Denny!” Chick cried. Enraged, he started firing. His bullets sprayed the woman and the teller, knocking them both off their feet as blood welled from their wounds.

“Son of a bitch!” Clete bellowed. “Tom, grab all the money you can!” He turned back to the bank president, who had started impulsively to his feet, and shot the man in the belly.

Grant looked around wildly, unsure what to do. He had taken part in several robberies with his brothers, but none of them had gone this bad, this quickly. None of the gang had even been wounded in those jobs, let alone killed. Denny wasn’t dead yet—he had fallen to the floor, where he was thrashing around—but he couldn’t last long, shot in the head like that.

The other teller had thrown himself on the floor and lay there behind the counter with his arms held protectively over his head, as if that would stop a bullet. Tom Murdock didn’t take the time to shoot him. Instead, as Tom leaned over the counter, he reached into the cash drawer and grabbed as many greenbacks as he could, stuffing them into the canvas sack. They would get something out of this foul-up, by God!

But who could have predicted that that meek little teller would try to turn into Wild Bill Hickok? The fella must have been sweet on the woman, and all he had thought about was protecting her from Denny.

The air inside the bank was thick with gunsmoke now. The sharp tang of it stung Clete’s nose as he swung toward the doors.

“Let’s go, let’s go!” he called. He was confident that Otter would be covering their retreat.

“But Denny—” Chick began.

“He’s done for!” Clete yelled. “Come on!”

The five men charged out through the double doors, guns up and ready for trouble.

They weren’t ready for what they got.

Reacting instantly, Smoke twisted in the saddle to search for the source of the shots. They were coming from the direction of the bank, and as Smoke spotted the seven horses tied at the hitch rack in front of that establishment, his mind leaped to the conclusion that the bank was being robbed.

The sight of a stranger, a tall, lean Indian in a black hat, standing next to those horses was more evidence supporting that theory.

The fact that the Indian jerked a rifle to his shoulder and pointed it at Monte Carson confirmed the hunch.

That lookout was aiming at the wrong man. He should have paid more attention to the hombre on the big gray stallion. Smoke’s Colt appeared in his hand as if by magic, and two shots blasted from it so close together they sounded like one.

Even though Smoke was firing from the hip and the distance was fairly long for a handgun, his almost supernatural abilities sent both slugs hammering into the Indian’s chest. The rifle in the Indian’s hands went off as his finger jerked involuntarily on the trigger, but the barrel was already pointing harmlessly at the sky as he toppled backward against one of the horses.

The animal shied and bumped into the other horses, and they got skittish, too. All seven mounts started jerking at their reins, trying to get loose and bolt.

Monte drew his gun and broke into a run toward the bank, but instead of dismounting, Smoke heeled his horse into motion. The stallion pounded down the street. Smoke arrived in front of the bank just as several men burst out through the doors.

The strangers were all carrying guns. The one in the lead saw Smoke and opened fire on him. Smoke ducked and snapped a shot at the man. The slug caught the bank robber in the shoulder and drove him halfway around. He stayed on his feet, though, and continued shooting.

One of the other men, a short, bearded, thick-bodied varmint, bulled forward and swung up a sawed-off Greener. Smoke saw the scattergun and went diving out of the saddle just as the awful weapon boomed like a huge clap of thunder. One of the horses screamed in pain as buckshot peppered its hide.

Smoke had landed in the street, rolled over, and come up on one knee. He had to throw himself to the side in order to avoid being trampled.

At the same time, bullets were still flying around him. Clouds of dust swirled, kicked up by the hooves of the fear-maddened horses. It was utter chaos in the street and on the boardwalk, as gun battles often were.

From the corner of his eye, Smoke caught a glimpse of Monte Carson kneeling behind a rain barrel and firing at the outlaws. One of the bank robbers, a tall, lanky man with fair hair under a thumbed-back hat, clutched at his middle and folded up as one of Monte’s bullets punched into his belly.

Smoke had two rounds left in his Colt, since he always carried the gun with the hammer resting on an empty chamber unless he knew he was about to encounter trouble. He fired again and saw one of the outlaws go spinning off his feet as the bullet tore through his thigh.

Smoke shifted his aim and fired his last shot. It went into the chest of the man whose shoulder he had broken with a bullet a few seconds earlier. The man dropped his revolver, staggered a few steps to the side, and pitched off the boardwalk to land on his face in the street.

That left two of the outlaws on their feet, including the man with the sawed-off. He had broken the weapon open and was trying frantically to thumb more shells into it.

The remaining outlaw had a canvas bag clutched in his left hand and a Colt in his right. He threw a couple of shots at Smoke and lunged toward the horses, obviously hoping to grab one of them and make a getaway.

Smoke had to dive forward onto his belly to avoid the shots as the slugs whipped through the air above his head. He looked up and saw that the man had gotten hold of a horse and was trying to swing up into the saddle.