William Johnstone - Texas Bloodshed

Smoke surged up onto his feet and jammed his empty Colt back in its holster as he went after the man trying to escape. With a diving tackle, he crashed into the outlaw and drove him away from the horse and off his feet. Both men sprawled in the dusty street as iron-shod hooves danced perilously close to their heads. Greenbacks flew from the canvas bag as it hit the ground.

The bank robber lashed out in desperation at Smoke, who avoided the first blow but then caught a knobby fist on the jaw. He threw a punch of his own, hooking his right into the man’s belly. The man gasped and tried to lift his knee into Smoke’s groin, but Smoke twisted aside and took the blow on his thigh. He swung his left and landed it solidly on the man’s nose. Blood spurted hotly across Smoke’s knuckles.

The man arched his back and threw Smoke off. As Smoke rolled away, the outlaw grabbed up the gun he had dropped and aimed it at Smoke.

A shot blasted from the boardwalk, and the man crumpled, dropping the gun again. Smoke glanced over and saw Monte Carson lowering his revolver after the shot that had probably saved Smoke’s life.

But that still left the shotgunner, who had snapped his weapon closed again and now swung it toward Smoke and Monte. Smoke’s Colt was empty, and so was the sheriff’s, as became evident when Monte jerked the trigger and the hammer fell with a harmless click. Smoke and Monte were close enough together that the outlaw might be able to cut them both down if he fired both barrels.

“You damn meddlin’ sons o’ bitches!” the outlaw roared as he brought his sawed-off to bear.

Before he could jerk the triggers, his head seemed to explode in a gory spray of blood, bone fragments, and brain matter. The scattergun fell unfired from his nerveless fingers, and his body dropped to the ground right behind it.

Unsure what had happened, Smoke looked along the street and saw two men sitting on horseback a couple of blocks away. One of them, a lean, white-bearded figure in buckskins and a broad-brimmed felt hat, lowered a Sharps carbine from the barrel of which curled a tendril of powder smoke.

The old-timer hitched his horse forward, rode up to Smoke, and grinned as he said, “You just can’t stay outta trouble for any time at all, can you, boy?”

CHAPTER 3

“Preacher!” Smoke exclaimed. “You sure know how to show up at the right time.”

“Always have,” Preacher said, still grinning. “Might should’ve showed up a few minutes earlier, though, since you only left one of the varmints for me to kill. Heard the shots as we was ridin’ in. Sounded like a right smart fracas. How come you was killin’ ’em?”

“They tried to rob the bank,” Smoke explained.

Preacher nodded. “Thought it might’ve been somethin’ like that when I saw all them greenbacks scattered around.”

Preacher’s companion galloped up, threw himself out of the saddle, bounded onto the boardwalk, and swung a fist that crashed into the jaw of the lone surviving outlaw, who had pulled himself up onto his knees and was trying to lift his gun with a trembling hand. The young owlhoot went over backward, knocked cold by the powerful blow.

“While you two were flapping your gums, that varmint was about to shoot Preacher in the back,” Matt Jensen said, looking exasperated.

“No, he wasn’t,” Preacher replied. “I figured you’d take care of him, Matt.”

With a shake of his head, Matt asked, “What if I hadn’t been paying attention?”

“I knew you would be,” Preacher said simply. “Smoke and me taught you well enough.”

“Well, I suppose that’s true,” Matt said with a shrug.

He was the tallest of the three men, a fair-haired, handsome youngster in a black Stetson and a faded-blue bib-front shirt. Most women naturally took a liking to Matt Jensen, and he returned the feeling.

With troublemakers, it was different. Matt carried a holstered Colt .44 double-action revolver on his right hip, and a Bowie knife was sheathed on his left. He didn’t hesitate to use the weapons when he needed to, and he was almost as fast and deadly with a gun as his adopted older brother Smoke.

As Smoke thumbed fresh cartridges into his Colt to replace the ones he had fired, he said, “We’re much obliged to both of you for your help, aren’t we, Monte?”

“We sure are,” Big Rock’s sheriff agreed. He was reloading, too. As he snapped the cylinder of his gun closed, he went on, “I’d better check on the rest of those varmints and make sure they’re all dead. Gonna be wounded in the bank who need tending to as well, I’ll bet.”

“Why don’t you go see about that?” Smoke suggested. “Preacher and Matt and I will take care of the chores out here.”

Monte nodded and said, “Thanks.” He hurried into the bank, which was ominously quiet.

Smoke and Matt went quickly from body to body, checking for signs of life. The young outlaw Matt had knocked out was the only one of the bank robbers still alive. He was wounded in the left leg and had lost quite a bit of blood, but Smoke thought he would probably live.

He rolled the unconscious outlaw onto his belly, pulled the man’s arms behind his back, and used the outlaw’s own belt to lash his wrists together for the time being. That way if he came to, he wouldn’t be able to cause a problem.

Dr. Hiram Simpson, the local sawbones, came running from his office and joined several other townspeople in crowding into the bank to see what they could do to help. Monte Carson emerged from the building a few minutes later, his features pale and drawn.

“It’s pretty bad in there,” he told Smoke, Matt, and Preacher. “Jasper Davenport, who just took over running the bank, is dead. Didn’t even make it in the job for a month before those blasted outlaws gunned him down. Mitchell Byrd’s dead, too, and Elaine Harris is wounded. Got a dead outlaw in there with most of his face shot off. I reckon that’s probably what started the battle. Appears that Mitch got his hands on a gun and shot the desperado.”

Smoke trusted Monte’s assessment of the situation. He asked, “Does it look like Miz Harris will make it?”

“The doc didn’t say,” Monte replied with a shake of his head.

Smoke pointed a thumb at the unconscious outlaw.

“Well, when he’s through in there, this fella’s going to need some attention. Matt and I can go ahead and haul him over to the jail for you if you want, though.”

Monte nodded and said, “That’d sure be giving me a hand. I’m obliged to you boys.”

“Get his feet, Matt,” Smoke said.

Smoke and Matt were both very strong, so they didn’t have any trouble lifting the bank robber and toting him down the street to the sturdy building that housed Monte Carson’s office and Big Rock’s jail. All the cells were empty at the moment, so they carried the man into the one nearest the cell block door and placed him on the bunk. As soon as they had stepped out, Monte swung the barred door shut, closing it solidly.

Preacher had followed them into the sheriff’s office.

“Beats me why you don’t just let the rapscallion bleed to death,” he commented when Smoke, Matt, and Monte left the cell block. “Saves the bother and expense of a trial and a hangin’.”

“That’s not the way the law works, Preacher,” Monte said. “It’s mighty good to see you again, by the way. You, too, Matt.”

“It’s good to be here,” Matt said. “It’s been too long since the three of us have gotten together.”

Monte asked, “You fellas want some coffee?”

“I figure we’ll go over to the café and have some lunch before we head out to Sugarloaf,” Smoke said. “So no thanks to the coffee, but we’re obliged for the offer. Were you able to find out what happened inside the bank, Monte?”