J.A. Johnstone - The Loner - Crossfire

Judging the distance from the window to the ground, Conrad decided the drop wouldn’t be too bad. He slid his Colt back in its holster and lifted a leg over the windowsill. He had just gotten his second leg out the window and was perched on the sill when heavy footsteps pounded into the room behind him and a deep voice bellowed, “Hold it right there, mister! You can’t just—”

Conrad glanced over his shoulder and saw a big man with a lawman’s badge pinned to his coat entering the room with a shotgun in his hands. Somebody had called the law on the loco hombre who had run into the saloon brandishing a six-shooter.

The man in the alley heard the shout, and jerked his head up toward the window. His eyes widened in surprise and he lifted his gun up, but Conrad had already let go and leaped toward him.

Conrad crashed on top of the man and drove him against the rain barrel, which turned over and sent water flooding into the alley. They rolled over the barrel and were spilled into the dirty lake that had formed. Conrad clamped his left hand on the man’s right wrist and shoved the gun aside as a shot blasted from it. The slug thudded into the wall of the hardware store next door.

Smashing his right fist into the man’s face he drove the back of the man’s head into the mud. The man heaved and bucked but Conrad twisted his wrist so hard that bones ground together. The man howled in pain and dropped the gun.

Conrad grabbed the man’s coat, rolling over in the muck as they struggled. He twisted his body aside just in time to take the vicious blow aimed at his groin on his thigh instead. His leg went numb for a moment, but at least it didn’t incapacitate him as it would have had it found its intended target.

As they fought the gunman managed to lock his hands around Conrad’s throat. Conrad looked up past the man’s furious face and saw the lawman leaning out the window on the second floor. The star packer was yelling, but Conrad couldn’t make out the words over the roaring of his blood in his head as the bushwhacker tried to choke the life out of him.

Cupping his hands, he slapped them over the man’s ears as hard as he could, assaulting the eardrums. The man yelped in pain and loosened his grip. Conrad broke it and flung him off. The man rolled across the muddy alley and came to a stop against the wall of the hardware store.

Conrad scrambled after him. The man jerked a leg up and tried to kick Conrad in the stomach, but Conrad grabbed his foot and twisted it. The man yelled and was forced to roll over onto his belly to keep Conrad from breaking his leg.

Conrad let go of the leg and dropped on top of the man, landing hard with both knees in the small of his back. He grabbed the man’s hair and slammed his face into the ground twice. That was finally enough to knock the fight out of the man. He stopped struggling and lay there gasping.

“By God, stop attackin’ that fella or I’ll shoot!”

Conrad looked up at the lawman, who had his shotgun pointed at the two men in the alley. Conrad was a little out of breath. “Be careful ... with that Greener, Marshal. If it goes off ... you’ll kill both of us down here.”

“Stand up and move away from that man, you damn loco weed!” the badge-toter ordered. “You’re under arrest for attempted murder, assault and battery, unlawfully dischargin’ a firearm, trespassin’, and anything else I can think of !”

Conrad gestured toward the semiconscious man at his feet. “Blast it, he’s the one who tried to kill me! Him and his partner I wounded out on the street.”

“So you’re the one who shot that hombre! I might a’ knowed it. Take your gun out and drop it.”

Conrad snorted in disgust. “Not hardly. It’s nearly brand-new. I’m not going to drop it in the mud.”

The lawman sputtered angrily for a moment, then said, “Stay right there! Don’t you move, you hear me?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Conrad said.

Not until he found out for sure who had tried to have him killed.

Chapter 3

By the time the burly lawman got down the stairs in the saloon and reached the alley, three more men wearing badges and carrying shotguns had run up. They were standing next to Conrad. The first lawman waved his Greener and ordered, “Disarm that man and take him into custody!”

“Settle down, Hargity,” the other deputy said. “This is Conrad Browning. We’re not going to arrest him.”

Hargity scowled. “Who?”

“He used to live here. In fact, he was one of Carson City’s leading citizens. Owns railroads, mines, banks, ships, you name it. Friend of the governor.”

“That don’t matter,” Hargity snapped. “He shot a man on the street, raised hell in that saloon, and assaulted this fella. I say he’s under arrest!”

“If you’d bothered to question any witnesses,” said the lawman who had introduced himself to Conrad as Deputy Wallace, “you’d know this man and the one Mr. Browning shot tried to kill him right in front of the hospital. That’s the first thing Stevens and I determined when we got here. Mr. Browning fired his gun in self-defense, and he was trying to apprehend the second gunman.” Wallace nudged the bushwhacker, who lay on the muddy floor of the alley. “Looks like he succeeded.”

“But ... but ...” Hargity sputtered.

“No offense, but I’m chief deputy,” Wallace said. “You and Stevens take this man and lock him up.”

“I’m going to want to ask him some questions later,” Conrad said.

Wallace nodded. “That’s fine, as long as Marshal Owens goes along with it. Right now I want to go see how that man you wounded is doing. Are you coming along?”

“Yes, I am,” Conrad said. “He may be able to tell me what I want to know.”

“Who paid the two of them to ambush you?”

Conrad nodded. “That’s right. I’ve got a pretty good idea, but I’d like for it to be confirmed.”

The slender, solemn-faced Wallace motioned for Conrad to follow him and left the alley, heading across the street to the hospital. The lobby was in an uproar, not surprising since there had been a gun battle right outside. Dr. Liam Taggart was talking to several men, some in white coats, the rest in business suits.

Taggart spotted Conrad approaching with Deputy Wallace and came across the lobby to greet them. “Are you all right, Mr. Browning? The rumor is that you were the target of an assassination attempt.”

“That’s true, but I’m fine,” Conrad said. He looked down at his mud-splattered clothes. “Nothing hurt but my dignity and my wardrobe.”

“I’ll have a nurse tell Mr. Vincenzo right away that you’re all right. He was quite worried when he heard the shots. He seemed to think it was a foregone conclusion you were involved in the trouble, whatever it was.”

Conrad smiled. “Arturo knows me pretty well.”

Taggart crooked a finger at a nurse and gave her the message to deliver to Arturo, then Conrad asked the doctor, “What about the wounded man? I assume he was brought in here.”

Taggart nodded. “Yes, he’s in surgery at the moment to repair his shoulder. You shot him?”

“Seemed like the thing to do at the time,” Conrad said.

“Your bullet did an extensive amount of damage. I doubt he’ll ever be able to use his left arm properly again.”

“Then maybe he won’t try to bushwhack anybody else,” Wallace said. “We’re going to want to talk to him.”

“You’ll have to wait a good long time. It’ll take a while for the ether to wear off.”

Wallace shrugged. “We have another prisoner we can question, I suppose. In the meantime, I’m going to assign a deputy to guard this one. There’ll be somebody outside the man’s room all the time until he’s healthy enough for us to take him to jail.”