William Johnstone - A Good Day to Die

Left to his own devices, Latigo would have abandoned the coach and its passengers to their fate. Not out of callousness or indifference, but out of prudence. He’d come up in a hard school and learned early not to take unnecesary risks. The coach folk were strangers, no kin or friends to him.

But Latigo had been charged to ride with Sam Heller and, having been so charged by Señora Lorena, was faithful to his duty. The gringo was loco, a madman. But ah, what magnificent madness!

With more than a few sighs and head shakes, Latigo took off after Sam, taking his mount and the two horses strung behind him over the top of the hill and down the other side.

On the pinto, Sam tore across the flat after the stagecoach and its pursuers. His horse was fresh, the coach was near. Behind, Latigo was coming up fast, leaning far forward in the saddle.

Comanches are not easily taken unawares, but the band of marauders was intent on its prey. The pinto closed the gap between itself and the rearmost of the braves. Sam drew the mule’s-leg with his right hand, gripping the reins between his teeth.

Levering the cut-down Winchester, he opened with a fast-crackling volley of lead.

Three braves in the back of the pack were swept off their mounts and thrown to the ground, never to rise again.

The others now knew Sam was on their tail.

The stagecoach was slowing; so were the Comanches. A rider at the head of the team on the left-hand side held the headstall of the lead horse nearest him, trying to turn the animal.

The stagecoach rumbled to a halt. Sam rode up along the left-hand side of the coach, closing on three braves clustered together.

The nearest, a bowman with arrow nocked and pointed at a passenger half leaning out of a window and shooting, turned and loosed the arrow at Sam. Narrowly missing his head, it whizzed past so close he could feel the air disturbed by its passage. Sam triggered a burst of rounds, drilling the archer and a rifle-wielding brave riding alongside him.

Latigo unsheathed a repeating carbine from its saddle scabbard and drove down on the stagecoach’s right-hand side, firing at three Comanches grouped there.

Five braves, the trio faced by Latigo and the two on Sam’s side, wheeled their mounts around, turning them to meet the threat. A brave with an eight-foot-lance rushed Sam, thrusting the spear-blade at him. Sam shot him in the torso, felling him.

A brave threw a tomahawk at Latigo and missed. A passenger stuck his arm out of the coach, gun in hand. He blazed away at the tomahawk thrower at point-blank range, burning him down.

The brave holding the lead horse in check released its headstall to bring his rifle in line with Sam. Sam fired first, knocking him to the ground. He urged the pinto forward.

The brave he’d felled was still alive, groping in the dirt for his weapon and catching it up. The pinto trampled him. Sam held the animal in place, its iron-shod hooves dancing atop the Comanche, hammering him into the dirt.

Sam moved on, rounding the front of the team and coming up behind the duo on the other side shooting it out with Latigo. Sam shot one in the back while Latigo downed the other.

Taking no chances with possible hair-triggered survivors, Sam shouted, “Don’t shoot, We’re friends!”

“Amen to that, brother!” a man’s voice returned from inside the coach.

Sam and Latigo reined in, eyeing downed braves pouring red lifeblood onto the hardpacked dirt road, the ground soaking it up like a sponge. Swinging down from the saddle, Sam hitched the pinto’s reins to an iron staple bolted to the side of the coach. Latigo similarly secured his horse, then checked the lead rope and two horses on the string. They checked out okay. He and Sam dropped finishing slugs into the skulls of the downed who looked like they were still breathing.

Inside the coach, a woman cried out, “Lord be praised!”

The stagecoach doors were flung open and two men climbed out.

Carbine in hand, Latigo climbed up on the front of the stagecoach. He set the hand brake, locking it into place, and checked the driver for signs of life. “Dead,” he said, looking up.

Sam’s clothes were damp with sweat and he was breathing hard. He started reloading, plucking cartridges from a bandolier and feeding them into the mule’s-leg. He faced west, eyes scanning west and north. The immediate landscape was partly obscured by dust clouds kicked up by the chase. He tried to peer through them, frowning. It looked clear of more Comanches, for now.

One of the coach duo was a big, sandy-haired fellow with a handlebar mustache. He wore a baggy, rumpled brown suit with a tan vest and held a .32 pocket gun. The other, of medium height, was slight, birdlike and thin faced. He wore a derby hat, a natty green-and-black checked suit, and long, slim boots. His right arm at his side held a big-bore, heavy-caliber handgun pointed at the ground.

“I don’t mind telling you, you and your friend saved our bacon, sir. Thought we were goners, sure,” he said to Sam. He mopped his face with a damp handkerchief. “Whew!”

“Sam Heller’s the name. My friend is Latigo.”

“I’m Hal Brewster, salesman out of St. Louis,” the second man introduced himself.

“Donny Donahue, same line and town,” the sandy-haired man said. Drummers they were, traveling salesmen.

A woman inside the coach stuck her head outside. She was haggard, white lipped, and trembling. “One of my girls is hurt, hurt bad. Can you help her?”

“I’ll take a look, ma’am.” Holstering the mule’s-leg, Sam stepped up into the coach’s interior.

Two dead bodies lay heaped on the floor like sacks of dirty laundry, a man with the shaft of a broken arrow sticking out of his eye socket, and a woman with half her face shot away.

Occupying the rear seat was another woman and two girls. “I’m Mrs. Anderson, Mary Anderson.” She and a girl about twelve years old were huddled around the wounded youngster. At the same time they were trying to keep their legs and feet as clear as they could of the corpses on the floor.

“I was taking my nieces Sally and June to meet their daddy in Dallas. June was hit,” Mrs. Anderson said. “I don’t know what to do!”

Sally was about the same age as Lydia Fisher. Long brown hair parted in the middle framed a deathly white oval face. Her eyes stood out like they were on stalks. She was shivering, and held herself so taut that she looked to Sam like she’d twang like a plucked bowstring if touched.

June, ten, was short and chubby with brown hair cut in bangs and a round face. She half sat, half lay in corner of the seat. The back of her head was cradled and propped up by a rolled-up fringed shawl. An arrow was stuck in the girl’s chest high on the right side. Sam winced when he got a good look at it.

June’s eyes were closed, her lids drawn taut, orbs bulging like walnuts behind them. Her lips were parted, a line of wetness clung in the corner of her mouth.

Mary Anderson peered over behind Sam’s back, breathing hard. “She’s not moving! Is she ... ?”

Sam held the side of his head low over the girl, listening. Her breathing was faint, slow and laboring. “Still alive,” he said, straightening up.

“Thank God!” Mary Anderson cried. June whimpered, tears spilling from half-closed eyes.

“Fainted, looks like,” Sam surmised.

A twisted hand gripped his forearm, squeezing it. Mary Anderson was a bony, wiry, old-maid type, but at the moment her clutch was so strong Sam’s flesh went numb under it. “How ... how bad is it?” she asked.

“Not good, but it could be worse. There’s no wheezing in her breath or bubbles in the blood around the wound, so it probably missed the lung. I ain’t no doctor, mind,” he added quickly.