Ralph Compton - Bluff City

The rest prudently hugged the earth.

Clay hunkered, tugging on Melanie, and then, his fingers flying, he quickly reloaded.

Jesse Stark tittered as he ejected spent cartridges from the Remington. “We showed them! They’ll give us breathing space now. We can make it!”

“You always did count your eggs before they were hatched,” Clay said.

“At least I don’t go around calling myself someone else when I’m still me,” Stark replied.

Melanie put a hand on each of them. “Stop the bickering and listen!”

Clay did, and heard nothing. The night had gone silent. Barker’s hired killers had stopped shooting.

“What are they up to?” Jesse Stark wondered.

“Say it a little louder so they know right where we are,” Clay whispered. He clasped Melanie’s hand and began backing toward the wall. That wall was their only hope. They must get over it or they would die.

Stark retreated alongside them, his spurs jingling. “Barker is the one I want. No one double-crosses me and gets away with it.”

“Quit talking,” Clay whispered.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Stark bristled. “I told you. These jackasses can’t shoot worth a damn.”

A shot cracked, just one, and Jesse Stark grunted and clutched at his side. He slowed but caught up again, moving stiffly.

“How bad are you hit?” Melanie whispered.

Stark did not answer her.

Furtive rustling told Clay the men in purple were near. “Give me your Remington, damn it,” he whispered to Stark, and this time Stark did so without comment. A revolver in each hand, Clay thumbed back the hammers and said softly to Melanie, “When I start the dance, run for the wall. Don’t stop, no matter what you hear or see. Stark, you give her a boost, then she can lean down and help you up.”

“I won’t—” Melanie began.

“No,” Clay cut her off. “Do as I say or none of us will get out of this alive.” He pecked her on the cheek. “For what it is worth, I have never been happier than I have been with you.”

“Oh, Clay,” Melanie said, and then Stark pushed her and they sped toward the wall.

Clay hunkered lower. He figured the gunnies would think all three of them were running for their lives and rush after them. He was right. They came from the right and from the left and from the rear, their silhouettes outlined against the glow of the mansion windows. He shot them as fast as they appeared, in the head when he could and in the chest when he could not tell the head from the torso. He shot them and they dropped. They fired back, but he was low to the ground and invisible in the dark, and they were not the gun-shark he was. How many he shot he could not say, but they did not stop coming until both the Colt and the Remington were empty and the air was wreathed with gun smoke.

Clay wedged the Remington under his belt and backpedaled, reloading the Colt as he went. He reached the wall without being shot at. He looked up but did not see Melanie or Stark. Taking a gamble, he whispered her name.

There was no reply.

Anxiety welled up. Clay whispered again, louder, and moved in case he was shot at. But there was neither shot nor response, and his alarm climbed. Suddenly shoving the Colt in his holster, he backed up half a dozen steps, got a running start and launched himself at the top of the wall. His outstretched fingers found purchase, but not enough to pull him over. His own weight brought him down again.

Suddenly a ruckus broke out in the street. Yells and blows, and a single shot, and then the pounding of hooves and the rattle of a carriage.

Heedless of his safety, thinking only of Melanie, Clay spun and raced for the gate. He thought he glimpsed a couple of guards, but if he did they did not fire at him. Maybe they did not want to share the fate of their friends. Or maybe he was mistaken.

The two guards at the gate were gone, the gate wide open. Clay stopped in the middle of the street, his blood chilling at the sight of a body sprawled belly-down. But it was a man, not a woman. He ran over.

A sense of deep disappointment washed over him. “I wanted the honor,” Clay said quietly, and rolled Jesse Stark over. The body bore two wounds, one low in the ribs, where Stark had been shot by the guards, and the other a bullet hole in the head. The first wound had bled horribly, soaking Stark’s shirt, and would have ended his life eventually.

“Sometimes life just isn’t fair,” Clay said. A whinny intruded on his musing. He shook himself, annoyed that he could stand there indulging in regret when the woman he cared for was in danger.

The claybank was at the corner of the wall, staring at him.

Clay placed the Remington next to Stark’s out-flung hand, then ran to the claybank, swung on and dug in his heels. He flew at a gallop, anxious to spot the carriage, and finally did, blocks ahead, the driver using his whip in a frenzy.

Clay jabbed his heels harder but the claybank could not go any faster. He began to gain, not much but enough that he would not lose sight of the carriage before it reached its destination.

When the Emporium hove into sight, Clay grimly smiled. Barker would go where he had men to protect him.

The driver leaped down and opened the door. Barker appeared, struggling to pull someone from the carriage. He beckoned to the driver and the driver jumped to help. Together they hauled Melanie out and forced her toward the doors. Two men in purple coats came from inside to lend a hand.

Clay was a block away when a figure came running down the street from the opposite direction. Light glinted off a tin star.

Marshal Vale hollered for Barker and those with him to halt. Barker pointed at the lawman and snarled at the driver, and the driver promptly drew a pistol from under his coat and aimed at Vale. The lawman’s revolver boomed first. The driver fell, and the next moment Barker and Melanie and the two men in purple were inside the Emporium.

Reining to a stop next to the carriage, Clay swung down. He did not go rushing blindly in but waited for Vale, who was replacing the spent cartridge.

“I wondered where you got to. That was Miss Stanley, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” Clay confirmed. “We’ve been to Barker’s mansion and back.” He paused. “Jesse Stark is dead.”

“By your hand or another’s?”

“As much as I would like to, I can’t claim credit.”

They moved toward the doors. Inside, someone was yelling and cursing. Through the glass they could see people scurrying about.

“Barker is offering money for our heads,” Marshal Vale said. “I heard something about a thousand dollars each.”

“He is getting desperate,” Clay said.

“Let’s hope his gunnies have more sense than to try and kill lawmen,” Marshal Vale declared.

“Whether they do or they don’t, Barker won’t come peaceably,” Clay said.

“Then we treat him as we would any other lawbreaker. Try to take him alive, but if you can’t we won’t lose any sleep over it.”

Clay grinned. “That is just what I wanted to hear.” He flung a door open and strode in, as brazen as he pleased. A revolver boomed to his right and Clay answered in kind. Another blasted from over by the bar. Clay cored an eyeball and a body sprawled in a heap.

“That was some shooting,” Marshal Vale marveled.

The Emporium was open twenty-four hours, so even that late many of the tables were in use. Those gambling had stopped to gape.

“We are looking for Harve Barker!” Clay informed them. “He just came in here dragging a young woman. Where did they get to?”

Of the scores present not one answered him. Then a solitary arm rose and a finger pointed at a flight of stairs and the landing. “Up there!” Wesley Oaks shouted.

Clay started forward. That was when Charles appeared on the landing, a Winchester to his shoulder. After him came Harve Barker, holding a revolver to Melanie’s temple.