A Knife in the Heart. William W. Johnstone
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Название: A Knife in the Heart
Автор: William W. Johnstone
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Вестерны
Серия: A Hank Fallon Western
isbn: 9780786043873
isbn:
“There’s plenty of matches, pops,” the kid said. “Take your time. And smile. Our business will be finished directly.”
“I wish,” said the man by the horses, “they’d hurry up and get her done.”
The match flared in Fallon’s hands. Cupping the match against the wind, he brought it toward the cheap cigar.
“That’s right,” the man with the shotgun said. Then he blew out the match as Fallon inched it to the stogie’s tip. “Oops. Try again.”
Fallon’s eyes hardened, but so did the kid’s.
“You ever seen what a body looks like after it’s took two loads of buckshot in the belly at point-blank range?” the punk asked with a malevolent grin.
More times than you have, pup, Fallon thought, but found another match.
His mind raced. Break the punk’s neck, take the shotgun, and cut loose on the man pretending he didn’t know one end of a cinch from another. The horses would be rearing, probably pulling loose. He’d have one barrel left if one of the three inside the bank came out, and the horses rearing would protect him from the lookout across the street. Pick up the pistols from one of the two men he had killed, maybe a rifle if the man with the duster hid one of those, too. He’d have a chance at least, and the ruckus would bring the policemen and everyone with a gun outside their businesses. Cheyenne, Wyoming, was a major city, but most of the entrepreneurs here were westerners to their bones, and they didn’t take kindly to men robbing them or their neighbors.
But . . .
Fallon struck the match.
That would leave citizens inside the bank with two, possibly three—if no one stepped outside to escape after the first bit of gunfire—hardened killers. Hardened. Fallon was sure of this. These weren’t boys on a whim. This had been well-planned and completely professional. Three men inside. Three outside. On a day when the bank’s vaults would be filled with cash and coin.
He had to wait until all the bank robbers were outside.
The match moved to the cigar. The punk grinned like a clown this time and let the flame come to the stinking cigar. The kid sucked, the flame grew, the tip began to smoke and glow. Fallon heard the door open.
“It ain’t lit yet,” the punk managed to say as he puffed and clenched his teeth. Fallon glimpsed a man in a bowler as he hurried by carrying grain sacks. Another, with a saddlebag over his shoulder. The third, last man, with a rifle pointing inside. He shot a glance at the punk and Fallon, and then warned the bank employees and any customers not to stick their heads outside.
The man held the door open.
“Throw him inside, Whit,” the one with the Winchester said, and looked at Fallon. “Once that door closes, buster, it better not open or we’ll riddle this building with so much lead, you’d think we had a Gatling gun.”
The man hurried to his horse.
Whit, the punk, said, “You heard Mabry. Inside.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Fallon brought the match down and stuck the tip against Whit’s throat.
The punk yelped, and Fallon slammed the palm of his left hand against the kid’s jaw, then slid the forearm past his neck to the crook of his arm. Twisting, Fallon pulled Whit against his body. The shotgun clopped onto the wooden planks, and Fallon used his right hand to reach down, found a belted revolver, and he pulled it, thumbed back the hammer, and saw Mabry turning around, cursing.
The .45 bucked in Fallon’s hand, and crimson exploded from the gray vest the outlaw wore, just above his waistband. Two of the men were already mounted, and as Mabry twisted from the impact of a lead slug in his belly, he triggered the Winchester, the bullet splintering the post of the hitching rail. That sent the horses screaming and the two already carrying riders bucking.
Mabry was down on a knee, head bent, blood pouring from his mouth. The one who had been pretending to cinch the horses ran toward Fallon, pulling a double-action Smith & Wesson from his holster and dropping his Winchester.
“Nooooo!” Whit tried to scream, and Fallon shoved him toward the duster-wearing horse holder as the .44 bucked three times, turning Whit around, and another slug shattered his spine. Fallon was diving now, triggering the Colt, hitting the horse holder in the shoulder and sending him stumbling into the street. Two of the horses had broken their tethers and stormed down the street. Fallon landed, came up to his knees, grabbed the shotgun, and eared back the hammers.
A bullet tore through the crown of his hat, knocking it off. Fallon caught a glimpse of one of the men shooting recklessly from the saddle of his bucking horse. He saw the other had managed to get his horse under control. That’s the one Fallon drew a bead on and touched one of the triggers to the scattergun. The man was blown out of the saddle, his arm slamming the other rider somehow in the face, and sending him crashing to the pavement. Then both men disappeared underneath horseflesh and the acrid, biting white smoke from the shotgun. The horses ran, the one belonging to the man Fallon had killed heading up the street, toward the courthouse, leaving a bloody corpse on the pavement. The other horse, a black Thoroughbred, galloped the other way, out of town, dragging its rider—his left foot hung up in the stirrup—behind him for two blocks, leaving a trail of blood and gore until the socked foot slipped out of the boot, and deposited another dead man in front of Blessingame’s Funeral Parlor.
Fallon sat up, bracing his back against the wall of the Stockgrowers’ bank. A bullet splintered the wood inches from Fallon, and fragments of wood stung his face. That would be from the man in the slicker, across the street. Fallon had one round left in the shotgun, but buckshot wouldn’t travel that far. Fallon looked at the rifle that Mabry had carried, contemplated his chances of getting it. Two bullets hit the wood then, one shattering the window and another tearing a whole in the left sleeve of Fallon’s expensive coat. Fallon saw the horse holder, standing, aiming, touching the trigger of his Smith & Wesson, realizing it was empty, and pulling another gun from a second holster. The man across the street fired again, but his bullet dug a furrow into the boardwalk. Fallon triggered the shotgun again and saw the horse holder catapulted four feet into the street.
He rolled over then, tossing the shotgun away, grabbing the Winchester, and diving as far as he could. Another bullet whined off the street. Fallon saw the man, halfway in the street, levering the rifle. Fallon came up and dived again, this time landing behind the water trough in front of the grocery next door to the bank. A bullet tore through the heavy wood, showering Fallon with water. He rolled onto his back, levered a round into Mabry’s .44-40, and caught his breath.
The lookout in the slicker fired again. The plate glass window to the grocery shattered.
Fallon swallowed, tried to figure out his best action. Which side to go to or come up over the top.
Then, a woman’s voice cried out, “You gol-dern hoodlum. Take this.”
What sounded like a cannon roared, and then all Fallon heard were the shrieks of men and women, and someone ringing a fire bell, and horses and feet clattering down the boardwalks and on Cheyenne’s paved streets of its main business district.
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