Killers Never Sleep, page 21
He picked up his rifle and jogged to his horse who had stopped about halfway down the street. He practically leapt into the saddle and sped off to rejoin the fray.
CHAPTER 24
As he struggled to keep his eyes focused in the dark, Deputy Sherwood Blake wished he had not drunk as much as he had. The pain in his scalp and face had begun to return as the excitement caused the numbing effects of the whiskey to quickly recede.
He had been drinking in The Corner Saloon—which was not actually on the corner of a street—when the shooting had started. Bullets had shattered the saloon’s front window as the men who had been so curious about his injuries only a moment before began to drop to the floor. Blake had fallen with them, half from instinct and half from the liquor.
He had heard a rider race past the saloon as he continued shooting down at people on the street. Blake did not pause to check on his fellow patrons as he crawled over them and began to make his way outside. He had just reached the boardwalk when another rider opened fire, causing him to dive back into the saloon. The door had saved at least two rounds from hitting him, possibly more.
Blake tried to shake his head clear now as he moved forward, but it only made the pain from his burns grow worse. Shots and shouts from other parts of town reached him as he slid along the wall of the saloon in slow pursuit of the gunmen. He saw citizens tending to each other as he tried to make sense of what was happening all around him. Someone had decided to lay siege to the town, and, through his haze of pain and drink, Blake knew it had to be the Washington Gang. He had counted only three LeBlanc boys escape from the livery behind The Laramie Grand and doubted they had enough men to conduct such an attack on their own. The Washington men had probably been drawn by the smoke and destruction they had seen from the outskirts of town. They had decided to make the most of a dire situation.
His Colt in hand, Blake checked an alley as he stepped from one boardwalk to another. He passed a woman using a kerchief to try to stop the bleeding from a bullet hole in another woman’s shoulder. A man in the middle of the street cried out as he cradled his leg. A young boy on the opposite side of the street wept as he pushed against another fallen man to get up.
Blake heard a commotion of gunfire at the next corner and began to run in that direction, but dizziness overcame him. The street tilted violently beneath him, and Blake tilted with it, landing flat on his side before he slid off the boardwalk.
A man on horseback must have heard him hit the ground, for he brought his horse around and rode back to him. His pistol was aimed down at Blake, but he did not fire.
To Blake, it felt like man and horse had been standing over him for hours before he finally said, “I recognize you. You’re one of Trammel’s deputies, ain’t you? Where’s your star?”
Blake wanted to raise his pistol, but the man and dark sky above him kept twitching in and out of focus. He thought he might get sick, so he closed his eyes. “What’s it to you?”
“Nothing, I guess,” the man said. “And don’t worry. I ain’t gonna kill you.”
The boy up the street who had been willing his father to stand continued to wail for help. A single shot from the rider looming over Blake quieted the street.
“I ain’t gonna kill you because I need you alive,” the rider said. “I need you to tell Trammel that this is only the beginning. Me and my men are going to keep on hitting this place day and night until you give over Ben Washington. You’ll never know how I’ll hit or when and you won’t have a moment’s rest until Ben goes free. Tell him to put Ben on a horse and let him ride off. Tell him that’s the only way all of this will end. Think you can remember all that? I hope you can. You smell like a whiskey barrel.”
With his eyes still closed, Blake raised his pistol toward the sound of the rider’s voice. “Here’s something to remember me by.”
Blake heard horse and rider bolt off before he could manage to squeeze the trigger. He fired anyway. He was sure his bullet sailed harmlessly into the sky, but it felt good to do something to set the outlaw on edge.
“You’ve got fight in you,” the man yelled back as he rode away. “I’ll make sure I save you for last.”
Blake lowered his pistol and tried to roll himself upright. He did not know where Trammel was but began to stagger toward the sound of distant gunfire. He was sure the sheriff could not be far.
* * *
Mahaffey rode to the end of the street and was glad to see all of his men had gathered where they had been told to gather. They were relatively unharmed, though Coombs was holding onto his shoulder. A quick count showed him two were missing. “Where’s Hank? Where’s Jim LeBlanc?”
Earnshaw said, “I saw Hank tangling with the sheriff a few streets back. You told us not to double back for anyone, so I didn’t. He’s either dead or captured.”
Rick LeBlanc brought his horse around. “I saw my brother riding straight out of town. He looked like he was hurt bad. We’ve got to find him and get him back to camp before they catch up to us.”
A bullet creased the air between them, and LeBlanc heeled his horse into a gallop. Mahaffey hung back to see where the shot had come from while the rest of his men followed LeBlanc.
Mahaffey saw the dark outline of a large man on a sorrel charging his way. He knew that had to be Trammel.
Another slender figure was riding up the street right behind him and, despite the darkness and the distance, Mahaffey recognized him as Leo Brandt.
Mahaffey steadied his mount as he took careful aim with his pistol at the charging Trammel and fired into the center of the sheriff’s bulk. He paused just long enough to see the animal pitch forward, throwing Trammel over its head as rider and horse crashed to the ground.
Mahaffey snapped the reins and spurred the horse after the others, wondering if Brandt would be foolish enough to continue to give chase. He rounded the corner on the road at the edge of town and kept going through the overgrowth alongside the dirt path that wound back to where his men had set up camp. He paused behind a large rock on the side of the path and holstered his pistol as he drew his Winchester from the saddle scabbard.
He heard a horse galloping toward him and took aim in the darkness. When the sound grew closer, Mahaffey cut loose with three shots before racing off to catch up to the others. He glanced behind him as he fled, unsure if he had struck Brandt. All he knew was that the deputy was no longer after him. He had made his point.
After a mile or so, when it was clear no one was chasing them, Mahaffey saw his men had stopped in a clearing where Earnshaw had taken hold of a riderless horse.
When he stopped beside them, he saw Jim LeBlanc’s body on the ground. The horse had belonged to him in life.
Rick LeBlanc looked down at his brother while Burt LeBlanc wiped at his eyes with his sleeve.
“He was trying to get to our camp,” Rick said through gritted teeth. “That’s the third brother I’ve lost to this town. I’ll make them pay for this. I’ll make them pay dearly. All of them.”
Mahaffey kept looking around to see if anyone was coming after them. They were still too close to town for his tastes. “We’ll be paying dearly ourselves unless we keep moving. Let’s get going, boys. There’s no point in making this easy for them.”
The men rode out, including both remaining LeBlanc brothers. Mahaffey caught up to Rick LeBlanc as they rode away from his brother. “I’m sorry about what happened to Joe. I didn’t know him well, but he seemed like a fine man.”
“His name was Jim, and he wasn’t a fine man at all. He was a lousy drunk and a schemer, but he was still my brother. But Burt and I would be dead right now if he hadn’t thought to break through the wall of Hagen’s room.”
Mahaffey knew they had more pressing concerns than one man’s grief. “We’ll have to camp somewhere else tonight. We can’t risk having anyone track us there come the morning.”
Rick’s tone was cold as he said, “Some outlaw you turned out to be. I was thinking we should wait a couple of hours and hit them again around midnight. Make them pay for what they did to Jim.”
Mahaffey resisted the urge to knock the man out of his saddle. “This isn’t a game, LeBlanc, and this isn’t about revenge. These horses need rest and so do my men. We need to count up our ammunition and see how much we’ve got before we plan on another go-round. I told one of Trammel’s deputies that we’re going to keep doing this until they release Ben. We’ve got to give some time for that message to spread so they see there’s only one way out of this for them. We need to let fear take root before we strike again.”
LeBlanc continued to ride through the darkness. “You’re the one who said we should kick them while they’re down and they’re down right now, Mahaffey.”
“We did that,” Mahaffey said. “But my men and I have done this kind of thing before. It cost us two good men and a lot of bullets. We have to take that into account before we can even think of hitting them again. An empty gun’s not much good to anyone. You’d do well to remember that.”
Mahaffey could practically feel LeBlanc sneer at him in the darkness. “I’m not some kid who needs teaching, Mahaffey. Me and my brothers have done this kind of thing long before we ever heard of you.”
“Smacking around pimps and drunks in New Orleans is different than raiding a town,” Mahaffey told him. “Fear takes time. And there’s also our supplies to consider. I figure they’ll last us one more day at most. We’ll need to find a way to stock up soon if this goes on for much longer.”
“I’m sure you’ve got plenty of ideas on how to get more,” LeBlanc said. “We can hunt for our food if we have to.”
“We can,” Mahaffey allowed, “but unless you’re handy with a bow and arrow, hunting takes bullets. Every shot we use is one less we’ll have against the town.”
“Then we’ll just have to get more, won’t we?”
Mahaffey had an idea of how they could get more but kept it to himself. He decided the less LeBlanc knew about what he thought the better for all concerned.
CHAPTER 25
“I’ve been seeing entirely too much of you lately, Hagen,” Doc Carson said as he finished stitching up the wound in the gambler’s hip. “You’re lucky that bullet passed straight through you without hitting a bowel or your bladder. The bullet struck your hip bone and kept on going. I expect you’ll have a limp for a month or so, but you’ll probably live. Can’t do anything about the scar, though. Good thing you’re not a vain man.”
Hagen did not mind the doctor’s teasing. He did not even mind being shot. The laudanum Doc Carson had given him had taken effect. “It’ll be just another scar to add to my collection. The ladies will be impressed.”
Doc Carson glanced at him over the top of his spectacles. “The kind of ladies you attract are only interested in the amount of money in your pocket, not the scars on your body.”
Hagen grinned through the discomfort as Carson continued stitching him shut. “You sound jealous, Doc. You ought to come around one of my places sometime. I’ll be sure to find you a suitable companion. A lady who has some patience for a man of your advanced years.”
“No thanks.” Carson snipped the last stitch. “I’ve already got enough ailments without having one of your soiled doves adding to the list.”
Hagen saw Trammel rap on the open door of the prison doctor’s office. Blake was right behind him.
“How’s the patient?” the sheriff asked. “I heard him talking just now, so his mouth must still work.”
Doc Carson placed the scissors in a bucket of solution while he washed his hands in another bucket. “He’ll be fine. There’s always the risk of infection, of course, but Hagen here usually has enough alcohol in his system to kill almost anything.” The doctor looked past Trammel at Deputy Blake. “How are you faring, Sherwood? I can see you’re in an awful lot of pain. You should’ve taken my advice and rested.”
Blake pawed at the bandages on his face. “Been medicating myself since I left, doc. Guess that’s part of the problem.”
“I know. I can smell you from here.” Carson finished washing and began to dry his hands, before he took a small bottle from the cabinet above the wash basin. He handed it to Blake. “Take that when you sober up some, but be careful. It’s laudanum. It’ll dull the pain but if you take it in your state, you might fall asleep and not wake up again. Sleep’s the best medicine you can have right now, Deputy. Your body will heal itself in time if you allow it.” He looked away before adding, “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to save your eye.”
“No reason for you to be sorry, Doc. I know you did the best you could.”
Hagen saw the doctor did not appear to take much comfort in that.
As Carson began to leave, he told Trammel, “Don’t let him take that stuff until he sobers up. If you need me, I’ll be out in the courtyard tending to several new patients who need my attention.”
Trammel gently pulled Blake into the office with him and set him on a chair as Hagen clasped his hands behind his head. He had once made a small fortune peddling laudanum to his customers up in Blackstone but had never sampled the stuff personally. He had always thought there was something unseemly about becoming addicted to his own product.
“We’re a great pair, you and me,” Hagen said to Blake. “With your missing eye and my limp, we could make a fairly decent pirate. What do you say you and I head down to New Orleans, get ourselves a frigate, and become the terrors of the high seas?”
Trammel crossed his arms. “How much of that stuff did Doc Carson give you?”
“Enough to melt all my troubles away.”
Trammel grunted. “Too bad the doc doesn’t have enough to give a dose to everyone in town. It might help folks feel better about the state of things.”
Hagen felt foolish for feeling so good while he was surrounded by such misery. He forced himself to remember all that had happened and why he had to be stitched up. “It was Washington’s men who hit us, Buck. I shot a man I think was one of the LeBlanc boys, but he got away despite my best efforts. I shot another man named Coombs, but Dib Bishop managed to save his life by putting a hole in me.”
“Hawkeye told me all about it,” Trammel said. “I managed to grab another one on the street. He goes by the name of Hank Classet. And Blake here had his own run-in with Mahaffey.”
“And lived to tell the tale, I see,” Hagen observed. “It’s not like Mahaffey to leave a loose end dangling like that.”
Blake lowered his bandaged head into his hands. “He only let me live because he wanted me to deliver a message to Buck.” He looked up at Trammel for approval to continue speaking, and the sheriff gave it to him. “He said he and his gang will keep hitting us like this until we let Washington go. He said more people will die until we do.”
Hagen felt the reality of the situation begin to crowd out whatever relief the opium had bestowed upon him. “We put a dent in them. I killed one and wounded another. How bad did they hit us?”
“At least twelve wounded,” Trammel told him, “but I imagine the number will go higher. One man was shot dead right in front of his boy. I thought there’d be more. Bush and Brillheart got nicked, but they’re still able to fight. Mahaffey knew exactly when to hit us and how.”
Hagen knew that was the case. “Sounds like he’s far craftier than we gave him credit for.”
Trammel nodded. “One would start shooting up a street before a second rider followed behind a few seconds later to hit people as they came out from cover. I found Mahaffey and the others at the edge of town and tried to go after them when one of them shot out the horse from under me. At least I think it was Mahaffey, but they’ve all got those beards, so it’s tough to know which one is which. Brandt went after them while I was down, but almost rode into a wall of lead. It’s a miracle that he’s alive.”
Hagen was glad to hear it. “And Hawkeye?”
“He’s doing what he can while I’m in here with you, but as you’d expect, the mood in town has taken a dark turn.”
“With the promise of it growing still darker,” Hagen said. “This wasn’t blind luck on Mahaffey’s part. I’ve seen this kind of run-and-gun strategy when I was down in New Orleans. The LeBlanc boys have joined up with Washington’s bunch. That only compounds our already long list of concerns.”
Hagen watched Trammel struggling with his thoughts and decided to make it easier on him. “You take a run at questioning the man you captured yet? He ought to be able to tell you where Mahaffey and the men are camped.”
“It wouldn’t do any good,” Trammel said. “I can’t trust what he tells me, and I don’t have enough men to check it for myself. I need every man I’ve got to stay here and keep an eye out for trouble both inside and outside of town. This raid is exactly what folks feared might happen and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone starts acting up because of it.”
Blake sat up as straight as he could manage given his condition. “Me and the boys can handle anything those outlaws throw at us. The LeBlanc boys won’t make a difference. They won’t catch us flat the next time they ride into us.”
Trammel looked away. “You’re half-blind with pain and on your way to suffering from an epic hangover come morning. Bush and Brillheart are wounded, and none of you have gotten any sleep since this whole mess started. Go out and tell them I’ve ordered them to get some rest here at City Hall. You can set up some cots in the courtroom if necessary. Make sure you get some rest for yourself, too. Tell the men I’ll wake them if I need them.”
Blake winced as he got to his feet and left Doc Carson’s office without another word.
Hagen waited until he had left before saying, “I’ve seen men laid up for weeks in better condition than him. It’s a wonder he’s still standing.”
“He can get better after this is over. If he lives that long.”
Hagen heard a troubling tone in his friend’s voice. “I hope you’re not actually thinking about giving in to Mahaffey’s demands. You’re not thinking of letting Washington go, are you?”
