“Take it easy, Mirabeau,” Palmer said. “I don’t want any trouble. You can see I’ve got your friends. Give me the rest of that gold, whatever you’ve got left, and I’ll let them go.”
“You’re one of Lundy’s men!” Mirabeau exclaimed. “I thought you were all dead.”
“I’m my own man,” Palmer snapped, “and I want that loot.”
Mirabeau laughed. “You’re insane. The gold means nothing now. Anyway, it’s long gone. I brought what I needed to buy these wagons, then sent one of my men back into the mountains with the rest of it. It will support our cause for a long time.”
“You mean you don’t even have it anymore?” Palmer asked as his lips drew up into a snarl.
“That is exactly what I mean.”
“You lie! I’ll kill these two—”
“Go ahead.” Mirabeau turned back to the gun. “Now I have work to do.”
Joseph knew this was his last chance to stop the massacre. He turned suddenly and threw himself at Palmer. His right hand was useless for firing a gun, but he could still swing that arm like a club. He smashed a blow across Palmer’s face and grabbed for the man’s gun with his left hand.
The attack by a supposedly crippled man took Palmer by surprise. As he staggered back a step, Joseph wrenched the gun out of his hand and whirled around, lifting the weapon toward Mirabeau as he tried to get his finger through the trigger guard.
He was too late. Mirabeau had seen what was happening and jerked the canvas off the Gatling gun so he could swivel it around. Joseph found the trigger and fired, the sound of the shot not really all that loud with all the noise of the crowd around them.
Then the Gatling gun began to chatter and spit fire, and Joseph felt himself being driven backward as his flesh shredded under the leaden onslaught.
At the other end of the grandstand, Salty saw Reb and waved a hand at him. “The wagon!” the old-timer yelled. “They’re in that wagon!”
Reb fell in alongside him. “Where’s Frank?”
“Goin’ after the guns at the other end.”
“Split up,” Reb ordered. “You take the front, I’ll take the back end. We’ll get ‘em in a cross fire.”
“Better hurry. Ain’t no tellin’ when they’ll start the ball!”
And just as if Fate were listening, chaos erupted at the other end of the grandstand. Shots churned out, dozens of rounds in a few seconds. The men in this wagon must have been waiting for that, because the canvas on the side facing Salty and Reb suddenly erupted in flame and lead, ripping apart to reveal the death-spewing weapons inside.
“Hit the dirt!” Salty yelled. He hauled out his old revolver as he threw himself to the ground. Pain shot through him from the bullet crease in his side, but he ignored it.
A few feet away, Reb’s ivory-handled Colt was already out and roaring. One of the Gatlings dipped toward him. Reb flung himself to the side and rolled as several dozen slugs kicked up dirt where he had been a second earlier. As he came up on a knee, he fired over the revolving barrels, squeezing off two swift shots. Both bullets hit the gunner in the face, erasing his features in a bloody smear as he was thrown backward. That rapid-firer fell silent.
The other one still poured death toward the now shrieking and stampeding crowd. Salty gripped the wrist of his gun hand with his hand to steady it and fired. The man turning the devil gun’s crank doubled over as the old-timer’s bullets punched into his midsection. That gun stopped firing as well as the man collapsed.
Hell was still roaring down at the other end of the arena, though.
Frank’s Colt was in his hand even before the first shot rang out. When the Gatling began to fire and one of the men at the back of the wagon stumbled back as he was shot to pieces, Frank raised the revolver and triggered three shots, blasting the slugs right through the wagon’s canvas cover.
At the same time, Sergeant McKendrick drew the revolver from the holster at his waist and leaped to the front seat of the vehicle. He fired through the opening there as the second Gatling gun began to roar. The gun was abruptly silenced.
Not the one in the rear, though. The canvas ripped apart as whoever was manning the weapon swung it toward Frank. He dived flat as the slugs hammered through the air above him. The shredded canvas fluttered, giving Frank a glimpse of the man turning the crank. He was big and bearded, and his face was covered with blood. He looked positively satanic as he kept the Gatling pounding away.
Another shot came from the rear of the wagon, almost unnoticed in the chaos. Frank glanced in that direction and saw that the woman had picked up the little pistol. Smoke curled from the muzzle, so he knew she had fired the shot.
The man at the Gatling gun let go of the crank and lurched to his feet. One hand clutched at his neck where a bullet had torn through it. Blood flooded over his fingers. With his other hand, he reached for the rapid-firer’s crank, evidently determined to fire it even as he was dying.
Frank stood up and shot him in the head.
The man reeled back against the other side of the wagon’s canvas cover and then slid down it, leaving a crimson stain behind him.
Frank turned his head to look for Palmer. The battle, eventful though it had been, had lasted only a minute or so.
Palmer was gone. Frank’s heart sank when he realized that. Then a second later he spotted what looked like Palmer’s back as the man fled from the bloody chaos.
“Morgan, what—” McKendrick called after him as Frank broke into a run.
“Tell Salty and Reb I’ve gone after Palmer!” Frank shouted over his shoulder as he bulled his way through the crowd, trying desperately not to lose sight of his quarry.
Chapter 33
Everybody was trying to get away from the scene of the shooting, but the crowd thinned a little as Frank left the immediate area of the grandstand. He could see the man he was chasing better now, and he was sure it was Joe Palmer. The man glanced back, and Frank would have sworn that Palmer’s eyes widened with recognition.
The hombre probably thought he was being chased by a ghost.
Suddenly, Reb Russell flashed past Frank, so quickly it appeared almost as if the older man were standing still. Reb quickly closed the gap with Palmer and left his feet in a flying tackle that sent both of them spilling to the ground.
By the time Frank caught up, Reb was on top of Palmer, slamming punches into the man’s face. “Where is she, damn you?” Reb demanded between clenched teeth. “Where is she?”
Frank holstered his gun. He could get it out again quickly enough if he needed to … and it didn’t look like he would need to.
Reb had just about pounded Palmer’s face into raw meat by now. Frank put a hand on the young man’s shoulder and said, “You’d better stop hitting him, Reb, or he won’t be able to talk at all. He might even be dead.”
Reb stopped throwing punches and drew his gun instead. He jammed the muzzle up under Palmer’s jaw and said, “He’ll be dead, all right, if he doesn’t tell me where Meg is right now.”
“A … a house,” Palmer began babbling. “Close by! I’ll … I’ll show you!”
Salty, Sergeant McKendrick, and several more Mounties came hurrying up. “Get that man on his feet,” McKendrick ordered. “He’s under arrest.”
Reb looked like he might argue the point, but he moved aside and let the Mounties take charge of Palmer.
“He’s going to tell us where to find our friend Meg,” Frank said. “You can wait that long to take him to jail, can’t you, Sergeant?”
“Very well,” McKendrick said. To Palmer, he said, “You, there. Lead us to your hostage, immediately.”
“Jus’ … jus’ don’t let that madman near me again,” Palmer choked out through smashed lips.
A few minutes later, at a house surrounded by aspens not far from Victoria Park, Meg rushed out onto the porch and into Reb’s arms while the woman who ran the place babbled to McKendrick about how she hadn’t known anything about Palmer kidnapping anybody, she’d just been doing a favor for a friend of a friend….