“Thanks, Spring,” he told the old hand. “Hartley must have laid out there in the corral all covered up with hay since I conked him on the noggin last night.”
“Hell, he was dead on his feet when I shot him,” the old hand said. “I just like some in’shorence in cases like that.”
He poured Smoke a cup of coffee and returned to his post by a window.
Smoke drank the strong hot brew and laid out the plans. One by one, the old gunfighters began leaving the bunkhouse, heading for the house. Ring was the last to stand in the door. He smiled at Smoke.
“You always bring this much action with you when you journey, Smoke?”
“It sure seems like it, Ring,” Smoke said with a laugh.
The big man returned the laugh and then slipped out into the rapidly darkening day, the rain still coming down in silver sheets.
“I got to thinkin’ a while back,” Spring said. “After Ring asked me how it was nobody come to our aid. Smoke, they’s sometimes two, three weeks go by don’t none of us go to town. Ain’t nobody comin’ out here.”
“And even if they did come out, what could they do? Nothing,” he ansered his own question. “Except get themselves killed. It’d take a full company of Army troops to rout those outlaws.”
There had been no fire from the ridges, so the men had safely made the house. Darkness had pushed aside the day. Those walking out would be leaving shortly, and they had a good chance of making it, for the move would not be one those on the ridges would be expecting. To try to bust out on horseback, yes. But not by walking out. Not in this weather.
When the wet darkness had covered the land for almost an hour, Smoke turned to Spring. He could just see him in the gloom of the bunkhouse.
“I don’t think they’ll try us on horseback this night, Spring. They’ll be coming in on foot.”
“You right,” Donny whispered from the far end of the bunkhouse. “And here they come. You want me to drop him now or let them come closer?”
“Let them come on. This rain makes for deceptive shooting. ”
A torch was lighted, its flash a jumping flame in the windswept darkness. The torch bobbed as the carrier ran toward the house. From the house, a rifle crashed. The torch stopped and fell to the soaked earth, slowly going out as its carrier died.
All around the compound, muzzle flashes pocked the gloom, and the dampness kept the gunsmoke low to the ground as an arid fog.
A kerosene bomb slammed against the side of the bunkhouse, the whiskey bottle containing the liquid smashing. The flames were slow to spread and those that did were quickly put out by the driving rain. Spring’s pistol roared and spat sparks. Outside, a man screamed as the slug ripped through flesh and shattered bone. He lay on the wet ground and moaned for a moment, then fell silent.
Smoke saw a moving shadow out of the corner of his eyes and lifted his pistol. The shadow blended in with the night and Smoke lost it. But it was definitely moving toward the bunkhouse. It was difficult, if not impossible, to hear any small sounds due to the hard-falling rain and the crash of gunfire. Smoke left the window and moved to the door of the bunkhouse, standing some six feet away from the door. Spring and Donny and two other hands kept their eyes to the front, occasionally firing at a dark running shape within their perimeter.
The bunkhouse door had no inner bar; most people didn’t even lock their doors when they left for town or went on a trip. If somebody used the house to get out of the weather or to fix something to eat, they were expected to leave it as they found it.
The door smashed open and the doorway filled with men. Smoke’s .44’s roared and bucked in his hands. Screaming was added to the already confusing cacophony of battle. More men rushed into the bunkhouse, leaping over the bodies sprawled in the doorway. Smoke was rushed and knocked to the floor. He lost his left hand gun but jammed the muzzle of his right hand gun into the belly of a man and pulled the trigger. A boot caught him on the side of the head, momentarily addling him.
Smoke heaved the badly wounded man away and rolled to the far wall. Men were all over him swinging fists and gun barrels. Using his own now-empty pistol as a club, he smashed a face, the side of a head, Jerking the pistol from a man’s holster, Smoke began firing into the mass of wet attackers. A bullet burned his side; another slammed into the wooden leg of a bunk, driving splinters into Smoke’s face.
Jerking his Bowie from its sheath, Smoke began slashing out, feeling the warm flow of blood splatter his arm and face as the big blade drew howls of pain from his attackers.
He slipped to one side and listened to the cursing of the outlaws still able to function. Lifting the outlaw’s pistol, Smoke emptied it into the dark shapes. The bunkhouse became silent after the battle.
“You hit, Smoke?” Spring called.
“Just a scratch. Donny?”
The young cowboy did not reply.
“I’ll check,” Fitz spoke softly. He walked to the cowboy’s position and knelt down. “He rolled twelve,” Fitz’s voice came out of the darkness.
“Damn!” Smoke said.
Another attack from the outlaws had been beaten back, but Donny was dead and Cal had been wounded. Smoke’s wounds were minor but painful. No one in the house had been hurt.
They had bought those walking out some time and distance. By this time, if they had not been discovered, they were clear. Clear, but facing a long, cold, wet, and slow march into the Big Belts. The house, the barn, and the bunkhouse were riddled with bullet holes. They had lost two horses, having to destroy them after they’d been hit by stray bullets. And no cowboy likes to shoot a horse.
The rain slacked and the clouds drifted away, exposing the moon and its light. With that, the outlaws slipped away into the shadows and made their way back to the ridges overlooking the ranch.
The moonlight cast its light upon the bodies of outlaws sprawled in death on the grounds. Some of those with wounds not serious tried to crawl away. Cord and Smoke and the others showed them no mercy, shooting them if they could get them in gunsights.
After the intitial attack had been beaten back, the outlaws fired from the ridges for several hours, finally giving it up and settling down for some rest.
The moonlight was both a blessing and a curse, for it would make their busting out a lot more difficult.
Smoke ran to the house to confer with Cord.
“I figure just after sunset,” the rancher said. “After the moon comes up, it’ll be impossible.”
“All right. We’ll head in the opposite direction of those walking out. We’ll start out like we’re trying to bust through the roadblock, then cut east toward the timber. That sound all right to you?”
“Suits me.”
Dooley had changed his mind about heading farther into the mountains, turning around when he was about halfway to Old Baldy. He rode slowly back toward Gibson.
At dawn of the second day of the attack on the Circle Double C, he was standing in front of the newly opened stage offices, waiting for the station agent. He plopped down his money belt.
“Stash that in your big safe and gimme a receipt for it,” he told the agent.
That taken care of, Dooley walked over to the new hotel and checked in. He slept for several hours, then carefully bathed in the tub behind the barber shop, shaved, and dressed in clean clothes. He was completely free of the effects of alcohol and intended to remain that way. Nuts, but sober.
He walked over to Hans and enjoyed a huge breakfast, the first good meal he’d eaten in days. Hans and Olga and Hilda eyeballed the man suspiciously.