Horace came rattling up in a buggy, a rifle in the boot and a holstered pistol on the seat beside him. “I’m with you, boys.”
More than a dozen other townspeople came riding up and driving up in buggies and buckboards, all of them heavily armed.
“We’re with you!” one called. “We’re tired of this. So let’s ride and clean it out.”
“Let’s go, boys!” Parnell yelled.
“Oohhh!” Rita cooed. “He’s so manly!”
“Don’t swoon, child,” her mother warned. “The street’s too muddy.”
Del leaned out of the saddle and kissed Fae right on the mouth, right in front of God and everybody.
Parnell thought that was a good idea and did the same with Rita.
The hurdy-gurdy girls, hanging out of windows and lining the boardwalks, all applauded.
Olga and Hilda giggled.
Gage leaned over and gave Liz a good long smack while the onlookers cheered.
Then they were gone in a pounding of hooves, slinging mud all over anyone standing close.
Dooley rode slowly back to his ranch. He looked at the buckshot-blasted bed and shook his head. Then he fixed a pot of coffee and poured a cup, taking it out to sit on the front porch. He had a hunch his boys would be returning to the ranch for the money they thought was still in the safe.
He would be waiting for them.
“I don’t like it,” Jason told Lanny, with Cat standing close. “Something’s wrong down there. I feel it.”
“I got the same feeling,” Cat spoke. “But I got it last night while we was hittin’ them. It just seemed like to me they was holdin’ back.”
Lanny snapped his fingers. “That’s it! Them women and probably a few of the men walked out durin’ the rain. Damn them! This ain’t good, boys.”
Cat looked uneasily toward the road.
Jason caught the glance. “Relax, Cat. There ain’t that many people in town who gives a damn what happens out here.” Then he smiled. “The town,” he said simply.
Lanny stood up from his squat. “We’ve throwed a short loop out here, boys. Our plans is busted. But the town is standin’ wide open for the takin’.”
But Cat, older and more experienced in the outlaw trade, was dubious. “There ain’t nobody ever treed no western town, Lanny. We done lost twenty-five or so men by the gun. Them crazy Hanks boys left nearabouts an hour ago.”
“Nobody ever tried it with seventy-five-eighty men afore, neither. Not that I know of. ’Sides, all we’ve lost is the punks and tin-horns and hangers-on.”
“He’s got a point,” Jason said.
“Let’s ride!”
Dooley Hanks sat on his front porch, drinking coffee. When he saw his sons ride up, he stood up and slipped the thongs from the hammers of his guns. The madness had once more taken possession of his sick mind, leaving him with but one thought: to kill these traitor sons of his.
He drained his coffee mug and set the mug on the porch railing. He was ready.
The boys rode up to the hitchrail and dismounted. They were muddy and unshaven and stank like bears after rolling in rotten meat.
“If you boys come for the money, you’re out of luck,” Dooley called. “I give it to your momma. Seen her in town hour or so back.”
The boys had recovered from their initial shock at seeing their father alive. They pushed through the fence gate and stood in the yard, facing their father on the porch. The boys spread out, about five feet apart.
“You a damn lie, you crazy old coot!” Sonny called. “She’s over to Cord’s place. Trapped with the rest of them.”
“Sorry, boys.” Dooley s voice was calm. “But some of ’em busted out and walked into town, carrying the Moab Kid on a stretcher. Now they’s got some townspeople behind’ em and is headin’ back to Cord’s place. Your little game is all shot to hell.”
Sonny, Bud, and Conrad exchanged glances. Seems like everything that had happened the last several days had turned sour.
“Aw, hell, Daddy!” Bud said, forcing a grin. “We knowed you wasn’t in that there bed. We was just a-funnin’ with you, that’s all. It was just a joke that we made up between us.”
“Yeah, Daddy,” Sonny said. “What’s the matter, cain’t you take a joke no more?”
“Lyin’ scum!” Dooley’s words were hard, verbally tossed at his sons. “And you knowed who raped your sister, too, didn’t you?”
The boys stood in the yard, sullen looks on their dirty and unshaved faces.
“Didn’t you?” the father screamed the question at them. “Damn you, answer me!”
“So what if we did?” Sonny asked. “It don’t make no difference now, do it?”
A deadly calm had taken Dooley. “No, it doesn’t, Sonny. It’s all over.”
“Whut you mean, Daddy?” Conrad asked. “Whut you fixin’ to do?”
“Something that I’m not very proud of,” the father said. “But it’s something that I have to do.”
Bud was the first to put it together. “You can’t take us, Daddy. You pretty good with a gun, but you slow. So don’t do nothing stupid.”
“The most stupid thing I ever done was not takin’ a horsewhip to you boys’ butts about five times a day, commencin’ when you was just pups. It’s all my fault, but it s done got out of hand. It’s too late. Better this than a hangman’s noose.”
“I think you done slipped your cinches agin, Pa,” his oldest told him. “You best go lay down; git you a bottle of hooch and ponder on this some. ’Cause if you drag iron with us, you shore gonna die this day.”
Dooley shot him. He gave no warning. He had faced men before, and knew what had to be done, so he did it. His slug struck Sonny in the stomach, doubling him over and dropping him to the muddy yard.
Bud grabbed iron and shot his father, the bullet twisting Dooley, almost knocking him off his boots. Dooley dragged his left hand gun and got off a shot, hitting his middle son in the leg and slamming the young man back against the picket fence, tearing down a section of it. The horses at the hitchrail panicked, breaking loose and running from the ugly scene of battle.
Conrad got lead in his father before the man turned his guns loose on his youngest boy. Conrad felt a double hammer-blow slam into his belly, the lead twisting and ripping. He began screaming and cursing the man who had fathered him. Raising his gun, the boy shot his father in the belly.
But still Dooley would not go down.
Blood streaming from his chest and face, the crazed man took another round from his second son. Dooley raised his pistol and shot the young man between the eyes.
As the light began to dim in Dooley’s eyes, he stumbled from the porch and fell to the muddy earth. He picked up one of Sonny’s guns just as the gut-shot boy eared back the hammer on his Colt and shot his father in the belly. Dooley jammed the pistol into the young man’s chest and emptied it. coming
Dooley fell back, the sounds of the pale rider’s horse coming closer.
“Daddy!” Conrad called, his words very dim. “Help me, Daddy. It hurts so bad!”
The ghost rider galloped up just in time to see Dooley stretch his arm out and close his fingers around Conrad’s hand. “We’ll ride out together, boy.”
The pale rider tossed his shroud.
Twenty-Nine
“They’re pullin’ out!” Lujan yelled from the loft.
Smoke was up and running for his horse as the men streamed out of the bunkhouse, all heading for the barn.
“Why?” Reno asked.
“That damn crazy Del led ’em into town!” Cord said, grinning. “We got help on the way. Bet on it.”
In the saddle, Smoke said, “That means the town is gonna get hit. That’s the only thing I can figure out of this move.”
“Let’s go, boys!” Cord yelled the orders. “They’ll hit that town like an army.”
The men waited for a few minutes, to be sure the outlaws had really pulled out, then mounted up and headed for town. They met the rescue party halfway between the ranch and Gibson.