He did not expect a shot to come from a big stack of yellow straw. Too late, he saw the barrel of a rifle poke out of the straw and then spit smoke and flame. Longarm felt a slug strike him in his left side. He quickly set the brake and in the same motion tried to draw up his rifle, but a second bullet struck and knocked the Winchester out of his hand.
“Uggh!” he grunted in pain as another rifle boomed and a splinter from his seat stabbed into his thigh.
Longarm knew then that he was a dead man if he didn’t get off the wagon and get off it fast. He threw himself sideways, and a bullet punched through the window at exactly the place where his back should have been.
When Longarm hit the dirt, he was grunting with pain and scrambling for the cover of a building, but another shot clipped his leg and he fell and rolled behind a water trough.
His horses panicked, but the brake was set and they did not run. The wagon’s back door flew open and Deputy Trout came flying outside. He struck the dirt with his gun in his fist and began to fire wildly in all directions. He was fast, all right, but foolish.
“Take cover!” Longarm cried. “Gawddammit, get down and take-“
Trout’s lean body began to jerk spasmodically as slugs poured into him from all directions.
“Marshal!” Trout screamed, sagging to his knees and emptying his last slug into the dirt.
Longarm jumped up, but a bullet creased his skull and he fell back down, but not before he’d seen the look of stark terror on Deputy Trout’s face.
Longarm raised up and fired until his gun was empty. Then he ducked again and began to reload. “Sonofabitch!” Longarm swore in helpless fury. “I hate this town!”
The shooting ended as abruptly as it had begun. Longarm, bleeding from three bullet wounds and feeling as if his chances of surviving another minute or two were slim to none, waited, grimly determined to sell his life dearly.
But the shooting was over. No one came to finish him off, and after a few minutes, a piano in one of the saloons began to tinkle and a saloon girl began to sing “Sweet Betsy from Pike.” Longarm peeked around the water trough and saw Deputy Rick Trout’s riddled body. The young man was staring up at the sky and he was dead.
Longarm twisted around and saw people coming back out on the street. They were all staring at him and the dead deputy from Gold Mountain. None were laughing, but they sure didn’t look disapointed either.
“Well if this just isn’t a pisser,” Longarm whispered, gripping the edge of the water trough and pulling himself erect. “I can’t believe this damned town!”
Longarm checked out his side, and saw that he’d suffered a deep crease and that a couple of ribs had been nicked. He was bleeding steadily from that wound, and his leg wound was giving him fits. The bullet that had creased his scalp hadn’t done much damage except to bloody his face and ruin his Stetson. Longarm tore off his bandanna and tied up the leg, and then he clamped his palm over his side wound and limped across the street to kneel beside Deputy Trout. The door of the medicine wagon was still hanging open and Ford Oakley was nowhere in sight, which was not much of a surprise.
“Deputy Trout, you weren’t much,” he told the still figure. “But you deserved better than to be shot down by a bunch of ambushers. And yes, you were very fast with a gun. Maybe even faster than I am.”
Longarm checked the deputy’s pockets, and found nothing much of value other than a few dollars in a silver money clip and some change. He unpinned the young man’s badge and unbuckled his cartridge belt.
“I thought they’d at least wait and hit you somewhere out on the road east of town,” the blacksmith said when he joined Longarm. “They were pretty damned impatient.”
“Who were they!”
“Friends of Ford Oakley. I expect they are going to come to me to remove his handcuffs.”
Longarm’s chin lifted. “That’s right! He was handcuffed and I’m the only one with the key.”
“And I’m the only blacksmith within fifty miles.”
Longarm took a deep breath. “Why would you help me?”
“Like you said, Marshal, all men are fools one way or another.”
“What’s your name?”
“Pete Foster.”
“Well, Pete, how are we going to play this out so we both don’t get killed?”
“I don’t know,” Pete said. “But you better come up with a damn good plan and a big stack of cash, or I’m afraid that you’re all on your own.”
“How much cash?”
Pete looked at the deputy’s riddled body. “How about … two hundred dollars? If the people find out that I’m helping you, I could wind up like Deputy Trout.”
“I haven’t got that kind of money.”
“You can get it.”
“How?”
“When you reach Elko, you could wire for it. Say that your life depended on my help.”
“I could,” Longarm admitted, “but my boss might not send the money.”
“Then I keep those four good horses, the harness, and the medicine wagon.”
Longarm knew that he was not in a bargaining position. “In return for?”
“I give you the chance to get even.”
“I want Ford Oakley back.”
“And get your prisoner back.”
“Fair enough,” Longarm said. “If you can deliver, you can have the horses, harness, and wagon. Now, before I bleed to death, have you got a doctor in this murderous town?”
“Nope, just a gal saloon owner named Nelly who is about as good as a doctor and who, for a price, also pulls teeth.”
“Lead me to her.”
Pete turned and said, “Here she comes right now. You got any cash money?”
“Some.”
“Nell is real expensive.”
“Everything is expensive in Lone Pine.”
“You’re learning,” Pete said. “As soon as you get fixed up, come by my place, but do it through the back door and make sure that nobody sees you.”
“Thanks,” Longarm said.
“Don’t thank me, just figure out a way to pay me,” Pete said. “Besides, I always was a sucker for the underdog … same as I am for pretty young women.”
“Thank God for that.”
Longarm turned his back on what he was beginning to think was the only decent man in Lone Pine, and then limped forward to meet Nelly.
She was a tall woman, nearly six feet if Longarm was any judge of it, but everything about her flowed together very nicely. Nelly was no spring chicken, but she wasn’t any older than Longarm, and she wore her auburn hair long and her stride was bold and confident. She wore a velvet green dress and green shoes and there was a yellow ribbon in her hair. Nelly carried what Longarm decided was a medical kit, and as she drew closer, she didn’t smile but looked angry.
“Miss Nelly,” he began. “I understand-“
“You don’t understand anything,” she interrupted. Her eyes examined him from head to toe. “Look at the mess you’ve gotten yourself into!”
“Just doing my job,” he said.
Nelly heaved a deep sigh. “This is going to cost you some money.”
“Everything in this cutthroat town costs money,” he said. “How much?”
“You’re wounded in three places.”
“Just flesh wounds. I’ve had a lot worse and survived by my own means.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said, reaching into his pocket and dragging out a wad of crumpled bills. “And I’ve only got twenty-three dollars and change.”
“Keep the change.” Nelly reached for the bills, but Longarm clamped his hand down tight on them. “I’ll give you ten dollars. I need to keep some cash, Nelly.”
“Ten dollars? For standing out here and pissing off all my friends and saloon customers?” Nelly scoffed. “Why, that’s ridiculous.”
“Then to hell with it,” he said. “I’ve still got a medicine wagon and there’s boxes of medicine inside. I think I’ll be just fine.”