Running around behind the blacksmith shop, he began moving up the alley, keeping pace with the wagon as the team pulled it, and its grisly load of dead passengers, dressed, not in the uniform of the posse, but in old shirts belonging to the Coventry riders.
When the shooting started, Matt determined where each of the shooters was. Seeing that one of the shooters was in the dress shop, he decided to take care of that one first, believing the seamstress might be in the most danger.
Matt ran up to the back of the dress shop, and saw a woman outside, standing behind a tree as he did so.
“Anna!” he called.
Startled, the woman looked toward him. “Who are you?” she asked in a frightened voice.
“I’m Matt Jensen, I’m—”
“Kitty’s friend,” Anna said.
“Yes. Who is inside?” he asked, pointing toward the shop.
“There is a man in the front of the store,” Anna said. “He has a gun.”
“Go into your house,” Matt said, pointing to the house that was behind the dress shop. “Stay away from the windows.”
Anna nodded, then complied with his directions as Matt slipped in through the back door of the dress shop.
There were a couple of dress forms in the back room of the shop, and one of them was on wheels. Matt picked it up and moved quietly toward the front. He stopped at the door that separated the two rooms and saw the shooter standing at the open front door of the shop, shooting his rifle and cocking it, and shooting again.
Matt gave the dress form a push, and it rolled across the floor of the front room. Startled, the man jerked around, and fired at the rolling dress form. Matt shot back, and the man tumbled out onto the front porch.
Running up to the front of the building, Matt looked out across the street and saw someone rise up from behind the porch of the mercantile to shoot at the wagon. Matt took him down with one shot.
Sherman could actually see the bullets hitting the men who were in the wagon; he even saw dust coming up from the impact, and yet not one of the men reacted in any way to the bullets.
“What the hell?” Sherman said aloud.
“It’s Scraggs!” Walker shouted from the top of the apothecary. “Stop shooting! It’s our own men! They are all dead!”
Matt dashed out of the dress shop then, and seeing him, both Sherman and Walker started shooting. Bullets whizzed by his head and popped dirt up from the street as Matt ran in a zigzagging fashion until he reached the open door of the livery.
“Burke! Carson! He’s in the livery!” Sherman shouted from the water tower.
Once inside, Matt heard a sound from the hayloft above. He also saw little bits and pieces of hay falling down between the cracks.
“Where is he? Where did he go?” a voice asked.
“I don’t know. Sherman said he came in here,” another voice answered.
There were two lofts in the barn, one, on the north end of the barn, was for hay. The other, at the south end of the barn was for equipment. The two lofts were separated by an open space of about forty feet. Matt climbed up onto the equipment loft, then he moved quietly to the edge and, taking concealment behind some wooden barrels, looked across. There were posse members standing on the other side, trying to look down into the barn to find the intruder.
Matt saw a rope tied off onto one of the supporting pillars. The rope looped through a pulley just under the peak of the roof, then the other end of the rope was tied off on one of the support pillars on the opposite loft. Matt untied the rope, and with a running start, leaped from the equipment loft and swung over to the hay loft.
“Carson! There!” Burke shouted and he and Carson fired at Matt as he swung across the opening.
Matt hit the floor on the hayloft, rolled once, then fired back. Carson fell forward, Burked tumbled backward, through the loft window, and onto the ground in front of the livery.
Matt was climbing down from the hayloft when a bullet hit the ladder rung just above his head. Looping his arms and legs over the outside of the ladder, Matt slid down quickly, even as another bullet whizzed by him. Once he was on the ground, he turned toward his assailant and fired.
Making certain that he was dead, Matt took a moment to reload. He had just finished reloading when he heard Sherman calling to him from the street.
“Jensen! Jensen! Come on out and face me like a man! Jensen! Where are you?”
Matt left by the back door of the livery, ran down the alley for about half a block, then darted between two buildings and came out onto the street. He was behind Sherman, who was standing in front of the livery.
“Burke! Carson! Walker! Where are you?”
Matt put his pistol in his holster, and walked up to within sixty feet of Sherman.
“Jensen!”
Matt said nothing.
Sherman turned then, and was startled to see Matt standing so close to him on the street. For a second he was frightened, then he saw that Matt’s gun was in his holster. Sherman actually had his pistol was in his hand, but his arm was down by his side.
“Well now,” Sherman said, with an evil grin spreading across his face. “Here we are, just you and me.
Only I have my gun in my hand, and you have yours in your holster.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Matt said.
“What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?”
“I’m going to kill you anyway.”
With a loud, angry yell, Sherman brought his pistol up.
Epilogue
The wind whispered as it came off the sails, and the sun created a million dancing diamonds on the surface of Lake Michigan. Matt and Kitty were seated on the afterdeck of the yacht, eating the meal the chef of the yacht had prepared for them. The yacht was about a mile offshore and from here, they had a great view of the city of Chicago. A passenger train was racing south along the lake shore.
“Where do you think that train is going?” Kitty asked.
“I don’t know,” Matt answered. “New Orleans, maybe?”
“Oh, wouldn’t you like to go to New Orleans?”
“Some day, perhaps,” Matt said. “But not today. I’m enjoying where I am right now.”
“So am I,” Kitty said. “I have had such a wonderful time in Chicago that I don’t even want to go back. I hate to say this, but I could almost be convinced to sell the ranch.”
“And do what?” Matt asked.
“The same thing you do,” Kitty said. “Just wander around.”
Matt shook his head. “No, Kitty, you don’t want to do that.”
“Why not?”
“Didn’t you say Tyrone, Prew, Crack, Jake, and the others were your family?”
Kitty was silent for a long moment. “Yes,” she finally replied. “Yes, I did say that, didn’t I?”
“Besides, you don’t want to quit now. The army not only bought all your horses, they told you they would buy as many as you could provide them.”
“Did you hear them say that it was the finest bunch of horses they had bought all year?” Kitty asked, proudly.
“Yes, I did hear that,” Matt said. “And now, without the pressure of paying off a loan, the money you got from selling your horses to the army, and the guarantee you got for future contracts, you could just enjoy your ranch and your horses.”
“Do you think you could?” Kitty asked.
“Do I think I could what?”
“Enjoy my ranch, my horses, and me?” Kitty said.
“Kitty, I—”
“No,” Kitty said, holding up her hand and interrupting Matt in midsentence. She smiled at him. “Don’t answer that, Matt. Let me keep my dream.”
“Let you keep your dream? Oh, I don’t know. I’m not so sure about that,” Matt said, smiling.
“What do you mean, you aren’t so sure?”
“Kitty, you have just proven to me that your dreams seem to have a way of coming true.”
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.