Death in the Desert Read online

  “Okay, then,” Steve said, “go ahead and talk.”

  “There are three of you and one of me,” Clint said, “but I’m still willing to step out and settle this in the street.”

  “I’ll bet you are,” Steve said, “but I think I can afford to wait awhile before we look at that as an option.”

  Clint fell silent after that. What else could he say?

  “Anything else on your mind?” Steve asked.

  “How about letting the woman and the child leave town?” Clint asked.

  “Oh sure, send ’em out,” Steve said, laughing. “We’ll escort them to the city limit and see them on their way.”

  The sarcasm was thick in the man’s tone. Once they got their hands on Emily, they’d used her as a hostage, so that was definitely out of the question.

  “Afraid I’ve got nothing more to offer,” Clint said.

  “Suits me,” Steve said.

  Clint closed the door just as a hail of lead began to pepper it.

  • • •

  “Fire,” Steve said, “and concentrate on those frontdoors.”

  “Gotcha!” Ned said.

  Both men stood and began to fire. Lead started chewing pieces out of the wood. Steve knew none of the bullets were getting through, but it was just a message he was sending to the Gunsmith.

  They began firing as quickly as they could lever fresh rounds into their rifles.

  As the lead smacked ineffectually against the thick front doors, Clint made his way back upstairs. When he got there, Kathy was standing in front of the window, firing. She had broken the glass out of the windowpane so she could stick her rifle out.

  Clint came up behind her, grabbed her, and pulled her down.

  “But you told me to—” she said.

  “I know what I told you,” he said, “but save your ammunition. They’re just trying to make a statement.”

  “So that didn’t go really well, did it?” she asked after the firing had stopped.

  “No,” Clint said, “but then I didn’t think they’d go for it.”

  “Do you have another plan?”

  “Sort of,” he said.

  “Care to share?”

  “Well, they sent the young kid—Chris—to cover the back. As far as I’m concerned, that’s their weak link.”

  “How do we take advantage of it?”

  “Well, I’m considering a couple of things,” Clint said. “I’ll tell you when I’ve made up my mind.”

  “All right.”

  “You can go back and sit with Emily for a while,” he said. “I’ll take it from here.”

  “Okay.”

  Clint risked a look out the window. The two men had stopped firing and were once again crouched behind the horse trough. Clint settled down to watch and try to come up with a plan.

  • • •

  Behind the trough, Steve and Ned reloaded their rifles.

  “He thinks he can take the three of us,” Ned said.

  “And maybe he can,” Steve said.

  “I thought you were fast.”

  “I am,” Steve said, “but that don’t mean I want to test myself against the Gunsmith. I’m lookin’ to face him in a situation I can control. That means havin’ seven men behind me, not two.”

  “Well,” Ned said, “can’t say I blame ya for that. So what do we do now?”

  “We wait.”

  “You want me to spell Chris in the back?”

  “No,” Steve said, “leave the kid there. I need you right here in front.”

  “All we’re doin’ is makin’ a mess outta the front of city hall,” Ned said.

  “We’re doin’ more than that,” Steve said.

  “Like what?”

  “We’re givin’ them something to think about,” Steve explained. “That’s what.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  As it turned out, Clint waited too long.

  Steve Harwick waited just long enough.

  Steve heard the sounds of wagons, looked up the street, and saw the wagons coming down toward him. Three buckboards, and three more mounted men.

  “Hey,” Ned said, “they got here quick, and early.”

  “Good,” Steve said. “We can use them.”

  “We gonna charge the building now?” Ned asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “Then what?”

  “You and a few of the boys are gonna keep Adams pinned down, while I get the others to start packing up our loot. Once we have things packed and ready to go, we’ll take care of Adams.” “What if he makes a move?”

  “As soon as we hear the shootin’, we’ll come runnin’,” Steve said. “We can even put another man in the back with Chris. Two front, two back, the rest busy packin’.”

  “What if we just pack up and leave?” Ned asked. “You think he’d come after us?”

  “No, but he’d talk to the law about us. Or the woman would. And if there’s anythin’ illegal about what we’re doin’, then the law would be after us.”

  “Why not talk to the doc and find out?”

  “He put me in charge of this operation,” Steve said. “I’m not gonna bother Brock until I have what he sent us here to get. He went to a lot of trouble to set this up. I’m not gonna be the one to ruin it.”

  As the wagons approached them, Steve stood up and waved them on, then followed them. He collared one horseman and instructed him to stay with Ned.

  “He’ll explain the situation to you,” he said.

  The man nodded, and dismounted, letting Steve have his horse. He rode to the front of the three wagons and showed them the way to the stockyards.

  • • •

  “What’s going on?” Kathy asked.

  “Looks like the Calvary has arrived,” he said.

  “For us?” she asked, excited.

  “No, no,” he said, “for them. Their extra men just got here, riding down the street in their wagons.”

  “How many?”

  “Three wagons, but six men,” Clint said.

  “So that’s it, then,” she said mournfully, “we’re as good as finished.”

  “Not yet we aren’t,” he said.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking about the roof.”

  “You said we didn’t have to worry about the roof,” she said. “That the building was too high.”

  “It’s higher than the buildings on either side,” he admitted, “but maybe we can get to a roof from a second- or third-floor window.”

  “But wouldn’t that be dangerous?” she asked. “Especially for Emily?”

  “We’ll have to see,” Clint said. “It looks like they’re going to leave us alone for a while so they can fill the new men in on what’s going on.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We change places again,” Clint said. “You watch the window while I check the rooftops outside the windows.”

  While she skittered across the floor to the window, Emily asked him, “Can I come with you?”

  He started to say no, but then decided nobody was going to be shooting at him.

  “Okay,” he said, “but you have to do exactly what I tell you to do.”

  “I will,” she promised.

  “Okay, then let’s go.” He looked at Kathy, who was peering above the windowsill. “We’ll be right back.”

  “And I’ll be right here,” she promised.

  THIRTY-SIX

  The roof of the building on the right side of city hall was fairly even with the windows of the second floor. The rooftop of the building to the left was a few steps down from the third floor. Clint thought he could easily open the window and drop down. The question was: Could Kathy and Emily make it?

  There was an alley alongside the buildings—well
, not exactly an alley, but there was some separation between the buildings—but Clint felt sure he could make the jump. If Kathy could make it, he thought he could toss Emily across. But could Kathy catch her? Or if they switched places, could Emily toss her while he was the one to catch her?

  Or could he make the jump with Emily on his back?

  “What are you lookin’ at?” Emily asked.

  “The roof next door,” he said.

  She moved to the window and looked.

  “Are we goin’ there?”

  “Why? Do you think you could jump over there?”

  She looked again, then looked back at him as if he was crazy.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Well then,” he said, “let’s go back to Kathy . . .”

  • • •

  Steve got the men started on loading the wagons.

  “Get this done and then we got some other business to tend to,” he told them.

  “Like what?” Joe Seymour asked.

  “Clint Adams.”

  “The Gunsmith?” Seymour asked. “What’s he got to do with anythin’?”

  “He’s here, that’s what,” Steve said. “And he’s tryin’ to stop us.”

  “Why is it his business?”

  “I don’t know,” Steve said. “He’s makin’ it his business.”

  “Why don’t he just leave town.” Then Seymour got it. “Wait. He thinks he’s sick?”

  “He might think he’s infected, yeah,” Steve said.

  “Then he’s a sucker, like everybody else,” Seymour said.

  “That may be,” Steve said, “but it don’t really matter. Sick or not, he’s gonna be dead.”

  “The Gunsmith, huh?” Seymour asked as the other men were loading the wagon. “You think we got enough men?”

  “We’ve got nine. Should be enough.”

  “Nine? But you had five already.”

  “He killed two.”

  Seymour frowned.

  “Maybe we should send for more,” he suggested.

  “Can’t. He disabled the telegraph key. We’re gonna have to make do with nine.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “We’ve got him pinned down in city hall, along with a woman and a little girl.”

  “He’s at a disadvantage if he’s got to look out for them,” Seymour said.

  “Exactly. Now let’s get these wagons loaded so we can take care of him.”

  “I’ll hurry the men up,” Seymour promised.

  “And then meet me across from city hall.”

  “Gotcha.”

  • • •

  “What are they doing?” Kathy asked.

  “They’re waiting,” Clint said.

  “For what?”

  “If I had to guess, I’d say they’re loading up their loot and saving me—us—for later. They figure they’ve got us pinned down real good.”

  “Don’t they?”

  “Well . . . maybe not.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I have an idea, but it’s risky.”

  “Tell me.”

  He told her.

  • • •

  Steve came back to city hall, joined Ned and the other man—Philips—behind the horse trough.

  “You fill him in?” Steve asked Ned.

  “I did, yeah.”

  “Philips, I want you to go around back. You’ll find a young guy named Chris there. You watch the back with him.”

  “Right.” Philips preferred his job to what the others were doing, loading up the wagons, so he had no complaint.

  “And what do we do?” Ned asked.

  “Just relax,” Steve said. “When the others have finished loading everythin’, they’ll join us here and then we’ll go in and get him.”

  “And then we can quit this town?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Good,” Ned said, “it gives me the willies.”

  “You’re not believin’ that story about an epidemic, are you?” Steve asked.

  “I’m just sayin’,” Ned replied, “an empty town with only some dead bodies in it—that would spook anybody.”

  “You can’t get spooked by a few dead bodies, Ned,” Steve told him.

  “Maybe you can’t . . .” Ned said.

  • • •

  “What do you mean ‘throw her’?” Kathy asked, lowering her voice.

  “Well, there’s a little gap we’d have to get over,” Clint said.

  “A gap? Like an alley?”

  “Not an alley,” Clint said. “Not that wide.”

  “So which one of us would catch and which one would throw?” she asked.

  “That’s what I’m thinking about,” Clint said. “Why don’t you go up and have a look, then come back and tell me.”

  “I’ll have a look,” Kathy said, “but this doesn’t sound too good to me.”

  Kathy went upstairs into the room Clint had described and looked out the window at the rooftop he was talking about. Her eyes went wide. She knew it wasn’t ten feet away, but it might as well have been. She looked down. If somebody fell into that space . . .

  She stopped thinking about jumping and considered the prospect of tossing Emily across. That just made her shudder. She could just see the child’s body plummeting to the ground.

  It was risky, but if they remained where they were, they were very likely going to be killed. And she didn’t have any better ideas to offer.

  She turned and went back down to the second floor to rejoin Clint and Emily.

  “Well?” Clint asked when Kathy came back in.

  She shrugged and said, “Let’s do it.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  “They still in that window?” Steve asked.

  “Last I saw,” Ned said, “the woman was stickin’ her head up.”

  “Let’s send some lead in there, just to remind them we’re out here.”

  “Okay.”

  They raised their rifles and started firing.

  There was no glass left in the window to shatter, but the bullets slammed into the window frame, breaking it apart, and into the wall and ceiling beyond.

  But nobody was in the room to notice.

  • • •

  Clint sent Kathy and Emily up to the third floor while he ran downstairs, then followed them up and into the room where he’d chosen to go out the window.

  “What do you want to do?” he asked Kathy. “Toss or catch?”

  “I think I better catch,” she said. “I don’t trust myself to throw her that far.”

  “Throw who?” Emily asked, her eyes wide.

  “I’ll explain,” Clint said, crouching down in front of her. “The only way we have to get out of this building is to jump to the next roof.”

  Emily bit her lip. She walked to the window, looked out, looked down, then turned to look at Clint.

  “Okay,” she said.

  • • •

  “That should do it,” Steve said, reloading his rifle. “If that doesn’t keep their heads down for a while, nothin’ will.”

  “So now we just watch?” Ned asked.

  “And wait,” Steve said.

  • • •

  Clint opened the window.

  “All right,” he told Kathy.

  “You’re going to have to help me,” she said.

  “I will. Come on, hold on to my hands. I’ll lower you down.”

  She had to lift her dress to climb out the window, exposing her legs and thighs. He found it oddly erotic at that moment. He took her hands and lowered her out the window.

  “I can’t jump,” she said, looking down. “I’m frightened. You’ll have to swing me.”

  “I can’t swing you,” he said. “You
’re flat against the wall, I can’t get you swinging. Wait, I have an idea.”

  “Good,” she said.

  “Put your feet against the wall,” he said. “When I say go, I’ll let go and you push off. You’ll land on the roof.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive,” he lied.

  “Be careful, Kathy,” Emily said.

  “It’s a little too late for that,” Kathy said.

  “Come on,” Clint said, “put your feet flat against the wall.”

  “A-All right. There.”

  “Okay. I’ll count to three, and let go. On three, you push off. Got it?”

  “On three,” she said. “Got it.”

  “Okay,” he said, “one . . . two . . . three . . .”

  He let go.

  She pushed off.

  She flew through the air, and for a moment she thought that she would surely plummet to the ground—and then she landed on the roof with a bone-jarring thud.

  “Ooh!”

  For a moment everything froze, and then she said, “I made it!”

  “Shhh, not so loud,” he said. “They have somebody in the back. Okay, now you have to catch Emily.”

  “All right. Wait.” She got up, rubbed her ass, which had absorbed the brunt of the landing. “All right, I’m ready.”

  Clint lifted Emily and said, “Don’t worry.”

  “I’m not worried,” the little girl said. “You won’t let me fall.”

  Clint carried Emily to the window and leaned out with her.

  “Are you ready?” he asked Kathy.

  Kathy took a deep breath and said, “I’m ready.”

  “I’m going to count,” Clint said, “one, two, three, and then toss her. Ready?”

  Kathy braced her legs and said, “Ready,” thinking, This is crazy.

  “Are you ready?” Clint asked Emily.

  “I’m ready,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek.

  “One . . . two . . . three . . .”