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.
“Vere is everybody?” Hans broke the silence.
“I ain’t got no idea,” Dooley told him, slurping on a mug of coffee. “I ain’t been to the ranch in two-three days.” Really, he had no idea how long he’d been gone. Two days or a week. Time meant nothing to him anymore. He had only a few thoughts burning in his brain: to kill Cord McCorkle and then turn his guns on his traitor sons and watch them die in the muddy street. And if he didn’t soak up too much lead doing that, and he could find her, he wanted to shoot his wife.
That was the sum total of all that was in Dooley Hanks’s brain. He paid for his meal and took a mug of coffee with him, sitting in a chair on the boardwalk in front of the cafe. He would wait.
He sat in his chair, watching the town wake up and the people start moving around. He drank coffee and rolled cigarettes, smoking them slowly, his eyes missing nothing.
He watched as two very muddy and tired-looking riders rode slowly up the street, coming in from the north. Dooley set his coffee mug on the boards and stood up, staying in the morning shadows, only a dark blur to those
