Dooley stood up slowly and held out his hand as he walked up to Gage. With a look of amazement on his face, Gage took the offered hand.
“You got a good woman, Gage. I hope you treat her better than I did.” He turned to Liz and handed her the receipt from the stage agent. “Money from the sale of the cattle is over yonder in the safe. I’m thinkin’ straight now, Liz. But I don’t know how long it’s gonna last. So I’ll keep this short. Them boys of ourn took after me. They’re crazy. And they got to be stopped. I sired them, so it’s on my shoulders to stop them.” Then, unexpectedly, and totally out of character for him, he took off his hat and kissed Liz on the cheek.
“Thank you for some good years, Liz.” He turned around, walked to his horse, and swung into the saddle, pointing the nose of the horse toward the Circle Double C.
“Well, I’ll just be damned!” Gage said. “I’d have bet ever’ dollar I owned—which ain’t that many—that he was gonna start shootin.’”
Liz handed him the receipt. “Here, darling. You’ll be handling the money matters from now on. You might as well become accustomed to it.”
“Yes, dear,” the grizzled foreman said meekly. Then he squared his shoulders. “All right, boys, we got unfinished business to take care of. Let’s find some cayuses and get to it.”
Their aches and pains and sore feet forgotten, the men checked their guns and turned toward the hitchrails, lined with horses. “We’re takin’ these,” Del said. “Anybody got any objections, state ’em now.”
No one had any objections.
Hans rode up on a huge horse at least twenty hands high. He had belted on a pistol and carried a rifle in one big paw. “I ride vit you,” he rumbled. “Friends of mine dey are, too.”
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
