“Will do, Smoke,” the mayor said, and moved out to get ready.
“One group inside Marbly’s store. Toby, you and your people will defend the hotel. Benson’s group will take the livery. Ralph, you and your bunch will fight from the saloon. The rest of them know where to be and what to do. Let’s start getting ready.”
Sal looked at Smoke’s battered face and commented, “Need I have to ask who won the fight?”
“Big Max didn’t,” Smoke said, then walked toward the hotel for a hot bath, a change into fresh clothes, and to rest beside Sally.
“I’d give a pretty penny to have seen that scrap,” Sal said.
“Yeah,” Pete Akins agreed. “He must have hurt him bad for Max not to be leadin’ the raid come the morning.”
“How many men are we facing tomorrow?” the owner of the cafe asked.
“Nearabouts a hundred from Hell’s Creek.” Pete told him. “Maybe more than that. And all of Red Malone’s bunch. We’ll have them outnumbered, but bear this in mind: Them we’ll be facin’ is killers. Ninety-nine percent of the townspeople ain’t.” He looked hard at the cafe owner and at the other group leaders. “You pass the word, boys: Don’t give no mercy, ’cause you shore as hell ain’t gonna be gettin’ none from them that attack us.”
Smoke took a long hot soak in their private bath in the suite, then napped for an hour. He dressed and began cleaning his guns, loading rifle, shotgun, and pistols up full. He took his spare pistols out of wraps and cleaned and oiled them, loading them up. They were old Remington Frontier .44’s, and Smoke had had them for a long time. He liked the feel of them, and was comfortable and confident with them in his hands.
“Early in the morning,” Smoke told his wife, “you go get Victoria and Martha and the kids. Bring them back up to this suite. We’ll be up long before then—the cafe and hotel dining room is going to open about four o’clock to feed those that don’t eat at home—and we’ll rearrange the furniture in this suite to stop any bullet. I’ll have a boy start bringing up water to fight any fires that might start. Their plan is to destroy the town, so they’ll be throwing torches.”
Sally sat at the table with her husband, oiling and cleaning her own guns. “Vicky doesn’t know anything about pistols,” she said. “But Martha does. We’ll have rifles and shotguns ready. How about Robert, Smoke?”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to kill him, honey. I can’t justify killing a crazy person unless there is just no other way out.”
“I’ve been reading that there is some new treatment for the mad. But insane asylums are just awful.”
“I know. I mean, I’ve heard they are. Chain them down like wild animals until they die.” He rose from the table and buckled his gunbelt around his lean waist, tying it down. “I’m going to roam the town.”
Everybody was pitching in to secure the town. The new bankers just arrived from the East were nervous about the upcoming fight but doing their share in carrying water, moving barricades in place, and anything else they were asked to do. And Smoke could also read excitement in their faces.
Sal caught up with him. “Where are you going to be come the mornin’, Smoke?”
“I’ll be lone-wolfing it, Sal. Moving around. Did you see to it that everybody had a red bandana?”
“Everybody that will be behind a friendly gun will have one tied around their right arm. They was a darn good idea of yours. That’s gonna help keep us from shootin’ our own people.”
“The dust and smoke are going to be bad when it starts. So I would suggest we water down the main street just before the bank opens. What do you think?”
“Another good idea. I’m gonna miss you and Sally when y’all pull out.”
“You’ll handle it, Sal. And, Sal? ...”
The sheriff turned to face him.
“Martha and Vicky and the kids will be with Sally in our suite come the morning. So you won’t have to worry about V ictoria.”
Sal blushed and headed across the street. Smoke smiled and continued his walking tour.
The saloon had been turned into a fort, as had the livery stable and barn. Marbly’s store was barricaded, and anything that might be broken had been taken from the shelves and stored in wooden boxes. Smoke nodded his approval and walked back to the hotel. The waiting was going to be hard.
“Way I see it,” John Steele said to Red Malone, “we just ain’t got much of a choice.”
“We have no choice,” the rancher said. “We both have warrants on us in other states. The town has to be destroyed, and everybody in it dead and buried in deep graves. Well toss the bodies into the fires and burn them before we bury them. The authorities, if any show up, won’t be able to prove a damn thing.”
“Some of our men rode out today, right after the rider from Hell’s Creek left. Said they wasn’t havin’ no part of killin’ women and kids.”
Red snorted his disgust. “We don’t need them. We’re better off without them.”
What neither of them knew was that the hands who had left in disgust over making war against women and kids were riding toward Barlow, to join the defenders of the little town.
“After Barlow is burned out,” Red said, “the outlaws will scatter to the wind. We’ll ride and burn down Hell’s Creek. We’ll blame everything on Max’s bunch. Hell, we can even say that we sided with the townspeople in trying to fight them outlaws off. We’ll take some of our own men dead, for sure. We can point their graves out to the invesigators as proof.”
“That still leaves Joe Walsh and his crew,” the foreman pointed out.
“We’ll deal with them. We’ve got them outnumbered three to one. Soon as Barlow is done and over, we’ll ride for the Circle Wand clean out Walsh and his crew.”
John smiled a death’s-head grin. “Then we can wipe out all them damn hog-farmers and other nesters, and the
