instead of three. And no woman. Understandable. The personnel of these bands probably changed from day to day. “Right up to them,” he told Malachai. “Close.”
The wheels hit the first planks of the bridge and Malachai slowed.
Randy saw the muzzle of the Thompson rise. This was the one he had to get. He pushed the butt of the carbine into Bill McGovern’s ribs. He said, “Let them come right up to you. Let ‘em come right in with us if they want. We’ve got troubles up front.”
Bill nodded. The rhythmic timpani beat of tires on planks stopped. They were twenty feet from the Model-A. The man with the bat advanced toward the left side of the truck. The Tommy gunner stayed where he was. In his light Randy doubted that they could see anything in the truck body but he did not stir. He was immobile as a sack. He whispered, “Make the son of a bitch with the gun come to us. Make him move, make him come.”
The man with the bat was three feet from Malachai and five feet from the carbine’s muzzle. If he looked into the truck cab Randy would have to shoot him and in that case the Tommy gunner might get them all. There was nothing more Randy could say or do. He could not even whisper. It was all up to Malachai now.
The man whacked his bat viciously against the door. “What you got in there, boy?”
“I ain’t got nuthin, boss.” Malachai whined. From the set of his right shoulder Randy knew Malachai had his right hand on the .45, but he was acting dumb and talking dumb, which was the way to do.
The Tommy gunner moved a step closer and two steps right so he could observe Malachai. He said, “Come on, Casey. Get that dinge outta there!”
The man with the bat said, “Step down, you black bastard!”
Randy knew that the man couldn’t use the bat while Malachai stayed in the truck and he prayed Malachai would wait him out. He watched the gunner. Please, God, make him take one more step so I won’t have to try through the windshield. A shot through the windshield was almost certain to miss because of light refraction or bullet deflection. It would be foolhardy and desperate and he would not do it.
The gunner said, “Drag him out or blow him out. I don’t care which.”
Malachai cringed and cried, “Please, boss!” The fear in his voice was real.
The man with the bat put his hand on the door handle. At the instant he turned it, Malachai uncoiled, hurling himself through the door and on him, pistol clubbed.
The gunner took two quick steps and the Thompson jerked and spoke. The gunner’s thick middle was in Randy’s sights and he squeezed the trigger, and again, and again before the Thompson’s muzzle came down and the gunner folded and began to fall. When he was on his face he still twitched and held the gun and tried to swing it up and Randy shot at him again, carefully, through the head.
He had not even heard the shotguns but when Randy crawled over into the front seat and got out, looking for another target, the battle was over. Close behind the truck two figures lay, their arms and legs twisted in death’s awkward signature. The Admiral stood over the man who had held the bat, his shotgun a foot from his head. Malachai was curled up as if in sleep, his head against the left front tire. It had lasted not more than seven seconds.
Malachai choked and groaned and Randy dropped to his knees beside him and straightened him and lifted his head. Malachai choked again and Randy turned Malachai’s head so the blood could run out of his mouth and not down his windpipe. He tore open Malachai’s shirt. There was a hole large as a dime just under the solar plexus. In this round well, dark blood rose and ebbed rhythmically, a small, ominous tide.
The Admiral said, “Shall I get rid of this scum?”
Randy said, “Just a minute.” He picked up the bat and forced himself to think ahead. First, Malachai. Get Malachai home in a hurry so Dan could do something if there was anything to be done. Dan didn’t have his tools, or much eyesight. He might make do with one eye if he had the tools these men had stolen. Randy ran to the Model-A. It was empty. The doctor’s bag wasn’t there.
He walked back to the truck where Sam Hazzard stood over their captive. One side of the man’s face was scraped raw. Malachai’s plunge had carried the long-jawed, twisted-mouth face along the bridge planking. “Where’s the doctor’s bag?”
The man said nothing. Randy saw his right hand moving. He still had a holstered weapon. Randy tapped him on the nose with the bat. “Keep your hand still.” The Admiral leaned over, unbuckled the holster, and took the weapon. A .38 police special. “Talk,” Randy said.
The man said, “I don’t know nuthin’.”
Randy tapped his face with the bat, harder. The man screamed. Randy said, “Where’s the black bag?”
The man said, “She took it. Rumdum took it.” “Where is she?”
“I don’t know. She goofed off with somebody last night maybe it was this morning-I don’t know-goofed off with some bastard with a bottle.”
Randy called, “Bill! Where’s Bill?”
Bill McGovern was on the other side of the truck. He said, “I’m here, Randy.”
“Bill, go look in that car and see if you can find Dan’s bag. And be sure those two back there are good and dead.”
Malachai choked again. Randy tried to ease him over on his side but he began to bleed more from the stomach wound so he had to let him be.
Sam Hazzard said, “I don’t think this one’s doing us any good. He’s just holding us up. I think we should convoke a military tribunal right now and pass sentence. I vote he be executed.”
“So do I,” Randy said, “but I want him to hang. If he makes any trouble let him have it, Sam, but I’d like to have him alive.” Bill came back with a cardboard carton. “Nothing in that car, except this. A little food in here. A few cans of sardines and corned beef hash and a box of matches. A couple of boxes of ammunition. That’s all. Not a sign of Dan’s bag. And the sedan is finished. It was in our line of fire and it looks like a sieve with all that buckshot through it. There’s gasoline all over the road.” Randy started the Model-A and looked at the fuel gauge. It showed almost empty. He backed it away from the bridge entrance, put the key in his pocket, and left it. He said, “We’ll lift Malachai into the truck and get going. First, I’ll collect their weapons and ammo.” He was thinking ahead. There would be other highwaymen and this was armament for his company. “What about these?” Bill asked, pointing his shotgun at the bodies.
“Leave them.” He looked up. The buzzards already attended. “I’ll come back tomorrow or we’ll send somebody. Whatever they leave-” he watched the black birds wheeling and swooping-”we’ll give to the river.”
One of the highwaymen trailing them had been Leroy Settle, the drugstore cowboy. When Randy examined his two guns he was surprised to find that they were only .22 caliber, lightweight replicas, except in bore, of the big frontier .45’s. His companion’s pistol apparently had gone into the river, for it wasn’t on the bridge although he had a pocketful of ammunition.
Then Randy leaned over the leader. He saw that his shots had all been good, the three in the belly making a neat pattern, diagonal ticktacktoe. When he picked up the Thompson the dead man’s arm astonishingly rose with it, clinging as if his fingers were glued to the stock. Randy jerked it free and saw that it was glue, of a sort. The man’s hands were smeared with honey.
It was after dark when Randy wheeled up to the front steps of the house. As he cut the engine he heard Graf barking. All the downstairs windows showed light. Lib burst out of the door and ran down the steps, saw him at the wheel, and was there with her arms and lips when he got out.
Preacher Henry appeared, and Two-Tone, Florence Wechek and Alice Cooksey, Hannah and Missouri, the children. Dan Gunn came out, robe flapping, carrying a lantern. They had all been waiting.
The Admiral and Bill were in back with the prisoner and Malachai. Bill stepped out, holding a pistol, and then the man with the bat, called Casey, prodded by Sam Hazzard’s shotgun. Sam climbed down and that left Malachai. Malachai had been unconscious after the first mile. Until they reached Fort Repose, the road had been very bad.
Randy said, “Killed three, grabbed this one. They got Malachai through the middle. Look at him, Dan. Is he still with us, Sam>“
The Admiral said, “He was a minute ago. Barely.” Randy said, “Ben Franklin, get some clothesline.”
“We going to hang him right now?” Ben asked, not casually but still as if he expected it.
“No. We’ll tie him.”
Dan crawled into the truck. He held up the lantern, shook his head in exasperation, and then tore the patch away from his right eye. The eye was still swollen but not entirely shut and any assistance to his left eye was
