Town Tamers (9 page)

T
hey thought they were being smart, but Asa had the eyes of a hawk. It came from his grandmother, one of the few things her legacy was good for.

Three riders had appeared. Two broke one way and one another. They were swinging wide to go up the streets that paralleled Main.

Asa moved into the murk along the side of the bank and sprinted to the rear. He reached it when the two riders were still a couple of blocks away. They were no more than black silhouettes, but that was enough. One of the advantages of a shotgun was that you only had to point it in the general direction of your target. The spread took care of the rest.

The street was narrower than Main, another factor in his favor.

They came on slowly and Asa heard one of them whisper, “I don’t see hide nor hair of anybody, Slim.”

“Me neither, Charley.”

Asa’s impulse was to shoot without warning, but he had to be sure, however slim the chance they were strangers passing through. “You Circle K punchers were warned to leave the country.”

They reined up and one blurted, “It’s by-God him, Charley! What do we do?”

Charley was already doing it. In the dark Asa didn’t see his hand move, but suddenly the night flared with a firefly and a six-shooter cracked. “Fill him with lead!” Charley cried.

Asa fired.

The force of it lifted Charley from his saddle and sprawled him catawampus in the street.

Slim banged off a shot and hauled on his reins. He was trying to get out of there, and as his mount turned, Asa let him have it, broadside. Slim screamed and toppled, and his horse ran off.

Asa ran to them to make certain. It was another of his rules: Always be sure.

Pale ribs poked from Slim’s chest. Charley had a hole where his stomach should be.

Working the Winchester’s lever, Asa turned and sprinted toward Main. The third one had heard and was coming at a gallop.

It was the one called Crusty. His eyes were almost as good as Asa’s, because he triggered several shots that sizzled lead uncomfortably close.

Asa dived and fired. The Winchester kicked but his aim was true and Crusty imitated a crow shot on the fly.

No shots at all came from the bank or the millinery, and Asa was pleased they were doing as they were supposed to.

Covering the stricken rustler, he moved closer.

Crusty was breathing in great gasps that sent a scarlet mist spraying from holes in his throat. “You’ve done me in, you son of a bitch.”

“Buckshot usually means burying,” Asa said.

Struggling to stay conscious, Crusty rasped, “Bull will get you. Him and Jake and the rest.”

“The more the merrier.”

Crusty sagged and froth filmed his lips. “Think you’re funny.”

“Did Weldon Knox come?”

“He doesn’t do his own killin’.”

“Shame,” Asa said. He pointed the Winchester.

“Can’t you see I’m almost gone? Why waste it?”

“Need to be sure.”

“Miserable stinkin’ breed.”

Asa stroked the trigger.

A
sa left the body lying there and retreated to the doorway of the bank where the outlaws wouldn’t see him until they were right on top of him. He quickly replaced the spent shells, sliding new ones from loops in a bandoleer.

The town might as well be a cemetery. Nothing moved, except for him.

No one came to help, either. Not that he blamed them. Yes, this was their home, but they were clerks and tellers and a butcher and a barber and others who’d hardly ever held a gun, let alone fired one.

Thanks to the lurid accounts of so-called journalists, folks who lived east of the Mississippi River believed that every man who lived west of it never stepped out the door without artillery strapped to their waist. But the journalists, as usual, were full of cow droppings. Most Westerners lived peaceable lives and went about unarmed except when they hunted or traveled through hostile territory.

Outlaws were usually heeled, but most couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn when sober, let alone when under the influence. Expert shootists were as rare as hen’s teeth. Wild Bill Hickok was justly famous for once shooting a man through the heart at seventy-five yards, a feat no one had duplicated and likely ever would.

Asa wasn’t Wild Bill. He was content to blow them apart at five yards. For him, skill didn’t count for much. But surviving did.

Hooves pounded, and soon the west end of Main Street filled with riders. Bull Cumberland and Jake Bass were in the lead, Cumberland a mountain on horseback, Bass coiled like the snake he was.

They didn’t slow. That was their first mistake. They stayed bunched together, too. That was their second. Bathed in the light from the houses they passed, they didn’t draw rein until they reached Crusty. That was their third mistake.

Asa stayed in the doorway. It was up to him to start the blood flowing, and he had to choose the right moment.

Bull Cumberland glared at the body, his hand on his revolver. “I told him to be careful.”

“Why, half his head is gone!” another man exclaimed.

“And the brains that were in it,” said a third.

Jake Bass was scouring Main Street. “Where’s that damn Town Tamer?”

“He has to be here somewhere,” Bull Cumberland said.

“Pair up and go door-to-door until we find him.”

Asa moved into the open. None of them noticed him until he was close to Cumberland’s sorrel. Cumberland was looking the other way but must have caught movement out of the corners of his eyes and jerked around. “I wouldn’t,” Asa said, the Winchester centered on Cumberland’s broad chest. “I can’t miss at this range.”

“No one try anything,” Cumberland said to the others without looking at them.

They obeyed. Jake Bass, though, had a wild look on his face that didn’t bode well.

“You figure on droppin’ all of us?” Bull Cumberland asked.

“No,” Asa answered. To claim he could would be foolish.

“Set down the cannon, and maybe I’ll make it quick,” Bull said.

“Steers fly now, do they?”

Bull wasn’t amused. “No, you’re right. After what you did to Old Tom and Tyree and now Crusty, you should beg for it to end.”

“Not in this life or any other.”

“You’ve got, what, five shots in that howitzer? There are ten of us left.”

“We’ll put more holes in you than there are in that foreign cheese,” Jake Bass boasted.

“Hush,” Bull Cumberland barked at him, again without taking his eyes off the Winchester.

“What are we waitin’ for, damn it?” Jake Bass said.

“Use your head,” someone snapped, “or Bull will lose his.”

Jake colored with anger. “You’ll answer to me later for that, Pike.”

Bull Cumberland was surprisingly calm. “How do you aim to do this? Have us drop our hardware and lie down in the street so you can have us hog-tied?”

“Do you see a tin star on my shirt?” Asa said.

“So it’s root, hog, or die?”

“Always has been,” Asa said. “Every town I’ve tamed. I never take anyone alive. They either die or they skedaddle for parts unknown.”

“We’re none of us skedaddlers.”

“You’re not,” Asa said. “But the rest of them aren’t you. Grit comes hard for most.”

“You have your share,” Bull Cumberland said, “comin’ out to meet us like this. You’d have been better off huntin’ cover.”

“I needed all of you sitting still.”

“Does it matter much with a shotgun?” Bull said.

“No,” Asa said, “but it does with rifles.” And he threw back his head and roared, “
Now!
”

S
urprise was key. It was why Asa always sent them on ahead. Why he insisted they avoid one another once he arrived in a town.

The odds were always against him. Never once was Asa asked to tame a town where only one bad man was giving the locals fits. It was always a lot of bad men, always a wild bunch, and they always thought he was facing them alone. They were wrong.

Asa had an ace in the hole. Or, rather, two aces, since his daughter insisted on doing her part, and truth be told, she was as good at it if not better than her rhyme-loving brother.

So now, when Asa roared, Byron reared up on the flat roof of the millinery across the street, and Noona heaved up in the steeple atop the bank.

The outlaws who had pretended to be cowpokes didn’t see them. They were concentrating on Asa, which was exactly what Asa wanted them to do. He cut loose at Bull Cumberland even as he threw himself to the ground. He was sure he scored, but somehow Bull stayed in the saddle. Then the rest of the outlaws were jerking pistols, and Jake Bass, the quickest, snapped a shot that kicked up dirt practically in Asa’s face.

Then the rifles of his children opened up.

They were as important as the element of surprise. Rifles had range. Rifles were man-droppers. Rifles—some—held more rounds than his shotgun.

These weren’t ordinary rifles—not Winchesters or Henrys, even though both were popular.

Byron used a Colt rifle. The company was famous for their pistols, but they manufactured long guns, too, some of the finest ever crafted. Byron’s was a Colt Lightning, the large-frame model with a slide action, not a lever. For long range Byron had his choice of a detachable scope or a peep sight. Or, for night work, he could rely on the front peep sight.

Noona preferred a Spencer. She loved the thing. She practiced with it every chance she got. Hers was fitted with a Blakeslee quick-loader and a removable tube magazine. Instead of loading it cartridge by cartridge, she carried seven extra tubes in a special-tailored vest. It took her mere moments to replace an empty tube with a full one. She shot faster than Byron, faster than Asa, faster than anyone Asa knew.

The first blasts of the Colt Lightning and the booms of the Spencer were drowned out by the banging of six-shooters. The Circle K riders didn’t realize they were being shot at by shooters other than Asa, but they found out when four of them dropped in as many seconds.

Asa rolled, felt a sting in his side. Horses were plunging and whinnying, and he got one between him and most of his would-be killers.

“Up there!” a Circle K killer hollered. “Someone with a rifle!”

Asa didn’t know if they had spotted Byron or Noona. He had a more immediate concern, and couldn’t look.

Jake Bass had reined around the others and jabbed his spurs to send his mount straight at Asa. Asa did more rolling, but a hoof clipped his shoulder and pain exploded. His arm felt half-numb as he came to a stop on his back.

He fired at Bass as Bass flew by, but he rushed his shot and misjudged the angle and did something a shooter with a shotgun seldom did that close up. He missed.

By now most of the bad men were firing at the millinery and the bank. One aimed his revolver at Byron and steadied his arm, and up in the bank steeple Noona’s Spencer thundered, and the man’s hat and no small part of his head went flying.

Noona had saved her brother’s bacon.

Asa unleashed a blast that smashed a rider from his saddle. Gaining his knees, he fired into the thick of them. Once. Twice.

A hornet buzzed his ear.

Jake Bass had reined around and was coming at him again, intent on riding him down.

Asa raised his Winchester, but he was a shade slow. The horse was almost on him. In another few moments he would be trampled and there was nothing he could do.

Then the Colt rifle on the millinery cracked and Jake Bass’s temple spurted blood, and in the same heartbeat the Spencer in the steeple crashed and the head of Bass’s horse did the same. The horse plunged to one side as if to escape the pain that had killed it. It didn’t trample Asa but it didn’t miss him, either. He was slammed to earth so hard, it was a wonder he didn’t break every rib in his body.

Just like that, the shooting stopped.

Stunned, his head ringing, Asa was vaguely aware of hammering hooves. A lone outlaw was taking flight. Heading east, not west.

Asa couldn’t lie there. Some might still be alive. He forced his legs to work and managed to stand.

Bodies were sprawled everywhere, and Bass’s horse, besides.

Asa reloaded. His arm was still numb, and he fumbled with the shells. He got done just as Byron came from across Main and Noona emerged from the bank at a run, her long hair tied in a tail.

They surveyed the slaughter and Byron said, “Well, we’ve done it again. Three cheers for us.”

“Not now,” Asa said, searching for signs of life in the riddled forms.

Noona said, “The one who got away won’t get far. I hit him solid.”

“Good girl,” Asa said.

Byron overheard and mockingly asked, “Am I a good boy, Pa?”

“Not now, I said.”

Byron motioned at the Circle K figures. “‘Our life is a false nature—’tis not in the harmony of things.’”

“You quote poetry now?” Asa said.

Byron didn’t get to answer.

Behind Asa and Noona a gun hammer clicked and a familiar voice said in vicious delight, “I’ve got you, you son of a bitch.”