Chapter 3
Tom Rodman and Pete Donahue stood up quickly from the table where they had been playing dominos. Donahue’s rifle was lying on the desk, and Rodman’s shotgun hung on the wall. Both men grabbed their weapons.
“Just because riders are comin’, it doesn’t have to mean anything, Vint,” Rodman said.
“The hell it doesn’t!” Reilly hurried to the desk and blew out the lamp. “You know better, Tom.”
“Maybe old man Burton decided to send some of his cowboys to pick up the money after all,” Donahue suggested as darkness enveloped the office. “That might be all it is.”
“From the sound of those hoofbeats, he would have had to send his entire crew, and I don’t think he’d do that.” Reilly’s voice was grim as he went on, “No, boys, that’s trouble coming. I’m sure of it.”
“If it is, we’ll give trouble a warm welcome,” Rodman vowed. “Pete, take the window on the left. Vint, you take the right. I’ll plant myself right in front of the safe.”
Reilly didn’t argue. Tom Rodman had fought a lot more outlaws than he ever had. Reilly had fired a gun in anger only twice in his life, both times at Comanches who had raided his father’s ranch up in central Texas when Reilly was a teenager. The Comanches had come to steal horses, but both times Reilly and his pa and his brothers had driven them away.
Reilly didn’t know if his shots had hit anybody during those fights. It was certainly possible. And he had no doubts about being able to shoot at any varmints who tried to steal the money from the safe. He didn’t want to kill anybody, but he would if he had to in order to do his job.
“Steady, boys,” Rodman said into the darkness. He sounded calm, a lot calmer than Reilly, whose heart was pounding so hard he thought it would burst out of his chest. “Once some slugs start buzzing around their heads, those owlhoots will probably turn tail and run.”
Reilly hoped the older man was right.
He’d raised the window to the right of the door. Donahue had done the same on the left. Both men knelt with their Winchesters thrust out through the openings. Reilly could still hear the thundering hoofbeats, although the roaring of blood inside his head threatened to drown them out.
The riders were coming from the wrong direction to be the M-B Connected crew, he realized. Burton’s ranch was north of the settlement. These men were riding in from the west, from the direction of the hill.
Had they been up there earlier when he was looking at it? Reilly couldn’t help wondering. Had danger been lurking up there even then?
No matter. It was here now.
The riders swept into town at the western end of Main Street. Gunshots slammed out immediately as the men opened fire. Reilly leaned forward to peer out the window as muzzle flashes lit up the night in a weird shadow show. He saw a man who’d been walking along the boardwalk on the opposite side of the street suddenly crumple, riddled by bullets.
The bastards were shooting at anything that moved, Reilly realized wildly. They hadn’t come just to steal the money at the stage station. They were there to loot the whole town.
“Get ’em, Pete!” he cried as he pointed his rifle at the onrushing horde and pulled the trigger.
Donahue’s Winchester cracked a split second after Reilly’s did. Reilly worked his rifle’s lever and fired again. A storm of lead smashed into the stage station in response. The outlaws saw the muzzle flashes from Reilly’s and Donahue’s Winchesters and concentrated their fire on the station.
The windowpanes above Reilly shattered into a million pieces as several bullets struck them at once. Razor-sharp shards of glass sprayed across the office and down over him. He ducked his head so his hat protected his face to a certain extent, but he still felt the sting on his hands and the back of his neck.
Behind him, Tom Rodman yelled furiously, “Those sons of bitches!”
“Get down!” Reilly shouted as slugs began to punch through the plank walls. “Get down on the floor!”
He flattened out and hoped Rodman and Donahue did the same. The walls stopped some of the bullets, but not enough of them. Deadly chunks of lead zipped through the air in the room. Their high-pitched whine was an ugly sound.
Donahue grunted. “Damn.”
“Pete! Are you hit?”
“Yeah. Not too bad, though. Bullet went through my left forearm. I can still hold my rifle.”
“Tom, how about you?” Reilly raised his voice to be heard over the gun thunder from outside.
“I’m all right so far,” Rodman said. “What in blazes are they doin’?”
The racket slacked off slightly. Reilly raised his head and risked a quick look out the window. “They’ve gone past us. They’re down at the other end of town now, shooting it up.”
“What’re they gonna do?” Donuhue asked. “Ride back and forth shooting like crazy men until they’ve shot up every building in town?”
Reilly suddenly realized there was a very good chance the men would do just that. “This isn’t just a robbery. It’s a raid, like an attack on a town during a war. They’ll kill as many people as they can.”
“We gotta stop ’em!” Donahue began struggling to his feet.
“Three of us against more than a dozen of them?” Reilly hadn’t been able to tell exactly how many outlaws there were as they charged past the stage station, but he knew he and his companions were badly outnumbered.
“We can whittle down the odds the next time they charge us,” Rodman said, “and I know just how to do it.”
Before Reilly could ask the old shotgun guard what he meant, Donahue cried out, “You’re gonna get your chance, Tom! Here they come again!”
Rodman lurched up from the floor. He started toward the door as Reilly said, “Tom, what are you—”
“Outlaws are cowards!” Rodman said as he jerked the door open. “Give some of ’em a faceful of buckshot, and the rest will run!”
He stepped out onto the porch before Reilly could stop him.
“Eat lead, you buzzards!” Rodman bellowed as he brought up the Greener.
His finger hadn’t tightened on the triggers when at least half a dozen slugs thudded into his body, driving him back toward the door. The impact made the shotgun’s barrels rise higher as he finally jerked the triggers and sent both barrels harmlessly into the wooden awning over the boardwalk.
Rodman crashed down on his back, his upper body inside the office and his legs still on the porch. “Jesus, Mary, and Jo—”
That was all he got out before a strangled gasp choked him, and Reilly knew his friend was dead. Rodman’s foolish attack hadn’t accomplished anything except to get him killed.
The shooting continued outside. Reilly and Donahue managed to get off a few rounds in return, but the fierce barrage from the gang’s guns forced them to the floor again. Bullets whined around them.
“Oh, hell!” Donahue said. “I’m hit again.”
Some providence had protected Reilly so far, although he didn’t see how. He crawled toward Donahue, wincing as some of the glass slivers covering the floor poked through his clothes and sliced into his flesh. “I’m coming, Pete. I’m coming to get you.”
“Hell, no!” Donahue gasped. “Get out of here, Vint! You can’t stop ’em. Let ’em have the damn money. Go out the back and save yourself !”
“I won’t leave you here—” Reilly’s words stopped short as the shooting outside slacked off again. He heard something else, a terrible crackling and roaring, and as he glanced through the open door where Tom Rodman’s body lay, he saw the reflection of a flickering, orange-tinted glare.
The smell of smoke drifted to his nose a second later. It was different from the acrid tang of the gunsmoke filling the night.
That was wood burning, Reilly thought. A building going up in flames, from the look of the light outside.
The bastards were putting the town to the torch!
“Go,” Pete Donahue said again, his voice weak. “You gotta get to ... Delores ...”
Fear stabbed deep into Reilly’s guts. His wife was at home alone, and even if the outlaws hadn’t gotten around to his house yet, sooner or later they would. He had to reach Delores, get her out of there. They could flee on foot into the darkness. It was a cowardly thing to do, but it might save her life.
That was more important to Reilly than anything else.
“Pete, I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be ... Just stop flappin’ ... your gums and ... rattle your hocks ... outta here.” Donahue got a hand under him and pushed himself into a sitting position. His rifle lay across his lap. “I’ll keep ’em ... busy.”
Grunting with the effort, Donahue lifted the Winchester and started firing through the open door at the shapes on horseback darting back and forth in the street.
The nightmarish glare outside had grown brighter. More buildings were ablaze.
The station didn’t have a back door, but there was a window at the end of the hall past the storeroom where Reilly could get out. He started in that direction, but as he reached the hall he paused for a final look back at Donahue.
It wasn’t his wounded friend who caught his attention, though. It was one of the riders in the street. The man wore a long duster but no hat. Long hair hung loose around his shoulders, and a beard jutted from his jaw. The glare from the conflagration washed over him as he hauled back on his reins and forced his horse to rear.
The look on the man’s face as he turned his head toward the stage station was like nothing Vint Reilly had ever seen before. It was pure madness, pure evil, like looking into the face of Satan himself.
Reilly knew he would never forget that face as long as he lived.
Pete Donahue triggered a shot at the man, but his strength had all but deserted him, and the Winchester’s barrel sagged, sending the slug into the boardwalk outside the door.
The outlaw brought his mount down and raised his hand. In it was some sort of funny-looking pistol with an odd grip and a big magazine where a revolver’s cylinder would normally be.
Fire licked from the weapon’s muzzle as bullets poured out of it, as fast as the killer could squeeze the trigger. The slugs stitched into Donahue’s body, making him jerk and twitch.
It was the last thing Reilly saw inside the station. He turned and plunged through the darkened hallway. Lowering his head and holding his Winchester in front of him, he crashed through the window at the far end. He was already cut up. A few more gashes wouldn’t mean anything.
In a shower of broken glass and splintered window frame, he burst out of the station and fell to the ground behind the building. The hard landing knocked the breath out of him. Gasping for air, he forced himself to his feet.
He had to get home before it was too late. He started along the alley behind the buildings in a stumbling run as screams, gunshots, and the crackling roar of Fire Hill’s destruction filled the night.
Chapter 4
Kid Morgan turned over in his bedroll. His eyes opened, and instantly every sense was alert.
He had the ability only a few men possessed, that of emerging from a sound sleep fully awake and ready for trouble. Without thinking about reaching for a gun, his hand was already wrapped around the walnut grips of his Colt.
He lay motionless, listening intently and letting his gaze roam around the campsite to see as much as he could from where he was.
He sniffed the air, searching for the smell of unwashed human flesh or the lingering odor of tobacco smoke.
Nothing.
He risked turning his head enough to look at the buckskin and the pack horse. Both animals were dozing. The Kid didn’t expect any sort of vigilance from the stolid pack horse, but the buckskin would have been spooked if anybody or anything was nearby that shouldn’t be.
He sat up slowly. The night around him was as peaceful and quiet as it could be.
Maybe he’d only had a dream, he told himself. Perhaps a nightmare he couldn’t remember had jolted him out of sleep.
That was unlikely, though. If it wasn’t, he might be going loco. Lord knew, with everything that had happened in the past two years, he had reason enough to lose his mind.
The Kid stood up and stretched, turning toward the north. His movements stopped suddenly.
The terrain was mostly flat in that direction, and far, far away, he saw a tiny glow, low on the horizon.
Something was burning over yonder, he thought, bringing back memories of a wagon train he had encountered recently, over in New Mexico Territory. He had seen the light from the wagons burning in the night, too. He had gone to investigate and found death, tragedy, and trouble that had drawn him in and nearly ended his own life.
Whatever was burning, it was none of his business. He could tell it was a good-sized fire, but it was long miles away. Even if he saddled up and headed in that direction as fast as the buckskin could carry him, he would be too late. He couldn’t get there until long after whatever was happening was over.
He wondered if that was what had roused him. Had some instinct told him there was trouble going on somewhere else, and that he needed to be there?
That was a crazy idea, he told himself. He wanted to avoid trouble, not find it. He didn’t even want to be around people any more than he had to.
For a while, anyway. Maybe that would change someday, but for now he wanted to ride lonesome.
He bent and slid the Colt back into its holster. The buckskin raised its head and nickered sleepily.
“It’s nothing,” The Kid told the horse. “Go back to sleep.”
He hoped he could take his own advice.
The outlaws had started burning the town at its eastern end, probably because they didn’t want the stage station going up in flames before they had a chance to get in there and steal Marcus Burton’s money. The safe would probably protect the cash, even if the building burned down around it, but the gang wouldn’t want to risk losing the money.
Those were the thoughts going through Reilly’s head as he hurried frantically toward his house. The stage station was located toward the western end of Main Street, and his home was farther west.
The house he shared with Delores was one of the first the raiders had charged past as they entered Fire Hill. He wondered if she had heard the hoofbeats and if the sound had frightened her.
No doubt she had heard all the shooting, and was probably terrified, more for him than for herself, though. She was smart enough to know Burton’s money was most likely the reason those evil men had come to Fire Hill. She would be scared something had happened to her husband.
Well, it had come close, mighty close, Reilly thought. It was sheer luck he hadn’t died in that stage station, too.
Or maybe his life had been spared for a reason. Maybe he had lived so he could save Delores. That thought made him feel a little better about taking her and running for their lives.
Horses pounded past on Main Street, heading west again. Men whooped.
Not men, Reilly amended.
Monsters.
That’s what they were, monsters in human form, and that long-haired bastard in the duster was the worst of the lot, Reilly told himself. He didn’t know how he knew that, but the conclusion was clear in his mind.
He shoved that thought away. Another minute and he’d be home.
Suddenly, he saw flames shooting into the air. “Noooo!”
The outlaws had set fire to the buildings on the western end of town. The flames would burn toward each other and wipe out the entire settlement.
Reilly ran faster. His only hope was to get to his house before the fires spread that far.
That hope was dashed cruelly as he came in sight of his house. Livid red and orange flames were already shooting from the roof and out the windows. He threw aside his Winchester, not wanting anything to weigh him down as he sprinted frantically toward his home.
Men rode past and shot at him, but he only vaguely heard the bullets whistling past his head. His only thoughts were for Delores. He might still have time to reach her ...
The fire was burning most fiercely on the front side of the house, where the raiders had thrown their torches to set the place ablaze. Reilly headed for the back door, slowing just long enough to lift his right foot and send it crashing against the door just above the knob. The door burst open.
Terrible heat slammed against his face like a physical blow. Smoke swirled around him, choking and blinding him. He stumbled forward as he was seized by a fit of coughing.
“Delores!” he managed to shout, hoping she had gotten out before the outlaws set fire to the house. “Delores, where are you?”
It was only a few steps to the desert. Reilly really wanted to believe she could have fled into the night, but he didn’t think it was what she would have done. She would have stayed, thinking he would come for her.
Well, he had. Now he just had to find her.
Moving through the house was like being trapped in a nightmare where he had gone to hell. Smoke and flames were everywhere. The trappings of his life were being destroyed all around him, but he didn’t care about any of that.
All he cared about was Delores. He called her name again and again, his voice becoming more hoarse and pain-wracked with every shout. Catching sight of a human form lying slumped on the living room floor, he threw himself toward it, screaming, “Delores!”
He fell to his knees beside her, reaching out to grab her shoulders and roll her over to pull her into his arms and carry her out of the inferno.
Her head lolled loosely on her neck as he turned her. Reilly sobbed, a deep, gut-wrenching sound, as he saw her face in the hellish glare of the fire. A black hole marred her smooth forehead, and below it her wide eyes stared sightlessly.
One of the wild bullets fired by the outlaws had come through a window or maybe even through the wall and struck Delores, killing her instantly.
Reilly pulled her limp form against him as violent shudders shook him. He couldn’t believe it, couldn’t bear to let her go.
He pressed his face into the thick waves of her hair, trying to inhale as much of its scent as he could. But the smoke that seared his nostrils was the only thing he could smell.
A crash close by startled him out of his grief-stricken stupor. The roof was starting to come down.
He didn’t care anymore whether he lived or died, but he couldn’t leave Delores there to burn. Gathering her against him, he struggled to his feet and turned toward the kitchen, intending to make it out the back of the house with her.
“Vint! Vint! Are you in there?”
The shouts barely penetrated his consciousness. He looked toward the back door and saw someone standing there. Smoke wreathed around the man, who coughed and pressed a bandanna over his face in a feeble attempt to block out some of it. When the man moved the bandanna, Reilly recognized the craggy features of Marshal Alonzo Hyde.
“Come on, Vint!” Hyde cried when he spotted the stage station manager emerging from the smoke. “You can make it!”
But Reilly couldn’t. More of the roof fell, coming down like a sheet of flame between him and Hyde.
As he recoiled from it, a great weight struck him in the back and knocked him off his feet. He cradled Delores against him as he fell, even though she was past feeling any pain, ever again.
Sheer, stubborn determination made Reilly struggle to get up. Suddenly all the strength flowed out of him like water from an overturned bucket. He couldn’t move anymore.
He lay there, coughing as the smoke filled his lungs and the flames began to eat at his flesh. He couldn’t even scream at the searing agony.
Red hell surrounded him, then faded to black.