Deadly Road to Yuma (5 page)

Matt and Sam moved to the corners of the hotel fronting the street and knelt behind the little wall. It wouldn’t provide much cover, but it was better than nothing.

The hoofbeats still sounded like thunder, but now it was as if the storm was about to roll into the town. Torches suddenly flared to life in the hands of some of the approaching riders, and from the intensity of the flames, Matt and Sam knew that the torches had been soaked in pitch.

“Drop those men with the torches!” Matt called to Sam. “They’re gonna try to set the town on fire!”

As the outlaws reached the end of Main Street and began to sweep into the settlement, the blood brothers opened fire, concentrating their shots on the men wielding the torches. With each crack of a Winchester, one after another of Shade’s men fell, dropping the torches to be snuffed out in the dust of the road.

The raiders returned the fire, sending a hail of lead from their six-guns at the hotel roof. Matt and Sam were forced to duck as the bullets chewed at the wall.

Then the outlaws raced on past the hotel as more gunfire began to erupt up and down the street. The town’s defenders were shooting from the cover of the buildings, but they didn’t seem to be doing much damage, Matt saw as he poked his head up again.

A bare-headed man in a long black coat whirled his horse and galloped back to the spot where one of the torches had fallen. It was still burning, and scarcely slackening his mount’s speed, the man bent down from the saddle, reached out with a long arm, and snatched the torch from the ground. He whirled it over his head and threw it at the window of a hardware store as he dashed past. The window shattered under the impact, and the torch landed inside.

Matt bit back a curse as he looked through the broken window and saw flames leaping up. He snapped a shot at the man who had thrown the torch, thinking that he might be Joshua Shade. Whether that was true or not, Matt’s bullet missed as the man jerked his horse around and headed down the street again.

The outlaws fought with the precision of a well-trained military unit, some of them staying together and sending volleys of lead ripping into the buildings they passed. Others split off from the main group.

Matt saw one man leap his horse onto the porch in front of a saloon; then the outlaw rode on through the batwings into the saloon, flames spewing from the muzzles of the guns in his hands as he charged in. That scene was repeated in several places up and down the street as the battle began spreading through the town.

Two of the riders headed for the hotel. Sam killed one of them with a shot that drove him backward out of the saddle, but the other man reached the porch with his horse. Both of the blood brothers heard the rending crash as the horse slammed through the doors, followed a second later by the boom of the hotel keeper’s shotgun, interspersed with the flatter reports of a revolver.

The six-gun kept blasting, but the shotgun was silent after the first charge went off. Matt and Sam knew that couldn’t be good.

“Damn it, the way they spread out we can’t do enough from up here!” Matt called. “We need to be down there!”

“I’ll get the ladder!” Sam said.

“No time for that!”

Holding the Winchester slanted across his chest, Matt stepped up onto the wall and leaped down onto the roof that extended out over the hotel porch. The roof had a little slope to it, so he slid down it to the edge and then rolled over it, catching hold with one hand to break his fall.

He hung there for a second, one hand holding him up while the other lifted the rifle and triggered it at an outlaw galloping past. The owlhoot’s bullet burned along the arm Matt was using to hang on to the porch, and forced him to let go so that he dropped the last couple of feet to the ground.

Matt’s slug, though, punched into the raider’s body, bored through a lung, and burst out the other side in a spray of blood. The man went spinning out of the saddle and slammed to the ground, bouncing once before he lay still in death.

Matt had gone to one knee when he landed. He stayed there and socketed the Winchester against his shoulder. It cracked again and again until the hammer clicked. The rifle was empty.

Surging to his feet, Matt grabbed the Winchester’s heated barrel with both hands and swung the weapon like a club as he leaped toward one of the mounted raiders. The man didn’t see him coming in time to get out of the way, and the rifle’s stock shattered under the impact of the blow—along with the varmint’s skull.

Matt tossed the broken rifle aside and palmed out both Colts. He had both of them smoking as he zigzagged across the street. Behind him, the outlaw who had ridden into the hotel lobby emerged on horseback through the broken doorway and swung his pistol toward Matt’s back.

Before the gun could erupt, another shot rang out. The desperado’s hat flew off his head as a slug from Sam’s .45 cored through his brain and exploded out the other side in a fist-sized exit wound. He toppled out of the saddle and sprawled limply on the hotel porch. His spooked horse leaped into the street and went sun-fishing off.

Sam had followed Matt’s lead and was hanging from the end of the porch roof, the smoking six-gun still in his other hand. He dropped the rest of the way and ran past the man he had just killed into the lobby.

The hotel man was slumped against the front of the desk, blood staining his white suit and turning it sodden. He had been shot at least three or four times. He lifted pained eyes to Sam; then his head fell forward as he died.

There was nothing Sam could do for the man now, so he wheeled around and charged back out into the street. Matt was across the street in front of the hardware store, which was still burning inside. When both Colts were empty, Matt jammed them back in their holsters and kicked the store’s door open. He ran inside and began looking for something he could use to beat out the flames before they got too big.

Sam crouched on the hotel porch and fired at the raiders as they galloped past until his revolver was empty. Then, instead of reloading, he ran into the hotel again and grabbed the shotgun the proprietor had dropped. A number of shells were still lined up on the counter. The hotelman hadn’t gotten a chance to use them.

Sam snatched the shells and stuffed them into the pocket of his buckskin shirt. He broke open the Greener, saw that only one barrel had been fired, and pulled out that shell to replace it with a fresh one.

Then, even though the man could no longer hear him, he told the proprietor, “I’ll try to put these to good use, sir,” and ran out of the hotel.

Bloody chaos had ensued, filling the town. A score of gunfights were going on, scattered from one end of the street to the other. Only one building seemed to be on fire so far, which was a blessing, but the blaze could still spread.

Sam felt the heat of a bullet against his cheek, and swung around to see who had fired it, lifting the shotgun as he did so. One of the outlaws was almost on top of him, about to trample him under the hooves of a charging horse. At the same time, the man was swinging his gun down for another shot at Sam, just in case.

Sam threw himself out of the way of the horse, but as he was falling he thrust the Greener’s twin barrels at the man and tripped both triggers. With an awesome roar, the shotgun erupted and sent both charges of buckshot smashing into the outlaw. At this range, it almost blew him in half. What fell from the horse and landed in the street near Sam barely looked human anymore.

Sam pulled two more shells from his pocket as he scrambled to his feet. He broke the shotgun, shucked the empties, crammed the fresh shells into the barrels.

“The vengeance of the Lord will be upon you!” someone screamed nearby.

Sam whirled and saw another man on horseback charging toward him, the hatless, long-haired, black-suited hombre who had led the charge into the settlement. Sam raised the shotgun and fired, but at the last second the rider hauled back hard on the reins and caused his mount to rear up on its hind legs. The horse took the blast, not the man riding it. With a shrill scream of agony, the mortally wounded animal toppled over backward, taking its rider with it.

The man sprang agilely out of the saddle, though, and avoided being crushed. As he caught his balance, he jerked two guns from their holsters and raised them toward Sam, who hadn’t had time to reload the shotgun.

The black-coated outlaw wasn’t going to give him the time either. When Sam saw that, he did the only thing he could. He threw the Greener at the man as hard as he could.

The shotgun hit the outlaw in the arms and threw his aim off as the pistols exploded. The bullets whined past Sam as he followed the shotgun. He crashed into the man and bore him over backward, knocking him off his feet. Both men went down.

But Sam landed on top, and as he dug a knee into the man’s belly, he sledged a left and a right to the face. The outlaw went limp, stunned by the powerful blows. Sam plucked the guns from his hands.

He surged to his feet and spun toward the sound of more footsteps running toward him. His fingers were taut on the triggers.

He stopped without firing, though, as he recognized Matt’s face, now grimy from smoke. Behind him, smoke still came from inside the hardware store, but no flames were visible anymore.

“You all right?” Matt asked.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “How about you?”

“Burned my hands a little using a blanket I found to slap out that fire, but other than that I’m fine.”

The shooting had started to die away, and as the blood brothers looked around they saw that the raiders were fleeing, having encountered a lot fiercer resistance in Arrowhead than they must have been expecting. Several bodies were scattered around the street, so not all of the varmints had gotten away.

The one sprawled senseless at Sam’s feet certainly hadn’t. Matt looked down at him and said, “You know who you’ve got there?”

“Joshua Shade?” Sam said.

“That’d be my guess. He’s dressed like a preacher, and he sure had a crazy look about him when he was leadin’ the charge into town.”

Clouds of powder smoke still drifted through the street. Sheriff Cyrus Flagg emerged from one of them and ran up to Matt and Sam, the long nightshirt still flapping around his legs. He was wearing his plug hat now, too.

“You boys all ri—” he started to ask, then stopped short as he stared down at the stunned man. “Son of a
bitch
! You know who that is?”

“Joshua Shade?” Matt and Sam said in unison.

Flagg swallowed hard and nodded. “It sure is.” He blinked in amazement. “You boys not only saved our town, you just captured the most notorious owlhoot in the whole territory!”

Matt and Sam each took an arm and hauled Joshua Shade to his feet. They half carried, half dragged the outlaw down the street to the sheriff’s office and jail.

They wanted to make sure that Shade was locked up securely before they did anything else.

Shade began to regain his senses as they entered the squat, solidly constructed stone building. He groaned and shook his head, causing the long brown hair to flop in front of his narrow face.

Then he jerked his head back so that the cords stood out on his neck, and cried, “Unhand me, foul demons! How dare you lay hands on the Lord’s servant?”

Matt and Sam just tightened their grips on him, and Matt growled, “A lobo wolf is more the Lord’s servant than you are, you crazy son of a bitch.”

Shade jerked and flailed and began to spew curses, spittle flying from his mouth as he did so. He was no match for the blood brothers’ strength, though, and they were able to manhandle him across the room to the cell block door that Sheriff Flagg hurried ahead to throw open.

The cell block itself was small, with two cells on each side of a short corridor. The doors were made of thick beams, with a small barred window in each one.

All the doors were open, indicating that the cells were empty at the moment. Matt and Sam wrestled Shade into the first one on the left. The walls were solid stone and appeared to be thick and massive, like the door. There was only one window, also small and barred.

Matt and Sam threw Shade onto the cot attached to the wall. The cot was the cell’s only furnishing other than a chamber pot shoved underneath it.

Shade sprang to his feet as Matt and Sam backed out of the cell. He was frothing at the mouth like a rabid dog.

As Flagg slammed the door, Shade threw himself against it on the other side and clawed at the bars in the little window. He pressed his face against the bars as if trying to force his whole head through them. That distorted his crazed features even more.

“You can’t lock me up!” Shade screamed. “I’ve come to do God’s work! Release me, you filthy heathens!”

“Shut up or I’ll toss a bucket o’ water through that window,” Flagg said.

“You can’t silence the voice of the Lord! You foul abomination! All of you will burn in Hell for your sins!”

“Maybe, but you’ll be there before us,” Flagg said. He turned to Matt and Sam. “I’m much obliged for your help, fellas. The whole town is. You’ve done enough already, capturin’ Shade like that, but you reckon you could help me take a look around town so I can see just how bad the damage really is?”

“Sure, Sheriff,” Matt said.

“Sinners! Unholy sinners!” Shade screeched from the cell as they went into the sheriff’s office again.

“Grab a couple o’ Greeners,” Flagg said as he waved toward a rack of shotguns on the wall. “Liable to need ’em if any o’ those wounded owlhoots are still alive.”

“We can’t just finish them off,” Sam said.

Flagg shook his head. “No, that ain’t what I meant. Just in case they don’t give us a choice, though.”

“Never hurts to be prepared,” Matt said as he went to the rack and took down one of the double-barreled weapons.

Sam had left the hotel keeper’s shotgun in the street, but he still had several shells in his pocket. He used two of them to load the Greener he took down from the rack, while Matt picked up a handful of the shells that Flagg dumped onto the desk from a box.

Well armed again and ready for trouble, the three men left the sheriff’s office. A gun popped from down the street, causing them to swing in that direction and raise their weapons, but a man called, “Don’t worry, Sheriff! One of these snakes was still alive and reached for his gun, but he won’t trouble nobody no more.”

Flagg’s mouth tightened in a grimace. “Damn it, Kincaid, you better be tellin’ the truth,” he said. “I won’t have anybody takin’ the law into their own hands in my town.”

For the next fifteen minutes, Matt, Sam, and Flagg made the rounds of the settlement. When they were done, the inventory of their findings included five dead outlaws; five dead citizens of Arrowhead, including the hotel proprietor; eight more townies wounded; a heavily fire-damaged hardware store; and hundreds of bullet holes. Few of the buildings on Main Street had escaped without any damage. It would take folks a while to patch up everything that needed patching up.

Even so, the town had fared much better than the other settlements that had been raided by Joshua Shade and his gang. The bank and the other businesses hadn’t been looted, the women were safe, and the whole town hadn’t been burned to the ground.

“We were lucky,” Flagg said in acknowledgment of that fact. “Mighty lucky that you fellas were here in town when Shade decided to hit us. He’d have taken us by surprise and gotten the upper hand, probably wiped the place out, if not for the two of you.”

Matt shrugged. “We don’t like owlhoots, so we were glad to help, Sheriff.”

“What will you do with Shade now?” Sam asked.

Flagg rubbed his bearded jaw and frowned in thought. “I know what folks’d like to do.”

“Drag him out of the jail and string him up to the nearest tree?” Matt suggested.

“Yeah, I’m afraid so.”

“Can’t blame ’em for feelin’ that way,” Matt said. “A varmint as ornery as Shade has got it comin’.”

“But that wouldn’t be legal,” Sam argued. “He has to have a trial.”

“Oh, he’ll have a trial, all right,” Flagg said. “I ain’t gonna put up with any lynch law in my town.” He cast a worried look up and down the street, where people were gathering and talking together in angry voices. A couple of men spat on the corpse of a dead outlaw.

The sheriff went on. “Folks are workin’ themselves up into a bad state, though. They may not want to listen to reason.”

“Do you have any deputies?” Sam asked.

“A couple o’ part-timers. Arrowhead’s a pretty peaceable place most of the time.” Flagg frowned at Matt and Sam. “Say, you fellas wouldn’t consider—”

Matt raised a hand to stop him. “We’re not lawmen, Sheriff. We helped out a badge-totin’ friend of ours over in Texas a while back, but that was enough deputyin’ to suit us for a long time.”

“And we were never actually sworn in over there,” Sam added. “It was all unofficial.”

“That’d be fine with me,” Flagg said. “All I need is somebody to make sure nothin’ happens to Shade before his trial.”

Matt asked, “How long do you reckon that’ll be?”

“The mood the town’s gonna be in, it better be as soon as possible. We got a justice o’ the peace here, but no judge who could preside over a trial like the one Shade’s gonna have.” Flagg scratched at his beard and then thumbed his plug hat back on his head. “Reckon I’ll have to send word to Tucson to get a judge out here. Probably take a week, maybe a little less.”

“Which means you’ll have to guard Shade for that long,” Sam said. “And lynch mobs aren’t the only danger. Once his men realize that he’s in jail, they might decide to come back and get him.”

“Most of them got away,” Matt said. “There’s still a good-sized bunch of killers out there. Probably be a good idea to get some more lookouts posted, Sheriff.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Flagg agreed. “Wish I had a couple o’ good men to watch the jail, though.”

The blood brothers looked at each other. Matt sighed and said, “I don’t reckon we have much choice, do we?”

“Not really,” Sam said. He turned to Flagg and went on. “All right, Sheriff. We’ll give you a hand.”

“Unofficially,” Matt added.

“I don’t care about that,” Flagg said with a sigh of relief. “I’m just much obliged to you boys for your help.”

“To tell you the truth, I sort of lean toward stringin’ Shade up myself,” Matt muttered.

“You’re not the only one,” Sam said as he nodded toward the sheriff’s office. “Looks like we’ve already got trouble.”

Matt and Flagg turned and saw the same thing Sam did—a large group of men heading toward the jail, carrying rifles and shotguns and talking in loud, angry voices.

“Looks like we’re about to start earnin’ our wages,” Matt said, then went on in a dry voice. “Oh, yeah, we’re not gettin’ paid for this, are we? We’re riskin’ our lives for a no-good, murderin’ skunk just because it’s the right thing to do.”

“Hell of a note, ain’t it?” Flagg said as he lifted his rifle and started toward the mob.