Stay Away From That City . . . They Call It Cheyenne (Code of the West) (23 page)

“You’re right about that, J. R.” Tap stuffed some shells into his vest pocket and carried the guns to the well-guarded door.

After leaving the wagon and guns with Pepper at the h
otel, he rode Brownie south toward the tracks. Alex DelGatto’s saloon and dance hall was not the biggest on the south side of Cheyenne. Nor was it the fanciest.

It certainly couldn’t be called the nicest.

But it was the wildest, noisiest, and most dangerous.

Open twenty-four hours a day, it was one place in town that always roared.

But today the front door and windows were boarded up.

“When did DelGatto’s close?” Tap shouted to a man r
eclining on a bench in front of the saloon.

The man, whose slouch hat lay over his eyes, didn’t move. “This mornin’ at daybreak.”

“Where’s DelGatto?”

“Gone.”

“Where?”

“Don’t know.”

“How about Simp Merced? Have you seen him?”

The man pulled the hat off his eyes and propped himself up on his elbow. Shading his face with his left hand, he called out, “Are you Andrews?”

“Yep.”

“I was supposed to tell you that Merced went south.”

“To Denver?”

“Nope. Just south of town a ways.”

“Anyone with him?”

The man lay back down and pulled the hat over his eyes. “Don’t know. They didn’t tell me.”

“Who’s 'they'?”

“Don’t know.”

The bullet from Tap’s Colt .44 ripped the wood siding only inches above the man’s head. He leaped to his feet, his eyes darting, his mouth twitching.

“I said, who told you to tell me Merced went south?”

“Nickles. He told me that. Gave me four bits just to lay here and wait for you.”

“Where’s Nickles?”

“I don’t know nothin’, mister. Honest. I told you just what was told me. Nickles has jingle in his jeans. Maybe he’s out spendin’ it.”

Tap’s pistol was drawn when he burst through the door of Raelynn Royale’s Palace Dance Hall. The place was almost d
eserted. The bouncer got within two feet of Tap and took a blow to the side of his head from the barrel of the Colt. That dropped him to the tobacco-juice-and-liquor-stained floor. Leaping the stairs three at a time, Tap kicked open a door marked “Lucky 7”, to the screams and curses of the working girls and patrons.

He had just kicked in the third door when he spotted Nic
kles holding his derby and crawling out the second-story window to the balcony. The room had a huge mirror on the ceiling that almost made Tap dizzy. He was confronted by a big woman with a carving knife and auburn hair hanging to her knees.

“You get out of here, mister,” she growled. “You ain’t comin’ in here unless you paid downstairs.”

“I’m goin’ through that window after that man.”

“You ain’t goin’ through my window.”

Tap’s shot shattered the ceiling mirror. She dropped the knife and ran past Tap and out into the hallway of cautious onlookers. He dove through the open window and hit the balcony with a somersault, ending up on his knees. The man had just shinnied down to the street. Tap hurdled the railing and crashed into him below.

Tap grabbed the man’s oily hair and jammed his revolver into the man’s ear. “We’re goin’ to talk, Nickles.”

“I don’t know nothin’.”

A small crowd started to line the street in front of the dance hall.

“You bought a snub-nose from Feund Brothers. Who did you sell it to?”

“I never bought no gun.”

“The same gun was found in the jail next to where a deputy was shot in the back. You willin’ to stand charges for that crime? You saw what happened to old Hager. You aim to be lynched too? Who’d you buy it for? I got a witness that says he sold you that exact gun.”

“He’ll kill me.”

The explosion from Tap’s gun sent Nickles jumping into the air. The bullet struck the rocks beneath his feet. Tap never loosened the grip on the man’s hair as Nickles staggered to his knees. Tap yanked him back to his feet.

“The only choice you got is whether to be killed now or later. Where’s Merced?”

“It weren’t Merced. It was Alex DelGatto. He gave me a ten-dollar bonus for buying it for him. I wasn’t up at the jail. Shoot, I got drunk and passed out and missed the hangin’. You got to believe me.”

“I asked you, where’s Merced?”

“Turn loose. You’re rippin’ my hair out. He’s with the others, I reckon, waitin’ to put a bullet in your head.”

“And where’s that?” Tap threw the man to the road and jabbed the revolver hard against his Adam’s apple.

“Out near Hazard’s Corner, I think. I ain’t been out there, I’m not a part of that bunch.”

Tap released his grip and stood up, jamming his revolver back into his holster. Leaving Nickles lying in the street, Tap tramped toward Brownie.

“I hope they gut-shoot ya,” Nickles hollered.

A shot from the second-story window of the dance hall kicked dirt in front of Brownie. The horse shied away, tu
gging at the tiedown. Swinging into the saddle, Tap spurred the gelding and galloped south.

Lord, it’s just like all hades has busted loose in one place.

The trail to Hazard’s Corner started southwest of Cheyenne and paralleled the Denver Pacific rail line. Other than that, Tap knew nothing about the road. It was a gentle, rolling grassland of mostly unfenced range. Tall mountains hovered on the distant western horizon. The still-brown prairie harbored no trees, and even the sage and the yucca were widely scattered.

Merced waits out here somewhere. Maybe DelGatto .
 . . maybe a dozen others armed with repeating rifles.

Maybe
.

I can’t believe they’d go through all of this just to try and get me out here. There’s got to be more to it than that.

This whole thing is like a stampede of evil, and someone’s got to ride point and turn the demonic herd. It’s like a battle to decide whether good or evil will control Cheyenne. I just don’t know what I’m doin’ in the middle of this. You need a preacher or someone more spiritual.

Preferably one who’s a crack shot.

The two cottonwood trees were still more than two miles away, but they were the only thing that broke the monotony of the rolling rangeland. Tap guessed that next to the trees would be a spring, some corrals, and maybe a cabin. Riding Brownie into a shallow coulee, he slipped out of the saddle and onto the sandy soil. Hiking up to where he could survey the horizon without providing an obvious silhouette, Tap pondered his next move.

Pepper and Angelita only needed two trips down the big mahogany staircase in the Inter Ocean to load their things into the wagon Tap had rented. Pepper left a letter on the entry table for Savannah and then gave the keys to the hotel ma
nager. She thought about driving by her house for one last look, but she decided it would be better not to.

Carbine Williams limped toward them in front of the hosp
ital toting a rifle.

“Mrs. Andrews. Angelita.” He tipped his hat. “You two had better come in here and wait while we load Baltimore.”

Pepper and Angelita left the rig and scurried into the waiting room.

“Why are we doing this, Carbine? Are you expecting tro
uble?”

“Already had it. A wagon drove by and twice pumped a co
uple of shots at me while I sat out on the porch.”

Angelita hurried down the hall to her father’s room. “Who was it?”

“Don’t know. But I couldn’t go chasin’ after them and leave Baltimore. It’s strange, Mrs. Andrews. It’s just like they was baitin’ me. Wantin’ me to chase them. You know, just like the Sioux do when they lay a trap.”

“Why would anyone shoot at you?”

“I think things are beyond figurin’ out. But the mayor came by and gave me and Baltimore our pay.”

“Do the doctors really say Baltimore can be moved?”

“I think they’re worried that they can’t treat him or protect him. Here comes some help to move him.”

Pepper glanced up to see a large woman approaching them.

“I’ve seen trains smaller than that ol’ gal,” Carbine whispered.

The depot was crowded with anxious-faced citizens lea
ving town. One of the ticket agents suggested that Carbine place Baltimore’s stretcher in the baggage room and that they all wait there. Angelita and her father talked in low tones.

Pepper told Carbine about the explosion and fire and filled him in on what she knew about the robbery at the Feund Br
others’ Wyoming Armory. He just kept shaking his head.

“Someone is tryin’ to shoot or chase off every lawman in town,” he offered. “They must be planning on robbing a bank.”

“Tap had Mr. Grueter alert the businesses and banks.”

“The mayor said he had alerted the governor to the poss
ibility of needing to call for the troops at Ft. Russell.”

Pepper peeked out at the crowded waiting room. “Seems to be a good time to get out of town.”

“I reckon they’re right.” Carbine pulled out his makings. “You worried about Tap?”

“I guess it shows.”

“I’ll tell you one thing. That man of yours seems to get better as the situation gets worse. He might get shot in the back someday like Pappy. But I don’t think there’s a man alive who could take him straight on. He’s so stubborn he could bluff the hide off a bull buffalo. He won’t have any trouble with Merced.”

“I keep thinking about a dozen stolen repeating rifles pointed at him.”

Tap figured it would take him two hours to sneak up on the corrals.

I’m not even sure Merced and the others will be there. Lord, if they’re there, I’d rather have it out at the corrals than in town. I know I told Pepper she would be with me, but I can’t wait any longer. It’s time to settle up.

He scooted down the dirt embankment to his waiting horse. “Come on, Brownie. We got work to do.”

Tap spurred the horse to climb out of the coulee. Then he returned to the one-horse trail that led to the cottonwoods. He was about five hundred yards from the corrals when he began to count the horses.

Three? Where’s the others? Maybe there’s only three. Maybe the others are lyin’ in ambush. Maybe this isn’t Merced’s gang at all.

Tap kept riding straight at the cottonwoods. His ’73 Wi
nchester lay across his lap. The long-range, upper-tang peep sight was flipped up. A 40-grain cartridge was in the chamber. The hammer was cocked.

He got within fifty yards of the building and then called out, “Merced, you in there?”

There was no answer.

Make your play, boys. This is as clear a shot as you’ll get.

At the first puff of gun smoke, he spurred the brown horse and then leaped from the saddle, rolling behind an adobe water trough. Brownie kept running for the trees, and three shots were fired. Tap silenced the attack with one shot through the doorway that ricocheted off the back wall.

Boys, you already missed your best chance.

Tap dove to the end of the trough where there was a little protection from the east and west just as several shots flew from the cottonwoods. Movement in the corrals on the north side caught his eye.

Someone’s using the horses for cover.

He raised up, and two more shots sprayed adobe near him.

Tap’s first blast dropped the red roan. The second hit the gunman in the middle of the rib cage and slung him back under the prancing hooves of the other two horses.

“He shot Campbell,” a voice in the building cried out.

Four more rapid shots kept Tap pinned to the ground. His next bullet brought down the short sorrel gelding.

“You shot my horse.” A man with thick beard and ragged duckings darted from the cottonwood trees, firing shot after shot from a new ’73 carbine.

Tap raised up and fired. The first bullet slowed the gu
nman. The second laid him motionless. Tap crawled back behind the adobe water trough so that it stood between him and the doorway. Three shots slammed into the sun-baked clay horse trough. Tap rolled to the end and fired two shots that ricocheted inside the building.

He kept low, waiting for a reply.

Did I wing him? Is there really only one man in there? Merced must be the one inside. If I could sneak around, maybe I could climb down through that busted roof.

Or he could climb out that busted roof.

Tap fired two shots into the open doorway and charged just as a rider leaped the one remaining horse over the rough-cut rail corral.

“Merced,” Tap yelled.

The top rail snapped and splintered when the horse’s left rear pastern slammed into it. The horse stumbled to its knees. Merced tumbled over the head of the horse and crashed into the dirt. He crawled on hands and knees to retrieve his revolver, but Tap’s shot exploded the hard-packed clay dirt just a couple of feet in front of him.

“Andrews, you’re crazy. You can’t get away with killin’ two innocent men. I’m going to have to arrest you.”