The sun was hanging above the cholla when Brady decided to stop and set up camp. By then he’d been on trail about three hours and had put Bixby some 10 to 12 miles behind him.
As he began to clear away an area, he heard the sound of hoof-beats traveling fast towards him. As they approached he undid the thumb loop on his revolver and placed his hand on the butt of the gun.
It was the card player. He reined his horse to a sliding halt and excitedly shouted, “Your friend’s in trouble. He’s holed-up in the mercantile.”
No more needed saying. John had save Brady’s life and now was the time to repay the man for the good deed.
Back in the saddle, Brady wheeled about and raced after the card player, who turned out to be quite the horseman. It would be nightfall before the pair made it to the rise overlooking what remained of the town.
“So, why you doing this?” Brady asked.
“Not all of us are Rebs,” the man answered, “Some of us are Yankees and damned proud of it.”
Looking over the situation, Brady decided to send the card player down to the main street, while he’d work his way between the abandoned building and the mercantile. A gun shot echoed up the hill and Brady took it as a sign to act right then.
Calmly, the card player rode into the town. He didn’t want to alarm those laying siege to the store that he’d been off getting help.
Meanwhile, rifle in hand, Brady slipped between the two buildings and remaining in the cover of a shadow, watched to see if he could spot anyone shooting into the building. While he didn’t see anyone with a gun, he did see one man jump from behind a water trough and race towards the mercantile with an already lit stick of dynamite.
As Brady raised his rifle, a shot came for somewhere east of the siege and the man fell, bleeding between the shoulder blades. The stick of dynamite landed a foot or two from him and when it went off, the blast left a crater in the center of the street and the man blown to pieces.
It took a minute for Brady’s eye’s readjust to the dark. That’s when he saw the card player laying on the sidewalk, dead.
He’d been shot in the head as the blast occurred. There was nothing Brady could do for him, so he stayed in place and studied the streets and the dilapidated buildings that lined it.
“We know about that gold,” a voice shouted tauntingly.
A muzzle blast erupted from a shattered window of the store as John fired towards the voice. Someone cussed loudly after the bullet struck nearby.
Brady backed out from between the buildings and sticking to the shadows, worked his way west and across the street. Still using the shadows of the buildings, he moved to the back door of the saloon, and stepped inside.
He’d played a hunch and it was right. There he could see three men pressed against a make-shift barricade.
Brady stood quietly in the doorway’s shadow and watched as the three fired round after round into the building just up the street.
“Where’s Edgar?” one man asked.
“He’s trying to get into the building from the roof,” answered another man.
Brady stepped into the room and quickly approached the trio at the barricade. He levered a shell in to his rifle causing all three to turn towards him in surprise.
“Toss your guns at my feet,” Brady stated in a very measured tone. He could sense their indecision as they looked at each other and hesitated.
Without warning, Brady fired a shot next to the center man’s head, so close it peeled off the top of his ear. The blast instantly caused their immediate surrender.
He made them remove their boots, and using the three as a shield, Brady walked them outside onto the wooden walkway. There was an immediate shift in the tension as he forced them cross the street and continue towards the mercantile.
“You’re dead,” the one on the left stated, “My pa won’t let you get away with this.”
As they proceeded to walk, Brady asked, “So was all of this his plan?”
Realizing that he had said too much, the man grew quiet. His sudden silence told Brady all he needed to know.
“What’s your name?” Brady asked as he poked with the rifle to remind him that he was no longer in charge.
“Billy…Billy Frost,” came his reply.
Now standing in front of the mercantile, Brady hollered, “John, open up. Let me in.”
He heard the latch of the door lock click and then saw the door open slightly. Brady toed the door open and forced the three men inside.
“You doing okay, John?”
“I’m alive.”
“Damn, good to hear. Got us some guests – including one that’s pretty important. Seems his daddy is one of the authors of this attack. We can parley our freedom for his safety.”
“You know you didn’t have to come back, Brady.”
“Yeah, I did. You saved my life and I’m returning the favor. Where’s Betsy?
“Took off in the first minutes of the gun fight. Wouldn’t listen, ran outside yelling at them. I don’t think she was all there.”
“I don’t think any of us are.”
John laughed.
As they talked back and forth the pair hog-tied the three men up and gagged them. It was obvious to the men that they weren’t going any place any time soon.
As the two sat, assessing their situation, a noise came from above. Without hesitation John fired two rounds into the ceiling towards where the sound had come.
There was an audible gasp before a man’s body slipped from the roof, striking the ground with a sickening thud. Brady knew that it was Edgar, the man sent to find a way in through the roof.
“Names Frost!” shouted a man from somewhere across the street. “Billy, you okay?”
“He’s tied up at the moment, Mr. Frost,” John answered, obviously pleased with his response.
“Joke all you want,” Frost shouted back, “But I’m gonna kill the both of you and I’m gonna take that Nigger’s gold.”
Neither John or Brady felt the need to reply to his threat.
The Old Blog in the Desert 
Leave a comment