Four

Nine riders charged recklessly through the town, causing people in the streets to dive out of their way. One man jerked his little boy aside just before one of the horses would have trampled the child. The horses’ hooves spewed clods of dirt and clouds of dust around them. Jake ran toward them, pulling off his jacket and tossing it down as he hurried to catch up with the riders. Peppermint sticks went flying.

“Everybody get inside!” Jake yelled as he ran, pulling one of his guns. A few women screamed, and several men hesitated, not sure what was happening. Jake noticed a young girl standing transfixed as the men rode by. He grabbed her up and ran with her to the boardwalk, half tossing her to her father. That one move cost him some time, and already five of the riders had dismounted and charged into the bank. The other four remained mounted and ready to ride, holding the horses.

A shot rang out. Jake felt the jolt in his lower left side. People were screaming and running as he went down.

“Shit!” he swore. He rolled behind a watering trough, then got to his knees and shot one man off his horse. He grunted against pain and forced himself to concentrate. The sheriff was running toward the bank, and Jake yelled at the man to stay down.

Another shot rang out, and the sheriff went down. Jake let go of his bleeding side and pulled his other gun out, then charged away from the trough, guns blazing. The three men waiting out front dropped before they even got a chance to fire their weapons again. Their horses scattered, one of them dragging its rider down the street with his foot caught in the stirrup.

Jake stumbled to grab one of the other horses as it ran past him and used it for cover, pulling it to the center of the street. “Come out of there or you’re all dead!” he roared.

Everything quieted. Jake quickly put four bullets back in his .44, glad that he’d worn both his guns. He didn’t always do so anymore, but he’d packed the second gun on this trip because of Randy and Tricia. Everywhere he went these days, trouble followed. He certainly hadn’t asked for it this time. He glanced over at the sheriff, who lay still. “Damn it!” he grumbled.

“Who’s out there?” someone yelled from inside.

“Someone who’s going to blow your ass away if anybody in that bank gets hurt! Come on out of there!”

“Jake!”

Jake recognized Randy’s voice. There followed a ruckus inside—a scream. Furious and desperate, Jake ignored his pain and shoved the horse toward the bank.

“Come out of there now or I’ll come in shooting, and you’ll wish you’d never picked today to rob a bank!”

Jake heard Tricia start to cry. “Grampa!” she sobbed. The front door of the bank was suddenly thrown open, but no one came out.

“Fill those bags!” a man shouted inside.

“Somebody help the sheriff!” someone yelled from another direction in the street.

“Oh my God, they’re robbing the bank!”

“Dear Lord, my wife’s in there!” another man shouted. “Susan!”

“Harry!” a woman shouted back, noise coming now from every direction.

One of the women Jake had shoved into the hardware store screamed, “Charlie! Are you in there?” She started to run toward the road, but the other women pulled her back.

“Everybody stay out of the street!” Jake roared.

“Shut up, all of you, or somebody in here will die!” a voice roared from inside the bank.

“Jake Harkner has them pinned down!” another person yelled.

Jake saw a sheriff’s deputy running in his direction. “Go around behind the bank!” he yelled to the man.

The deputy hesitated, then ducked into an alley.

“Who’s out there!” a man inside yelled.

“Jake Harkner!” Jake called back. “There are innocent people in there! Send them out!”

“Like hell! They’re our way out!”

There came more shouts and another scuffle inside. Two shots were fired, and the next scream sounded like Randy.

“Jesus,” Jake whispered. Was she hurt?

“Bring back our horses or the women in here are dead!” someone roared. “We already killed a teller for trying to run!”

Jake waved his gun at a young boy standing near two of the horses, motioning for him to bring them over. “A boy’s collecting the horses!” he shouted. “Don’t shoot! He’s just a kid!”

Excited, the boy ran toward Jake with the horses’ reins in his hand, and Jake grabbed them. “Get out of here!” he told the boy. “Get behind something!”

The boy ran off, and Jake holstered one gun in order to keep hold of the reins to the two horses, plus the one he’d been using for cover.

“I’m bringing the horses,” he yelled again. “There’s two left in front of the bank!” He walked them across the road, staying between the horses as he quickly wrapped the reins around a hitching post. He backed away then, putting a hand to the wound in his side. It was only then he realized how badly he was bleeding. There wasn’t time to worry about it. His wife and granddaughter were inside that bank. He backed away, wiping blood from his hand onto his pants. He ducked behind a freight wagon sitting on the same side of the street, several feet from the bank.

“You’ve got your horses! Send the women and child out first and let them get out of the way. Do that and I’ll let you ride out of town. But if you hurt any of them in there, you’re dead men!”

“Jake! We’re all right!” It was Randy.

“That really Jake Harkner out there?” a man inside yelled.

“It’s me!”

“Sonofabitch!” another man swore. “I think he killed Matt and Billy…and the sonofabitch blew a man’s head off last year for hurting his son.”

“You bet your ass I did, and you’ll all die, too, if you harm those women or that little girl!”

“Grampa!” Tricia cried again.

“You stay still, Button!” Jake yelled back. “You’ll be okay.”

“I ain’t comin’ out if it’s Harkner out there!” one of the men shouted. “I don’t believe you when you say we can ride out!”

“Believe it! All you have to do is send out the women and children!”

“You’re a lyin’ sonofabitch!” a man yelled. “Jake Harkner is a no-good outlaw who used to rob banks himself, and he don’t ever leave a man alive! You can’t even count the number of men you’ve killed!”

Jake recognized the voice as the one doing most of the talking. “Who’s in there?” He stayed behind the wagon.

“George Callahan, and after today, I’ll be famous for being the man who shot down Jake Harkner!”

“Come out and try it!” That was a name he recognized. Callahan was a train robber whom the law and Pinkerton detectives had been after for a long time.

“I’m comin’ out, all right, with four other men! And with your wife and her friend and the little girl and another woman! One wrong move and every one of them is dead!”

There came another scuffle. Finally, a tall, burly man with messy blond hair emerged from the bank with an arm around Randy’s neck, keeping her in front of him, a six-gun pointed at her head. Jake saw the terror in her eyes. He felt sick at the sight. He’d worked so hard at helping her overcome her fears, and now this. Callahan was a huge man, and Randy was so small. A second man came out with Teresa in front of him and a third man holding a squirming little Tricia in a tight grip. A fourth man kept another woman in front of him, a frail-looking older woman.

“Susan!” her husband yelled from across the street.

A fifth man came out, carrying four canvas bags stuffed with what was obviously money.

“Let the women and little girl go, Callahan, or you won’t live to see the sun set!” Jake warned.

“You can’t shoot long as I have your wife in front of me,” Callahan answered. “And you ain’t gonna shoot Jimbo over there while he’s holdin’ the little girl.”

“Don’t bet on it!”

“No!” Susan’s husband pleaded. “You’ll kill my wife!”

“Harkner knows what he’s doing,” someone else answered.

The five men stood there, looking undecided for a moment.

“George,” the one called Jimbo warned, “Jake Harkner ain’t no ordinary man.”

“He dies easy like any other. There’s five of us and only one of him.”

“From what I hear, those are odds in his favor, not ours.” Jimbo yanked little Tricia closer. “He’s already killed Sam and the others we left outside.” Little Tricia was shaking and sobbing. “Shut up, kid!” He jerked at her again.

“Stay calm, Button,” Jake yelled to her from behind the wagon. “When Grampa starts shooting, you lay down flat and cover your ears, understand?”

The little girl nodded, unable to stop crying.

“Promise me, Button!”

“I…promise,” the girl answered in jerking sobs. Her curly red hair was stuck to her cheeks from tears.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jimbo growled, looking nervous now.

“Cuando comience a disparar, Teresa, quiero que te tires el suelo con Button!” Jake stayed out of sight as he shouted the words.

A trembling Teresa nodded. “Sí, señor.”

“What did he just tell you?” the man holding her asked, pressing his gun against her neck. That man would be the hardest to hit—Teresa was a hefty woman who made a good shield. He’d have to make his shots count. He’d hate to have to go home and tell Rodriguez his wife was dead.

“I… He just say to stay calm,” Teresa lied to her abductor. Jake had told her to hit the ground with Tricia as soon as he started shooting.

It was a standoff. Jake watched Randy. “You know what to do, Randy,” he called to her. “Stay calm.”

“Jake, they’ll kill you!”

“How well do you know me, Randy Harkner?”

Randy choked from tears, unable to reply.

“I asked you a question, Randy!”

Randy nodded. “I…know how good you are…with those guns. Jake, I love you!” Randy glanced at the other two women. “When he starts shooting, lay down flat.”

“Shut up!” Callahan told Randy, ramming the barrel of his gun hard against her cheekbone, making Randy wince with pain. “We’re leavin’, Harkner,” Callahan practically screamed, “with the women and the money! And you ain’t gonna stop us!” He turned to the man holding Tricia. “Let the brat go!”

“I ain’t lettin’ go of my only shield! Harkner will shoot me the minute I’m in the open!”

“Wrong, Mister!” Jake shouted in reply. “I’ll shoot you even though you’re holding her!”

“Don’t do it!” Susan’s husband pleaded.

Before the robbers had time to choose, Jake made his move. He darted into the open from behind the wagon, his guns booming. He shot so fast that onlookers could hardly count how many times he pulled the triggers. They’d banked on him not shooting. How many men would be so confident that their bullets would hit the right target? Townspeople watched in wide-eyed shock, a few women screaming and covering their ears, others turning and looking away.

Jimbo fell backward with a hole in his head, and Tricia went down with him. She screamed in terror as she wiggled from under her dead abductor, but just like her grandpa had told her, she stayed flat on the ground, putting her hands over her ears. At almost the same time, the man holding Teresa fell forward. Quickly, Teresa crawled to Tricia and lay over her to protect her.

The horses tied in front of the bank let out screaming whinnies at the roar of guns and managed to jerk away, pulling out the hitch post and running off, the post bouncing along with them.

By then, George Callahan was also down. Randy hit the ground as well, and by the time she did, the men who’d been holding bags of money had been shot. One of them remained squirming in pain.

It happened in a matter of seconds, so fast that onlookers remained stunned and unmoving. After the shattering boom of all the gunplay, the street grew dead quiet except for Tricia’s whimpers and the trickle of water that poured from a hole in a watering trough. The stream rinsed over the face of George Callahan, washing away the blood that trickled from a hole in his forehead.

“Jesus God Almighty,” Till Medley told the other men standing at the saloon door. “We wanted to see Jake Harkner in action, and we sure as hell did!”

People came out doors and from behind barrels and wagons and whatever else they’d used for cover.

Randy looked over at Tricia and Teresa as she got to her knees. “Tricia!”

“She is fine, Miranda,” Teresa told her as she quickly looked the sobbing little girl over. She smoothed Tricia’s red hair away from her face, then managed to get to her feet and pick the girl up in her arms. “I will look after her. Go to your husband.”

“Grampa!” Tricia cried, looking over to where Jake lay in the street.

It hit Randy only then that Jake had not come running to help her up. Everything had happened so fast she’d not had time to digest it all, and her first concern had been for Tricia. After all, Jake knew what he was doing, and he always survived these things. She looked over to where he now lay in the street. “Oh my God, no!”

“Go to him, Miranda. You can do it,” Teresa told her in her heavy Mexican accent. “I will take Tricia to the hotel room. She should not see her grandfather this way.”

Randy looked at her helplessly. “Don’t leave me alone, Teresa!”

“Your husband is there, and he needs you. You will be strong for him now, no? Go to him.” In tears, Teresa hurried off with Tricia.

Randy turned her attention back to Jake. Surely he was all right. Jake was always all right. He was Jake Harkner.

“Oh my God, he’s dead!” someone shouted.

Randy managed to find her feet. She watched as people gathered around Jake. “No, he’s not!” she said softly before screaming the words as she ran. “No, he’s not dead! He’s not dead!” She pushed people out of the way and crumpled beside his seemingly lifeless body. This was her worst nightmare. How many times had she imagined this happening, her husband shot down before her very eyes? He’d mentioned to her once that someday he would probably go down with guns blazing. And now, here he lay in the street, possibly dead from a gunfight.