Broken Star (2006) (10 page)

‘So, you showed up at last,’ Klugg shouted back.

‘I’m coming out, Ken, and bringing two men with me to take Sheriff Harker back inside.’

‘Seeing that it’s you, Fallon, I’ll agree to that. But none of your tricks. Your
compadres
have already forced me to have one hostage shot. It won’t bother me none if you make it so’s we have to shoot the second one. The way I hear it as far as you’re concerned, we’ve kept the important one until last.’

Learning that Raya was still alive was cold comfort for Vejar in this situation. Any attempt to thwart Klugg’s determination to rob the bank would result in him killing Raya without a second thought.

‘We’re coming out,’ he told Klugg.

‘Then you keep your hands on your head at all times, Vejar.’

Doing as Klugg had ordered, Vejar came out of the teashop with Randall and Drake following behind him nervously. Thurston overtook all three of them to reach George Harker and kneel down beside him. After a swift examination, the
doctor called to Vejar and the others. ‘He’s alive, but we need to get him inside.’

‘Pick him up,’ Vejar told Randall and Drake.

Struggling with the weight of the heavily built sheriff, the two councillors got him off the ground and Vejar followed as they headed back to the teashop. He halted and slowly turned when Klugg called his name.

‘Vejar.’

Silently waiting, Vejar stared coldly at Klugg.

‘I’ll tell you how it’s going to be, Fallon,’ Klugg began. ‘We came into town to hit the bank, and that’s what we’re going to do. You go on back inside. There must be no interference, or that girl in there will die. You understand?’

‘I understand,’ Vejar conceded. ‘I won’t risk the girl’s life. But there are two boys armed with shotguns inside the bank. They don’t deserve to die, Ken.’

‘Then they shouldn’t have volunteered,’ Klugg replied unfeelingly.

Lowering his hands to his sides, Vejar said, ‘Then you and me better settle it here and now.’

‘Put your hands back on your head,’ an
apprehensive
Klugg shouted.

Ignoring the order, Vejar’s right hand hovered above the handle of his holstered gun. He said calmly, ‘This is showdown time, Ken. Either you let me get those two lads safely out of the bank,
or you make your play right here and now.’

‘You don’t stand a chance, Fallon. If you get lucky and beat me to the draw, Mitch and Jack will fill you with lead.’

‘That’s not your way,’ Vejar said, shaking his head. ‘You’re too proud a man for that to happen, Ken.’

Spreading both hands wide, palms up, in a gesture of resignation, Klugg said, ‘I guess you’re right. Anyway, I’d prefer not to face a couple of scatterguns. Go back inside and leave your gun, then I’ll go with you while you talk those two kids into giving up their weapons.’

Cautiously staying back and to one side of the bank’s door, Vejar called, ‘This is Fallon Vejar. Can you hear me, Jonathan?’

With Klugg beside him, Vejar waited for a response. Mitchell Staley and Jack had remained outside the church. The empty street had a tense and menacing atmosphere. The three councillors had been against Vejar’s plan for the two lads to give up their shotguns, seeing it as abject surrender to the outlaws. But a rapidly recovering George Harker had agreed with Vejar. They could no more gamble with the lives of the two boys than they could risk Raya’s life.

Urged by an impatient Klugg, Vejar called once more, ‘Jonathan.’

‘I can hear you.’

‘I want you and Len to open the door just far
enough to throw out your shotguns.’

‘Why should we do that?’ Jonathan enquired in a quavering voice.

‘Because that’s what I want you to do.’

‘How do I know that you are who you say you are?’

Then Hiram Anstey’s voice came from inside of the bank. ‘I recognize your voice, Vejar, but I won’t leave my bank undefended.’

‘No amount of money is worth the lives of those young lads, Hiram,’ Vejar called.

‘While they have their guns we still have a chance,’ Anstey argued.

Exasperated by the delay, Klugg beckoned to Staley and Jack. The two outlaws came hurrying down the street as Vejar tried to negotiate with Jonathan instead of Anstey.

‘Jonathan, you and Len will both die very soon if you hold on to your weapons.’

No immediate answer was forthcoming, but then Jonathan said, ‘Mr Anstey says that Uncle Walter would want me to keep the gun and help save the bank.’

‘What’s happening now?’ Henry Drake asked anxiously.

At the window, Sheriff George Harker reported, ‘The two outlaws who were standing across the street have moved off to the bank.
That gives me the chance to go over to the church.’

‘Vejar will have a free hand without Raya to worry about,’ Harker said, as he stepped out of the door.

He planned to go in the door at the rear of the church and surprise the woman outlaw who, according to Vejar, was an expert with a gun. But he would need to be careful not to put Raya or anyone else in more danger.

Reaching the side of the church, he made his way down to the rear of the building. Inside, he raised a hand for quiet. The threat of violence seemed to have awoken something primitive in the crowd of females. He asked them to stay calm. Making his way to the door into the hall, Harker didn’t risk turning the handle. Drawing his gun he kicked the door open.

Stepping awkwardly into the room, the
sheriff
’s
experienced eye instantly took in the
situation
. A frightened Raya and Mary Alcott stood to one side. In front of him was a black-haired, dark woman who held a rifle pointed at him. Intent on protecting Raya and Mary, Harker brought his gun to bear on the beautiful outlaw.

He was squeezing the trigger when the
unexpected
happened. Suddenly lashing out, Raya hit his gun arm. The impact caused Harker to lose his balance. The broom handle slid sideways
on the polished floor, and his gun fell from his hand as he toppled sideways. Hitting the floor in an embarrassing sitting position, the sheriff looked up into the dark muzzle of a rifle and the sardonic smile of the female outlaw.

Vejar was agonizingly aware that he had no gun, and any plan he might come up with would be impractical because Raya was held hostage. He asked Klugg, ‘Give me a few minutes to talk to Anstey. How else are you going to get into the bank? You’d need dynamite to blow that heavy door off its hinges.’

With a cynical chuckle, Klugg said, ‘All that interests that
hombre
is money.’ He added
grudgingly
, ‘Go ahead then, Fallon.’

It was ironic that Anstey had as much a hunger for money as Klugg had, yet Vejar believed that deep down Hiram was a decent man. Though the banker regarded the boys with shotguns as a safeguard against his bank being robbed, it wasn’t likely that he could bear the thought of a girl being shot in cold blood because of the stance that he was taking.

‘I’m coming up to the door alone, Hiram,’ Vejar called in warning.

‘You won’t make me change my mind,’ Anstey’s voice said defiantly.

‘I think that I will,’ Vejar said. ‘They are
holding
Raya Kennedy captive, Hiram. If we don’t go along with them they will shoot her. They’ve already killed one girl hostage.’

‘Was that the shot that I heard earlier?’ Anstey enquired querulously.

‘Yes. The best thing you can do is open this door, Hiram.’

‘Which will mean my bank being robbed,’ Anstey complained.

‘I give you my word that I will do everything in my power to get your money back,’ Vejar pledged.

After what to Vejar seemed an eternity, Anstey said despondently, ‘I’ll take your word on that, Vejar. Now stand back.’

Vejar took a few steps backwards as he heard the bank door first being unbolted and then unlocked. Coming up behind him in his lithe, cat-like way of moving, Klugg waited with Vejar. The door opened a little and in his urgency to enter the bank, Klugg was passing Vejar when the blast of a shotgun came from inside. Reeling back, the right side of his face peppered with shot and beginning to bleed, Klugg prepared to fire into the bank through the gap in the door.

Overwhelmed by fear for the two boys and Anstey inside, Vejar momentarily forgot Raya’s perilous situation, and leapt at Klugg. He had 
one arm around the outlaw-leader’s neck, when Jack came from behind to smash him hard over the head with the barrel of a Peacemaker.

Collapsing as unbearable pain filled his head, Vejar heard another blast from a shotgun as he fell unconscious to the boardwalk.

‘I’m so sorry, George.’

Harker heard Raya’s whispered apology as, with as much dignity as possible, he clambered up from the floor. Feeling weakness threatening to overcome him yet again, he was in a cold sweat. But he held the outlaw woman’s dark-eyed gaze, defying her to fire the rifle. An awed Raya and Mary held their breath as the sheriff stood waiting fearlessly.

A sudden movement by Gloria Malone brought gasps from the other two girls. In a
practised
, fluid movement, Gloria let her right arm drop, using a flip of her hand to twirl the rifle, then caught it so that the butt and not the muzzle pointed at Harker.

Holding out the weapon to him, she said, ‘I guess my heart is no longer in this, Sheriff.’

‘Then you are under arrest, ma’am,’ Harker said, as he took the rifle from her.

Gloria gave a reverse shrug, a slumping of shoulders that signalled her indifference.

Turning away from the teashop window,
disbelief
registered on his ruddy features, Henry Drake announced to the others, ‘Dang me if Harker isn’t coming back with Raya, Mary Alcott, and what I assume is the woman desperado.’

The others clustered around him excitedly to watch the man and three women cross the street. They greeted Harker and the two Yancey women as they came in through the door. Face pale from exertion, the sheriff passed the rifle to Randall and pointed to Gloria Malone, saying. ‘Keep her under guard at all times, Walter. When things are right out there I’ll take her down to the jail and lock her in a cell.’

‘There’s been some shooting at the bank, George,’ Dr Thurston said, helping the exhausted sheriff into a chair.

‘I heard it,’ Harker answered. ‘But I’m not up to doing anything about it right now.’

Henry Drake complimented him. ‘You’ve done plenty, George.’

Vejar regained consciousness to find the Jack outlaw lying dead in the street beside him. The huge area of Jack’s chest that was bloodied told Vejar that he had died from a shotgun wound. Everything around him was still and quiet. The door of the bank was open. Raising himself up on to his knees, Vejar lowered his head to send a
rush of blood to aid his spinning brain.

After a minute or so in this position, he got up and made his unsteady way into the bank. An ashen-faced Hiram Anstey sat slumped in a chair behind his huge desk. Eyes staring fixedly, the banker was speechless, pointing with a shaking hand at a safe that was open and empty.

The lad named Len was sprawled on the floor with his upper back against a wall. A cursory glance told Vejar the boy was dead. Jonathan was lying face down across the teller’s desk. Turning him over gently, Vejar saw blood pumping thickly from a stomach wound. Laying the boy carefully on the floor, Vejar ripped a hand towel from a hook on the wall, folded it into a pad and pressed it against Jonathan’s wound to staunch the bleeding.

‘Hiram,’ he shouted. ‘Get hold of yourself and come over here.’

It took three more angry shouts from Vejar before the banker came over shakily to look at the bloody pad in distaste before Vejar could get him to hold it in place. Then Vejar looked around the bank for a weapon, but Klugg and Staley had taken the shotguns as well as the money.

‘I’ll send Doc Thurston along as soon as
possible
,’ Vejar told Anstey.

Going out of the bank, he turned down an
alleyway that took him to the rear of the
buildings
, aware that another passageway would bring him out to where the outlaws’ horses were hitched. Vejar hurried, desperately wanting to find Klugg, Staley and Gloria before they could leave town. Though he was unarmed, he accepted that this was a time for action.

Nearing the end of the passage, he saw the outlaws’ four horses still hitched. Mitchell Staley stood packing bulging moneybags into the saddle-bags. Neither Klugg nor Gloria was anywhere in sight. Moving silently, Vejar came within a few feet away from Staley. The outlaw was so intent on his task that he was oblivious to Vejar’s presence.

Vejar was taking a few more steps, when Staley sensed someone behind him and turned. Vegar’s left hand grabbed and held Staley’s wrist in a vice-like grip, while using the edge of his right hand to deliver a powerful blow to the throat. Eyes protruding so that it seemed they would burst from their sockets, Staley coughed repeatedly until the coughing changed into a wheezing, choking sound. A pitiless Vejar kneed his adversary in the groin. Stepping back as Staley began to fall, Vejar lashed out with his right foot. His boot caught the collapsing Staley full in the face with such force that it sent the outlaw’s head back, snapping his neck. The
sharp crack of the breaking vertebrae was resounding in the street when the louder reporter of a six-shooter drowned it out.

A bullet that missed Vejar by less than an inch, entered the head of the horse nearest to him. Shrieking out in pain and panic, the horse reared up on its hind legs, flaying the air with its front hoofs. The diversion gave Vejar the opportunity to snatch the dead Staley’s gun from its holster. The horse fell with its head suspended from the hitching rail by reins that had twisted around its neck. One of its eyes was just a black hole that slowly wept blood, while the remaining eye stared accusingly at Vejar as the animal breathed its last.

Vejar forced his attention back on whoever had fired at him. The street was deserted. Klugg had to be in hiding, standing guard over Staley while he stashed the stolen money away. He had been unable to fire at Vejar without the danger of hitting Staley.

Uncertainty about Raya’s safety deterred Vejar from searching for Klugg. Holding Staley’s .45, Vejar moved into the street waiting for Klugg to show himself. But the outlaw leader stayed hidden as an alert Vejar made his way to the teashop. Astonished to see both Raya and Gloria there, Vejar was embarrassed when Raya impulsively rushed forward to hug him in full view of George Harker. But Harker shook him by the hand while
Henry Drake explained how the sheriff had rescued Raya and captured the female outlaw.

Vejar told them, ‘Either Jonathan or Len got the outlaw with a shotgun.’

‘Are the boys safe and well?’ Randall anxiously enquired.

‘I’m sorry, Randall,’ Vejar replied. ‘Len is dead, and Jonathan badly hurt.’ He turned to Thurston. ‘You’ll be at risk, Doc, but will you come to the bank with me?’

Replying without hesitation, Thurston said, ‘I’ll fetch my bag.’

‘I’ll take John down to the bank. You are needed here, Fallon.’ Harker said.

‘No.’ Gloria unexpectedly spoke up. ‘You are in no shape to deal with Klugg, Sheriff. He’s as quick and as deadly as a riled rattler.’

‘Whose side are you really on, Gloria?’ Raya asked wonderingly.

‘Right now I’m not sure,’ Gloria answered with a self-deprecating grin.

‘Gloria spoke the truth, George. You look after things here,’ Vejar said, picking up his own gun, spinning the chamber before holstering it. ‘The women must stay in the church.’

‘Until it’s over,’ Harker agreed. ‘I’ll stay by the window with my rifle and pick Klugg off if he tries to collect the horses and saddle-bags across the street.’

‘Don’t underestimate Klugg, George, he’s clever,’ Vejar advised, as Thurston returned with his bag.

‘Take great care,’ Raya called after Vejar, as he and the doctor went out of the door.

When the door had closed behind the pair, Raya walked over to join the sheriff at the window. She enquired, ‘I am sorry about what I did in the church, George, but Gloria wouldn’t harm us.’

‘Don’t worry about that.’ Harker’s eyes took on a distant look as he said. ‘Raya?’

‘Yes?’

‘Fallon Vejar coming back has kind of changed things, hasn’t it?’

Deliberately misconstruing what he’d said, Raya said, ‘Yancey certainly hasn’t known another day like today.’

‘What I’m saying, Raya,’ Harker went on, ‘is that I won’t hold you to anything.’

Keenly aware of her own muddled feelings about Vejar, Raya was saved from further talk on the subject as Klugg boldly emerged from the passageway beside the church. Startled, Harker was raising his rifle when Gloria spoke from the centre of the room.

‘Lower your rifle, Sheriff.’

Raya saw that Gloria had picked up the dead outlaw’s .45 that Vejar had left on a table, and
was aiming it at Harker. Randall, Drake and the Chuas watched in shocked helplessness.