Outlaws Of Phantom Canyon (Savage Series) (15 page)

Gabriel and Roark would occasionally send a bullet whizzing into the saloon windows just as a reminder to the outlaws that they were surrounded. Angel stayed watching for any sign of movement inside the saloon that she could take aim at. After a couple of the outlaws were hit, from her Sharps rifle, they all stayed clear of the door and windows.

"What are we goin' to do?" Ted asked Clayton.

"I know!" Victor replied as he grabbed up Julianna and started to the batwing doors. Standing to the side of the batwings with Julianna, Victor yelled out, "Gabriel!" After some silence he yelled again, "Gabriel. I have your woman Julianna. Now lower your weapon and come down here."

"I don't believe you," Gabriel replied. He knew Julianna was safe back at Spotted Elks village.

"Maybe you need some convincing," Victor yelled as he twisted Julianna's arm and made her scream out as he told her, "Tell him your here!"

When she did no
t, Victor twisted her arm again. "Gabe!" Julianna screamed.

Jules
? What? How did she get here? Gabriel wondered. "If you hurt her, I will kill you personally!" Gabriel yelled back to Victor as his heart sunk. He had loved Dora, and Victor had killed her. Now he was in love with Jules, and Victor had a gun to her head.

"If you don't want her harmed, then come down here and drop your guns," Victor ordered.

"Don't do it Gabe, he will kill you!" Julianna yelled as Victor slapped her to shut her up and she screamed.

"I'm comin', leave her alone!" Gabriel pleaded.

Smiling, Victor looked back at Clayton and the rest of the men when he said, "Now we'll put a end to this."

As Gabriel climbed down from the side of the canyon wall, where he had been well
protected behind some boulders he yelled out, "Everyone hold their fire!"

Angel and Roark watched intently. They kept their aim and was ready to fire if anything went wrong. Spotted Elk and his warriors were also ready to attack.

"Alright Victor, let her go," Gabriel ordered as he stepped closer to the camp's saloon.

Victor stepped out the batwing doors of the saloon with his pistol to Julianna's head
, while he had her in front of him as a shield. Gabriel could see the terrified look in Julianna's eyes.

"We all thought you was dead," Victor said to Gabriel calmly.

"The Devil said he wanted
you
. So I came back to oblige him," Gabriel replied with murder in his eyes.

"That still don't explain why you are shooting at us and blowing up our camp?"

"Maybe this will explain it all," Gabriel said when he pulled his vest open to reveal his U.S. Marshal badge.

"You're a law dog! I should kill your precious woman right now." Victor threatened with the pistol at Julianna's head.

"She is innocent in this. Let her go. I'll trade myself for her."

"Drop your weapons on the ground. Then we'll talk about it," Victor sneered.

While Gabriel was laying his weapons on the ground in front of him in a way that they could be quickly collected to use, Julianna remembered the .38 derringer Gabriel made her promise to carry with her at all times in her skirt pocket. She pulled it out and turned to face Victor. To distract Victor while she quietly pulled back the
hammer of the . 38 pistol, Julianna pleaded with him, "Please don't shoot him!"

Gabriel's eagle eyes saw what Julianna was doing, and prepared himself to dive for his guns just at the right moment.

Victor heard the click of the hammer on her derringer, and the look of shock registered on his face just as she pulled the trigger.

"Jules run!" Gabriel yelled the second after she pulled the trigger. Gabriel dived behind a water trough as he grabbed for his own .45 Colt Peacemaker, and started firing at the o
utlaws inside the camp's saloon when they started spitting lead at him.

Julianna didn't have time to be upset or scared from all the blood that splattered on her when she shot Victor in the stomach. She didn't stick around to watch him slump to the ground and die either. Julianna ran as hard as she could in the direction of Spotted Elk and his warriors.

Just then a loud thunder of hooves sounded as the Calvary charged into the Phantom outlaw's camp. When their Commander saw what was going on, he halted his men just out of firing range to make plans of attack.

"Commander, I am U.S. Marshal Savage," Roark said as he walked up to the Commander.

"I am Commander Finley. Which Savage would you be?" The Commander asked.

"I'm Roark. Gabriel is over there pinned down by that water trough. Angel is over that way in the rocks, and Spotted Elk and his warriors are here to help us too. We've got the outlaws all pinned in that saloon building."

The Commander ordered some of his men to go around to the backside of the saloon. While they were working their way around to the other side, the Commander shouted to the saloon, "This is the U.S. Calvary. I am Commander Finley. Put down your weapons and come out, and no one else will be hurt."

Clayton looked at the rest of the outlaws and asked, "Do any of you want to give up and go to prison, or hang from a noose?"

"Hell no!" One outlaw yelled.

"I'd rather die!" A second one said.

"There's no way I'm going back to prison!" Another one yelled.

There was more of the same answers from the rest of the outlaws, before Clayton hollered out to the Commander, "Sorry Commander, we are not giving up and comin' out."

The Commander turned to a couple of his men and ordered, "Torch the place. That will bring them out to fight."

"They're getting ready to torch this place!" Ted yelled when he saw what was going on outside the window he was looking out of.

The outlaws prepared themselves for battle. They knew this was it for them. They were pretty well equal in numbers now, but they were surrounded. If the saloon was torched, then they would be forced to come outside and fight.

Gabriel had reloaded and was ready behind the water trough for the battle that was about to come. He peeked over the edge of the trough, and fired a round through the saloon wall near a window where he figured an outlaw would be. He was rewarded as he heard a soft grunt answer him. Before Gabriel could duck back down
, an outlaw from another window shot back and the wood on the top edge of the water trough exploded in a shower of splinters. Several stung and bit into Gabriel's cheeks.

Lighted torches had now been thrown on the roof and under the saloon by some of the Calvary men. The flames burned through, and the smoke became so thick that the outlaws had no choice but to come out shooting.

Clayton and Ted were smart. They let the other outlaws run out first, and let the Calvary fire upon them, while Clayton and Ted tried to sneak out low behind them. Hot lead laced the outlaw camp from both sides.

One outlaw came out of the saloon levering rounds through his Winchester .44-40 rifle in a blur of speed as he advanced on the Calvary. He was rewarded by a blow to his chest that punctured a lung. Resulting in a wet, sucking sound, as the wounded outlaw fought to pull air into his body.

Another outlaw fired before taking aim, and the bullet zipped between a Calvary horse's legs and ploughed into the ground. While another outlaw went to one knee and snugged his Winchester .44 carbine to his shoulder in one smooth motion and fired.

A Calvary officer put a round into the ear of an outlaw and sent him, brainless, onto Hell. While another Calvary man died of a .44 caliber poisoning, from the pistol in the hand of Levi.

Gabriel was now standing and saw a flicker of movement close to his right and spun on his heal. Facing him was Tate. His gun arm was hanging down at his side with his Smith and Wesson .44 in his hand.

"You going to use that thing, or plant daisies with it?" Gabriel asked, hoping Tate would draw on him so he could personally send him to Hell.

Flame spit from the muzzle of Tate's six-gun, while some unseen force punched him solidly in the center of his body, right below his ribcage. A splash of crimson rose before his eyes as they started dimming.

Gabriel felt a tug and fiery burning sensation along his left side from Tate's bullet, before turning towards Chet. He watched the fear drain the smirk of triumph off the coward's face, as Gabriel put a .44 dot right between the would-be killer's running lights.

Roark was standing next to his brother now with a L.C. Smith short double barreled 10 gauge in his hands. He cut the legs out from under two outlaws with OO buck, while Gabriel fired hot lead into the face of another outlaw. The gunman's hat flew off with the back of his head, and he did a high kick backwards into oblivion.

Tommy, who ran the camp's saloon, turned towards Roark to see the double zeros of the L.C. Smith pointed his way. Tommy flashed a white-toothed grin as he fired at the same time Roark did. Tommy's bullet hit Roark in his left shoulder causing him to drop the shotgun, but not before the scattergun ripped Tommy's chest apart, and catapulted him over a water trough.

While Gabriel shoved fresh cartridges into his still-hot Colt, Roark pulled his iron from its holster and cracked hot lead through the air at another outlaw. The gunslinger stiffened, then his knees buckled and he slumped beside a prickly pear cactus.

During all of this, Julianna headed back to
her and Gabriel's shack to hide while Spotted Elk and his warriors joined the fight. Their eyes glazed with blood lust, they swarmed again through the crowd of outlaws, and jumped onto the gunslingers with their battle axes and clubs.

When Clayton and Ted seen Julianna run off towards her shack, they decided to follow. They knew she was the only way of possibly getting out of there alive. The Calvary was so busy fighting all the outlaws, that Clayton and Ted managed to slip past them.

When Julianna reached the horses, she was busy calming them down from all the blasting, and did not see Clayton and Ted sneak up behind her. Until Clayton grabbed her from behind. Julianna whirled around. Her fingernails flashed like the talons of an eagle, as she raked them down the face of Clayton.

He cried
out in almost a feminine shriek as he pushed her away from him towards Ted, who grabbed her and put her up on one of the horses. Ted and Clayton mounted the other two horses, and took off while leading the horse that Julianna was riding on.

They were at a dead run
when Angel shot Ted out of the saddle from a long ways off. Clayton continued on with Julianna. While they were headed her way, Angel climbed down from where she had been hidden behind some large boulders, and stood behind a wide tree. When Clayton came close to where she hid, she stepped out and fired.

Hot lead released a thunderous pain in the left shoulder of Clayton as he was knocked out of
his saddle. Rising up beside a shack, he swung the muzzle of his Colt into line with Angel, only to find himself staring down the long, black tunnel of her Sharps .50 to the afterworld. They fired. Clayton was shot in the chest. The .50 caliber round blew his spine out the back side of his body. The impact threw him back against the shack, as he slid to the ground leaving a red smear down the side of the shack's wall.

Only grazed on her upper leg from Clayton's bullet, Angel jumped onto the horse Clayton had been riding and took off with Julianna saying, "Come on! Let's get you away from here." Julianna eagerly followed.

Angel led them out of the camp. They had just started up a canyon trail that lead away from the Phantom outlaw's camp, when she suddenly came upon Barry. He pulled his pistol the same time Angel did as they stood there staring at each other. 

Outlaw or not, Angel couldn't shoot him. She holstered her Colt .45 and climbed down from the horse she was riding. She stepped forward and handed him the
leather reins to her horse and said, "Take my horse and take Julianna with you. But promise me you will keep her safe?"

"Angel, I don't understand. You come with us, and we all will get safely away."

Angel was relieved when she realized that Barry still thought she was an outlaw. It would be safer for Julianna that way. "No, I have to go back. There is something I must do."

Julianna chimed in then, as some of the shock had worn off her
from being kidnapped by Clayton. "I want to stay here with Gabe. He will need me!"

"Julianna, Gabriel needs you to be safe. It has become too dangerous for you here. All the outlaws look at you as their safe passage to get out alive. You
must
go."

"I will stay and help you," Barry replied to Angel.

"No. Go now and promise me you will get Julianna safely out of here? I will meet up with you guys in Colorado City. Go hide in my hotel room at the O'Connor Hotel. Room number 15," Angel pleaded as she handed Julianna her hotel room key from her pocket.

Barry nodded his head.
"Be careful my angel!" Then he turned and led the way out of the Phantom outlaw's camp.

Angel headed back to help her brothers. Bodies continued to pile up at an incredible rate from those that were foolhardy enough to resist, she noted.

When all the survivors had been rounded up and secured in manacles, the Calvary made a thorough search of the Phantom gang's camp. They found Ruby and a few other women hiding in the cellar of a shack. The Calvary said they were free to leave.