Saving the Gunslinger

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Four

Zachary stood on the doc's porch, using a post for cover while fighting the urge to simply charge to where Clinton was hiding and kill the man with his bare hands. If Zachary were to do that, Clinton could very well kill Samantha before he got there.

The morning was eerily quiet. The town was lifeless. Folks knew that trouble was brewing. Women and children had been kept indoors and locked up tight. Men had refused to leave their families and go to work. The silence went beyond even that—the birds, the dogs, even the insects seemed to know that the safest place for them was anywhere but Hackney.

He glanced toward where the Sheriff lay only to realize the only thing still laying in the street was Arthur's lost hat. Zachary had thought the man was dead but clealry he'd been wrong. Where the hell had Arthur Thomas gone? Zachary didn't see any pools of blood where the body had been. He followed some scuff marks in the dirt and realized they led to a water trough nearby.

Zachary crouched and rushed toward that water trough. Arthur Thomas sat behind it, propped up against the scarred wood as he gingerly touched the bloody gouge across his scalp.

"You okay?" Zachary asked.

"Son of a bitch shot me in the goddamn head," Arhtur grumbled.

Zach quickly examined the wound. "Just a graze. You'll be fine."

Arthur chuckled. "I'm seeing four of you and just as soon as I figure out which one is the real one, I'll take a swing."

"Are you fit to fight?"

"Yeah." The sheriff pulled his gun. "Yeah, I'm fit. And I got plenty of bullets so I can hit all the multiple targets I'm seeing just now."

"Good. You stay here and cover the street. Tim's on the roof above you."

"And what about you? We don't even know how many men they have..."

"Clinton has four men working with him! There's five total!" Caroline's voice suddenly cried out from across the street. The sound of flesh hitting flesh sounded followed by a cry of pain.

"Stop hitting her, you big jackass!" Samantha's angry voice rang out. Another sound of flesh hitting flesh sounded, followed by silence.

Zachary barely contained his roar of fury.

Arthur cleared his throat. "Five of them. Three of us. We can do this, Zachary."

"I have you outnumbered, Zachary Marston!" Clinton called out. "I'm leaving this town with my Samantha."

"You're leaving this town in a pine fucking box, you son of a bitch!" Zachary called back.

"I have five on my team...."

Clinton's voice was cut off by the sound of a gunshot on the roof where Zachary had sent Tim. Zach's heart ceased to beat for a full second before a body toppled over the roof and fell with a resounding thud on the dirt nearby. The man was large framed and bearded—defnitely not Timothy.

"Make that four!" Tim called out.

Zachary remained crouched and moved back the post on the doctors' porch. "I've been killing your men for a long time, Clinton. It ain't gonna bother me a bit to kill the last four of you!"

"Zachary Marston?"

Zachary's attention was pulled down the street when a tall mustached man walked out of cover and began to stride down the street.

"Tex!" Clinton's voice was full of desperation—and it made Zachary's heart smile. "Get back in cover! What the hell are you doing?"

The man, apparently named Tex, just shook his head as he came to a stop about fifteen feet from Zachary's position. "You've killed a lot of my friends, Zachary Marston, and yesterday your bitch killed the last two best friends I had."