Triumph of the Mountain Man Read Free

downed the last of his second schooner of beer, pushed back his chair, and dug in his pocket for a cartwheel dollar. “I’ll walk over to the office with you, but then I have to head right back. I’ve got three mares who are due to foal at any time.”
    â€œYou never opened that letter from Alvarado,” Monte complained good-naturedly.
    â€œThat’s right. I’ll have to read it when I get home.” Then reading his friend’s expression, he added, “I’ll let you know what Don Diego wrote about.”
    They had reached the tall, double doors with the painted glass inserts when the sound of a gunshot came from the direction of the bank. A woman’s scream followed. Smoke turned that way at once, to be stopped when Monte laid a hand on his shoulder.
    â€œI’ll take care of this, Smoke. No need for you to stick your neck out.”
    Smoke cut his eyes to his friend and growled, “Even if I want to?”
    Monte shook his head. “Not this time.”
    He set off for the bank. Monte made it halfway down the block before the outside man saw him coming and fired his six-gun from the lawman’s blind side. The bullet struck Monte in the chest. Deflected as it punched through a rib, the slug cut a path through his lung from front to rear and buried itself in the thick muscle of his back. Shock took Monte off his boots. At once, Smoke started for him.
    â€œWatch it, there’s one over there somewhere.” A pink froth formed on Monte’s lips, and his voice came out far weaker than he expected.
    Smoke reached his friend, his .45 Colt in hand, and glanced in the direction Monte pointed before the sheriff lost consciousness. Smoke saw his man instantly. A cruel grimace distorted the outlaw’s mouth as he raised his revolver for another shot at the lawman. Smoke fired first. His round pinwheeled the man, punched through his sternum and tore apart his aorta. Charged up on adrenaline and action, he bled to death before he hit the boardwalk.
    Kneeling, Smoke examined his fallen friend. Monte’s face had grown pale, with a tinge of green around his lips, his breathing shallow and rapid. Smoke could hear a faint gurgle. If that bastard’s killed him . . . he thought in a flash of anger. The thought came to him then. The first shot had been muffled; it had to have come from inside the bank. At once, he started that way.
    * * *
    It began going wrong the moment they entered the bank with bandannas tied over their faces. The employees and customers of the bank had no doubt what the masked men intended. Shem Turnbull headed for the teller cages, and Ace Banning shoved through the low swinging gate in the wall that divided the lobby from the working area. At once, the tellers raised their hands. Shem gestured with his gun barrel.
    â€œThat’s right, keep ’em up until I tell you otherwise. You, get a money bag and start filling it,” he told the nearest teller.
    Ace concentrated on the portly, balding man in a glassed-in cubicle. “Step out here and come over to the vault. We want all the hard money and all the greenbacks you can load in those sacks.”
    Rosemont Faulkner knew better than to make vain protests about the robbers not getting away with it. He left his desk and hastened across the floor to the door of the vault. There, instead of stooping to load the bank’s precious capital into a canvas money sack, he swiftly grabbed the heavy door and gave it a hefty swing. It clanged shut, and he spun the dead bolt wheel. Defiantly he put hands on his hips and spoke with relish.
    â€œThat’s a time lock. It won’t open again until eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”
    That’s when Ace Banning, already strained beyond control by the presence of two armed guards who were presently out of his sight, lost it.
    â€œYou bastard!” he screamed as the hammer fell on a cartridge, and Ace shot the bank president through the