Chapter 4: The beautiful Leah Schwartz

The five crooks had ducked behind partially overturned tables. I could see that I had wounded one or more of them because of the spattered blood on the floor. Shit! I had really blown the whole thing! I was stuck behind this damned bar while the crooks were closer to the door than I was. One or more could escape if I let my concentration wander even a little. I had to come up with a plan very damned soon or I was going to lose the chance for this capture and for the recovery of the bank loot.

I was at the end of the bar near the door to the jakes, but I doubted that any of them would run that way simply because of the psychology of the Westerner. His horse was at the front door; therefore, he would run out the front door! With that in mind, I had to get my ass into position to cover the front door. I hunched over and ran to the other end of the bar, nearly trampling the bartender in the process.

I got there just in time to see somebody getting ready to run for that door. I was ready, so I decided to let him run. I was sure that I could stop him with a blast from my shotgun. I had switched from full automatic fire to semiautomatic. I did not expect them all to run at once, so I figured to be able to pick a man off with only one shot. To be ready for anything, though, I did pull a fresh clip out of my belt pouch and swap it for the one with only five shells left in it. I would recharge that partially used clip from the few spare rounds I carried when I had the chance.

The crook nearest the door stood up to run, and I put a load into him before he had taken two steps. He was so close that the pellets did not have much chance to spread, and he caught most, if not all of them, in his arm and side at chest level. He fell with blood spurting everywhere and his arm hanging by the merest thread of skin. He did not move after falling, so I figured that he was as good as dead. He was unconscious at least, and I was sure that he was going to bleed to death before he woke up.

That first tipped over table was so close that I had an inspiration. I swapped back to that first clip and blasted at the same place on the table until I had chopped a hole in its top. This hole was going to serve me as a loophole to shoot through. The table top was thick enough to stop most bullets, anyway, though it was not as effective as the bar front. However, it did have the advantage that I could use it to swivel around so that I could shoot at the crooks from near the front door and cover the exit to the jakes at the same time.

It took four shots to cut the hole I wanted, so I swapped clips again and pulled that last shell from the nearly empty magazine. I dropped the one shell among those in my loose-shell collection and left the empty magazine where it was. I figured that it was not going anywhere during the gunfight, and I could easily pick it up later.

I fired one more shot from over the bar and ran to the modified table. The crooks all knew by now what my shotgun could do, so they ducked whenever they saw the muzzle. I dropped to my knees behind the table and moved it to a more convenient position. Now I was in complete command of the situation as long as I did not do something foolish or careless.

The crooks had swiveled their tables, too, to follow my lead. Fortunately for me, they had no way to cut loopholes into their tables, so they were forced to shoot around or over the table. I was lucky that they did not realize that I would have been unable to use my loophole if they had all shot at it at once, but none of them thought of that.

I was now facing a wall of partially overturned tables, and I was forced to shoot at the occasional arm or leg that I could glimpse as they shot at me. It looked like this was going to turn into a long siege because neither side could get a good view of the other. This was the first time I realized that I could really use a partner. With two people, one of us could shoot from where I was, and the other could run around the building and shoot from the doorway to the jakes. That was a good idea, but it was not going to do me much good right now.

I decided to see if I could drive one of the crooks to try to escape through that door to the jakes. My plan was to switch back to full automatic fire and blast at one table until the man hiding behind the table lost his nerve and tried to run. I certainly had nothing else better in mind, so I gave the idea a try. I figured that five shots in rapid succession should accomplish was I was looking for, so that was what I did.

I made a guess at where the man was hiding behind the table nearest the door and opened up with a steady blast of pellets. Thank God for the recoil dampening that helped me control the tendency of the muzzle to rise to antiaircraft mode. Five shots scattered about the table's top caused it to split into three pieces, none of them large enough for a man to hide behind.

As expected, a man jumped from behind the shattered table and ran for the exit. I did not have time to switch back to semiautomatic mode, so I wound up dumping two sets of pellets at the guy trying to escape. He did not get away!

Dammit, I was going through shells too damned fast! Nearly one clip per person against five people was going to deplete my ammunition supply faster than I was comfortable with. The trouble was, I had no better solution to my problem. Oh, well, I guess I would find out how well the USAS-12 worked with blackpowder sooner than I had hoped!

There were now three people left to face me. I spoke loud enough to be heard by all three men, "Hunter, are you ready to surrender, yet? I have shown that I can kill all of you if that is necessary, but I will let you surrender if you do it now. Try my patience, though, and I guarantee to kill you! You stand a better chance with the law than you do with me!"

"No way will you take me alive, you son of a bitch! I had rather die here than hang!" That was followed by three shots from the middle of the three tables. Good! At least I now knew where to find Hunter. It occurred to me that if I could knock him out of the fight, the others might give up. Therefore, I went after that middle table.

I changed to a new magazine and used the same technique on Hunter's table as I had used on the previous man's. It took five shots this time to shatter the table top, but a few of the pellets managed to wound Hunter. He tried to duck behind another table, but I was able to put a shot into his chest that killed him on the spot.

Both of the other men began shouting and babbling on the spot about surrendering. I shouted back that I would accept their surrender, but they had to stand up and march out of the saloon with their hands up. The two men stood up; one was surprisingly old, around 40 or so, and the other one looked to be my age.

They started marching toward me with the older one in front. The younger crook shouted, "LOOK OUT! HE HAS A DERRINGER!" Sure enough, the older man snapped his right hand down, and a derringer was in his hand. I did not hesitate. A load of buckshot hit him in the gut at a range of about five feet. You know what happened to him.

I turned and pointed my shotgun at the younger man, and he shouted again, "I AM UNARMED! PLEASE DO NOT SHOOT ME!" Fortunately for both of us, I was able to hold up pulling the trigger. When he saw that I was not going to shoot him, he collapsed on the floor and started crying. I could not blame him—I would probably have reacted pretty much the same way if I had come that close to death.

I let him sit there while I looted the bodies and collected my spent shells and magazines. Hunter was wearing a bag hanging from his shoulder, and when I looked in it, I saw that it was the bank loot. Besides that, I picked up $153 from the various bodies, plus some other valuable loot.