Ghost Towns. Martin H. Greenberg

“Where the hell’d they go? I hit the little bastard, I know I did!”

      “Stop shootin’, you idiot!” Tarver said. “That’s a little kid you’re blastin’ away at!”

      “No, it’s not,” Bo said, figuring that any distraction would work in his and Scratch’s favor. “That little boy and girl were orphans who were killed in a flood here months ago. The water made the orphanage collapse. More than thirty children died that night, and their spirits are here in Duster.” Bo paused as more lightning glared across the sky. “They’ve come back tonight.”

      “Over here…over here…over here…”

      The outlaws twisted and turned frantically, looking for something that wasn’t really there. Scratch leaned close to Bo and said, “That one hombre never reloaded his gun.”

      “I know,” Bo replied. “That makes it four to two. Good enough odds for you?”

      “Damn good enough,” Scratch snapped, and slapped leather.

      “Look out!” Tarver yelped. “Get those two saddle tramps!”

      The outlaws’ panic had given Bo and Scratch a chance to draw their guns. Both Colts blasted as the two drifters split up, Bo going right and Scratch going left. Bo hoped that Ledbetter would have sense enough to keep his head down.

      One of the outlaws spun around with a harsh cry as a bullet from Bo’s gun drilled through his body. Another doubled over as one of Scratch’s slugs punched into his belly.

      But then Tarver and the desperado called Harry began to return fire, forcing Scratch to dive behind the old water trough. Bo dashed for the far side of the street, but it was too far away. He would never make it.

      Sure enough, a bullet traced a trail of fire across the outside of his left thigh. The wound was minor, but the impact was enough to knock his leg out from under him and send him tumbling to the ground. He knew he would be ventilated good and proper before he could get to his feet again.

      But he had landed so that he was turned toward the old hotel or saloon or whatever it was, and in the light of the campfire Bo saw Reverend Ledbetter rise from the ground and throw himself at Sam Tarver. “No!” the preacher screamed. “Vengeance belongs to the Lord—and to the children!”

      A pair of shots erupted from Tarver’s gun. Ledbetter crumpled as the bullets smashed into him. His action gave Bo time to draw a bead on Tarver, though, and before the boss outlaw could fire again, the walnut-handled Colt leaped in Bo’s hand. Three shots rolled out, all of them hammering into Tarver’s chest and driving him backward so that he fell heavily on the old boardwalk. The planks were rotten. Tarver busted right through them.

      At the same time, Scratch fired from behind the water trough at Harry. One of the slugs smashed the outlaw’s elbow; the second tore his throat out. He went down with blood fountaining from the wound. It looked more black than red in the firelight.

      That accounted for four of the five outlaws, but the one who had emptied his gun at a ghost was still on his feet. His gun wasn’t empty anymore, either. He had been desperately thumbing fresh cartridges into the cylinder as the battle went on around him, and now he snapped the weapon closed and lifted it, grinning as he aimed it at Bo.

      It was Bo’s gun that was empty now. He couldn’t do anything as the outlaw shouted to Scratch, “Drop your guns, mister, or I’ll blow holes in your pard, I swear I will!”

      Bo heard the curses coming from Scratch and called, “Kill the varmint!” He wasn’t surprised, though, when Scratch stood up a moment later and tossed his Remingtons to the ground in front of the water trough.

      “All right,” Scratch said. “Now what?”

      The outlaw chuckled. “Now I get a fresh horse, and an extra one too. No way those troopers’ll catch me.”

      Bo knew the man was about to pull the trigger, but before that could happen, something large and dark plummeted from the old balcony. The outlaw never saw it coming as it crashed into his head, shattering as it knocked him to his knees.

      Scratch left his feet in a dive, snatched one of the Remingtons from the ground as he rolled over, and came up firing. He had two shots left in the ivory-handled gun and put both of them into the fifth and final outlaw. The man went over backward, twitched a couple of times, and then lay still as a dark bloodstain spread over the front of his shirt.

      Around him were scattered the remains of the old rain barrel that had fallen on him.

      Bo lifted his eyes to the balcony, saw the gap in the railing where the barrel had been pushed through it. He saw the two children standing there as well, looking down at the street. He halfway expected them to disappear again, but they didn’t. Instead the boy called, “Reverend Ledbetter! Reverend Ledbetter, get up!”

      The preacher wasn’t moving, though. Scratch hurried to Bo’s side, helped him to his feet, and whispered, “Them ghosts are back.”

      “They’re not ghosts,” Bo said with a shake of his head. “They’re real, and they just saved our bacon.” He called up to the children, “Ruthie, Caleb, you kids come on down. We won’t hurt you. That’s a promise.”

      Another rumble sounded close by. Scratch said, “That ain’t thunder. That’s—”

      “Hoofbeats,” Bo said.

      Followed a moment later by the sound of a bugle.

      The cavalry patrol’s grizzled Irish sergeant took charge of the children while Bo and Scratch explained to Lieutenant Stilwell what had happened here in Duster, both tonight and months earlier, when the flood washed away most of the town.

      “I got a chance to talk to those kids a little before you rode in,” Bo said. “They made it out of the orphanage that night before it collapsed, because Ruthie got too scared to stay there and ran out, and Caleb went after her. He’s her brother.”

      “Then they were never ghosts?” the lieutenant asked. Scratch grunted like that struck him as sort of a dumb question.

      Bo shook his head. “No. They didn’t leave when everybody else did after the flood, because this was the closest thing to a home that they had. And Reverend Ledbetter stayed, so they wanted to be where he was. They tried to take care of him, but his mind was already twisted around. He didn’t believe they were alive. He was convinced they were ghosts.”

      “What about the way they disappeared?”

      Scratch said, “They been livin’ in this ghost town for months, scroungin’ for food and shelter and tryin’ to take care o’ the reverend whether he wanted ’em to or not, so they know every hidey-hole and shortcut around here. They didn’t know whether to trust Bo and me when we first rode in, so they didn’t come all the way out, just spied on us and eavesdropped until they figured out we wouldn’t hurt ’em. Then Tarver and the rest o’ them owlhoots showed up.”

      “And thanks to Ruthie and Caleb taking a hand, we survived that little ruckus,” Bo added. “That’s the story, Lieutenant. It’ll be up to you now to take care of those kids.”

      Stilwell nodded. “We’ll take them back to Fort Stockton with us. I’m sure we can find people to care for them.”

      The cavalry surgeon who was riding with the patrol had been working on Ledbetter. He looked up from his task and called, “Lieutenant, maybe you’d better get those kids and bring them over here.”

      Stilwell nodded, his face grim. “All right, Corporal.” He and Bo and Scratch went over to where Ruthie and Caleb were talking with the massive Sergeant O’Hallihan. Stilwell led the children to the boardwalk where Ledbetter had been placed on a blanket while the surgeon examined his wounds.

      Ledbetter’s head was propped up on a folded blanket. He lifted a trembling hand, managed to smile, and said, “Children…Ruthie, Caleb…you’re real?” Although the old man’s eyes were filled with pain, they were clearer