Prairie Fire Read online

  And Bolan helped him get there, popping off a rapid double punch that flipped his target over in midair and laid him out on his back.

  Alone among the dead, Mack Bolan straightened from his fighting crouch and let the pistol slip a few degrees off target. His wound had opened up again, and he could feel the blood soaking through his shirt and trickling down inside his overalls.

  Make it sixteen down, and Bolan wondered if at last he might have swept the field. Even as the question was materializing, his answer kicked the screen door open and ambled down the wooden steps.

  A lanky gunner, dressed in Western garb, with Toni Chadwick clasped in front of him to form a living shield. The muzzle of a stainless-steel revolver was pressed against her skull, the pistolero's other arm around her chest. The enemy was smiling at him now, reminding Bolan of a hungry reptile, eyes invisible behind some kind of mirrored glasses.

  * * *

  Toni Chadwick grimaced with agony.

  The fingers locked around her breast were talons, totally devoid of sexuality, an instrument of pain.

  Her captor jammed the muzzle of his handgun up against her cheek with brutal force. The polished steel was warm from recent firing, and it stank of powder smoke. A sudden image of the bullet striking Jason turned her stomach.

  When he whispered in her ear, the gunman's voice was coarse and hollow, like a night wind among the headstones of a cemetery.

  "You and me are going for a little walk," he snarled. "Do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you, and you just might keep on breathing. Understand?"

  She nodded, already taking stock of her condition and the chances of escape. Toni had a fair idea of what her captor had in mind, and she determined on the spot to die, provoke him into shooting her, before she let him use her to destroy LaMancha.

  The gunman started moving, pushing her ahead of him. He had released her breast, the strong arm circling her waist and keeping her from making any sudden moves.

  They were crossing the burned-out ruin of the kitchen when a powerful explosion rocked the house, produced a sudden gust of wind that set the screen door flapping on the porch. An instant later, there was yet another blast, and she could see the leaping flames outside, consuming what appeared to be a vehicle.

  The gunman froze, and she could feel his tension as a rapid string of gunshots followed the explosions. She realized the weapon was unsilenced, and the implication gave her sudden hope. If Frank LaMancha was alive and armed out there...

  Her captor hesitated for a moment, then propelled her toward the door, as if he had arrived at some decision.

  Toni's foot made contact with the outstretched fingers of a burned and battered corpse. She felt the nausea rising, threatening to overcome her, but the gunner at her back responded with a violent shake that snapped her out of it, returned her from the brink of madness to a tenuous grip on sanity.

  She had to keep her wits about her. An alertness, the ability to think, to plan, to act, was all that stood between her and sudden death. Her own alertness might, in fact, be all the hope that Frank LaMancha had, as well.

  They reached the porch, no longer dark or cool now in its close proximity to the fire. The lady had a moment left before they reached the doorway proper, and she looked the burning Caddy over briefly, sickened by the grisly, slouching scarecrow wedged behind the steering wheel. She tore her eyes away from there and scanned the yard, the other twisted bodies — until she found LaMancha.

  He was standing tall, almost princely in the firelight, watching as they made the steps, negotiated them, and moved away toward open ground. The gunman kept his arm around Toni, holding her against him like a shield.

  "'Gratulations, Slick." The graveyard voice was mocking. "You got 'em all, except for one."

  LaMancha was looking past her, at the gunman's face.

  "Well," he said, "it's early yet."

  "Guess again," the killer sneered. "It's later than you think."

  She felt him tensing, muscles bunching for the move that would ignite the final conflagration. Toni had perhaps an instant to decide upon her strategy and put it into action. Any longer, and she would be trapped between the blazing guns.

  Except that Frank LaMancha would not fire, would not defend himself if it involved a risk of harming her. She knew it just as surely as she knew her name — and with the knowledge came a desperate revelation.

  It was up to her.

  Beyond the throbbing pain inside her twisted arm and shoulder, Toni was aware of other feelings. Pressure. Stress. The rasp of denim jeans against her palm. A subtle swelling underneath the fabric.

  Plan and action ran together, merging into one as Toni shifted her position slightly, slid her open hand along his fly and downward, groping blindly for the target. She found it, closed her fingers, put her weight behind the twisting squeeze.

  The gunner stiffened, arched his spine as an unearthly scream ripped out of him. The silver pistol wavered off target for an instant, and the tight, restraining arm was gone now, clutching at his injured genitals.

  She seized the moment, whipped an arm around and backward, drove the elbow square into his face. Toni felt his glasses buckle, twist, and then the pistol in his fist exploded.

  The shock wave deafened her; a tongue of flame licked out to sear her cheek. The lady lost her balance, stumbled, fell. Above her head, the smoky thunder battered back and forth from duelling weapons.

  Toni Chadwick hugged the earth and breathed a silent, desperate prayer.

  * * *

  The sight of Toni in the gunman's clutches nearly paralyzed Mack Bolan. For an instant, he was gripped by Arctic numbness, piercing to the marrow of his bones. His vision seemed to ripple, and the lady's face was changing, melting swiftly into that of someone else.

  Into the face of April Rose.

  Bolan saw her in the flickering firelight with a sudden crystal clarity. She was alive and running toward him, arms outstretched and reaching in the heartbeat that remained before a heavy bullet ripped beloved flesh. Her dying scream reverberated in the echo chamber of his mind.

  And instantly, the soldier was returned to here and now, transported back from painful past to brutal present. It was Toni Chadwick standing there in front of him, and Bolan had a chance, however slim, to do it right this time.

  Another moment left, at most, and Bolan knew that he could make the shot, no sweat. Just swing the Colt Commander up and into target acquisition, let the mercenary's lag time do the rest.

  Except for Toni.

  He could not squeeze off in rapid fire without a risk of hitting her, and there was no damn time to aim. No cover close enough to reach before his adversary opened fire.

  Bolan saw the lady's move before she made it, revealed in her eyes and posture. When the gunman started screaming, Toni broke away and whipped an elbow blindly backward, hammering his face. The mirrored glasses buckled, broke, and Bolan glimpsed a flash of blood from flattened nostrils as she fell away.

  He swung the Colt Commander up, already squeezing off as his assailant's .44 exploded aimlessly. The gunner staggered, lurching to his left, and Bolan's bullet took him in the shoulder, spinning the guy around and dumping him in the dust.

  Incredibly, the automatic's slide locked open on the smoking, empty chamber. Whether the Commander's owner had already used the other rounds, or had unaccountably forgotten to load the weapon to capacity, no time remained to mull the varied possibilities.

  The captured gun was empty, useless, and the wounded pistolero was already moving, wriggling on his side toward the fallen Smith & Wesson.

  Bolan dropped the .45 and rushed the Cowboy, sprinting flat out in a race with Death. And he was running second best until he launched himself headlong across the final stretch of ground, impacting belly-down across his adversary's shoulders.

  Something tore beneath his arm, and underneath the sudden pain, he felt a spurt of blood, announcing the disintegration of his final sutures.

  The force of Bolan
's touchdown left him breathless. Beneath his weight, the Cowboy wriggled, twisted, snarling like a wounded animal. With desperate, heaving motions he was trying to dislodge the burden that held him down. His scrabbling hands were inches from the stainless Magnum hand cannon.

  Bolan tangled fingers in the Cowboy's hair and twisted, wrenching the enemy's skull over to one side. His free hand locked around a wrist and pinned the crawling hand to earth.

  That left the gunman with a single arm at liberty, and he was using it with swift precision, hammering the elbow into Bolan's wounded side. The blows were jarring him, each impact driving bolts of agony through Bolan's abdomen. A bloody, surging darkness threatened to envelop him, and Bolan's grip was slackening involuntarily. The warrior closed his eyes, and jagged streaks of lightning danced across the inside of his eyelids.

  Bolan dragged the gunner's head back, twisting with his weight behind the move. In a single fluid motion, he released the captive wrist and whipped his arm around the Cowboy's straining throat, closing the vise in an instant. 'Frantically, he dug the earth with feet and knees, rolling over onto his back and dragging the Cowboy along with him. They finished the roll with Bolan on his back and the mercenary stretched out, wriggling on top of him.

  The guy was thrashing with his feet and elbows like a capsized tortoise now, and instantly aware of his own desperate peril. Bolan's arm was closing his larynx, choking off his breath, and as the mercenary's head began to swim from lack of oxygen, his throes became more violent, desperate.

  Beneath him, Bolan held his grip and tightened it methodically. The gunner's boot heels were slashing at Bolan's shins and ankles. Both hands were up and scrabbling at the jungle fighter's face, but Bolan turned his head away and clamped his eyelids tightly shut against the groping fingers. Bolan made his mind a blank against the pain and focused on the imminence of Death. For one or both of them.

  And gradually, the gunner's struggles slackened, finally ceased. In place of violent thrashing, tremors gripped his lanky form, a spastic trembling that was beyond control. He stiffened, shuddered out of it, stiffened once again — and finally he was still.

  Bolan held his grip another moment, finally loosening his stranglehold by slight degrees. When there was no renewed resistance, Bolan pushed the man's dead weight away and wriggled out from under him. He found the Smith & Wesson .44 instinctively, and it was in his hand, the hammer back and ready, when he made it to his knees.

  The fallen mercenary lay on his side, facing Bolan. Glassy eyes and blotchy, mottled cheeks, the dark, protruding tongue — his face bore all the classic signs of strangulation. Bolan knew that he was dead as hell — and still the warrior could not let it go.

  The .44 was heavy, dragging down his arm until he braced it with both his hands and brought it onto target acquisition. A fire was singing in his veins, invigorating him, compelling him to action. And the Executioner was smiling when he squeezed the trigger.

  22

  Sheriff Bobby Heenan lit a cigarette in hopes that it would overpower the antiseptic smell that came with hospitals and doctors. It helped a little, and he took another drag before addressing himself to the figure in the bed before him.

  "You were lucky, Jase. Six inches either way, and I'd be talking to your widow now."

  Jason Chadwick tried to smile around his pain and medication.

  "Too bad you had to make the drive for nothing."

  "I was in the neighborhood. Besides, from what I saw around your place, it's good to meet a genuine survivor."

  Jason frowned.

  "The votes aren't in on that yet."

  "You wouldn't want to make a liar out of old Doc Carver, would you?"

  Silence fell between them for a moment and extended to embarrassing dimensions. Each man seemed to read the other's mind, his mood, and neither wanted to address the questions that divided them. In the end, Bobby Heenan's badge and temperament compelled him to break the ice.

  "I want to get this straight before I tackle my report," he said. "The way I understand it, these four hoodlums — did I get that right? You did say four?"

  "That's right."

  "Okay, then. These four hoodlums show up outta nowhere with their guns and their explosives, loaded up for bear, and then they take you hostage in your house for no apparent reason."

  Jason eyed him levelly.

  "I never said they didn't have a reason. Reckon they just didn't take me into their confidence."

  The sheriff nodded.

  "Well, that's understandable," he said, "with everything they must've had to think about. I mean, what with wiring up your windows to the wall outlets an' all."

  "They seemed to know what they were doing."

  Bobby Heenan's smile was closer to a smirk.

  "It didn't seem to help them much, now, did it?" He cleared his throat and forged ahead, not waiting for the farmer to reply. "I want to get this straightened out inside my head. You've got these four gorillas in the house, and then here comes a dozen more."

  "I wouldn't think a dozen," Jason interjected.

  "Well, you'd better think again. I spent my morning counting 'em — or what was left to count. You've got sixteen of 'em piled up like cord wood down at Duffy's funeral home."

  The farmer watched him, saying nothing.

  "Lemme see, where was I? There you've got these four gorillas in the house, all wired and fortified for doomsday, and then here comes another dozen hot to knock 'em off. They crash your doors and windows, try to come up through the floor and chop their way in through the roof. Before they're done, they've killed each other off across the board. No survivors. That about the size of it?"

  The farmer nodded cautiously.

  "Jase, you've been shovellin' the shit my way since I came through that door. I know it, and you know I know it."

  Jason kept his peace, but he was watching Bobby Heenan closely, thinly veiled suspicion in his eyes.

  "I may be a two-bit country sheriff looking at retirement come the next election, but I didn't just fall off the turnip truck this morning. There's no way I can buy that story. Just no way at all."

  "I don't know what to tell you," Jason said. His tone was not apologetic in the least.

  "Well, you could start by telling me who made the call."

  "What?"

  "The call that fetched my deputies to your place," Heenan told him patiently. "Your line was down, the gunsels killed each other off... 1 just keep wonderin' who was it made that call."

  "I couldn't say. A neighbor, maybe."

  "No, I shouldn't think so. A neighbor would've called first sign of trouble. This was almost like somebody had to wait before he dropped the dime. Like he was busy."

  "Busy?"

  Sheriff Heenan answered with a question of his own.

  "You absolutely sure the hoodlums killed each other off? No chance that one or two of them got out alive?"

  The farmer risked a grin.

  "I can't imagine why they'd send for you."

  It was the sheriff's turn to scowl.

  "I'll give you that... and knowing you for thirty years the way I have, I know whatever happened out there wasn't your idea."

  "All right."

  "All right, my ass. I ought to haul you up on charges of obstructing justice and suppressing evidence."

  "So, do it."

  "Sure. And see it all thrown out for lack of cause. No, thank you."

  "Well, then, it looks like you got problems."

  "Not at all," the lawman countered. "All those fellows out at Duffy's — they have the problem. Could be you've got trouble, too."

  The farmer watched him silently.

  "Whoever made that call was part of what went on last night. The time may come when he decides to shut you up for good."

  And Jason smiled at that. For just a second there, Bobby Heenan thought the farmer was about to laugh at him.

  "I'll take my chances."

  Heenan nodded.

  "Fair enough. You have a c
hange of heart, I'm in the book." He hesitated at the doorway, turning back toward Jason. "You're on your own."

  "G'bye, Bobby."

  * * *

  A hundred miles away and pushing south behind the wheel of Jason Chadwick's pickup truck. Mack Bolan faced the morning sunlight with cautious optimism. The wound beneath his arm was clean and stitched by Toni's caring hands; the borrowed clothing, torn and bloodied in his Final Tight for life, bad been replaced by spotless cotton shirt and jeans. A shopping bag beside him on the seat contained provisions; underneath the seat, a captured pistol and an Uzi submachine gun nestled in concealment, primed and ready to take on all comers.

  He was clean and fed, refreshed, but Bolan's momentary optimism reached beyond the physical. As always, he was moving out of danger into danger, leaving death and ruin in his wake, but there was something riding with him that renewed the Executioner and made him feel rejuvenated.

  He had encountered something at the Chadwick farm, amid the killing and the carnage, that reminded him of why he fought his lonely, everlasting war. The warmth and caring he had found with Toni, certainly... and something else.

  An inner strength, damn right.

  The kind of tempered steel inside of living, breathing human beings that revealed itself in desperate times.

  A shining light that was uncovered only in the darkest hours of the human soul.

  Bolan knew the flame, sure. It had been guiding him along the hellfire trail throughout his adult life, and it would carry him another mile or two before he laid the martial burden down forever.

  As long as there were others out there like the Chadwicks, Bolan knew he would not have to make the trek alone. The gentle civilizers still remembered how to fight at need; they had the grit and stamina to see the battle through, to wage a ceaseless, brutal battle of attrition with the savages.