Only one woke enough to make any sort of move, and Mildred shot him smack in the center of the low, brutish forehead, the impact of the big Smith amp; Wesson .38 round knocking him into a scrabbling heap, where his thrashing legs kicked over a predark globe of the world.
“So far, so good,” J.B. said, reloading the Uzi, his scattergun still slung unused over his shoulder.
JAK AND DOC ALSO HAD their primary target.
It wasn’t one of the larger buildings in Harmony, like the church or the school. The recce had identified the old sheriff’s office, where Ludlow Thompson had once enforced the law, as a place where several of the norms in the gang were staying during the night.
Neither Doc nor Jak had superaccurate comp-controlled digital wrist chrons like Ryan and J.B., but the albino had an uncanny sense of time passing and he had been mentally counting down toward the five-o’clock mark.
“Is there long to go, dear boy?”
“Four minutes, I make it.”
“We should hear the shooting once the others open fire, should we not?”
“Should. Your blaster full ready?”
Doc’s commemorative gold-plated Le Mat J. E. B. Stuart special had been fieldstripped, oiled and cleaned, unloaded and reloaded by the Armorer while they waited for the dawn to draw closer, with some scabrous comments about Doc’s neglect of the beautiful weapon.
The .65-caliber grapeshot round was devastating and had saved the old man’s life on several occasions. But it was a one-off shot and, once fired, it was fiddling and perilously time-consuming to alter the hammer to make it engage on the nine chambers of .44s.
So it was going to be the .44s spitting from the weighty cannon.
They waited in a narrow alley at the rear of the building. The curtains were open, and Doc could see that there was an oil lamp still lit in the back, where Carl had told them the cells were situated.
“Think that the ungodly are still awake?”
Jak shrugged. “Find out three minutes.”
Doc took a long deep breath and did several knee bends, though the explosive cracking of the joints made Jak look worriedly at him.
“Sorry, dear lad, sorry,” he whispered. “Presume not that I am the man I was.”
“Two minutes.”
A shadow passed across the face of the lightening sky, swooping low over the sheriff’s office, its great eyes staring down at the two men. Doc ducked under its whispering feathers.
“Barn owl,” he said. “I assume that it is returning to its nest after a night’s hunting. I hope it has been successful. I hope that we shall be successful.”
“Know soon.”
“Time is passing. Should we not ready ourselves closer to the door?”
Jak nodded, his stark hair burning like a mag-fire in the first dawning. “Let’s go do it, Doc.”
Harmony still slept as the ill-matched couple, the old man towering over the teenager, made their way up the path to the back of the sheriff’s building.
Jak went first, stepping lightly onto the porch and testing the door handle. He looked back to give Doc the thumbs-up as it eased open. light spilled out past the slim youth, reflecting off the satin-finish Colt Python with its six-inch barrel. He gestured with it for Doc to go around the front, where he could cover any attempts to escape.
Doc nodded and walked along the side, past a barred window, to find himself on the shadowy main street. Just as he reached a position to cover the front door, he heard shooting erupt from two different places in the ville.
“All done in the tying of a cravat,” he muttered to himself. “Time, gentlemen, please.”
Jak slipped in through the door, seeing that a game of cards had been in progress, though all but one of the players had fallen asleep, slumped facedown among the tumbled bottles, stained cards and half-empty glasses. The stink of liquor and sweat was heavy in the room.
Only one was still awake, but drink had totally fuddled his brain and he blinked at the apparition. He was fat, in his fifties, with thinning hair pasted across his scalp. His fingers were covered in cheap rings.