the Iron Marshall (1979) Read Online Free PDF Page B

check receipts. According to plan he had met Lochlin there. They had barely seated themselves at the table when Cogan, a bartender, stuck his head in the door.
    "Mr. Shanaghy, sir? There's some men comin' in that look like trouble." Leaving Lochlin at the table, Shanaghy stepped over to the door. He glanced quickly around. There were four men at the bar, all standing together, and there were others scattered about the room. They all had beers, but there was something about them ...
    The place was crowded, but somehow the men Cogan had mentioned stood out, and one of them ... Shanaghy turned sharply. "Lochlin! Look out! It's Childers's men!"
    He stepped quickly out into the saloon and pulled the door shut behind him. He had started around the bar when one of the newcomers deliberately knocked the beer from the hand of a bricklayer who stood beside him. The bricklayer turned to protest and the man hit him. Then they started to break the place up. Shanaghy ducked a blow and drove a fist into the middle of the nearest man, and kicked another on the kneecap. The door crashed open and he saw a dozen men coming in, all armed with pick-handles and other clubs. Too many! "Cogan! Murphy! Run!"
    Shanaghy spun a table in the path of the advancing men, and when several fell he crowned them with a chair. Ducking around the bar, he armed himself with bottles which he threw with unerring aim.
    Another man went down, screaming. A bottle missed Shanaghy by inches and he ducked through the door to find Lochlin. The man was gone. He had scooped up the money he was to count and scrambled out the back door. Slamming the door into place, Cogan, who had joined him, dropped a bar across it and they ran for the alley. There were too many to fight, too many altogether. They had almost reached the back door when there was a shot and Lochlin staggered in, bleeding.
    "Upstairs!" Shanaghy told them quickly. "Over the roofs!" He stopped and lifted Lochlin bodily from the floor, holding him in place with one arm while he scooped up the moneybag with the other. He ran up the steps, blessing his good luck for all the years at the blacksmith's anvil, and then they came out on the roof, barring the trap behind them. The sky was covered with low clouds, and it was beginning to rain. Murphy, another aide of Morrissey's, had joined them. "There's a rig at Kendall's," he gasped.
    Suddenly, from behind a parapet of a roof, a group of men raised themselves up. Shanaghy's glance counted six. He turned. As many more were coming across the roofs behind them.
    "This time," somebody yelled, "ye'll not get away!" Shanaghy dropped the moneybag and drew a snub-nosed pistol from a waistband holster. "I'm givin' y' fair warnin'," he said, "git to runnin' or somebody dies!"
    "Hah!" a big roughneck shouted, lifting a club in one hand and a half-brick in the other, ready to throw. "Y'll not git away this .. !" Men had been killed with sticks and stones for millions of years before a firearm was invented, and Tom Shanaghy did not hesitate. He had been well taught, and during the four years he had operated the shooting gallery he had practiced daily.
    He palmed the gun and he fired even as the big man spoke. The gun was a .44 and Shanaghy fired three times.
    The big man cried out and staggered. Another fell, and then they were all running.
    Somehow Shanaghy and his men got to Kendall's, got into the rig and fled. Cogan was holding Lochlin while Shanaghy drove, and never would he forget that wild night drive through the dark, rain-whipped streets. Where should they go? Shanaghy wondered. His own place was known and would not be safe. Lochlin's bachelor quarters would be unsafe, too. Yet there was a hiding place, a place Morrissey kept off Broadway. He drove there. There was a floor safe in Morrissey's bedroom and that was where Tom took the money. He withheld a handful of bills, made a hasty estimate and dropped a note into the safe with the remainder of the money.
    Giving Cogan and