Winchester 1887 Read Online Free Page A

the gun in the hand of the man in the hood looked like a cannon. Five other men inside the bank also wielded guns—one a rifle, the others revolvers—but those weapons weren’t four inches from Mike Crawford’s face.
    â€œYou tell me there’s a time lock on that safe again,” Wheat-sack hood said, “and I’ll wallpaper this place with your blood and brains.”
    Crawford had seen shotguns before, but nothing like that one. It had no stock, but a pistol grip that ended just beyond the lever. The wooden fore end was covered with beaded leather and the case-hardened, blued barrel had been sawed off just in front of the tubular magazine. He had done enough dove and deer hunting to know that the bootlegged Winchester shotgun was a ten-gauge. It wouldn’t just wallpaper the back wall with his blood and brains; it would blow his entire head off.
    He had already lost his watch. The man with the pistol-grip Winchester ’87 scattergun had ripped the Waltham out of his vest pocket and dropped it into his own pocket. To Mike Crawford, that watch—a gift from his dearly departed father—was worth more than all the money in the bank, though he knew his boss would disagree with any such sentiment.
    Crawford nodded just slightly and backed away from the counter. One of the hooded men with a revolver hurdled over the gate and followed him to the vault door. As soon as he turned, he felt the barrel of the pistol ram into his back. He flinched, but at least the man did not shoot. Slowly, he pulled open the heavy vault door, walked inside, and easily opened the safe.
    â€œPayday, boys!” the man said, pushing Crawford aside. “Come and get it.”
    Two other men rushed through the gate, into the vault, and began filling sacks and saddlebags with greenbacks and coins.
    Crawford found a handkerchief in the pocket of his waistcoat and wiped his brow. He heard the man with the shotgun say from the bank’s office, “You. Empty the tills. Now, or you’re a dead man.” He was talking to Spencer Tillman, assistant cashier.
    Crawford returned the soaking piece of cotton to his pocket and stood ramrod straight as the men in the safe stuffed money into their bags, not even bothering to pick up the bills and coins that fell onto the floor.
    Greenville, Arkansas, was not a big town, and the Greenville Independent Bank was not a big bank. The town was located between the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad and Indian Territory, southwest of Fayetteville, practically due north of Van Buren. The bank held maybe $2,500, if that, between what was in the vault and in the tills of the tellers. It hardly seemed worth the outlaws’ time, but Crawford wasn’t about to tell anyone that—especially the man with the cut-down Winchester ’87 shotgun.
    He just wanted to get out of there alive, back to his wife and three little girls. He was praying that if he did survive, well, he would even stop seeing that Cherokee soiled dove over in Flint, and might—no he would —rejoin the choir at the Methodist church.
    The bank robbers had no reason to kill him. He had opened the safe, wasn’t doing anything, and there was no way he could identify any of them with those wheat-sack masks they all wore. He frowned, remembering the shotgun. There couldn’t be two like that west of the Mississippi River.
    Five seconds later, he heard words outside the bank that he had prayed he would not hear until the robbers had left the Greenville Independent Bank.
    â€œRobbery! Robbery! Robbery!”
    The words were followed by a gunshot. Then another. Moments later, the streets of the small town sounded like Gettysburg on July 3, 1863.
    Glass shattered somewhere inside the bank.
    â€œTime to hit the trail, boys!” the man with the shotgun yelled.
    The first man, wearing a linen duster, ran past Crawford without a second glance. The next shoved him against the wall, cursed, and