He knew he would be running a risk by moving around enough to reveal that he was conscious, but he believed the chance was worth taking. He moved his head and pushed the blanket down a little. He continued working at it, and after a few minutes he had uncovered enough of his face for him to be able to see as he looked around the back of the wagon.
He was alone. By twisting his neck, Frank could look toward the front of the vehicle enough to see through the opening in the canvas cover over the bed. The back of the driver’s head was visible as he sat on the seat and handled the reins.
Frank’s wrists were tied behind his back. Despite that, he was able to use his hands enough to catch hold of the blanket and pull it down even more. Without making any noise, he wiggled around and got himself clear of its cumbersome folds. Then he turned, slowly and quietly, and wedged his knees underneath him. Heaving himself upright from that position took a lot of strength, but Frank was a powerful man. Fortunately, the steady clip-clop of the team’s hooves and the creaking of the wagon wheels covered up any small sounds he made.
He inched forward on his knees until he was only a couple of feet behind the man on the driver’s box. He could see better now. Bracken was riding ahead of the wagon by about fifty feet and was off to the left a short distance.
Frank drew in a deep breath and then flopped over on his back. That made enough noise to alert the driver. He yelled, “Hey!” and started to stand up and turn around.
Frank pulled up his knees and kicked out with his bound feet. His legs shot over the top of the seat. His bootheels caught the man on the shoulder and knocked him forward. He yelled as his feet struck the angled lip of the floorboard and he toppled onto the backs of the team.
That startled the horses, as Frank had hoped it would, and they bolted forward. Frank heard the driver screaming, so he must not have fallen underneath the flashing hooves. He had to be hanging on for dear life to the harness or to the wagon’s singletree.
Frank clambered back up and awkwardly lunged forward through the opening so he hung over the back of the driver’s seat. He could see now. He caught a glimpse of Bracken’s startled face as the runaway four-horse team stampeded past him.
The driver clung to the side of the right-hand wheel horse with a precarious grip on the animal’s harness. His feet dragged. He kept trying to throw a leg up over the horse’s back, but he couldn’t make it.
Frank rolled over the top of the seat and barely caught himself before he slid on down to the floorboards. His coiled gun belt lay on the seat where his captors had put it after taking it off his unconscious form. He wasn’t that interested in the Colt at the moment, but the sheathed bowie knife was also attached to the gun belt. That was what he had to get his hands on.
He turned his back to the coiled belt and scooted toward it. He had to be careful. If he knocked it off the wagon seat, all his efforts would go for naught. By now Bracken must have realized what was going on and would be galloping after the runaway wagon. It wouldn’t take him long to catch up. Frank had to get his hands free before that happened.
Then the well-used Colt would come into play.
Frank’s fingers brushed the bowie’s handle. He closed one hand around it and worked it out of the sheath. The blade was razor sharp, so he had to be cautious as he turned it around until it rested on the length of rope wound around his wrists. If he cut himself very deeply, he might bleed to death before he could get free.
With maddening slowness, he sawed at the rope and felt the strands parting one by one. Every bounce of the wagon made him grimace as that just increased the chances of him slashing his own wrists.
Because of the rolling thunder from the hooves of the stampeding team, he didn’t hear Bracken galloping up beside the wagon until it was almost too late. He spotted something from the corner of his eye, looked over, and saw Bracken brandishing a revolver at him. The gun roared and spat flame, but Frank could tell that Bracken had aimed high, trying to scare him. He remembered that they wanted to keep him alive.
The knife nicked his wrist, but not deeply enough to do any real damage. That told him the bonds had almost parted. He heaved with his arms and shoulders and broke them the rest of the way. Turning the bowie, he drove its point into the seat beside him so it stood up there, quivering slightly. Then he plucked the Colt from its holster and snapped a shot at Bracken, who jerked his horse away and caused Frank’s bullet to go wide.
Frank glanced at the man who had been driving the wagon. He still hung on to the horse, although he had gotten his arms around the animal’s neck by now and had a leg over the horse’s back. He was trying to pull himself up but not having much luck.
Frank grabbed the knife with his left hand and bent down to slash the rope around his ankles. He was free now, but still in a bad spot. The reins had fallen down among the horses’ legs, so he couldn’t control the wagon. Bracken had fallen back a little so Frank couldn’t shoot him out of the saddle, but he was still nearby and a threat. Frank wondered if he should risk a leap from the wagon, since it was careening along so wildly it might crash at any moment.
When he was younger, he would have done it without hesitating. Now the odds were that he would break an arm or a leg with a leap like that. But if the wagon overturned going this fast, the wreck definitely would bust him to pieces.
He hadn’t really had a chance until now to study the terrain through which the wagon was passing. It was flat and sandy, dotted with scrub brush and an occasional clump of grass or cactus. But an arroyo meandered across the terrain up ahead to the right, and Frank decided that if he could reach it, he could use it for cover while he tried to hold off Bracken. Quickly, he buckled on the gun belt, sheathed the knife and holstered the Colt, and slid to that end of the seat.
A bullet ripped through the wagon’s canvas cover, then another. Bracken’s shots were coming closer now as he got frustrated. Frank waited a few seconds longer, gauging where and how he wanted to jump, then launched himself off the seat.
He flew through the air, hanging there for a breathtaking instant, and then came down to earth with a bone-jarring, teeth-rattling crash. He landed cleanly, though, and was able to roll over and over to steal some of the momentum from the impact. The ground dropped out from under him, just as he had planned, and he rolled down a steep bank into the arroyo.
He came to a stop at the bottom and scrambled back up eight feet so he could look out over the edge. The wagon was still racing along at high speed as Bracken pursued it. Had the hardcase not noticed when Frank jumped off? For a second Frank thought he might be able to give his erstwhile captors the slip.
Then hoofbeats pounded up the arroyo behind him and as he whirled to face the new threat a rifle cracked twice. Bullets slammed into the slope on either side of him and threw dirt and rock into the air. A magnificent black horse slid to a halt about twenty feet away, and the rider, also in black, leveled a Winchester at Frank.
“Don’t reach for your gun, Señor Morgan! I won’t kill you, but I will put a bullet in your knee so you never walk again. Please don’t test my aim.”
As a matter of fact, Frank was too flabbergasted to attempt a draw. The rider who had galloped up the arroyo and gotten the drop on him was none other than Antonia Escobar.
Chapter 7
The tight, black leather trousers she wore allowed her to ride astride, like a man. Above them was a black jacket decorated with ornate beadwork. Her long dark hair was pulled back and tied behind her neck so it hung down her back, and a flat-crowned black hat was on her head. She didn’t appear to be armed except for the Winchester, but the way she held the rifle told Frank she was accustomed to using it—and good at it, too.
Even so, for a second he considered reaching for his Colt. A couple of things stopped him.
One was the cold determination in her eyes as she gazed at him over the Winchester’s sights. She would pull the trigger, he knew, and if her aim was as good as it seemed to be, a bullet through his knee would cripple him fo
r the rest of his life.
The other thing that held him back was the fact that she was a woman. He knew now that he’d been right not to trust her, and a bullet from a woman’s gun could be just as deadly as one fired by a man. But even so, Frank couldn’t disregard the way he had been raised and how he had lived his life. He just didn’t want to kill Antonia Escobar.
Now, taking her over his knee and blistering her butt might be a different story . . .
She had to be working with Bracken and the other man, and they wanted him alive, Frank reminded himself. It might be better to let this hand play out until he discovered what was going on.
“Take it easy, señorita,” he said. “I’m not going to try anything. You want me to get my gun out with my left hand and toss it away?”
“I think not,” Antonia said coolly. “I know a great deal about you, Señor Morgan. You may not be quite as dangerous with a gun in your left hand, rather than your right, but I’d rather not take the chance. Please keep both hands well away from that gun until my men get here.”
“Your men, eh? So those two work for you?”
“I am in charge right now, yes.”
That answer was sort of intriguing, he thought. Who else was in charge at other times?
“You know, there’s no telling how long it’s going to take for those two hombres to get back. Most women aren’t strong enough to hold a Winchester steady for very long.”
“I am not most women,” she said, still with that cool, arrogant tone in her voice. She appeared to be telling the truth, too. So far, the rifle was steady as a rock in her hands.
“Well, then, why not tell me what this is all about?” he suggested. “You claimed that you and your father needed my help.”
“And so we do,” Antonia said. “If everything goes as planned, you will be a great help to us, indeed, Señor Morgan.”
Frank was getting annoyed. He didn’t like mysteries. He snapped, “Have those two varmints been working for you all along, even when they braced me in the hotel bar?”
“I wished to see what kind of man you truly are, so that we could make our plans accordingly. You obliged with that little demonstration in the bar. Bracken carried things a bit further than he was supposed to, but it all worked out. We knew that we could not take you head-on. Some subterfuge would be required.”
“Ambushing me in the livery stable, you mean.” Frank’s voice was harsh with anger as he went on, “Did you kill Dog and the old man?”
“You worry about an animal and a worthless old man?”
“Either of them is worth a lot more than you and your pet snakes.”
Anger flared in her dark eyes. Her finger tightened a little on the trigger. Frank saw that and wondered if he had goaded her into shooting him. Maybe he ought to make a try for his Colt after all.
Then she controlled her reaction and said with a sneer, “Both were alive when we left, merely knocked out, as far as I know. My orders were no shooting, because I did not want to draw attention. Bracken suggested cutting their throats once they were unconscious, but I saw no need of that. The old man never got a good look at us, and the dog cannot talk.”
Frank sighed in relief, knowing there was a good chance Dog and the old-timer were alive. Right now, he would take whatever good news he could get. The barrel of that rifle pointing at him still hadn’t wavered.
Hoofbeats sounded not far off, followed by the creak and rattle of the wagon as it approached. Bracken must have been able to catch up to the vehicle, grab the harness on one of the leaders, and bring the runaway team to a halt.
A minute later, Bracken appeared at the top of the bank and slid down into the arroyo. He had a gun in his hand, and he glared at Frank as he said to Antonia, “What the hell’s the matter with you? Shoot him—or I will!”
“Have you forgotten that our plan was to capture Señor Morgan alive?” she asked, sounding as cool and haughty when she talked to Bracken as she had when she was addressing Frank. This was one señorita who had a pretty high opinion of herself and was used to giving orders—and being obeyed.
“You ain’t even disarmed him,” Bracken said.
Instead of responding to that, Antonia said, “Where’s Kern? Is he all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” the answer came from the top of the bank. The stocky, bearded man appeared there, also holding a gun. “A little shaken up, but nothing to worry about. Nearly getting trampled by that runaway team probably scared five years off my life, though. I don’t want to ever do that again.”
“Come down here and help me cover Morgan,” she told him. “Now, señor, unbuckle that gun belt and let it drop.”
Surrounded by enemies who had the drop on him, Frank had no choice but to do as she said. When the gun belt, along with the holstered Colt and sheathed bowie, had fallen to the ground, Antonia went on, “Now step back away from it. Bracken, get the belt.”
Still muttering unhappily, Bracken jammed his iron back in its holster and stalked forward to pick up Frank’s gun belt. He was careful not to get in the line of fire of either Antonia or Kern as he did so.
Once Bracken had backed off with Frank’s weapons, Antonia lowered the rifle a little but kept it pointed in Frank’s general direction.
“Now, Señor Morgan, you will climb out of this arroyo. Please do not try any tricks.”
“I’d have to be kind of foolish to do that, wouldn’t I?” Frank said.
“I told you, I know a great deal about you. I know you are the sort of man who believes he can overcome any odds, given the chance. You have decided to, what is the expression, play along with us for now. But I promise you, if you cause too much trouble, you will regret it. You may not die, but you will wish you had.”
“Pretty girls don’t normally make such threats.”
“And have you not noticed, I am not just any pretty girl?”
That was the truth, Frank thought. He wasn’t sure he had ever run into a gal like this one before.
Kern climbed out of the arroyo first so he could keep Frank covered while he clambered up the bank. Then Bracken followed. Antonia wheeled her horse around and rode off in the direction she had come from, disappearing around a bend. More than likely the bank was caved in somewhere up there, so she could ride out of the arroyo. That had to be how she had gotten down into the dry wash.
She’d probably been following the wagon all along, Frank mused. He just hadn’t noticed her in the excitement of his attempted escape. He hadn’t had any reason to think she was anywhere around. To the best of his knowledge at that point, she was still back in Tucson, wondering why he hadn’t shown up at the place and time they had arranged.
He wasn’t surprised when she rode up again a few minutes later. Her Winchester was back in its saddle boot now. That saddle was impressive, just like the horse. Gleaming black leather with silver trappings and trim. A saddle like that cost a lot of money. She was a young woman with expensive tastes to go along with her superior attitude.
“Tie him up again,” she told Bracken and Kern.
“It may not be as easy this time,” Bracken warned her. “He’s not out cold like he was in the stable.”
“We can knock him out again,” Kern suggested pragmatically.
“He has already been unconscious once,” Antonia said. “A man who continually gets hit in the head risks great damage. Do you want to take a chance on that, Señor Morgan, or would you rather cooperate?”
“I’d just as soon not get walloped again,” Frank said honestly. “I’ve been banged around enough in my life.”
“I can imagine. And truthfully . . . you are curious, are you not? You desire to find out why all this is happening.”
Frank shrugged and said, “Got to admit, I wouldn’t mind.”
“Then put your hands behind your back and do not struggle.” She slid her rifle from its sheath and pointed it at Frank again. “Bracken, you cover him as well. Kern, tie his wrists.”
It galled Frank to cooperate with
his captors like this, but he swallowed the bitter-sour taste in his mouth and allowed Kern to bind his wrists again. Then he climbed into the wagon, and the man tied his ankles together, as well. At least this time he was sitting up with his back against the wagon’s sideboards rather than lying down with some dirty, smelly old blanket flung over him.
Antonia looked in at him through the opening at the back of the wagon and warned again, “Do not try anything. Bracken will be riding behind the wagon, and I will be up front.”
“And I’ll be driving,” Kern said from the seat. “I’ve got a grudge against you, too, now, so I won’t mind shooting your legs out from under you if I have to, Morgan.”
Frank ignored him and looked at Antonia. He said, “Tell me one thing, Señorita Escobar . . . was there any truth in that yarn you spun for me?”
“Not really,” she replied with a smile, “and my name is not Escobar. I am Antonia Ramirez.”
With that she wheeled her horse and rode out of sight, and Frank was left wondering where he had heard the name Ramirez recently.
* * *
It didn’t take him long to come up with the answer. Pete McRoberts had mentioned a Mexican outlaw named Diego Ramirez who had been raising hell along the border. Ramirez claimed he was leading a revolution against the dictatorial Mexican president, Porfirio Díaz, but as with almost every other self-styled revolutionary in that strife-torn country, Ramirez’s real goal was to get his hands on as much loot as he possibly could.
At least, according to the old liveryman that was the case. Frank supposed there could be some rebels in Mexico whose actions were motivated by a genuine desire to do what was best for the country . . . but he had never run across any or even heard tell of them. Most politicians, even would-be ones, were bandits at heart.
Was Antonia connected somehow with Diego Ramirez? She had mentioned that Frank was worth something to her and her father. Could she really be Ramirez’s daughter? The more Frank thought about it, the more possible that seemed.
The Morgans Page 5