“Harley, you durn fool,” Dawson said. “If you’d fired that scattergun, these fellas would’ve killed you a second later.”
Harley grimaced and said, “Not if I’d cut ’em all down.”
“Then I would have killed you,” the Kid said.
“I thought all of you scoundrels were together,” Harley said sullenly. “I didn’t know I wasn’t gonna have all of you in my sights.”
The Kid shook his head and said, “I’m not one of the general’s men. I just won’t stand by and watch someone commit murder if I can do something about it.”
“Now, that’s an interesting thing,” Kern said. “Because the general sent me into town to fetch you back out to the hacienda, Callahan. He wants to talk to you, and if he likes what he hears, I’m pretty sure he’ll ask you to throw in with us.”
“That sounds like a fine idea to me,” the Kid said. “Maybe the way things have gone, he ought to make me the señorita’s personal bodyguard.”
“Keep on dreaming, Señor Callahan,” Antonia said. “But you would be wise not to suggest such a thing to my father.”
“You’re probably right,” the Kid said with a smile and a shrug. “I’ll go back to the hotel and fetch my gear, then get my horse saddled.”
“Do not waste any time,” she told him. “If you are not ready, we ride without you!”
Chapter 19
When the Kid came down the stairs in the hotel with his saddlebags over his shoulder and his Winchester in his left hand, Peggy asked from behind the desk, “Are you leaving?”
“That’s right,” the Kid replied.
“I heard the shooting a little while ago. When I stepped out onto the porch and looked down the street, I saw that you were right in the middle of the trouble . . . with that woman. I wasn’t surprised.”
The Kid could tell that she was curious about what had happened, despite her chilly manner, so he told her. The news that Harley Jenkins had been involved caused her eyes to widen.
“Poor Harley wasn’t hurt, was he?” she asked. He heard the fear in her voice.
“Not to speak of,” he replied with a shake of his head. “A little banged up, but so was I.” The feeling had returned to his left arm, but his shoulder still ached where Harley had hit him with the shotgun. “That’s a lot better than catching a load of buckshot or a slug from a .45.” He had heard something else in her voice. “You know Jenkins?”
“Of course. He’s several years older than me, but we went to school and church together. I think he was . . . sweet on me for a while . . . before he went off to be a cowboy.”
“I can see why he would be.”
Peggy’s chin lifted. “I’m not interested in flattery from anyone who’s chasing around after a woman like Antonia Ramirez. I assume that is where you’re going, out to that old hacienda?”
“The cursed hacienda.”
“If it wasn’t cursed before, it is now, since that bunch of bandits moved in there.”
The Kid didn’t see any point in arguing with her, so he just said, “There’s no need to hold my room, even though I paid for several nights.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” Peggy responded.
When he reached the livery stable, he found that Dawson had already saddled the buckskin. The Kid checked the cinches and harness anyway, even though he didn’t doubt Dawson’s ability. He never mounted up and rode without having a look for himself. Precautions like that helped keep a man alive.
The others were still there. Despite Antonia’s acerbic warning, she and her party hadn’t gotten in any hurry to ride out of Saguaro Springs. The Kid wasn’t sure if they had taken their time so he would be able to depart the settlement with them, but when they pulled out, he was riding beside Kern.
Not surprisingly, Antonia took the lead as they headed southwest. She would always want to be out in front, no matter what she was doing, the Kid mused. Her three watchdogs spread out behind her, one to each side, one riding directly in her wake. Kern and the Kid brought up the rear, rocking along side by side in their saddles. Antonia set a fast pace, moving out twenty yards ahead of all the others.
“Her pa’s got his hands full with that one, doesn’t he?” the Kid said quietly.
Kern chuckled. “If you think I’m going to talk about the señorita behind her back, you’d better think again, Callahan. I’m not that fond of gossip to start with, and sometimes it can be downright dangerous.”
“Then tell me about the general. Does he really plan on leading a revolution south of the border, or is that just an excuse for holding up trains and such?”
Heavily, Kern said, “I’d tell you to ask the general that question, but he’d probably kill you if you did.”
“The only reason I’m curious is that I don’t really give a damn who’s in charge down there in mañana-land.”
Kern scratched at his bearded jaw and then said, “Neither do I. But the general pays well, and I reckon he really does want to help his country. And if that makes him a mighty rich man, to boot, then that’s all to the good, isn’t it?”
“I just want to know what I’m getting into, that’s all.”
“Join up and you’ll be going along on jobs with the rest of us. That means trains, sometimes a mule train loaded with gold or a mine payroll, maybe a bank now and then. You have objections to any of that?”
The Kid shook his head and said, “Nope.”
“Do you have experience with any of those things?”
“I’ve helped hold up a few trains,” the Kid lied. “And I’ve stuck up more than one bank. I can carry my share of the load, Kern.”
“You’ll get along just fine, then,” the bearded man said with a nod. “If the general decides you’re trustworthy.” He paused. “I’ve got to admit, you pitching in to stop him from shooting us this morning is going to help your case, and so is the fact that the señorita likes you.”
“She does?” The Kid grinned. “I thought you said you weren’t going to gossip.”
“Damn it. Just forget I said that, all right?”
“Sure,” the Kid said easily.
He wasn’t going to forget it, though. Antonia Ramirez might wind up playing a large part in his efforts to rescue Frank Morgan. Already, a rudimentary plan had begun to form in the Kid’s brain. Outfighting such a large force as the general’s would be almost impossible. He would have to get Frank free some other way, maybe by forcing a trade for another hostage.
Diego Ramirez would turn over Frank in order to save his daughter, wouldn’t he? The Kid had already had chances to grab her, but he needed to know more first. He had to find out as much as he could about Frank’s situation and come up with a way for both of them to get away without being killed.
And when he thought about that plan, something stirred uneasily in his belly. If he kidnapped Antonia and threatened her life, would that make him just as bad as Ramirez? The whole idea rubbed him the wrong way. Yet facing such overpowering odds, he had to use every weapon at his command. He couldn’t afford to discard any option.
For now, all he could do was wait and see how the hand played out . . . and see which cards were dealt next.
* * *
They came in sight of the hacienda by the middle of the day. The Kid saw it looming up from the arid landscape when they were still several miles away. At first just a dark, irregular mass showed on the horizon, like some sort of rock formation, but as they rode closer, it took on a more definite shape. A little shock went through him as he realized it was built like a European castle. He and his mother and stepfather had traveled on the Continent when he was young, and he had seen such structures with his own eyes.
Now he was seeing one again, although in a strange mixture of styles, this “castle” was surrounded by outbuildings like those found on a typical border country rancho, as well as an adobe wall with wooden gates that reminded the Kid of a military outpost.
Walt Creeger, who had built this place, hadn’t just gone mad out of the blue
, the Kid mused. He must have been a little touched in the head to start with. Or maybe, to be generous, he was just . . . eccentric.
“Mighty impressive,” the Kid commented to Kern as the group rode closer.
“The general’s got it in his mind that after he takes over, he’ll negotiate with the government in Washington to make this part of Mexico. Says he’ll trade ’em some other territory somewhere else for it. That way he can make it his presidential estate and run the country from it whenever he’s not in the palace in Mexico City.”
“I don’t know how well that would work. This is a long way from anywhere else. Hard to govern a country from the middle of nowhere.”
Kern shrugged and said, “Maybe, maybe not. If he’s the president, he can have a telegraph line run up here, so he can stay in contact with Mexico City all the time. Hell, he could even have a spur line built from the railroad. It’s only about thirty miles south of here, across the border.”
The Kid thought about it and slowly nodded. Kern was right. The idea sounded ludicrous at first, but Ramirez actually might be able to make it work . . . if he overthrew Porfirio Díaz and took over the country. That was going to be a lot harder. But a quarter of a million dollars in ransom money would make it easier.
Ramirez would never get his hands on that money. Not if the Kid had anything to say about it.
Antonia turned her horse and fell back so that she rode beside the Kid and Kern. She nodded toward the looming edifice in front of them and asked, “What do you think of it, Señor Callahan?”
“Mighty impressive,” he admitted. “But I heard stories back in town about it being haunted.”
“You mean the tale about the madman who built the place and then murdered his partner?” Antonia scoffed. “A story for parents to frighten their children with, nothing more. We have been here for several months, and I have seen no ghosts, nor any lunatics wandering in the desert. I am too practical to believe in such things.”
“I’m not all that superstitious myself. It looks like the place would be easy to defend against an attack. I imagine that’s why your father chose it as his headquarters.”
Antonia nodded and said, “We were fortunate to find it when we left Mexico.”
When the Rurales ran you out of Mexico, you mean, the Kid thought, but he was smart enough not to say it.
Sentries had probably had spyglasses trained on them for quite a while as they approached the stronghold. The heavy wooden gates swung open so the riders could pass through. The Kid looked around, took note of the parapet along the wall and the guard tower at each corner of the compound. Artillery could knock that wall down, but short of that, even an army would find it difficult to conquer the place.
A man was posted in each of the guard towers, and several other riflemen paced along the parapet. An air of readiness for trouble hung over the compound. The Kid wasn’t the sort to give in to despair, but under the circumstances, he could have been forgiven if his spirits had sagged. Any rescue attempt would face almost insurmountable odds.
He wouldn’t give up, though. He would never abandon his father, not after all he and Frank Morgan had gone through together.
The three hardcases who had been given the job of watching over Antonia while she was in Saguaro Springs peeled off from the group and rode toward a long, low, open-fronted building being used as a stable. The Kid supposed they regarded Antonia as being safe enough, now that they were back in the compound.
With the Kid and Kern flanking her, Antonia rode toward another adobe building that seemed to guard the entrance to the castle. A door opened as they came up to it, and Valdez emerged from the building.
“Hola, señorita,” he greeted Antonia. He cast a wary eye toward the Kid and added, “You brought this man with you.”
“My father summoned him,” Antonia said. “It wasn’t my decision.” She swung down from the saddle and handed the black’s reins to Valdez. “Where is my father?”
“About to sit down to dinner. He told me to bring you to him as soon as you arrived.”
Valdez held out a hand and with a sweeping motion ushered them toward the castle.
The Kid felt a little like someone in a fairy tale walking into an ogre’s castle. His masquerade was a precarious one. If anyone here tumbled to his real identity as Conrad Browning, his rescue effort would be a spectacular failure. He had to continue convincing all the members of this band of killers that he was really John Callahan, drifting hardcase and gun-wolf for hire.
An oversized steel door led into the looming hacienda. It would take a cannon to knock it down, too. But it swung open easily enough, albeit with creaking hinges, as a short, fat, bald Mexican in a swallowtail coat and frilly shirt pushed on it. More than likely, he was the general’s majordomo, the Kid thought. A would-be dictator needed a majordomo.
The man stepped back out of the doorway and came to attention. Antonia smiled and patted him on his smoothly shaven cheek.
“You are always respectful, Regalberto,” she told him. “I like that about you.”
“Of course, señorita,” he said. “It is only proper.”
Antonia glanced toward the Kid and murmured, “Some should learn how to be so proper and respectful.”
“Where I come from, people have to earn respect,” he said, unwilling to let her little dig pass without comment. “They’re not born to it.”
“We come from very different places, Señor Callahan.”
“And yet we’re on the same side.”
“Not yet,” she said. “Not yet.”
She turned and strode across a large, marble-floored entrance hall toward a pair of open double doors. Kern nodded for the Kid to follow her, and then he fell in behind the Kid as Valdez went out. The door clanged as Regalberto closed it.
Antonia led the way into a room dominated by a long, gleaming dinner table. A man sat at the far end, sipping from a glass of wine as he lounged in a chair with a tall, ornately carved back and equally fancy arms. A place setting of china and crystal was in front of him, but no food yet. He set the glass aside and said, “Ah, Antonia, my dear! You have returned from your little outing.” He looked past her at the Kid and added, “And you have brought a guest with you.”
“That was your idea, Papa,” she said. “You sent Kern to fetch him.”
The man stood up, came toward the Kid with a stride like that of a stalking tiger, and extended his hand.
“Buenos días,” he said. “I am General Diego Ramirez . . . soon to be presidente of the great nation of Mexico!”
Chapter 20
The general cut an impressive figure. As the Kid shook hands, he noted the tight blue trousers, flared out at the bottom over polished black boots, the short red jacket with lots of gold braid and trim, and the green silk shirt with pearl buttons. Ramirez was something of a peacock when it came to his clothes.
His face reminded the Kid more of a hawk, though, with a prominent, bladelike nose and the snapping black eyes of a predator. A rumpled thatch of graying dark hair, a mustache that drooped over his wide mouth, and lean, weathered cheeks gave him a touch of dignity. He looked like a man who had packed a great deal of living into his years. Surprisingly enough, the Kid felt instinctively drawn to him. Ramirez had the sort of natural leadership ability that created armies . . . and overthrew governments.
Unfortunately, his face also had lines of rakish cruelty stamped into it. Once he set out to gain something, he wouldn’t allow anyone or anything to stand in his way until he had his objective in his grasp. Any blood spilled in the process was just too bad.
The Kid gathered those impressions in a split second as he grasped Ramirez’s hand in a tight grip. He knew it was considered impolite in Latin cultures to look directly into a man’s eyes when meeting him, so he lowered his gaze slightly and said, “It’s an honor and a pleasure to meet you, General. I’ve heard a great deal about you.”
Ramirez chuckled and said, “Very little good, I expect, if you have been in Sag
uaro Springs.”
“On the contrary, your daughter seems to think quite highly of you.”
“You and my daughter are . . . well acquainted?”
“Not really,” the Kid said. “We only met briefly a couple of times in town.” He smiled as he thought about the way he had manhandled Antonia as he broke up the fight between her and Peggy Cole. He wondered if she would tell her father about that. “And then of course we rode out here together today, but she was usually well out in front.”
That got an actual laugh from Ramirez. He turned to Antonia, cupped her chin with his hand, and said, “Yes, that is where she likes to be! Your . . . shopping trip . . . went well, little one?”
She pulled back a bit so he had to drop his hand from its caress. “I got the things I needed,” she said. “But there was trouble. Señor Callahan may well have saved my life, and the lives of your men.”
Ramirez’s bushy eyebrows rose in surprise.
“What happened?” he asked with a harsh note of anger in his voice. “The men I ordered to stay with you were supposed to protect you!”
“It was an unfortunate situation, General,” Kern said. “The son of a man Bracken had to kill a while back returned to Saguaro Springs looking for revenge. He was about to open up on us with a shotgun when Callahan stopped him.”
Ramirez drew in a deep breath, causing his nostrils to flare. He regarded the Kid intently and said, “You have my deepest gratitude for saving my daughter’s life, señor, as well as those of my men.”
“It seemed like the thing to do at the time,” the Kid said.
“I will not forget it. You have my word on that. I owe you a great deal . . . and a Ramirez always pays his debts.” The resplendently dressed bandido gestured toward the table. “As a beginning, I would like for you to have dinner with me and Antonia.”
“I’d be happy to.”
“You stay as well, Kern,” Ramirez snapped.
“Of course, General,” the stocky gunman said. It was becoming obvious to the Kid that Kern was Ramirez’s segundo.
The Morgans Page 14