The other man was more surprised than hurt by Florita hitting him with the tray. He staggered back a step but stayed on his feet and clawed at the gun on his hip. His mouth opened to shout for help.
Before he could make a sound, Florita hit him again, this time slashing the edge of the tray against his throat. He stumbled against the wall, suddenly gasping for air, his fast draw forgotten for the moment as he choked. That gave Frank enough time to swing the coach gun one-handed. The twin barrels struck the man on the side of the head and knocked his hat off. He sagged, slid down the rough stone, and wound up on the floor making a grotesque gurgling sound as he instinctively struggled to drag breath through his ruined windpipe. He went still and his eyes began to glaze over as he lost that struggle.
Florita glared down at the guard’s body with a look of primitive hatred on her face. She might have been an ancient Aztec in that moment, glorying in the death of an enemy.
Then she took a deep breath and came back to herself. She turned to Frank and said, “We must hurry. We can go through the kitchen. There is a hall where the guards seldom go. From there you can reach the stable and get a horse—”
Frank stopped her with a shake of his head.
“That’s not going to do me much good,” he told her. “I’d have to shoot my way past the guards at the gate and all the men on the wall.”
“There are men here, brought from Saguaro Springs and forced to work, who will open the gates for you.”
“Maybe so, but they’ll get gunned down while they’re doing it. And then the riflemen on the wall will shoot me out of the saddle anyway. You said the general and his daughter are eating dinner right now?”
She gave him a wary look and said, “Sí.”
“Take me to the dining room.”
Her dark eyes widened as she said, “You are mad! Two of those killers are with them—”
“That’s still better odds than out in the compound,” Frank said. “And with the general and Señorita Antonia as my prisoners, the rest of the bunch will think twice about sending a lot of lead in my direction.”
She stared at him for a long moment, then finally nodded and admitted, “You are right. That may be your best chance.”
“If we run into any guards, I’m going to grab you around the neck and put this shotgun to your head. That way it’ll look like I forced you to help me. So if I don’t make it out of here, nobody will know about your part in getting me loose.”
“Hardy and the other man whose jaw you broke might tell.”
Frank shook his head. “I reckon it all happened fast enough they won’t be sure. You just deny everything.”
She nodded again and said, “Sí. We will go this way.”
She led him through a corridor, turned along another one, then another. Frank had a frontiersman’s sense of direction when he was outside, but inside a building, in a maze of hallways like this, he was soon lost. He couldn’t have retraced their steps to the dungeon if he’d tried . . . not that he had any desire to return to that hellhole.
They didn’t run into any guards, but they did encounter a couple of female servants who started to back away, wide-eyed with fear, when they recognized Frank. Florita spoke to them in rapid, urgent Spanish, though, and they didn’t flee. Instead they came to Frank, touched his arm, and babbled prayers in Spanish, asking el Señor Dios to aid and protect him.
Florita turned to him and said, “Ramirez and his men are all cruel. We would be free of them.”
“If I can get out of here and take the general and his daughter with me, you will be,” he told her. “All those hired guns won’t hang around very long with nobody to pay them. They’ll take off for the tall and uncut when they realize the so-called revolution is a bust.”
“I pray that you are right. Come.”
They resumed their twisting-and-turning journey to the hacienda’s dining room.
“We are almost there,” Florita said in a low voice, turning her head to speak over her shoulder to Frank as they went along a corridor with several doors on each side and a partially open door at the far end. They weren’t far from their destination when the last door on Frank’s right opened and a man stepped out into the hallway.
He stopped short, looked at Florita, and grinned. Frank recognized the angular face, the brown tweed suit, the derby hat. Bracken.
And Bracken recognized him, too. The gunman’s startled face as he glanced over Florita’s shoulder testified to that. Bracken’s hand dived for the gun on his hip as his features contorted.
Frank’s plan to grab Florita and pretend that she was his prisoner if they were confronted was useless here. He knew that Bracken would just shoot through the girl to try to get him. The gunman was every bit that vicious and ruthless.
So Frank’s left arm swept Florita to the side, out of the line of fire, as he lunged forward and slashed downward with the coach gun’s barrels. They cracked across Bracken’s wrist just as his gun cleared the holster. He howled in pain as his hand sprang open involuntarily. The revolver fell to the floor.
Frank bulled forward, rammed his shoulder into Bracken, and drove the man backward against the door at the far end of the corridor. Wood splintered and the door flew open. Bracken’s feet tangled together and he fell, but Frank’s momentum carried him forward and he tripped on the gunman’s flailing legs. The too-small hat came off Frank’s head as he toppled forward.
He landed on his knees and his left hand but had managed to hold on to the coach gun with his right. He looked up, saw the long dining table several yards away with several people standing at one end of it where they had just jumped up from their chairs. General Ramirez, not surprisingly, was at the head of the table, with his daughter, Antonia, to his right.
Two men had been seated at the general’s left. They turned now to see what the commotion was, and Frank recognized one of them as Kern, the gunman who had been with Bracken in Saguaro Springs.
The sight of the other man sent a shock through Frank as he gazed into the eyes of his son, Conrad.
Chapter 22
The food that the servant women brought into the dining room was very good: grilled chicken cooked with onions and peppers, fresh tortillas, and beans. They kept the glasses full as well, and even though the wine wasn’t outstanding, it went well with the food.
“General” Diego Ramirez was clearly a man in love with the sound of his own voice, the Kid thought as he ate. All through the meal, Ramirez talked about his plans once he ousted el Presidente Díaz and took over Mexico. To hear him tell it, the place would become a paradise on earth, with everyone taken care of from the lowliest farmer to the aristocrats in Mexico City.
Of course, most of those aristocrats would have their wealth stripped from them so that the poorer people could be taken care of. He never really explained how that was going to work, and the Kid was willing to bet that the privileged class wouldn’t really go away. It would just consist of different people . . . people who had found favor with the new presidente.
Those who did not find favor would wind up standing in front of a wall, facing a firing squad. That was always the way it happened in Mexico.
“Some say this vision of mine is only a dream, but I will make it a reality,” Ramirez declared. “Once I am in power, I will change Mexico forever, my friends. Change it for the better!”
“I am sure you will, Papa,” Antonia said, “but first there is still the little matter of seizing that power.”
“The day will come!” Ramirez said with a scowl as he thumped his fist on the table. “Mark my word, it will come.” He turned his head to smile at the Kid and Kern. “How can it not, with such stalwart fighting men lending us their support?”
He had guzzled down more wine than any of them, and the Kid thought he was starting to show it. His voice was a little louder and more slurred than it had been.
Kern said, “I hate to mention it, General, but not all of your men have joined up with you for political reasons. I support
your cause, of course, but a lot of those fellas . . . all they care about is the payoff.”
The general’s scowl returned. “You mean they want money.”
“They’re as loyal as anybody you’d ever want on your side . . . as long as they’re getting paid,” Kern said with a shrug. “And I really do hate to bring it up . . .”
“But we are running low on funds.” Ramirez sounded like the words tasted bitter in his mouth. “This I know, Señor Kern. I know it all too well.”
And that was why they had kidnapped Frank, the Kid mused. Ramirez didn’t just need the ransom money to expand his army. He needed it to keep many of the men he already had from deserting him. But so far that money hadn’t been forthcoming, so he was going to have to take other steps.
Ramirez gulped down the wine that was left in his glass and thrust it out for one of the servant women to fill. While she was doing that, he went on, “That is why some of you will be riding south tomorrow.”
“Across the border?” Kern said. “To the railroad?”
“I have received word that a shipment of gold will be on its way by train from Monterrey to the West Coast so that it may be put on a boat and taken to a bank in San Diego.” Ramirez threw back his head and let out a raucous bray of laughter. “It seems that a group of wealthy men have decided that Mexican banks cannot be trusted. They fear that Díaz will seize their riches. So they believe their gold will be safer in an American bank!”
“Maybe it would be,” Kern said with a smile, “if it ever got that far.”
“Truer words were never spoken, mi amigo.” Ramirez seized his refilled glass and downed more wine. He leaned forward and narrowed his eyes at the Kid. “I am thinking, Señor Callahan, that if you wished to prove yourself to us—”
Before he could go on, something slammed into a door at the side of the room. The impact made the door fly open, and as that happened, all four people at the table leaped to their feet. Ramirez staggered a little because of all the wine he had consumed. The Kid turned to see two men lying on the floor, where they had landed after falling through the opening. He recognized the one closest to the door as the gunman called Bracken.
The other man, holding a short-barreled coach gun, was Frank Morgan.
As the Kid stared at his father, he knew without having to think about it that Frank was trying to escape. That didn’t surprise him at all. Locked up in this isolated, castlelike stronghold, Frank wouldn’t have had any way of knowing that the Kid was going to try to rescue him. He would have taken on the job of obtaining his freedom for himself.
But as Kern, standing beside him, reached for his revolver to deal with the threat of the shotgun, the Kid realized he would have to step in to save his father. And that would blow his masquerade as a drifting gunman all to hell.
Before that happened, Bracken recovered enough to throw himself on Frank from behind. Kern’s gun slithered out of its holster, but he held his fire because of the chance he’d hit Bracken. The Kid stood there tensely with his hand on the butt of his own Colt as he waited to see how this was going to play out.
Frank was bigger and heavier than Bracken, but the gunman fought with a maniacal intensity. He reached over Frank’s shoulder with his left hand, got hold of the coach gun’s twin barrels, and forced them toward the floor. At the same time he looped his right arm around Frank’s throat and hung on. Bracken’s weight was enough to drive Frank the rest of the way to the floor. The shotgun’s barrels struck the stone. That jarred the weapon out of Frank’s grasp.
Frank tried to roll over on Bracken, but Bracken writhed out of the way like a snake. He spun on the floor and swung his leg around in a kick that drove his boot toe into Frank’s solar plexus. Frank hunched over, and the Kid knew that the kick had just knocked the wind out of his father.
As Frank struggled up onto his knees, Bracken bored in on him and swung bony fists. Normally, Frank would have shrugged off such punches, but they had more of an effect because he was gasping for air. His head rocked back under the blows. But he reached out with one hand, snagged Bracken’s coat, and went over backward, hauling the hardcase with him. Frank’s right foot came up. He planted it in Bracken’s belly and levered the man up and over. Bracken waved his arms and legs wildly as he flew through the air. Then he crashed down on the floor with stunning force.
By now Ramirez had started bellowing for help. Three of his men charged through another door into the dining room. They bristled with guns, and the barrels of those weapons swung swiftly toward Frank. Kern was ready to fire as well, but the Kid, acting in the split second he had, leaped toward Frank, blocking Kern’s shot. The Kid palmed out his Colt, reversed it faster than the eye could follow, and smashed the butt against Frank’s head just as Frank started to turn toward him. The Kid saw the instant of bafflement in Frank’s eyes before unconsciousness dulled them. Frank pitched headlong to the floor.
The Kid flipped the gun around and stood there over his father, covering him with the Colt.
“Hold your fire, hold your fire!” Ramirez ordered as Kern and the other three men surrounded Frank as well.
The Kid kept his face and voice cool and impassive as he asked, “Who the hell is this hombre?”
“You do not recognize him?” Ramirez said.
“Never saw him before in my life.”
“That is the notorious gunfighter Frank Morgan. The one called the Drifter.”
“Huh,” the Kid grunted as if mildly surprised. “I’ve heard of him, but we never crossed trails before. What’s he doing here, and why’s he on the warpath?”
“That is none of your business, señor,” Ramirez snapped. The flurry of violent action seemed to have sobered him. “What is important is that you have prevented him from escaping, or at the very least, threatening harm to my daughter and myself.”
“Glad I could lend a hand,” the Kid said dryly. He stepped back and pouched his iron.
Inside, he was cursing bitterly at a fate that had robbed him of a perfect opportunity. He and Frank could have gotten the drop on Ramirez, Kern, and Bracken, then used Ramirez and Antonia as hostages while they got out of here. The quick arrival of those other gun-wolves, all of them ready to blast holes in Frank, meant that the Kid had had only an instant to save his father’s life. His swift action had the added benefit of preserving his ruse, of course . . . but he would have traded that for a way out of the stronghold and some fast horses.
No point in worrying about something that luck hadn’t provided, he told himself.
He sure hoped he hadn’t hurt Frank too badly by clouting him like that. Better to have a sore head than be full of bullet holes, he supposed. Frank had a thick skull, the Kid reminded himself.
Ramirez flapped a hand toward Frank in a dismissive gesture and told the men who had rushed into the dining room, “Drag him back down to his cell.” He turned to Kern and went on, “Go down there and find out how Morgan got loose and made it all the way up here. Whoever is responsible, I want them punished. I think . . . five strokes of the whip.”
Kern looked doubtful about that. He said, “General, I’m not sure—”
“Five strokes, I said! See to it.”
“Yes, sir,” Kern said resignedly. He nodded toward the Kid. “What about Callahan?”
“I am not finished speaking with Señor Callahan. I believe he has established his trustworthiness by subduing Señor Morgan . . . at least for now.”
Well, that was some good news, anyway, the Kid thought.
One man took hold of Frank’s arms and lifted his torso while the other two got a leg apiece. They carried him out of the dining room. Kern went over to Bracken, helped him to his feet, and said, “You come on with me, Carl.”
Bracken shook his head groggily and said, “Wha . . . what the hell happened? How’d Morgan get loose?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out.”
As the two hardcases left the room, Ramirez gestured for the Kid to take his seat again and told Antonia
to sit down, too.
She did so, then said, “Perhaps it would be best if we ridded ourselves of Morgan, Papa. Keeping him alive has been nothing but a nuisance.”
The Kid managed not to look shocked by the casual way she suggested murder. He supposed he couldn’t expect anything else from her, since she’d been raised by a bandit and a cutthroat. He picked up his wineglass just to be sure his expression didn’t give him away.
“Until we have the ransom money—” Ramirez began.
“There has been no indication that we will ever receive the ransom money,” Antonia broke in. The Kid figured she was the only one in the stronghold who would dare interrupt the general. “The Browning whelp will either pay or not. He has no way of knowing whether Morgan is still alive.”
She would be mighty shocked if she knew that the “Browning whelp” was sitting right across the table from her, the Kid thought.
“Morgan can be killed anytime,” Ramirez said. “As long as there is a chance he may prove useful to us, he will stay alive . . . if he does not force us to kill him by trying to escape or threatening to harm either of us.” The general’s voice hardened. “Then his usefulness will be at an end.”
His expression eased as he turned again to the Kid.
“But your usefulness is just beginning, Señor Callahan. You are still free to go on your way if you choose to do so, but surely you see just how well you fit in with our group.”
The Kid nodded slowly. He didn’t believe that he was free to go on his way at all. If he didn’t agree to join forces with Ramirez, the general would have him killed out of hand. He was certain of that.
So for more than one reason, he said, “I think you’re right, General. I’d be mighty pleased to support your cause and help you achieve your goals any way I can.” He grinned. “And if it puts some dinero in my pockets, well, I support that cause, too.”
The Morgans Page 16