The Morgans

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  Bracken stepped into their path and said, “Hold on there, you two. The general hasn’t said you can be out here.”

  “Step back, Bracken,” Ramirez ordered. “Let them do what they will.”

  Bracken shrugged and said, “Sure thing, General,” but he glared at the two women as they took hold of Florita’s arms and carefully lifted her to her feet. Tears shone in their eyes, the Kid saw as they turned back toward the hacienda with the bloody, half-conscious girl between them, but fury burned there as well.

  Ramirez hadn’t learned the lesson that ultimately led to the downfall of all tyrants, the Kid mused. You can only push people so far before they turn and fight.

  The three women disappeared into the hacienda. Ramirez turned to the Kid. He had smoked the cheroot down to a butt, which he dropped on the ground and stepped on.

  “So it will be in Mexico when I govern,” he said. “Justice for those who transgress my rules will be swift and stern but fair. And the people will learn what is best for them.”

  “Because you’ll tell them?”

  Ramirez spread his hands and said, “Who better to do so?”

  The Kid didn’t have an answer for that. Actually, he thought anybody would be better to set up the rules of a society than a bloody-handed bandit, but Ramirez wouldn’t want to hear that.

  “Valdez will show you to your quarters,” Ramirez went on. “Your horse has been cared for.”

  “Gracias, General.”

  “Welcome to the revolution, Señor Callahan!”

  Ramirez didn’t offer to shake hands when he said that, and the Kid was glad. He would have rather shaken hands with a rattlesnake.

  Ramirez went inside. Valdez came over and jerked his head in an indication for the Kid to follow him. As he started to turn away from the hacienda, the Kid glanced up at the looming structure and saw a curtain move in a window on the second floor. It was falling closed, but as it fell he caught a glimpse of the face behind it.

  That face belonged to Antonia Ramirez. She must have been watching while Florita was whipped, he realized.

  And she was smiling like a cat with a bowl full of cream, as if she had enjoyed every second of it.

  * * *

  The adobe building that served as a barracks for the general’s army had been the crew’s bunkhouse when this was a rancho. The Kid could tell that. Someone had already brought his saddlebags and rifle to the barracks and dumped them on one of the bunks. Ramirez might have dined with the Kid, as if he were an honored guest, but evidently from now on he would be treated like any of the other men, just one more soldier in the general’s army of rebellion.

  That was all right. He didn’t want to stand out . . . not yet, anyway.

  The Kid was sitting on his bunk when a man came into the building, stretched out on the next bunk, and reached underneath it to pull out a guitar. An American with red hair and a scattering of freckles across his bony face, he looked more like he ought to be behind a plow on a farm somewhere instead of in the middle of an outlaw army.

  As the man began to strum chords on the guitar, the Kid leaned over and extended his hand.

  “John Callahan,” he introduced himself. “I’m a new recruit to the general’s cause.”

  The redhead sat up with the guitar still across his lap and grasped the Kid’s hand.

  “Howdy, Johnny,” he said. “I’m Sam Woodson. And I reckon you’re like me, more of a recruit to the general’s money . . . which, speakin’ plain-like, he ain’t got a whole hell of a lot of right now.”

  “I thought you boys have been pulling jobs across the border.”

  Woodson plucked the guitar strings again and said, “We have, but it takes a heap of dinero to feed this many fellas and make sure they got ammunition. I ain’t what you’d call a scholar, but I done figured out it’s usually the side what has the most money that wins the wars.”

  The Kid laughed and said, “You’re right about that.”

  “Once the general gets the ransom money for that ol’ gunfighter he’s got locked up in the dungeon, though, we’ll all be in high cotton. For a little while, anyway.”

  “And I hear tell we’re going after a shipment of gold on a train tomorrow, too.”

  Woodson’s eyebrows rose. “Is that so? I hadn’t heard that yet. I reckon Kern’ll get the boys together this evenin’, the ones who are goin’ along, anyway, and tell us all about it.”

  “Kern runs the jobs?”

  “Yeah. The general can’t concern hisself with little details like that. He’s got loftier things to think about. And Kern, well, he may look like your friendly cousin, but he bossed a gang of bank and train robbers for a while, back in Missouri and Kansas, so he knows what he’s doin’.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. I’m supposed to be one of those riding along on this job, and there’s a better chance of coming back alive with an experienced leader.” The Kid paused, then risked some more talk. “What about that hombre Bracken?”

  Woodson’s lanky fingers hit a discordant note on the guitar.

  “You don’t want to get crossways with that varmint,” he responded. “That’s all I’m sayin’.”

  “Loco en la cabeza, eh?”

  “You didn’t hear that from me,” Woodson insisted. “You’d best talk about somethin’ else.”

  “Sure,” the Kid said easily. “Where are you from?”

  A grin spread across Woodson’s face as he said, “I don’t mind that question. I’m a Texan, born and raised. Come from down around San Antone.”

  “How’d you wind up helping to overthrow the president of Mexico?”

  “Well, that’s a long, borin’ story that involves a whole heap of bad decisions! Let’s just say that me an’ hard work ain’t ever been amigos. I always figured they was other ways for me to get what I wanted. Sometimes I been right, and sometimes I been wrong.”

  “What about this time?”

  “I reckon we ain’t settled that yet. Time’ll tell.”

  Woodson started playing an actual song instead of just strumming at the guitar strings. He was pretty good at it, too, the Kid thought. He felt an instinctive liking for the jovial Texan, but at the same time, he thought there was a good chance Woodson would gun him down without hesitation if it ever came to a showdown.

  Which it was going to, sooner or later.

  And if Woodson tried to stop him from rescuing Frank, the Kid might have to kill him.

  They were all following a grim trail.

  * * *

  One of the adobe buildings was being used as a mess hall. It wasn’t big enough for all the men to eat at the same time, so they took their meals in shifts. The Kid was in the second shift that evening, and as he and eleven other men, including Sam Woodson, walked in and took their places on bench seats at a long table, a couple of women brought out fresh platters of food. The Kid was surprised to see that one of them was Florita.

  Her face was set in stiff lines and seemed to be drawn in pain. She moved as if each step hurt her. But she did what she was supposed to do. When she turned her back, the Kid saw several places where blood had spotted her shirt.

  Some of the men looked at her in apparent sympathy, but others didn’t care about the agonizing ordeal she had gone through. More than one reached up to pat her on the rear end as she passed them, and a couple even landed outright slaps.

  The second time that happened, Woodson said, “Here now, there’s no call for that.”

  The offender, a skinny Mexican, bared his teeth at Woodson and said, “You really want to defend this puta, Texan? You want a sample of what my people gave yours at the Alamo?”

  That was the wrong thing to say. Even the Kid knew that. Woodson sprang up and burst out, “How about what happened to you greasers at San Jacinto, huh? When ol’ Santy Anny pissed his drawers and tried to pretend he was a woman so us Texicans wouldn’t catch him and give him what he had comin’! Hell, to save his life, he’d’a prob’ly got down on his knees and—”

&
nbsp; The Mexican was on his feet, too. He snarled, reached for the knife at his belt, and started toward Woodson, but a voice barked from the doorway, “Sit down, or I’ll shoot both of you.”

  The two would-be combatants froze as Kern stalked into the room, followed by Carl Bracken.

  “I said, sit down,” Kern snapped.

  Reluctantly, Woodson and the Mexican resumed their seats. The glares they traded showed their hostility hadn’t really diminished, though.

  Kern hooked his thumbs in his gun belt and went on, “All of you know the general’s ordered that there’ll be no fighting among ourselves. I intend to enforce that order. Now, I need to talk to some of you.”

  “We just sat down to eat, Kern,” one of the Americans complained.

  “So fill up your plates and bring them with you,” Kern said. “I’m not going to stand around and wait for you.” He jerked a thumb toward the door. “Woodson, Callahan, Martell, Benitez, Gonzales, Eagleton, Smith. Come with me.”

  The Kid filled a plate with stew, grabbed a chunk of bread to go with it, and picked up a cup of coffee to take along as well. He and the other men Kern had named followed the gunman outside and into the building that would be Ramirez’s “second capital” if he ever became presidente.

  More men were waiting for them there, passing around bottles of whiskey and tequila. Some of the men who had brought cups of coffee with them from the mess hall borrowed the bottles and splashed liquor into their coffee.

  A map hung on the wall of the room where they were gathered. This train robbery really was being planned like a military operation, the Kid thought. Kern tapped a finger on the map and said, “The train will enter these hills right here. The approach is a long grade where the train will have to slow down enough for some of us to catch up to it on horseback and swing onto the platforms between the last few cars. The rest of us will be waiting at the top of the grade, where the tracks go between some cutbanks. We’re going to collapse one of those banks and block the tracks. The train will be forced to stop, and we’ll already have control of the back end of it. We’ll take the locomotive and work our way along the rest of the cars until we find that gold we’re after.”

  “Are we gonna get what we can from the passengers while we’re at it?” one of the men asked.

  Kern nodded and said, “Yeah, as long as you don’t let it distract you from our real mission. Any money and jewelry they have on them will likely be chickenfeed compared to that gold shipment.”

  “And if anybody gives us trouble?” Bracken asked. The Kid had a feeling the gunman already knew the answer to that question. The Kid had a pretty good idea himself.

  “Kill them,” Kern said. “But don’t go out of your way to gun people down as long as they’re cooperating.”

  Bracken grinned. He would find an excuse to kill somebody before the day was over tomorrow. The Kid felt certain of that.

  He had been able to stand by and do nothing while Florita was whipped, even though it had been one of the most difficult things he had ever done. He didn’t believe he would be able to do the same if some innocent person’s life was in danger. Frank wouldn’t want him to do that.

  Maybe if he could come up with some way to keep the robbery from going off as planned . . . The wheels of his brain began to turn. Lost in thought as he was, he almost didn’t hear Kern say, “Callahan, you’ll be with me.”

  “What?” the Kid said.

  “You’re riding with me tomorrow.” Kern smiled faintly. “The general trusts you, so I reckon I do, too. But it never hurts to keep an eye on a new man for the first few jobs. We don’t know how you’re going to react to things, after all.”

  The Kid shrugged and said, “Suit yourself. It doesn’t matter to me. The only thing I care about is that gold.”

  “Then you won’t have any trouble.”

  The Kid wasn’t so sure about that. The task he had set for himself had just gotten harder. The task of keeping innocent blood from being spilled . . .

  Chapter 25

  Twenty men rode out from the hacienda the next morning. The Kid was among them, riding in the middle of the pack next to Sam Woodson, who had brought his guitar along, carrying it on his back by a sling he had attached to it. Kern had glared at him but didn’t tell him to leave the instrument behind.

  “Where’d you pick up the habit of carrying that guitar?” the Kid asked as they rode.

  “Oh, back in Texas when I was a kid. I was a mite on the wild side, y’understand, and strummin’ on it sorta calms my nerves. Kern don’t like it when I bring it along on a job. The first coupla times, he told me that if my geetar caused anything to go wrong, he was gonna take it and plant it where the sun don’t shine. Then he’d kill me. But he figured out I just like to have it along. It ain’t like I’m gonna start playin’ while we’re laid up somewheres waitin’ to ambush somebody. That’d be plumb stupid. So he don’t like it, but he puts up with it ’cause he knows I’m a good hand to have around on these jobs.”

  The Kid didn’t doubt that. The walnut grips of Woodson’s Colt showed enough wear to indicate that the gun had been used plenty of times.

  Unlike in Texas, where the Rio Grande was a clear, unmistakable boundary between the two countries, here in Arizona it was possible to cross from the United States into Mexico without ever realizing it. After the outlaws had ridden for a couple of hours, the Kid was sure they had to be south of the border by now. When Kern called a halt to let them rest the horses, he stayed in the saddle long enough to take a pair of field glasses from his saddlebags and peer through them at the horizon.

  “I can see the hills where we’ll take the train,” he said as he put the glasses away. “We should be there in plenty of time. The train’s not due until the middle of the afternoon.”

  “You know these Mexican trains,” Bracken commented. “You can’t count on them being anywhere close to on time. No greaser ever kept to a schedule yet.”

  One of the Mexicans laughed and said, “And my people do not have the pains in the belly that plague you gringos, Bracken. That is because we know how to enjoy life and not worry all the time like you norteamericanos.”

  “Let your horses drink a little,” Kern ordered. “But not too much. This is dry country.”

  He didn’t really need to point that out. The landscape was arid as far as the eye could see. The only vegetation was scrub brush and an occasional clump of hardy grass.

  The Kid took off his hat, poured a little water into it from his canteen, and let the buckskin drink. He rubbed the horse’s ears. They had been down a lot of hard, lonely trails together. Before much longer, it would be time to put the buckskin out to pasture. But not yet. They still had some adventuring to do together.

  The group set out again a short time later. It wasn’t long before the hills were visible to the naked eye. As usual out here in this region of mostly flat terrain and clear, dry air, they appeared closer than they actually were. The sun was directly overhead before the riders reached the rugged, brush-dotted slopes. A few stunted pines grew atop the hills, as well.

  They pushed southward, keeping the hills to the west, the riders’ right, and soon something else came into sight: a line of telegraph poles stretching off into the distance to the east.

  The Kid said to Sam Woodson, “I reckon the telegraph line follows the railroad?”

  “That’s right. We’ve hit trains before, in different places than this. Kern always likes to cut the wires so nobody from the train crew can shinny up a pole with a telegraph key, tap in, and get word to the Rurales about what’s happened.”

  “Speaking of the Rurales, don’t they patrol this area?”

  “Yeah, but they’re spread pretty thin and the general’s got somebody on the inside with ’em, so he usually has a pretty good idea when they ain’t gonna be around.”

  “The general has agents who support him in a lot of places, doesn’t he?” the Kid asked.

  “Yeah, and that’s why if he ever gets his ha
nds on enough dinero, he stands a real good chance of topplin’ ol’ Díaz and takin’ his place as king.”

  “President,” the Kid said.

  “King, president, emperor . . . it don’t much matter what you call ’em. As long as they run things and got the power o’ life and death over folks, they’re the big boss, and that’s all that matters.”

  The Kid couldn’t argue with that logic.

  The rails themselves were visible now, twin lines of steel running parallel on the slightly raised roadbed. When Ramirez’s men reached them, they turned and followed the rails west toward the hills.

  A quarter of a mile from the base of the slopes, they came to an arroyo running north and south with a trestle spanning it. Kern reined in, and as the Kid followed suit, he lifted his eyes and traced the railroad’s route up into the hills. The slopes pressed in fairly close on both sides of the tracks, but there was enough room for men to ride their horses alongside the train. They would need to be careful, though. If a horse tripped and fell, its rider might be thrown to a hideous death under those rapidly turning wheels.

  Kern pointed to the top of the grade and said, “The ground levels out right on the other side of those cutbanks. That’s why we’ll stop it there. We don’t want the engineer pouring on the steam and picking up speed.” He looked around at the others and started pointing out men. “You, you, you . . .” He kept that up until he had picked nine men, including the Kid and Woodson. “You’ll be with me down here in the arroyo. The rest of you head up to the cutbanks with Bracken and get to work caving in one of them and blocking the tracks. Cut the telegraph wire, too.”

  “We’re going to wait in the arroyo until the train goes past?” the Kid asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m assuming that the hombres who are shipping that gold will have hired guards to protect it.”

  An ugly smile twisted Bracken’s face as he said, “Aren’t you the smart one, Callahan.” It was a gibe, not a question.

  The Kid held on to his temper, which wasn’t easy since Carl Bracken would rub a saint the wrong way.