“Señor Morgan,” Beatriz said, “this time you are getting out of here.”
Frank was about to reply to her when an explosion boomed through the hacienda.
Chapter 28
He felt the vibrations from the blast through his boot soles. A second later Beatriz jerked the door open and said, “We must go!”
Frank knew she was right. He had a hunch the explosion was a distraction to help him escape. He charged out of the cell and ran with her toward the stairs.
The two guards sprawled in their chairs, sound asleep from whatever Beatriz had used to dope the tequila. She glanced at them, and her lip curled as she said, “They are lucky I did not put poison in the jug!”
“You don’t want their lives on your conscience,” Frank told her as he plucked revolvers from holsters and shoved them behind his belt. He grabbed one of the Winchesters that leaned against the wall.
“After everything they and their compadres have done, I believe I would sleep fine.”
“Could be, but there’s no need to risk it.” Frank nodded toward the stairs. “I reckon the fellas up in the guard room are knocked out, too?”
“They should be by now. My cousins Estellita and Marietta are dealing with them.”
Frank wondered briefly just how many cousins she had, then decided it didn’t matter. He went up the stairs quickly with Beatriz following closely behind him.
Two attractive young Mexican women and three sleeping gun-wolves were in the guardroom. Frank glanced at the men and saw that they didn’t look like they’d be waking up anytime soon.
The two young women’s hair and clothing were a little disheveled. Frank supposed they had been pawed some before the drug took effect and knocked out the guards. One of them reached down and pulled a bowie knife from a sheath on a man’s hip.
“Take Señor Morgan and go,” she told Beatriz. “Estellita and I will take care of these dogs.”
“You don’t have to kill them,” Frank said.
The girl’s face was like stone as she said, “They will have to die now or later in order to break the general’s hold on our town. Why leave them alive now to maybe kill more of our people later?”
Frank couldn’t argue with her. Even though he knew there was a difference between murder and killing an enemy in battle, he hadn’t suffered at the hands of Ramirez’s men like these women and their friends and relatives had, either.
“Come on,” he said to Beatriz.
Grim-faced, she took his left hand in her right and ran along the corridor, leading him out of the stronghold.
“What was that explosion?” he asked as they hurried through the twisting hallways.
“A man who has Apache blood was able to crawl up to the wall and place a keg of blasting powder at its base, then run the fuse along the wall so it would not be seen as it burned. Ramirez’s men will rush to the spot to see what happened, so there will be fewer of them at the back of the compound.”
“So that’s the way we’re going out, eh?”
“Sí. We will go through the kitchen.”
A moment later, they did exactly that. No lamps were lit, but Beatriz knew where she was going. Frank trusted her to lead him to freedom . . . although he was still a little surprised that so many people who didn’t even know him would risk their lives to rescue him.
“There’s a new man here, tall, sandy-haired, dressed all in black when I saw him . . . Do you know who I mean?”
“Señor Callahan,” Beatriz replied. “I helped serve when he dined with the general, Señorita Antonia, and Señor Kern.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“Ramirez sent him across the border with Kern and some of the other men to hold up a train, I think. They are not back yet.”
A pang of disappointment went through Frank. He had been hoping that Conrad was still here and they could team up. With Kid Morgan at his side, he knew he could fight his way out of here if he had to.
But he had other allies and they seemed determined to help him. They were going to quite a bit of trouble to do so, in fact. That was a little puzzling to Frank, but he wasn’t going to question their generosity.
They emerged from the hacienda through a rear door and Beatriz immediately pressed her back to the wall and motioned for Frank to do likewise. They stood there silent and motionless for a long moment. Frank heard quite a bit of angry shouting coming from the front of the compound.
Guns began to bark. Beatriz whispered, “They are shooting at shadows. None of la Mariposa’s people can be seen in the darkness unless they wish to be.”
“La Mariposa?” Frank repeated, keeping his voice equally low.
“You will meet her . . . if we get out of here alive.”
Frank certainly planned to do that. Because of the time he had spent in the dungeon, his eyes were used to dim light. Here behind the hacienda, the only illumination came from the millions of stars floating in the ebony sky. That was enough for him to see the top of a ladder that suddenly appeared on the other side of the wall.
Beatriz saw it, too. She touched him on the arm and said, “Now!”
They ran toward the wall. As they did, Frank saw movement at the top of the ladder. A man’s head and shoulders poked over the wall. He dropped something, and as it unfurled, Frank realized that it was a rope ladder. It reached almost to the ground on this side. Frank didn’t know what it was attached to on the other side, but he hoped it was something sturdy enough to support his weight. He was a good-sized hombre.
“Climb!” Beatriz panted as they reached the wall and the rope ladder. “Get out of here, Señor Morgan!”
“You first,” he told her.
“I will slip out later in the confusion, with the others—”
“You’ve got a chance to get away right now,” he broke in. “Ramirez will be loco when he finds out he’s got some dead guards. No telling what he’ll do. You need to be far away from this place, so get up that ladder.”
She didn’t waste any more time arguing with him. He was grateful for that. She scrambled up the ladder with the agility of youth. Frank held on to it to steady it, which allowed her to climb even faster.
She reached the top and swung over it onto the wooden ladder. The man who had dropped the rope ladder had disappeared. Frank supposed he was waiting at the bottom on the other side.
He couldn’t climb very well and hang on to the rifle, too, so he propped the Winchester against the wall and took hold of one of the rungs. He reached up, got another one, planted his foot on the lowest rung, and pulled himself up.
The rope ladder swung back and forth. He was too big for this, he thought, but he didn’t have any other way out of the stronghold. The ladder tried to twist and tangle. He forced it to twist back the other way.
A shout went up somewhere not far away. Running footsteps slapped against the ground.
“Stop him!” a man roared. “Shoot him!”
Gunfire crashed in the night.
As the ladder twisted again in Frank’s grasp, he saw crimson flowers of muzzle flame blooming in the darkness. Slugs smacked into the adobe wall not far from him. The four men shooting at him charged toward the wall. In a matter of seconds they would be too close to miss.
Frank maintained his grip on the rope ladder with his left hand, but his right swooped down to his waist and plucked one of the guns from behind his belt. Hanging there, swaying back and forth, he called on all his skill to guide his shots as he thumbed off a rolling volley of lead. The guard who’d packed this iron had carried a full wheel in it, instead of letting the hammer rest on an empty chamber, so Frank fired six times as he emptied the weapon. Those bullets scythed through the bandits and tumbled all four of them off their feet. They didn’t shoot at him anymore.
Frank stuck the empty gun in his waistband and resumed climbing. Men were shouting all over the compound now, and he knew that in seconds, some of them would run back here to check on the fierce exchange of lead that had just thundered throug
h the night. Frank grunted with effort as he hauled himself up the rope ladder.
“Come on, Señor Morgan! Hurry!”
He glanced up and saw that Beatriz was at the top of the ladder now, extending a slender arm down toward him. He didn’t think she would be of much help in lifting his bulk, so he called to her, “Get back down there, señorita, before—”
Beatriz cried out as a pair of shots roared nearby. Frank swung around again and used his left hand this time to palm out the loaded Colt. Two more men had appeared and were pointing rifles at him. Three shots slammed from the gun in his hand before either of them could fire again. They went over backward as if they’d been slapped down by a giant.
Frank turned and climbed the rest of the way up the rope ladder. He didn’t see Beatriz at the top of the wall and was afraid she’d been hit by one of those last shots. First Florita had been whipped for trying to help Frank and now her cousin might have been hurt or even killed. One way or another, Frank was going to see to it that Diego Ramirez got what was coming to him. The misery he had brought to the innocent, peace-loving people of this area had to be paid for . . . in blood.
Frank swung a leg over the wall, found a rung on the wooden ladder, and paused long enough to pull the rope ladder up and toss it on the outside of the wall. He saw several people waiting in the shadows at the bottom, but he couldn’t tell if Beatriz was one of them. He climbed most of the way down the ladder and then turned and dropped the last couple of feet to the ground. He’d wanted to jump sooner but knew his bones were a mite too old for that.
A man clutched at his arm and said, “Come, Señor Morgan. We have horses nearby!”
Frank was glad to hear that. He wasn’t sure if they could have gotten away from Ramirez’s stronghold on foot. He knew there was a settlement somewhere in the area called Saguaro Springs, but he had no idea how far away it was.
Another figure stepped up beside him and a familiar voice said, “Señor Morgan, you are all right?”
“Beatriz? Were you hit?”
She laughed and said, “No, but one of those bullets struck the wall so close to me that I jumped back and fell off the ladder! I am fortunate I did not break my leg.”
“I’m mighty glad to hear it. They didn’t hit me with any of that lead they were throwing around, either, but some of it came too close for comfort.”
They didn’t bother taking the ladder with them as they hurried away from the stronghold. Two men were in the group in addition to Beatriz. They led Frank over a small rise and into a wide depression where another man waited with five horses.
Beatriz grabbed the reins of one mount from the waiting man and pressed them into Frank’s hand.
“This is the best horse,” she told him. “If we get separated, ride northeast. You can find your way by the stars, can you not?”
“For about twice as long as you’ve been alive, señorita.”
She laughed again. “You will be able to find the settlement, then. Go to the café of Julio Hernandez, my uncle.”
“I remember the name. Florita told me to find him, too, when she tried to help me escape.”
“Tío Julio will take you to la Mariposa,” Beatriz went on.
“Who is this butterfly you’ve mentioned a couple of times?”
“You will find out. Now, we must ride!”
Frank knew she was right. Soon enough, if they hadn’t already, Ramirez’s men would realize that even though the explosion had surely damaged the wall, it wasn’t a full-scale attack. They would start looking around for what was really going on, then they would find the dead men near the rear wall and the guards inside the hacienda and would know that the prisoner had made his escape, with help from the people of Saguaro Springs.
When he had swung up into the saddle and the others were mounted as well, he said, “Ramirez is liable to attack the settlement. He’ll know that you folks are behind what happened tonight.”
“He may,” Beatriz said, “but not right away. With the men he lost tonight, he does not have enough left to attack the town. Not until the ones he sent to hold up the train return.”
Among them, Kid Morgan, Frank thought. Conrad would find a different situation waiting for him when he got back.
The five riders galloped off, heading almost due west as far as Frank could tell. Gradually they began to circle back to the north. He figured they would take the long way around to return to Saguaro Springs.
After a hard run for a while, they eased off to let the horses blow. Frank listened for sounds of pursuit but didn’t hear any.
“Could be we gave ’em the slip,” he said.
One of the men said, “Or Ramirez was afraid to risk any more of his men by coming after us. He could think that an ambush might be waiting for him.”
“He will wait for the others to come back,” Beatriz said. “When he feels strong enough, he will come to the settlement to punish us for defying him. He will try to burn it to the ground.”
“Then we’ll be ready for him if he does,” Frank declared. “You’ve got a whole settlement full of folks, and obviously you don’t mind fighting back. Why have you let Ramirez run roughshod over you all this time?”
“We are not fighters, señor,” said the man who had spoken before. “We are shopkeepers and cobblers and blacksmiths and farmers. We want only to be left alone to live our lives in peace.” An eloquent shrug lifted his shoulders in the starlight. “We believed that if we cooperated with Ramirez, he would leave us alone for the most part. Some might be harmed, but not all.”
“That didn’t work out too well, did it?” Frank’s voice was harsher than he intended, but he had seen such things happen time and time again. Folks thought they could bargain with evil, when that wasn’t possible. The only thing to do with evil was wipe it out . . . or die trying.
“For a time, no one was killed,” Beatriz said. “But his men became more confident, more arrogant, more brutal. Some worse than others.”
“Bracken, I’d bet.”
“Sí, he was one of the worst. He beat men who displeased him and attacked any woman who struck his fancy, no matter how old or young. Many of the others were almost as bad, though.” A shudder ran through Beatriz. “And yet Ramirez boasts that he will do good for Mexico with men such as that.”
A shrill yip-yip-yip sounded off to the left. Beatriz jerked her head in that direction. One of the men chuckled and said, “It is only a coyote, Beatriz. Nothing to worry about. He is more afraid of you than you are of him.”
“I am not so sure,” she muttered. “Sometimes I saw strange things at night in the hacienda. Things that dart through the shadows and then disappear.”
“You know those old stories about the lunático are just stories.”
Frank didn’t have any idea what madman they were talking about but didn’t figure this was the time to be asking about it. Beatriz remained tense as they rode on, though, casting nervous glances over her shoulder from time to time. Frank didn’t hear any more yipping or see anything.
There had been something just a little off about that coyote’s cry, though, he thought.
They continued pushing on through the night at a good pace, walking the horses at times, urging them into a ground-eating trot at others. The gray light of false dawn was in the eastern sky before they came in sight of the settlement. Frank saw several lights and knew that some folks were up either mighty early or mighty late.
Beatriz said, “Since we all made it together we can go straight to the cantina.”
“I’ll go by the store and bring Julio,” one of the men said. As they neared the edge of town, he veered off from the others.
Beatriz took the lead and rode to a good-sized adobe building where light spilled through the open front door. Enough of it reflected up onto the wall above the entrance for Frank to be able to read the word CANTINA painted in an arch of letters. Something else was painted on the wall above the word, and as they came closer, he realized it was a brightly colored butte
rfly.
He wondered, then, was la Mariposa the name of the cantina or of a person . . . or both?
He supposed he was about to find out, because Beatriz and the others had reined their horses to a stop and were dismounting to go inside.
Chapter 29
The sounds of animated conversation came through the cantina’s open door. Beatriz motioned for Frank to come with her and they walked in first, with the three men following them. Hazy smoke from hand-rolled quirleys, cigarillos, and pipes hung in the air inside, along with the smells of beer, tequila, spices, and peppers. A hush fell over the room as Frank’s bootheels rang on the plank floor. Heads turned and gazes swung to the newcomers.
A woman who had been standing beside the bar rushed toward them. “Beatriz!” she cried. “You are all right?”
“Sí, Tía Luciana,” Beatriz replied. “We were successful.”
The woman turned to look Frank up and down, her large, dark eyes intent as she did so. She said, “Then you must be Frank Morgan, señor.”
“And I reckon you’re la Mariposa,” Frank ventured.
She was as colorful as a butterfly, although considerably more substantial than one of those flittering creatures. A lush figure curved her hips under the brightly embroidered skirt, and her full, round breasts threatened to spill out of the crimson shirt’s low neckline. Gold hoop earrings sparkled in the lamplight, as did the blue sapphire she wore on a gold chain around her neck. Her thick, curly hair was black as midnight except for a few silver strands that showed she wasn’t a girl anymore, despite the air of youthful vitality she possessed. Frank thought she was strikingly beautiful, especially when she smiled and laughed at his comment.
“I am Luciana Hernandez,” she said, “but some do call me la Mariposa.”
“This is your place, I suppose. And you’re Beatriz’s aunt.”
“Sí.”
The Morgans Page 21