He slowed Tango to a walk and guided him past the rocks before circling back higher on the gentle slope, Sierra tailing him at a slower pace. He swung down from the saddle and led the horse to a small grove of saplings well beyond the rocks, where the animals would be out of sight from the trail. He secured Tango to one of the trees as Sierra arrived, and he pointed to a branch.
“Tie your horse up there and follow me to the rocks. Eve, stay here with the horses. If you see anyone but us coming this way, untie Tango, climb into the saddle, and hang on tight. He’ll do the rest. Think you can pull that off?”
The little girl nodded.
“Good. Sierra, bring your spare magazines. Got your pistol?”
“Right here,” she said, patting the holster on her hip.
“Know how to fire it?”
“I’ve practiced with a .45 before. Like riding a bicycle, I hope.”
Lucas took off at a jog. Sierra kept up in spite of her leg wound, and when they reached the rocks, he spoke in a low voice.
“They’ll be expecting a trap – I would. But we don’t have a lot of options. If we’re lucky, they’ll follow the tracks past us. Wait until I start shooting, and then fire at will. Three-round bursts. No point in conserving ammo.”
“That’s it? That’s the plan?”
“Got anything better?” Sierra didn’t give an answer, there obviously being none. “Now move over there,” he said, pointing to a spot twenty feet away. “We’ll get them in a crossfire.”
They were soon interrupted by the sound of pounding hooves from the trail. Lucas switched the M4 firing selector to burst, wishing he still had some grenades left. Hitting moving targets would be difficult, even if he allowed the riders to get on top of them, but every yard closer improved their chances.
“Remember, don’t fire until I do,” he warned. “Keep your finger off the trigger until you want to shoot.”
Sierra didn’t say anything. A quick glance at her yielded a vision of a determined but frightened woman, who for all her assurances looked uncomfortable with the assault rifle. Lucas refocused his attention on the trail just as the riders came into view. From across the reach, he heard Sierra’s sharp intake of breath at the sight of the prison ink that covered their faces and shaved heads.
“Easy,” he whispered as they neared, and then the lead rider slowed, Kalashnikov in hand. Lucas ground his teeth as he watched the man size up the rocks, and held his breath as he willed the gunmen forward, into the kill zone.
It wasn’t to be. The leader barked an order to his men.
Sierra’s rifle stock scraped against the rocks, and then all hell broke loose as the men opened fire with practiced precision. Chips flew as bullets whined off the boulders beside her, and she ducked down. Lucas squeezed off a burst at the nearest man, which missed by a hair but drew their fire as well. More inbound slugs peppered the rocks, and he heard a burst from Sierra’s gun.
Lucas fired another burst and hit his target, knocking the gunman off his horse. He fired again to ensure the man was neutralized, and then more incoming rounds drove him behind the safety of the rocks.
“Lucas!” Sierra cried, and he looked over to her. She fired again, ducked back behind the stones and yelled, “They’re riding away. I can’t hit them.”
The last of the gunmen’s rounds struck the outcropping, and the chatter of their rifles stopped. Lucas peered at the trail and called to Sierra. “Where did they go?”
“I…I think back down the track.”
“You didn’t see?”
“They were shooting as they rode. I didn’t want to get hit. What about you?”
“Stay put,” he said, eyeing the area. He had a bad feeling about the sudden retreat. It had been too easy. Those men had looked as hard as they come, and he couldn’t imagine they would turn tail at the first barrage.
His doubts intensified as he listened, ears ringing, for the sound of galloping horses. He heard nothing. And now they knew where he and Sierra were, their element of surprise squandered.
“What now?” she asked.
“Watch and wait.”
“How long?”
“Long as it takes.”
A minute dragged by, and then another. Sierra called to him again. “Sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean–”
“Look out!” Lucas cried, and fired over her shoulder at a gunman who had materialized on foot from the dense brush to her left. Bullets thumped into the dirt around him, and he fired again as she tried to twist to face the threat. Two of Lucas’s rounds caught the man in the lower abdomen, doubling him over as he continued to fire. Sierra loosed a burst as well, but her shots went wide. Lucas was calling out to her when a round slammed into his chest with the force of a freight train. The M4 skittered away, and Sierra turned to him, eyes wide in horror.
“Lucas!” she screamed. More rock fragments geysered from the boulder near her head, and a voice rang out from the brush.
“Drop the gun, or I cut you in two.”
Sierra hesitated, and then tossed the AR-15 aside. Garret stepped into view, his weapon trained on her. Sierra’s face twisted with hate.
“You…”
“Did you really believe I’d give up? You’re even stupider than I thought,” he said as he approached. He reached Sierra and backhanded her with a smack that echoed through the clearing. Sierra’s head jerked like a marionette’s and she went down. Garret moved toward where Lucas lay, and was raising his rifle to finish him when Sierra’s 1911 barked three times behind him.
Garret jolted forward, and then recovered his footing. He turned slowly, a sneer in place, and shook his head. She glared at him, her pistol hand shaking so badly that she’d missed twice after the plate holder rear panel had stopped her first round. Her face fell at the realization that she’d failed when it had mattered the most. She tried to squeeze the trigger again, but her hand wouldn’t obey, the strength in her fingers suddenly gone.
He laughed harshly. “You’re going to regret that, you stupid bit–”
A gunshot rang out and Garret’s throat exploded. As he staggered to the side, another shot vaporized his skull. He collapsed in a heap in front of Sierra, and she looked past him to where Lucas was struggling to his feet, Kimber in hand, the pistol still leveled at the dead man.
“You’re alive!” she cried.
“Evidently.”
She ran to Lucas and threw her arms around him.
“Hey, easy there…” he started, and then his words were cut off as her lips crushed against his.
The kiss lasted for a small eternity, until finally Lucas pulled away and looked down at the bullet hole in the upper left quadrant of his flak jacket. Sierra put her index finger through the hole, her eyes searching Lucas’s as she felt inside.
“Going to need a new plate,” Lucas said, and pulled the shattered one that had saved his life from the front compartment of his flak jacket.
She nodded. “That one did its job.”
He cocked his head and looked down the trail, and then stooped to gather the M4 along with his hat. “Come on. We need to get out of here.”
“What is it?”
“The second set of riders. I don’t want to do this again here. We’ll find a better spot.” Lucas pushed past her and knelt to inspect Garret’s vest. He looked up at Sierra, his face grim. “Go up to the horses. I’ll be right there.”
“What are you doing?”
“I need a plate. And he’s not going to be needing his.”
Chapter 43
Three Loco riders drove their horses hard toward the gun battle, drawn at first by the dust and then by the shooting. They’d been communicating with the other search parties by radio, and when the Crew gunmen had radioed in that they were in hot pursuit, they’d given free rein to their horses and let them run themselves out.
Now that the shooting had stopped, they slowed, and the radioman tried to reach Garret’s group on his two-way. When he got no response, they slowed further, on a
lert as they ventured along the trail.
The Locos were far more comfortable in town than in the field, horses a necessary evil since there was no more fuel – but not one they’d grown fond of. The cartel’s strength was in their ability to terrorize the Pecos population and defend their stronghold, and its members had spent more time behind bars than around any animals other than their own species.
They rounded a long bend and arrived at a stretch of trail with dense scrub on either side. The lead rider gave a curt hand signal and they spread out, guns at the ready. He pulled up sharply when he spotted a dead man lying face up in the dirt, and eyed the corpse with trepidation.
“One a’ the Crew,” he said, and the rider behind him nodded.
“Where you think the other two are?”
“Gonna find out.”
The lead rider circled his horse around the body and tilted his head at the rifle a few feet away. “Didn’t bother to grab his gun.”
“Probably in a hurry.”
They picked their way along the trail and the lead man indicated the outcropping. “Bet that’s where the shooters hid.”
“How you know there was more than one?”
“You think only one did this? Those Crew dudes were hard, homey. Ain’t no one shooter take them down.”
“Where are the others?”
The lead man shrugged. “Let’s keep goin’.”
They negotiated the area below the outcropping, and then the lead Loco’s eyes caught a flit of color by the rocks.
“There,” he said, and spurred his horse up the slight incline.
When they reached the outcropping, they stopped and stared at the two dead Crew members for a long beat. The Locos looked at each other and the second man shook his head.
“Lights out for these chumps, huh?”
“Yeah. For real.”
The lead rider raised his radio to his lips and gave a brief report. The three men waited for instructions, and when they came, listened to Luis’s words with relief.
The radioman slid the two-way into his vest. “All right. Let’s get their stuff and head home. Screw this noise.”
“That’s right. Ain’t our fight anyhow. They dead, so game over.”
Luis had told them to collect the weapons and ammo and leave the dead men where they lay. He’d sounded as tired as the three gunmen were after riding all night, and with no further incentive to continue trying to pick up the woman’s track, they were calling it quits. A good thing, the lead rider thought – they had no idea who’d killed the three Crew badasses, but whoever it was had taken down that group’s best, and they had no interest in discovering more the hard way.
Three minutes later, they were retracing their steps, glad to be away from the killing field, the prospect of sleep hurrying them along as they rounded the bend.
Lucas lined up the Remington’s crosshairs on the first rider when the trio stopped by the rocks, providing him a decent shot from his position six hundred yards away. He estimated the breeze at five miles per hour, no more, and adjusted the scope settings to compensate before peering through the lens again. Lucas’s finger was on the trigger, beginning the gradual squeeze that would snuff out the first man’s life, when his target raised a radio and spoke into it.
Lucas held off, watching as the Locos dropped from their horses and scrambled for the dead men’s guns. After a quick search of the bodies they remounted their steeds and rode away. He whispered to Sierra, who was lying a few feet away with her rifle, Eve beside her.
“Looks like they’re giving up,” he said.
“Really?” Sierra asked, her voice skeptical.
Lucas nodded. “Guess they lost the stomach for it.”
“That last one you shot with your pistol? That was Garret. One of Magnus’s top dogs. Want to bet he was the one in charge of this?”
“Fair guess. Cut off the head, and the body withers.”
He kept a bead on the riders until they had vanished around the bank, and then rolled toward Sierra. “That was a little too close,” he said.
She eyed his plate carrier. “I’m not arguing. You think we’re in the clear?”
Lucas took another look through the scope. “For now.”
When they were back on their horses, Lucas set the pace north, keeping Tango to a fast walk to avoid throwing up any dust. Sierra kept Nugget alongside him, Eve in front of her on the saddle, riding in silence.
“I’m sorry I dragged you into this, Lucas. I realize I should have stayed with you and Ruby.” Lucas didn’t respond, so Sierra tried again. “It’s just that, without the flash drive and the note, it’s only a matter of time until Magnus sends someone else after us. He’s got an endless supply of men.” She swallowed and glanced at him. “When you said you wouldn’t go after the vest, I…well, I guess I didn’t really think.”
“I never said I wouldn’t go after it. I said I’d think on it.”
She studied his profile. “What are you saying? That…that you’ll do it?”
“I’ll consider it on the way back to the bunker.”
Sierra looked as though she was going to speak again, but thought better of it and merely nodded. Eve had watched the exchange in silence; if she had any opinions on the matter, though, she didn’t voice them. Lucas continued on wordlessly, worry lines furrowing his brow as he considered his next step.
It was madness. To try to reclaim a vest from murderous cutthroats who would just as soon gut him as give the time of day – and that was assuming they even had it. There was a very real possibility that one of the men Alan and Carl had ambushed and killed, presuming they’d been somewhat successful at it, had been wearing it and was lying face down in the gulch, long since eaten by scavengers.
No matter what plan he came up with, he was sure it would mean danger, slim odds of success, and the very real possibility of being killed.
“Only die once,” he muttered. Tango shook his head as though in agreement, and Lucas spit to the side of the trail, cursing at how his heart had skipped when he’d kissed Sierra.
He was in deep water and sinking fast.
And worst of all, it didn’t feel altogether bad.
<<<<>>>>
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Purgatory Road
Russell Blake
Chapter 1
Mentone, Texas
Marijuana smoke clouded the gloomy interior of the improvised saloon, and the pungent aroma blended with the acrid tang of stale perspiration, unwashed bodies, and rotgut home-brewed sour mash. Several women in ratty shifts leaned against the wall near a long plank propped atop four wooden barrels that served as the bar. Their faces were frozen in professional invitation, their eyes dead. Beside them, three heavily built gunmen with Browning shotguns lounged together, occasionally casting an eye over the forty or so customers, wary of trouble with the rough crowd. Filthy sawdust covered the floor of the tin-roofed structure in Mentone, one of a shabby scattering of buildings at a forgotten crossroads used as the home base for the group of miscreants known as the Raiders.
An emaciated dog, inured to the shouts and baying laughter from the rowdy throng, nosed around in a far corner where someone had recently vomited. Six Mohawked highwaymen sat at a circular wooden table in the rear of the room, their sweat-stained black leather vests and tattoos as menacing as a snake’s rattle, bottles of cheap rum and whiskey at their elbows. A deck of frayed cards lay facedown in front of a graying man with a long, cadaverous face and spindly fingers that lent him the appearance of a praying mantis.
The dealer pushed a small pile of chips into the center pot with a smile as inviting as a mass grave. “Well, boys, put up or shut up. Day of reckoning’s at hand,” he hissed, his voice barely audible over the bar’s clamor.
Two of the players shook their heads and tossed in their cards, unwilling to push their luck
any further. The remaining three met the dealer’s raise and, once the betting was done, waited expectantly as he offered another grin, revealing pale gums marred with stubs of decaying teeth between earthworm lips.
“Full house, fellas. Just not your lucky night, I guess.” He cackled, and the rest flung their hands into the pot with resigned groans.
“Seems like most hands you walk away with the chips,” one of the larger Raiders growled. The man beside him elbowed his ribs as a caution and slid an amber bottle toward him.
The pair had been in the bar for the better part of five hours and were nearly through with their second bottle of rum. They, like the rest of the patrons, had checked their weapons at the door. The rules of the house were few, but those there were, were non-negotiable: no guns or knives inside, no fights allowed, and no credit extended. The security guards enforced compliance, and any violation meant expulsion with no appeal.
The large Raider took a pull on the bottle and winced at the burn of the cheap, harsh liquor. His meaty face was sunburned almost to the blistering point, his skin radiating heat, brow furrowed over reptilian eyes, greasy ebony Mohawk a spiked mane. The shaved sides of his head featured a collage of jailhouse art and crude gothic script, a grinning skull with a pirate’s hat cocked at a rakish angle adorning the left temple, Nazi Schutzstaffel lightning bolts emblazoning the right. Pink scars, souvenirs of past fights, spanned his scalp, and a pair of green inked tears trailed below his left eye – mute testament to a lifetime of incarceration. The teardrops were a common emblem for many of the other Raiders, whose murderous and predatory habits had been hardened by a prison ethic that knew only hunter and prey.
He slammed the bottle down and considered his remaining chips, and then leaned into his smaller companion, whose sallow complexion and gaunt frame was the polar opposite: the little man’s skin was as taut as parchment over sharp cheekbones and ropy muscles that undulated like snakes along bare tobacco-colored arms.
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