by Ralph Cotton
Once satisfied that the old mission was safe, he and Caridad stepped down from their horses, and Caridad led the tired animals away to be fed and watered. But no sooner had she walked the animals to a lean-to and dropped the saddles from their backs, than Robert Koch stood up from behind a pile of hay with his Colt pointed at her.
‘‘Well, well,’’ he said, ‘‘look here. The little chickie has finally come home to roost.’’
Caridad gasped and looked around quickly for Sabio. But thirty yards away in the open courtyard, Sabio had trouble of his own. ‘‘Your old bruja boy-friend can’t help you this time, chickie.’’ Koch grinned menacingly, stepping around toward her. ‘‘You’re all mine, anytime I want to reach out and grab you.’’
Where Sabio stood, Caridad saw the rifle lying on the ground at his feet. Sonny Nix had slipped out from behind a large flowering bush alongside a crumbling adobe wall. He stood with his gun cocked beneath Sabio’s chin.
‘‘Do not hurt her, please,’’ Sabio begged. ‘‘She is not the kind of woman you men want.’’
‘‘I hope you don’t think I come all this way just to get a sniff of your little darling, old man,’’ said Sonny. To Koch he called out, ‘‘Bring her on over here, Robert. Let’s find out about the kid.’’
‘‘The kid?’’ Sabio asked.
‘‘Yeah, the kid you’ve been hiding out up here,’’ said Sonny. ‘‘The one with the bullet hole in him.’’
‘‘Him? Oh, my,’’ said Sabio. ‘‘You have come all this way just to find him?’’
‘‘That’s right,’’ said Sonny, ‘‘so don’t waste time lying to me. It’ll just get you both killed.’’
‘‘I am afraid whatever I do or say, nothing will keep you from killing us both,’’ Sabio said.
Sonny chuckled. ‘‘You’re pretty smart, old man. But sometimes it’s how you die that’s the most important thing. It can take you all day to die if I want to drag it out.’’
Sabio shrugged. ‘‘I can tell you nothing about William Jefferies, except that I treated his gunshot wound and he left the next morning.’’
‘‘After losing as much blood as I heard he left on the cantina floor, I don’t think so,’’ said Sonny.
‘‘It is true,’’ said Sabio. ‘‘I had the power to stop the bleeding.’’
‘‘Oh yeah?’’ Sonny gave him a searching gaze. ‘‘Speaking of power, what did you have to do with that forest running us in circles during that storm? Was that some more witchery?’’
‘‘The forest ran you in circles?’’ Sabio almost smiled in spite of the circumstances. His power was still with him, wasn’t it then?
‘‘Forget I said that,’’ Sonny growled, realizing how foolish it had sounded—the forest running them in circles. ‘‘Tell me about the kid.’’
‘‘I healed him and he left here with the lawman from your country—the ranger,’’ Sabio said. He wanted to hear more about what had happened in the forest during the storm, but he was afraid to ask.
‘‘Which way did they head?’’ Sonny asked as Koch and Caridad arrived. Koch pushed Caridad over beside Sabio. The old monk took her in his arms to protect her as he answered.
‘‘The ranger said he was taking an outlaw’s body back across the border. I do not know where Jefferies went after they left here.’’ He turned his face away from Sonny and looked down at Caridad, brushing her hair from her eyes.
‘‘Hey, look at me, old man!’’ Sonny shouted. ‘‘I’ve still got questions for you.’’
Behind them atop his horse inside the arched entranceway, Cherokee Jake sat with his Colt cocked and pointed at Sonny’s back. ‘‘But you’re not asking the right question,’’ Cherokee said.
Startled, Sonny and Koch turned toward the sound of his voice. ‘‘Damn, Cherokee! Why are you here?’’ Sonny saw the Colt pointed at him. His own Colt was in his hand, but he did not want a shoot-out with this ruthless gunman.
Ignoring Sonny’s question, Cherokee stepped his horse inside, leading the deceased Wind River Dan’s silver-gray and the supply horse he’d found tied in a thicket of cedar where Sonny and Koch had left them.
‘‘You should have asked what the hell my cousin’s horse is doing standing hidden out front.’’
‘‘That’s Wind River Dan’s horse?’’ Sonny asked, appearing surprised. ‘‘You’re kidding.’’
‘‘Does this look like my kidding face to you?’’ Cherokee asked with a cold flat stare.
Seeing the killing intent in Cherokee’s dark eyes, Sonny cautioned, ‘‘Easy, pard. Let’s talk this thing out before we go cutting loads on one another.’’
With no change in his expression, Cherokee demanded quietly, ‘‘Who are these people? Where is the kid? And where the hell is my cousin?’’
Chapter 13
The ranger and Jefferies stopped three miles outside of Esperanza and took cover until night fell like a dark blanket over the land. ‘‘I checked the town out as well as I could without looking suspicious,’’ Jefferies said, bending down onto his knees. ‘‘Let me show you the layout in case something goes wrong and I don’t make it all the way to my supply bag.’’ A long bowie-style knife appeared in his hand as if from out of nowhere.
‘‘Go ahead,’’ Sam replied, calmly stooping down in front of him. He eyed the blade, realizing the young man would have had more than one opportunity to make a play for it if he wasn’t what he’d claimed to be.
Jefferies gave a trace of a smile, letting Sam know that he understood what had just crossed his lawman’s mind. With the knife’s blade he cut a line in the hard dirt. ‘‘Here’s the main street in Esperanza.’’ He cut a crude square and said, ‘‘Here’s the cantina.’’
Sam nodded.
Cutting a few inches farther down the street line, Jefferies said, ‘‘Here’s an abandoned old French Trade building—look for a faded sign above the door.’’ He gave Sam a glance to make sure he understood.
‘‘Got it,’’ Sam said, nodding again.
Jefferies continued. ‘‘Inside there’s a desk in a corner covered with some old record journals and a pile of dried pigeon droppings.’’ Sam raised his eyes from the diagram, having committed it to memory. Jefferies scraped the big blade back and forth on the hard earth and destroyed the markings. ‘‘Pull the desk out of the way and you’ll find my supply bag.’’
‘‘If things go bad and you don’t make it, what’s my best way out of there?’’ Sam asked.
‘‘Beside the building is a high wall. It looks impossible to climb. But I looked close and found that somebody had chiseled out some toeholds between the stones in the left corner. If you have to go that way, you can get over it.’’
‘‘But let’s keep a good thought,’’ Sam replied, watching Jefferies’ eyes closely for any sign of deception. ‘‘Nothing’s going to happen to either one of us.’’
‘‘That’s my feeling too,’’ said Jefferies, ‘‘but it never hurts to look at all the possibilities.’’
‘‘Right,’’ said Sam. Standing, he slipped his Colt from his holster, checked it and slipped it back in. He took his rifle from the saddle boot and did the same.
‘‘Prew likes to run his gang like they’re a military regiment,’’ said Jefferies. ‘‘He keeps a guard posted in the old church bell tower. At first light they change guards.’’ He grinned. ‘‘But unlike the real army, the guard always comes down and awakens his replacement.’’
‘‘You observed things pretty good while you were there, Jefferies,’’ said the ranger. ‘‘What does that give us, a couple of minutes to slip out of town?’’
‘‘Two minutes at the most,’’ said Jefferies, ‘‘but that’s all we need.’’
‘‘In at dark and out at first light,’’ said Sam. It made sense to him. They needed the cover of darkness to carry out their plan, but it would be good to have first light for them and their horses to see by if something went wrong.
‘‘Does this all sound good to you, Range
r?’’ Jefferies asked, knowing that no one who understood this kind of work would argue with his logic.
The ranger only nodded. ‘‘We’d best attend to our horses and get them rested up. This could turn into a long night.’’
Each of them took care of his own mount, and when they’d finished, they ate a thin supper of jerky and tepid water from their canteens. The ranger did not sleep soundly, but he did lower the brim of his sombrero over his eyes and lean back against his saddle on the ground.
He dozed off and on until the moon stood high and the land lay cloaked in a shadowy purple darkness. Then the two arose and saddled their horses quietly. In moments they had left the small clearing and headed for Esperanza, like two wolves set out to prowl the night.
In the bell tower of the church in Esperanza, a powerfully built young Russian gunman named Klevo Kerchkow had spent much of his watch nodding over the rifle he cradled in his large muscular arms. When Sway Loden climbed the ladder to relieve him, Klevo jerked his head up in time to keep from being caught sleeping on guard. But even in the purple moonlight, Loden saw the bleary-eyed look Klevo gave him and said, ‘‘You better never let Desmond Prew catch you doing that.’’
‘‘Doing vat?’’ Klevo growled menacingly in his thick accent. ‘‘Vat does you accusing me ov?’’ He took a bold step toward Loden, lowering his rifle in his right hand. He looked fully capable of swinging it like a club.
Loden didn’t want to push the matter, knowing the young Russian came to the band of mercenaries with a reputation of brutality and hired killings that stretched all the way from Moscow to the streets and alleys of San Francisco.
Taking a quick glance behind him at the long drop from the bell tower to the stone floor fifty feet below, Loden raised a hand and said, ‘‘Whoa, I’m not accusing you of nothing, my friend. I just hate to see a fellow get off on the wrong foot with Prew is all.’’ He offered the Russian a thin nervous smile. ‘‘I’d hope you’d do the same for me if it was the other way around.’’
But Klevo only looked down at his broad feet and asked in the same gruff tone, ‘‘Wrong foot? Vat is wrong wit my foot?’’
‘‘Nothing!’’ Loden’s hand managed to slip around the butt of his holstered Colt as the Russian stared down, puzzled. Laying his thumb over the Colt’s hammer, he said with more confidence, ‘‘I’m relieving you. Why don’t you go on down and get yourself some sleep, or a drink, or a whore or whatever.’’
‘‘A whore, maybe, I think,’’ said Klevo, giving Loden a dark stare even as he stepped around him to the ladder and started down.
‘‘Yeah, a whore. That’s good,’’ said Loden, looking down at the top of the Russian’s battered black bowler hat as he climbed down the ladder. He half raised the Colt, just thinking how easy it would be and how good it would feel to put a bullet into the top of the bowler hat and see it explode out of the Russian’s belly. ‘‘Get one for me while you’re at it,’’ he called down, letting his hand ease off his gun butt.
Klevo looked up from the bottom rung and said stoically, ‘‘How can I do that, you fool?’’
‘‘Forget it,’’ said Loden, waving the Russian away. ‘‘Go bite the head off of a rat, for all I care,’’ he grumbled under his breath.
On the ground, having heard the voices speaking back and forth from the bell tower, Sam and Jefferies slipped quickly and silently along from cover to cover across the street from the old stone and adobe church. At the edge of a porch out front of a supply store they froze when a small white dog came trotting up to them. Even though the dog wagged its tail vigorously, it looked as if it would start barking at any second.
‘‘Easy, fellow,’’ Sam purred in the softest tone of voice. He put the back of his gloved hand out toward the playful dog and hoped it would come forward quietly.
Jefferies whispered only a fraction of an inch from the ranger’s ear, ‘‘Choke it if you have to.’’
But Sam ignored his request. When the dog did ease forward and sniff his hand, Sam managed to scratch its bony head and rub his hand along its back, settling the animal. Beside Sam, Jefferies breathed easier, his Colt hanging loosely in his hand. He had just started to motion Sam forward toward the cantinaand the abandoned French Trade building when the Russian stepped out of the church into the moonlit street.
The two froze again, hearing the Russian call out toward them, ‘‘Hey, vat have we here?’’
Sam turned the dog and gave it a boost toward the Russian. Following his command the dog looped playfully across the street and circled at the Russian’s feet. But Klevo would not be diverted. ‘‘Get away vrom me, mangy cooaka! You are lucky I am not hungry. I would eat you with gravy made from your brains.’’ As he spoke to the dog, he walked toward the spot where Sam and Jefferies had hunkered down behind a stack of feed sacks filled with corn. ‘‘Who is there?’’ he called.
Sam and Jefferies remained quiet. Jefferies tapped Sam on the shoulder and moved around behind him to a thick post supporting an overhang at the end of the grain sacks. Sam got his silent message and waited until he saw that Jefferies was ready to make his move on the Russian. Then he pressed his boot heel firmly onto the wooden plank porch and scraped it back and forth.
‘‘Ah! I heard you!’’ said the Russian, crouching, hurrying toward the sound. As he focused his attention toward the spot where Sam hunkered behind the grain sacks, Jefferies sprang from the other end of the sacks and cracked him a hard blow across his forehead. The big Russian staggered in place. The two lawmen hurriedly grabbed him by either arm, swung him back and launched him headfirst into the thick post.
The porch and the ground shuddered as the man fell backward, his large arms outstretched, and landed flat on his back in the street. The playful dog bounded back and forth at the man’s head as Sam and Jefferies hurried on toward the French Trade building. Atop the bell tower, Sway Loden heard only the slightest commotion. When he looked down into the moonlit street, he saw only the pale image of the white dog running in half circles.
‘‘Stupid damn mutt,’’ he grumbled. ‘‘Do your cat chasing in the daylight.’’
At the abandoned building, Sam turned inside the door and checked to make sure all was peaceful behind them. When he then joined Jefferies at the edge of the old desk, the two soundlessly lifted the desk with its debris atop it and scooted it to one side. In the moonlight, Jefferies gave him a grin. Sam nodded in reply as they bent down over the large leather supply bag lying in a shallow hole that Jefferies had hurriedly scraped out when he’d hidden it there.
Jefferies whispered, ‘‘You’re going to like this, Ranger.’’ Opening the straps on the leather bag, he held it open and slanted toward the pale moonlight.
Sam blinked. In the bag he saw three bundles of dynamite and a coil of fuse. ‘‘I needed to store it in a cool dry place for the time being,’’ Jefferies whispered. ‘‘Surprised, huh?’’
‘‘Yes,’’ Sam replied. But what surprised him even more than the dynamite was seeing what he estimated to be at least a dozen round metal hand grenades piled in the bottom of the bag.
‘‘If these are what I think they are,’’ he whispered, ‘‘I’m glad I didn’t show up here alone. I’m not familiarwith this kind of ordnance.’’ Nestled down in the explosives he saw a bundle of cigars with a string tied around them.
‘‘They are what you think they are,’’ said Jefferies. Reaching into a pocket inside the bag, he pulled out a double spool of telegraph wire with brass connectors on either end. ‘‘Do you know code, Ranger?’’
‘‘Enough to get by,’’ said Sam. He looked closely at the cut-in connectors and asked, ‘‘What are those for?’’
‘‘With these I can cut in at any point along the telegraph wires and get word to the army border encampment when Prew is about to hit the train.’’ He shoved the wire spools back inside the bag. ‘‘The problem is there’s no lines along this side of the border for me to cut in. By the time I get word to the army, Prew’s men will
have already made their hit and be gone.’’
‘‘There’s too much land for the army to cover,’’ Sam said, speaking from experience.
‘‘You’re right,’’ said Jefferies. ‘‘We’ll be on our own stopping them.’’ He saw Sam looking in the bag at the dynamite and said, ‘‘Don’t worry. I’m going to show you how to handle this stuff.’’ Closing the bag and strapping it shut, he hefted it up over his shoulder. ‘‘Now do you believe I am with the U.S. Secret Service?’’
‘‘I believe you’ve got some powerful explosives and some telegraph connections,’’ Sam replied, eyeing him closely in the darkness. ‘‘But I don’t know where you got them—or how.’’
‘‘All right, Ranger. You’re still suspicious,’’ Jefferies whispered, easing toward the open doorway. ‘‘I suppose I would be, too, if it was the other way around.’’ They both stopped and huddled at the door.
‘‘It’s already starting to lighten up out there,’’ Sam said, nodding toward the eastern horizon. ‘‘By the time we get out of here and back to the horses it’ll be light enough to see along the trail.’’
Jefferies nodded in agreement. ‘‘Let’s go,’’ he said. He started to slip forward along the front of the building, but he stopped cold at the sight of five riders entering the town from the far end through a silver-purple haze. ‘‘Oh no!’’ he said almost in a gasp, ducking back inside the open doorway.
‘‘What is it?’’ Sam asked, creeping far enough forward for a look. He saw the five horses walk single file into sight.
‘‘It’s Caridad and Sabio!’’ said Jefferies. ‘‘Prew’s men must’ve caught up to them.’’
‘‘That means they must still be searching for you,’’ Sam said.