Another Spanish oath rang out about the missing horses. "You there! Old woman! You want to meet your Maker?"
Fancy's heart stalled. "Help her, Zack, help her!" she whispered, shoving him away.
Hesitating less than a heartbeat, he churned at breakneck speed through the mud to Lally's rescue. She was struggling with Diego. Through the rain, Fancy couldn't see whether Diego carried a revolver or his bullwhip, but she knew he always had a pocket pistol.
Zack and Lally were in deadly danger.
"Diego!" She heaved herself onto the sill, ignoring the pots and pans that crashed around her.
His head jerked up. For a split second, the fist he had drawn back faltered, and Lally rammed a knee into his loins. He doubled over, and Zack grabbed Diego's collar, delivering a double punch that knocked the outlaw flat on his buttocks.
Lally fled for a horse.
Fancy drew her gun.
"Run, Zack! For God's sake, mount up!" She fired, and Diego scrambled for cover, sputtering blood-curdling Spanish.
The kitchen door crashed open. Whirling, Fancy spied the glint of metal in the renegade's fist. Instinct took over, and she fired once more. The man teetered, and she leaped outside. She expected to feel the bite of lead at any moment.
"Fancy!"
She heard Zack's warning above a crack of thunder. A pair of outlaws rounded the station. The mud wreaked havoc on their drunken legs, and she was able to drive them back with two more bullets. Their own shots went wild.
"Idiots!" Diego's voice came from the other side of the building. "The whore is mine, you understand? Mine!"
Oh, God.
She began to run, having no choice but to brave the open yard. Her horse was tethered less than twenty yards away. But those yards stretched like miles when her feet were sucked again and again into the mud. She could hear the labored charge of Zack's horse as he rode after her. Gunshots exploded. She glanced fearfully over her shoulder. Zack jolted, crying out, and nearly toppled from his saddle.
Lally screamed his name.
Fancy spun. She could hear the ominous squishing of Diego's boots, but she couldn't waste her last shots on him. She fired at the first outlaw, who jumped back around the station. The second dived behind the well.
"Ride, Zack, dammit! Leave me and ride!"
He managed to hold his seat. "Fancy, no!"
More bullets sprayed mud around his horse's hooves. The animal stumbled, fighting its bit.
"Save Lally!" She fired her last shot and ran, unable to do anything more for the boy. Despite his valor, bullets were chasing his frightened horse back.
Just ahead, through the gray veil of rain, she could see her horse stomping and snorting. The beast was salvation, tethered by a thread. If she could just reach the mare before it broke free and bolted, she knew she'd be safe. Diego's derringer was useless over ten feet, and the outlaws had no way of giving chase.
She closed the distance.
So did Diego. She could hear him panting behind her. Thirty feet, twenty feet—she was almost there. She stretched out her hand.
A sinister whir whispered behind her.
The bullwhip!
That insidious, nerve-rending sound raised every hair on her scalp. She veered, but the rawhide cracked, lashing around her ankle. She yelped as her foot was yanked out from under her. Pitching forward, she tried to kick free, floundering in the mire as she grabbed for her knife.
"Bitch!" Diego's fist swung, and her blade flew. "Ramera!"
He pulled her up by the collar and slapped her back down. It was the first time he had ever struck her in the face. The realization filled her with a nerve-numbing fear.
"You will pay, puta. You will pay dearly!"
He stomped on her shoulders. Mud filled: her nose and mouth, and she nearly drowned in the ooze. Above the roaring in her brain, she heard Zack and Lally calling. Their cries seemed to come from the protection of the trees. They were safe then—or at least they would be, if the outlaws would stop shooting.
"After them, you idiots! Her horse. Take her horse!"
With Diego momentarily distracted, she crawled to her knees, swiping the mud from her vision. She got no farther. His fingers dug into her hair, and her head snapped back. Her eyes flew wide as a stiletto glinted, descending for her throat.
"Where's Rawlins?" he hissed.
She gagged on the rain that was rolling into her nose and mouth. "He's dead!"
She watched helplessly as one of the outlaws galloped off in pursuit of Zack and Lally.
Please God, please let them escape.
"Wilkerson killed him. For the plates!"
"You're lying."
Lightning flashed, turning Diego into a blazing-eyed demon. His blade pressed harder, and she bit back a whimper, feeling the tender flesh slice.
"Why... would I lie... when you have... the knife?"
He snarled. Suddenly, he pulled her face to his, so close that his hot, whiskey-tainted breath made her head spin.
"It is unfortunate for you, querida, that your lawman is dead. Most unfortunate indeed. Amigos!"
He turned, wrenching her around to face the remaining outlaws. Dimly, she recognized the bleeding one as the man she had shot in the kitchen. Then she stumbled, and her fever—her blessed, God-sent fever—turned the world into a kaleidoscope of whirling blacks and grays.
"See the prize I have for you?" The sneer was unmistakable in Diego's voice. "A finer whore you'll never find. Come, muchachos. Let us take our pleasure!"
Chapter 21
Standing on the ledge that overlooked Blue Mountain Station, Cord checked the barrel of his revolver for the last time. Applegate and his men should be in position by now. The sheriff had agreed to give him ten minutes. Ten minutes to ride in first and rescue Fancy.
Then the shoot-out would begin.
Flanking him in stoic silence, Wes and Zack waited with him for Applegate's signal. Their young faces wore a mixture of dread and grim resolve. They had each lived a personal hell in the last seventy-two hours, and he sensed a change in them. His boys had turned into men. As much as he feared for them in the showdown to come, he couldn't keep them from this fight. They had lost their home and many ranch-hands whom they considered family. Wes and Zack wanted Santana as much as he did.
Cord snapped closed the cylinder of his gun. He could see the pale orange tendrils of dawn creeping up the eastern sky. A few minutes earlier, two outlaws had headed for the trees, one on foot, the other on Fancy's pony. Presumably, they'd gone to round up their missing horses. Cord trusted Applegate to make short, silent work of them. The more outlaws who were disabled before the shoot-out, the less risk there would be to Zack and Wes.
Of course, if his brothers even suspected he was thinking such a thing, they would try to cuff him to a tree.
Cord shook his head. If the situation weren't so grim, he might have smiled. Despite their stubborn assurances to the contrary, the boys were in poor shape for a shoot-out. Wes needed two days of sleep just to look human; Zack was carrying a bullet hole in his arm.
Although being drugged had been humiliating, Cord had to admit that his rest had, ironically, left him the most capable of all the men. Brand and his deputies hadn't returned to Fort Worth until two-thirty in the morning. They'd ridden in with a wounded Colt and both minting plates. No doubt their exhilaration had helped Applegate convince them to head back out again.
Hungry, tired, and soaked to the bone, every single man had nevertheless mounted up for the two-hour ride to Blue Mountain. Cord knew he owed these Fort Worthers one hell of a debt.
He owed Fancy one too.
His gut knotted just to think of what might have transpired in the five-and-one-half hours since she'd freed Zack and Lally. During the ride north, the posse had intercepted the former hostages fifteen miles from the station. Zack, uncommonly defiant, had refused to stay with his aunt at a nearby ranch house, where his arm could be properly bandaged.
"It ain't nothing but a pow
der burn," he had insisted tersely. "Fancy risked her life for us. And while there's still a breath in me, I'm going back to make those bastards pay."
Wes had paled at Zack's uncharacteristic fierceness. "What did they do to her?" he asked hoarsely. "Is she hurt?"
Zack and his aunt exchanged uneasy looks.
"Fancy had a real bad fever, son," Lally said quietly. "She put up a fight you would have been proud of, but I reckon the sickness finally got to her. She fainted."
Cord frowned. Swooning wasn't like Fancy. He suspected there was a lot more to the story than Aunt Lally wanted him or Wes to know. He drilled his eyes into his brother.
"Is that all that happened, Zack?"
The boy swallowed and looked away. "That's all as far as I could see. There wasn't anything we could do for her, Cord. Santana carried her inside, and a gunman started riding after us. We were lucky, 'cause he was too drunk to do much tracking."
The boy had lied about Fancy, of course.
Carefully keeping his features composed, Cord held his rage in his gut, where it would drive him. If Zack and Lally both thought they should keep Fancy's condition from him, then she had been in dire straits indeed. At the very least, Santana had beaten her.
Cord didn't want to think about the worst that might have happened.
This morning there could be one thing, and one thing only, on his mind: getting Fancy out alive. To that end, he would do whatever was necessary. Even if that meant leaving Blue Mountain in a pine box.
A double flash of light from the trees caught his eye. The signal came again. He shoved his gun into his holster. Both his brothers tensed.
"Now, boys," he said quietly, "you know the plan. The clock doesn't start ticking 'til I'm inside that door. Even if you hear shooting, I want you to sit tight. I need the full ten minutes before the posse charges. You got that?"
They nodded.
"All right, then."
He started for the trail.
"Cord!"
His heart wrenched at the panic in Wes's voice. Turning, he saw that neither of his brothers looked quite so stoic now.
A lump rose in his throat. Crossing back to clasp their shoulders, he drew them into a huddle, much as he had done that day at the Diamondback Saloon, when he had told them how to arrest Fancy.
The irony wasn't lost on him. He swallowed hard.
"I'm a lawman, boys," he said gruffly. "This is all part of the job."
"We know," Zack said thickly.
He squeezed the boy's shoulder.
"Dammit," Wes said, "ten minutes is an awful long time to be waiting for you, Cord."
"Well." He forced a smile. "Maybe so. But I've stayed alive a lot longer and in worse spots than this. So do me proud. Okay?"
Wes nodded, his eyes glistening.
Zack drew a shuddering breath and nodded too.
"Okay." He gave them a fierce hug.
Hurrying for the trail, he honed his eyes and ears. He was a predator now, hunting predators. He ran in a crouch, his teeth bared as he headed for the foot of the hill.
The outhouse sat a few feet farther on. The stench was riper than usual since the rain, but he took little notice. His gaze was fixed on the unarmed renegade who was reeling across the yard. When the man reached the privy, he threw the door open and retched. Cord never hesitated. He struck the outlaw from behind, slammed the door shut, and shoved a stick through the outer door handle. The renegade would be a prisoner when he roused again.
One down. Four to go.
He ran across the yard. A second outlaw stood on the porch, rolling a cigarette. Cord stole closer until he could press the muzzle of his gun against the man's temple.
"Make a sound," he hissed, "and you're dead." He draped his neckerchief over the man's shoulder. "Gag yourself."
The outlaw obeyed stiffly.
"Hands behind your back."
When the man hesitated, Cord cocked his revolver. The man's hands couldn't come back fast enough, then. Cord cuffed the outlaw's wrists, ordered him into the shadows, and struck him over the head. He shoved the body beneath the porch.
Two down, three to go.
He glanced inside the window of the main room. In the flickering lamplight, he made out a table that was littered with broken glass and cigarette butts. Behind the bar, the door to the kitchen had been splintered as if from a kick. At the rear of the mess room, a second door stood ajar. Lamplight pooled inside, and he spied movement. A few bedrolls were haphazardly spread outside this door, but no outlaws slept in them.
The burn in his gut raged hotter. He pushed open the main door. Above the groaning of its hinges, he heard wagering and raucous laughter. Then came a whimper and the creaking of a bed.
Every one of Cord's nerves fired. Seeing nothing but red, he charged across the room and flung back the bedroom door.
A man knelt over a writhing form, his pants down around his ankles. Snarling, Cord fired.
A second man, whose face was scratched and bleeding, straightened above Fancy's struggling body. He drew, and Cord gunned him down too.
Cocking his hammer a third time, he saw Santana himself, pale and panting after he'd dived headlong for a shield. Now he pinned Fancy's back to his chest and jammed his derringer under her chin.
"Drop your gun, Rawlins."
For a heartbeat, the only sound in the room was Fancy's wheezing. Cord's insides blazed with a fury that threatened to incinerate him. He couldn't look at her. He couldn't look at her shredded shirt and bruised flesh without exploding like a gun.
"Drop it," Santana repeated more savagely, "or I'll blow her brains out."
Her head made a tiny, protesting gesture, but any words she might have uttered were silenced by the pressure at her throat.
Cord bit back a feral sound. He tightened his grip on his gun butt so hard, it sawed into his flesh. He knew Santana was bluffing. The bastard wouldn't waste his only bullet on Fancy.
But the outlaw could flinch. The pistol could go off by mistake. Cord didn't dare take that chance.
Easing the hammer on his gun back into place, he fastened the safety and let the Colt slip from his fingers.
Santana's chest heaved, as if he were relieved. "Kick it here."
Slowly, deliberately, Cord placed his instep along the revolver's barrel. Keeping his eyes locked with Santana's, he shoved the gun beneath the bed.
A red stain crept up Santana's cheeks. "You will regret your impudence," he hissed.
"Yeah?" Cord sneered, strolling closer. "So what are you waiting for? I don't see any ball and chain holding you back this time. Or maybe you're just a pretty Nancy-boy who can't lick anything more than a swooning woman."
"You dig your grave, lawman. You dig your grave and hers."
"That's mighty big talk for a mudsill dandy."
Fancy whimpered, her eyes rolling in warning, but he knew a derringer's range. He planned to step well within it. Fifteen feet, twelve feet—he continued his advance.
Santana was trapped between him and the wall; the bed barred his escape to the right. Santana was many things, but he wasn't a fool. Eventually, he would have to train that pistol on him. And Cord wasn't about to let some lady's popgun slow him down.
Fancy squeezed her eyes closed. The room kept whirling in and out of focus. She struggled to concentrate, to warn Cord again, but her head ached so much and she was so thirsty. She should never have called to Diego. She should never have begged him for water. When he heard she was awake, he'd brought the other outlaws.
Why did he have to be so cruel? And why did he always want to hurt her? She had loved him once. She had tried to make him happy. Lying to Cord, she had even risked her freedom to keep Diego from the gallows. Did none of that matter to him?
The question confused her. Diego confused her. If he cared so little about her after all she had done, then why did Cord care so much?
She spilled a tear. Cord. He had come to save her. Even though she had nearly cost him his family, he had come. She
didn't understand. He must not realize how she'd betrayed him.
Someday, somehow, he was sure to find out.
But she would rather lose him to her lie than lose him to Diego.
She forced herself to cling to that thought, drumming it again and again through her brain. Fear for Cord was the one thing that could stave off the darkness. She had to stop Diego.
"Your tongue is the first thing I will cut off," Diego said, his voice harsh and ragged in her ear. "Then I will cut off your so-called manhood."
"Why's that, Santana? Are you needing one of your own?"
Diego snarled, cocking his gun beneath her chin. Cord halted an arm's length away. His smile was truly terrible. Fancy had never seen anything like it before. Even at Diego's most diabolic, he had never looked so feral. So ferocious.
In that moment, Cord was afraid of nothing. Not pain, not death, not Satan himself. It was the first time—and perhaps the last—that Diego had ever faced a fearless victim. She could feel Diego's heart careening against her spine.
"So what are you going to do, Santana?" Cord taunted in a low, guttural voice. "You got one bullet. You kill her, you got me left over. And I'm your express train to hell."
"Then die first, like the pig you are."
Diego's fist swung out. Cord lunged to the side, and Fancy screamed. She tried to throw herself against Diego's arm, but the bullet found a piece of its mark, ripping into Cord's shoulder. She nearly died to see his blood, but his charge hardly faltered. He slammed Diego into the wall, and the whole room shook.
She found herself crawling over dead outlaws, trying desperately to get out of the way, trying even more desperately not to retch—-or worse, faint. She had to get to Cord's gun, but the floor kept heaving beneath her.
The grunting and cursing seemed to be moving past the window now. She heard the shattering of panes, the tinkling of glass. Crimson smeared the frame, and the combatants moved on. Fists and elbows flying, they crashed from the wall to the door to the mess room beyond.
Diego was taller, and he should have had the advantage against a wounded man. But Cord's fists were a blur, pounding with the force of twin hammers. She saw the spray of spittle; she heard the howl as Diego lost one of his perfect teeth.
Tin-Stars and Troublemakers Box Set (Four Complete Historical Western Romance Novels in One) Page 67