The Mission War

by Wesley Ellis

  Cardero watched Jessie and Ki go. He took up a post in the hayloft, smoking his usual thin cigar. The Papago had drifted away, but Diego wasn’t worried about that one. He was a solitary hunter, a warrior of the shadows. He would do his part.

  Diego realized then that he had forgotten in all that had happened to tell Ki that Halcón had ridden out alone just before the battle started. He turned that over in his mind, considered going after Jessie and Ki, and then shrugged the concern away. What did it matter what Halcón was up to. What did they have to fear from a single rider?

  Cardero settled in with his cigar and his guns and watched the slow, bloody night pass.

  Chapter 13

  Surprisingly, the mission was ablaze with light, but then the need for secrecy was gone. Mono was beaten. He was beaten, but it would still be necessary to convince the inhabitants of San Ignacio that it was so.

  Jessie put it into words. “If he decided to attack again, there won’t be anything standing in San Ignacio. If he comes out of that cantina, Ki, he’s going to destroy everything he sees, kill any person he enounters.”

  She was right, Ki knew. He didn’t mean to let it happen. Inside the mission a meeting of sorts was already being held in the rectory.

  Rivera was holding forth and he was furious. “To throw your weapons away ...” he was ranting as Jessica Starbuck and Ki entered the room to view the ragged, disconsolate army that had gone out not long ago so full of fervor and courage. “You, Guerrero, where is your gun? Cristobal, why did you run away from your position?”

  “You know why,” someone snapped. “Mono was attacking us. His men are killers. They have repeating weapons and they know how to use them. What were we to do? Stand there and be slaughtered?”

  “Yes, damn you, if that’s what it took!” The alcalde was wild with anger.

  Ki decided it was time to take over the meeting. Maria Sanchez watched as her man walked to the front of the room—past the quiet eyes of the friar, the quizzical faces of the Mexicans.

  “You did well,” Ki said. It was necessary to give them some scrap of dignity to cling to, to bolster their confidence in some way. Railing at them as Rivera had been doing wasn’t very helpful. “You all did well,” Ki went on despite Rivera’s groan, “but the job is not completed yet. Mono is beaten. We have to go now and finish the job, however.”

  “Beaten? How can you say he’s beaten?”

  “Because he is.” Ki’s voice was calm, reassuring.

  “He drove us off, ran us out of our own town with his repeating weapons.”

  “He drove you off, but he lost some men. He lost his horses and with them his chance of making an escape,” Ki said.

  “How many men?” Rivera wanted to know.

  “Three, I think. There may have been another killed. He has only five or six men left. And he’s trapped in the cantina. He’s got to be getting low on ammunition. He has no food for his men except the little that might be in the cantina itself. He’s got nowhere to run.”

  “Six men,” Rivera said, “and you are afraid of them!”

  “It’s understandable that you ran,” Ki said. “All men are afraid at times. But you must understand that you have this man beaten now.”

  Ki looked them over. Their faces reflected every attitude from disbelief to renewed fervor. He went on, “All we have to do is return to our positions and keep him barricaded in the cantina. Some of our men were hurt tonight, some killed—this only happened because they didn’t listen to orders. Standing up on the rooftops got at least one man shot. If we go about this properly and stick to instructions, no one will be hurt. Mono will have to surrender.”

  “He’ll never let himself be hung. They’ll come out shooting.”

  “Then,” Ki said, “we shall shoot them down. There are only five or six of them. We have the advantage of position. Stay down on the rooftops! You offer no target at all that way. Are you going to let this man off the hook now? Now when you have a chance to finish it? This is for your town and your families.”

  “We will go back,” one man said quietly.

  A murmured chorus followed that: “We will go back”; “Six men, we can defeat six men”; “We’ll show those bastards they can’t come to San Ignacio and run things.”

  Rivera was satisfied, relieved. Jessica Starbuck was impatient. Only Diego and Fly Catcher were standing watch at the present time. If Mono tried to make his break soon, he was liable to succeed—at the cost of Diego Cardero’s life.

  “Ki,” she prompted, “there’s no time for more talk.”

  To the townspeople he said, “Now! Let us return to our positions. Stay down. You know what to do; now do it!”

  Again they went out into the night. Jessica was tired. Her nostrils were still filled with the scent of smoke. The night was cool, the stars bright. Ki walked silently beside her as they worked their way toward the stable, every bit as cautious as they had been on the first excursion.

  Diego wasn’t there—and then he was, swinging lightly down from the loft to meet them.

  “All still?” Ki asked.

  “So far. Has our reluctant army returned?”

  “Taking up their positions.”

  “We’ve got the son of a bitch then,” Diego said confidently.

  “So it appears.” Ki looked around. “The horses are still here.”

  “I couldn’t do two things at once. I’ll get them out now. Jessie?”

  “I’ll help,” she responded.

  “We’ll take them back along the river—in the willows somewhere.” Diego hesitated. “There is one thing, Ki.”

  Ki lifted an eyebrow. “What?”

  “Halcón. He rode out before the battle started. I meant to tell you.”

  “Halcón? Where in blazes would he have gone?” Jessica asked.

  “He might have had enough of Mono,” Ki commented.

  “I thought of that.” Diego Cardero was thoughtful for a moment. “Not Halcón. I don’t believe it. There was something between those two. I wasn’t there, but it seems to me that Mono pulled Halcón out from under the shadow of the hangman’s noose at one time.”

  “Damn it all,” Ki said very softly.

  “Ki?” Jessica was surprised at the emotion in Ki’s voice. “What is it?”

  “Don’t you remember what they told us, Jessica? I can’t recall who, when, but didn’t they tell us?”

  “Tell us what, Ki?”

  “Tell us that Mono can muster an army of a hundred bandidos any time he felt like it.”

  Jessica was stunned into silence. Diego cursed under his breath. “It’s true,” he said. “He can do that.”

  “Halcón ...

  “Halcón could be riding for help, probably is.”

  “Of course, he is,” Diego said.

  “How far does he have to ride? How many bandits can be within a day’s ride? A two-day ride?”

  “Too many,” Diego said. “Halcón will go there”—he lifted his eyes—“to the ranch of Don Alejandro. There are many bandits there, many.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “I don’t know.” Diego shrugged. “A fast horse, a good rider ... twenty-four hours. Maybe much less.”

  “This changes everything,” Ki said unhappily, staring at the empty street, the square bulk of the buildings against the night sky. “Mono is barricaded in there. Eventually he would have to come out or surrender. These soldiers we have trained, Jessica, are good enough for the job we have given them. But for storming that cantina, getting Mono out before Halcón can return...”

  “If they find out what has happened, they’ll run for the hills,” Diego put in. “I can’t blame them. If Mono is reinforced, he’ll turn San Ignacio into a pile of ashes. He’s done it before. There won’t be any mercy.”

  “And he’ll find us,” Jessica said with a deep sigh. “Well,” she asked the men, “what do we do?”

  “There’s nothing much to do,” Ki said, “except to fight—and to hope to G
od we’re wrong about what Halcón is up to.”

  None of them clung too strongly to that hope. Halcón could have had only one reason for riding out. Mono would have his army—and soon. That meant he wouldn’t consider surrender, that he wouldn’t step out of the cantina until he was reinforced. That meant that Ki and Jessica had persuaded a town full of simple peasants to offer themselves for the slaughter.

  “We’ll take the horses,” Diego said, as if that made any difference now. Still, there wasn’t a lot to do but stick to the original plan.

  Cardero and Jessica led the horses to the river and left them picketed there. Cardero didn’t say two words the whole way there and back.

  “What is it?” Jessie asked. The frogs still croaked along the dark river. The night breeze shifted the cattails. She hooked a finger in his shirt front and stood looking up at him.

  “Nothing I wish to discuss,” he replied.

  “Secrets?”

  “If you like.” He smiled and kissed her smooth forehead.

  Back at the stable, Ki stood watch. He glanced at Jessie and Cardero and then returned his gaze to the street.

  “Nothing?” she asked.

  “It’s my fault, you know. I let Halcón go. I didn’t want to fire a shot then, just before the battle.”

  “You can’t blame yourself,” Ki said.

  Cardero didn’t respond to that. Instead he said, “We’ve got the bear in his den but who’s going to get him out?”

  Jessica turned around with astonishment on her face. “You can’t be thinking what I think you are.”

  “Why not?” Cardero asked, looking to Ki for support.

  “What else is there to do? Mono can’t be left in the cantina. He’s got to be driven out.”

  “What good will that do?” Jessie asked a little frantically.“ If Halcón returns with more bandits ...”

  “We’ll deal with that when we have to,” Diego said. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully and produced another cigar from his shirt pocket. He was looking at the cantina now, looking intently.

  “You have something in mind?” Ki asked.

  “Smoke.” Diego looked at his match and blew it out, watching the curling smoke rise into the darkness of the stable.

  “You want to smoke him out? How?” Jessica asked. She didn’t think much of the idea and she was letting Cardero know it.

  “That,” Diego Cardero admitted with a smile, “will take a little thought.”

  “Ki,” Jessie pleaded, “don’t let him try it—it’s madness.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Perhaps. But if we can get him out into the streets, finish him, and then withdraw to a more defensible position—into the hills, perhaps—we might yet save San Ignacio and its inhabitants. And,” he added more coldly, “the world would be rid of the ape, Mono.”

  “Don’t let him do it, Ki,” Jessie said again, but Ki was far from sure that it was a poor idea. Dangerous, yes, but maybe it was their only alternative in this war they were apparently losing.

  “I can’t stop a man from doing what he feels he must,” Ki answered, and Jessica Starbuck made a disgusted, hissing sound.

  “You have another idea?” Diego asked. He took Jessie, turned her, and looked into her eyes. He was smiling that infuriating smile. Jessie softened a little.

  “Not an idea in the world,” she admitted reluctantly.

  “Then let us see if this one has some merit.”

  The man behind them appeared like a magician’s illusion. But then Fly Catcher was sometimes more of a shadow that a real man of blood and bone. He spoke quietly to Cardero in their tongue. Cardero answered, gesturing toward the cantina. The Indian nodded and pointed.

  “What’s up?” Ki asked.

  “He thinks we can make it across the rooftops. It’s a hell of a jump from the feed store to the cantina, but if we can make it, we can get to the chimney that rises from the oven in the cantina’s kitchen.”

  “The smoke might never get out into the cantina proper,” Ki pointed out.

  “Might not,” Cardero agreed. “We might not get to the roof. Hell, we might not get across the street, Ki, and you know it.That’s no reason for not trying.”

  “No,” Ki agreed. “It is no reason.”

  Cardero was a brave man and a good warrior. Still, Ki couldn’t shake the feeling he had that there was something more to the mystery of Diego Cardero, despite what he had told them about his motives for wanting to get to Don Alejandro. Did he really have to join Mono to do that? Or was it for sheer profit that he had joined the bandit leader?

  One fact was indisputable. Cardero was willing to lay his life on the line now to try to smoke Mono out of his den. It was a long chance, but it was a chance. Ki nodded agreement.

  “What do you want us to do?”

  “Let’s scrounge some rags first, plenty of them. Tie them into big bundles. Then let’s find some kerosene. And,” he added, “one match.”

  Cardero grinned and even Ki had to admire the man’s poise and confidence. Of Fly Catcher he had no doubts whatsoever. He was a skilled and determined man. His thoughts were focused on one objective, hurting the slavers—hurting the slavers and getting his wife back.

  Rags were easy to come by—old horse blankets and discarded cloths filled a small cupboard in the back of the stable. Kerosene, used for lanterns, was found in a five-gallon can in the same cupboard.

  Cardero tied the rags into bundles and soaked them with kerosene. When he was finished, he looked to Fly Catcher. The Papago didn’t speak, didn’t so much as nod. He simply turned and started away into the darkness.

  He was a warrior going out to war just as the men in his tribe had done for thousands of years. The enemy was there, just across the street, and the time had come to destroy the enemy of the Papago people.

  The time had come to kill the slavers.

  Chapter 14

  Ki, who usually shunned firearms but who was expert with them, snuggled down behind the sights of Cardero’s Winchester. Only a rifle would do in this situation; Ki’s shuriken rested in the pockets of his borrowed monk’s robe. The sight on the Winchester swept across the front window of the cantina, the closed and barred door. Anyone appearing at door or window would be shot down. This was no time for mercy.

  Jessica Starbuck also held a rifle. Her eyes lifted frequently to the rooftops. She had trouble concentrating on her primary task—covering the two silent men who worked their way toward the cantina roof. Bundles of rags were strapped to their lithe and agile bodies. Their minds were intent on the death of Mono and his bandidos.

  Diego boosted Fly Catcher to the roof of the grain store, and the Indian reached down to tug Cardero up. Then the two men worked to the opposite side of the roof and paused there a minute.

  “That’s a hell of a jump,” Jessie said to Ki as they watched.

  “They’ll have to get a running start,” Ki answered.

  Ki was right. As they watched, Fly Catcher retreated a little way and then began a mad dash toward the edge of the roof. He flew threw the air, arms windmilling, and landed with amazing softness on the roof of the cantina.

  “They’ll hear them,” Jessie told Ki.

  “They won’t be able to do anything about it if they do hear them. The bandits can’t shoot through the roof.”

  Cardero had backed up, and now he ran toward the gap between the two buildings, launching himself into space. He missed and Jessie gasped. His boot toes scraped the edge of the roof and slid back into the void beneath him. Fly Catcher grabbed his arm just in time and drew him up and onto the roof.

  They could see Cardero lie still for a long minute as if he were catching his breath. He rose to a kneeling position and then stood, glancing once toward the stable.

  “They’ll make it,” Ki said. “They’ve gotten to the chimney.”

  And Cardero and Fly Catcher were at the chimney. Jessie saw a match strike, a small, glowing point of red light against the darkness. Then there was a larger, brig
hter glow as the kerosene on the rag bundle Diego held caught fire and was dropped into the chimney.

  Smoke billowed into the air. Bundle after bundle was forced into the chimney and then the chimney mouth itself was closed with a dry bundle of rags. What smoke there was now only had one direction to go—down into the cantina’s kitchen.

  “Get ready,” Ki said. If things worked out properly, Mono and his bandits, choking and gasping, would burst from the cantina, guns blazing, to be met by a murderous answering barrage of bullets.

  Things didn’t work out properly at all. In fact, the daring project turned to disaster within minutes.

  Jessica Starbuck and Ki saw the two men on the rooftop begin working their way back and then Jessie saw something that stopped her heart cold.

  “Ki!” she cried out loudly. Below Diego and Fly Catcher in the alley, a man had appeared. It might have been Arturo—things moved too quickly to be sure. The bandido’s rifle boomed as Diego Cardero leaped for the roof of the feed store across the alley and it was obvious that Cardero was hit.

  Diego landed awkwardly roughly, on the rooftop, rolling to one side and clutching his chest. Fly Catcher had been ready to leap, but now he drew back as a second bullet cut the night, chipping plaster from the wall of the adobe, inches from the Papago Indian’s head.

  Jessie opened up with her rifle. Four spinning .44 slugs creased the darkness between the stable and the cantina, and Arturo—if that was who it was—fell back, firing his own rifle from his hip, levering through five, six, seven slugs until his repeater was empty. Bullets scored the walls of the stable around Jessie and Ki. One bullet caught an iron hinge on the door and whined off erratically into the night.

  Fly Catcher leaped and Arturo could do nothing about it, he was behind a barrel, thumbing cartridges into the magazine of his weapon frantically.

  Ki had begun to fire now as well, his carefully sighted shots peppering the rain barrel, which must have been full of water. There was no evidence that any of the bullets penetrated the far side of the barrel, and in another moment, Arturo, his rifle fully reloaded, aimed a deadly swarm of bullets at Jessie and Ki, who kept their heads down while Arturo made his escape.