by Wesley Ellis
Ki scrambled down the slope, gesturing to the man behind him. The Mexican stumbled in his anxiousness but caught up with Ki. Ki ripped the clothing from the fat man and shoved it to him.
“Hurry,” Ki prompted.
“If they find out I’m not one of them—” the Mexican objected.
“Do it, now! Or they will find out.”
Ki watched briefly as the man from San Ignacio began stripping off his own clothes; then he turned and sprinted softly after the slave caravan.
Ahead of Ki, Diego Cardero, knife in hand, lay in a gully beside the trail. He heard the riders slowly rounding the bend and the screech of ungreased wheels against wooden axles. He lowered his head, gripping the knife more tightly.
Diego peered up through the screen of chia and sagebrush, seeing a horseman pass—a narrow, scarred man riding a gray horse with silver trappings.
That was one man—Cardero counted them as they passed his position. If Ki had done his work, the fifth man would be the last. And Diego had no doubt that the Japanese had done his work. He had never seen a warrior to equal Ki.
Four bandidos had passed. The next one then. Diego watched closely; the slavers ahead hadn’t yet cleared the bend. If they glanced back... The fifth slaver appeared, straggling now, glancing behind him, perhaps realizing that one man was missing. Diego could see the perplexed expression in his eyes, could see him holding up his horse a little as he looked back down the winding, narrow trail.
Slowly the bandit halted his horse and turned it. He shifted the rifle he held in his hand and sat his blue roan, waiting for the man behind him, the man who would not be coming.
Cardero raised himself cautiously and then launched himself from the underbrush, leaping for the back of the bandit’s horse. He was up behind the bandido before the man knew what had happened, and Cardero, one hand over the slaver’s mouth, stabbed deeply with his knife, ripping at heart muscle and lung tissue as the bandit thrashed futilely in his arms. The bandit fell from his horse, rifle dropping free and Cardero bent low to recover the man’s sombrero.
Ki was jogging around the bend in the trail now, pointing ahead. Cardero nodded and turned his stolen horse. Behind Ki, the second masquerading attacker came. He seemed relieved to see Cardero, grinned, and held up the shotgun taken from the dead bandido. Diego nodded and they started on together.
Rata was what the pocked bandit was called. Rat—it suited him well. Rata was riding beside the last cart. Where were that stupid Domingo and the equally stupid Ramon? What use were those two? Stupid and lazy.
Even back at the Indian village, they had been useless. They didn’t fight worth a damn when those braves had decided to try making a stand. They stood back and watched. Don Alejandro himself would hear about that!
Rata saw them coming—finally. The two of them towing a slave between them. Maybe Rata had been wrong. They had captured an escaping slave at least. That was a thousand pesos they had saved Don Alejandro.
When had the slave gotten away? Rata frowned and started his horse toward the two slavers. The man they held between them was tall, very tall. His head was down, but even so Rata could have sworn he had never seen this one before. Even his face was not Indian. Nor was it Mexican.
“Hey, Domingo! What is this? Qué pasa? Who have you got there?”
Rata’s beady eyes narrowed. Something was not right. He held up his horse again. That wasn’t Domingo at all!
That was the last coherent thought Rata was to have in his violent life. As he watched, the slave between the two horsemen freed his hands and then something silver and flashing was humming its way toward him, something that sailed like a dragonfly, seemingly insubstantial. It buried itself in Rata’s forehead with a force like a mule’s kick.
Rata lifted his gun, but his fingers could not hold the rifle that was suddenly as heavy as an anvil. Rata watched his rifle fall to the ground. With a pawing gesture, he swiped at the thing imbedded in his forehead, and then he slid to the earth, his hand trying to hold his saddlehorn and was dragged a few feet by his horse.
From the brush, a man appeared, rushed to Rata’s body, and began stripping it as Ki and Diego passed. The Mexican yanked the shuriken from Rata’s forehead, glanced at it in wonder, and tossed it to Ki who caught it and tucked it away in his pocket.
Three. There should only be three of them left, Maria Sanchez thought, if everything had gone right. She was crouched in the tall, purple flowering sage beside the trail—listening, waiting, and watching. She let the first two riders pass her, watching them glance down across the valley and past the sheer drop that now sided the trail toward the Casa Don Alejandro.
She was silent and motionless, but when the third man appeared, she ripped open the seam of her riding blouse’s sleeve and began to moan softly.
“Help me. Por favor, help me. In the name of God.”
The slaver was almost past her when he heard her cries, saw Maria stagger up from the brush and then fall back in a faint. He turned his horse, swung down, and walked to her.
This was something. Madre de Dios, a beautiful woman alone in the country. Smiling, the bandit walked into the brush, moving toward Maria who lay face up, her breasts straining at the fabric of her light blouse. Three buttons were open and the glimpse of smooth, coppery cleavage the bandit caught caused his breath to strangle off to a hiss. He worked his way down the slope toward Maria.
He never saw the other woman, the honey-blonde with the green eyes who moved silently behind him and drove her knife into his back as he stood slavering over Maria Sanchez, his body tightening with thoughts of what he could do with such a woman.
He never saw Jessica Starbuck, but he felt the razor-edged knife bit into his flesh, felt the sudden, jagged pain. He tried to turn, to fight off his assailant, but the woman on the ground suddenly rose up, slashing out with her own knife. The blade raked his throat, and then the bandit was aware of nothing else. He fell to the ground to die twitching.
Maria Sanchez spat into his dying face.
“Two left,” Jessica said. “Let’s hope they die as silently.”
They did die silently. Quickly and silently. Diego rode by the line of carts, dragging a thrashing Ki by the collar. As the two lead bandidos turned to find out what was happening, Ki took the man on their left. Leaping from the ground, he took the bandit down by the throat, took him down and with a crushing blow to the man’s throat, and left him strangling in the dust.
Diego had brought the rifle he carried up and around and, wielding it like a club, slammed it against the skull of the bandido to the right. He dropped from the horse in a tangle and rolled off into the brushy ravine below them.
And then there were none. Only the men of San Ignacio dressed in bandit clothes, the two women, Ki, and Diego—and half a hundred fearful, perplexed Indian slaves who stood or sat in the carts staring at these new-comers.
“What do we do with them?” Diego asked, dusting himself off.
“The slaves? We need them,” Ki answered.
“We can‘t, Ki,” Jessica interrupted, touching Ki’s arm. “Look at them. How can we drag them on with us? They think they’re still slaves. Let them go.”
“If we let them go—”
“Our people can take their places. No one will notice the difference, not right away.”
Ki looked again at the wretched Indians. Reluctantly he admitted that Jessica was right. “We’ll let them go. Diego, are they Papago Indians? Can you talk to them?”
“I’ll find out. These are not Papago. Maybe that one there,” he gestured. “What do I tell them?”
“To run. To turn and run and don’t look back. To go home and hide in the hills.”
Diego found one old man who spoke many tongues. It was to him that Cardero gave the instructions. Even after the old man translated what Cardero had said, however, many of the Indians remained where they were, thinking perhaps it was a trick. It wasn’t until Diego gave the old man a spare rifle and one of the Mexicans prod
uced the key to the manacles that he found in the pocket of a jacket that a buzz of conversation and excited movement began.
“Tell them to keep quiet, Cardero. Just keep quiet and go.”Ki looked to those who had filtered down through the brush to join them. “Start getting up into the carts. No hats, for God’s sake. Keep your weapons hidden.” Ki looked to the sky, seeing the sun start to drop toward the western mountains. “At dusk,” he told them, “when it will be difficult for any guards to make us out—at dusk we attack.”
They waited on the canyon trail, guards posted behind and ahead of the slave train. The Mexicans in the carts were unsettled, nervously watching the sun as it arced lower, flushed pink, and then vanished into the cradle of the dark mountains beyond the valley.
“They’re nervous,” Jessica said, “and I don’t blame them. We could darn well be setting them up for a slaughter.”
Ki had been watching the big house on the peak across the dark valley. His thoughts were much the same as Jessie‘s, but it did no good now to reflect on them. He had seen little activity around the house—Once in a while a guard on the stony bluff above the cactus thicket, and once what seemed to be a man in the window of one of the towers. Other than that there was nothing, which meant that Brecht was probably still there. As far as Ki could tell, there was only one way in and one way out of the fortress, and no one had gone up or down it.
Ki turned suddenly. It was time. He glanced at the sun himself, tugged down the sombrero he wore, and nodded. Returning to the canyon trail, he swung aboard a gray horse with a silver mounted saddle and waited while the rest of his soldiers took their positions.
Jessie was beside him in a vaquero’s suit that was far too big and showed a blood stain on the front. She looked silently at Ki, waiting. Her mouth was dry; her hand clenched the repeating rifle she held.
Ki’s hand lifted and then fell and he started his horse forward. The carts with their human burden creaked into motion. The men of San Ignacio, posing as slaves, trudged forward, with their heads down and their pistols beneath their shirts. Diego Cardero looked skyward once, as if calling to an old Papago war spirit. Maria Sanchez, also in a man’s clothing, breathed a word that might have been a prayer—or a curse.
They wound down the canyon trail, rolled onto the shadowy valley, and made their way toward the great house. It stood in sunlight still, although the rest of the knoll, the valley, and the lower surrounding hills were dark. No one spoke. There was no sound but the screeching of wheels, the occasional blowing of a horse, and the creak of saddle leather.
Cardero, who would do the talking, rode in front now, Ki beside him, and Jessie back a way so that her disguise wouldn’t be so obvious.
They found the gate that shut off the road to the big house, opened it from on horseback, and rolled on through. The road turned sharply upward and narrowed. Nopal cactus, shoulder high to a horse and impenetrable, clotted the bank above them.
“Here’s trouble,” Cardero whispered urgently and Ki, too, saw the men: two guards carrying shotguns standing across the road, blocking their progress.
One of them called out, “Fine time to show up, Rata.”
“What’s wrong?” Cardero answered in a hoarse voice. Ki saw one of the guards thumb back the hammers to his shotgun. The bluff wasn’t going to work. A smooth, hard shuriken filled Ki’s hand. The one on the right first if need be, he thought.
“We’re pulling out. Everything’s gone to hell... Rata?” the guard said questioningly. He came forward, peering at Cardero out of the deep dusk.
“Damn it all—who are you?” the guard demanded. He brought his shotgun up and cut loose a load of buckshot, the roar of it shattering the stillness of the night and ending the masquerade with blood and gunsmoke.
Chapter 20
The load of buckshot belched from the fiery muzzle of the shotgun carried by Don Alejandro’s guard. Ki had already been moving as the guard brought the shotgun up, for he had thrown himself from horseback to roll to the side of the road, and from a kneeling position, he flipped a deadly shuriken into the throat of the guard. The second man acted too slowly to be of any help. A shot from Jessica’s Winchester ripped through his body, slamming him back against the earth to twitch for a moment before dying painfully.
“Diego?” Ki called out.
“I’m all right, Diego Cardero answered. ”You should see the hat I was wearing, though.“
Maria wasn’t nearly as calm as the two men. “They’ll be coming now. That’s done it!”
Ki was to his feet and dragging one of the guards to the side of the road. “Quickly roll them down into the cactus.”
“What good will that—”
“Quickly,” Ki snapped.
Diego took the other man and kicked him over the side. It wasn’t a moment too soon. Three guards on foot were running down the trail, rifles at the ready. Ki adopted a casual stance and Diego followed suit, holding his rifle beside his leg. The guards, seeing no apparent trouble, slowed a little, their alertness dropping a notch.
“What’s going on?” one of them demanded.
“Damn slave,” Cardero muttered. “Bastard tried to take off—” He lifted a pointing finger and the guards’ eyes automatically followed. “Through the damned nopal.”
Something rang in one of the guard’s heads. He realized something was wrong, although his reasoning hadn’t yet identified it. He turned sharply, bringing his rifle up. Ki slamed the butt of his rifle into the guard’s throat, and he collapsed like a sack of potatoes. The other two suddenly found themselves covered by three guns and they dropped their weapons warily, looking from Ki to Jessie to Diego.
“Tie them up and gag them. Tear one of those Indian blankets into strips,” Diego ordered.
Ki stopped him, “Wait a minute. I want to talk to one of them.” He stood near a tall guard with pouched eyes and a very frightened expression. “Where are the slaves?” he asked.
“Go to hell,” the guard answered.
Ki lifted his hand and put it on the man’s throat. Searching for and finding a knot of nerve endings he began to apply pressure, and excruciating pain shot through the guard’s body. He wasn’t brave enough to take that.
“Behind the house,” he panted as Ki’s hand continued its probe of the nerve endings. “They’ve dug a pit.”
“A pit!” Maria gasped.
The guard wasn’t aware enough of what was going on to be surprised by a woman’s voice. Ki still held his grip, and now anger had tightened his fingers, anger at the guard, Don Alejandro, the cartel.
“What’s the pit for?” Ki asked.
“To—to bury them. Don Alejandro is leaving. We can’t take them with us... Madre de Dios, señor! The pain!”
Ki’s hand fell away. “Tie this one, too,” he said savagely. To the men of San Ignacio, he said, “Everyone out. Here—here’s a rifle. You take this one.”
“It is time to fight?” one of the peasants asked.
“You heard what they’re going to do here,” Ki responded angrily. “What do you think?”
“I think, señor,”the man answered, “that it is time to fight.”
“Criminals,” Maria muttered bitterly, “savages!”
“What’s the plan, Ki?” Diego asked.
“There may not be time to worry about one,” Ki answered. “There are two objectives—the house and the place of execution. Leave the house until last. We’ve got to stop them from killing those slaves. Leave the horses. Come on! Silently. Silently and swiftly.”
Men filtered past Ki in the night. He couldn’t see their faces, but he could feel their anger. Revulsion at Don Alejandro’s savage plan had strengthened the backbones of the men of San Ignacio.
“Ki.” Jessie was beside him.
Ki nodded. “Let’s go. It’s time our man paid the price.”
They began to jog up the trail. Above them they could make out a single tower against the dark sky. Stars were beginning to blink on; the air was rich with the s
cent of nopal and sage. Ki’s silent army moved through the shadows.
The night was dark and empty and quiet. The quiet lasted to the top of the road. There an iron gate with plenty of firepower protecting it stood in their way.
From behind the gate and adjacent stone wall, rifles opened up spitting flame into the night. A man went down in front of Ki, flinging his rifle away as he writhed in pain. Another crumpled up with a cry of anguish. Ki’s army answered the bandidos’ guns with a barrage of their own. Bullets whined off the stone wall and rang against iron.
Ki saw a bandido rise from behind the wall and be cut in half by a blast from a shotgun. Jessica was to Ki’s right, and he glanced her way, assuring himself she was all right for the time being.
Ki never slowed as he reached the wall. He hurdled it, delivering a kick to the face of a guard and crushing his skull. Rolling to the ground, Ki swept the feet out from under a second man just as he was ready to fire with his Colt pistol.
Ki chopped at the side of the guard’s neck as the man fell. He lay back, his neck broken. Jessie had clambered over the wall as well, and now as the onslaught of peons continued, the bandidos fell back, racing for the shelter of the big house and its high walls.
There was sniper fire from the twin towers and from several of the upstairs windows, but by ducking behind its high walls and moving through the hedges and trees behind the house, very few casualties were suffered.
Ki was far in the lead as the army emerged from the trees to find the vast pit that had been dug in the yard: a vast pit with a forlorn legion of Indian slaves standing hopelessly near it and a contingent of well-armed guards.
The men of San Ignacio wasted no time for once. Bursting from the trees and following in Ki’s footsteps, they opened up on the guards. Gunfire racked the guards’ bodies. They tried futilely to fight back, but they were overmatched.