The sky was completely clear at the moment, however, with no thunder rumbling or lightning flickering even in the far distance, so she knew it was safe to slip over the edge and hide in the arroyo until she either saw what had spooked her horse or whatever it was moved on.
She had placed the carbine on the blanket beside her when she sat down. Now she picked it up and hurried to hide in the little cleft that nature had carved across the landscape.
Darcy listened intently. Her horse whickered softly and moved around some, but she had picketed the animal securely and didn’t think it would pull free. She didn’t hear anything else. No other horses, no men’s voices, nothing except the faint sigh of a night breeze as the land gave up some of the day’s heat.
Then a tiny, gritty scrape sounded behind her as she crouched just below the rim of the arroyo’s bank. Darcy gasped and turned and saw the man-shaped patch of darkness standing only a few feet from her.
In that instant, time seemed to stop. Something was wrong with the shape’s head, something that made it seem grotesque and inhuman.
Then it took a step toward her and enough starlight penetrated into the arroyo for her to realize that the man wore a steeple-crowned sombrero. He lifted a hand and lurched toward her. She saw his face then, twisted and evil, and jerked the carbine up. She started to fire as fast as she could work the weapon’s lever and pull the trigger.
Smoke had made good on his promise to blaze a trail for Matt and Preacher. Matt figured Preacher could have followed their quarry anyway—the old mountain man had no equal when it came to tracking—but it was easier because of the marks Smoke had left behind as he and Mordecai Kroll rode east. A small scratched arrow on a rock, a branch on a scrubby bush broken and twisted in a certain direction, pebbles arranged in an almost unnoticeable pattern . . . To Preacher’s keen eyes, they might as well have been signposts, and Matt knew that Smoke was clever enough to leave the telltale marks without Mordecai ever realizing what he was doing.
They made a cold camp as usual at the base of a small mesa, and after they had eaten their meager supper, Matt asked, “How much farther do you think it is to the hideout?”
“Why, I ain’t got no more clue about that than I do about what’s on t’other side of the moon, boy. Shoot, it could be anywhere. We knew we might be lettin’ ourselves in for a long chase when we lit out after Smoke and that Kroll varmint.”
Matt lay back on his bedroll with his hands locked together behind his head and said, “Yeah, I know that. But think about it . . . Mordecai Kroll was by himself when Luke captured him up in Apache County. Doesn’t it stand to reason that the hideout had to be within a few days’ ride from there? Mordecai wouldn’t have gone off somewhere weeks away from the hideout unless he was leaving the gang, and from what Smoke said about him, there’s never been any indication that he wanted to do that. He’s been content to let his big brother, Rudolph, call the shots.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Preacher said. “What you’re sayin’ makes sense, but we ain’t got no proof of it. And there’s a whole heap o’ things in this world, younker, that don’t make sense.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Matt said. “But still, I’m going to hope that we’re not too far from the hideout now—”
He stopped short as the unmistakable crack-crack-crack! of rifle shots sounded in the night air, coming from a half-mile or so away.
Chapter 36
As Matt bolted to his feet, the heavier boom of revolvers going off followed the rifle shots.
“Smoke!” he exclaimed.
Preacher was up, too. His hand closed over Matt’s arm as he said, “Stop and think about it, boy. Them shots come from behind us.”
“Somebody on our trail?”
“Could be. Or it could be they don’t have nothin’ to do with us or your brothers. Ain’t no law says we got to be the only ones out here in these badlands.”
Matt realized the old-timer was right. Despite that, they couldn’t afford to leave the possibility uninvestigated.
“We’ve got to check it out,” he said.
“You’re right about that,” Preacher said with a nod. “Dog! Hunt!”
The big cur had gotten up at the sound of the shots, too. His ears had pricked forward, and the fur on the back of his neck ruffled. Now, without a sound, he bounded off into the darkness, eager to find the source of the shots.
Matt and Preacher saddled up. They left the other horses picketed at the camp and rode off in the same direction Dog had gone. The shooting had stopped now, and as the last echoes faded to nothing, the silence that cloaked the arid landscape had an ominous quality about it.
Whatever the fight had been about, likely somebody had wound up on the losing side of it.
Despite the sense of urgency both men felt, they took their time. The drumming of rapid hoofbeats could be heard for a long way on a quiet night. They had to proceed at a quieter, more deliberate pace.
They had covered almost half a mile, Matt estimated, when he heard men’s voices up ahead, raised in loud talk and raucous laughter. Preacher heard them, too, and reined in, as did Matt.
They swung down from their saddles. Matt stepped closer to the old mountain man and said quietly, “Something’s off about what I’m hearing.”
“That’s ’cause them fellas are speakin’ Mexican,” Preacher replied. “I savvy the lingo pretty good, but we’re too far away for me to pick up much of it. They’re pleased with themselves over somethin’, though.”
“We’d better take a look.”
“Yep. Leave the horses here.”
They dropped their reins, knowing the well-trained horses would stay pretty close to where they were left. With the night shadows thick around them, Matt and Preacher moved forward, crouching low until they got even closer. Then they dropped to their bellies and crawled toward the voices, using the concealment of sagebrush that was barely more than a foot tall.
Matt spoke some Spanish himself, and as they came closer he began to understand more of what was being said. The men were joking about a puta—whore—so there was a woman out here, as unlikely as that seemed. Then one of them said something about a gringa. They had found a white woman and either captured or killed her.
Matt had an inkling who the victim might be, and he hoped that she wasn’t dead.
Although, if he was correct in his guess, he thought, it would almost serve her right!
No, she didn’t deserve to die, he rapidly amended in his head. Being annoying wasn’t worthy of a death sentence. But as it was, her actions posed a threat not only to her own life, but to Matt and Preacher as well, because they were going to have to rescue her from whatever trouble she had gotten herself into.
“Please.” The woman’s voice rang out clearly in the darkness, although a faint quiver in it revealed the strain she was under. “Por favor. My father can pay you.”
His hunch had been right, Matt thought. That was definitely Darcy Garnett up ahead.
And she was in trouble, all right.
A man asked her in thickly accented English, “And who is your padre, señorita?”
“His name is John Wilton Garnett.” When silence greeted Darcy’s words, indicating that the name meant nothing to her captors, she went on, “He owns one of the biggest newspapers in Boston. One of the biggest newspapers on the whole East Coast.”
“This means he has money?”
Darcy sounded a little exasperated as she answered, “Yes. He has a lot of money.”
“And he will pay to get his niña back alive?”
“Of course, he will.” Darcy added under her breath, but still loud enough for Matt to hear, “Unless he considers me more trouble than I’m worth, like he always has.”
The men talked among themselves in low, rapid Spanish, too quietly for Matt to understand any of it. He could see them now, but only as vague shapes in the darkness as they stood on the edge of an arroyo. He thought there were five or six of them, but he couldn’t be sure.
Finally the man who had spoken before said to Darcy, “We have decided, señorita. We will take you back to Mexico with us and sell you to your father. You will not be harmed.”
Even Matt could tell that the man was lying about that last part. They might really intend to ransom Darcy back to her father, but she certainly wouldn’t be returned untouched.
“We have been up here in Arizona Territory stealing horses,” the man went on, openly admitting that he and his companions were bandits from south of the border. “But I think that you are the true prize we will take back with us.”
One of the other men said something in swift Spanish.
“José wants to know if there is anyone out here with you,” the spokesman translated.
“Yes!” Darcy said, answering too quickly and with too much eagerness to be believed. “I’ve been traveling with a dozen men . . . bodyguards . . . and they’ll be back any minute now.”
The spokesman, who was evidently the only one of the bandits who spoke English, told the others what she’d said. They all laughed.
“We just wanted to see what you would say, señorita. We know you are alone. We watched you for an hour before the sun went down and you made camp here. But it’s all right that you lied.”
The sudden crack of an open-handed slap sounded, followed instantly by Darcy’s pained gasp. Matt fought down the urge to leap to his feet, draw his gun and start blazing away.
“Just don’t do it again,” the bandit said, his voice hard and flat with menace.
He started talking in Spanish again to his companions. After a minute, Preacher touched Matt lightly on the shoulder and jerked his head, indicating that they should back off.
They crawled away from the arroyo, and when they had put enough distance between them and the bandits for it to be safe, Preacher whispered, “They left that herd o’ stolen horses off a ways with a coupla hombres watchin’ it. The fella who was talkin’ to the gal seems to be the boss. He told three of the others to go back and get the herd and bring it here. That means there’ll only be three of ’em watchin’ the gal for a little while.”
“Best time for us to make our move,” Matt said.
“Yep. We’ll whittle down the odds while we got the chance. Once the guns start goin’ off, though, the rest of the bunch’ll come a-larrupin’ just as hard as they can.”
“We’ll have to try to be ready for them.”
“’Less’n you want to go back to our horses and ride away. We got Smoke and Luke to think about.”
“And even though we’ve never met Luke, I feel sure he wouldn’t want us to abandon Miss Garnett. I know Smoke wouldn’t.”
Preacher chuckled.
“That’s what I figured you’d say. I’d’a been mighty disappointed if you hadn’t. Come on.”
As they started working their way back to the arroyo where Darcy had been captured by the bandits, the orange glow of flames appeared against the night sky. As Matt and Preacher came closer, they could see that the men who had stayed behind had kindled a campfire. They had to be pretty confident that they weren’t in any danger from anybody else who might be out here.
That overconfidence might cost them their lives.
Matt and Preacher didn’t have to stop and discuss their plans. They had been in too many situations like this before. They knew what needed to be done and how to go about doing it. When they reached a certain point in their approach to the camp they split up, Matt going right and Preacher going left.
Several more minutes went by while the young gunfighter and the old mountain man worked their way into position. From where he was, Matt could see Darcy sitting with her back against her saddle. Her captors had lashed her wrists together, but her feet were still free. Her face was pale and drawn in the firelight, and the fear she had to feel was easy to see on her features.
But anger and defiance were there in her face, too. She had no way of knowing that help was close at hand, but despite that, she wasn’t going to give up hope. If something terrible was going to happen to her, she would fight it every inch of the way.
Matt couldn’t help but admire her a little.
But he could understand why her newspaper tycoon father might feel like she was more trouble than she was worth, too. He had a hunch Darcy Garnett had been a handful growing up.
The three horse thieves had the look of typical border outlaws, unshaven, hard-bitten men in well-worn charro clothes and battered old sombreros. Each man carried a gun and a knife, and they would be good with the weapons, too. Matt and Preacher had the element of surprise on their side, though.
Matt heard an owl hoot and knew that was Preacher signaling that he was ready.
Just in time, too, because one of the bandits, a stocky man who had pushed his sombrero back so it hung by its neck strap behind his head, walked over to Darcy and proved himself to be the spokesman they had heard earlier by saying, “It’ll be a while before those other hombres are back with the horses. I think we should do something enjoyable to pass the time.” He nudged Darcy’s left thigh with a booted foot. “What do you think, señorita?”
“I think you should go to hell,” she said through clenched teeth.
The bandit lost his affable air and snarled as he reached down toward her, obviously intending to rip her shirt open.
That was when Matt stood up and said, “I think you should do what the lady told you.”
The bandit jerked upright, whirled around, and clawed at the gun on his hip.
He had just cleared leather when Matt said, “Go to hell,” and squeezed the trigger of the Colt in his hand.
Chapter 37
Flame spouted from the muzzle of Matt’s gun and drove the slug deep in the bandit’s chest. He staggered backwards, tripped and fell, and crashed down halfway on top of Darcy, who let out an involuntary shriek.
At the same time, Preacher’s guns roared and another of the bandits doubled over as a pair of bullets punched into his midsection.
That left just one of the men on his feet, and Matt took care of that a split second later as he pivoted smoothly and fired again. The third bandit had gotten his gun out and jerked the trigger as Matt’s shot ripped through his body and twisted him off his feet. The bullet from the outlaw’s gun whined off harmlessly into the night.
“Get off of me!” Darcy cried as she pushed the corpse to the side. Matt heard hysteria in her voice.
The fight wasn’t over and he knew it. They would stand a better chance against the five remaining bandits if they didn’t have to worry about Darcy doing something loco.
So he pouched his iron, reached down and grasped her arms, and hauled her to her feet. She started to struggle and cry out. Putting his face close to hers, he said, “Miss Garnett. Darcy! It’s me, Matt Jensen! Settle down!”
She stopped yelling and said hesitantly, “M-Matt?”
“That’s right. It’s Matt, and Preacher’s here, too. You’re all right. Those men are dead.”
“They sure are,” Preacher reported. He had been checking the bodies to make certain. “Problem is, they ain’t the only ones out here.”
“The . . . the others,” Darcy said. “Three or four of them . . . they went back to get some horses . . . and some other men.”
Matt nodded and said, “I know. They’ll have heard those shots, too, and they won’t waste any time getting here.”
“We could try to slip away whilst we got the chance,” Preacher suggested.
“Then we’d have to worry about them being behind us.” Matt shook his head. “We don’t need that complication. No, I’d rather go ahead and deal with them here and now.”
“Reckon I feel the same way,” Preacher said. “Just wanted to make sure you did.”
Darcy seemed to have calmed down a little. Matt thought she was rational enough to understand what he was telling her as he said, “You need to take your horse, get down in the arroyo, and follow it away from here. Go at least a mile before you stop. Wait for us there, and if we
don’t come for you pretty quickly after the shooting stops, you’ll know you’re on your own again.”
“I . . . I’d rather stay here with you.”
Matt shook his head.
“If you did, and Preacher and I didn’t make it, you’d be just as bad off as you were to start with. We’re not going to risk getting ourselves killed for that. Do what I told you.”
She tossed her head defiantly and said, “You certainly seem to like giving orders, Mr. Jensen.”
“You were calling me Matt a minute ago.”
“A minute ago you weren’t bossing me around.”
Preacher said, “Young lady, we’re just tryin’ to give you a chance to get outta this mess alive. Now, you best take it, or you’re just gonna make things harder for ever’body.”
She sighed. The sound was full of frustration.
“All right,” she said. “Let me get my saddle on my horse.”
“I’ll do that,” Matt said. “Preacher, keep an eye out.”
“Already doin’ it,” the old mountain man said. “An ear, too.”
It took Matt only a couple of minutes to saddle Darcy’s mount. He was going to help her get on the horse, but she pulled away from his hand.
“I can take care of myself,” she told him.
“You keep saying that, but you don’t seem to be doing a very good job of it.”
He didn’t have to have much light to know that she was glaring at him as she swung up into the saddle.
The banks of the arroyo had caved in here and there. She rode down into the wash at one of those places and started along it, quickly vanishing from sight. Preacher kicked the fire out, then lifted his head and said, “I hear horses comin’ fast.”
“That’ll be them,” Matt said as he finished thumbing fresh cartridges into his Colt to replace the ones he had fired. He slid a cartridge into the cylinder’s sixth chamber, which he usually kept empty so the hammer could rest on it.
He might need that sixth round in the next few minutes.
“We’ll split up again,” he said. “Catch them in a cross fire.”
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