“I hope you ain’t plannin’ on doin’ anything stupid, like givin’ ’em a chance to surrender.”
Grimly, Matt shook his head and said, “Not this bunch. They wouldn’t take it anyway.”
“Not hardly,” Preacher said.
They moved off in different directions in the brush. Matt dropped to one knee and bent lower to make himself inconspicuous in the shadows. He heard the swift rataplan of hoofbeats now, too, as the other bandits raced back to see what all the shooting was about.
It wouldn’t take them long to find out.
A few embers still glowed in the remains of the campfire. Those tiny orange beacons gave the other bandits something to aim for as they galloped up. Matt counted five men and figured they had left the herd of stolen horses somewhere nearby. A couple of them called out in Spanish, and when they didn’t get an answer, all the men reached for the rifles they carried on their saddles.
Matt stood up and opened fire.
He was about thirty feet away from the nearest bandit, who jerked and toppled off his horse as the suddenly skittish animal danced to one side. Matt heard Preacher’s guns roaring and saw muzzle flashes lighting up the night on the far side of the riders. He shifted his aim and triggered two more shots. One of the bandits threw his arms in the air and slid from the saddle.
It was bleak work, but necessary. Matt knew any of those men would have taken great pleasure in killing him and Preacher if he’d had the chance. Probably would have taken his time and made their dying long and agonizing. And as for what they all would have done to Darcy Garnett . . .
Only one bandit was still mounted. In desperation, he wheeled his horse and kicked it into a run along the arroyo. Matt fired after the fleeing man and so did Preacher. The horse didn’t break stride, and the rider stayed in the saddle like he was nailed to it.
It would be better not to leave any enemies behind them, Matt thought as he lowered his Colt, but it was doubtful that one man could really pose a threat to them.
The sudden crack of a rifle shot split the night, along with the spurt of flame from the weapon’s muzzle. The fleeing bandit cried out and pitched headlong from the saddle.
“What the hell!” exclaimed Preacher.
“I think I know,” Matt said. “Check this bunch. Make sure they’re all dead.”
While Preacher was doing that, Matt trotted toward where the fifth bandit had fallen. He called out, “Hold your fire, Miss Garnett! It’s Matt Jensen!”
Darcy emerged from the arroyo, carrying her carbine in one hand and leading her horse with the other, while Matt nudged the fallen man over onto his back with a toe. He kept his Colt trained on the bandit the whole time, but there was no need. The way the man’s head flopped loosely told Matt that not only had Darcy drilled him, he had broken his neck when he fell, too.
“Is he . . . dead?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Matt said. “You didn’t even go a hundred yards, did you?”
“I thought you and Preacher might need some help. Clearly, you did.”
“If this hombre had gotten away, it wouldn’t have made any difference—”
“It might have,” Darcy interrupted. “What if they had even more friends nearby? He could have gone to summon help. Or he might have lurked around in the vicinity and tried to shoot us from a distance.”
Matt had to admit she was right about both of those things, although he considered them unlikely.
“So you went out of sight along the arroyo and waited to see what was going to happen,” he said.
“It worked out all right, didn’t it?” she demanded. “I was able to . . . to k—to—”
She dropped the carbine and fainted dead away.
Matt uttered a heartfelt, “Blast it!”
Then he shook his head and bent to help her.
A mile away, Simon Ford stood tensely, peering into the darkness as if his eyes could pierce that veil and let him know what had happened in the distance.
Beside him, Jesse Clinton hooked his thumbs in his gun belt and said, “That was quite a ruckus, from the sound of it. Two of ’em, in fact.”
“If Matt Jensen and the old man are dead, our plan is ruined,” Ford snapped. “We need to go find out.”
“And if they ain’t dead and we go blundering in on top of them, our plan is ruined, too,” Clinton pointed out. “Either way, it’s bad. But if they’re alive and we wait, we can pick up their trail again in the morning and nothing has to change. We go right on the way we intended. That’s the least risky move, Marshal.”
“Don’t call me that. I’m not a marshal anymore, you know that.”
Clinton shrugged.
“Sorry. Once a fella’s toted a badge, it’s hard to forget.”
“How would you know?” Ford said. “You were never a lawman.”
“No . . . but I’ve crossed trails with a heap of them.”
Clinton left it at that, and Ford didn’t push the issue. He was more worried about what might have happened on the trail ahead of them.
“Even if Jensen and Preacher are dead, it might not ruin everything,” he said after a moment’s thought. “We might be able to find the trail left by Smoke Jensen and Mordecai Kroll.”
“See?” Clinton said. “We’ll handle it, Simon. Whatever comes along, we’ll handle it.”
Ford liked the gunman calling him by his given name even less than he liked Clinton addressing him as “Marshal,” but he supposed none of that mattered now. The only important thing was seeing justice done.
What some hired killer called him was nothing.
And so was the soul he risked by throwing in with men such as these.
“Whoo-ee!” Mordecai said as the second flurry of shots echoed in the distance. “I thought the entertainment was over for the evenin’, but it sounds like there’s a second act!”
Smoke heard the shots, too, and frowned in concern. He knew that Matt and Preacher were back there somewhere, and it wouldn’t surprise him a bit if those two had somehow landed smack-dab in the middle of trouble. Preacher, especially, had a positive genius for that.
Although it was true of Matt and him, too, Smoke thought. Somehow, whatever they did and wherever they went, somebody wound up shooting at them. If not for the fact that all three of them had come through those deadly dustups alive, he might have started to think that they were jinxed....
“What do you reckon that was?” Mordecai went on. “Apaches raidin’ some ranch, maybe? Or bandidos? One thing’s for sure . . . blood was spilled tonight. I can almost smell it in the air.”
“Quit worrying about what you can smell and get some sleep,” Smoke said. “You ought to be tired after all those hours in the saddle.”
“Ain’t you ever heard the old sayin’, Jensen? ‘A man can rest when he’s dead.’ I don’t plan on that happenin’ for a long time yet!”
“How long do you think it’ll be before we get to that hideout of yours?”
Mordecai opened his mouth to say something, but he laughed instead as he leaned back against the big rock beside which they had made camp.
“Almost tricked me into sayin’ more than I wanted to, didn’t you, Jensen? You ain’t just slick on the draw. You’re slick all the way around. Not slick enough, though. I got all these trump cards in my hand, and I’m playin’ ’em one by one. I’m even savin’ one of ’em for the last hand. The big casino. Know what I mean?”
Smoke knew.
And the showdown Mordecai referred to couldn’t get here soon enough to suit him.
Darcy woke up to the smell of coffee.
She cracked one eye open but saw nothing but darkness at first. Then she became aware of starlight, mainly because a shape appeared and blocked out some of it.
“I know you’re awake,” Matt said. “You were moving around just a minute ago.”
Darcy didn’t really remember that, but she was willing to take his word for it. She got her other eye open and saw him hunkered there in front of her with a cup in h
is left hand.
“You . . . you built a fire for me?” she said. “I didn’t think that was safe at night.”
“It ain’t,” Preacher said from somewhere nearby. “Had to dig a goldang hole for it so nobody could see it.”
Darcy reached out and wrapped her hands around the cup Matt extended to her. The night was chilly, as nights on the desert always were, and the heat felt good on her fingers.
It felt even better inside her as she sipped the strong, black brew.
“Don’t get used to it,” Preacher went on. “I ain’t always gonna be in such a considerate mood. And if you’re gonna travel with us, you got to do what you’re told.”
“So no more rebelling against your pa who never had time for you,” Matt added, “or whatever the hell it is you think you’re doing out here.”
“I’m going after a story,” Darcy said. “Just like I was trained to do. Do you mean that about me traveling with you?”
“What else are we going to do with you?” Matt asked, not bothering to hide the note of disgust in his voice. “Now that we know you’ve been following us, we can’t just leave you out here to fend for yourself.”
“I’ve done a pretty good job of it so far.”
“Until you were kidnapped by a bunch of bandits who intended to rape you and then try to sell you back to your father.”
Her breath caught in her throat for a second. She said, “You don’t believe in pulling any punches, do you, Matt?”
“Why should I? And I see that it’s Matt again.”
“Well . . . if we’re going to be traveling together, we might as well be friends, hadn’t we?”
In the long run, that was the most effective first step. Friends . . . and then eventually he would do everything she wanted.
Although Darcy sensed that tactic might not work with Matt Jensen. She wasn’t sure anything was guaranteed to work with Matt Jensen.
“Do you have any idea how much farther it is to the Kroll brothers’ hideout?” she asked.
“I don’t have any idea,” Matt said. Then he added fervently, “But I sure hope it’s not far.”
BOOK FOUR
Chapter 38
“There it is,” Mordecai said. “I keep tellin’ Rudolph it needs some sort of fancy name, like Casa del Diablo maybe. But he says that’s foolishness, and he ain’t inclined to foolishness.”
Casa del Diablo, Smoke thought as he gazed along the canyon at the big hacienda. House of the Devil.
Considering who lived there, the name fit.
This was truly the Devil’s stronghold.
Following Mordecai’s directions, they had bypassed Phoenix well to the north, then followed a curving trail into the rugged Superstition Mountains. Even though the town wasn’t that far away in terms of miles, the mountains were desolate and isolated. Some people even believed them to be haunted, including the Apaches. There had to be a good reason why the Indians avoided the place.
Smoke could see why Rudolph Kroll had chosen this canyon for his gang’s hideout, too. His experience instantly told him that it was very defensible. High cliffs too steep to be scaled bordered it on both sides, curving around to seal off the northern end as well, except for a narrow gap. The course of the creek indicated to Smoke that it probably entered the canyon through that gap. The opening was small enough, though, that it would take only a few guards to protect it.
The same was true of the high pass where he and Mordecai now sat on horseback. They had climbed a zigzagging trail to get here. An army would have a hard time getting up that trail without being picked off from above. And any men who made it to the top would then have to go through this pass, where riflemen were posted behind boulders on both sides, ready to lay down a deadly cross fire on anybody foolish enough to try to invade Rudolph Kroll’s domain.
It wasn’t going to be easy for Matt and Preacher to get in here, Smoke reflected.
But Matt and Preacher were noted for doing things that seemed to be impossible.
One of the guards in the pass called, “Hey, Mordecai! Good to see you!”
Several more men shouted greetings as well. Mordecai waved a hand, the gesture full of casual arrogance as if he were royalty. He was owlhoot royalty, Smoke supposed, the wastrel prince, brother to the king.
“Let’s go,” he said.
They nudged their horses into motion and started forward through the pass, which ran between high, boulder-littered stone slopes for about fifty yards before the trail dropped down toward the canyon. Mordecai kept grinning and waving. That irritated Smoke, but he didn’t waste his breath saying anything.
The trip from Yuma had left him beard-stubbled and hollow-eyed. He hadn’t slept much because he didn’t trust Mordecai, no matter how securely the outlaw was tied up. In a way, he was actually glad to be here, glad to be surrounded by his enemies. That was less of a strain than traveling with Mordecai Kroll.
As they started down the trail into the canyon, Smoke spotted a man racing on horseback a quarter of a mile ahead of them. Mordecai saw the rider, too, and said, “He’ll be goin’ to let Rudolph know we’re here. Reckon there’ll be a big celebration to welcome me back, like in the Good Book where it talks about the fatted calf.”
Smoke grunted and said, “I’m surprised you ever heard of anything in the Bible.”
“Shoot, yeah, our mama used to read it to Rudolph and me when we was just sprouts. She was a believer, yes, sir.” Mordecai paused. “’Course, that didn’t stop her from dyin’, just all wore out from how hard life was, before she was forty years old. Hell, she looked twice as old as she really was. All that Bible-thumpin’ didn’t help her one damn bit.”
“If she thought it did, I reckon it was so,” Smoke said quietly.
“Only one thing a Bible’s good for. If you carry it in your shirt pocket, you might get lucky and have it stop a bullet or an arrow one of these days.”
Smoke’s lips tightened. He wasn’t going to argue religion with an outlaw. What he really wanted at the moment was to see his brother and make sure Luke was all right.
If Rudolph Kroll had gone back on his word and killed Luke, Smoke would make sure the boss outlaw died, too. But that wouldn’t bring Luke back, and Smoke already regretted all the years they had missed out on knowing each other.
As the canyon leveled out, the trail turned into a regular road bordered with trees. On either side lay garden patches and orchards tended by Mexican peasants. With the fruits and vegetables grown there, the canyon could be self-sufficient for a while if need be. From the pass Smoke had seen a small herd of cattle grazing on one side of the canyon, too. That herd would provide beef. This wouldn’t be a bad place to live, he mused . . . if it wasn’t full of outlaws.
They passed a number of small huts where the Mexican farmers lived, then started up a slope toward the bench at the far end of the canyon where the big house and most of the outbuildings were located. The house, set behind terraced steps, was high enough for Smoke to see the second-floor balcony over the outer adobe wall. A lone man stood there at the wrought-iron railing, and once more Smoke was reminded of royalty. He knew he was looking at Rudolph Kroll as the man stood there like a monarch surveying his kingdom.
Mordecai must have spotted his brother, too. He snatched the hat off his head and waved it enthusiastically.
Then he said, “You’re a dang fool, you know that, don’t you? Ain’t no way in hell Rudolph is gonna let you or your no-good bounty hunter brother outta this canyon alive.”
“We’ll see,” Smoke said.
He hoped Matt and Preacher weren’t too far behind them.
For a while Luke had tried to keep track of the days. He had even scratched marks on the stone wall of this dank basement cell to count them off, using a bit of metal he had found while feeling around in the gloom. He thought it was part of an old buckle. There was no telling how long it had been there or who it had belonged to.
Luke figured the poor varmint was long since dead, though. Anybo
dy who was thrown into this hole probably didn’t have much of a life expectancy.
Since he was as good as dead himself, he stopped worrying about how many days he had been here. He wasn’t giving up, exactly. Surrender didn’t come easy to a Jensen.
Here in this dry mountain desert, you wouldn’t think anything could stay damp for very long, but Luke’s prison, being underground, had moss growing on its stone walls and he seemed to hear the drip-drip-drip of water all the time. Maybe that was just his imagination, but he didn’t think so.
As he sat there in his tattered clothes with his back against the wall, he heard something to his right. Tiny feet skittered over the stones. He turned his head in that direction and felt his beard brush against his upper chest. It had been several weeks since he’d shaved, and his beard grew fast.
The sounds told him his visitor was back. He didn’t know how the rat got in and out of the cell. He had searched all over the place, feeling for an opening large enough for the furry creature to fit through, but he hadn’t found one. The rat managed, though.
He had seen it a time or two in the faint light that filtered through the small, barred window in the thick wooden door. It wasn’t a particularly big rat. They didn’t grow big in the desert. It had stood up on its hind legs and stared at him with what he took to be an evil intelligence, although that was probably giving too much credit to its tiny brain.
Then it vanished back wherever it came from. So far it hadn’t tried to gnaw on him, and he was thankful for that. He tried to insure that stayed the same by pinching off little pieces of bread from what he was given and tossing them on the other side of the cell. Maybe as long as he fed the rat, it wouldn’t turn on him.
“Hello, old friend,” he said now. “Come to relish the sight of a poor human brought low, have you? Man believes himself to have dominion over the whole world, but in the end we’re all such fragile creatures, not even masters of ourselves, let alone of our fellow beings. . . .”
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