Cuno started closing the paper, sticking his tongue out slightly with concentration. He’d never been much of a smoker much less a cigarette builder—his father had told him when he’d been bare-knuckle fighting back in Nebraska on Saturday nights that tobacco turned a fighter’s lungs to raisins—but he wanted one now to help kill the time and ease his nerves. “I’m gettin’ it.”
“Don’t waste none of my tobacco. That has to get me to the next town or tradin’ post.”
“I’m not gonna waste any of your damn tobacco.”
Spurr chuckled. “Hell, I knew how to roll cigarettes before I was twelve.”
“Smoking’s bad for you, Spurr. My old man told me that early on. Ma never would have allowed it even if he hadn’t.”
“Your folks still alive?”
He felt as though he were wearing thick gloves, but Cuno managed to connect the two ends of the wheat paper. Now, to tighten and seal it without losing any of Spurr’s precious tobacco. “Nope.”
“Sorry to hear that.” Spurr let the breeze shred an exhaled plume of cigarette smoke and leaned back on his elbows. “You got anyone else?”
“I got Renegade.”
“A good hoss’ll do you better than most people, by god.”
“Not better than my people, but they’re gone.”
Cuno had gotten the paper nearly closed around the tobacco, making a nice, tight cylinder, when a Yaqui from around the middle of the train yelled something in his guttural tongue.
Out of sight inside the general’s car but obviously watching for the gunrunners from one of the front windows, Fire Eyes translated. “They come.”
27
CUNO’S FINGERS SLIPPED and the paper rolled away from the tobacco. The breeze caught the tobacco and blew it down toward Spurr, who scowled up at Cuno and said, “Damnit, kid!”
“Sorry.” Cuno heaved himself to his feet beside the Gatling gun, brushing the remaining tobacco off his wool trousers and casting his gaze toward the northeast. “I bet Bennett has some tobacco he’ll spare you, if you ask nice.”
“Yeah, I’ll ask real nice,” Spurr said, rising and stepping up onto the top of the platform, donning his hat and throwing his shoulders back, Cuno supposed, to make himself look like a general.
As Cuno stared, two riders came around a distant camelback bluff, trotting their horses. One by one behind them, seven wagons jounced into view, one behind the other, spaced about forty yards apart. Five or so outriders trotted amongst the wagons, two ahead, one to each side, and another rider riding drag. The freight train was following an old Indian trail running along a shallow dry wash from the east. One of the lead riders raised his hand, and the men driving the wagons drew back on their reins, their bellowed “whoas!” reaching Cuno’s ears on the breeze.
As the tan dust drifted over the wagons, the two lead riders heeled their mounts and galloped toward the train, keeping about twenty feet between them. Cuno’s shoulders tensed, and he lowered the bill of his forage cap, hiding his eyes and the entire upper half of his face. He hoped that he, Spurr, and the Yaqui looked enough like Federales for the next few minutes to pull off the intended ruse, and he prayed that the Yaqui, as eager as broomtail mustang stallions to lift some dust, could restrain themselves until all seven wagons had pulled up to the train.
The riders dropped into the coulee and rode up the other side, Cuno now beginning to hear their hoof thuds. Bennett Beers was on the left, Sapp on the right. Both men would recognize him right off if they inspected him carefully, so he kept his head down and his blue eyes shaded. It wasn’t likely they’d see past his uniform, however, and they’d never suspect he’d be here on the Federale train, waiting to take them down.
Beers and Sapp, unshaven and coated in dust, slowed their horses about forty yards away as they eyed the train suspiciously. Cuno felt his hands sweating in his gloves. Maybe he should have stayed out of sight with the Yaqui. Too late now. Besides, there was also a chance that Dave Sapp would recognize Spurr from the Gatling gun mounted in the bell tower, but they’d had no one else amongst them who had even the slightest chance of impersonating General Cuesta.
Cuno felt the taut muscles between his shoulders loosen slightly as Beers and Sapp gigged their horses up to Fire Eyes’s brother, who, according to plan, walked out to meet them, one of the Federales’ Springfield rifles held up high across his chest.
Red Water knew little English, so in response to Beers’s query, he merely stretched his left arm out to indicate Spurr.
Beers and Sapp put their mounts into spanking trots, and they ran their gazes across the train fleetingly before they reined up in front of the old lawman. Cuno gritted his teeth tensely. Sapp needed to not recognize Spurr, and Spurr needed to get the accent right. If the wagoneers were alerted to trouble and had time to get out their own Gatling guns, they’d have a hell of a fight on their hands.
“Greetings, amigos!” Spurr intoned, throwing his arms out in what he must have thought was a hearty Mexican greeting. “Senor Beers, I assume?”
“That’s right,” Beers said, pulling his horse’s head up as the mount jerked sideways. “Been a helluva pull. We lost a few wagons, but the bulk of the guns and ammo are here.” The head gunrunner smiled at Spurr, and there was an inexplicable chill to it. “As long as you got the gold, that is.”
“Si, si, senor,” Spurr said, getting the accent almost right. “All the gold we discussed… as well as plenty of food and drink and even the company of two lovely ladies.”
All right, don’t overplay it, Cuno thought.
He hoped like hell they didn’t want to see the gold before they brought the wagons on. He let out a little sigh between his pursed lips as Beers said, “All right, then—let’s dance.” He reined his horse around and rose in his stirrups to call back to the waiting wagons, “Come on, boys! Bring ’em in!”
Beers swung his steeldust around to face the train, as did Sapp, and Cuno felt his heart beat in his throat as he watched the wagons move toward him with maddening slowness. Beers and Sapp didn’t say anything. They just sat their horses looking oddly self-satisfied. A few times they flicked their eyes toward Cuno, but they were fleeting looks, and obviously they hadn’t recognized him. They were casting the same glances toward the other “Federales” perched atop the train cars over the Gatling guns.
When the first of the wagons was within twenty yards, Beers rubbed his stubbled jaw and turned to Spurr with that insolent grin. “Yes, sir, we lost a few wagons, we did. But not to banditos… though we were hit by banditos, that’s for sure.”
Spurr said, “Sadly, Mexico is dusted from one end to the other by banditos, senor. Banditos and Yaqui. I get so frustrated sometimes. But your guns and powder will be much appreciated, amigos. Of that, I assure you.”
He’d be damned if the old goat wasn’t enjoying the charade, Cuno thought, grinding his teeth.
“Well, you no longer have to worry about that rabid wolf, Carlos Riata,” Beers said. “He hit us about three days up the trail.” He pursed his lips until his cheeks dimpled. “Wasn’t much of a fight, really.”
“A very bad bandito, indeed,” Spurr said, nodding. “I congratulate and thank you for sending him back to the hell he came from.”
The first mule team was turned to Beers’s left, swinging the wagon around so that the rear was facing the train. The next wagon in line made the same move, until it sat about fifteen feet from the first, the tailgate and rear pucker facing the train. As the other wagons followed suit, Cuno glanced at Spurr.
Now was the time to give the order, Cuno thought. Now was the time to turn loose the Yaqui. This was Mexico, after all, and Spurr was under no obligation to give these killers a chance to give themselves up.
Spurr started to raise his hand but stopped, turning and lifting his head to glance puzzledly up at Cuno. Just then Cuno heard what the old man’s ears must have picked up first—the thud of horse hooves rising from the other side of the train.
A rifle cracked.<
br />
Cuno jumped as the Yaqui standing over the Gatling gun on the second car to his left gave a yowl and flew forward off his car to hit the rail bed with a crunching thud. Cuno swung around as a second rifle barked, and a second Yaqui was thrown off the roof of his railcar. He could see two shooters standing on a knoll about forty yards from the train, beyond a low screen of cedars. Mostly, he could see the smoke and flames spitting from their rifle barrels as, each down on one knee, they triggered lead toward the train, wildly levering rounds into their chambers.
Bullets sang around Cuno, one slicing across the side of his left thigh. He threw himself onto the car’s roof and began returning fire, hearing the Yaqui suddenly start yowling like demented lobos and seeing another brave blown off a car roof down the line to Cuno’s left.
Behind him, he heard Beers yell, “Here’s what you bought, you greasy, Mescin, double-dealing bastard!”
Cuno tossed a horrified look over his left shoulder to see the rear puckers on all five freight wagons open suddenly to reveal five Gatling guns set up on tripods, and five grinning men crouched over them. He also saw the Yaqui—some clad in uniforms, some in their own breechclouts, moccasins, and war paint—bounding toward the wagons while howling and triggering their rifles. Spurr made a mad, diving dash through the door of the general’s car.
At the same time, the Gatlings exploded, fire jutting like red knives from their revolving canisters. The bullets tore into the rear of the general’s car and through the charging Yaqui almost instantly, five or six going down in just the three seconds that Cuno watched—the bullets blowing out their backs in great gouts of spewing blood.
As the Gatlings kept up their bone-pounding cacophony, Cuno whipped his head forward to see the two riflemen—one a riflewoman, as he recognized the one on the left as the blond Flora—lower their Winchesters, then pick up second rifles lying at their feet.
Cuno triggered two quick shots, both blowing up dust around Flora’s and the other shooter’s boots, then crabbed forward to the edge of the roof, twisted around, and threw his legs over the side. Clinging to the roof’s edge with one hand, holding his rifle with the other, he glanced at the ground wavering beneath his jostling boots then opened his other hand.
The gravelly rail bed came toward him at a slant, and he hit on his toes and knees, instantly grinding his heels into the gravel and hurling himself forward down the rail bed. He scrambled behind a boulder and glanced around it at the shooters continuing to blast away at him, hammering the rock.
Cuno drew his head back. When the firing stopped, he snaked his rifle around the rock, aimed carefully, and fired three rounds, quickly jacking the lever.
Flora and the male shooter jerked backward, dropping their rifles as they disappeared down the far side of the bluff.
Behind Cuno, a loud screeching wail rose. It was followed by the rat-a-tat-tat reports of one of the Gatling guns. He jerked his head down, thinking one of Beers’s men had taken over a Gatling gun on the Federales’ train. As he glanced behind and up at the car he’d abandoned, relief washed over him. Fire Eyes was crouched over the gun, turning the crank wildly and swiveling the barrel left to right and back again, screeching.
Agonized screams rose from the other side.
Cuno ran up the rail bed, dashed atop the platform of the general’s car, crouched, and looked around, pressing his Winchester against his shoulder. The Gatling guns in all five wagons were silenced, the men who’d been manning the guns lying dead around the guns in growing blood pools. Dead Yaqui were sprawled around or hanging over the sides of both wagons where they’d died. Dave Sapp was draped over a wagon wheel with a war hatchet embedded in his skull. Near him lay Red Water, his chest blown out.
Left of the wagons, two men were limping off toward the northwest, Spurr about thirty yards behind Beers.
Both men had lost their hats. Spurr was dragging his right leg, and blood shone on his back around his right shoulder blade. Beers was even bloodier, dragging both his legs.
Now as he reached a fork of the dry wash, he stumbled forward and dropped to his knees. He twisted around and gritted his teeth as he raised a long-barreled pistol about halfway before dropping his hand suddenly, as though it were weighed down with lead. He wailed and flopped onto his back, shielding his face with his arm.
Spurr kept limping toward him, his Starr .44 extended straight out from his shoulder. “You miserable bastard,” Cuno heard the old lawman rake out of his pinched lungs. “I’d love nothin’ better than to take you back to the territories and hang your sorry ass in front of a howling crowd. To be followed by a goddamn barn dance!”
The Starr lurched in his hand. The crack echoed hollowly. Smoke puffed. Dust blew up from Beers’s silk shirt and black frock coat, and he jerked back flat against the ground. He lay still for a moment then flopped one arm and a leg before falling still once more.
Spurr lowered the pistol and started to turn around. His left knee buckled, and he dropped to the ground, sagged back on one hip, the other leg curled beneath him. His deep-seamed face was a mask of agony.
Cuno ran to him, dropped to a knee. Spurr stared up at him, his tan face flushing crimson as his belly and chest heaved. Spurr tapped his left shirt pocket, and Cuno reached into the pocket quickly, pulled out a small hide sack, and poked his fingers into it. He pulled out a little gold tablet and, ignoring Spurr’s outstretched hand, shoved the nitro pill directly between the old man’s lips and into his mouth.
Spurr tossed his head back. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he drew a raspy breath. “Hope you washed your hands, kid.”
“Shut up and lay still for a minute.” Cuno took off his bandanna, looked at the wound in the old lawman’s shoulder and the one in his thigh, and decided the thigh needed tending first, and wrapped the bandanna tightly around it.
“I reckon we got crossways in a cross fire,” Spurr rasped.
“Between two double-crossing bastards.”
“If I die, bury me deep.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, old man, but you’re too mean to die.”
“Meaner jakes than me have kicked off, kid.” Spurr, his color returning, glanced toward where Beers lay in a bloody pile. “Look at him.”
“Became a whimpering dog at the end,” Cuno said, removing Spurr’s own neckerchief and pressing it onto the bloody crease across the top of the lawman’s shoulder.
Spurr winced.
“The meanest ones do.” Footsteps sounded from the direction of the wagons, and Cuno turned to see Fire Eyes walking toward them, a Winchester rifle resting on her shoulder. One of the wounded gunrunners groaned. Cuno recognized Lyle Carney, one of the outriders. Carney shoved a fist against his bloody chest, making a face and grinding his heels in the dirt. Fire Eyes swung toward him, casually lowered the Winchester, and drilled a bullet through his forehead.
He dropped to a shoulder.
Spurr chuckled.
“What happened?” Fire Eyes asked, jerking her head at Spurr.
“Ticker,” Spurr said. “Hell—all your warriors dead, girl?”
“Si,” she said tonelessly.
“Good lord—so many of your people gone.” Spurr made a face and shook his head. “I do apologize for my part in it.”
“For a Yaqui to die fighting is the greatest honor.” Fire Eyes glanced back at the wagons. “There are many scattered bands of us. I will gather others, and now we will have enough weapons to protect the mountain from future attack… and to run off the miners from the other side.”
Cuno placed Spurr’s hand on the neckerchief he’d been holding on the old lawman’s shoulder. “Hold that there. If you’re not dead when I get back, I’ll cauterize them wounds.”
“Where you goin’?”
Cuno straightened. “Gonna see about Flora.”
Spurr nodded, gritted his teeth. “If she ain’t dead, try to take her alive. I’d like to hang at least one of these sons o’ bitches at Fort Bryce.”
Cuno glanced at Fire Eyes, t
hen turned and walked back to the train. He crossed the platform of the general’s car, jumped to the ground on the other side. He took one step and threw himself to his left as a pistol popped. The slug hammered a heavy iron train wheel, sparking.
Cuno rose to his elbows, aiming his Winchester. Flora tumbled toward him from the screen of cedars fronting the knoll that she and the man had been shooting from. She was dragging her boot toes, sobbing, holding her left arm across her belly. She tried to swing the pistol up again with one hand, but triggered it into the ground in front of her, spraying gravel. With a shrill curse, she dropped to her knees. She hung her head sobbing, and Cuno stood and walked toward her. When she lifted her chin, her blue eyes were sharp knives stabbing him.
“You son of a bitch!”
Cuno kicked the gun out of her hand.
Flora kept her hard gaze on him, tears streaking her cheeks. He’d drilled her arm and her lower right side, and she was shaking as though deeply chilled. “I was… I was gonna bring you into it. I was gonna bring you into it against Beers and Sapp!”
“And who were you going to bring into it against me?”
She gritted her teeth. “My father… deserved all this… !”
Cuno dropped to a knee in front of her, ran his sleeve across a streak of blood on his chin. “Did he really, Flora? Or was that just the story you told yourself and anyone else who’d listen? Maybe you felt so damn trapped at that fort, you were just desperate enough to kill the old man in cold blood.”
She glared at him. Gradually, a faint flush rose in her paling cheeks. She belted out a chuffing laugh, then, almost too faintly to hear, she said, “You’ll never know.”
She fell forward. Cuno caught her and gentled her onto the ground, then rolled her onto her back, her ankles crossing. Her death-glazed eyes stared up at him now without acrimony.
.45-Caliber Cross Fire Page 21