They rode north. Behind them, the Casa Aragon and its adjacent village threw up hot flames into the cold light of dawn. Styree had punished by proxy the woman who had defied him, and, for the moment, outwitted him. He turned in the saddle and viewed the flames of the distant buildings.
“She ain’t a-comin’ back,” he said, “but if she did, there ain’t nothin’ for her to come back to.”
The sight of the graciousness of the house burning made him feel good as if he had struck a blow in honor of his pride. Somehow, he was now vindicated. He rode on, humming gaily to himself. There was a fight up ahead, Mart Storm would see to that. Men would be killed on both sides—he didn’t doubt that. Which would increase the shares from the treasure. That suited his book just fine.
They rode for an hour at a good pace, trotting their horses briskly, till the man Chaco halted and informed them that here the fugitives had joined two more men with horses. One of them had reached the spot heavily laden. Maybe carrying double. So what it added up to was five men, two women, a heavy treasure and three horses. Nobody was going fast or far with a load like that.
They were higher in the hills now, away from the heat of the valley. The air was fresh and bracing up here. The men were tired, but they were making out all right. Eleven of them. Three dead men under the dirt back there and two wounded men who had been given horses and a rendezvous in Mexico.
Styree said: “You know what I aim to do, boys?”
They didn’t know what he aimed to do, but, knowing him, they could have some idea the shape his intentions would take.
“I’m goin’ to hang me that Storm. I’m a-goin’ to put a rope around his neck an’ I’m a-goin’ to strangle him slow.”
Some nodded approval, some had their doubts. Not about Styree’s ability to do it, but the morality of the idea. They were all capable of killing a man under circumstances, but this kind of thing didn’t sit well with them. That didn’t deter them from following Chaco into the hills with hopes of a profitable ride ahead of them. The pace quickened a little. They all wanted this over and done with. The sooner they were spending freely south of the Border, the better they would like it.
Chapter Ten
When they met at the rendezvous, they didn’t wait, for Gregorio was in a bad way. Though he needed medical attention desperately, they doubted that they would ever get him to a doctor in time to save his life. He had been shot twice through the body and had bled profusely. Maybe there had not been a chance he would live after the bullets had entered his body, but certainly the ride through the night did nothing to aid him.
There was only one man who could help him—John McCord.
Everybody agreed on that. But how he should be taken there and who should take him as not such an easy matter to settle. There were just not enough horses to go around. The main concern of all the men there was that both the wounded man and the women should at once be taken to safety. Nobody knew how it was to be done. Some no doubt thought that if they were to be rid of the treasure of Claud Maxwell they would be able to travel lighter and faster. But nobody voiced that opinion. The idea that the two women should take the three horses and the wounded man and head for McCord’s without the men was argued, but nobody liked the idea of Aragon and Juanita taking the trail for several hours in daylight without the protection of the men. For nobody was in any doubt that the pursuit had now been mounted.
It was agreed finally that they would all stay together, this in spite of the fact that Gregorio, who gained some sort of consciousness while they argued, begged them to leave him and save the women. They set off east, keeping to the high country and yet below the skyline of the ridges. Aragon rode one horse with the treasure tied onto the shoulders of her horse, Juanita the second horse and Gregorio was lashed aboard the only saddled horse. Those on foot walked fast.
An hour after daylight, as they picked their way along a high ridge, Aragon stopped and said: “It’s the gold that’s slowing us up. We’ll leave the gold. Styree will find it and he’ll be satisfied.”
It was an idea that appealed to them, but it had one snag. Mart voiced it.
“I don’t reckon he can afford to be satisfied. He can’t afford to leave us alive. We could need the gold to dicker with.”
Valdez said: “I have a better idea. Let one man stay with me and we will cover the back-trail. That will allow the others time to reach the doctor’s house.”
They talked that over briefly and it was decided that two men should stay behind and one horse should be left to them so that, if necessary, they could ride double and catch the rest of the party. After some heated exchanges, it was more or less agreed that Mart and Valdez should stay behind on foot while the others pressed on with their best speed.
Aragon looked at Mart and said: “Remember what I said about dead heroes.”
“I never played the hero in my life,” Mart maintained. “An’ I don’t have any intention of startin’ now.”
Jody snorted.
“Me an’ Mart should stay,” he said.
Mart snarled: “You’ll do like I say.”
Juanita opined: “I think you should do as your uncle says, Jody.” Aragon gave her a quick looked and raised an eyebrow.
“Uncle Mart,” Jody said, “gets himself into kinda foolish situations if”n I ain’t around.”
“Boy,” said Mart tightly, “you lead them horses out or you an’ me’s goin’ to have a settlement right now.”
Jody could read sign as well as anybody.
“Right,” he said. “If you meet your comeuppance, don’t you go a-blamin’ me.”
“I promise not to do that,” Mart told him dryly.
Mart turned to Aragon where she sat her pony.
“We’ll be with you at McCord’s tomorrow,” he promised, “The place is built like a fort. You’ll be safe there.”
She didn’t say anything. But she gave him one of those looks and it was enough for Mart. He turned to find Jody and Juanita sharing the same kind of look and Mart thought: Hell, the kid’s gone an’ fallen for a Mex gal. Brother Will sure will play Hell.
Jesus Maria led out, going ahead at a quick walk. Next came Aragon followed by Gregorio, eyes closed. Mart and Valdez watched them out of sight. Before they disappeared, Aragon turned on the back of her horse and lifted her hand. Mart replied.
Valdez said: “If we go back, there is a place where we could stop an army.”
“Let us go there,” Mart said. In the pit of his belly, he had the feeling that this was his last fight. Aw, well, he thought, better to go in this kind of cause than in any other. Maybe with luck he would cut down Marve Styree. At least he would have carried out that part of his commission.
Some thirty minutes later, they halted at a waterless barren stretch of upland that could boast only of bare rock in a shallow valley. Most of the rock was flat and little cover was offered. The small amount there was, the two men at once repaired to and settled down to wait.
It was not until noon that Mart began seriously to worry. The pursuers, he argued to himself at first, could have lost their tracks. Time had been consumed searching for them. But as the hours passed he knew that something was very wrong.
He turned to Valdez who was apparently dozing against a rock.
“They should have been here two-three hours back,” he said.
“That is so,” the Mexican agreed.
“Are you thinking what I am thinking?”
“By God, I am.”
“We could be wrong.”
Valdez smote his forehead.
“I am the biggest fool,” he said. “It is criminal to be such a fool. They have Chaco. As soon as we started for the east, he would have guessed. Hombre, we have to face the truth. Styree could have reached them by now.”
Mart found himself shaking.
“What wouldn’t I give for just one horse,” he said.
“Come,” said Valdez, “we are wasting breath. We shall have to do the thing which in all life I d
etest the most. We shall have to run.”
They wasted no more time nor breath. They set off, running.
Chapter Eleven
The truth came to the man Chaco in the middle of quirting his horse up a steep ridge. He stopped abruptly and forced the men behind him on the narrow trail to halt in precarious positions. They cursed him.
Behind him, Styree said: “What the Hell?”
“I should ought to of knowed,” Chaco said.
“What?”
“McCord’s place.”
Styree saw at once.
“You’re right,” he said. He looked eager now. “They have a wounded man with them. They have to go there. There ain’t no other place.”
Stoddard behind him said: “They’re ridge-ridin’. We cut across the valley, we could be hours ahead of them.”
Styree didn’t say another word. He turned his horse and urged it downhill. The other men reined around and followed him down. When he hit the floor of the valley, he set his horse to running. They used iron and followed him. Eleven men raced their sweating horses across the hot New Mexican valley.
As they rode, Styree considered the situation. If they caught the refugees in the open, there would be some pretty brisk action, but Styree didn’t have any doubt about the outcome of it. If by some mischance, Aragon and the men with her reached the house and found safety behind its thick walls, that would be another matter. It might take time, it certainly would take a lot of lead and powder. He wondered if he could hold these men together long enough for such a fight even with the offer of the booty at the end of it. Mart Storm was a man with a reputation. He could shoot and he had sand. What was more, the man had luck. And luck was a respected commodity in this country. Styree knew that he too needed luck in the hours that lay ahead.
The fact that the trading station belonged to the man McCord had some effect on Styree. Sure, McCord didn’t have a fighting reputation like Storm, but he had a reputation just the same, in spite of his shacking up with an Indian woman. McCord had standing and if he managed to send for help they might even have the United States army down on them. Styree didn’t rate the blue-bellies high, but there were a Hell of a lot of them and a good deal more where they came from.
There were snags through the whole of this operation. They were running these horses into the ground in this heat and they would be fit for nothing if they had to make the trading post at the same pace. Ahead lay the long march to Mexico. All right, they would take horses on the trail. But that would leave sign of their retreat all the way to the Border most like.
Sure, he wanted luck. If he wanted to come through this with success at the end of it, he would worship luck as a jealous goddess.
They rode on at the same hard pace until even Styree, driven on by his need to catch the fugitives before they reached the shelter of the trading-post, saw that the horses would not be able to stand up to such travel under the killing sun. Maybe they could steal horses later, but they would need animals that could run before they could pick up fresh stock.
When Maddox said: We’re killin’ these beasts, Marve.” Styree agreed and they slowed to a walk for fifteen minutes or so. Then it was trot, walk, trot into the greatest heat of the day. The men after their sleepless night were starting to show signs of wear and tear. Now that the pace was easier, a few dozed in their saddles.
They crossed the trail from the Navaho country and started into the slowly rising country toward McCord’s. But the land was broken between them and the post and they did not come within sight of it till an hour later. It was then that Chaco, who was out in front, rose excitedly in the saddle and pointed to the east. The others urged their animals forward and at once their eyes picked up the telltale wisp of dust.
“How many?” Styree demanded as the small cavalcade came to a halt.
“Can’t say,” Chaco told him. “Too far.”
Stoddard said: “Styree, they spot us an’ they can sure reach the post before we get to ’em.”
Styree raised his eyes a little and saw the dim squat shape of the trading post. Urgency rose up in him like some kind of choking excitement. With a yell, he quirted his horse and put it into a flat run. The others hesitated no more than a second before they followed his example and the line of horsemen strung out in a mad race for the small party ahead of them. In that moment, it didn’t matter to them if they killed their horses in the terrific effort. They had to reach the men and women ahead before they were safe behind McCord’s thick walls.
Styree rode like a man demented, cursing and muttering to himself, enraged with the animal under him as if it would go no faster because of sheer perversity. He lashed it ruthlessly with the quirt, but he couldn’t get another ounce of speed from it. Foam from its open mouth lathered his pants, the quirt cut its vicious song from its sweating hide.
It seemed that he covered a full mile before somebody ahead spotted him. He still could not see them clearly, but, as he thundered forward, he gained the impression that the small dark dots he could make out ahead of him suddenly increased their speed. The wisp of dust thickened. He could picture them to himself, suddenly scared, beating their tired and too few horses in a wild and, he prayed, useless run for safety. Pretty soon, he was conscious that it would be a pretty close run thing. Though he was gaining on them rapidly, they were nearing the house now. He howled at them, oblivious of the fact that they could not hear him. He thought he saw a figure come out of the building.
Another half-mile and the shot came.
He didn’t hear it. But he didn’t have to do so to know he’d been shot at, because his tired horse went out from under him. Even as he hit dust, landing badly and quite unprepared for such an eventuality, he realized what a blind fool he had been not to have foreseen that a man like Storm would cover for the women.
He spat the dust from his mouth, feeling it grate on his teeth. A rider thundered up and drew rein. Maddox.
“Git on, goddam you,” he bellowed. “Git on, git on, git on.” His bellow became a scream.
Maddox raked his weary horse with the rowels and went on, pulling his rifle from the boot under his right leg. He didn’t cover a couple of dozen yards before he whirled the animal aside and jumped from the saddle. Styree heard the crack of a rifle now.
The other men were crowding forward.
The rifle ahead turned on them. Some slipped from the saddle and flung themselves down, others spurred and quirted their horses off to one side or back the way they had come.
Styree climbed in a shattered fashion to his feet and started yelling for them to git on and kill the sonovabitch. Didn’t they know there was only one man stopping them. For crissake ride around him. Get out of rifle range and stop the others reaching the house. A few heard him and did as they were told. Others were now too far off to catch his words. His rage was so great that he thought his heart would burst in his breast. To have gotten so close ...
He reached his horse and found that it had been shot clean through the forehead. By God, that fellow sure could shoot. He ripped his rifle from its scabbard and took shells from his saddlebag. He found a slight rise in the land and crawled up it on his hands and knees. A shot and a wisp of drifting smoke and he placed the marksman in an arroyo ahead of him. He swore that he’d shoot the bastard to ribbons.
The heat was stifling in the arroyo. Jody lay on his belly, flat against the side, feeling the heat of the earth beneath him. He lay there watching for movement. But that wasn’t easy because the arroyo cut through a dip in the land and there were some higher ridges around him. Most of the riders had ridden back out of sight.
He despised himself. He had gotten himself into what he had come to recognize as a typical Jody situation. This was the kind of thing his family condemned him for. And they were right. Mart had sent him on ahead with the women and the wounded man. They had been his responsibility and he had failed them. Like he failed everybody, including himself.
Somebody out there to the west fired and the bul
let kicked up dust in his face. He slid back down the side of the arroyo, ran a dozen paces to the south and climbed the side of the watercourse again. Now, he sighted a horseman running his animal past him, maybe a couple of hundred yards away to the south. Jody lined his rifle up with him and fired. The man rode on.
Jody couldn’t see the rest of his own party, but at the pace the man was going he reckoned he would reach them before they could gain the house. He levered and fired, levered and fired. Each shot missed. Then he was opened up on by somebody to the west and he lost interest in the rider. Jesus Maria would have to take care of him.
He changed his position again. He could at least put up some sort of a fight and hold some of them here.
Now there was shooting from the east, behind him from the direction of the post. He heard the beat of horses’ hoofs, raised his head and saw three riders trying to pass him to the north. They were in a hurry and had not gotten out of rifle range. He fired until the rifle was empty. When he had decided that he had missed the small moving targets with every shot, suddenly a horse went down and pitched its rider into the dust.
Now he heard more horses. He looked west and saw two men coming, bearing straight down on him.
This was the end, all right.
He climbed up out of the arroyo and shouted at them, laying his tongue to every foul word he knew, defying them. The leading rider fired twice with a belt-gun and missed with both shots. By then he was too close for another, Jody sidestepped the charging horse and belted the man from the saddle with the butt of the rifle. There was a savage satisfaction to see the man go back over the cantle of the saddle, roll over the rump of the horse and land in a pile on the ground.
The second rider drove his horse straight into Jody and knocked him from his feet with a violence that sent him to the bottom of the arroyo.
He was lying there half-senseless when Marve Styree came up.
He looked up into those deadly eyes and he reckoned there wasn’t much time left to him.
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