Brotherhood of the Gun

by William W. Johnstone

  The gunny got the message, loud and clear. He flushed a deep red and jumped to his feet, his hands hovering over the butts of his guns. “Don’t you be callin’ me no sissy-boy, you damn half-breed!”

  Sam smiled at him. “I just did.”

  “Then, draw, you greasy savage!”

  Sam drew, smoothly and swiftly. He was not as fast as Bodine—few men were—but Sam was just as good a shot. He put his first round in the man’s belly, the second round dead-centering him in the chest.

  None of the other gunnies would stand and draw. They watched as their dying compadre collapsed to the floor.

  “Whole damn bunch is yeller!” Wellman snorted.

  “No,” Bodine said, his eyes not leaving the gunhands seated around the tables. “I’d guess they’re under orders not to mix it up with us.”

  “Still makes ’em yeller.”

  One of Porter’s men stood up, slowly, his hands in plain sight. “We’ll be leavin’ now,” he said. “See you boys around, I ’magine.”

  “What about him?” Bodine said, pointing to the dead man. The gunslick shrugged. “The breed shot him, let the breed bury him.”

  * * *

  “I just can’t figure it,” Wellman said.

  The four of them had left the tiny hamlet about an hour after the barroom shooting. They had resupplied and pulled out while they still had several hours of good light left them.

  “I cussed all them rowdies back yonder,” Wellman continued his musings. “Called them boys things I wouldn’t call a skunk. And they still wouldn’t fight.”

  “They’ve got something in mind for us, that’s for sure,” Sam said. “But what is it?”

  “And where was Porter and the rest of his gunfighters?” Laurie asked.

  “This Lake person down on the border has fifty or so men in his gang. Porter has twenty-five or so,” Bodine said. “What better way to get rid of us than for them to join forces and just wait for us to ride in there. So let’s don’t give them that opportunity. Dick, do you know a way in other than straight south?”

  “Shore. We can either cut east and circle back, comin’ in through below the Huachucas, or we can head west and circle back and come in thataway.”

  “Which way would you suggest?”

  “Parker Canyon. We’ll ride south and a tad west. They’ll be expectin’ us to come straight in from the Huachucas. This might throw ’em off a bit and give us just a little edge.”

  “What happens,” Laurie tossed out the question, “if we get down there and the girls are already gone?”

  Wellman bit off a chew from a plug of tobacco. “I’ll track them girls right up to and then through the gates of hell if I have to.” He chewed and spat. “And kill any man who gets in my way.”

  * * *

  “It was a dark and bloody ground when Cochise was roaming these hills and mountains,” Wellman said, twisting in the saddle.

  They were riding south, keeping Sonoita Creek to the west of them. Just a few miles to the east, numerous silver camps were still operating, although many were even now ghost towns; Mowry being one of them.

  They began angling toward the southeast, traveling through the Patagonia Mountains and into the San Rafael Valley country. A few people still lived in and around the old mining camp of Mowry and they decided to stop there and see if they might learn anything.

  “They might be a few folks still hangin’ on at Washington Camp,” Wellman said. “That’s a few miles south. We don’t learn nothin’ here, we’ll wander down thataway.”

  The saloon was still open and doing business, so they wandered in and bellied up to the bar, the bartender, wiping his hands on a dirty apron front, gave Laurie a sideways glance but other than that had no comment about her being in the saloon.

  “Rye,” Wellman said. Bodine and Sam opted for beer, and Laurie ordered her usual lemonade.

  “Ain’t got no lemonade, Miss,” the bartender said. “Rye whiskey, mescal, or beer. That’s it.”

  “Beer,” she told him, eyeballing the dirt and grime of the place. “Wash the mug before you pour it. And dry it with a clean cloth.”

  Muttering, the barkeep walked off, but he washed all the mugs and managed to find a clean enough looking rag.

  “San Rafael Cattle Company still in operation?” Wellman asked, after a sip of rye.

  The barkeep brightened up. “Shore is. You from this part of the country?”

  “Came through once or twice. I’ll come right out and say it, and if you repeat it, I’ll give you up to Green River.”

  The bartender was an old hand; he knew that remark meant this grizzled old man was probably one of the last of the breed called mountain men. “Up to Green River,” meant taking a Green River knife up the hilt—in his belly!

  “Ask your questions. I ain’t a man who repeats things ifn I’m told not to.”

  “That old Mex fort south of here . . . who’s livin’ in it now?”

  The barkeep sighed. Shook his head. “The one down on the Santa Cruz?”

  “Don’t give me no damn useless tongue-waggin’. There ain’t but one Mex fort around here.”

  “Awright, awright! Keep your pants on. Outlaw name of Lake took it over about a year ago, I reckon. Maybe longer than that. Got hisself a regular army down there. Fifty-sixty hardcases.”

  “Does business with Chappo, too, don’t he?”

  “So I been told.”

  “Just how much have you been told?”

  The barkeep looked a little green around the mouth. “I got to live around here, mister. So I reckon I done said enough.”

  Wellman moved swiftly for a man his age. He snaked a hand across the bar, grabbed the smaller man by the throat, and began shaking him like a dog with a rabbit. “The name’s Dick Wellman. And this here is Matt Bodine and Sam Two Wolves. The lady’s name is Miss Laurie. And you’re gonna tell me everything you know or I’ll just squeeze the life right out of you.”

  The barkeep’s eyes were bugged out like a frog and he gurgled and choked and nodded his head. Wellman dropped him to the floor behind the bar. The barkeep came up with a sawed-off shotgun in his hands. Matt slapped him in the face with a beer mug, shattering the mug and not doing the man’s front teeth a bit of good; they bounced around on the floor like yellowed chips of stone. The bar keep hit the floor, out cold.

  Wellman finished his rye and said, “Laurie, you rumble around in the back and locate the kitchen. See you can’t fix some grub for us. Sam, you tie the barkeep to a chair. I got me a notion that when I tell him what I’m gonna do if he don’t start jabberin’, he’s gonna start bumpin’ his gums faster than we can listen.”

  Chapter 10

  “You wouldn’t do that to me!” the barkeep hollered, his eyes all walled back in his head as he looked at Wellman’s longbladed knife. “I’m a white man!”

  “You’re scum, is what you is. All the time knowin’ about them poor scared children down yonder and not doin’ nothin’ about it.”

  “What could I do?” the barkeep almost screamed the question. “There ain’t fifteen people left in this town and half of them is drunk most of the time.”

  “What you can do right now is tell me everything you know about the fort. And, mister . . . you better tell me the truth.”

  “I cain’t do that!” the barkeep yelled. “Lake and them others will kill me.”

  Wellman laid the big blade against the side of the barkeep’s face. The smile on the old mountain man’s face was not a pleasant curving of the lips. “I’ll wager they’ll kill you a whole lot quicker than I will.”

  The man started talking.

  * * *

  When the four of them rode out of the dying and crumbling town the next morning, they left behind them a barkeep who would probably have difficulty sleeping for all his remaining time on earth.

  Wellman had not physically hurt the man; but mentally he had scarred him forever. The barkeep had taken a long look into those hard eyes of the mountain man, fe
lt the cold steel of the knife against his face, and decided that baring his soul would probably be a very wise thing to do, and so he did.

  They rode down through Washington Camp, and there they veered more to the southeast, toward the border with Mexico. They took their time, staying alert, for this was Chappo’s country. And while Chappo’s followers were few, no Apache ever lived who could match their fighting skills and cruelty with prisoners.

  Laurie spotted the piece of gingham and called out. Matt left the saddle and retrieved the brightly-colored fabric that had snagged on a low branch.

  “I don’t think it’s been here long,” he said, handing the cloth to Wellman while Sam walked the area, looking for signs.

  “It hasn’t,” Sam said. “These tracks are not more than twenty-four hours old.”

  “Poor scared little child,” Wellman muttered, his callused fingers rubbing the cloth. “A man’s got to be crapsorry to be involved in anything like stealin’ children to sell into bondage.”

  No one among them could dispute that.

  “How far away from the fort are we?” Laurie asked.

  “Not more than five miles,” Wellman told, pointing. “Yonder’s the Santa Cruz a-twistin’. We best get off this trail and make camp. Then I’ll go prowlin’ some to get the feel of the place agin.” He looked over at Matt. “If I don’t come back—and they’s a chance I might not—my little girl’s name is Jenny. Purty little thing. You get her out of there. I want you all to stay put. If I ain’t back in two days, that’ll mean I done seen the elephant. Then it’ll be time for y’all to come a-foggin’. You be careful, child,” he said to Laurie, then nodded at Sam and Bodine. “You boys take ’er easy.” Then he swung into the saddle and was gone.

  “Do we chance a fire?” Laurie asked.

  “No,” Matt said quickly. “Apaches would smell the smoke for miles. We’ll just have to settle for a cold camp.”

  * * *

  Wellman left his horse well-concealed about two miles from the fort and pulled off his boots, slipping moccasins on his feet. He would go it on foot from this point. He had watered his horse and there was enough water left in the small pool and enough graze for a couple of days. If he didn’t come back, the horse would jerk its picket pin and be gone.

  Wellman made his way cautiously through the timber and the brush. He was in rolling hills country, brown now with winter not far off. He had it in his mind that the old fort was in Mexico, set just south of the border, on the east side of the Santa Cruz. And the barkeep had said that Lake was probably paying off some corrupt Mexican officials—he thought they were Army officers—in order to stay in business. So that meant that not only were they facing anywhere from seventy-five to a hundred gunslicks and assorted trash; but that they might be looking at Mexican soldiers, as well.

  Wellman knew that in Sonora, Mexico, at this point in time, the Army, for the most part, was controlled by the rich land-owners; a baron-peasant type of government, and it was corrupt to the core, the boots of the government grinding the peasant’s face into the dirt.

  “Well, soldier-boys,” Wellman muttered, “you best be out on patrol when we get there, ’cause a bullet don’t give a damn who it hits.”

  It took him several hours to reach a vantage point overlooking the fort . . . and it was a depressing sight in that the place looked awesome, at first glance, seemingly impossible to breach. But Wellman knew there was a way; he just had to come up with it.

  The fort had been built in a clearing taking up about a hundred or so acres. The fort itself was huge, with several two-story buildings set inside high thick walls.

  “Shore didn’t remember the place as bein’ this big,” Wellman whispered to himself. “But there it is, so let’s see if we can’t figure a way to get in, get the kids, and get out!”

  He memorized the layout and watched what activity there was going on inside the compound. He concluded that the biggest building was the headquarters and probably where Lake lived and the kids were being held. Then he suddenly grinned, an idea popping into his head.

  It might work, he thought. And then he brightened as he watched a number of young kids, all girls, being escorted out into the yard of the walled compound, under heavy guard. Relief filled the man. They were still being held in the fort!

  * * *

  “I’ll stay here with Laurie,” Wellman told the others. “Matt, you and Sam beat it back to that mining camp we come through and buy all the dynamite they’ll let you have. Don’t forget caps and fuses. We’re gonna have to blast our way into that place.”

  “Did you see any soldiers?” Sam asked.

  “No. And I hope it stays that way.”

  “We’ll leave now,” Matt said. “There’s several hours of good light left. With any kind of luck, we’ll be back late tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Ride careful, boys,” the mountain man cautioned them. “I didn’t see no sign of Chappo’s band, but that bunch is like rattlesnakes: it’s when you don’t see them that you got to worry.”

  * * *

  Bodine and Sam lucked out at their first stop.

  “I’m packin’ it in,” the miner said, disgust in his voice. “Pullin’ out. I’ll sell you boys the whole kit and caboodle cheap and throw in a pack horse. How’s that sound to you?”

  They bought all his dynamite, plus some other supplies, both sides thinking they had a good deal. The equipment was loaded on the pack horse, and the blood-brothers were back with Wellman and Laurie hours before they were due to return.

  Wellman chuckled with dark humor as he eyeballed the equipment. “This’ll damn sure get their attention. Let’s start riggin’ the sticks for throwin’. Four to a bunch. You bought some bindertwine, too. Good. Let’s get to it, people. The sooner we can get this done and grab them kids, the sooner we can build a fire and we can all have a cup of coffee.”

  They were rolled out and packed up an hour before dawn. And it was cold in the pre-dawn, all of them wishing for a warm fire and a hot cup of coffee. They had to settle for jerky and a drink of water.

  And they longed for a hot bath, for they were all getting gamy.

  “We have to take into consideration that once we hit the place, Lake and the others might take the kids and run,” Sam said. He had studied a crude map of Mexico the day before. “If that’s the case, they’ll probably head straight west, toward the Gulf of California. Dick, you said the ship would dock where the Coyote runs into the Gulf ?”

  “That’s my understandin’.”

  “You know anything about that country?”

  “Not much. Just that it’s hot and dry. That’s desert country.”

  “We’ll just play it by ear,” Matt said. “Everybody ready to go?”

  They were ready, their faces clearly showing the tension in the pre-dawn.

  “Let’s ride.”

  They all had spare pistols, taken from dead outlaws who had faced them along their journey, plus the spare pistol that each always carried. The spares were loaded up full and tucked behind their belts.

  It would be Laurie’s job, once they had blown the massive gates, to stay with the horses. Wellman would gather up and hold horses for the kids to ride. Bodine and Sam would breach the headquarters building and locate and lead the kids out. But as Wellman had pointed out, all that was subject to quick change.

  The sky was sodden with low-hanging clouds as they pulled out. Before they had gone a mile, it began to rain, the drops fat and cold, and while all silently cursed the discomfort as they struggled into dark slickers, they all said a silent prayer, for the rain would cover any sounds they might make. The pre-bunched dynamite had been well covered against rain the night before.

  The ghostly falling drops made the silent trek even more grim. For this was a spooky place even under the best of conditions. It was high-up country, a place of crags and upthrusting cliffs, and the rain was producing sudden and fast-flowing little streams.

  The rain poured and turned into a violent but, fort
unately for them, a short-lived storm, with zigzagging lightning cutting the dark sky and crashing thunder that made conversation impossible. The winds tore limbs from trees and blocked the narrow trail, oftentimes forcing them to seek another route. It became so dark that one had difficulty seeing the other in front of them.

  Still they rode on, knowing that the storm would keep those in the fort inside and hopefully, unaware of the searchers until it was too late. They bunched up so no one would get lost in the storm.

  Finally, the storm abated, the winds calmed, and the rain was reduced to a drizzle. The skies remained dark; night in the midst of dawn.

  Finally they came to the little hollow where Wellman had left his horse that day he studied the fort. “She lies right over that ridge,” he said. “We’re right on top of ’er, people. I’ve seen it. You people crawl on up yonder and take you a good looksee at what we’re up agin. I’ll stay with the horses.”

  The faces of the three mirrored their shock at initially viewing the fortress, for at first glance, it seemed impregnable. But then Bodine shifted positions and worked his way around to where he could see the rear of the fort and began to size it up with a warrior’s eyes. A dangerous smile creased his lips.

  He rejoined the others. “I took me a good look at the rear of the fort,” he whispered, although whispering was not necessary. “The big building, what Wellman called the headquarters, butts right up against the wall. I guess they never expected any attack from the south, ’cause there’s all sorts of crap been allowed to gather back there. Rocks and crates and what-have-you.”

  He paused, glanced over at Sam, and grinned at his blood brother.

  “Let me guess,” Sam said. “You’re going in the back way while we create a diversion for you in the front.”

  He did not pose it as a question.

  “You got part of it right. Let’s get back to Dick and lay it out for him.”

  * * *

  “Boy, have you lost your mind!” Wellman said. “That there’s a suicide stunt. I’m agin it.”

  “Think about it,” Bodine urged. “With any kind of luck at all, I can get in there, get the kids out over the wall, and be gone while you three are creating a diversion. Just as soon as the last girl is clear, I’ll light the fuses on enough explosives to bring down that whole damn building and stun everybody in that place for five minutes. I got to play it by ear, Dick. But I think it’ll work.”