by J. T. Edson
Men crashed through the bushes, coming fast to investigate the shot which should not have come. Dusty was the first to arrive on the scene and he came with his guns out. He holstered the long-barreled Colts and stepped forward to where the Kid was standing looking down at Charro.
“What happened?” Chavez came up.
“The pelado had a gun,” the Kid replied.
“He lies, Colonel,” Charro gasped. “I fought fairly, he shot me then cut me to hide the hole.”
“So?” Chavez looked hard at the Kid, then back at Charro. “One is lying. I wonder which. Well?”
A Mexican stepped forward and saluted; it was to him Chavez spoke. “I saw Charro with the gun two days ago.”
The Kid bent down and lifted the Derringer up to examine it. He turned the gun over and over in his hands, then grinned mirthlessly. “Where did you get this gun from?” he asked.
Charro looked up with fear in his eyes as he tried to staunch the flow of blood which came from his wound. He licked his lips and shook his head weakly. The Kid pulled his hair and dragged the head back, placing the edge of his knife to the neck.
“Why do you ask?” Chavez inquired. “Do you know it?”
“Sure, there were a pair of them owned by a couple of hombres called Giss ‘n’ Kraus. They used them to identify their men when they were smuggling. They’d give one to buyer and the other to the man with the goods. This is one of the two guns.”
“I see, but Kraus is our man; he works for Juarez.”
“Sure.” The Kid turned the gun over and carved on the trigger-guard was the word, “Giss”.
“Giss. He is the Maximilian man who nearly trapped Almonte and Bonaventura. What does this mean?”
Charro was too far gone to reply to the question. He slumped back against the tree, bleeding to death as the other men talked. Not one of them showed any sign of helping him until Dusty bent down and examined the gaping wound and started to tie a tourniquet around the arm.
“Tell you what it means,” the Kid replied. “Giss and Kraus are still in cahoots. They’re working for the French but Kraus acts like he is on your side. Then when he gets anything to pass on to the French he sends Charro with it and that gun acts as a blab board for him.”
Chavez could speak some English but the term “Blab board” had him beaten. It was Dusty who explained that a blab board was the sheet of cowhide carrying his ranch’s brand the spread rep. wore to announce who he belonged to at a round-up. Dusty also explained that Charro would carry the Derringer for a passport to show any French he contacted that he was to be trusted by them.
“So?” Chavez growled, lowering the muzzle of the revolver he drew. “Die, dog!”
The bullet cut over the Kid’s shoulder and Charro’s body bounced as the lead smashed into his head. He quivered once and went limp. The Kid rose, eyeing Chavez in an unpleasant manner.
“What the hell?” he growled.
“So die all traitors.”
“Real nice and patriotic, friend.” In his annoyance the Kid forgot to speak Spanish. “But I’d surely rather had him alive and talking than dead and dumb. I wanted to know just where I could find Kraus.”
“I am sorry, my young friend. I did not know you had private business with him or I would have held off. It is to be regretted that he died so easily. I acted hastily, something no soldier should do. Come, we will leave this place.”
The men returned through the trees, none of them saying much—Alden and Conway having stayed behind to watch the weapons showed their relief when Dusty and the Kid came back with the Mexicans.
“What happened?” Alden asked.
Dusty explained quickly and then gave the order to prepare to move out and head towards Monterrey. The mule skinners went to work loading up the mules with either boxes or long bundles. Conway’s men worked fast for there was a large number of animals to load. Each mule was given its balanced load, one bundle of rifles or two boxes of ammunition strapped to each pannier and fastened on with the hitch which held it securely.
When all the mules were ready to move on Chavez came up and looked round. “My men and I will ride with you to Monterrey.” he said. “It will be best for all concerned and I think Benito would want it.”
“Why sure,” Dusty agreed. He grinned cheerfully as he waved the men to move on. “Besides with only a thousand of these repeaters among the Juarez army a man will need to be on hand to make sure he gets at least one of them.”
Chavez smiled back. This small, soft talking gringo who seemed to be the leader of the men was a smart one. Chavez could tell a born leader and knew that here was one, such a one as the small, half Indian Benito Juarez who would soon rule all Mexico and even now led the fight for freedom against the French.
“Lon, take a point,” Dusty ordered, then turned to Chavez. “Sorry, Colonel. As senior officer you take command of the escort.”
“I accept your judgment, Jose, ride with el Cabrito as the scout.”
Chavez watched the Ysabel Kid and one of his half-Indian men head out fast to scout the area ahead, then he turned to Dusty and asked who the small Texan rode for, thinking him to be a member of the United States Army.
“Texas Light Cavalry. I retired at the end of the War.”
They rode side-by-side, Alden staying back with Conway and the muleskinners. For a time Chavez was silent as they followed the scouts, keeping under cover as well as they could all the time, and avoiding skylines.
“The Texas Light Cavalry were Confederate Army?” There was suspicion in the soft spoken inquiry.
“Sure.”
“There are many Confederate men riding for Maximilian.”
“I’m not gainsaying it,” Dusty could almost read the Mexican’s thoughts. “That is why I am helping take these rifles to Juarez.”
“That is strange, very strange. I would have thought you would be taking these weapons to your friends.”
“Nope. To Juarez. You know that the United States Government is willing to help your people against the French?”
“There was some rumor.”
“No rumor, Colonel. It’s the living truth. Do you think Washington would’ve allowed us to leave the country with these rifles if they were aiming to help the French?”
“It doesn’t appear likely,” Chavez agreed. “Why then are you coming?”
“I want to ask Juarez to give the Confederate soldiers free and unrestricted passage back to the United States. Then I aim to go down and talk with General Sheldon, their leader, and get him to come home with me. That way our country will be free to help you without causing international trouble.”
“I see.”
The Kid and Jose were at the top of a rim, just below the skyline. The Kid turned in his saddle and removed his hat to wave it round his head. Dusty twisted in his saddle and brought the line of mules to a halt. Then he rode up the hill with Conway, Chavez and Alden following him.
The Kid and the Mexican were down from their horses and laying just under the rim looking over. Dusty swung down from his paint and left it standing with the reins hanging loose. He drew the carbine and went up the slope to drop by the Kid.
On the other side of the slope, riding in a course which would traverse their own came horsemen. Dusty did not need the tricolor flag carried by one of the men to know that here were French cavalry. A strong company by American standards, over sixty men, with scouts ahead, on the flanks behind them.
Chavez joined Dusty, he also watched the Frenchmen, noting their scouts rode across the trail at the bottom of the slope that started the long climb up this side.
“They will see us, there is no chance of hiding so many mules,” he said softly. “We must make a fight.”
“Against a force that strong?” Dusty objected. “We wouldn’t have a chance.”
“With the repeating rifles we would.”
“Sure and the second volley would warn the French that we were armed with repeaters.” Dusty shook his head. “It’s no goo
d that way, Colonel. The French know about these rifles but they don’t know for certain they are in Mexico. Half a minute after we open fire they will know and they’ll know how we’re moving them. Then they’ll light out of here faster’n a Neuces steer and tell the main force what’s happened to the rifles.”
“Dusty’s right,” the Kid agreed. “The French allow we’re trying to bring the rifles by wagon, not by mule. We want to keep them thinking that way as long as we can. We won’t do it by fighting them bunch with the repeaters. They’ll surely come over here and some of them will see the mules.”
“You’re right. But they will see us when they reach the top of the slope and no officer would ride by such a sight.”
Chavez moved back down the slope, signaling to his men to come up and join him. “We go over that slope and fight the French. Move the mules and tell Juarez I die for my country.”
Before Dusty or the others could say a word Chavez and his men were riding up the slope. The Colonel turned and raised a hand in a salute then riding as if on a routine patrol led his men over and down the other side.
“Move them out, fast!” Dusty ordered.
“I’m going back to see what happens,” the Kid growled. Dusty caught the black sleeve and gripped it hard, meeting his friend’s eyes. “Chavez knew what he was doing. Don’t try and help him with that repeater.”
For a time, until the mule train was nearly out of sight, the Kid stayed and watched the gallant but hopeless fight. He longed to go down and help but knew that to do so would cause the very thing Chavez led his men to prevent.
Chapter Eight – Mark Counter Changes Sides
They pushed the mules hard, keeping the loping animals moving at a fair speed and putting distance between them and Chavez’s fighting men. For a time Dusty rode at the point of the line then he let Conway go ahead as scout and cut back for the rear. They were traveling through the rolling Mexican hill country and from the top of a rim Dusty sat his paint watching the big white stallion bringing the Ysabel Kid towards him. Faintly in the distance he could still hear shooting and knew that Chavez still fought the French, holding them from finding the tracks of the mules and giving Conway’s train a chance to get well clear.
The Ysabel Kid looked Indian-savage as he came up, bringing the big white stallion to a rump-sliding halt and scowling at Dusty.
“We could have helped them,” he said.
“Sure, and the French would have known about these rifles. Do you reckon I liked leaving them to fight?”
“Nope, don’t reckon you did. It galls a man to miss a fight though.”
Dusty gripped his friend’s arm again. The grip was firm and his eyes were friendly as he said, “Sure I know how you feel. Come on, we’d best catch up with the others.”
The mule train was kept moving all that day and the next. It was only a three-day drive from Monterrey to Texas, going by the most direct route but they did not travel direct. Once they spent three hours hid in a bosque while a French patrol cooked a meal less than half a mile from them. The French were not alert or even expecting trouble for they ignored the sudden bray of one of the mules. Another time they were forced to make a long detour through the safe cover at the bottom of a dried-up river-bed to avoid the eyes of another patrol.
On the third day the Ysabel Kid announced to Dusty that he would head for a small town called San Juanita and see a few friends, who would know if the French were about. Dusty wasn’t too happy about letting the Kid ride alone but knew that he himself could not leave the train and that the Kid would prefer to go unescorted.
So the Kid rode ahead of the others, traveling at a better speed than they could make with the loaded-down animals. He rode with the caution of a Comanche on a scouting mission, sticking to cover, surveying the ground ahead and never moving over a rim without first making a careful approach and study from under it. He halted the horse on the rim above San Juanita, which was more of a village, and a small village at that. It consisted of some thirty mud and adobe built houses, none of them large, a slightly larger abode built of cantina and a small stone church. The town was surrounded on three sides by well-wooded land, but on this side from where the Kid was approaching it was all fairly open country. Halfway along was a tall, flat-topped rock which overlooked the surrounding countryside and in the days when contraband was being run into San Juanita provided a very handy place for a man to sit and watch the surrounding district. From the top of the rock a man could see every inch of the land from it down to the town and well over the thick wooded country with the only two paths through the woods in plain view. Another thing about that rock was that it was unclimbable except from the side nearest the town, where someone had taken time and cut steps into the steep face allowing a man to get up in a hurry, or down again.
The Kid rode by Lookout Rock as it was called and down towards the town. He frowned as he studied the deserted streets. San Juanita was never a busy place, that is, not in the day time, though it could get very busy after dark, but there were usually a few people in sight. It was not yet the hour of siesta either and the very stillness would have warned the Kid if it had been any other place. But San Juanita, tucked away in the hills as it was, never attracted any attention to it and there were men who’d ridden past it on the other side of the slope who would have sworn no village existed there.
The street was empty and deserted, and the Kid wondered where his friends were as he rode in along it. Even if the men were asleep in the houses and the women not talking to each other they should have kept someone watching the trail.
Halting his stallion the Kid looked round then called, “Hey Ruis, Pablo. Come on out here!”
“Raise your hands and drop your guns!”
The voice was speaking Spanish, not pure Spanish but with the same accent the men in Brownsville had used. The Kid sat his horse and lifted his hands to shoulder height seeing three rifles lined on him from different hiding places. To move would be death for the men were resting their weapons and not all of them would miss.
A big heavily built man with a hard, coarse face and wearing the uniform of the French Blue Hussars stepped from a hut. In his hand he held a Lefauchex pistol and on his sleeve the three bars of a sergeant.
“Get down and remove that gunbelt,” he ordered.
The Kid swung down from his saddle, knowing that he would never escape by a fast dash for he’d looked round and there were many rifles lined on him now. Then even as his foot touched the floor he realized he must not let them get his horse for in the saddle boot was a rifle of a kind the French would never have seen before. Any doubt they had as to his identity would be settled when they examined the rifle as they were sure to. Mere curiosity would call for a closer look and no soldier could resist examining so novel a weapon closer. Along the top of the barrel was printed the words, “Winchester Repeating Firearms Company, New Haven, Conn.” He guessed the French would know which company were selling the arms to Juarez and would have warned their men to be on the lookout for such weapons.
Slowly he lowered his hands to unbuckle the heavy gun-belt. He swung it from his wrist and lowered it to the ground. Then he hissed a command. The big white stallion rocketed forward, leaping into a racing stride which took every man by surprise. The men were concentrating on the Ysabel Kid and when the horse went off like that they were confused, not knowing if they should still cover the man or shoot the horse.
The sergeant was in no doubt. His Lefauchex gun came up and crashed but it would have taken a better pistol shot than he to hit that racing white stallion. “Stop it!” he bellowed. “Don’t let it—!”
It was too late. The big white was running fast and even as the men poured out of the houses they were too late for the horse was out of town and streaking back the way it came.
The sergeant watched the horse go, then turned and looked at the tall, dark and innocent looking young man who stood watching him with mocking eyes. “Pig!” he snarled and lashed the back of his hand across
the Kid’s face.
The young man staggered back; a soldier smashed the butt of his carbine into the base of his spine sending him forward again into another crashing blow which sent him to the ground. The sergeant snarled out strange and savage curses as he came in drawing his foot back for a kick.
A tall man had come from a house at the shot. He came forward now, thrusting through the crowd as if it wasn’t there. His left hand shot out, gripped the big sergeant by the arm, turned him and then the right fist drove out to crash on to the jaw of the Frenchman hard enough to stretch him flat on his back.
The Kid looked up at his rescuer, a handsome young, blond giant. Three or more inches over six foot he stood, with great wide shoulders that tapered down to a narrow waist and powerful straight legs. On his head was an expensive Confederate campaign hat, shoved back from his curly, golden blond hair. The face was very handsome, classic in its shape and form. He wore the single gold braid from the cuff of his sleeve to the bend of the elbow and the half-inch wide, three-inch long gold bar at his collar that denoted he was a first Lieutenant but the uniform was not as laid down by Confederate Army Dress Regulations. His double breasted grey tunic did not have the required shirt extending to between hip and knee, but was cut off at the waist. It did have the collar and cuffs of cavalry yellow, but the stand-up collar was open and instead of the required black cravat he wore a tight rolled bandana of scarlet silk, the ends hanging loose almost to his waistband. His trousers were regulation, tight legged and obviously tailored for him, and the shining Jefferson boots were well fitting. Instead of the issue sword belt he wore a buscadero gunbelt with a matched brace of ivory butted Colt 1860 Army revolvers in the low-tied holsters.
All-in-all he looked like a very rich young man who entered the Confederate Army with a commission readymade for him. He also brought with him his own idea of what military uniform should be and wore this variation of it because he preferred it.
The young man might be big but he was neither slow nor clumsy. Behind him one of the men started to raise his rifle, the hammer clicking back under his thumb. The young man came round in a smooth turn, hand dropping and the long-barreled Colt leaping from his right holster in a fast, proficient draw. The Kid was something of a connoisseur when it came to studying fast draws and this was as fast almost as the draw of his able young friend, Dusty Fog.