At long last we left the town, passed a few lonely looking adobe shacks, and then we were in the open country. I pulled my horse down, intent on saving him after the long run he’d had, and put him into a ground-eating lope. The rest behind me did the same except Norris who spurred his horse to come even with me. I took one look over at his face and I didn’t like the look of it. He was saying something to me, leaning toward me out of his saddle. I pretended not to hear. I looped the reins around the saddle horn and then twisted backwards to reach into my saddlebags for spare ammunition. Still going at a pretty good lope I took the time to reload my .42/.40 and my saddle gun. When I shoved the saddle gun home in its boot I waved Norris back. He wanted to say something else but I just kept my gaze straight ahead, calculating the ground and the direction we had to go.
I turned us straight west, whipping my horse through the stunted underbrush and the rocks and the cactus. I was careful of my animal, but I was more careful of what I knew were the inferior beasts that Ben had been able to buy in Monterrey. Off to my right I could see the first of the little line of wooded ridges that I was counting on for cover. I gradually turned us northwest. Calculating the time and the month of the year we were in, I figured we didn’t have much more than three hours until dark. I wanted to make as many tracks as possible before the moon got up. We may have shot the hell out of the federales at the jail but there was a whole bunch more around and available.
And then there were the rurales to consider. Of the two, I didn’t prefer either one. All I knew was that I had a hundred miles of ground to cover before I could bring my people to safety.
We kept riding, taking a pace that the horses could stand across the sometimes green but most often barren landscape. After two hours I called a halt and ordered everyone out of their saddles to walk their mounts. Of course that did not include Capitán Davilla, whose poor animal would have to put up with whatever it could bear. We had no intentions of untying the good capitán.
As we walked, leading our horses to give them a much needed blow, Norris came up beside me. He said, “I just want you to understand that I’m doing this under protest. I want you to know that I could have won my legal way out of that jail without you resorting to tactics equivalent to theirs.”
My ankle was hurting and I was weary and still a little scared. My patience was short. I said, “Oh, shut up, Norris. I don’t want to hear any more of this foolishness. Now drop back and keep out of the way.”
He said, “No, we’ll discuss it now.”
I had been kind of glancing around. Looking to my right, just past Norris, I suddenly saw a small band of riders coming toward us at a gallop. I yelled, “Company coming. Mount up!”
I was amazed they could have gotten after us so fast. Hell, as far as I was concerned we’d left that jail in a shambles. But then there must have been a police barracks somewhere near who’d been able to get up a catch party Johnny Quick. But as I swung my leg over the saddle I took another look at the intruders. They were no more than a half mile away and coming fast. Near as I could tell there weren’t but about five of them and it would have been the last word in foolhardiness to have attacked an equal party such as ours on an open plain. Hell, in another moment we’d have been able to start picking them off with our lever action Winchester carbines. I sat my horse for a second, watching them, then put him into a slow walk. I kept seeing them get closer. They did not look like federales or rurales. I wished mightily for the old ship-captain’s spyglass that my father kept in his room, but that was a good three hundred miles away. I would have to content myself with my own eyesight.
I looked ahead. The nearest cover, the little scrub-covered ridge, was too far off to break for. We were out in the middle of a flat, barren plain with an unknown enemy bearing down on us. When they were about a quarter of a mile away I called for a halt. I said, “Dismount. Put your rifles across your horses’ saddles and get ready to fire. But no man shoots until I do.”
Looking down the line I yelled for Lew to lead Davilla out between us and the advancing party. I watched them coming on, wrinkling my brow as to who they could be. They were near enough now for me to get a count; it appeared to be six men. What six men would be foolish enough to charge down the guns of an armed and hostile group of men as desperate as they must have known we were? That is, if they knew who we were and they were chasing us.
I kept watching them come on, their horses’ hooves raising a small dust cloud as they galloped over the plain. They grew bigger and bigger. I started to tense up and carefully took aim over my iron sights. Then I relaxed as I recognized the lead rider. I said, “Oh, hell!” I took my rifle down and swung into the saddle. I said to the others, “Never mind, it’s Senor Elizandro.”
Ben said, “Is that the politico?”
“Yeah, only he was supposed to have gone the other way.”
Ben said, disgustedly, “Ain’t that just fine. And I imagine he’s brought some company right behind him. Goddammit, Justa, what does he think he’s doing?”
All I could do was shake my head. We stood steady watching them come on. Ten yards away they came to a jolting and shuddering stop as they pulled their horses up. Their animals were good and lathered up and their flanks were heaving. A man with one eye could see they’d been put through a hard run and they weren’t the quality of horseflesh could stand much hard usage. Senor Elizandro put his hand to a sombrero he’d got somewhere. He said, “Well, good day, my good friend. We have the good fortune to meet again.”
I said, “Señor, what the hell are you doing here? You promised me you were going southwest.”
“Aaah, yes,” he said, smiling. “That was the plan. But by bad chance we ran into a large party of federales who had heard the shooting and were coming to the jail for the rescue.” He shrugged. “We had no choice, since they outnumbered us to a great extent, except to turn the other way.”
“Well, did you have to come straight to us?”
He smiled and swept his hand around. “Was there any other way for me to turn? Besides, you seem to have excellent luck, Meester Williams.” He gestured toward the little ridge in advance of us. “I think perhaps we should progress forward. I think maybe there are some policía coming.”
I looked off in the direction he’d come from. Far off in the distance, maybe several miles, I could see a thin column of dust rising toward the sky. I said, “Well, that is just wonderful. I break you out of jail and you bring the police down on me.”
He said, gently, “Did you not think they would chase you anyway? Your leetle bombs did much work. An idea, by the way, on which I congratulate you. It was excellent planning.”
“Let’s move,” I said, with no attempt to hide my ill temper. I looked back to see how Elizandro’s men had fallen in with my party. I saw Benito. He gave me a big smile and a wave. Then I saw Jack sort of bending over in his saddle. Then I saw the red splotch on his white shirt near his left side. I said, “Jack! What the hell’s the matter?”
“Nothin’, Justa,” he said. “Little nick. Don’t amount to a hill of beans.”
I swore. “When did you get hit? You were supposed to be back out of the way.”
Ben spoke up. “He wouldn’t stay back. He come up by me to give more fire.”
“Damn you, Jack!” I said. “You wasn’t to have any part of the gunplay. Now you’ve gone and got yourself shot. You told me you was too old for this sort of thing! Why didn’t you listen to yourself?”
Before he could answer, Señor Elizandro said, gently, “I think it would be good if we moved.” He pointed toward the dust cloud. It was visibly larger. “I think they come pretty queek.”
“Let’s go,” I said.
We set off at a canter, aiming for the corner of that low ridge. I yelled back, “We’re going to take it slow. I don’t want to raise any dust. Lew, how’s your man?”
Lew said, “He ain’t real happy right now. I think he’s got a busted wrist. Don’t know how that could have happened.”
I had originally estimated the ridge as being some two miles distant. But it seemed the more we rode the further away it got. Heat shimmered off the barren plains making it difficult to see clearly in that westerly direction. I took a squint at the sun. It was coming down toward the horizon and I calculated there couldn’t be much more than an hour and a half before it started coming twilight. Dark was our ally; it would cover our dust and disguise our intentions.
Elizandro said, politely, “Perhaps we should go a leetle more rápido.”
“No,” I said. “We’re doing just fine. By the way, what the hell is your calling name? Your first name? I’m getting tired of calling you senor.”
He said, “Miguel. Until my father’s death I was called Miguelito because, as you say it, Miguel was also his calling name.”
“We do the same thing in Texas,” I said. “Except we refer to them as Junior.”
“I know,” he said.
“You know a lot about the United States and you speak damn good English. How come?”
He said, “I lived in San Antonio for some time. I went to school there at the small college they have.”
“Yeah?”
He was looking off in the distance, watching the advance of the catch party that was beginning now to almost grow visible as mounted horsemen. “Yes,” he said. He hesitated, then said, “Perhaps I came this way because I will have to leave Mexico for a time. I have some very powerful enemies in the government. I think I will do better across the Rio Bravo, or the Rio Grande as you call it.”
That alarmed me. I said, “Listen, Miguelito, I’ve got my own troubles. I got no time to be messing in Mexico’s politics. If you’ve brought a hornet’s nest down around our ears on account of your business, I ain’t going to take that too kindly.”
He smiled. “I will ask you again if you do not think they would have chased you anyway?”
I said, “Maybe not as hard as they’re going to be chasing you.”
He said, “My men and I will take the hard parts. We will fight the rear-guard action if it comes to that.”
Which made me think of something that had been on my mind. I said, “You should have been eight. What happened to two of your party?”
He made a motion with his hand. “They were killed. Mexican politics are very violent. It is difficult to last long as a politician in these times.”
I said, “The same can be said for your horses. Looks like you rode them pretty damn hard. You’re liable to be fighting a rear-guard action, all right, but that will be because your horses have played out.”
Miguel smiled and said, “Oh, no. It is a well-known fact that Mexicans are the best horsemen in the world. We know that because we keep telling each other. We’ve been killing horses since the time of the conquistadores, but we are still the best horsemen in the world.”
I just gave him a look. Then I glanced toward the horsemen that were quartering toward our right flank. The ridge had mercifully drawn a little nearer. I waved my arm forward and touched spurs to my gelding. He responded even though I knew he had to be damn good and tired. I put him in a gallop, Señor Elizandro keeping pace beside me. I looked back. Our little band was strung out with Lew and his capitán bringing up the rear. Jack was still hunched over his saddle horn, but he seemed to be riding easy in the saddle. I could just hope he wasn’t too bad hurt, but I wouldn’t know about that until I got a look.
I kept watching the catch party coming up on our right. They had the angle on us, but they were a good deal too far off to present an immediate threat. As we swept around the west end of the little ridge I calculated the police party was still a good two, three miles away.
Ahead of us there were other ridges and I debated about going on further, perhaps forting up behind the second in the line, or perhaps the third. They weren’t ridges exactly, not what I thought of as a ridge. They were more little long, narrow humps of sand and rock and cactus and brush with every kind of thorn you could imagine. They didn’t seem to have much order or much reason; they just seemed to rise out of the floor of the plain more or less as an afterthought. I knew, of course, that they stepped their way toward the distant mountains but they were so far off you didn’t immediately connect them with the little humps that looked so friendly to my eye.
I decided to take a stand behind the first knoll. I knew the horses needed rest badly and I knew that standing at the first ridge would leave the federales unprotected on the flat plain. We might be able to deal them considerable discouragement with some well-placed shooting.
We swept around the end of the ridge and I led us to a halt about halfway down its quarter-mile length. I yelled back, “Take the bits out of your horses’ mouths and loosen their girths, but don’t unsaddle. Lew, you better get your prisoner off that animal’s back before he craters. Just hog-tie him and lay him on the ground. And hurry! We haven’t got much time.”
I dismounted, pulling out my carbine as I did and digging down in my saddlebags for a handful of extra ammunition. I said, “Miguel, tell your men to take their rifles and get up on the ridge. Tell them no one fires until I do. Make that very clear to them.”
He let loose a volley of Spanish and his men began swinging out of the saddle and doing as my party was doing. “Jack,” I said, “you stay down here and look after the horses. Rig you up a picket rope if you feel up to it. But stay down here!”
He didn’t say anything. I thought he looked a little drawn and white-faced, but I was in too big of a hurry hustling people up on the top of the ridge. I had let my horse’s reins drop. He would ground halt, being trained not to walk far trailing his reins because he’d found out the hard way that he would step on them and that would bring a result not to his liking. I had my carbine in my hand and I scrambled up the little slope, dodging through the brambles and briar bushes. My ankle was hurting pretty good and I had no doubt that I’d caught a slug through my boot, though just how bad it was I didn’t have time to look into. I went up toward the crest yelling for Ben. I wanted him beside me. If any delicate shots had to be made, he was the one that would make them.
When I got to the top I collapsed behind a bramble of greasewood and peered out. I could see the riders now. There appeared to be about thirty or forty of them. A voice to my left said, quietly, “Federales and rurales. See the difference in the color of the uniforms? The federales are tan. The rurales are green. Fortunately for us I see more federales.”
I looked over. Señor Elizandro was lying just to my left. He had a rifle laid out before him. I said, “They’re still at least a mile away. But riding hard.”
“They have good horses,” he said. “They will come straight on. They are not very intelligent. They will have expected us to do what they would do—keep running. They would not have considered the ambush.”
I said, “Then they got a hell of a shock coming.”
Ben had come up to my right. He flopped down and looked at the oncoming riders. He said, “They keep coming like they are, I’d figure about five minutes.”
I raised my head and looked down the line. Señor Elizandro’s men were deployed to the left. Counting Norris, we were five of our party anchoring the right side, the side the catch party would try to flank. Lew was at the very end. I called down to him and asked how the capitán was doing. I still hadn’t made up my mind as to how best to utilize my hostage.
He called back, “Got him tied down on the ground. Jack’s watching him.”
“How’s Jack?”
“Little unsteady, Justa.”
I said, because they were getting a little too close to be talking out loud, “Pass the word—nobody fires until I do.”
The word went to my left in Spanish and to my right in English. Then I said to Ben, “Tell me when you think you can hit your first target. I’ll wait about a half a minute after that for the rest of us.”
Ben said, “We’re going to kill an awful lot of horses.”
I knew how he felt about that but it couldn’
t be helped. Horses just made much bigger targets than men and, at the range we’d open up at, there was little chance of just hitting men. But a dead horse was just as good as a dead man so far as their pursuit went. They weren’t going to be able to ride double and catch us. I said, “Forget it, Ben. I never taught you it was easy doing these matters.”
“Yeah,” he said. He licked his lips, watching the riders coming on. They sure as hell weren’t saving anything for the next day. Ben said, “What the hell, we’ll probably be doing them horses a service by shooting them. God knows they is fixing to get rode to death.”
I looked down the line. Norris was laying next to Hays. I could dimly see a rifle in his hands through the underbrush. I didn’t know where he’d gotten it; borrowed it off of Jack, probably.
The light was starting to go. I figured it wasn’t more than a half an hour to good dark. I tried to think of the date, trying to figure how much moon to expect, but all that did was bring on guilty thoughts of how near the date was and how little time I had left. But, hell, I couldn’t blame the woman. She’d put up with my foolishness about as long as any mortal woman could. She wanted a husband and a settled life; she didn’t want to be married to some wild man that was always chasing around the country getting into trouble. She couldn’t have cared less that I was laying on a lonely hummock in Mexico fixing to shoot it out with the police troops. As far as she was concerned I should have been at home seeing to getting our house built and picking out my best man.
Ben said, “Getting pretty close.” He shifted his rifle into a firing position. “You might want to tell these folks that at the distance we’ll be shooting they need to aim low. Us up above them is likely to make for high shooting.”
I passed the word down. Ben knew how to shoot and there was no mistake about that. He’d learned from Buttercup, who might have been the worst cook God ever invented but who knew more about shooting than anyone I’d ever met.
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