Either way, the Apaches responsible were going to pay for their atrocity in blood.
~*~
In the second that elapsed between the moment Clay saw the glint of sunlight and the rifle of the concealed bandit blasted, he threw himself from the saddle, diving to the right into high weeds that choked the side of the gulch. He hit on his shoulder and rolled a few yards to make it harder for the bushwhacker to pinpoint his position.
Two more slugs sheared into the vegetation but wide of where Clay lay on his belly. Rising onto his knees, he watched his mount race in panic down the gully. Without that horse his chances of overtaking the bandits were slim. He took off after it, weaving as he ran, keeping brush and trees between himself and the rifleman.
Shots cracked on the opposite rim. Twigs and branches were splintered by slugs. One nicked Clay’s shin. He halted behind a pine to return fire, levering off five shots in swift succession. The gunfire from the other side ceased.
Clay ran on. The horse had disappeared around a bend in the gully. He hoped it would slow down soon or stop. But when he reached the bend, the spooked animal was hundreds of yards away with its mane flying and tail high.
“Damn!” Clay said. Crouching, he zigzagged to the far slope and up to the top. He was surprised that the bandit did not try to pick him off.
The clatter of hooves on stone told Clay why. The bandit was fleeing too. Clay streaked toward the sound, over a knoll and across a narrow flat to a rocky spine sixty feet long. He leaped onto the smooth incline, braced his heels, and scrambled to the top.
Just in time. The bandit was relying on the spine to cover his flight and was moving along it with his body bent low over his saddle horn so he could not be seen from the gully.
Clay set down his Winchester, coiled his legs, waited until the rider came underneath him, and pounced. He wanted the man alive so he could force him to reveal the destination of the gang.
The bandit spotted Clay’s shadow and jerked around, but he was too late. Clay’s left shoulder rammed into the rider’s side, spilling them both onto the ground. Clay regained his feet sooner and lashed out with a fist. The bandit handily jumped aside and went for one of the pistols decorating his waist.
Shifting, Clay slid in close and clamped a hand on the outlaw’s wrist so the man couldn’t bring the pistol into play. For hectic moments they danced in circles, each struggling for possession of the revolver. Clay forked a foot behind the man’s leg and shoved, upending him. Clay landed on top, gouging his knees into the other’s stomach.
A boot walloped Clay. He landed on his right shoulder next to the bandit, who redoubled his attempt to use the pistol. Clay had to strain to hold the barrel at bay. In their rolling and thrashing they smashed into the rocky spine. Clay, distracted for a heartbeat, felt a knee drive into his groin. Weakness and fleeting nausea came over him.
The bandit shoved free and jumped to his feet. Sneering in triumph, he pointed the pistol and thumbed back the hammer.
Clay snapped his left foot into the man’s knee. A loud crack sounded a fraction of a second before the pistol went off. The slug thudded into the dirt inches from Clay’s ear. Flipping to the left, he heard the gun thunder again but fortunately the wobbly bandit missed.
Abruptly reversing direction, Clay plowed into the bandit’s legs. The Mexican staggered backward into the rock wall and cursed as his fractured knee buckled and he toppled forward, directly onto Clay.
In an instant, Clay swept both knees to his chest so that the bandit fell against the soles of his feet. Then with a heave, he hurled the man back against the spine with such force that the bandit slumped to the ground.
Clay rose. The man’s pistol had fallen. He promptly picked it up. Drawing back his other hand, he gave the bandit a ringing slap across the cheek. The man started, blinked, and went motionless with fear.
“Where are the others going?” Clay asked in Spanish. To spur an answer, he cocked the pistol and pressed the end of the barrel against the tip of the man’s nose.
“I don’t know,” the bandit said.
“Liar.”
“I swear!” the man cried. “We were on our way to Hermosillo when your band attacked us. Now my amigos are running for their lives, and I have no idea where they are headed.”
“I want the truth.”
“That is the truth. By all that is holy, you must believe me.”
“I don’t,” Clay said, straightening up. He smiled at the man, then shot him through the right shoulder.
The shriek of torment the bandit let out with must have carried for half a mile. The man arched his spine and writhed about for a minute like a stricken wildcat, his teeth clenched, beads of sweat lining his brow.
“I would not lie again, if I were you,” Clay said. “It is not hard to figure out what happened. Every outlaw gang has a leader, and yours is that big hombre with the gut. He wanted you to delay anyone who was on your trail. And he would have told you where to meet your amigos later.” Clay paused and leaned down so the pistol was trained on the bandit’s chest. “Where?”
The bandit licked his spittle-flecked lips, his gaze riveted on the six-shooter. “Honest to God, I do not want to die. I would tell you if we had set up a rendezvous. But there was no time. We were in too much of a hurry.”
Clay lowered the pistol. There was a chance the man was actually telling the truth. He would have to do the job the hard way, by tracking the bandits. Turning, he stared at the man’s horse, which had halted about fifty feet away to graze. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the bandit. He knew what the man would do before the man did it. So when the outlaw slipped a hand onto the other pistol, he was ready.
In a smooth, fluid spin, Clay swung around and fanned the hammer twice. It was a trick few men mastered because of the tendency of a heavy-caliber pistol to kick when fired, but with practice, a skilled gunman could fan accurately at short ranges. And Clay Taggart was very skillful. Both slugs ripped into the bandit’s heart, dead center. The man died without uttering another sound.
“Idiot,” Clay said as he squatted to strip off the twin gunbelts the man wore. After strapping them around his waist, he loaded both pistols and slipped the bandit’s bandoleers over his own chest. He retrieved the Winchester before hurrying to the sorrel, which gave him a wary scrutiny, but did not run off.
Forking leather, Clay pulled out the bandit’s rifle, a Henry in excellent condition. He decided to keep it and shoved it back into the boot. Clucking the sorrel into a trot, he placed his Winchester across his legs.
A man could never have enough guns.
~*~
Martin Gonzalez felt his mouth go dry from apprehension. He looked at Pedro and asked, “You are sure of this?”
“Yes, sir,” the tracker answered, motioning at the tracks behind the huge boulder. “Your daughter came behind here by herself. Then something happened. I do not know what. But she bled badly and was carried off by the White Apache.”
Captain Filisola frowned. “The ruthless butcher must have stabbed her.”
Pedro cocked his head. “I do not think so, Captain. All his tracks are on top of the blood. From what I can tell, he came running, as if to help her. Then he carried her back. The four Apaches came over, but stood back, doing nothing.”
“Why was she bleeding?” Martin asked, clenching his fists in frustration. “What could have happened?”
“The tracks do not tell me,” Pedro said. “I am sorry, sir.”
Martin led the way to the spring, where the rest of the men were watering the horses. A vaquero offered him a canteen and he took it and drank without being aware that he was doing so. All he could think of was his beloved Maria.
“How soon before we catch them?” Captain Filisola asked the tracker.
“I cannot say. Perhaps tomorrow sometime if they stop for the night.”
“Tomorrow!” Filisola said. “It might as well be next week. We must push even harder if we are to save the señorita. Can you track
by torchlight? It would permit us to travel on through the night.”
“It is very hard to do,” Pedro said. “I might lose the trail, and I would not like to risk that.”
Sergeant Amat, standing nearby, overheard and said, “If I may be so bold, sir, we must also think of the horses. They are very tired. Pressing on until morning would exhaust them. Then how will we catch the savages?”
“We will go on foot, if need be,” Filisola said crisply. He disliked having his judgment questioned.
Martin removed his sombrero and mopped a hand across his forehead. “No, we won’t. It is my daughter they took, and I say that we will make camp once it is too dark for Pedro to track. We all need a good night’s rest.”
Filisola disagreed strongly, but made no objection. Martin was a civilian and as such Filisola had the right, under Mexican law, to require the rancher to do as he wished. But Martin was also the colonel’s brother, and the colonel would not take kindly to having his brother treated like a common peon.
The rescue party rode on through the pass. They were almost to the east opening when three gunshots shattered the stillness; they were the signal that Pedro had found something of interest.
Martin spurred his horse into the sunlight. The tracker and the sergeant were scouring a game trail below. Near them was a body partially hidden by small boulders. Fearing the worst, Martin galloped to the spot and could not hide his relief when he discovered it was a dead stranger, not Maria.
“What now?” Captain Filisola asked. Dismounting, he turned the body over and examined the fleshy features. “I know this man. His name is Sesma. He is a bandit who rode with that pig, Vargas.”
“Vargas and his men fought the Apaches, then fled,” Pedro said.
“That sounds like Vargas,” Filisola said. “He is a coward who is all too willing to kill innocents, but he runs if his own life is in danger. Colonel Gonzalez claims that Vargas is the very worst of his breed—a filthy cockroach who has murdered many men, women, and children. It is too bad the Apaches did not do us a favor and wipe his gang out.” Martin saw his vaqueros features become downcast. “What is the matter, Pedro?”
“I have bad news to relay, sir.”
Martin did not know what could possibly be worse than having his daughter in the clutches of vile Apaches. “Out with it.”
Pedro hunkered down and touched a single slim footprint at the side of the trail. “I think Maria was taken by this Vargas and his men.” The revelation shocked everyone into silence. Martin climbed down and inspected the track for himself. He saw where the ground near it had been chewed up by hoofprints when a horse turned to flee. “Can it really be?”
“I am afraid so. She ran to the bandits. You can see her tracks there. And this horse, when it rode off, was carrying double. See how deep the tracks are, compared to the others?”
“Dear God,” Captain Filisola said. Apaches were bad enough, but at least they would keep Maria alive to become the wife of one of their warriors. Bandits were another story entirely. Vargas killed women as readily as most men killed insects. He had also tortured and raped many of them. Maria was much worse off now than she had been before.
“Maybe she did not know these men were bandits,” Pedro said. “Maybe she thought they were her only hope of escaping the Apaches.” Martin Gonzalez bowed his head in abject despair. “My poor, poor Maria! Where have the bandits taken her? What will they do to her?” There was no answer, other than a chill gust of wind that moaned down off the mountain.
Chapter Seven
It had seemed like a good idea at the time.
When Maria Gonzalez had seen the six men approaching the pass, she had gone giddy with joy. They were Mexicans! Her own kind! Men who would help her. Men who would save her from the Apaches.
So without thinking, Maria had bolted past the White Apache and down the trail toward the burly man who led the six. She had shouted to alert them to their peril and been overjoyed when she’d reached the leader without taking a bullet in the back.
The events happened so quickly that Maria was astride the man’s horse and fleeing down the mountain before she could collect her wits. Rather belatedly she realized that the man who had rescued her smelled badly. Besides that, he had a harsh air about him, even more cruel than that of the Apaches. His beady eyes actually scared her when he glanced back a few times as if to assure himself that she was indeed there.
And the man was a coward. When she was running toward him, she had seen his terror of the Apaches, a cringing terror the likes of which her father and uncle would never display.
They were bandits, Maria realized, and her heart sank within her. The horror stories she had heard about bandits rivaled those about Apaches. Having lived the sheltered life of a pampered señorita, she had never seen either until this fateful trip, and she hoped to high heaven she never saw either again, provided she lived long enough to get to somewhere safe.
Because there was nothing else to hang onto, Maria had to grasp the big man’s bandoleers to keep from losing her balance on his mount. The man rode with reckless abandon, swerving wildly through tracts of trees and taking the slopes of gullies at breakneck speed. They were lucky the horse didn’t break a leg and throw them both.
Then the leader reined up. But he stopped only long enough to tell one of his men to keep an eye on their back trail and bushwhack anyone who showed. The other bandit wasn’t happy about being the one picked to cover their flight, but evidently his fear of the bandit leader was greater than his fear of the Apaches because he agreed and climbed down.
The big leader lashed his horse and they galloped along for over an hour, until they were well off the mountain and out on the desert to the east. The man had an amazing knack for finding gulches and arroyos through which to travel. It was as if he knew the lay of the land as well as he knew the lines in the palms of his hands.
Finally, when Maria was so tired and sore that she worried she would collapse and fall, the leader drew rein again in a dry wash rimmed by dry brush. There was a small spring, as close to dry as a spring could be and still be worthy of the name. The leader jumped down, dropped to his knees, and guzzled the water like a hog at the trough. Only after he had downed his fill did he let the rest of the bandits and the horses drink.
Maria, meanwhile, moved to one side, waiting her turn at the water. She craved a drink more than anything, but she did not care to get too close to her rescuers. In the back of her mind she hoped against hope they would simply ride on and leave her. But that feeble hope was dashed by the look the leader gave her, his hungry eyes roving over her as might the eyes of a starving man over a sumptuous feast.
The man hooked his thick thumbs in his gun belts and strutted over. His eyes glittered. Planting his dirty boots in front of her, he scratched his beard, then said, “I am Vargas, little one.” Maria kept her face as blank as a slate board, but her stomach churned. She had heard of this Vargas, a despicable killer whose list of innocent victims was longer than both her arms lined end to end. “You sound as if I should know the name,” she said politely.
Vargas thumped his chest with a brawny fist. “Everyone in Mexico has heard of me.”
“I haven’t,” Maria said, hoping he would believe her lie. She was not about to feed his exaggerated sense of self-importance and have him take the liberties he was sure to take if she showed that she was the least bit afraid of him. Her best bet was to keep him off guard and perhaps to persuade him to take her to safety despite himself.
“You must have,” Vargas said. “From Ciudad Juarez to Cancun, from Mazatlan to Tampico, they know the name of Vargas.”
“All I know is that you are the man who has saved me from the Apaches, and for that I am very grateful,” Maria said, keeping her voice level. She had an idea that might result in her being reunited with her parents, and she put it into effect by saying, “My father will pay you a king’s ransom for returning me to him—more money than you can carry in both your saddlebags.” The man
’s greed was as obvious as the oversize nose on his face. “Your father is rich?”
“Yes.”
“What is his name?”
Maria took a few seconds to think. If she made up any old name, he might suspect she was lying. But if she revealed the truth, there was a chance Vargas had heard of her father and would take her at her word. “Martin Gonzalez.”
“I know of him,” Vargas said. “He has one of the largest ranches in all of Mexico. And his vaqueros are some of the toughest.”
“Will you take me to my parents?” Maria asked. “I give you my word that you will be handsomely paid.”
The bandit pursed his coarse lips and stroked his greasy mustache. “I must talk this over with my men.”
“What is there to talk about?” Maria asked. “Surely you can use the money? And all you have to do to earn it is take me to my parents. There will be no questions asked, I assure you.”
“We must talk,” Vargas said and moved over to where the other bandits were huddled.
Maria took the opportunity to go to the spring. The water had been muddied by the men and the horses, but she had to quench her thirst. Cupping her right hand, she sipped gingerly, swirling the water to dilute the mud before each mouthful. The water tasted awful but it was cool and refreshing. When a shadow fell across her, Maria had to bite her lip. She refused to show her fear of the five bandits who approached her.
“Have you made up your minds?” she asked casually.
“We have,” Vargas said. “And you will not like our decision.”
Maria put both hands on the ground and tensed her leg muscles. If they intended to violate her, she would resist them to her dying breath. “What is it?”
Vargas grinned, exposing a black gap where four of his upper front teeth had once been. “We all know of your father. A few times we tried to steal some of his cattle but his damned vaqueros drove us off. He would not hesitate to kill any of us if we were to somehow fall into his hands. So it would be stupid of us to take you to him.”
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