Blood Legacy (A Tony Masero Western)

by Tony Masero

  A vaquero rose up to level his rifle at Lemon and Zack snap-aimed and fired, the man's sombrero flew from his head and he dropped back down. Long and Chad reached the adobe walls and their two ponies leaped across the low walls easily and the two dashed across the open ground of the compound firing left and right at the crouching Mexicans.

  Long was across and over the wall on the opposite side, whirling his pony around as Chad pulled up and jumped down from the saddle, racing on foot across to the rickety ladder that stood propped against the hut wall. It was clear he wanted to climb up and get to Mary as quickly as possible.

  Lemon tumbled over the wall and fell on a Mexican and the two rolled in a burst of hand-to-hand combat as Zack continued to pick his shot and fire in a remembered and controlled manner instinctively recalled from his army days.

  The compound was a sea of misty dust cloud mixed with gun smoke in the afternoon light and hazy figures tumbled and ran amidst the haze. Only Long was clear, riding above the dust steering his pony with his knees, he twisted this way and that, his pistol and rifle barking reports as he aimed at the ghostly figures within the compound.

  Zack watched as Chad raced up the ladder ready to free Mary. He climbed onto the roof and as he made his way over to the hanging figure, Zack gasped in shock as the figure moved and a hidden Winchester suddenly came into view from the folds of the long skirt.

  It was not Mary! A longhaired vaquero disguised by wearing her clothes and with no ropes binding him raised his rifle and pumped unmerciful bullets into the approaching figure of Chad. The big man staggered, trying to take the last few steps nearer and claim the Mexican but the man continued to fire repeatedly, callously cranking the lever until he had placed five point-blank bullets into Chad.

  Zack rose on one knee and lined up on the man. His bullet took the vaquero in the head and raised an exploding spray of red as the fellow spun away and rolled over the edge of the roof. It was too late for Chad though and his heavy body flopped face down to lie still on the rooftop.

  Zack was on his feet and running down the hill before he even realized he was doing it. He bounded down, rifle at the ready and climbed up on the wall. A Mexican appeared before him looming out of the dust cloud and Zack pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked on empty and Zack jabbed at the man with the rifle barrel before swinging it hand-over and taking a vicious swipe that caught the vaquero on the side of the head and knocked him to the ground. Zack drew his revolver and fired twice into the fallen body.

  His mind was aflame with the sight of the duped figure of Chad being gunned down and he only wanted revenge for the cowhand's murder. He ran desperately into the dust cloud, searching for another opponent.

  But there were none left. Only crumpled bodies lay amidst the settling dust and the three survivors stood panting over the battleground.

  “This one!” cried Lemon, jerking a figure up by the shirtfront. “He still lives.”

  Long was looking ruefully up at the rooftop where Chad lay, he slid his rifle back in its sleeve and dismounted leaving the pony's reins hanging. Zack could see the grim features hardening as Long made his way across to the fallen vaquero; he reloaded his pistol as he came.

  “Zack,” Long said quietly from the corner of his mouth. “Check out that hut, see if there's any more inside.”

  As Zack went to explore the hut interior, Lemon held the wounded man's head up by the simple expediency of propping his chin on the needle-sharp point of his Bowie knife; expressionless he waited for Long.

  Long stood over the man, who had a flesh wound along the ribs and a bullet in the thigh and lay grimacing in pain.

  “One question,” growled Long, holding the pistol down by his side. “Where'd he go?”

  “Who, senor?” the man stuttered, clutching his wounded thigh in both hands.

  “Don't mess with me, boy. You know who I mean.”

  “You will help me, senor? This was not personal, the man, senor Van Olen, he pay us much. It is just business.”

  “It wasn't just business to my partner up there,” Long said with a nod to the hut roof.

  The man shrugged and winced as he did so, “It was not me who killed your friend.”

  “Where'd they go?” Long said as he cocked the revolver noisily.

  “El Coluna,” the man answered quickly, his eyes fixed warily on the pistol in Long's hand. “But you best beware, senor. He is not alone in El Coluna.”

  “Is that right? And who does he have for company down there?”

  “Our jefe, our boss man. We are all riders with Lorca Navarro, he and senor Van Olen have an agreement.”

  “He's made a deal with that Mexican bandit?”

  “Si senor that is why we are here. This Van Olen has paid much money for Lorca's protection.”

  “What's your name, partner?” asked Long.

  “I am called, Juan Seguin. You will help me, senor? I have told you everything and I am bleeding most badly.”

  The hammer clicked back down on Long's pistol and he re-holstered the weapon. “Patch him up, Lemon,” he said. “Juan here has some riding to do.”

  Zack had found the hut empty and he was coming over to join them when Long met him halfway.

  “Give me a hand with Chad, will you?” asked Long with a nod to the rooftop.

  “What about that one?” asked Zack, pointing at the wounded Mexican.

  “He'll be leading us where we want to go,” Long answered grimly as he started to climb the ladder to the roof.

  Chapter Eleven

  Long was remorseless and he drove them on, riding without a break through the hours of darkness. It was as the dawn was cracking the sky to the east with a thin band of gold that they mounted the rise overlooking El Coluna.

  “This it?” Long asked, shaking the exhausted bandit, who hung limply in the saddle barely able to raise his head.

  “Si,” he croaked before sinking back into his comatose state.

  Below them lay a small township of no more than seven fair-sized structures and a number of crumbling outhouses and sheds that rambled on each side of a single main track through the town. Once a busy trading center it was now a shadow of its former self and the place had a look of desolation more resembling a ghost town. Shutters hung askew on glassless windows and boards were loose on the remaining structures. The adobe walls of the roofless outhouses were crumbling from the effects of sun and wind and their dust scurried in thin trails aimlessly down the empty main street.

  Ponies were tied off to a hitching rail outside one of the buildings. It was the largest sound structure on the street and had two floors and a false front rising above, it looked to have once been a hotel or cantina of some sort.

  “You see that?” grunted Long.

  “Six horses,” agreed Lemon. “Two they came in on, that leaves four bandits.”

  “You want to take a looksee?”

  Without a word, Lemon slid from his horse and loped off downhill into the long blue shadows cast by the rising sun. Long watched him go for a second, then he turned his pony back down the hill out of sight of the town and the other two followed.

  Long rode into a grove of Judas trees standing in a hollow and dismounted, he drew his rifle and took extra ammunition from his saddlebags, stuffing it into the pockets of his leather vest. Zack could see his face was drawn and determined, the skin pale and set in rock-like tension.

  “What are we going to do?” Zack asked.

  Long glanced up and looked at Zack almost as if he were a stranger, then he jerked his attention into focus and said, “I don't know about you but I'm going to kill me some bad men.”

  “And this fellow?” asked Zack, nodding in the direction of the still mounted Juan Seguin.

  “He ain't going nowhere,” said Long, going over and unceremoniously pulling the Mexican from the saddle by his shirtsleeve. The wounded man fell in a crumpled heap, gave a soft moan and lay still.

  “Are we just going to leave him like that?” asked Zack, a fro
wn of concern on his face.

  “You can do what you want,” Long answered coldly. “These people are party to a good friend's death and I've got no sympathy for them. You can leave him a canteen if you want, or stay and help him, that's your choice. Me, I'm going over that hill and wipe the rest of those bastards off the face of the earth.”

  Zack could see the amenable Long had departed and been overtaken by a tough killing machine and for a moment he feared for Mary's safety in the crossfire. He determined that he would have to tag along if he was to see her unharmed. So, he nodded at Long and checked the load on his pistol and the two left the hollow and began to climb up the dusty hillside again.

  By the time they arrived they found Lemon waiting.

  “There's one guard,” he said, as they lay alongside him on the rim of the rise peering down at the town. “He's in the shade under the porch.”

  As Lemon pointed, Zack could just make out the dark outline of a dozing man, his legs spread out before him.

  “Fellow's not really too bothered, is he?” observed Lemon.

  “They probably think they're safe and we've been taken care of already,” added Long. “What about the others?”

  “Two vaqueros sleeping downstairs. I guess that Van Olen, Solo and the woman are upstairs somewhere. Maybe the third Mexican too, I can't see him nowhere.”

  “Can you take out the guard?”

  Lemon nodded and his Bowie knife appeared in his hand as if by magic, the blade glinting in the dawn light.

  “Now?” he asked.

  “You go first,” said Long. “We'll follow.”

  As Lemon moved off, Long turned to Zack. “You ready for this, Cap'n? It will be no picnic, you realize that don't you?”

  “I just want Mary kept safe.”

  “I know it,” said Long, turning his attention back to the disappearing figure of Lemon. “We give him five then we walk down there plain as day.”

  “Out in the open?” Zack asked in surprise.

  “It'll distract the guard long enough for Lemon to move in,” Long explained.

  They were half way down the hill and approaching the main street when a man came out of the front door of the building. He grunted something at the guard and stood on the porch a moment and then hand-rolled and lit a cigarette.

  “Damn!” cursed Long. “One of the two downstairs. He must have risen early, too late now we have to keep going.” He did not alter his pace and Zack kept step alongside him as they entered the main track through town.

  The cigarette smoker stepped off the porch and onto the street, he moved alongside the horses and patted one affectionately on the withers. He turned slowly and spotted the two approaching, their moving figures clearly lit by the morning sun behind them. The man paused, squinting at the silhouettes and unsure of what to do. He turned to his companion on the porch.

  At that moment, Lemon rose as a black outline around the edge of the building. He swarmed over the edge of the porch and fell on the lounging guard, his Bowie knife carving a flashing arc through the air.

  The cigarette smoker gasped a cry, spat out his cigarette then twisted around looking back towards Long and Zack, his hand dropping to the pistol in his waistband.

  “Aw, hell!” muttered Long as he pulled the trigger, firing his rifle from the waist. He ejected the empty casing and as the man fell back into the ponies behind, Long fired again. The man buckled, his hand still struggling to find his gun butt.

  The file of horses squealed in terror, bucking sideways away from the falling man and the echoing gunshots that sounded suddenly incredibly loud in the dawn silence of the empty town.

  “It's blown now!” called Long as he ran for the porch. “Get inside the house quick.”

  Zack followed and quickly passed Lemon as he rose from the body of the guard and wiped his blade clean on the fallen man's shirt.

  “I'll go around back,” Lemon called as he jumped away and ran from view around the corner.

  Long was already involved in a gun battle inside and Zack pushed through the doorway and ducked to one side as he saw Long poised meaningfully on his left and exchanging fire with a vaquero hiding behind an upturned table.

  It was an open-plan, dust-silted room and the few remaining pieces of furniture looked shabby in the weak light entering the door. Overturned chairs and broken crockery lay over the bare floorboards and the walls were covered with peeling sheets of yellowing newspaper. A central stairway led up to the story above and Zack ran for the stairs as bullets winged past him from the two blazing away at each other across the main room.

  He made the stairs and climbed quickly. A sudden sharp female scream came from somewhere upstairs and Zack redoubled his pace, lurching into the top floor corridor with his pistol held ready.

  The top corridor ran away on each side of the stairway and Zack turned this way and that, wondering which direction the cry had come from. Then he heard a shuffle of noise from the end of the corridor to his right and headed in that direction.

  A warning cry came from the stairway behind him. “Look out, Zack!”

  It was Long and he was pointing his pistol in the direction of Ahab Solo, who was blundering out of a room behind Zack. He held his gun belt in hand and looked rumpled as if just disturbed from sleep. His gun was aimed at Zack but as Long cried out Solo altered his aim.

  In quick response Long let fly from his position half way up the stairs and a volume of smoke and flame flared up towards the corridor. Solo returned fire, adding to the crash of sound in the confined space. Zack fanned back the hammer of his pistol and let loose. Caught in crossfire, Solo screamed angrily as bullets struck him. He shuddered and stumbled as each slug slammed into his body. Dropping to one knee Solo tried to maintain his answering fire but it was to no avail and a solidly aimed shot from Long threw him back against the corridor wall as if struck by a hammer.

  Without waiting to see the result, Zack ran on down to the end of the corridor and kicked open the door of the room, his smoking pistol held ready. The room was empty but an open window and flapping curtain told the tale.

  “Zack?” he heard Long call out.

  “They're out through a window,” Zack answered, as he peered through the open window and could see two figures running across the open ground at back of the building. James was dragging Mary by the arm, holding her broadside so that a clear shot was impossible.

  “I'll go,” hollered Long and Zack heard his pounding feet as he ran down the stairs.

  Zack headed out after him, glancing at the broken body of Ahab Solo lying propped against the corridor wall. It was obvious the gunman would be causing nobody else any harm.

  As he followed Long downstairs, Zack was counting. The guard downed by Lemon, that was one. The cigarette smoker, the Mexican downstairs and Ahab Solo shot by Long, that accounted for four people all together. With James and Mary mounted doubled up on one horse, it should have meant five horses tied off to the hitching rail outside yet there were six!

  He realized with a shock that there was one other rider unaccounted for.

  As Zack pushed his way out onto the porch he heard a single shot ring out, it came from the rear of the building. Fearing the worst, he raced off the edge off the porch and almost fell over the prone figure of Lemon lying around the corner of the side alley. His own Bowie knife was protruding from under the ribcage; it had entered at an upward angle striking straight to the heart and was buried deep, right up to the hilt. Zack paused long enough for a quick look to tell him that the half-breed was truly dead although he wondered at the fixed look of surprise that seemed to have crossed the dead man's face at the moment of his end.

  Gasping in concern, Zack ran on up the narrow alleyway between buildings making his way to the open ground visible at the end. At the far end from around the corner of the shadowed corridor, he could see a pair of legs lying spread-eagled on the ground. His heart sank as he recognized the portion of chap-covered denims and the fine Mexican boots as those of Long
lying face down on the ground.

  Zack reached the corner and uttered a sob of distress at the spreading pool of blood marking the back of Long's leather vest. He was about to kneel down beside his friend when a voice stopped him in his tracks.

  “Best drop the pistol, Mister Endeavor.”

  Zack looked up and saw the gaunt face and black-clad figure of Caleb Smith standing with a gun aimed at him.

  “Don't do anything foolish,” warned Smith, his voice calm and even.

  Zack stepped over Long's body and moved towards Smith, allowing the pistol he held to slip from his fingers and drop to the ground as he did so.

  “You killed them?” he asked through gritted teeth.

  “Indeed,” Smith said. “A necessity, I'm afraid.”

  “Why?” snapped Zack. “They were your own men and damned good ones too.”

  “A little too good, I have to agree.” Smith appeared quite relaxed, his confidence obvious as the gun aimed at Zack was held rock steady with no sign of the slightest tremble. “I must say you all did remarkably well. Far better than I ever expected.”

  Over his shoulder, Zack could see James dragging Mary back towards them. There was a grin of satisfaction spread across James' face.

  “You've finished them off, Caleb?” he called.

  “Yes, I did,” answered Smith, without looking around. “No thanks to you, Mister Van Olen.”

  “But then you are so much better at this than me,” James congratulated him smugly.

  He was twenty yards away and having trouble pulling a stubborn Mary whose face was twisted in anger as she wriggled in his grip.

  “What is this?” asked Zack.

  Smith sniffed, a brief smile crossing his skull-like face. “I'll explain. It was The Ten that were the problem. We needed them eradicated and you were the route in, the necessary distraction. Isn't that the way of it for you army men? A diversion whilst the main attack comes from another angle, which Long and the others supplied most satisfactorily.”