by Jake Logan
“Don’t worry about me, Trevino,” Willa said. “I grew up around teamsters. I’ve heard every story they tell and some of them are tough, too.”
They laughed a little easier as they rode on.
They found Pedro’s place and from a safe distance, not to alert him, Slocum scoped the place in his field glasses. Sure enough, a woman was under the brush-piled-high frame, taking a spit bath.
He handed the glasses to Trevino and smiled. “I think she’s home.”
“Well, damned if she isn’t. Her name is Roberta.”
Cordova was next to look, and made a small whistling through his front teeth.
Jimenez had to adjust the glasses to see her and chuckled. “It’s her all right. She has a spur scar on her right hip. I can see it. Some lover must of thought she wasn’t going fast enough.”
Willa took her turn and nodded. “I see why they gathered like buzzards at a dead cow carcass around a water hole. She is a very attractive woman even seeing her from here.”
“Now we’ve all seen all of her, where’s Pedro?” Slocum took back his glasses.
“He may be asleep.”
“If we ride in, we’ll put him on the defensive even if he doesn’t know what we’re up to.”
“We can scatter out to surround the camp and then take him,” Trevino suggested.
“Good idea. Let’s be careful.”
The men choose where they would come in from and they spread out to close in on the shade. Through the glasses, at last Slocum saw a good horse hitched almost out of sight on the far side of the property. That meant that Pedro was there and sleeping. He rose and dusted himself off. “Let’s go eliminate one more.”
She gave him a grim nod.
Then the two of them slipped along through the trees, keeping down and out of sight. To the east, they found a place where they could get much closer under cover. Then they had a stroke of good luck.
Groggy-acting, Pedro came from the shade with a handful of corn cobs and soon dropped his pants to squat down. He was grunting like a hog when Slocum rose with his pistol in his fist and came in behind his back.
“Don’t move a muscle.”
“Huh?”
“I said—don’t—” Slocum heard someone fighting with his woman.
“I’ll go see,” Willa said, and set out in a run for the shade before he could stop her.
“Who are you, gringo—ah, the one with the rifle. What do you want this time?”
“Where is your boss? Silva?”
“At home I guess.”
“No. He’s not there now.”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe we can refresh your memory.” Slocum could see Cordova was coming, riding Pedro’s good gray horse. He undid the reata and threaded out some line to Slocum who motioned with his gun for the prisoner to move.
“Lift your foot,” Slocum ordered.
Pedro raised his foot for Slocum to put the noose around his left ankle. Pedro walked out of the low sagebrush into the grassy area. The others were bringing Roberta down from the shade with her arms bound behind her back. If dark eyes would kill someone, she was trying hard to do that.
“Now start telling us who’s in the gang and where they are,” Slocum said.
“Fuck you, gringo.”
“No, it will be you who gets fucked here. Either tell me or you face the worst interrogation a man can get.”
“In—tero what?”
“Start talking now.”
“Fuck—” That was all he got out when he realized that Cordova was wrapping the reata around the horn and gouging his big horse to ready him to go.
A scream came from Pedro’s mouth and his bare feet flew in the air. His butt was hitting the ground every once in a while. Cordova fed out some of the rope so his victim was further back, and when he circled that distance, he swung the spinning outlaw farther out on the curve.
He raced down the meadow then turned the gray gelding back hard. That threw Pedro out in a wide arc and flying into a large bed of prickly pear, sending pads flying with him rolling over and over in them.
Then Cordova pulled him out into the open. He lay screaming, his face and body full of long cactus spines. Dismounted, Cordova shook loose his reata from his ankle and coiled it up. “Ask him if he remembered Juan, Jimenez.”
“Do you remember drowning my brother-in-law?”
“No.”
“You want to eat some more cactus?”
“No. No.”
“What about it?”
“I—I did it. It was they—the—the thing to do.”
“Where are the others at?”
“Fidela’s place—”
Jimenez nodded to Slocum that he knew where that was at. Then he drew his cap-and-ball pistol, cocked it, and shot the moaning outlaw right between the eyes, with a “Go to hell, you sorry bastard.”
The bound-up woman raced over, fell on her knees with her arms tied behind her back, and cried for him. “Mother of God forgive him . . .”
“Fidela’s place is a cantina in a small village, not far from here. We can ride there tomorrow,” Trevino said to Slocum. “We can get all of them then.”
“I think Santos may be with his wife. I bet it’s the single ones that are at the cantina. Let’s go find Santos next,” Slocum said, putting his arm on Willa’s shoulder. “These guys can handle the rest here.”
How did that go? To the victor went the spoils. Obviously, his three men had other plans for Pedro’s wife rather than her lamenting about her lover’s death.
The next one to see was Santos at his place. In a short while, Slocum’s men rejoined them and they cut across country. Trevino knew the canyon where the outlaw kept a woman if he was home. Slocum and Willa rode down the canyon and the others came up from the base, so he would be trapped between them.
Slocum heard shots and nodded to Willa. “The SOB must have spotted the others.” He jerked the .50-caliber Sharps out of the scabbard and swung down. She caught his horse’s rein and turned him back. Then she sprinted them for the brush.
Slocum loaded the rifle. Then he saw someone come around the adobe hovel and stop; the outlaw looked shocked to see him, and took a wild shot at him, but the distance was too great for his pistol. The sight raised, Slocum cocked the hammer and took aim. Santos broke for the cover of a partially collapsed wall. But the huge slug caught him and threw him sideways.
The acrid gun smoke in his eyes, Slocum knew his target was down and wouldn’t get up. Trevino came around the corner and waved to Slocum that it was over. The older man bent over, cleaning out Santos’s pockets and taking the man’s firearm.
“He won’t cut anyone ever again.”
Slocum agree. “Did he have a good knife on him?”
“No, they must be in the hovel.” His man nodded and then shouted over his shoulder for the others to look for his good knives.
Jimenez soon came around with a large bowie knife. “This would tire me to have to use it.”
“Yes, but it is made of special steel and would bring a good price in a real market,” Slocum said.
“For the Madres, it is too heavy.”
Willa even laughed. Slocum put it in his saddlebags and then stepped aboard.
They rode up on Fidela’s place after dark. Music of guitars and fiddles carried into the night. Screams of wild women carried out into the night. Jimenez went around back to be certain the outlaws’ horses were in the corrals and to make sure there was no way for them to get the animals out of those pens. He tied up all the gates.
Armed with all the weapons they had collected, each of his men had plenty of loaded arms. Slocum liked the idea. Firepower won wars and they had plenty. Five, maybe six outlaws could be in there raising hell with some half-drunk putas. This situation could be either easy or volatile as blasting powder. His forces divided front and back, he waited for Jimenez to come tell them the horses were locked up tight.
Slocum and Trevino took the front doors and
busted into the saloon, guns cocked and ready. Cordova and Jimenez charged in through the back entrance. The putas screamed and dove for cover. Shouting in rage, a flat-faced Indian’s shrill cries would have curdled most men’s blood. He raced over, then tried to belly over the bar and get to a shotgun. Pistol shots cut him down and he ended on his butt on the floor at the base of the bar—dying.
“That’s Tonto,” Trevino said with a head toss toward the dying outlaw, disarming the kid Paulo.
“Where’s Ortega?” Slocum demanded, dragging the midget, Devaca, out from under a table by his collar.
The wide-eyed dwarf threw up his hands. “How should I know?”
Slocum caught a dove by the arm and jerked her around to face him. “Frank?”
She gave a head toss, and Trevino headed for the curtain and the back cribs.
“Be careful.” Slocum jerked her up hard enough she’d remember. “Where’s Rojo, his name is Carlos?”
She drew back as if she was afraid he’d slap her. “He was not here.”
There were more shots, and Cordova rushed through the curtains to see about them. In a few seconds he and Trevino were back.
“Frank is dead,” the older man said, reloading his cartridge model Colt.
Grim nods around the room. The midget Devaca held up his hands in defense at his discovery that they were all looking at him. “Don’t kill me. I’ll do anything.”
“We ain’t interested.” Slocum holstered his Colt. “Hang him and the kid.”
Cordova caught his arm and jerked him out the front door. Slocum poured himself a couple of fingers of mescal in a clean glass and downed it. Then he slapped money on the bar. “Give me two bottles of your best.”
“Sure. Sure, Señor,” the bartender said to please him. Panic written on his face, obviously he feared they might think he was a gang member too and execute him.
Slocum took a bottle in each hand, motioned to the money on the bar. “That enough?”
“Oh, sí. Oh, sí.”
Willa was outside in the night, sitting her horse, holding the reins for him at the base of the stairs. “Three left. Carlos, Ortega and Silva.”
Slocum nodded looking at the short outlaw Devaca’s and Paulo’s forms swinging limply from the corral crossover bar under the starlight. “I’ve got us something to drink before we ride back to camp.”
He held up the bottles and then dropped them to his sides. That worthless Silva was still on the loose. Carlos was a simple killer and they’d find him, but Silva had more lives than a cat. He’d be tougher than a dumb bandido to catch, but Slocum aimed to bring him to justice too. That left Ortega, his second in command, to round up.
Jimenez, Cordova, and Trevino with Slocum and Willa headed for the camp and Diego. The first bottle was opened and passed around on their way back to their horses. Then they mounted up and Cordova tossed the first empty one aside in a crash.
“Here’s to those killers and the ones still alive,” Trevino said.
Slocum slid the last bottle into his saddlebags. They were all drunk enough. He never could tell when they might be under the eye of that damn Silva. Damn, he was getting jumpy thinking about him. They’d get him. He’d slip up. Had he ever even been at the cantina that evening? They’d probably never know.
Silva might be a mile away, in the shadows of the night they rode through, waiting in ambush or miles away. The whole thing made Slocum itchy as they headed for camp.
“You guys have any idea where he might hide next?”
“He has many people in fear. They would hide him afraid of what he would do to them and their family if they didn’t keep quiet,” Trevino said.
“I think he may try to get you,” Cordova said, sounding a little in his cups.
“Why?”
“You have executed his gang. He will have to find more cutthroats or lose his hold on this part of the Madres. You’ve shown he is vulnerable. I think he will ride away and go round up more gang members.”
“Where would such a man look for them?” Slocum glanced over his shoulder at the pearly light on the taller pines and the lower juniper brush. Nothing.
“The best—place—the border. Trash hangs close to there so they can slip either way and escape arrest from authorities on both sides, huh?”
Slocum agreed. There had to be an answer for where he’d find him.
15
The village they called Agnes sported a church steeple. Slocum had seen it against the starlit sky when he and Willa came into town on foot not to give away they were there. In the predawn’s cool air, the two of them met and squatted with his four men. Diego, who they felt the outlaws knew the least about, had gone the night before to scout the place.
“There were three of them inside the Los Olevos cantina,” Diego reported. “They had a big fiesta here last night. I saw Silva—he was here then. And he had some different men with him. Some of them might be passed out in the hay shed.”
“You did good,” Slocum said. They located the snoring pair. One was lying with a naked woman they awoke and who Willa quickly quieted with a hand over her mouth while they bound and gagged the two men.
“Chako and his cousin Alito,” Trevino said under his breath. “They are a gang member too sometimes. That leaves Ortega, Carlos, and Silva if he is here.”
“Carlos has red hair,” Trevino continued. “And Ortega will sure kill you if you give him a chance.”
“We’re not going to let him do that,” Slocum said.
After binding and gagging the two they found in the barn, they started for the rear door of the cantina. Slocum held his team up from entering the back door—two women were working in the kitchen. He stepped in to the doorway with his finger to his mouth to silence them.
When he moved inside, their large dark eyes flew open and they dropped the knives they were using to cut up meat and vegetables with.
“Hush,” Slocum said with a frown for them. “Nothing will happen to you if you’re quiet.”
The older one nodded. “Sí, señor, we will be very quiet.” Then she guided the teenager over into the corner partially shielding her as the rest of his men walked inside.
“Good,” Slocum said and nodded to his men. The six-gun cocked in his fist, he headed for the doorway that led into the barroom.
When he stepped in to the dimly lit room, he heard a chair scrape and he whirled. The movement of someone going for a gun was all he needed to shoot the man in the shadows. He staggered forward and spilled facedown, but the rest flushed like quail. Someone dove out the open window. Slocum shoved the man in his way aside and tried to get his gun arm and head out the opening to shoot at the escaping one. But his target rounded the corner and was out of sight before he could shoot after him.
“Trevino, Cordova, and Jimenez get out back and try to find him. I’m certain it was Silva that got away. Diego and I can handle these in here.”
Trevino shoved a big man facedown on top of a table, and then he went out through the back way after Cordova with Jimenez on his heels. The three, brandishing pistols in their hands, left in a hurry. Diego held his Colt on the other two while Slocum disarmed them.
“You must be Carlos?” he said to the red-headed outlaw.
“Who are you?” The man held up his bloody wounded arm. “I need a doctor.”
“No, you don’t. You won’t bleed to death before your lynching.” Standing right in the outlaw’s face, Slocum reached down, unbuckled the man’s gun belt, and let it drop. “You better start making your confessions with God ’cause you ain’t got long to breathe on this earth.”
“It’s against the law—capital punishment—”
“We ain’t the law from Mexico City—” Slocum removed two bowie knives from Ortega’s body and tossed them aside. Then he jerked open the man’s gun belt buckle and let the holster rig fall. “You too, Ortega, make your peace with God. They get back with your boss, he’ll hang with you.”
“You will never catch him.” Ortega made a
face, curled his lip in disbelief and disgust.
Filled with anger, Slocum wadded Ortega’s shirt in his fist and drew himself up close to the outlaw’s face with the muzzle of his pistol hard in Ortega’s whiskered cheek. “Listen, you murdering, raping son of bitch, you’re fixing to get what you deserve in a few minutes with or without Silva. You hear me?”
Ortega never answered him when Slocum shoved him toward the rear. “Bring Carlos along, Diego.”
“Yes, sir. Pick up these guns and knives,” Diego told the trembling bartender. “And all of them. I’m coming back for them.”
“Sí, sí, señor.”
Slocum smiled to himself at the young man’s orders as he propelled Ortega through the kitchen, and once outside in the starlight, he saw his other men coming back empty-handed.
Trevino shook his head warily. “He must have stolen a horse.”
“We have these two and the two tied up in the barn. Find their horses and we’re going to solve their problems,” Slocum said.
Willa marched her two out of the barn. They were all put on horses, bareback, on leads and taken out of the village to a place over a half mile from anyone’s jacal. Nooses were made. Then the ropes were strung over limbs in the larger cottonwoods. The four men were blindfolded and each one had the noose set beside his left ear to snap his neck when he and the horse parted.
“Anyone want to speak their piece?”
“Shoot me,” Carlos said in a coarse voice. “I do not want to die by hanging.”
“Is it worse than hell for you?”
“Yes, much worse.”
“Good.”
“Aren’t you going to shoot me?” he moaned.
“No. Get ready, boys, this party is about over.”
Each of one of his men stood behind a horse to slap the horse with a coil of rope out from under the condemned at his signal.
“Now! And may God have mercy on your souls.”
The horses exploded and the ropes went tight with a shrill creak. The four dangled with their necks broken. Except for an involuntary kick or two, they were dead and delivered. Slocum nodded to the others. A job well done.
“Where will Silva go next?” he asked.
“The border,” Cordova said.