The lieutenant shook his head. “That’s unfortunate, but it doesn’t make any difference. The border is still the border.”
Wash glared at him. “Who’s gonna stop us?”
“I am, of course,” the lieutenant replied. “In fact, I’m going to ride along with you, just to make certain that you men don’t attempt to make an illegal incursion into Mexican territory.”
Jason struggled with the urge to pull his gun and blow the officious little son of a bitch right out of the saddle. That might make him feel better for a second, but the next second those troopers would probably riddle him with bullets, so it wouldn’t accomplish anything except to get him good and dead. And dead, he couldn’t help Megan, Jenny, Mrs. Morelli, and Abigail Krimp.
But he couldn’t allow the lieutenant to prevent them from going after Alba’s bunch either. Maybe they ought to pretend to turn around, Jason thought, then cross over into Mexico later after the patrol had moved on elsewhere.
That could cause a considerable delay, though, and Jason wasn’t sure they could afford to do that. Already, every moment that the prisoners were in the hands of the outlaws gnawed at Jason’s guts, and he knew the other men felt the same way.
“Lieutenant Carter,” Sergeant Halligan said, “beggin’ your pardon, sir, but I just spotted somethin’ in them hills over yonder.” The veteran noncom pointed at some low hills several miles distant.
Lieutenant Carter raised himself in the stirrups and peered in that direction. “What was it, Sergeant? What did you see?”
“Some flashes o’ bright color, red and blue mostly. Like the sashes and headbands them ’Paches we’re chasin’ would wear.” Halligan took a pair of field glasses from a pouch attached to his saddle and lifted them to his eyes. He peered through them for several moments, then said, “Yep, definite Apache sign.”
Carter held out a hand and snapped his fingers. “Let me see those glasses.”
Halligan handed them over. Carter raised himself in his stirrups, pressed the lenses to his eyes, and squinted through them. He moved his head from side to side as he searched the hills. Finally, he said, “I don’t see anything except rocks and dirt and a few ugly bushes, Sergeant.”
“Yes, sir, but you know what they say ’bout ’Paches. When you don’t see ’em, that’s when they’re most likely to be there.”
Carter frowned. “Yes. Yes, of course. Let me take another look.” He studied the hills some more and then said with a tone of rising excitement in his voice, “Yes, I see what you mean, Sergeant. There are definitely Apaches up there!”
Jason glanced over at Wash and saw that the old-timer was struggling not to grin. Even under the circumstances, Jason felt the same way. Lieutenant Carter was so anxious to find some Apaches and ride to glory in battle that he was willing to make himself believe that he saw Apaches in the hills, whether there were really any there or not.
“What’re we gonna do, Lieutenant?” Sergeant Halligan asked.
Carter handed the field glasses back to him and frowned, obviously torn between imposing his will on the posse from Fury and giving chase to the Indians he thought were in the hills.
“Our orders were to seek out and engage the hostiles,” he said at last. “Therefore, it’s clear that we should proceed to the hills and find those Apaches you spotted, Sergeant.” Carter turned a stern glare toward Jason and the other scouts. “But I’m giving you men firm orders not to even approach the border between the United States and Mexico, and under no circumstances are you to cross that border. Is that understood?”
“Understood,” Jason said. He hoped he sounded solemn enough to fool the lieutenant. Just because he understood the orders Carter had just issued, that didn’t mean he had an intention of following them.
“All right then.” Carter turned to Halligan. “Sergeant, are you and the men ready to proceed?”
“Ready, sir,” Halligan replied.
Carter lifted a hand and waved it forward. “Patrol . . . ho-o-o-o!”
As the troopers trotted their horses past the posse, Halligan glanced over at Jason with a twinkle in his eyes. He quirked one corner of his mouth in a half-grin and lowered the eye on that side in a wink. Jason gave him a brief nod of gratitude, fully aware of what the sergeant had done for them.
“Ain’t they purty?” Wash muttered as the soldiers rode past. “All they need’s a brass band playin’.”
“If they do ever find any Apaches, that shavetail will probably get them all killed,” Jason said when they were out of earshot.
Wash shook his head. “Naw, that ol’ sarge’ll find a way to keep most of ’em alive anyway. If it wasn’t for fellas like him, the whole damn army’d fall apart.”
Jason knew what the old-timer meant. Even though he had been an officer during the war, and a paper-pusher at that, he had seen enough of military life to learn that experienced noncommissioned officers like Sergeant Halligan were the glue that held the whole thing together.
They watched until the patrol had ridden out of sight; then Jason lifted his horse’s reins and said, “Let’s go. We’ve still got some outlaws to catch.”
* * *
Unlike the Rio Grande in Texas, the border between Arizona Territory and the Mexican state of Sonora was just another hot, sandy stretch of ground. In fact, Jason didn’t even know they had crossed it until Wash said, “Well, I reckon we’re in Old Mexico now.”
“We sure are,” Dixon agreed. “I’ve chased rustlers down here more’n once. Bastards’d raid from below the border, wide-loop some o’ my cows, and chouse ’em back down here.” He gave a snort of disdain. “I didn’t let no damn border stop me from chasin’ them varmints neither.”
Jason asked, “How far into Mexico have you been?”
“Well, not more’n a few miles,” the rancher admitted.
“Then you don’t know what’s up ahead?”
“I can make a pretty good guess.” Dixon waved a hand at their surroundings. “More o’ this.”
“Leastways until we reach the Gulf,” Wash added.
There wasn’t much to see. The hills, which hadn’t amounted to much in the first place, had been left behind on the other side of the border. Except for an occasional depression, the landscape was completely flat, covered with tufts of tough bunchgrass, scrubby mesquite trees that looked more like bushes than actual trees, and clumps of cactus. Here and there, one of the big saguaro cactuses lifted its arms toward the silvery-blue heavens. The heat was oppressive, the sun like a giant fist pounding down on them.
“Those poor women,” Jason muttered as he rode. “They must be burning up in this heat.”
“So am I,” Matt said. “We need to find some shade and let the animals cool off.”
Jason figured Matt was less concerned about the horses and more about himself, but that didn’t make what he said any less true. Their mounts would wear out even faster in the heat. The problem was, there was no shade to be found anywhere in this wasteland.
By the time the sun was directly overhead, they had stopped and switched mounts a couple of times. All of the horses were tired now, so Jason called another halt and said, “We’ll rest here for an hour.”
“An hour!” Matt said. “We can’t afford to waste that much time.”
“You were the one who said we needed to stop for a while,” Jason reminded him.
“Yeah, if we could find some shade. What good is it going to do sitting here in the sun?”
Matt might have a point there, but Jason was damned if he was going to admit it. He said, “Everybody dismount. Give your horses a little water. Better not drink any yourselves, though,” he added as he watched Matt pulling the cork from the neck of a canteen. “No telling when we’ll find drinkable water again.”
Wash, Zachary, and Dixon hunkered on their heels in the shadows cast by some of the horses. Jason and Matt followed the example set by the older men. It helped a little.
Jason was fighting off weariness, and the lassitude brought on by
the heat didn’t help matters any. He hadn’t slept since before Juan Alba, the Scourge of the Borderlands, rode into Fury, shooting and burning and killing. It would have been easy to stretch out on the ground, hard and rocky though it might be, and go to sleep. Instead, he forced himself to stay awake as the time dragged by.
Finally he said, “That’s enough,” even though he knew it might not be. “Let’s get moving again.”
“Better wait a while yet,” Wash advised. “The horses are just startin’ to get their wind back.”
Jason frowned but nodded. “All right. I’m ready to ride, though.”
“I hate to agree with you about anything, Fury,” Matt said, “but so am I.”
Jason looked over at him, then at Dixon, and said, “Don’t you think that if the two of you can work together like this, you ought to be able to get along?”
Dixon’s response was hard and immediate. “I’m here ’cause I got no use for bandits and I want to help them women. It don’t have anything to do with this damn squatter.”
“I’m not a squatter,” Matt said. “I have just as much right to that land as you do, Dixon. More, since I plan to file a legal claim on it, when I get around to it.”
“Ain’t you ever heard o’ open range?”
“I’ve heard of it, but those days are soon going to be over.”
“Not if I’ve got anything to say about it,” Dixon declared with an ominous scowl.
“That’s just it,” Matt said. “You don’t have anything to say about it, not legally. That’s what I’ve been trying to get you to understand.”
Wash said, “You two knock it off, why don’t you? For God’s sake, anybody who can squabble in heat like this has got to be one o’ the stubbornest, contrariest critters on the face o’ the earth.”
“You can call me stubborn and contrary if you want to,” Dixon said. “I don’t give a damn. I’m just standin’ up for what’s rightfully mine.”
“So am I,” Matt said. “Only I’m right and you’re wrong.”
Dixon’s hand edged toward the butt of his gun. “Why, I oughta—”
“Stop it, the both of you,” Jason snapped. “If you want to tangle with somebody, I’m sure Alba and his cutthroats would be glad to oblige.”
That quieted them down, and a few minutes later, as if by mutual consent, the men rose and started switching saddles from the horses they had been riding to the extra mounts.
It was time to get back on the trail.
Chapter 24
Jenny still sniffled from time to time, but at least she had gotten over the worst of the crying. Megan was grateful for that. She didn’t blame Jenny for being scared, but bawling didn’t help anything.
The outlaws had spent a second night on the trail, and from things Megan had overheard them saying, she knew that they were well across the border and deep in Mexico. She didn’t think that would stop Jason and some of the other men from Fury from coming after them, but it would prevent the would-be rescuers from getting any official help, say, from the army.
Would a posse of citizens be enough to stand up to Alba and his men and free the prisoners? Megan didn’t know. She could only hope and pray that it would be.
Since the night before, when Alba had ordered his men to leave the women alone, things had gotten better. Flores still sneaked a hand over Megan’s breasts every now and then as they rode, and he liked to press his arm against the underside of them. But there was no blatant molestation carried out against any of the prisoners.
Their main concerns now were exhaustion, exposure, and the terrible heat. Megan saw that Jenny, Olympia, and Abigail were all badly sunburned, and she could tell from the way her face felt that she was too. None of them were accustomed to such arduous conditions. Thirst was a constant demon torturing them, and their muscles ached from all the riding.
On the afternoon of their third day of captivity, Megan husked through her parched throat, “When are we going to get where we’re going?”
Flores chuckled. “You are anxious to arrive, little one?”
His amusement made some of Megan’s usual fire return. “I’m anxious to get off this damned horse,” she said, “and away from you.”
“Do not be so sure of that. Maybe when you find out what Juan Alba has in store for you, you won’t mind old Flores’s company so much, eh?”
Megan wouldn’t have thought it was possible under these blistering conditions, but a chill went through her at his words. “What Juan Alba has in store for you . . .” What could that mean?
Megan didn’t know, but obviously it wasn’t anything good.
A short time later, she began to notice a difference in the air. It was still hot, but maybe not quite so oppressive. Knowing that she shouldn’t but unable to stop herself, she ran her tongue over her dried-out lips and realized to her shock that she tasted salt on them. That taste hadn’t been there before. A breeze picked up, blowing toward them, and it had an unidentifiable smell to it, a faint tang that was odd but somehow slightly familiar.
They were approaching a large body of salt water, Megan suddenly realized. She wasn’t that knowledgeable about the geography of this region. What could it be? The Pacific Ocean? It didn’t seem possible that they could have reached the Pacific in three days of riding.
She cast her mind back to the maps she had seen her father and brother studying before the family began its journey west. It seemed to Megan that she recalled some sort of large bay or gulf in Mexico, separating most of the country from a peninsula that jutted down south of California. She wasn’t that good at telling which way they were going by looking at the stars, and anyway, the past two nights she had been too tired to study those celestial guideposts. But she thought they were going south by southwest, which would take them toward that gulf she recalled from the maps....
“We’re almost there, aren’t we?” she said.
Flores stiffened. “What you mean by that? How do you know where we’re going?”
Megan didn’t answer him. Let him wonder about something for a change.
Flores muttered in Spanish under his breath, but didn’t press her on the issue. The group pressed on, not moving as fast now as they had at first. Everyone was tired—the men, the horses, and certainly the prisoners.
The land had been flat and featureless for a long time, but now Megan saw something shimmering up ahead of them and thought for a second that they had reached the sea. It wasn’t water she saw, though, she realized as they drew closer, but rather sand. White sand. Great hills of it that rolled and shifted with the wind. The land dropped off some so that only the tops of those sand hills were visible from where the riders were, but as they approached Megan got a good look at the dunes. They were quite impressive, stretching out in front of the group for miles and miles.
“Good Lord!” Abigail exclaimed from the back of the horse she shared with one of the outlaws. “You can’t intend to take us across that wasteland!”
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” the man told her. “We’ll be out of the sand hills by nightfall.”
“Anyway,” Flores put in, “there’s water out there, if you know where to find it, and Juan Alba does.”
The pace became even slower as the horses slogged out into the shifting sand. The group of outlaws stretched out into a long line, riding two or at most three abreast so that they could stay on the harder-packed dirt of a trail that twisted and turned sinuously through the dunes as if it had been laid out by a demented snake.
Megan became aware of an odd sound. It was a low-pitched, never-ending hiss, something else that put her in mind of a snake. After a while, she figured out that it was the sound of the sand moving, millions and millions of the tiny grains sliding over each other as they were pushed here and there by the eternal wind. And it wasn’t really a hiss either, but more of a whisper.
Whispering sands . . . telling bloody secrets that only the endless dunes knew. The thought made a shudder go through her. Flores laughed and tighten
ed his arm around her.
“Men go mad when they are lost out here on foot,” he said. “But that won’t happen to you, little one. Flores will take good care of you.”
Megan didn’t doubt that. The monstrous Juan Alba would probably kill Flores if anything happened to the valuable prisoner he was guarding.
Jenny began to sob again while they were in the sand dunes. Megan ignored her. She loved Jenny like a sister, but she had run out of patience with the younger girl. They were all in this terrible predicament, not just Jenny, but Olympia and Abigail weren’t crying all the time, even though they probably felt like it.
The sandy wasteland ended as abruptly as it began. The riders emerged from the dunes onto a broad, grassy slope that led down to a series of rocky cliffs overlooking a vast, rolling sea. Of course, it wasn’t really the sea, but rather the gulf Megan remembered from the maps. The Gulf of California, was that what it was called? She thought that was right.
The salt tang in the air was even stronger now. The moisture was a blessed relief to her blistered lips and skin.
Reaching the gulf meant there was nowhere else for them to go. This had to be their destination. And as that thought went through Megan’s brain, she saw the stone house rearing itself on the cliff, rising like some sort of medieval castle to overlook the endless waves that pounded on the rocks below.
“There it is,” Flores said. “The casa of Juan Alba. Your new home, little one, at least for a short time.”
Megan didn’t know what he meant by that, but again . . . it couldn’t be anything good.
* * *
She had no idea who had built the massive, brooding house, but it couldn’t have been Juan Alba. The place had an air of antiquity about it that said it had been here long before Alba’s loathsome presence had taken it over. And it would remain standing long after these outlaws had ceased to sully it.
None of which helped Megan, Jenny, Abigail, and Olympia one bit. No matter how long the house had been here, no matter how long it would remain after they were gone, right now Alba was the master of this casa. His word was law.
A Town Called Fury Page 34