“Megan!” he called. “Jenny! It’s me! Hold your fire!” The women might be pretty jumpy and trigger-happy by now, and after all the danger he had come through safely, he didn’t want to get shot to pieces now by the very people he had come to rescue.
There was no response from the cell where the women had taken refuge, which made a worried frown appear on Jason’s face. Maybe they were afraid that he was a prisoner himself and was being forced to call out to him with a gun at his head.
“It’s all right,” he assured them. “I’m alone. The fighting is over. Most of Alba’s men are dead. We need to get out of here, though, because that Chinese ship is offshore—”
He had reached the cell as he spoke, and now took hold of the door to open it. It was jerked inward, pulling him with it. A massive hand, with incredibly strong, sausagelike fingers, clamped on the back of his neck and flung him across the cell like he was little more than a rag doll. Jason opened his mouth to yell but before any sound could come out, he slammed into the wall with stunning force.
He was barely aware of bouncing off the wall and collapsing on the floor of the cell. His gun was gone; it had slipped out of his fingers and he didn’t know where it had gone. He forced himself to lift his head, and give it a groggy shake in an attempt to clear away the cobwebs from his brain. His vision was blurry, but as a giant shadow loomed over him, it cleared and he looked up into the fierce, bearded face of Juan Alba, the Scourge of the Borderlands himself.
“Oh, hell,” Jason said.
Chapter 31
Alba grinned down at him. “So, you think you have won, gringo,” the bandit chieftain said. “You think you have defeated Juan Alba. But you are wrong.”
Let the man lord it over him for now, Jason thought. He wanted to make sure the women were all right. He looked around and saw the four of them huddled against one wall of the cell. The shotguns and pistols were on the other side of the room where Alba must have thrown them after he had disarmed the women.
“I’m sorry, Jason,” Megan said. “We tried to stop him, but he . . . he’s a monster!”
Alba thumped himself on the chest with a big fist. “Too strong to be brought down by women,” he said with a scornful sneer. “Strong like the bull.”
But now Jason noticed for the first time that there was blood on Alba’s shirt under his fancy jacket. At least one of the women had gotten a bullet in him. The wound hadn’t been enough to bring him down, but it might weaken him.
“He . . . he had Jenny by the neck,” Megan went on. “He said he would snap it if we tried to warn you.”
Jason looked at his sister and saw the ugly bruises on her neck. One more score to even with Alba, he thought. He pushed himself to his hands and knees.
With no warning, Alba lashed out at him, aiming a kick at his ribs. Jason twisted and rolled out of the way and scrambled to his feet, his chest rising and falling as he tried to catch his breath. He knew that the other members of the posse upstairs would be unaware of this deadly showdown going on below them. It was up to him to defeat Alba and get the women out of here before the warlords arrived.
“Now,” Alba said, still grinning, “now I will kill you. No matter what happens to me, you will die, gringo, and these women with you before I will let them go. You can go to your death knowing that your mission was a failure.”
“What do you plan to do?” Jason asked with a sneer of his own. “Talk me to death?”
Alba’s grin disappeared, and with a roar he charged, lumbering forward like a grizzly bear. Also like a bear, he moved faster than it seemed a man of his massive size ought to be able to.
Jason got out of the way just in time. As Alba went past him, he clubbed his hands together and smashed them into the back of the big outlaw’s neck. Alba didn’t even seem to notice. He swung an arm like the trunk of a young tree in a backhanded blow that crashed into Jason and threw him against the wall.
Megan darted forward, making a try for one of the weapons on the other side of the room. Alba spotted her and swatted at her like she was nothing more than an annoying insect. That was enough to make Megan cry out in pain and go spinning off her feet.
“Megan!” Jason shouted. With a red haze of anger half-blinding him, he slammed a right and a left at Alba’s head. Both punches connected, but again, they seemed like nothing more than the bite of gnats to the huge bandit. Alba’s left fist crashed against Jason’s breastbone, numbing him and making him gasp for breath. Alba swung again, a roundhouse right this time that would have broken Jason’s neck if it had connected with his jaw, where Alba aimed it. Instead, Jason weaved his body so that the blow skidded off his right shoulder. That was enough to make that arm go numb and render it useless.
Alba charged again, arms outstretched. Jason knew Alba meant to catch him in a bear hug and crush the life out of him. Alba would probably laugh in his face as he did it too. Jason stumbled out of the way just in time. As he did so, he kicked one of the revolvers and sent it skidding across the floor toward Jenny, Olympia, and Abigail. Megan was still crumpled on the floor, either unconscious or dead.
Jenny reached the gun first, scooping it up just as Alba rushed Jason again. This time, the treelike arms closed around Jason before he could avoid them. He was jerked off his feet. The arms tightened just as he had known they would, and he felt his ribs creaking under the pressure. They would snap at any moment.
The shots slammed out, one after the other, the explosions painfully loud in the close confines of the cell. Jason felt Alba’s body shuddering under the impact of the slugs as Jenny emptied the Colt into him at close range. It occurred to Jason that the bullets might go all the way through Alba and strike him too, but he was too numb to feel it if they did.
Alba’s eyes widened in pain and shock. He was strong enough to withstand one bullet or maybe even two, but Jenny had buried at least five slugs in him. His lips drew back from his teeth in a grimace. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, a crimson trail that lost itself in the tangle of thick black beard. Alba staggered to one side, but his grip on Jason didn’t loosen.
“B-before Juan Alba dies . . . he will crush your bones to dust . . . gringo,” gasped the Scourge of the Borderland.
“Jason, duck!” Abigail cried. She shoved the barrels of a shotgun against the back of Alba’s skull and pulled both triggers as Jason lowered his head and pressed it against the big outlaw’s chest.
Alba’s arms didn’t let go until his headless body hit the floor. Jason writhed loose and crawled away from the gruesome corpse of the bandit chief. He grabbed Megan and lifted her, pulling her against him.
“Megan! Megan!”
Her eyes, her beautiful green eyes, fluttered open. “J-Jason?” she said in a husky voice.
He cradled her in his arms, murmuring, “It’s over, it’s over.”
A rush of footsteps sounded in the corridor. Jason glanced up, wondering what was going to happen now, and felt relief flood through him as Wash Keough and several other members of the posse appeared.
“Everybody all right in here?” the old-timer asked. He let out a whistle of surprise when he saw what was left of Alba. “Everybody but that big bastard, that is?”
Jason struggled to his feet, lifting Megan as he did so. “We’re fine,” he said, although every bone and muscle in his body ached terribly. “We’ve got to get out of here—”
“Yeah, Matt told me there’s some Chinese fellas comin’ that we don’t want to meet. Come on, we got the horses ready to ride.”
With the strong hands of the posse men steadying them, Jason and the four women stumbled out of the cell where they had almost met their doom. Within minutes they reached the courtyard, where most of the men from Fury were already mounted. The women were helped onto the extra horses, except for Megan, who would ride with Matt since she was still dizzy. Jason would have taken her with him, but he wasn’t in very good shape himself.
Good enough to ride, though, and they all galloped out of the courty
ard toward the sand hills before the ship made landfall. Jason thought it highly unlikely that the warlords would pursue them across a strange land, even if they could round up enough of the gang’s horses to do so. Some of the posse members had opened the stable doors and sent the horses scattering up and down the coastline.
Jason glanced back at the dark hulk of Alba’s stronghold as the riders entered the dunes. It squatted there on the cliff like some unclean beast, and Jason wished they’d had time to use the rest of the powder kegs in the storage room to blow the place off the face of the earth. He supposed they would have to be satisfied with rescuing all four of the prisoners and wiping out Alba’s gang, including the bandit leader himself. Alba wouldn’t raid any more settlements in Mexico or Arizona Territory.
The Scourge of the Borderlands was no more.
* * *
They made it through the dunes by midday. Jason and Wash paused their horses at the top of a high dune near the edge of the sand hills and looked back toward the Gulf, waiting there as the others rode past, searching for any sign of pursuit. Horses’ hooves didn’t raise a cloud of dust in the sand, like they did on normal dry ground, so they couldn’t go by that. But they could see a long way into the wasteland from where they were, and they didn’t spot any movement. Riders would be easy to see against the sweep of sand, which was bright in the midday sun.
“Reckon when them Chinamen found everybody dead, they got back on their boat and sailed away,” Wash said.
Jason nodded. “That was my hope anyway. Of course, we couldn’t be sure that all of the outlaws were dead. We got out of there too fast to check all the bodies. Some of them could have been hiding out in that old heap of a house too.”
“Couldn’t be more’n a handful, if that many,” Wash said. “And with Alba dead, they ain’t gonna give chase, Jason. They’ll just slink off somewhere’s else like the mangy coyotes they are.”
“You’re right.” Jason turned his horse. “Let’s catch up with the others.”
One member of the posse had been killed in the fighting. His body was draped over his saddle and tied into place. Jason didn’t even know the man’s name; he had been a newcomer to the settlement.
Several others were wounded, including Saul Cohen and Alf Blodgett. None of the injuries were serious, though. They had been cleaned and patched up. The wounds would need medical attention from Dr. Morelli when the posse got back to Fury, but they could wait that long without doing any more harm.
Jason wondered how Michael Morelli was doing. Knowing the physician as he did, Jason was sure that Morelli was going about his business and tending to the sick and injured in town to the best of his ability, even though worry about his wife’s fate had to be eating away at him. Jason was looking forward to seeing the expression on Morelli’s face when he realized that Olympia was all right.
They paused to give the horses a short rest soon after leaving the dunes. Slogging through that sand had been hard on the animals. Saddles were removed from the horses that seemed to be in the worst shape and placed on some of the spare mounts. There were fewer of them now that the prisoners had been rescued, but that was a good thing.
Jason sought out Saul Cohen and Salmon Kendall and asked, “Did you run into a cavalry patrol before you crossed the border?”
The two men shook their heads, and Salmon said, “No, but Wash told us about how that green lieutenant tried to stop you. I’m glad we didn’t meet up with them. It would have gone against the grain for me to defy the army . . . but I wouldn’t have let those troopers stop us either.”
“Nor would I,” Saul put in. “Imagine, representatives of our own government taking the side of a foreign country over the interests of American citizens.”
“It’s a disgrace, that’s what it is,” Salmon agreed. “If it ever gets to where it’s that way all the time, I tell you, this country won’t be a fit place to live.”
Jason didn’t think they’d have to worry about that. Americans in general had more common sense than that, even the politicians.
He hoped that was the case anyway.
Putting such things out of his mind, he went over to Megan and took her hand. “How are you doing?” he asked.
She managed to smile. “Not too bad, I guess. My head doesn’t hurt anymore from that clout Alba gave me. It was terrible seeing what Jenny and Abigail did to him, but at the same time, I can’t feel too sorry for him, knowing what he planned to do with us.”
Jason didn’t feel sorry for Alba at all. The bastard had gotten what was coming to him.
But he didn’t say that to Megan. Instead, he just squeezed her hand and said, “We’ll be home in a day or two. I’m looking forward to it.”
She smiled at him. “So am I.”
Jason noticed that Jenny and Matt had their heads together most of the time. Even though Matt had made a worthwhile and courageous ally, Jason still didn’t like him much. He knew that Matt’s basic nature hadn’t changed. Matt was still an arrogant, willful troublemaker. That was why Jason hated to see him and Jenny fawning so over each other.
But his sister was a grown woman—well, nearly—and she had long since passed the point where she listened to her big brother’s advice. And Jason had to admit that when you came right down to it, Jenny had shown a lot of backbone, grabbing that gun and emptying it into Alba. From what Megan had told him, Jason knew that Jenny had been nearly hysterical all the time during their captivity, but she had overcome that fear when she really needed to.
Jason supposed she could make up her own mind about Matt MacDonald . . . and whatever she decided, he would just have to live with it.
When the horses had had a chance to rest for a short time, the group pushed on again. They stopped several more times during that day, then took a longer rest that evening as they waited for the moon to rise. Even though everyone was exhausted, they were anxious to get back to the settlement and see their families. No one wanted to stop and camp for the whole night, so as soon as the moon came up and they could see where they were going, they resumed their northward trek.
Jason and Wash kept an eye on their back trail the entire time, but never saw any signs of pursuit. By the middle of the next afternoon, they were across the border, back in Arizona Territory, and Jason was finally willing to admit that no one was chasing them.
He said as much to Saul as they rode at the rear of the group. Wash and Salmon were up front at the moment, with Wash leading the way home.
“You know that we were awfully lucky, don’t you?” Saul asked.
“Can’t help but know that,” Jason admitted. “But my father taught me to take my luck wherever I could find it.”
“A wise man, Jedediah Fury.”
Jason was about to nod in agreement when he saw Wash spurring back toward him and Saul at a gallop. The old-timer waved for everyone else to stop as he passed them.
“Now what?” Jason muttered. He supposed it would have been too much to expect for them to get back to Fury without running into more trouble along the way.
Wash confirmed that a moment later as he reined in and said, “I hate to tell you this, Jason, but there’s some sort o’ ruckus goin’ on ahead of us. I heard gunshots a minute ago.”
“Can we go around it?” Jason asked.
“Reckon we might . . . but then there might be trouble right behind us, and we wouldn’t know what it was.”
“You’re saying we should go take a look?”
“It’d be the smart thing to do.”
Jason sighed, not surprised by Wash’s answer. He knew the old-timer was right. For a while there, peace had been wonderful....
But the sound of distant gunfire that now drifted to his ears through the hot, still air told him what he already knew.
The only peace that lasted came after a man was dead.
Chapter 32
The stubby red butte stuck up from the arid landscape about a quarter of a mile from the little rise where Jason and Wash were stretched out on th
eir bellies, studying the situation. They had passed Wash’s spyglass back and forth several times, and there was no getting around what they saw through it.
A group of cavalrymen were holed up in some rocks at the base of the butte. Arrayed in front of them, taking advantage of every bit of cover no matter how small, was a band of Apache warriors. The Apaches had rifles they had probably looted in previous raids, and they kept the soldiers pinned down in the rocks. From their vantage point, Jason and Wash had seen a couple of the troopers lying motionless on the ground behind the rocks, and they figured those men were either badly wounded or dead.
“You think that’s Lieutenant Carter’s patrol?” Jason asked.
“More’n likely,” Wash replied. “He found his Apaches, but I’m bettin’ that right now he wishes he hadn’t. If he’s still alive, that is.”
“What do you think the chances are that they can hold off the Indians?”
Wash frowned. “Considerin’ that they likely ain’t got no water ’cept what’s in their canteens, and they’ll be runnin’ out o’ ammunition sooner or later, their chances ain’t good. An Apache can outlast pert’ near anybody. Them Injuns’ll squat out there till doomsday, content just to pick off a trooper ever’ now and then whenever one of ’em gets careless.”
“When they’ve been without water long enough, they’ll go mad and try to break out,” Jason predicted.
“Yep. That’s what them ’Paches are countin’ on.”
“Speaking of counting . . . how many of the Indians are there?”
Wash gnawed on his mustaches and looked through the spyglass some more. “Hard to say,” he finally declared. “They slide around from bush to bush and rock to rock, lookin’ for a better angle to shoot at the troopers. But my best guess is about twenty-five.”
“So we outnumber them,” Jason said.
Wash looked skeptical. “Twenty-five Apaches ain’t like twenty-five normal jaspers. I wouldn’t feel confident goin’ agin ’em unless I had ninety or a hundred men.”
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