by Alex Frew
‘That’s not a surprise,’ said Ryan, ‘which means they’ve either got their ransom or they’re going to check on us.’ He spoke in as low a voice as possible, and once they heard the sound of the footsteps going away from them they followed after, heading for the very sandbar from which they had cast off the boat.
They peered out from the undergrowth and Ryan felt his heart give an unexpected leap of delight when he saw his father and fellow workers. The prisoners, he saw, were the very men who had taken them captive, and from the expression on their faces he knew they were under duress.
He was just debating the best way to approach them without being fired upon when the girl gave a grunt not suited to her good looks and ran forward, thrusting out the club and attacking McArthur.
She managed to get a few good blows on his head and body before she was restrained by the men around her. Hawk had the presence of mind to grab the makeshift club off her and throw it away. Scott said nothing in protest, mostly because she had knocked him unconscious. He was bleeding at the temples, and it was clear that if she had used metal instead of wood his skull would have been broken.
Clay and Holt were holding the girl back and she was struggling with them, her breathing shortening and the panic arising in her of what they were going to do to her.
Hawk saw the fear in her eyes. ‘If they let you go, will you refrain from attacking anyone else?’ he asked reasonably enough. She gave a brief nod at this and they let her go. She stood in front of them, breathing heavily and staring at Yancey.
‘What’s he doing with you? Tie him up, he’s a kidnapper.’
At that moment Ryan stepped from the woodlands. Father and son looked at each other.
‘Hello, son,’ said Hawk.
Chapter Twelve
Not much was said as the prisoners were brought back to the ranch, the Lazy H. Hawk wore an air of quiet relief, but there was no triumph and no victory in gaining back that which had been his in the first place – the company of his son. Anyway, Ryan had taken no small part in his own rescue and his own survival.
By the time they got back to the ranch it was starting to grow dark and there was a chill in the air. The cattle were still out in the meadows around the ranch, but it was spring and the grass was growing well, and the land was interlaced with streams of ice-cold water that came off the hills. They could and would survive without the attentions of man for a good long time. Their prisoners were all conscious by this time because Scott had revived on the long journey, flung as he was across the saddle of a horse. He had struggled to escape, but his hands were bound and he was unable to do so. He had shouted many imprecations, calling Hawk names that the latter had heard many times in his life, but his uncle was unmoved. Being called a half-breed bastard did not affect his mind at all.
What happened next was a different matter altogether. They stopped at the fence around the ranch and had a short discussion of what they were going to do with the prisoners.
‘Throw ’em in the barn all tied up,’ said Clay, ‘then we can take ’em to the law tomorrow.’
‘That sounds about right,’ said Hawk. ‘There’s the tricky proposition of what to do with you, Yancey. You won’t be swayed by these here reprobates again, will you?’ The big, thickset man frowned, looking at the ground, a bemused expression on his strangely smooth face.
‘I guess those buttheads will try and sway me, Indian man.’
‘You see,’ Hawk turned to his men, ‘you must keep them in the bunkhouse. There’s plenty of room, and a pot-bellied stove to heat the place up. We’ll do just as Clay says and deal with them early on the morrow. You can do that just now, men. I would thank you for that. I need to speak to Rye alone.’
‘What about me?’ demanded the girl. ‘Where am I to go?’
‘Just walk over to the side of the ranch,’ said Hawk. ‘What I have to say to my son will take one minute.’ The men were already leading the prisoners to the bluff that hid the bunkhouse, and the girl followed, but only as far as the side of the hill. She looked at them thoughtfully from the distance.
‘What is it that you couldn’t tell me in front of them?’ asked Ryan. ‘We must hurry; I want to see Mom. Did you get Martha in to look after her?’ Martha was a domestic from the village who had been coming in to help them from time to time during his mother’s illness.
‘That’s what I wanted to tell you, son. I’m afraid your mother is gone.’
‘Away? To the village? How?’
Hawk did not have to say anything else; his dark eyes bore into those of his only surviving child.
‘No! Was it them? Did they go in and kill her when they took me?’ A cry of outrage was sharp and torn deep from inside.
‘Son, your mom was on the edge of existence for long enough; she was ready to go and meet her maker. That was the truth of the matter, and I made sure she knew nothing about the kidnap. She died with a blessing on her lips for your future.’
‘Where is she? Is she there? Can I see her for one last time?’
‘Come with me and I’ll show you.’ Hawk gave a nod to the girl to follow them, but she could see that there was some traumatic exchange going on between the two men and kept a respectful distance. Hawk led his son to the back of the ranch and down the slope to the elder tree that guarded the graves of their relatives. Ryan walked forward, his lips trembling and fell to his knees when he saw the newly dug grave. He spoke a few low words that even Hawk, who was standing by his side, could not hear, then stood up, turned and did something he would never have contemplated in his normal life: he dug his hand deep in the pocket of his father’s coat and snatched out one of his guns. His face was a bloodless mask in the gathering twilight and he strode away from the graveyard and the mortal remains of his mother with a look on his face that denoted ill for anyone who got in his way.
He managed by dint of his long legs and athletic stride, and a newfound energy that had been ebbing away during the long climb to the ranch. It was an energy that was directed to one course only: he was going to get his cousin.
The three men who had kidnapped him were standing before the bunkhouse, now being urged inside by Holt and Clay, both of who had guns. Ryan ran forward with his gun at the ready and Scott turned just as the avenging figure appeared. Ryan went straight up to him, a strange calmness coming over him as he put the gun to the forehead of the man he intended to kill.
Scott opened his lips, but nothing came from his throat but a wordless croak. He was experiencing the last few seconds of his worthless life and he could say nothing. Just as Ryan was tightening his finger on the trigger there was a thump on his shoulder and the gun jerked to one side, there was a roar as it came into action and the bullet buried itself in the wooden wall of the bunkhouse.
Ryan turned with a shout of rage and raised the gun again, only to find that he was pointing it at the head of his own father. Not fast enough to catch up with his boy, Hawk had lobbed a rock at him that had hit him on the shoulder.
‘Drop the weapon,’ said Hawk. ‘Blood demands blood, I know that. But you’re wrong this time.’ For a moment – more like a fleeting second – it looked as if the bloodlust had not ended and Ryan was going to fire on his own father, but the rage in his eyes died and he allowed the gun to thud to the ground where it was picked up hastily by Clay.
‘Give that gun to me!’ yelled the girl, rushing forward with an almost demonic expression on her normally pretty features. ‘He deserves it from me. I’ll blow out his worthless brains.’ Such was her fury and determination that for a second it looked as if she was going to succeed in wresting the weapon from Clay, the man who had picked it up just a second before. This time, paradoxically, it was Ryan who pulled her away from the prisoners.
Jardine was looking shell-shocked by the whole thing, but it was Scott who looked at them with a certain determination. ‘Know what? If that’s goin’ to be the way of it, end it now and save me from the rope, ’cause it looks as if that’s the way it’s going anywa
y. Nobody ever gave me anything, and when I try to get somethin’, I get this.’
‘You shut up,’ said Clay roughly, and forced the younger, slimmer man inside the bunkhouse. Yancey, although they were keeping an eye on him, went inside of his own free will, followed by Jardine who was guarded by Holt.
Hawk looked at his son and the young girl. ‘Time we got some rest,’ he said, turning as he did so, and after a moment’s hesitation they followed after.
A day can pass in what seems like a moment, or it can take forever. To the new inhabitants of Camp Brazos they had experienced the latter sensation. Rivero was soon able to set up a division of labour that suited his purposes. The children – even those who were barely able to walk – were set to the task of mixing the materials that created the mortar for the walls. The women were given the task of unloading the bricks and stones from the carts that would form the body of the repairs. The men, because they were physically stronger than the women, were given the task of laying the bricks and mortar. In all cases they were supervised by guards with quirts, and the guards had orders to use these if the workers flagged.
However, after several hours of this, which by necessity had involved some sort of training in each task, Rivero got a bugler to sound the call and the work came to a halt. The prisoners, although they were hardly a threat by now, were herded back into their compound.
‘Rest and drink water. Food will be with you soon,’ said Rivero as he marched up and down the parade ground. ‘Do not think I am being merciful when I let you rest; you are just tools for my task.’ The food distributed to them – thrown through the fence by some bored-looking men – was fairly basic anyway: scraps of meat and unleavened bread that looked as if it had been baked on flat griddles. The people in the compound were left to decide how they were going to divide the food amongst themselves, but once more it was Bert and Aimee who showed some sort of natural leadership.
‘We do this fairly,’ he said. ‘Gather up what’s here and set it out, and all have a share. If we act like animals and scrabble about and demand more than we need each, even though there’s not enough for all of us, they’ll have won.’
Aimee helped him gather the food, and the people, who were desperate for some sense of normality, gave in to their forceful personalities. The food was divided up as mentioned, although one young woman barely took anything. She was about seventeen years old and would have been good-looking if it had not been for the dust that marred her features. Her plain black dress was stained, too, for none of them were dressed in what could have been called working clothes.
‘Lena, you have to eat,’ scolded Aimee. Lena had been her maid when she was running the boarding house what seemed like a thousand years ago.
‘I thought he would come for me,’ she said.
‘Who?’
‘Ryan. He was my special friend, but he’s like all the rest: he’s abandoned us. What’s the use of food? That’ll just give us more strength so they can work us to death.’ She nibbled at some of the flatbread and took a draught of water from one of the earthen jugs that had been provided. They were all drinking a lot of water due to the dusty work.
‘Now look, my girl, just because some rancher’s boy has been mooning over you, it don’t mean that he’s abandoned you. There must be some rescue effort that’s afoot. They can’t just barge in, you know, that would be suicide. These men are armed to the teeth, and by the way they act and all the animals they’ve killed, they’re pretty good at what they do.’
‘Then maybe he’ll come?’
‘You’ll need a lot more than an eighteen-year-old boy to get you out of this, but yes, he could still come here.’ There was a rattling on the bars as some of the so-called soldiers walked up and down with sticks and battered away at the metal. Ramirez stood there. He was dressed in black and wearing long boots and cradling a Winchester ’73 in his arms. It was clear that the Mexicans did not think all things produced by the Americans were bad. Some of the prisoners looked up like startled deer while others lifted their heads in a listless manner.
‘Get back to work,’ said Ramirez, unlocking one of the gates and allowing the prisoners to come out in three and fours so that they were unable to get together and rush any of the guards. As they emerged, they were led away to their specific work parties according to their sex and size. As Bert (who was not able to climb their ladders because of his weight) passed the second-in-command, he gave Ramirez a silent glare that said everything about his feelings. ‘Eyes on the task, gringo,’ said the lieutenant, and shoved Bert in the back. The overweight man stumbled and nearly fell but continued onwards with a murderous look in his eyes.
A young girl came out of the compound with a bewildered look in her eyes and Ramirez looked at her with a faint leer on his unshaven features. She shrank away from him.
Their lot could get worse, a lot worse.
Chapter Thirteen
Hawk arose early the next morning, but he was not up as early as his son. He found Ryan down at the family plot beside his mother’s grave. He was kneeling on the ground when his father arrived, his head bowed, but somehow Hawk thought that he had not really been praying for his mother’s soul. There was a brooding intensity about the young man that said that he had not yet come to terms with what had happened. Hawk stood near him for what seemed like hours but was in reality only a few minutes until, at last, the young man stood up and waited beside his father. They were not the kind of people who showed their emotions to each other but Hawk put out his hand and squeezed his son’s arm, nodded once, and began to walk away. His son followed.
Back at the ranch the young woman, Abbey, had prepared them a simple breakfast consisting of eggs, bacon and beans. It was the kind of meal that saw them through the day when they were going about their normal business. They thanked her and ate in comparative silence. The girl had found some female garments that had been long unused, in storage, and with Hawk’s tacit consent she had changed into these. They were from before his wife had become unwell, and fitted the girl well because Mary had been a slim woman with a lot of nervous energy who had never kept still.
‘Time to go into town and jail them prisoners,’ said Hawk. ‘Although might be better to get a coach and take ’em to the nearest town.’
‘They sure can’t stay here,’ agreed Ryan, ‘I would kill ’em if they did, simple as that, what he did to me – and you,’ he said, looking at the girl. She flushed and looked down at her plate.
‘Blow his brains out,’ she said. ‘Jardine’s too. They’re worthless, the pair of them. Yancey is just a big lug who did what he was told because he thought it was easy money, but you should jail him too; they couldn’t have done it without him.’
‘Time to go,’ said Hawk, not a man who enjoyed getting into arguments.
The prisoners had been fed, too, and there was an air of sullen resignation about them as Holt and Clay hitched a team of horses to a flat wagon, tied their hands and legs, and threw them inside. It was still early in the day and Hawk rode beside Ryan, who had slept like one dead the previous night, as had the girl in the spare room. There had been not a lot of time to explain the circumstances of what they were about to see and now he was taking the opportunity to give his son the information he would need to make sense of the situation.
‘Although we’re jailing ’em, to get ’em away from us, Clay or Holt or Flynn – whichever one wants to do his duty – might have to act as a temporary lawmaker. The other ranchers will swear him in. The entire population of the village who could travel on two feet are gone, taken by bandits the night before last.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’
‘Well, you had a lot on your plate, what with your mother and all.’
‘Where have they taken the people?’
‘That’s the problem: nobody knows.’
Ryan said nothing but there was a return of the brooding darkness that had been around him since his kidnap.
When they arrived in the vill
age, the rancher Hawk had met the previous day was still there. It looked as if he was living in one of the two-dozen buildings scattered around: certainly he had his choice of accommodation. He came out and greeted the newcomers as the cart rumbled to a stop.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Not much,’ admitted Lamington. ‘The other ranchers – I’ve left my spread in the care of my brood and I’m minding the store, so to speak – but they’re away making plans, so they say, to track down these here bandits.’
‘They’ve had days,’ said Hawk bluntly. ‘A posse should have been formed by now. They should have tracked down these evil raiders.’
‘Ain’t quite that easy,’ said Lamington. ‘This ain’t some bunch of bank robbers who made off with a week’s takings. This is a highly organised private army with some point to prove, leastways that’s what I made out from the account of old Betsy.’
‘Betsy who?’
‘Betsy Ross, grandma of the storekeeper, lives on the second floor and she’s bedridden, she hasn’t been out for years. Crawled to her window and saw the whole thing.’
‘Is she still around?’
‘I’ve been tending to her and one or two others who were sick or crippled and couldn’t be taken. She’ll tell you the whole thing.’
While they had been discussing the matter the cart had been emptied of its occupants, who were being led towards the only jail in Hatton Falls, a building on its own with bars in the windows that had been tended by the owner of the hardware store, Jake Giles. He was the only titular lawman round here, but he was now one of the abducted.
‘Guess you’ll have to go in there too and ride shotgun on these two, Yancey,’ said Holt, who was a little more officious than his fellow riders, ‘being as you was involved in the whole thing.’
‘Mayhap a restin’ would be good. Yum, yum, three big meals of a day too,’ said the big man, who seemed quite struck by the idea. ‘Maybe see Bert too, cousin to me.’ The riders looked at each other. This was information they had not known, and perhaps the reason why Yancey had landed up in Hatton Falls in the first place.