by Alex Frew
‘They’re going to hang you too,’ said Scott dourly. ‘That’s the reason they’re putting you in with us.’ Clay gave the prisoner a swift smack in the face.
‘Shut up, scum-sucking mollusc. You speak when you’re spoken to.’ The three men were led inside, with Yancey still cogitating over the matter.
In the meantime, Hawk was looking at the burned saloon with a thoughtful look on his face.
‘So, what have the scouts told you?’ he asked Lamington.
‘Scouts?’
‘One of the basic ways of getting the information you need: you send out scouts and you get on the trail of the parties who did this to get some of the information you need for the attack. My father did it all the time during the Civil War. His kind were invaluable for the cause.’
‘I – I guess I don’t know,’ said Lamington. ‘As I say, I’m minding the store, so to speak, and looking after the sick and old along with a couple of folks from the ranches, but no one had told me anything to do with scouts.’
In the meantime, now that he had seen his enemies, as he considered them, safely ensconced in the prison, Ryan was finishing his tour of the village. The shock on his face when he saw the burnt-out remains of the saloon was still a little visible, but it was overlaid by sadness at the discovery that the girl he had known so well, Lena, was counted as one of the missing. It was his turn to approach the man who was minding Hatton Falls.
‘Where is she?’
The rancher looked at him with some bemusement. ‘Who?’
‘Lena Zweig. She was the maid for Aimee Struthers, who ran the cowboy boarding house. The one that gets real busy during the cattle drives.’
‘They must have took her, son; certainly no one by that name around here now I would’ve known.’
Ryan turned and looked at his father with an expression on his face that said more than any words.
Hawk had nothing to lose. He looked back at Ryan, and Abbey, who was standing beside him, then turned to Lamington. ‘Joe, there ain’t a party on the go as far as you know it?’
‘I guess what they’re doing is making plans and hoping to send out a whole bunch of men at one time, that way they hope to overwhelm whoever’s done this. Leastways that was the idea they chewed over last time they was here.’
Hawk could understand why the village would be a good meeting point for the ranchers. Between them they commanded hundreds of miles of land, and meeting up at one ranch or another would be a difficult task, while the village was a central point where they could all gather. ‘When are they coming around again?’
‘Tonight, from what I could gather; they’re making sure all that’s there is secure.’
‘So if they meet tonight, the soonest they’ll get something done is tomorrow even if they set off early?’
‘I guess so.’
‘It’s not good enough,’ said Hawk. ‘It’s already been a couple of days and those prisoners could be undergoing anything at the moment – torture and murder of all kinds.’
‘Lena,’ said Ryan, as if the word had been torn from him, ‘she’s only a young girl. They could be doing anything they want.’
His expression was one of cold fury. ‘I’m going to kill them, kill them all.’
‘Ryan, don’t do it,’ said Abbey suddenly and with a passion that surprised him. ‘From what I hear they’re heavily armed, and they don’t care, whoever they are. They’ll kill you, and the rest of us. For all you know the girl might already be dead. There’s nothing you can do for her, nothing.’ So great was her passion as she said this that she looked briefly into his suddenly stony features, then stamped away, hand to her face.
‘What’s got into her?’ asked Ryan, strangely disconcerted by the fact that his father was bearing a faint smile on his normally inscrutable features.
Hawk soon lost his smile as he looked back at Lamington. ‘What we need to do is send in a party of men who will find out what is going on. When that’s done, they’ll come back and the real work can begin. But such a party would have to be well-stocked and well-armed and ready for whatever is directed against them.’
‘It’s early spring,’ said Lamington, ‘an’ it was a bad winter, real rainy, and snow too, although luckily they missed most of that down here beside the river; the water melted most of the snow and raised the temperatures. But it means that most of the ranchers are getting their longhorns out to fresh pasture. There’s a lot of work going on an’ they’re rounding up the strays, too. There are not as many cowboys out here either; they come in during the cattle drives, so there’s just not as many people around. We’re all mustering our forces but it takes that bit of time, and we’re all outraged and arming up to take on these vile brigands.’ He spoke with real fire in his eyes and in a tone that was outraged at the implication that nothing was being done for those who had been affected by the scurrilous invasion and abduction of their people.
‘Then a body of riders needs to be found fast,’ said Hawk, ‘and I know who they are.’
Chapter Fourteen
In any enterprise it is amazing how sheer hard work can lead to the desired result. The walls of Camp Brazos had gone to ruin mostly in the middle, where they had crumbled downwards due to many years of neglect and the sometimes severe winters that occurred around here, but the base had been solidly built on strong foundations, and the corners had been strengthened where they were adjoined by thick adobe below and double brickwork above. Clearly those who had designed the prison had decided that they were there for the duration of the Civil War, no matter how long it took. This meant that by concentrating on the centre of the walls, repairs were soon effected that made it look more like it would have been some twenty years before.
Clearly the cost of maintaining an unused building – or rather series of buildings – was such that the government had abandoned it due to a lack of prisoners, since the war had ended in defeat for the seven Confederate forces – the state of Texas amongst them – who had tried to secede from the USA and declare themselves a separate nation.
It was now the end of the third day of building, and Aguste Rivero walked in the muted sunshine as the hills around them cast their long shadows on the prison. Several men had died during the night, exhausted as they were by the constant work schedule and the low amount of food that they had consumed. Ramirez, who seemed to take on the day-to-day mundane tasks of running the camp, had immediately ordered some of his men to take away the bodies.
‘And do not just dump them in the woods or throw them in the river anymore,’ he had instructed. ‘Bury them, even if in the shallowest of graves.’ The bodies had been thrown into one of the now empty carts and transported away by men who grumbled at their task. There was a reason for his caution: bodies seen floating in the river would be visible to the inevitable pursuers, and cause an urgent attack that might well be dispelled by a simple act.
Rivero watched the cart rumble through the restored gates that had been fortified with strips of iron and gave a little shrug. The price was small and not worth thinking about. The new walls rose around them, and were already solidly in place.
‘You have used the prisoners well and done a good job, Raul,’ he said to his second-in-command. ‘I would not have believed the task could have been done so swiftly if it had not been with my own eyes.’
‘These gringos, dare I say it, can toil hard when they are pushed,’ said Ramirez. ‘The gun and the knife have been sufficient threat, although I did have to beat one or two to get the best result out of them.’
Rivero walked the length of the parade ground. The compound on the far side of the camp, opposite the one where the prisoners were kept, had been the most ruinous. It backed on to the hills above and would have been the weakest point for their defences if it had not been repaired. The way the walls had been constructed was such that they widened at the top and there was a guard tower in each corner. The guard towers were roofed over by little porticos so that the inhabitant was well sheltered, with an
all-round view of the camp and the surrounding area. These had been ruined, too, but had also been restored. They were reached by the guard slinging his weapon over his back and climbing up using metal rungs set in the walls. These freshly restored shelters high above were already inhabited by his soldiers.
‘This is what I had pictured when I came here with you all those months ago,’ said Rivero, ‘a place in which our own private army could form an enclave, with an assurance that they could defend it from those who would come here.’
‘What I still do not understand is why you would use the gringos when there are any number of peasant villages across the water? We could have brought them here, hundreds if you had wanted, restored the camp, then shot as many as we wanted without the Americans even knowing.’
‘Ah, Raul, you are of noble blood and you look on the peasantry as mere fodder for whatever task you want. This is not about labour, not really, although the restoration of the Brazos camp was urgent. What this is about is striking back.’
‘You are an idealist, Aguste.’
‘There have to be such people in the world. I own this land; there is no doubt about that. My family were forced off these hills less than sixty years ago. To the Americans might is right, and the reason I used their own people is to show that we can strike back when we want and take back what is ours.’
Ramirez digested these words for a little while. ‘But I thought the purpose of this strike was to get the gold and silver that is stockpiled in these very hills?’
‘The White Mine? Yes, that is where we are going, so soon that I can almost see the darkness before me. From there we will get the gold that has been left there by my ancestors for the picking. They were wise, you see, they mined the area then hid stocks so that they could go back and get the gold when the value was high. It is hidden behind rocky enclaves deep in the mine.’
‘Our version of El Dorado,’ breathed Ramirez with a far away look in his eyes, ‘except it is as real as these walls around us.’
‘As for the prisoners, if they thought building these walls was a task, wait until they have to go down the mines; they will soon find out what work is.’
‘But I still don’t understand why you took Americans.’
‘Don’t you see? I have spread it far and wide that we have done this purely as a political act to get our lands back. The land does not bother me as much as you think, but the gold does. Once we have mined these hills we will go back to what is now Mexico and live our lives better than any Hispaniola Grandee, and ultimately I may even be able to buy myself into a presidency.’ Rivero’s voice trailed off as he realized that he had said too much. ‘Feed them, give them water, and celebrate with our men tonight,’ he added. ‘Give the men wine and meat, and let them take the women they want from the filthy gringos. I myself would not touch them, but when the celebrations have ended, on the morrow we shall take to the hills and open the mines that will make us millions.’
Ryan stared at his father with an expression that quickly became stony. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea at all, Father, not a good idea at all.’
‘Offering a chance is always a good idea,’ said his Hawk with an equally stony look on his face. ‘Those people are suffering; who knows what has happened to them by now.’
The two men were still in Hatton Falls, since there did not seem to be much point going back to the ranch. Most of the work at this time of year had to do with rounding up cattle and making sure that they did not stray too far from the land, or checking that the ones due to calve were healthy enough, and most of the time they were. They were standing outside the only secure building in town, the prison. His men had established makeshift homes in the eerily empty houses up and down the main street. Hawk called them out to stand in front of him like a motley army, no two dressed alike. Lamington, seeing that they had decided to stay for at least a couple of days, had ridden out of town to go back to his own family.
‘Alonzo, Frank, Logan . . . you have all been good guys as far as I’m concerned. You’ve done your work well and you’ve proven that you are men of worth. I’m going after these bastards.’
‘Me too,’ said Ryan.
‘As I was saying, I’m going after these bastards, and I’m going to do what every good scout does: I’m going to test the lie of the land. If there’s anything I can do, I’ll do it. But right now I’m going to ask the three of you if you’ll come with me. There may be trouble and none of you signed up for that, but we have to show these people that we ain’t going to take this kind of humiliation.’
‘Or we could get the Texas Rangers,’ said Holt, ‘just saying.’
‘Does that mean you’re out then?’ asked Hawk. ‘Sure, if it was easy as that I’d say the same thing, but this far out, in what’s still pioneer country, the Rangers will take days to contact. Hell, we ain’t got the telegraph system yet.’
‘Well you’re wrong,’ said Holt, ‘if you’re in, I’m in, Hawk.’ The other two said nothing but looked at the man who had brought them into his business all those years ago, who had always been tough but fair with them, and merely gave a slight inclination of their heads to show their full agreement.
‘Tell them the next part,’ said Ryan.
‘Yep, well this is the part you guys might have difficulty digesting,’ said Hawk. ‘I propose we take Scott, Mack and Yancey with us.’
At these words the three men started to speak at once, making it clear what they thought of the idea. Hawk waited patiently until they stopped what they were saying.
‘I understand your objections, and on the face of it, it don’t seem that sensible, but these are young, fit men. They know the lie of the land because they’ve been tooling around here looking for a way to make easy money, and best of all, they’re looking for a way to save their damned necks.’
‘They might just run off,’ said Flynn.
‘We’ll make sure we don’t give them a chance,’ said Hawk.
‘They might turn on us,’ said Holt.
‘We’ll make sure they aren’t armed unless they need to be.’ He spoke to them a little more about his ideas, and grudgingly his three employees accepted. In a sense they were relieved, because Yancey had the build of a minor giant, while the presence of the younger men might deflect some of the potential trouble heading their direction.
‘We go as soon as we’ve prepared the way,’ said Hawk. ‘Time to get busy.’
Chapter Fifteen
‘What are you doing?’ asked Abbey, as Ryan came into the hardware store. It was remarkably well equipped compared to most of its kind in small villages, but there was a reason for this: Giles Hardware had originally been one of the pioneering trading posts on the Brazos River. It was the reason – besides the flat lie of the land and plentiful game – for why there was a village here at all.
‘I might have to ask you the same thing,’ he said.
‘Just looking,’ she answered. ‘I’ve sheltered at the boarding house for the time being. When you think of it that’s the perfect place to stay: plenty of spare rooms at this time of year.’
‘Sure thing,’ he said, but his eyes were darting around the building. The front of the store had a counter to one side, and all sorts of goods that a traveller might need, such as handguns, shovels and panning equipment – because of the rumoured gold in the hills – along with plenty of dried and even a few tinned foods, and pickles in jars. At the back of the store was another storeroom that only Giles would access in the course of the business. He didn’t have any keys to the store and the door was locked.
‘ ’Scuse me,’ he said to the girl. He picked up one of the handguns (a Smith & Wesson), found the necessary bullets, loaded up and pointed it at the lock. ‘You want to get out?’ he asked her. ‘The bullets might bounce back; don’t want to put you in danger.’ He noticed then that she was holding a gun of her own. ‘You getting some personal protection?’
‘So why are you breaking in?’ she asked. ‘There’s plenty of goods o
ut here. More than you need.’
‘Tell you later,’ he said, ‘but be careful with that thing: it can hurt your hand when it goes off. Now please get out.’ She did not leave the building, but backed away and stood behind the counter as he fired at the lock. The sound was almost deafening in the enclosed space of the building. Ryan gave the door a kick and it fell in. There, in the back of the building, was what he was looking for. Giles stocked barrels of gunpowder. These were not the huge ones used by the army or industrialists, but individual kegs about the size of a man’s head. Altogether there were a dozen of these, along with rifles, a small cannon and even cannon balls made of solid iron. These were deceptively small, but when lifted weighed pounds, and were capable of doing a great deal of damage.
‘You were risking it shooting into the door,’ said the girl, coming forward.
‘Not really,’ he said, ‘the kegs are shelved higher up and a bullet ain’t going to make much difference to an iron cannon.’ He left her behind and went to the front of the building. ‘Guys, I’ve found what we need. Get the cart ready.’ Hawk entered the building and gave the girl a nod. By this time she had acquired a bag, a feminine one that she had obviously taken from the boarding house, and the gun was gone. He took it she was there looking for food, which she was, too.
‘Hey,’ Hawk stood and looked at the twenty or so kegs and gave a low whistle. ‘It’s a lot more impressive when you see ’em in a row like this.’ Ryan was standing there with an air of a proprietor’s pride, even though technically he was a looter, and therefore by the laws of the state liable to be shot where he stood.
‘Shall I load them up?’
‘Sure, I’ll help you. Get the others in too; we’ll put ’em in the cart under a tarp in case it rains. You can take charge of the cart.’