Several seconds passed before the small receiver crackled in response.
"Yes."
"Come to me."
"Immediately."
He returned the radio to waiting hands and barked an order to hispistoleros. One of them reached through a window of the ambulance to shove the lifeless driver from his seat, then climbed behind the wheel. It took a moment, but he finally killed the flashing lights and got the van in gear, proceeding to park it behind the caravan of waiting cars.
Luis Rivera had run out of patience. When Camacho and his men arrived, it would be time to visit Santa Rosa as a group, and find some answers to the questions that were plaguing him.
Where was his enemy?
Who was he?
Was the gringo still alive, or had his wounds proved fatal?
Either way, Rivera's visit would be most unfortunate for Santa Rosa. Tired of the delays, enraged by the interminable waiting, he was in a killing mood. The murder of a battered stranger in the ambulance had merely offered him a taste of things to come. There might be nothing left when he was finished with the tiny border town, and, then again, he might decide to leave a grim reminder for his enemies.
A warning sounded in his mind, alerting him to danger. There was no threat from the constable in Santa Rosa, but the people of the Arizona desert were a rugged species, used to dealing with their problems privately, by force. Some of them might resist him, take up arms against him when his mission was revealed. He could not hope to strip them of their weapons absolutely; searching house-to-house would spread his force too thin, and even so they might miss something. But he could eliminate the source, make sure that no one had a ready call on extra guns or ammunition when he made his move.
"Jorge. Esteban." When the gunners stood before him, he explained their mission, forced them to repeat it, making certain that they understood. He could as easily have raised Camacho on the walkie-talkie, but he was afraid that Hector might get side-tracked, waste more precious time.
When this matter was finished, he would have to take another long, hard look at Hector, and decide if he was truly leadership material. So far this day, Rivera had not been impressed with his performance. It was possible that soon he would have need of someone to replace his second-in-command. This afternoon would tell the tale.
He watched Esteban choose a third man to accompany them, all piling into a sedan equipped with radio and automatic weapons. They would pass Camacho on the highway into Santa Rosa, but Rivera's number two already had his orders, and he would not think of turning back to follow. He had better not.
Within the hour, Santa Rosa would be ready for him, still unconscious of the blow about to fall. He cherished the advantage of surprise, aware that it could make the crucial difference in a situation where his men would be outnumbered five or six to one. Discounting women, children and the elderly, the odds might still be even, but the populace of Santa Rosa numbered no proficient killers in its midst.
Well, there just might be one.
The man Rivera hunted, whom he would destroy before he slept again. The bastard who had cost him millions, slaughtered members of his household, brought him here to save his reputation while some tatters of it still remained.
Before Rivera finished with him, he would know the gringo's name, the names of his employers, everything there was to know about the man who had attempted to destroy him. Death would not come easily or swiftly for Rivera's nemesis. The bastard would be praying for oblivion before he was allowed to rest in peace.
Luis Rivera smiled in sweet anticipation. The day might not be wasted after all. There might be entertainment still in store, a treat before the sun went down in violet shadows to the west.
A feast of blood Santa Rosa would not soon forget.
10
"Your change from twenty comes to seven ninety-five. You-all come back now."
"Sure, Gib, sure."
Gib Schultz stood back and watched his only customer of the morning disappear through the swing doors. Old Arnie Washburn was a character, and no mistake. He had a fresh supply of ethnic jokes on hand each time he stopped into the hardware store... although that wasn't near as often as it used to be. Three weeks — or was it four? — had passed since Arnie had been in the last time, and his purchase today would not put Gib in another tax bracket with the IRS. You had to see the bright side, though; at least he was a customer with money in his pockets. That species had been rather few and far between of late, as witnessed by this morning's trade. One customer, a lousy thirteen-dollar sale, since eight o'clock. Gib figured he was well below the minimum wage now, and smiled sourly to himself. If he still had employees, Schultz would have been forced to lay them off.
It had not always been hard times in Santa Rosa. Years ago, when he and Vi were newlyweds still bursting with their dreams, there had been decent business for a hardware dealer. Farmers needed this and that, a little bit of everything, and other local merchants had relied on Gib and Vi for all their hardware needs. The businessmen of Santa Rosa had been good that way, as far as hanging tight and throwing trade to one another, but the few remaining locals couldn't keep a decent hardware store alive, not when their income had been cut by eighty-five percent within ten years.
Schultz blamed the highway, which had bypassed Santa Rosa with a faster route to Tucson, but he knew that was at best a partial answer to the general malaise that had gripped the town. Where farms and businesses had once prospered, you found For Sale signs and empty acreage, abandoned by the victims of inflation, rising interest rates, declining income. Schultz had hung on more from stubbornness than anything else. He had been born in Pima County, married there, and reared three children, more or less removed from the malignant perils of the city. Robert, their first-born, was a successful tax attorney in Phoenix. Cynthia was teaching high school in Los Angeles, but she was up for an assistant principal's position in the fall. The baby of the family, Amy Lynn, would be a senior in September, and with grades like she brought home, she wouldn't have a bit of trouble getting into the college of her choice.
Provided Gib and Vi could raise the tuition. That was a problem, when the mortgage value on the store that you had worked for thirty years was lower than the 1950s purchase price. He had no doubt that Amy could secure a scholarship, but there was pride involved. It hurt a man to tell the state that he could not provide an education for his children.
They would get by. Somehow, they always did. When Robert had his motorcycle accident in '81, the smart-ass doctors said that he might never walk again, but he had fooled them all. The boy had finished law school leaning on a cane, but he could do without it now, and you would only catch him limping if you made a special point of looking for it. People would survive, no matter what. It was a lesson the bureaucrats in Washington had never seemed to grasp. No matter how you beat a man and pushed his face in the dirt, he would return and get his own back from you one fine day. Unless you killed him.
Gib Schultz had seen his share of killing in Korea, up around the Chosin Reservoir, in early 1951. He and Bud Stancell had called it Frozen Chosin, with the temperature so far below the freezing point you had to dig a hole for your thermometer to catch the falling mercury. Guns froze, trucks froze, and you could lose a hand by touching anything at all without your heavy mittens on. It was a wonder to him that the Chinese soldiers had been able to attack with such ferocity through gusting sheets of ice and snow. It was a wonder to him that he had survived.
He started dusting counters, though the shop was clean enough already, and as always, he began in Sporting Goods. It was an ostentatious label for one tiny corner of his store, but it had always been Gib's favorite. There had not been much call, of late, for fishing gear or hunting knives, but he kept both in stock for old times' sake. The long guns were his first love. Shotguns, rifles, no more than a dozen of them now, and half of those had been on hand for better than a year. But while he had a store, Gib would continue stocking guns and ammunition. In the old days
it had been a decent money-maker; recently, he saw the oiled and polished weapons almost as a symbol of resistance to the changing times, one man's refusal to be pushed aside.
He smiled, imagining what Vi would say if he began to spout philosophy and wax poetical around the house. He was a simple man, but that did not diminish his perception of established values, his belief in the traditions of America. Gib didn't buy the argument about a Soviet invasion, all that crap about the farmers and the gun buffs forming a militia to repulse the Reds. You couldn't drop an ICBM with a 12-gauge, but it wasn't foreign enemies that worried Schultz so much these days. He watched the news and read his daily paper out of Tucson, saw enough of life in general to know that something had gone fundamentally, perhaps irrevocably, wrong in modern-day society. Convicted criminals were wandering around in perfect freedom, while their victims lived in cages, bars on windows, triple locks on doors. You couldn't turn on the television or pick up a paper without encountering some judge or politician who was on his way to jail. One federal "jurist" from Nevada had been drawing $75,000 a year from his prison cell, and would have kept on drawing it for life, except that someone in Congress got around to calling for impeachment. Even then, the bum had nerve enough to go on television, blaming prosecutors and the FBI for having nerve enough to double-check his tax returns.
Venality in politics was nothing new, but recently the stain had seemed to filter downward, through society, affecting damn near everyone. You had more raving psychos on the street today than you could shake a stick at, crazy bastards who would kill a man for the fun of it and then drive on and do the same to someone else a few miles down the road. You heard about young kids in grade school taking dope and sacrificing animals to Lucifer, like something from a cheap horror movie on the late show. Runaways, child prostitutes, sadistic crimes where one kid turns upon his playmates with a knife or Daddy's .38. Sometimes Gib wondered how his own three kids had turned out normal. God knows he and Vi had beaten all the odds.
And he was thankful. You'd have to be an egotist, an atheist, or just plain stupid to believe that you could pull it off alone. The kids spent too much time away from home as they were growing up for Mom and Dad to take the credit for themselves. You did your best, instilled a sense of values where you could, but then you had to turn them loose and put your faith in something greater than yourself. Sometimes it even worked. Sometimes.
It hadn't worked for Jack Washburn. He had raised the sweetest boy you'd ever want to meet, provided for him, watched him grow to young adulthood with his mind and body both in decent working order. He had staked his future, all his dreams, on his boy, unmindful of the trouble that was brewing half a world away in Vietnam. When Tommy Washburn went to war, his father had been proud, convinced that nothing could go wrong. When Tommy came home in a box two weeks later, old Jack's dreams had frozen in their tracks, and they had never budged again.
Sometimes you just got lucky, damn it... and sometimes your luck went sour, all at once, without a hint of explanation. It was like the shifting wind, one minute at your back, propelling you along, the next directly in your face, with sand and grit to sting your eyes. You couldn't trust the desert wind, no more than you could trust in luck. But faith... that was something else again.
He caught the blinding glint of sun on metal, glancing up in time to see three Mexicans unloading from a dark sedan. He didn't recognize them, but their presence came as no surprise. These days, the traffic passing through was mainly headed north, and if they stopped to spend a dollar, Schultz was not inclined to ask about their green cards. Strangers didn't stop into a tiny, rural hardware store unless they needed something, and he only hoped that he would have whatever it might be on hand. Gib Schultz was smiling as the first one entered, jingling the little bell he had mounted on the left-hand door. It sounded just like money, and the sound was music to his ears.
* * *
Santa Rosa's main street was deserted, baking in the heat, as Esteban Rodriguez parked outside the hardware store. He took a moment to adjust his shades and double-check the .45 he wore beneath one arm. He was aware of Julio and Ismael breaking out their weapons, checking loads and safeties. Opening the driver's door, he grimaced at the furnace blast that greeted him. It would be hotter in Sonora, but there he would have been indoors, attending to Luis Rivera's personal security in air-conditioned comfort. Soon, with any luck, they would be home again, and he might be in line for a reward.
Hector Camacho had incurred Rivera's anger, wasting time in Santa Rosa when he should have had the gringo safely under wraps. He might still talk his way out of a demotion, but if Esteban impressed his boss with his own performance here, it might just tip the balance, move him up into a job with more responsibility, increased prestige. A bodyguard's life was reasonably safe — until last night, at any rate — but it was also tedious. Esteban relished the idea of moving up and out in the Rivera empire, managing a territory of his own one day. With everything that he had learned, he was already on his way.
But first he had to show what he was made of here, in Santa Rosa. It had been a good idea, this raid to search for weapons and effectively disarm the town. A tour of Main Street had revealed the hardware store to be their only target; they had found no gunsmith's shop, no sporting goods emporium with rifles in the window. If the town had any guns on sale at all, they would be here, and Esteban would have the shop secured in a few more moments.
He was not concerned about resistance from the local peasants. Granted, they were superior in numbers, and many of them would undoubtedly have arms at home. Rodriguez scanned the weathered, faded storefronts, and he sensed that they would offer no resistance as a group. Confronted with a team of tough, professional assassins, armed with automatic weapons, Santa Rosa's citizens would slink off to hide until the danger passed. Except, Rodriguez thought, this time Rivera might not let them hide.
The hardware store was cooler than the street, but only by a few degrees. An ancient cooler labored on the roof, but it was in a losing battle with the Arizona sun. Rodriguez waited for the door to close behind him, feeling Julio and Ismael like two shadows at his back, and scanned the store for any sign of weapons on display. He found them easily, before he even saw the store's proprietor emerging from a nearby aisle, a feather duster in his hand. Four shotguns, half a dozen rifles, neatly racked and well tended, with ammunition boxes shelved on either side. To Esteban, it was the mother lode.
"Can I help you gents?"
"We're interested in guns," he told the owner, noticing a flicker of concern behind the man's washed-out eyes.
"Yes sir, I've got 'em," he replied, with just a trace of hesitancy in his voice. "What were you looking for, exac'ly?"
Esteban brushed past him, moved to stand before the rack of long guns, studying the polished barrels, hand-rubbed wooden stocks. Three 12-gauge shotguns and a 20-gauge, three .22s, a lever-action .33, and two sporting rifles, probably ought-sixes, both with telescopic sights. It wasn't much to stock an army, but he would feel better knowing that these weapons were in friendly hands.
"We'll take them all," he said.
The merchant could not find his voice at first. He glanced from Esteban to his companions, back again, attempting to decide if the man was playing with him, joking. "That's a decent piece of cash," he said at last.
Esteban shrugged. He saw no point in mentioning that he did not intend to pay for anything. "We'll also take your ammunition."
"All of it?" Schultz squinted at Rodriguez, as if by screwing up his face he might somehow improve his hearing.
"Yes."
"Some of it doesn't fit these guns. I got some .38s in there, .223s, .410s, a few more odds 'n' ends."
"We'll take it all," Rodriguez repeated patiently, putting on a plastic smile.
"Well, shoot, I reckon you know what you need." He led them back in the direction of the register. "If you'd be kind enough to show me some I.D., I'll ring that up for you right now and we can see you on your way."
"A driver's license oughta do it," he replied. "You know how Uncle Sam can't get along without his paperwork."
"Of course." Esteban slid a hand inside his nylon jacket, hauled the Colt Commander out and aimed it at the man's face. He thumbed the hammer back and smiled across the open sights. "Will this be good enough?" he asked.
Schultz stared at Esteban, his pistol, the other gunmen. He slowly raised his hands to shoulder-height, then made a sudden lunge for something on a shelf beneath the register. Esteban could have killed him easily, but it would have been noisy and unnecessary. Lashing out, he whipped the automatic's muzzle across the man's skull with enough force to open his scalp. The thin man staggered, slumped against a shelf supporting cans of motor oil, which tipped and broke away beneath his weight.
Rodriguez placed one hand upon the counter, vaulted it with ease and landed in a crouch beside his victim. The man was stunned but conscious, cursing breathlessly and struggling to rise, his progress hampered by the cans of oil that rolled beneath him every time he made a move. Rodriguez kicked him in the ribs to slow him down, and then again, because it felt good. Finishing the job, he slashed his .45 across the balding, unprotected skull once more and stepped back satisfied. Before rejoining Julio and Ismael, he retrieved a .38 revolver from the shelf beneath the register and tucked it in the waistband of his slacks.
Rivera would be pleased with their achievement. They had not disarmed the town by any stretch of the imagination, but in one bold stroke they had eliminated a cache of weapons that the citizens could have drawn upon in their hour of need. A few more moments were required to stow the arms and ammunition in their trunk, and then they could rejoin the column waiting north of Santa Rosa.
Smiling to himself, Rodriguez missed the woman's entry through an open doorway on his left. When she saw her fallen husband, she screamed. Rodriguez was already rushing toward her, gaining, when Ismael drew his nickel-plated .32 and put a bullet through the open oval of her lips. The little gun's report was understated, probably inaudible outside, but the projectile's impact was dramatic and completely final. Lifted off her feet, the woman struck a bank of shelves, rebounded like a rag doll, bonelessly crumpled to the floor.
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