The Romantics
Page 27
Why the hell he hadn’t put a bullet in the back of the man’s skull when he’d had the chance, he didn’t know, but he didn’t have time to kick himself for it now.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Marina slide forward. “Stay where you are!” he barked at her. “No matter what happens, just stay where you are! You get too close, he’ll kill you.”
Another grin formed on the Indian’s pocked, broad-boned face. He lunged forward, swinging his bowie in a wide arc. Cameron feinted as the blade sliced his tunic about midway up from his belly button, and jumped to his right, barely avoiding disembowelment. Just one quick, penetrating slash of Perro Loco’s well-trained hand, and his guts would be spilling around his ankles.
Loco lunged in again with a grunt. Again Cameron feinted, then reached in with his own knife, opening a shallow gash on the man’s wrist. Loco darted away, keeping his eyes glued to Cameron’s, trying to read his mind, to anticipate his next move … enjoying the fear he smelled in his opponent.
Loco faked a slice from the right, cutting it off midmotion and bringing his weapon toward Cameron’s belly. Cameron deflected the arm with his own.
Recovering, the Indian stepped back and kicked him glancingly on the hip. It was a powerful blow, but not enough to knock Cameron off his feet.
“So we’re using our feet, eh?” he said. “You should’ve told me; I’d’ve taken my boots off.”
The Indian responded with a thin smile and came in again with a short jab. Cameron caught the arm with his left hand, swung the Indian to the left, and jabbed his knife at the Indian’s belly. Loco deflected the blow with his own knife. The two blades clattered together, the two men locked in a grunting, cursing fighters’ embrace.
Ten seconds later, the Apache gave a savage yell and pushed Cameron off with his left arm. Cameron staggered, trying to catch his breath. The Indian drifted right, holding both hands out for balance, the edge of the knife pointing up, the point angling toward the floor—ready in an instant to stab and slice, to plunge straight in and angle up for Cameron’s heart.
Cameron was on the defensive, a position he hated. Loco was more adept with a knife than he, and the Indian had him reacting instead of acting … for the moment, anyway.
Trying to remedy the situation, Cameron lurched suddenly forward, wheeled, then came around again, this time going in for the kill with two quick slashes that caught the Indian off guard. Loco feinted away at the last second, but Cameron’s forward slash had opened a thin red line across his chest.
The Indian looked down, stunned by the accomplishment of his inferior foe. Cameron took advantage of Loco’s surprise. Circling, careful to remain at least two steps beyond the pit, he lashed out again, his knifepoint angled up. He thought he had him, but the Indian was suddenly gone, like a ghost. He appeared again to Cameron’s left. Screaming, he kicked Cameron in the balls.
Cameron’s knees buckled with the pain. He crumpled, groaning.
This is it, he thought behind the agony that seared through his groin and into his stomach, nearly making him retch. Well, I gave it the old college try. If only I could take the bastard with me …
Fatefully, Loco hesitated, enjoying the moment. Instead of finishing off Cameron quickly and efficiently, Perro Loco wheeled around in a pirouette of sorts, building steam for a fatal kick to Cameron’s head.
The problem was he’d gotten too close to the side of the pit, and nearly fell in. Catching himself, he teetered on the edge of the pit for a full second.
Cameron swallowed the pain engulfing him and flung himself forward. He rammed his head into the Indian’s belly and bulled the man over onto his back.
Loco gave a startled cry as his head hit the rock floor with an audible crack. Still, he managed to bring his knife hand up with a vengeance. Cameron grabbed Loco’s wrist just before the knifepoint went into his throat.
The Indian clenched his broken teeth together. His sweat-soaked face wrinkled in outrage. Channeling all his strength into the fist with the knife, he strove to bury the blade in Cameron’s neck.
Meanwhile Cameron brought his own knife to bear. The Indian grabbed the hilt with his free hand.
For several seconds they were at an impasse, the Indian’s knife only a half-inch from Cameron’s throat, Cameron’s knife six inches from the Indian’s jugular. Each man brought his waning strength to bear. Sweat streamed down their faces—jaws clenched, lips stretched wide, teeth grinding, belabored grunts welling out of their throats.
Slowly Cameron’s knife inched toward the Indian’s throat. Loco’s horrified eyes watched the blade disappear under his chin.
With a final cry and thrust, Cameron shoved the knifepoint into the leathery skin at the Indian’s throat. The point went in a half-inch, then an inch.
Loco lifted his chin and yelled what sounded to Cameron like a prayer or a chant, summoning help from the other world.
“Go ahead and pray, you devil,” Cameron snarled through clenched teeth, “no god can save you now.”
Then he drove the knife into the man’s neck up to the hilt. Blood washed over Cameron’s hand as though he’d punctured a wine flask. Loco gave a sigh. His head went back and his eyes rolled up in his head.
Resting on Loco’s body, Cameron caught his breath and felt relief wash over him like cool water. He licked his salty lips and swallowed, then heaved himself onto his knees. He stared at the dead Indian, hardly able to believe his luck, then wiped the blood from his knife on the dead man’s leggings. Standing, he returned the knife to the sheath on his hip, then headed toward Marina.
She sat on the floor next to Clark, watching Cameron with terrified, expectant eyes, one hand on her chest as if she could not believe he was alive. Cameron wasn’t sure he could believe it, either. He sighed and shook his head.
“Are you all right?” he asked her.
She nodded, eyeing Clark. Cameron turned to the man and knelt down.
“What happened?”
“The Indian stabbed him in the chest,” Marina said. “He is not conscious but he’s alive.”
Cameron put his fingers to Clark’s throat, feeling for a pulse. The man groaned, coughed, and rolled his head, muttering. He was starting to come around. Cameron inspected the splotch of blood just above his right breast. It looked nasty but not deep. If they could get it bandaged, he’d probably be all right.
Jimmy had sat up with his back against the wall. He was looking around groggily. Cameron knelt before him and looked into his eyes.
“You all right?”
The kid swallowed and nodded, brought up a hand up and rubbed the goose egg growing on the back of his head. “The bastard flung me across the room like I was a sack of grain.”
“Well, he won’t do it again,” Cameron said.
“I’m sorry, Jack,” Jimmy said. “He caught me by surprise. I would’ve killed him, I swear I would’ve, if I woulda seen him. He’s just so sneaky.”
Cameron nodded. “Oh, I know all about Perro Loco,” he said, and gave the kid a grin.
Jimmy’s eyes lifted to something behind Cameron, then widened in horror as the kid screamed, “Look out!”
Cameron jerked around and stared, aghast. The Indian stood behind Marina, his big bowie held at his side. Marina turned as well. She screamed and recoiled against the wall.
Blood covered the Indian’s chest from the gash in his neck. “Girl … dies, Cam-er-on. Too … bad.”
He lunged toward Marina, bringing the knife back for a fatal thrust. A gun exploded behind Cameron. Cameron saw the bullet smack into Perro Loco’s face and knock him back against the wall.
Then the gun roared again. The second bullet smacked Loco’s chest. He slid down the wall, smearing blood, and crumpled up on the floor, dead.
Cameron turned to look at the shooter and gaped, befuddled. It was She-Bear.
The squat, round Indian woman lowered her smoking rifle and shuttled her gaze to Cameron, who was still crouched next to Jimmy.
“My man—
he not here. He … dead?”
Cameron sighed, dropping his eyes, and nodded.
She-Bear accepted the information with her customary stoicism, her expression remaining wooden. She jerked a thumb over her shoulder as she said matter-of-factly, “You got more trouble out there. Many men on horses.”
CHAPTER 35
CAMERON TURNED TO Jimmy. “Where’s my rifle?”
The kid looked at once somber and frantic. “He … The Indian took it away from me, threw it in the rocks down by the horses.”
Cameron cursed, standing and walking over to the pit. He couldn’t see them in the failing candlelight, but he knew their pistols were down there where the Indian had tossed them. They’d need them now; those were all the weapons they had, except for Cameron’s bowie, and he sure as hell didn’t want to have to rely on only a knife against twenty or thirty of Bachelard’s men; without his rifle he was handicapped enough.
Knowing it was the only way—Jimmy and Marina couldn’t hold him on the rope—Cameron got down and dropped his legs over the side of the pit, turning to face the edge and feeling for footholds. Slowly but deliberately he descended, one hand-and foothold at a time, having to move several feet sideways, at times, when the holds in his direct line of descent played out.
It was a hell of chance he was taking; one misstep and he could end up on the bottom of the pit with a broken leg, a crushed skull, or worse. Any of those injuries would mean certain death, under the circumstances and so far from civilization.
But he had no choice. Worse, he had no time to spare. At any moment Bachelard and his men might take the cave, and that would mean death for them all, except Marina—what it would mean for her, Cameron could only imagine.
Six feet from the bottom, he put his right foot on a protruding rock that wasn’t secure. It crumbled, and he slid the remaining distance to the pit floor, with several smarting face and hand abrasions to show for it.
Cursing, he felt around in the dark for the pistols. When he had his own Colt Army in his holster, and the others tucked in his waistband, he wiped his bloody hands on his jeans, reached for a handhold, and started climbing again.
The ascent was relatively easy, and he was at the top in a few minutes, breathing heavily as he clawed his way onto the floor above. He gave Jimmy the old Remington, handed Marina her Colt .38, and kept Clark’s Bisley tucked behind his cartridge belt. Clark was sitting against the cave wall, cursing as Marina bandaged the knife wound in his chest.
“What’s up, Jack?” Clark asked, his gaunt face pale and sweaty, his dark hair plastered to his skull. His breath was raspy and he coughed every few minutes, bringing up thick gouts of blood which he spat to the side. This humid air wasn’t doing him any good at all.
“I don’t know,” Cameron said. “That’s what I’m going to find out.”
He shifted his eyes to Marina, who was pressing a handkerchief to the knife wound above Clark’s breast. “You two stay here. I’ll come and get you if I think we can get out of here.”
Clark said, “What … What about the treasure?” He turned his expectant gaze to Cameron.
“It’s there,” Cameron told him. “I just don’t know if it’s going to do us any good.”
Then he was gone, heading up the corridor, Jimmy following close behind.
They found She-Bear kneeling about five feet back from the cave’s opening, rifle in her arms, peering down the cliff face. Cameron moved quietly up behind her, careful not to be seen from below.
She-Bear turned her round, lugubrious face to him. She looked even more fatalistic than usual, and Cameron knew that wasn’t a good sign.
“What’s going on?” he whispered.
His answer came in the form of voices from below, the thud of horses on hard-packed ground. The voices were raised in excited inquiry. Commands were yelled.
Cameron recognized Bachelard’s screechy Cajun tenor. “Goddamn it! I thought they were farther behind us. They must have followed some shortcut,” Cameron said, to no one in particular. He was trying to make sense out of the situation, which appeared pretty close to hopeless.
Their horses had no doubt been confiscated. Clark was too injured to make a break for it even if they had a place to make a break for—which they didn’t. And She-Bear was the only one with a rifle. There was no way in heaven or hell that Cameron, Jimmy, and She-Bear, with or without her rifle, would be able to hold off Bachelard and Montana for more than a few hours.
Jimmy must have seen the doubt in his face. “What are we gonna do, Jack?” he said quietly.
Cameron didn’t say anything. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled to the entrance of the cave, lifting his head to peer over the ledge. Several riders were milling on the canyon floor, looking up the cliff, rifles held high in their hands.
Two were Mexicans in fancily-stitched vests and sombreros, bandoliers crisscrossing their chests. Cameron could make out another man taking cover behind a mesquite and two more leading their horses off behind a rise. Those three all looked like gringos dressed in dusty trail garb.
From the voices and sound of boots stumbling up rocky grades and pushing through brush, there were many more men near the cliff base where Cameron couldn’t see them.
He gave a sigh. There was no doubt about it—these were Bachelard’s and Montana’s men. They had seen the horses and pack mules of Cameron’s party, and knew they were here. They were positioning themselves for a showdown.
Cameron looked for a possible escape route. There was no way they could get down off the cliff without being seen. They could go up, keep climbing the tiers, but the tiers stopped a good hundred feet from the top of the canyon wall—a sheer wall, at that, impossible to climb, especially with men flinging lead at you from below.
Voices grew louder and men came near, boots thumping on the gravelly stairs in the cliff to Cameron’s right. They were beneath his field of vision, but he could hear them approach, whispering and breathing heavily from the strain of the ascent.
“Look—that there’s a bootprint,” one of them said.
“Sí,” another replied.
Boots scuffed, the breathing grew louder. Someone gave a low yell, tripping on one of the steps, no doubt.
“Pick up your goddamn feet, Carmody!” someone hissed.
Cameron crawled farther onto the ledge, dropped his gaze over the side. To his right, three men appeared on the tier beneath him—one Mexican and two Americans.
Cameron grabbed his pistol and brought it up, thumbing back the hammer. Breathing heavily, the approaching men were looking around, open mouths sucking air and showing teeth. The Mexican, lifting his head, saw Cameron lying on the ledge above him.
“There!” he cried, bringing up his rifle.
Cameron aimed the Colt and fired. The man screamed and flew back over the ledge, dropping his rifle. The other two, seeing Cameron and the smoke puffing around his head, brought their own rifles up to their shoulders. With two quick shots, Cameron plugged them both off the ledge, hearing their bodies smack the next tier below, their rifles breaking on the rocks.
A bullet spanged off the side of the ledge a few inches from his face, spraying him with sharp flecks of stinging rock. Looking down at the canyon floor, he saw dust thinning around a rifleman who was smiling and jacking another shell into the chamber. A second bullet buzzed over Cameron’s head and barked into the side of the cave behind him.
That slug had come from the left.
Turning that way, Cameron saw another rifleman on the ledge below him, a tall, angular Mexican with a pencil-thin mustache and tattered serape. She-Bear, who had crawled up beside Cameron, brought the butt of her rifle to her cheek and squeezed off a round that chipped the rock wall where the man’s head had been a half-second before.
Jimmy sidled up to the cave wall at Cameron’s right, planting the barrel of his Remington on his left forearm, aimed, and squeezed off three quick rounds, puffing up dust around two riflemen crouched on the canyon floor.
“Jesus!” the kid yelled.
“Back! Get back!” Cameron yelled at him and She-Bear, turning and scrambling several yards back into the cave, where they couldn’t be seen or fired upon as easily. “We’re just sitting ducks out there.”
The three of them hunkered down on their knees, weapons held high, staring off across the slowly darkening canyon, listening and watching, trying to get a grasp of the situation.
As many times as he went over it, sweat furrowing the dust on his face and neck, soaked tunic sticking to his back, the smell of gunpowder hanging heavy in the air and the sound of conspiratorial voices reaching his ears from only about fifty or sixty yards away, Cameron could not figure a way out of the pickle they were in.
At least, one that wouldn’t get them all killed.
BEHIND A BOULDER at the bottom of the canyon, Gaston Bachelard crouched beside Miguel Montana, removed his hat, and lifted a cautious gaze up to the cave opening on the third tier of the ruins.
“Well, compadre—any suggestions?”
Montana looked carefully over the boulder, squinting his eyes and biting down hard on the thin cheroot in his front teeth. He shrugged.
“How many do you think there are?”
Bachelard turned to call to one of his men hunkered down by a boulder about fifteen yards behind and to his right. “How many are in the cave, Jumbo?”
“I’ve seen three. Looks like only one has a rifle, though.”
Bachelard turned to Montana, who frowned. “Only three?”
“That’s what the man said.”
“Where are the others?”
“Maybe there are no others.”
“This gringo—dark—he came down here with only two other people?”