Rio Matanza (Bodie Kendrick - Bounty Hunter Book 2)

by Wayne D. Dundee

Into the awed silence, Remoza barked a new set of commands. Men in peasant garb scurried from the crowd, pushing wheelbarrows and carrying ladders onto which they hurriedly began piling the fallen carcasses. They carted off their grisly loads, taking them around one end of the wall where, if Kendrick had to bet, he would put money they'd be dumped unceremoniously into the nearest ditch or gully.

  The old priest remained standing at a distance. His head was once again bowed, his lips moving faintly as he clutched the worn Bible in both hands.

  While the bodies were being removed, two of the guards who'd escorted the Apaches to their execution returned to the jail. After a moment, they emerged again with a new prisoner gripped between them. This was Kendrick's first look at Estraleta and, even with her hair disheveled and her clothing torn and dusty, she was a strikingly beautiful woman. He could instantly see why a man might follow her away in the middle of the night, if for no other reason than merely to be with her.

  The crowd murmured anew at the sight of this firebrand whose notoriety had apparently spread wide across Sonora. She tossed her head proudly and boldly, whipping back her tangled mane of caramel hair, as the guards marched her toward the gore-streaked adobe wall. Her long golden legs flashed through the slits in her maroon skirt. There were no shackles on her ankles but her arms were tied behind her back, causing her prominent breasts to thrust out challengingly against the thin material of her blouse.

  Striding between her guards, Estraleta turned her head and glared directly at Remoza. The lieutenant maintained his eyes-straight-ahead pose and would not meet her fierce gaze. She sneered tauntingly and spat in his direction.

  Kendrick backed away from the fringe of the crowd and returned to where he'd tied Blockhead. He kept his eyes on the plaza the whole while, scanning, planning, mentally calculating odds and possibilities. He knew he was going to have to make his move pretty quick.

  He swung up onto the hurricane deck. Earlier he'd once again switched around his saddle guns so that his Greener was now riding in the scabbard beside his right leg and the Winchester Yellowboy he normally kept there was lashed behind the cantle in the shotgun's usual spot. He'd also taken a spare handgun, a long-barreled converted Navy Colt, from his saddlebags and was wearing it tucked in his belt, butt angled forward so it could be drawn with either hand if he needed to grab for it. The only thing left now was to remove the serape for freedom of movement and to leave his belt guns unencumbered. He wadded up the garment and stuffed it under his bedroll for the time being.

  While Kendrick was thus occupied, the guards had backed Estraleta up against a spot centered on the adobe wall. The priest walked up to her and began speaking softly. At the same time, six Rurale soldiers armed with rifles stepped out of the ranks and moved to take their places in a line facing the girl from a distance of approximately twenty feet.

  So this was going to be a more conventional firing squad execution, Kendrick concluded. Perhaps Remoza figured the spectacle of a beautiful woman being blasted to pieces by even a modest Gatling gun burst would be too unsettling for his audience. It might fan the flames of rebellion rather than quell them … Or maybe he was just conserving bullets on a lone remaining captive.

  Whatever the case, this development gave Kendrick considerably better odds of pulling off a rescue than if he'd had to charge out there in the midst of a Gatling gun barrage. In fact, he told himself now—his mind racing, re-formulating and refining a plan even in these late seconds—since that damn blaster was going to be just setting there going to waste …

  Remoza had once again drawn his sword. At a short command, the members of the firing squad removed the rifles from their shoulders and held them diagonally across their chests. The priest turned and moved slowly, sadly away. At Remoza's next command, the shooters would put the rifles to their shoulders and take aim. And then they would fire.

  Although the men who'd been holding her had also moved away, Estraleta made no attempt to flee. She stood defiantly, feet planted wide, facing her executioners with flaming eyes, teeth bared in a snarl of contempt.

  If Kendrick was going to do something, it had to be now.

  Jerking the Greener from the saddle scabbard and brandishing it in his left hand, Kendrick snapped the reins in his right and gigged Blockhead into motion. "Hee-yah!" The chestnut sprang forward, plunging through the mass of spectators in his path, scattering them recklessly in all directions. Amidst shouts and curses, horse and rider bound out into the plaza directly behind Remoza, the Gatling gun, and the soldiers still in formation.

  The lieutenant at last broke his rigid posture, turning in his saddle to see what was causing the sudden commotion at his rear.

  Kendrick was practically on top of him by then. "You sons o' bitches like throwin' lead so much," he howled wildly, "how about a taste of your own medicine!" With that he extended the Greener straight out from his shoulder and triggered both barrels into the soldiers still standing in formation on the other side of the Gatling. The double blast sent men spinning and staggering, their uniforms erupting in puffs of dust and spurts of blood.

  By then, Remoza had wheeled his silver stallion around to face Kendrick, brandishing his gleaming sword even though a heavy revolver rode at his hip.

  Jamming the Greener back into the saddle scabbard, Kendrick shifted Blockhead's reins into his left hand. With his right, he smoothly drew the Colt holstered on his own hip. "This ain't no sword fight, you damn fool," he muttered as he snapped off two rapid-fire rounds that sent Remoza somersaulting backward out of his saddle.

  An instant later, Kendrick reined up alongside the Gatling gun. Re-holstering the Colt, he sprang from the saddle and landed catlike on the bed of the wagon. All around him, the onlookers were going wild. Some were screaming and cursing at him, others were shouting encouragement. But none made any move to try and stop him.

  Slapping home the magazine clip that fed the ammunition hopper, Kendrick swung the six-barreled muzzle of the mounted gun and brought it to bear on the firing squad members who were only now turning in response to the chaos that had broken out behind them. Before they had a chance to raise their rifles for return fire, Kendrick began pushing the crank that rotated the Gatling's barrels and fed in fresh rounds of ammo. Chackata-chackata-chackata! The sound of spewing death rolled across the plaza again. Kendrick aimed low, riddling his targets from the waist down so that any errant rounds would chew into the dirt close beyond them rather than sail off into the crowd or inadvertently strike Estraleta.

  Once the firing squad members had been spilled to the ground, Kendrick raked them with a final burst before swinging the Gatling a hundred and eighty degrees and this time aiming it at the remaining soldiers he had previously emptied the Greener on. A number of them were still standing, some wounded, others so awestruck by this devastating one-man onslaught that they were frozen from responding defensively. Kendrick didn't allow them any more time to react. He cranked a long burst into their ranks, doing his damnedest to mow down every last one of them.

  Finished with the Gatling, Kendrick paused over it only long enough to jerk his Bowie from its sheath and use the razor-edged blade to slice the leather straps that secured the big gun to the wagon bed. Then, throwing his shoulder into it, he tipped the Gatling off the edge of the wagon and sent it crashing to the ground. He meant to make sure no one was going to be able to use it—at least not any time soon—to try and hinder his departure from this place.

  When he hopped down from the wagon, he saw Estraleta running straight for him through the bluish haze of gunsmoke now rolling across the plaza. Legs flashing, long hair streaming out behind her, she leaped adroitly over the fallen forms that only moments ago had been ready to end her life.

  Reaching Kendrick, the girl turned her back to him and thrust up her bound wrists. "Free me!"

  The Bowie blade made another sweep and the task was done.

  On the opposite side of the plaza, the only Rurales still on their feet were the two guards who had brought
Estraleta from the jail. They had pulled their pistols and now, almost hesitantly, began shooting at Kendrick while at the same time edging nervously to find cover. Kendrick drew his Colt and fired back, sending the pair ducking frantically down behind a watering trough, their desire to make a fight of it clearly not very strong.

  Estraleta sprang to the fallen Remoza. Leaning over, she quickly stripped him of his gun belt and its holstered revolver. She wasted no time buckling it about her own waist and cinching it tight. Then, taking a half step back, she cocked one foot and kicked the lieutenant savagely in the head before turning to grasp the reins of the silver stallion standing obediently near to its fallen master. Swinging gracefully up into the saddle, she shouted to Kendrick, "We must ride from here!"

  "No argument on that," muttered Kendrick, slamming a foot into Blockhead's stirrup.

  The onlookers packed around the plaza were equal parts stunned and excited by what they had just witnessed. The excited ones seemed split between supporting the Rurales and supporting the actions of Kendrick and Estraleta. In the final analysis, however, when the pair went tearing furiously and triumphantly away from Ocochillo, the cheers that rang out for them came from no small number of throats.

  Chapter Ten

  They rode hard and steady for several hours, well into the afternoon. Estraleta led the way, aiming them always south and at times slightly east. Remoza's beautiful stallion proved to be more than just for show, demonstrating a speed and stamina equal to Blockhead's.

  Finally, as the land became more broken and rugged, beginning its gradual rise into the foothills of the Sierra Madres, they stopped for a break in the shade of some high cliffs with a narrow, twisting stream running along its base. They cooled the horses carefully before allowing them to drink and then both man and woman dropped to their knees upstream from the animals and eagerly scooped repeated handfuls of the refreshing water to their mouths and to their dust-streaked, heat-flushed faces.

  Kendrick rolled onto his back, spreading his arms wide. He let his head drop into the edge of the stream where the water was only a couple of inches deep. "Man oh man," he sighed, closing his eyes. "I feel like I could flop here and not get up for about three days."

  Estraleta glanced over at him and one corner of her mouth lifted in a wry smile. "If you flopped there, as you say, for too long, the Yaquis might come down out of the rocks and arrange for your bones to rest there permanently."

  "Thanks for that cheerful thought," Kendrick responded, still with his eyes closed.

  "On the other hand," the girl continued, seeming very comfortable speaking English, "having seen you at work with your guns, Senor Kendrick, I believe you would see to it that a fair number of Yaqui bones would also be left behind."

  Now Kendrick's eyes opened back up. He raised himself on one elbow. "You know who I am?"

  "Si. Of course. I saw you when you rode into New Gleanus with Doc. Later, he told me about you."

  "Oh-oh. That might be good, might be bad."

  "Most of it was good, I assure you. However, it appears you have one trait he did not warn me about."

  Kendrick arched a brow. "And that is?"

  "A lack of consideration—or a streak of cruelty, perhaps—which for some reason is keeping you from offering a starving girl something to eat from those bulging saddlebags over there on your horse!"

  "Well, I've already got enough holes in my reputation," Kendrick said, pushing to his feet. "I sure don't want it said that some gal starved to death on my account … Come on, let's see what I can dig out to prevent that from happenin'."

  Within minutes, Estraleta was wolfing down some canned peaches along with bites of hardtack and jerky that Kendrick rummaged from his supplies. "In that awful jail," she said between mouthfuls, "they gave me moldy bread and a cup of, how you say, piss warm water—with dead flies floating in it! I threw it back in their faces and they never offered me anything more."

  "Well, my grub ain't nothing fancy," Kendrick allowed, gnawing on some jerky and hardtack he'd also grabbed for himself, "but it's sure as hell better than that."

  "To me, this tastes delicious."

  Biting off another piece of hardtack, Kendrick said, "Be a lot better—especially these damn teeth duller biscuits—with some hot coffee to wash 'em down."

  Estraleta's eyes brightened. "Coffee would be wonderful! Do you have any?"

  "What about the Yaquis?"

  The girl shrugged fatalistically. "They already know we are here. If they decide to interfere with us, they will. Whether or not we choose to have some coffee will be of little consequence."

  While Kendrick built a small, smokeless fire (no sense advertising their presence any more than necessary), Estraleta filled the coffee pot and set the makings. Waiting for it to brew, they talked some more and Bodie was surprised at how quickly he found himself at ease with this wild beauty who seemed equally relaxed around him.

  "A moment ago," Estraleta was saying, "I accused you of being inconsiderate. It suddenly occurs to me that I am the one being terribly inconsiderate—I have not uttered one word of thanks for the way you saved me back there … Please be assured that you do have my deep and sincere gratitude."

  Kendrick felt himself flush a bit under the penetrating gaze of her dark eyes. "I cut it a mite close, letting 'em put you up against the firing wall and everything before I made my move. Sorry it came down to the last second like that."

  "To rescue me, you bravely risked your own life against an entire platoon of Rurales. And you clearly saw the Gatling gun there. Had you not beaten them to it, they would have turned that on you in a heartbeat … Truly, you have nothing to be sorry for, Senor Kendrick."

  "Well, let's leave it at sayin' we both got good reason to be thankful I made it to the Gatling first."

  Estraleta's eyes narrowed. "The Gatling gun … That Devil's weapon spawned from the deepest pit of Hell! You know why Remoza had it there in Ocochillo, don't you?"

  "Reckon I could make a pretty good guess. But why don't you go ahead and tell me."

  "The gun was on its way to be delivered to Colonel Guerraro down in Bordados, where it is meant to deal out even more pain and butchery to those who have risen up against Guerraro and Remoza and the filthy ravagers who stand with them. Had not Lieutenant Remoza's arrogance allowed him to be diverted by the chance to slaughter those Apaches and show off his new toy in the process, the gun might already be in Guerraro's bloody hands."

  "A Gatling can shift the odds in a hurry, no doubt about that."

  "We've heard rumors that a Gatling gun and perhaps even a cannon were on the way. We did not know for sure the truth of such talk, nor did we know from where such weapons might be coming. Now we have at least partial proof—it is valuable information I must get to the so-called 'rebels' with all haste!"

  Kendrick had retrieved the bubbling coffee pot. As he poured some of the dark brew into the tin cup Estraleta held out, he said, "That's where we're headed, ain't it?"

  He next poured some coffee for himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he was aware of Estraleta watching him. He thought he saw—or maybe felt—a hint of suspicion in her gaze.

  "Is it that you seek to join the Bordados rebels?" she asked.

  "Not necessarily," he told her honestly. "All I'm really lookin' for is to catch up with Doc in order to satisfy my curiosity on why he lit out from New Gleanus the way he did. But, since it's become pretty clear that he's on his way to join up with these Bordados rebels … well, it's startin' to look like that's where I'm gonna end up, too." Kendrick shrugged. "Especially since I went and threw myself into the mix the way I did against those Rurales back there in Ocochillo."

  "And you threw yourself into the mix, as you say, simply out of curiosity?"

  Kendrick drank some of his coffee. "Like I said, it gnawed at me the way Doc took off. Something about it seemed fishy."

  "Fishy?"

  "It stunk … the suddenness of it, the not stickin' around long enough to tell me f
ace to face that he was pullin' out."

  "So that is why you followed us from New Gleanus?"

  "That's why I followed Doc," he corrected her.

  Estraleta lifted her chin. "So how was it, then, you followed me after Doc and I parted ways outside Ocochillo?"

  "I was followin' the tracks of Doc's horse. Didn't realize it was you in the saddle until later on."

  The suspicion that had flared briefly in Estraleta's eyes was now gone. "Yet you remained in the town—much to my benefit, as it turned out. You seem to be a rather impulsive man, Senor Kendrick."

  Kendrick let his eyes sweep frankly, admiringly over the girl. "Reckon men actin' impulsively around you ain't exactly something new … Reckon that could even figure as part of why Doc rode out all of a sudden like he did."

  Not shrinking from the boldness of his gaze, Estraleta gave a little laugh and said, "You might be surprised."

  "Anything's possible," Kendrick allowed. "But don't count on it."

  She held out her emptied cup. "Your coffee is delicious. Is there more?"

  As Kendrick poured again for both of them, Estraleta said, "How much do you know about the situation down in Bordados?"

  "Not all that much. What I know about Bordados comes mostly from stories I've heard over the past couple years tellin' how it's turned into a wide open town, a safe haven for every owlhoot and desperado from either side of the border who's welcome there as long as they're willin' to shell out for the local Rurale protection."

  "That's how it was, true enough." Estraleta's eyes blazed. "Not always how it was, but unfortunately how it had become recently … Until Hunt Bradley finally stood up and inspired others to stand with him—stand up against the corruption and filth that had overtaken our once beautiful little village."

  "You hail from Bordados?" Kendrick said.

  "Si. My whole family, for many generations."

  "Hunt Bradley." Kendrick tested the name both on his tongue and in his memory. Something about it seemed vaguely familiar. "Sounds Americano."