Those who survived the gauntlet of gunfire were met by enraged and outraged citizens wielding machetes, knives, axes, hoes, sickles, and the like. They tore into their longtime tormentors, hacking, slashing, stabbing, and bludgeoning.
No soldiers were on the scene. Captain Bravo had taken the main body of his force into the field earlier this day to run down what they thought was a war party of Victorio’s Apaches who had massacred a detachment of troops on patrol south of the Espinazo who’d been bivouacked beside the river.
The skeleton crew remaining behind to man the presidio showed no inclination of leaving the safety of the stone-walled fort to venture into the town of Pago where rebellion now ran riot.
The Tombstoners formed a loose arc around the machine-gun cart, securing the rear grounds so the girls could safely come out.
Within the under-stage area, Matt and Ringo and Juan Garza and Herrera began moving the captives into the open air.
American and Mexican girls alike had undergone an emotional sea change from the numbed hopelessness and apathy of captivity to a rising near hysteria at the once seemingly impossible prospect of rescue and freedom looming near at hand.
Matt and Ringo herded the young Americans out in a bunch.
“Move out, girls!” Matt urged, motioning with the gun in his hand toward the open doorway. “Move fast, but stay together . . . move as a group . . . stay with the group . . . don’t drop out, don’t fall behind. Get separated from us now and it’ll be disaster. . . .”
Ringo served as rear guard, coming up behind the femmes to make sure that none strayed or stumbled. The girls went out through the exit into the night.
Herrera, La Vieja, Vincente, and Miguel escorted the larger group of Mexican girls to freedom, streaming them into the back gardens of the opera house grounds.
The crowd of waiting townsfolk and campesinos spread out, circling around the combined throng of girls Mexican and American, forming a human shield ringing them.
The burning opera house threw lurid red, yellow, and orange lights on the garden grounds.
The girls found sweet relief in breathing the outside air. Energy? Despite the privations of the ordeal they had suffered, they were now suffused with a surplus of energy, thanks to youth and its marvelous recuperative powers.
On they came, long unbound hair streaming, supple bare limbs flashing, rushing barefoot over flagstoned path and weedy lawn. Once the girls came pouring out of the building, it was like a dam breaking—there was no restraining the flood.
Matt, Herrera, and La Vieja were the last to leave the under-stage area.
The old woman hugged to herself the knowledge that she had accidently on purpose forgotten to free the brutal duenna guards from the closet into which they’d been locked. Better that such should remain behind to perish in the flames as the opera house burned down!
Sam Two Wolves, Polk Muldoon, Ed Dane, Juan Garza, Jeff Howell, and Pima Joe formed a crescent whose center was the serving cart with Remy Markand standing ready at the machine gun.
The crescent moved forward across the grounds toward the back gate, now held by Curly Bill, Hal Purdy, Arnholt Stebbins, Dutch Snyder, and Geetus Maggard.
The crescent was the advance guard, clearing the way for girls and rebel citizens following. Ringo, Hector, and Miguel brought up the rear, watchful lest some of Don Carlos’s hard-pressed men screw up their courage for a sneak attack.
This was unlikely. The slavers’ primary concern now was to save their own necks and flee the opera house grounds without being intercepted by vengeful rebels.
The Tombstoner crescent neared the far end of the grounds, an open back gate gaping in the eight-foot iron-spear fence bordering the perimeter of the property.
Scattered inside and outside the gateway lay the bodies of men—guards, pistoleros—who’d gotten in the way of the raiders and been slain for their troubles.
Beyond the fence stretched a cobblestone street running parallel to it. Parked along the grassy verge bordering the outside of the fence were two wagons, each with solid wooden wheels and high rail sides and a team of horses yoked to the spans. Geetus Maggard sat in the driver’s seat of one wagon, Dutch Snyder in the other.
A man with gun in hand fled the advancing crescent, racing out of the gate, a Don Carlos gunman. Hal Purdy loomed ahead. Both fired, Purdy’s shot lancing a line of fire from gun muzzle to the other’s chest, dropping him, the latter’s shot going wild.
The crescent reached the back gate, Tombstone raiders spreading out to secure wagons and street. The ring of rebel townsfolk protecting the mass of girls within it began streaming out the gate, fanning out on both sides of the street.
Cutting the knot of American girls loose from the others, the raiders moved them toward the wagons.
“Howdy, gals! Your chariot awaits, climb on board,” Dutch Snyder roared, doffing his hat and grandly waving it in the air.
The seven femmes from Bear Paw and five Arizona natives clambered into the wagons.
Remy broke down the machine gun, putting it and the tripod in a crate and the amunition in a burlap sack. Matt and Remy loaded crate and sack in the back of a wagon, Remy jumping aboard to mother-hen the piece during the ride.
Matt and Sam watched the freed Mexican femmes, numbering some two score or more, pour into the street, watched over by the rebels.
“Some will be saved, but not all; some of those saved now will fall by the wayside,” Sam said ruefully.
“Hard words, but true,” Matt said, “but at least they’ve all of them got a chance, which is more than they would have had once the slavers sold them into whoredom. It’s like saving baby rabbits from a flooded warren—all you can do is set them free and hope for the best, even though there’s rattlesnakes and coyotes and birds of prey on the prowl, waiting to move in. Man proposes and the Lord disposes, ’twas ever thus.”
“Amen, brother.”
“Hell, we and our gals are a long way from the border.”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought of it.”
Pepe Herrera floated into view, coming to them.
“Here’s where we part company,” Sam said.
“It has been a good fight, señores. The power of Don Carlos is broken after this night, I think,” Herrera said.
“Hope so. But there will be others to try to take his place, and there’s still Captain Bravo and his men to be reckoned with.”
“When they come, we will be ready for them.”
“Take care of yourself and keep your guard up, amigo,” Matt said.
“That we will. Vaya con Dios,” Herrera said. “Go with God.”
“And may He go with you.”
Herrera waved a hand in a farewell salute, slipping into the tail end of the fleeing crowd, wrapped in the cloaking mantle of night.
A string of horses was hitched to the fence, waiting for the raiders. Matt and Sam and the others mounted up.
Dutch Snyder cracked a whip mule skinner style over the heads of his team of horses, moving his wagon out, Maggard piloting the second wagon behind.
“Next stop, Tombstone!” Dutch shouted, cracking the whip again.
TWENTY-ONE
Bad news travels fast, disaster comes at a gallop. Three riders bearing word of the opera house carnage raced to the rancho of Don Carlos de la Vega.
The Vega holdings comprised several hundred square miles, much of it well-watered grasslands. The grand hacienda and principal outbuildings were sited several miles outside town. A road ran straight to the walled compound of the Vega rancho.
The main buildings were encircled by a ten-foot-high adobe wall, armed vaqueros posted on the ramparts. The road led to the main entrance, a double-doored gate beneath an archway.
Within, the hacienda was ablaze with light. Later, after the auction, Sebastiano and his henchmen would bring the booty to their master Don Carlos, chests of gold harvested at the opera house.
The slave master would demand a full accounting of the business of the night on that
same night, including a detailed retelling of the transactions: who paid what for whom, who outbid which rival, and all the other fascinating trivia of the slave mart, of which Don Carlos could not get enough. He took a prurient interest and was hungry for gossip.
He would have liked to attend the auction in person, as had been his practice in younger days when he was still establishing himself. But since assuming the title and mantle of the de la Vegas, he reluctantly had to forego what had once been one of his prime pleasures.
Don Carlos knew that he risked being cheated of his full due by thieving underlings freed from his eagle-eyed supervision. It was a worry offset somewhat by his practice of setting his creatures to watch each other, alert for the slightest peculations.
The opera house violence sent three riders on fast horses hastening to Rancho de la Vega. They wore big sombreros, crossed bandoliers, belt guns, and bell-bottom pants over spurred boots.
Their blistering pace slowed as they rode up to the main gate of the rancho compound, for “none dare enter the precincts of Vega uninvited,” as local wisdom held.
They slowed to a halt short of the arched gateway, horses frothy with white foamy sweat.
Challenged by a watcher on the wall as to their purpose, one of the riders shouted back enough of the bad news to ensure that the massive gate doors were unbolted and opened.
Beyond lay a palatial grand house, the hacienda, multi-storied and hung with ornate iron grillework, orange roof tiles scaled like a reptile’s armored hide. There were stables, tack room, storehouses, a mill for grinding corn, quarters for the house servants, and bunkhouses for the vaqueros.
Most of the vaqueros had been sent to town to provide security for the auction, but a fair number of pistoleros had been held back in reserve, against the Apache scare occasioned by the massacre of the troop patrol.
A number of vaqueros and pistoleros idling in the courtyard heard the report that the opera house had been attacked, sacked, and burned and that much of Pago was in armed revolt. Some went to the hacienda to hear more; others went to spread the word to their compadres in the bunkhouse.
The three messengers rode on to the front of the hacienda, stepping down from their mounts.
One wore a broad-brimmed sombrero whose rim was decorated with a round of dangling, little, black pom-pom rebozos. His serape was bunched around his neck and shoulders so that its folds hid the lower half of his face.
He must have been of a shy, retiring nature since he stayed in the background, saying little, mostly nodding vigorously and grunting in assent as their leather-lunged spokesman told the tale to the doorman, gatekeeper of the hacienda.
The doorman was sufficiently impressed to summon the segundo, Don Carlos’s foreman and second in command at the rancho. The segundo got the message fast and hurried inside, returning some minutes later with Don Carlos, along with several of the padrón’s inner circle of henchmen.
Don Carlos was middle-aged, stocky, balding, with thin eyebrows, and a well-trimmed brown beard. His face was fleshy, with a bulbous nose and full lips. He wore a custom-tailored brown suit with black braided frogging and trim, a white ruffled shirt, lace cuffs partly covering square, strong, thick-fingered hands.
“Tell me what you know,” Don Carlos demanded of the spokesman of the three riders.
“There was much shooting at the auction. Gringo bandits got in killing many men, vaqueros, and buyers, freeing the slave girls and setting the building on fire. . . .”
“We heard nothing, no sounds of gunfire,” a henchman protested.
“We are too far away to hear shooting in town,” Don Carlos said flatly, stating what he knew as fact from past experience.
He looked over the top of the wall toward town. Pago lay hidden behind a ridge, the glow of its lights showing above the crest as a blur. He saw nothing untoward . . . but was that a patch of red firelight shimmering in the blue-black opacity of night? He was unable to tell. One’s eyes played tricks, especially at night.
“You saw this?”
“We were not inside the opera house, Don Carlos. Such magnificence is not for such lowly ones as us, but we were outside,” the spokesman said. “We heard the shooting, saw the men and women flee in terror. There were many dead, more wounded, much blood.
“Your men were busy fighting, so we volunteered to tell you, Excellency. We are but poor humble men who wished to do our duty to the padrón and the generosity of Don Carlos is known to all—”
“Yes, yes, you’ll be well taken care of if your story proves true.”
“We raced to be the first to tell you. You see that our horses are all blown out. We worked them without mercy to get here.”
Don Carlos motioned for silence, then conferred with his henchmen
“Can it be true? It sounds beyond belief,” one said.
“What would they gain by lying,” another asked, “the lash, rope, or knife?”
“It could be a trick, a trap,” said the first.
“Hold them until we can confirm or disprove their story,” Don Carlos said, coming to a decision. “Give them something to eat and drink, but keep some guards on them—discreetly.”
“Sí, Don Carlos,” the foreman said, summoning some vaqueros to him. “You men, take these three around to the kitchen and see that they have something to eat.”
“Muchas gracias, señor, but our horses need a rubdown and toweling. The sweat must not dry on them lest they take a chill,” the spokesman wheedled.
“Our grooms will tend to them. Take them away, Joaquin.”
“This way,” an underling said, the trio following as he led them to the kitchen.
Confirmation was not long in coming. Within ten minutes came another rider from town, one of Don Carlos’s own men—known, trusted. Gunpowder burns, soot stains, and a bullet crease across the muscle of an upper arm added their own mute but eloquent testimony to his account of the sacking of the opera house, though he was somewhat surprised to discover that the tale had already been told.
“But then I stayed behind while there was still fighting to be done,” the vaquero said somewhat self-importantly.
“Why aren’t you there now?” a henchman quizzed.
“Somebody had to give warning.”
The men were mustered out of the bunkhouse, guns were loaded and holstered, horses were saddled. A band of heavily armed vaqueros formed up in the courtyard.
Don Carlos stood on a patio to give them their orders so he could address the mounted men while looking down at them rather than standing on the ground and looking up at them.
“Go to town. Find who did this and kill them,” Don Carlos said. “Take the ringleaders back alive if possible. I want them to suffer before they beg for death. They have questions to answer—who’s behind all this? Find as many girls as you can, round them up and bring them here.
“Send some men to find Captain Bravo and hurry him back to Pago to join in the hunt.
“Go!”
The vaqueros rode out through the gate and onto the road to Pago. A skeleton crew remained behind to guard the rancho. Gate doors were slammed shut and bolted.
Don Carlos stayed behind, of course. The days when he would lead his men into battle were long gone. He was too valuable to risk losing—too valuable to himself, that is. These days, like all good generals, he led from the rear.
The men were paid and paid well to take risks, he told himself. Paid, anyway.
Don Carlos was in a foul mood, not minded to answer questions from underlings about what to do next, mainly because he was unsure about the answer himself. He needed hard answers first. His vaqueros would get them in Pago. Once he had the facts, he could better map out a strategy.
Don Carlos closeted himself, sealing himself up in his study with brandy and cigars. Henchmen and servants knew better than to bother him now with a lot of nonsense. When they were wanted, he would summon them. Until then, he didn’t want to be bothered.
He steadied his nerves with a glass of
brandy, then another while he mulled things over. Whatever the final disposition, it was clear he and his enterprise had taken a hit, a hard hit. Much effort would have to be expended in setting things right. At bottom, it meant he would be spending a lot of money he didn’t have.
He had taken a double hit, really. His power and prestige had suffered by virtue of being perceived vulnerable enough to be attacked, and the disruption of the auction meant he would be unable to harvest revenues he’d been counting on since the spring auction six months earlier.
Dead pistoleros were the least of his worries. They could easily be replaced for cheap. Mexico was swamped with hungry gunmen, a surplus of them. The opera house was a far greater concern. How extensive was the damage?
Don Carlos lit a cigar. His hands shook so badly that he had to grip one by the wrist to steady it with the other hand before he could bring match flame into play against cigar tip. He puffed hard, venting smoke. He had another brandy to “steady his nerves.”
It had been a long time since he had carried a gun. That was what he paid the pistoleros for. Now, though, touched by an apprehension long absent from his thoughts, he took a revolver from a bottom drawer of his desk and laid it on its side on the desktop, near at hand.
Time passed, ticked off by the wind-up clock mounted on the fireplace mantel. Each tick fell with a heavy, leaden sound. Twenty minutes passed, thirty.
The night hush was shattered by a violent disturbance. A furious outburst of shots, screams—then, silence.
Don Carlos started violently, accidentally knocking the snifter over, spilling brandy on the desk. He stood bolt upright, snatching the gun off the desk. He was frozen in place, listening.
A ponderous, creaking groan of metal and wood reached his ears; he recognized it as the sound of the heavy front gates of the rancho being opened. A pounding as of many hoofbeats could be heard approaching in the distance.
Don Carlos forced himself to go to the window. He moved stiffly, like a very old man. He lifted the edge of a curtain to look outside. It was a warm night, and the window was open.
His study was on the second floor of the hacienda, the window overlooking the courtyard. A body lay sprawled in the dirt yard, lit by a rectangle of yellow light that shone through a window of the front hall on the ground floor.
Blood Bond 16: A Hundred Ways to Die Page 28