Colton and Paxton both looked at him and lost their hostile attitudes immediately. “You’re right, of course, Bodine,” Paxton said. “Truce, Shad?”
Colton shrugged and gripped the hand that his cousin extended to him. “Sure, we’ll call a truce.”
“I don’t mean just for now,” Paxton said. “Now that everything’s out in the open, once we get back to Sweet Apple, I think it’s time you and I started mending the fences between us.”
Colton pulled his hand back and pointed a finger at Paxton. “You just keep your damn mouth shut about what I said.” His furious gaze swept the other men, his own riders as well as the cowboys from Pax. “That goes for the rest o’ you hombres, too!” he roared. “Anybody who says anything about what he just heard here will have to answer to me!”
“Save your bull-bellowin’ for later, Colton,” Matt said with a grin. “We got some prisoners to rescue.” He jerked his head toward the horses. “Mount up. Colton, you lead the pack mules.”
They swung up into their saddles and set off toward Villa Rojo. The red roofs of the village seemed to be on fire in the late afternoon sun.
As the gray stallion walked forward, Matt wondered again just how far away Sam and the other members of the posse were.
Maggie looked around, blinking against the garish light. Villa Rojo’s single street ran east and west. The hut where she and the other prisoners had been held was at the western end of the street. The sun was only a short distance above the horizon now, so it flooded the village with red light that swept along the street toward the small, abandoned church at the eastern end.
The sound of hoofbeats made Maggie look in that direction. Her heart leaped as she saw the men riding into town. The tall, handsome, broad-shouldered man in the lead was Matt Bodine. Behind him were Shad Colton, Esau Paxton, and several cowboys from the two ranches owned by the cattlemen. Maggie’s eyes searched among them for any sign of Seymour, but she didn’t see him. That caused her excitement to subside slightly, and worry took its place. Maybe Seymour hadn’t come along because something had happened to him.
Guards stood closely around the four women. Alcazarrio told the prisoners, “Do not move until I tell you to. Then you will walk down the middle of the street while the mules carrying the ransom walk toward you. Do you understand?”
Maggie and Sandy Paxton nodded. Jessie Colton said, “Sure.” Rebecca was the only one who didn’t respond. She stared dully at the ground instead, clearly refusing to have any hope that she was about to be freed.
Maggie didn’t really believe it either. She fully expected Alcazarrio to pull some sort of double cross. But still, going through with the swap as far as they could represented their best chance of survival, Maggie thought. As Alcazarrio glared at Rebecca for not answering his question, Maggie grasped the Eastern woman’s arm and said, “She understands. I’ll see to it that she does as she’s told.”
“Very well.” Alcazarrio stalked out into the middle of the street and raised his voice to call to the group of riders who had come to a halt down by the church. “Bodine! You have the ransom?”
Matt moved his horse aside and motioned for one of the other men to come forward. “Pa,” Jessie breathed as Shad Colton came into view, leading the pack mules with heavy wooden chests strapped to their back.
Matt reached over and rested a hand on the first chest. “Here it is, Alcazarrio!” he called back. “You start the girls, we’ll start the mules.”
Alcazarrio laughed. “Mules are notoriously balky, hombre! How do you know they will cooperate?”
“The same thing could be said about women,” Matt replied.
Alcazarrio found that funny, too. Maggie didn’t particularly, but she didn’t care what Matt Bodine said right now. All that mattered was somehow getting out of this death trap.
“Tell you what,” Matt went on. “I’ll lead the mules out.”
“Bueno!” Alcazarrio agreed.
“And you bring the women.”
Alcazarrio frowned as Matt’s suggestion obviously took him by surprise. “That was not part of our arrangement,” he argued.
“We’ll be takin’ an equal chance,” Matt pointed out. “You bring the women to me, I’ll bring the mules to you and hand over the reins.”
Florio Cruz hurried forward and spoke in a low voice to Alcazarrio. The second in command looked upset, and Maggie wondered if this new wrinkle had ruined whatever plans Alcazarrio and Cruz had made beforehand. After a moment, Alcazarrio nodded and turned back toward Matt.
“My good friend and second in command Colonel Cruz will bring the women to you. Give the reins to him.”
Matt hesitated. Then he must have figured that he couldn’t push Alcazarrio any farther than that. He shrugged and said, “All right. Come ahead.”
Maggie allowed herself to hope just a little. Maybe Alcazarrio really would stand by his bargain and let them go. Maybe they could get out of here without a lot of shooting and killing.
Deep down, though, she knew how unlikely that was. She knew that barring a miracle, within moments the air would be filled with the roar of gunshots and the stench of burned powder.
Cruz hurried over to the guards and whispered to them, “The plan is still the same. When the women are in the middle of the street with the mules, open fire on the gringos.”
“But you will be out in the open, where they can kill you!” one of the men protested.
Cruz shook his head. “I will take my chances. Do as you are told, and pass the word to the others!”
Hector Gallindo heard that and swallowed hard. He had hoped against hope that the gringo called Bodine had maneuvered Alcazarrio into a corner so that the general would be forced to cooperate. But Alcazarrio would not abandon his plan. His pride, and his hatred of the gringos, would never allow him to do so. His men were posted in buildings all along the street. When the firing began, they would kill the gringos, including Señor Bodine. Nothing could save them.
But the women would be in great danger, too, because the gringos would fight before they died. The street would be filled with bullets. The chances were great that some or all of the prisoners would be killed in the battle, too.
Alcazarrio didn’t care about that. All he cared about was the money—and killing gringos.
Florio Cruz started forward, herding the women in front of him like a flock of reluctant chickens. Maggie O’Ryan had to help the honey-haired woman called Rebecca. Jessie Colton and Sandy Paxton looked like they wanted to break into a run toward their fathers, but Cruz’s sharply worded command held them back.
From the other end of the street, Matt Bodine rode forward, holding the lead mule’s reins in his right hand. The other two mules were tied in a single file behind the first mule. The mules came along with him, not getting in any hurry. In fact, to Hector’s strained senses, time seemed to slow down and drag out until the seconds were just creeping by. Hector’s eyes darted right and left. He saw the men around him tightening their grips on their rifles, getting ready to raise the weapons and open fire. Hector heard everything, the soft shuffle of the women’s footsteps in the dusty street, the clip-clop of the hooves as Bodine’s horse and the mules carrying the ransom approached. Those hoofbeats sounded at first like distant drums to Hector, muffled at first, but growing louder and louder and louder . . .
Then the parties were together in the center of the street and Cruz was reaching for the lead mule’s reins and Hector suddenly heard a voice screaming, “Get down! Get down! It’s a trick! They’re going to shoot!”
It was his voice, he realized as horror at the thought of what he had done filled him.
Then he couldn’t hear anything except an earth-shattering explosion of shots.
Chapter 24
Matt had expected trouble all along, of course. He knew that Alcazarrio couldn’t be trusted, that some sort of treachery from the bandit chieftain was inevitable.
Even so, a shock went through him as one of Alcazarrio’s men yelled a warning. Was it a tri
ck?
No, he realized as he saw Alcazarrio whirl around, a maddened look on his face, and shoot the young man who had cried out. Blood spurted from the man’s chest as the bullet tore through it and knocked him backward.
“Kill the gringos!” Alcazarrio roared. “Kill them all!”
By now the four young women, being prodded along by Florio Cruz, were only about a dozen feet from Matt and the mules carrying the chests. Matt dropped the reins as he saw Cruz claw at his gun. “Get down!” he shouted to the prisoners, then slapped leather himself.
Both Colts flickered into his hands with blinding speed, but he had to hesitate as the women stood there in the line of fire, stunned and uncertain what to do.
Cruz didn’t hesitate, though. His gun roared as he tried to line his sights on Matt.
At the same time, Maggie O’Ryan finally took action. She had hold of Rebecca’s arm already. She dove forward, hitting Sandy Paxton in the back and knocking the blond girl down as she dragged Rebecca with her. Jessie Colton hit the dirt beside them an instant later.
Matt felt Cruz’s bullet tug at his sleeve. He triggered his right-hand Colt and saw Cruz’s head snap back as the bullet smacked into his forehead, leaving a red-rimmed black hole. A finger of blood oozed from it as Alcazarrio’s second in command stood there for a second, swaying slightly. Then the message that Cruz was dead reached his muscles, and he collapsed in a limp sprawl.
Matt was already firing again, emptying his left-hand Colt into the men standing near Alcazarrio. He left the saddle in a flying leap as lead buzzed around him. Shots came not only from the men in the street, but also from the adobe buildings, and he knew that Alcazarrio had planted killers there, just as Matt had suspected he would.
He landed on his feet, snapped a shot through a window, and saw one of the hidden riflemen thrown backward by the slug that blew half his head off. Back at the end of the street, Colton, Paxton, and the rest of the men with them had started shooting as well, spraying the bandits with rifle fire. Matt saw Alcazarrio throw himself through an open door, escaping the hail of lead.
Matt crouched next to the young women. “Run!” he told them. “Down the street! Stay as low as you can!”
Having grown up on the frontier and lived through battles before, Jessie and Sandy reacted first. They leaped to their feet and sprinted toward the group led by their fathers. Maggie would have been right behind them, but she had to haul Rebecca up. Rebecca started screaming hysterically as Maggie broke into a run and dragged her along.
Some of the Double C and Pax cowboys spurred their horses forward and raced along the street through the gunfire like bold young centaurs. When they reached the fleeing women, they leaned over and scooped them up, then whirled their horses and headed back the other way.
Matt retreated, too, stumbling a little as he was creased a couple of times. Even though the wounds were minor, they caused pain to flood through him. He fought back the red haze that tried to wrap around him and kept firing, picking his targets carefully, until the hammers of both Colts clicked on empty chambers. Then he turned and ran after the others.
Where the hell was Sam? The rest of the posse should have been galloping in by now, taking Alcazarrio by surprise and turning the tide of battle.
The horses carrying Jessie and Rebecca and the cowboys who had picked them up suddenly fell, hit by bandit slugs. The riders flew into the air and disappeared in a welter of dust kicked up by flailing hooves. Matt holstered his gun as he plunged into the cloud. He found the two women and jerked them to their feet. “Go!” he urged them. “Keep movin’!”
One of the fallen cowboys surged to his feet and joined the fight, the gun in his hand roaring. The other puncher stayed down, and the grotesque angle at which his head was cocked told Matt that he would never get up again. His neck had been broken in the tumble.
Despite being heavily outnumbered, Matt harbored a faint hope that he and his companions could fight their way clear. Something must have happened to delay Sam and the others, he thought, but they were probably on their way right now. They might even be close to Villa Rojo. If Matt and the men with him could bust out of the village, the bandits would give chase. But they might get a hotter reception than they expected if they ran into Sam and the posse.
Matt thumbed fresh cartridges into his guns, each Colt in turn, as he ran along the street. When both revolvers had full wheels again and the dust had cleared a little, he resumed fighting. Twisting, whirling, veering right and left, falling and rolling, running a gauntlet of death in this abandoned village, he never stopped firing, and each time flame spouted from the muzzle of one of Matt Bodine’s Colt, a bandit would double over in agony or spin off his feet as lead ripped through him. It was one of the most dazzling exhibitions of gunfighting skill and sheer nerve that the world had ever seen.
All the prisoners had reached the group of men led by Colton and Paxton, who were bloody from being nicked but still fighting furiously. Jessie and Rebecca were swept up on horseback again, and the riders turned to charge out of the village with guns still blazing. A shrill whistle brought Matt’s gray to him, and he caught the saddle horn and swung up as the stallion went past him, hardly slowing. They were going to make it, Matt thought.
Then disaster struck again, as a solid line of riflemen appeared beyond the edge of town, sent there by Alcazarrio to block the gringos’ escape. A volley rang out and half a dozen of the horses went down, mortally wounded. Other mounts tripped and fell over those who had fallen. What had looked a second earlier like a possible escape was suddenly floundering chaos.
Matt managed to stay in the saddle, but he saw that most of the rest were unhorsed. And they were cut off from freedom by Alcazarrio’s men who had circled around the village. Only one bit of cover was close enough to offer sanctuary.
“Into the church!” Matt shouted as he leaped off the stallion again and sent shots rolling like thunder into the onrushing bandits. “Into the church!”
Colton and Paxton scrambled up from where they had fallen, grabbed their daughters, and hustled them toward the old mission. The door was rotten and falling apart, and some of the roof had collapsed as well. But all four walls still stood, and the thick adobe would stop bullets just fine.
The other cowboys who had survived the fighting limped and ran after their bosses. Matt spotted Maggie O’Ryan still helping Rebecca Jimmerson along. A large red stain blotched the Eastern girl’s dress, so Matt knew she had been hit hard. But she was still able to move with Maggie’s help.
He fell in behind them and gave them covering fire as they hurried toward the church. They disappeared through the doorway, and Matt was the last one in. Something slammed into his side as he ducked through the opening. The impact knocked him off his feet, but he recovered quickly and flung a couple more shots at Alcazarrio’s men as he scrambled up and stumbled to one side, out of the direct line of fire through the door. He planted his back against the cool wall next to the opening and tried to catch his breath. He felt warm wetness on his side and knew that a slug had plowed a furrow along his ribs. He didn’t think any bones were broken, but it hurt like hell.
He pushed the pain down in his mind and risked a look out the door. Alcazarrio’s men were closing in, but a pair of swift shots knocked two of them off their feet, and that blunted their charge. They peeled off and sought shelter instead.
More shots came from within the church as Colton, Paxton, and their men found windows and places where chunks had fallen away from the walls, creating openings. They were digging in to defend the old mission against heavy odds, just as other valiant Texans had found themselves in an old mission called the Alamo, over in San Antonio.
That effort hadn’t ended all that well, Matt reminded himself with a wry grin as he started reloading yet again. But maybe this one would be different. Maybe this time the Mexicans wouldn’t overrun the place and slaughter everybody in it.
That was sort of up to Sam, Seymour, and the rest of the men with the p
osse, Matt thought as he snapped the cylinders closed, swung into the doorway again, dropped to one knee, and started squeezing off shots, the Colts bucking in his hands, left, right, left, right . . .
Sam already had the posse moving at a fast pace, but as the sound of gunshots came to his ears, he called to Seymour, “The fight’s started!” and leaned forward over his paint’s neck to urge the horse on to greater speed.
Ever since they left the ranch where Maria’s family lived, impatience had gnawed away at Sam. He was angry with himself for delaying the posse and putting the young women, Matt, and the rest of the men in even more danger. And even the knowledge that his blood brother would have done exactly the same thing if the circumstances had been reversed didn’t help all that much. But he knew that Matt wouldn’t have been able to turn his back on folks in trouble either.
Seymour had his dun galloping for all it was worth, and lines of fear were etched on his face. Not fear for himself, Sam thought as he glanced over at the young lawman, but for Maggie O’Ryan and maybe a little for Rebecca Jimmerson, too. Sam didn’t know if Rebecca was aware of the fact that her employer, Cornelius Standish, was plotting to kill his nephew, but it was at least possible. But Seymour didn’t know anything about that.
Sam glanced over his shoulder. The posse was strung out behind him. Standish and the other three Easterners were having the most trouble keeping up, so they were bringing up the rear. That was just fine with Sam. The farther those treacherous varmints were from Seymour, the better. Seymour would soon be in enough danger without the threat of being shot in the back by hired killers.
Because the posse was in sight of Villa Rojo now, and since the sun had begun to sink below the horizon, enough shadows had gathered in the village so that gun flashes were readily visible, like a circle of fireflies around an old building at the eastern edge of town. The crumbling bell tower told Sam it had been a church at one time.
And the spurts of muzzle flame coming from inside the building told Sam that somebody was forted up there, trying to hold off the bandits led by Diego Alcazarrio.
Ride for Vengeance Page 25