Yuma Bustout

by Judd Cole

  Coyote slid one of the gleaming silver bars out and studied it in the sunlight.

  “Oh, we’ll spread it around, all right,” the breed said in his flat voice. “Two shares steada four. I didn’t cotton to them Hanchon boys.”

  Coyote made a point of meeting Anne’s eyes before he added, “Leaves more for us, boss. More of everything.”

  Coyote slid the metal knife from his boot—the same cheap but effective weapon that had killed one prison guard and castrated another. He laughed with a boy’s pleasure in mischief when the frightened woman went a shade paler.

  “Stop that,” Danford told him mildly.

  “Don’t like it when an Injun rowels a white woman?” Coyote goaded him.

  Danford, however, was preoccupied with other problems and just shook this remark off like it was a fly in his face.

  “Listen,” he said, “I don’t miss the Hanchon boys either. Both of ‘em was whiners and they stunk like an outhouse. But they was handy boys in a scrap. With Hickok on our drag, I’d rather have the extra guns. Here you go, Missus Gov.”

  Danford, smirking a bit because he didn’t like being polite, handed Anne a spoon and a tin can of peaches he’d just opened. Earlier, he and Coyote had tied Anne up long enough to ambush a southbound coach headed for Villa Ahumada.

  Between the driver, the guard they killed, and four frightened passengers, the two had made a good haul. It included tinned fruit, liquor, and sandwiches.

  Now Danford, Coyote, and their prisoner were resting in a welcome stretch of river valley near the Mexican border town of Piedras Negras. There was good graze here, and ample shade from cottonwoods. They stripped their horses of their rigging and led them down to the Rio Grande to drink their fill.

  Anne was ashamed of herself for eating these peaches like some starving street urchin, slurping them out of the can as the men were doing. But she was famished, and this was the first truly edible food she’d tasted since being abducted. Damn these monsters to hell, anyway!

  Oh, thank God for men like Wild Bill Hickok, she thought yet again. No, he hadn’t rescued her as he had Connie. But it was his persistence—and his reputation—that had these two filthy beasts on edge constantly. Worried, looking over their shoulders, starting at the least noise and drawing their weapons, only to smile foolishly and put them away again.

  Scared men had little luxury for lust. And so far she had not been raped. So far.

  Coyote’s voice cut into her thoughts.

  “How’d you know about this place?” he asked Danford.

  Coyote meant the low storage shed built beside a crumbling dock near the river. It was obviously long deserted, judging from the sagging doors and all the birds that flitted in and out of the building.

  “I ran a smuggling ring here for the Rebs during the war, that’s how,” Fargo boasted.

  He paused to eliminate half of a roast-beef sandwich in one bite. Then, talking with his mouth full, he added:

  “This part of Texas grew cotton. When the Yankees seized the southern ports, we started shipping bales down the Rio to Matamoros. I figured the place might still be here.”

  Danford placed one hand on a taut canvas pack beside him. It was perhaps the size of a big clasp Bible. Danford considered it the best find of all when they robbed that coach.

  “This place’ll be perfect,” he insisted. “I can have it set up in less than an hour. Then all we gotta do is hide down by the river and wait for Hickok.”

  Both men looked at Anne, who had suddenly lost her appetite as she realized what that canvas pack was. Now she understood their plan, and it sent spikes of cold fear into her limbs.

  “S’matter, sugar-britches?” Coyote goaded her. “Us convicts play too rough for a high-toned society bitch like you?”

  Anne tried to shame him by meeting his eyes. But that only made her nauseous after a few seconds.

  Danford gingerly unsnapped a flap on one side of the pack. It was marked clearly in English, and now Anne could read it: DANGER! HANDLE CAREFULLY! HIGHLY EXPLOSIVE! The invoice with it showed the stagecoach had been delivering it special order from Albuquerque to a railroad construction company near Chihuahua.

  “I know this stuff,” Danford said. “Even used it once to blow a bank vault in Gallup, New Mexico— though I used too much and blew half the town away. Its partially stabilized nitroglycerin in a wax base.”

  Coyote frowned. “But how we gonna detonate it? Don’t we have to light a fuse? Hell, Hickok ain’t deaf.”

  “You’re behind times,” Danford assured him. “New inventions every day. We got this with it.”

  He slid a coil of copper wire and a little handheld spark generator out of the pack.

  “A galvanic detonator,” he explained. “See that little cap well on top the explosive? We just jam the end of the wire in there along with some primer charge. We can hide way the hell down by the river. Just close this little switch after he goes in the house. No noise, and instant detonation.”

  “My sister,” Anne said. “She might go in too.”

  “Helluva waste,” Coyote said.

  “She’s so young,” Anne protested. “She’s so talented and—”

  “Put away your violin,” Danford snapped. “Nobody wants to hurt your precious sister. Hickok ain’t no greenhorn! You think he ain’t going to clear that building first before he lets Connie go in? Use some goddamn sense.”

  “‘Sense,’” Anne repeated woodenly. “What do either of you insane monsters know about sense?”

  As Bill had predicted, Danford and Coyote were bearing toward the Mexican town of Piedras Negras. Every border rat on the dodge knew that area was seldom patrolled by American soldiers. The way the Army saw it, anyone foolish enough to be out in that scalding inferno could cross at will.

  Edible game was scarce. But Bill was able to snag several plump rattlesnakes during the night rides. Connie, who had chosen hunger over colt meat, promptly pronounced snake meat of gourmet quality.

  Once, during a brief break, she surprised both men by setting her troubles aside for a moment.

  “Bill?” she asked.

  “Mmm?”

  “You always call Joshua ‘kid’ or Longfellow. Don’t you ever call people by their first names?”

  “What kind of foolish question is that?”

  “I don’t know,” she told him defiantly. “But Joshua is not a kid.”

  “Hell, I know that. The kid saved my life once.”

  “See? You just did it! Call me Connie, I dare you!”

  “Connie,” he spat out defiantly, and she and Josh both laughed at the obvious discomfort in his face.

  Only a few hours after this exchange, they had reached a clutch of rocks concealing a little seep spring. Since day was coming on, Bill called a halt to sleep. Because visibility was clear in all directions, and Connie reliable, she was allowed to take a stint on guard so both exhausted men could sleep.

  They both soon discovered why she wanted them both asleep. Josh, tugged out of fitful rest by some faint noise, rolled over in his blanket, then came wide awake, heart pounding.

  The rocks surrounding the seep spring only partially concealed it from view. And now Josh saw Connie standing in water up to her knees, naked, wringing out her wet hair.

  Josh turned to look toward Bill’s bedroll. Hickok, too, was wide awake and watching.

  “She coulda been quieter,” he whispered to Josh, winking. “Her fault if we got a free show.”

  “Bill?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you think Danford and them ... you know? With the women, I mean?”

  “What, raped them?”

  “Yeah,” Josh said.

  “Not Connie, I don’t think. She’s not got that look in her eye like some proud women get afterward— that kill glint. But Anne Jacobs?”

  Bill took one last appreciative glance at the sylvan bather. Then he rolled over.

  “Anne Jacobs,” Josh heard him say, “is in one world of hurt.
Rape ain’t her biggest danger. Get some sleep, kid. You’ll be needing it.”

  The trio pushed on after dark, making good time as they approached the border. Danford and Coyote were making no attempt to cover their trail.

  By now Josh had learned, from watching Bill, how to cut sign. But in this generous moon wash, it wasn’t even necessary to dismount to spot the trail. Especially with heavily laden packhorses leaving deep prints with their hind hooves.

  About an hour before dawn, they crested a low hill above the Rio Grande Valley.

  Bill pointed upriver. About a mile west, a few lights winked in the blue-black morning dimness on the Mexican side of the border.

  “Piedras Negras,” he said. “But their trail veers right. They avoided town.”

  Bill swung down out of the saddle and knelt over a clump of horse manure. He broke it open with the toe of his boot.

  “Less than twelve hours since they passed this way,” he announced, judging by the dryness of the droppings. “But they’ve been riding hard for days now. And more tough sledding when they cross. So the question is—are they camped nearby, resting up and laying a trap for us?”

  Josh glanced around in the cool morning mist, a shiver moving down his spine.

  “Connie,” Bill said, making a point of stressing her first name, so that she smiled at him. “Move up in the middle when we ride out. Kid, take up the drag, I’ll ride point. With all these trees and bushes, we’re riding into good ambush country again.”

  “Least we’ll be in Texas soon,” Josh remarked as they moved out again. “Can we ride in daylight then?”

  Bill nodded. “But worry about Texas when we get there, kid. Right now we’re still in Mexico, and we might play hell getting out of here. Don’t forget, the last thing Danford and Coyote want is to be followed in the States. They know we can use the telegraph against them.”

  While they rode, moving closer and closer to the river as they descended the slope of the valley, the eastern sky began to lighten. Perhaps thirty minutes before sunrise, they rode up out of a deep cutbank, and Bill suddenly halted them.

  He waved Josh up. When the kid reached him, Bill pointed ahead through a cottonwood grove.

  About three hundred yards ahead, Josh could see the wide, shallow Rio Grande, reflecting bright diamonds of moonlight. A low building stood beside it. Down by the river, a knot of horses were tethered.

  “That answers one of my questions,” Bill told Josh. “They’re still in Mexico. I recognize those animals. But the big question is whether or not we’ve caught them out or this is just an ambush.”

  “If it’s a trap,” Josh said, “would they expose their horses like that? We could kill those animals right now, and they’d be out of business.”

  Bill sent the kid an appreciative glance. “You’re starting to think like a trailsman, Longfellow. That’s a tempting idea. I could shoot them from here with the rifle.”

  Bill went so far as to slide the Winchester from its boot. But then his face settled into a frown as he studied the house some more.

  “If it is a trap, meant to lure us down, then killing the horses is our best play,” Bill said, thinking out loud. “But what if it isn’t a trap? That means I’m warning them inside the building. Waking them up so they can fight. And maybe—”

  Bill cut himself off before he said it, for Connie had ridden up to join them. But she finished for him. “And maybe they’ll kill Anne if you wake them?”

  Bill nodded. “The thing of it is, we’ve made good time. Probably better time than Danford expected. It makes good sense that they’d rest here before heading into Texas. Especially if they just take turns on sentry.”

  Bill debated it some more while the first birds began to celebrate dawn.

  “I’m going down there,” he finally decided. “You two wait right here until I give the hail. If trouble breaks out, kid, stick with Connie. Anything happens to me, you’ll be responsible for getting her back to Yuma.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Hickok leapfrogged from tree to tree, making his way gradually down the slope toward the old shed by the river. He was fully aware that a sentry could be hiding anywhere nearby. So Bill moved quickly when he was exposed, then studied the area thoroughly each time he reached new cover. It was a windy morning, which helped Bill cover his noise.

  For a moment he was tempted to check on the horses, see how much grass they’d cut since being bunched near the river. That might give him some idea how long Danford and Coyote had been here.

  But Bill nixed that plan. There was too much open ground between him and the horses, and by now it was too light—a bright yellow ball of new sun had pushed itself partway above the eastern horizon. Already, the morning mist was burning off the river.

  Closer, ever closer Bill pressed, convinced by now there was no sentry on duty outside. But that didn’t preclude one’s hiding in the shadow just inside the open shed door.

  A Colt filled Bill’s right hand. He kept his ears attuned to warning sounds—any disruption in the murmur of the river or the morning chatter of birds.

  By now Bill was only a stone’s throw from the low shed. A storage shed, he told himself with a flush of irritation— long and low with no windows he could peek through.

  But weathered slab doors, one falling off its leather hinges, slanted open at opposite ends of the structure. Built just like a varmint trap, Bill couldn’t help thinking.

  Bill eased the leather thong off his hammer and cocked it. He peered around the rough-barked bole of a cottonwood, giving the entire area one last good look before he approached the building.

  All quiet up the slope behind him, where Josh waited with Connie. To his right, the horses still grazed contentedly, ignoring the human intruder. And all seemed still and peaceful along the river behind the shed. Bill watched several red-tailed hawks circling back there, looking for prey.

  Crouched low and eyes front, his pulse thudding in his ears, Hickok ran the last thirty yards to the shed. Even as he moved, he remembered an old wartime adage that always came back to him willy-nilly during dangerous moments: You never hear the shot that kills you.

  Bill fetched up beside the nearest open door and hoped he was still hidden from anyone awake inside. He waited until his breathing had settled a bit. Then, cautious as a cat, he peeked inside.

  The first thing he saw was a rectangle of light at the opposite end—the other doorway. At first, however, he could make out little inside the shed, the light was so meager. But a warning prickled his nose: the reek of rotgut whiskey.

  A moment later, a tight bubble of elation swelled inside Hickok.

  There! He had just spotted the prone shapes of three people sleeping.

  Bill couldn’t believe the luck of his timing. And he meant to get it done quickly: identify which sleeper was Anne, then plug the other two before they could wake up. Nobody in America wanted Danford or Coyote back alive—not after the trail of bodies they’d left behind, beginning in Arizona.

  Bill had a rule concerning the most cold-blooded murderers. He borrowed it from the Mexicans, one of the smartest things they’d invented in his opinion: Ley Fuga, or “Flight Law.” A fleeing felon could be shot dead. And, of course, for every one shot trying to “escape,” the law-abiding citizens saved money on food, lodging, and expensive trials and appeals.

  Bill took two steps into the shed when he noticed it through the far door: those red-tailed hawks from earlier. They had circled a spot on the riverbank and started to land. Then, abruptly, they scattered in a panic and flitted off.

  It could have been anything that scattered them. But in that moment, Bill realized something else, and it made his flesh crawl against his shirt: three sleepers, evidently, but no snoring?

  Bill cast a more critical glance at the prone shapes, and he realized they were all similar in an unnatural way.

  In fact, they weren’t sleepers at all. They were stuffed blankets!

  Hickok wasted not one more moment trying t
o puzzle it out. Instincts more basic than thought made him leap backward out the door the very moment he saw this was all a trap. He was still in midair, his heart frozen between beats, when the whole damn world exploded around him in an orange-flashing roar.

  So this is death? a sinister voice whispered as Bill felt himself being hurled like a toy ball in a giant’s hand.

  Josh soon became bored by Bill’s slow, methodical approach to the shed. This was the part of Bill’s work the dime novels always skipped: all the time spent watching, waiting, or just moving into position.

  Instead, Josh turned his attention to the beautiful actress at his side. The two of them were waiting for Bill’s all clear; they huddled together behind a cluster of blackberry bushes, perhaps halfway down the slope of the fertile river valley.

  “You know, he’s different than I expected him to be,” Connie observed. She was still watching Hickok when she could spot him, which wasn’t often.

  “Who?”

  “Your friend, Bill Hickok, goose!”

  “Different? How?”

  “For one thing, he’s not as conceited as I expected him to be,” she confessed. “Believe me, I know some conceited people.”

  Josh refused to touch that one. Takes one to know one, he thought.

  “I don’t think he even realizes just how famous he is,” Connie mused.

  Josh shrugged off a sting of jealousy.

  “Oh yeah, he does,” he told her before he could stop himself.

  Josh might also have told her how Hickok masterfully exploited fame when it came to bedding beauties like herself. But he bit off the rest of his words. Jealous or no, he was Bill’s friend. And Josh considered that an honor.

  “Look!” Connie exclaimed. She clutched Josh’s arm. “He’s running up to the shed! Oh, God, please let Anne be there and safe!”

  “He’s inside,” Josh said. “And no gunshots! Good. Either it’s empty, or—”

  Unexpectedly, Hickok appeared again, this time leaping backward from the shed. Then a boom-cracking explosion made Josh flinch and Connie cry out.