“I’m reaching for the sky.” The Sonora Kid’s hands went high above his head. He turned slowly, still cloaked in shadow. “There’s no need to shoot. Unless you want to.”
“I swear,” Barker said bitterly, “you tempt me sorely. You do, you filthy murderer.” He sidled closer, knowing he wasn’t going to make the arrest this easily. Not after the Sonora Kid had left such a bloody trail behind him.
The outlaw stepped forward and the hot sun lit his face.
Barker felt as if he had been punched in the belly. He lowered the rifle from his shoulder and stared.
The outlaw went for his six-shooter, drew, and fired before Barker could squeeze the trigger. Hot lead ripped through his left arm, forcing him to drop his rifle. He went for his six-shooter but fumbled.
This was all the time it took for the outlaw to flop belly down over the saddle and ride off.
Mason Barker held his six-shooter in nerveless fingers as he watched his son ride away.
20
A BULLET RIPPED PAST HIS HEAD FROM BEHIND, forcing Barker to slam himself against the nearest wall and use it as a pivot to turn around. He saw a furious Ed Dravecky coming toward him, smoking six-shooter in one hand and the discarded sombrero in the other.
“You had him. Why didn’t you shoot?” The lawman’s anger knew no bounds. He slammed the butt of his six-gun against an adobe wall so hard he knocked a powdery hole in it. He never noticed the cascade of dust onto his gun and hand. “You had a clean shot. You better have good reason you didn’t shoot, Barker.”
“He was surrendering,” Barker said, his mind numbed and his mouth filled with marbles. Not only couldn’t he think, the sounds that crept from between his lips sounded harsh and alien to him, as if someone else was speaking.
All that burned in his mind was the image of his own son trying to mount.
“He’d been hit. In the leg.” Barker looked down at his right leg. “Like me. ’Bout the same spot.”
“What the hell difference does that matter? It slowed him down, but it shouldna slowed you!” Dravecky slammed his pistol into the wall again, this time with less force and far less damage done to the adobe.
“That’s the sombrero the Sonora Kid wore,” Barker said. It felt as if his thoughts were on ice, and every time he stepped out, everything crashed to the slick surface. “Did anyone see the Kid?” Sudden hope flared within him. He had seen his son wearing a serape. That meant Nate was one of the gang, but the Sonora Kid might have escaped, using Nate as a diversion. It was something the slippery son of a bitch would do. Hadn’t he killed the vaquero to make it look as if he had died and to throw off pursuit?
“They saw the kid,” Dravecky said. “You followed him down this alleyway, and you could have stopped him and didn’t.”
Barker got his feet under him and went to the end of the alley, where Nate had mounted his horse. He walked in a spiral, moving out until he saw where a second horse had been tethered. His heart almost jumped from his chest, and he didn’t care one whit that his hands shook as he pointed.
“Another horse. There were two here. If the Sonora Kid came down ahead of ... of the other outlaw, he rode off before I got the owlhoot in my sights.”
“In your sights,” grumbled Dravecky. He frowned, examined the obvious evidence that someone had left a horse here long enough to drop a good-sized pile of manure but not so long ago that it had hardened in the sun.
“We ought to form a posse,” Barker said. The words caught in his throat. If they were successful, his son would be caught or killed. But if they weren’t, the Sonora Kid would continue his rampage across all of southern New Mexico.
“I’ll ask Pendleton if we kin pay ’em. This is gonna be dangerous work, so they ought to get at least a dollar a day.”
“Tell them about the reward for the Kid,” Barker said. “Colonel Tomasson was talking about posting one for a hundred dollars. Split among them, that might make it easier to swallow a few days on the trail.”
“A hunnerd, eh?” Dravecky rubbed his chin and looked thoughtful, as if he was weighing his chances of capturing the road agents by his lonesome. “All right, then. I’ll let everyone know. Even if we get a hunnerd men ridin’ with us, that’d be an extra dollar.”
“We won’t get that many,” Barker said, looking at the settling dust where Nate had disappeared in a gallop. It had been a shock seeing his own son, but at least he wasn’t the Sonora Kid. He couldn’t be. He was wild and dangerous, but nothing like the bloodthirsty Mexican bandito. Nothing at all like him.
THE POSSE OF EIGHT RODE FROM TOWN AN HOUR later.
“This don’t look so good, Barker,” said Marshal Dravecky. “The trail’s goin’ straight into the mountains. Finding ’em once they get into those windy canyons is gonna be nigh on impossible. I might be new to this part of the country, but my eyes don’t deceive me. That’s a twist of canyons made for ambushing.”
“I’ve tracked them here before,” Barker said. “I had a troop of buffalo soldiers with me, though.”
“Well, then if they can do it, so can we. Isn’t that right, boys?”
A ragged cheer went up from the six riding behind them. Barker had never seen a more reluctant posse. Usually a shot or two of Dutch courage was all it took to get men lined up, albeit unsteadily, to ride in support of the law. With the added incentive of a hundred-dollar reward, he’d expected more enthusiasm. In any town, and Mesilla was no different, he figured on at least a dozen bravos who were handier with their mouths than they were with their brains. They always had something to prove and sometimes had enough deadly skill with a six-shooter to walk away from a fight alive. But these six were sullen.
Barker knew why, too. They had seen what the Sonora Kid and his gang could do. Even if they hadn’t heard the incredible battle that had raged on their doorstep, rumors of the stagecoach massacre had to be common in all the saloons. Worse, some bluecoat might have let it out that the Sonora Kid’s gang had slaughtered an army supply train, killing all the soldiers. If the outlaw notched his six-shooter handle as some gunmen reportedly did, the Sonora Kid would have sawed off the butt by now.
One posse member piped up. “We cain’t go on much longer, Marshal. We, uh, we got other business back in town.”
“You’re a day into the hunt. What’s another couple days in the saddle going to mean?” Dravecky said.
“We didn’t sign up forever.”
“Go now and lose your money,” Barker said. “You’ve all earned a dollar on the trail and will pick up another going home, but if you ride off now, you’ve wasted your time and won’t have two nickels to show for it.”
The posse whispered among themselves. Finally the spokesman said, “One more day, Deputy. That’s all. You hear that, Marshal Dravecky? Only one more day!”
Barker snapped his reins and started walking his horse down the trail leading into the foothills. The gang had had a hideout in Skeleton Canyon before—and with good reason. An alert lookout on either rim could spot pursuit an hour off. The terrain favored whoever was dug in and able to shoot from higher ground. And if the fight got too intense, several branching canyons afforded quick escape, some leading directly into the heart of Mexico, where a deputy U.S. marshal couldn’t pursue.
Not legally.
Barker rode with his eyes fixed ahead on the rugged mountains, wondering what he would do if it came to pursuit south of the border. Wild flights of fancy rampaged through his mind. He could catch Nate and straighten him out so he wouldn’t have to go to prison. Just riding with a butcher like the Sonora Kid would send up any of his gang to Yuma Penitentiary for a score of years. And if Colonel Tomasson caught him, it might be the Detroit Penitentiary since that was where most federal prisoners were sent. Barker swallowed hard and tried to spit, only to find that his mouth had turned to parched desert.
A swig from his canteen barely wet his whistle. And the dull, aching pain in his back was returning. He needed some laudanum, but he couldn’t drag it out of his
pocket without Dravecky and the rest of the townsmen from Mesilla seeing him. He might lie and say it was medicine he’d gotten from a doctor. In El Paso? He hadn’t been in that direction in quite a while. Besides, Dravecky had shown how good he was at picking up a lie. That was a trait good lawmen had. His time in Fort Worth’s Hell’s Half Acre stood him in good stead.
Barker found he could push away the pain by thinking about the fight ahead. The Sonora Kid wasn’t going to surrender easily. It would be a hell of a fight. A quick look behind him, both left and right, showed him three of the posse who weren’t likely to share in any reward. They were more like rabbits than wolves. And the other three were hardly the steely-eyed killers he needed.
For two cents he ought to call off the hunt, wait for Sergeant Sturgeon and a platoon of buffalo soldiers to get here, and then go after the Sonora Kid.
But he knew that wasn’t likely to happen. Fort Selden was miles away, and he had no way of telling if either of the young boys he had sent with messages had ever reached the post, much less delivered what he’d told them to tell Colonel Tomasson. From what he had seen of the colonel, the man wasn’t likely to believe much of anything he hadn’t seen with his own eyes.
“See that?” Barker said, attention suddenly back on the trail. “Riders cut off and went into that canyon.” He felt uneasy. One thing he had learned over the years was human behavior. If the outlaws had holed up once in Skeleton Canyon, they were likely to do so again. Their reconnaissance would have given them several places to hide other than the one where Sturgeon and his squad had attacked before.
This wasn’t Skeleton Canyon. From what Barker remembered of the area, it was a narrow, winding canyon that opened out miles away deeper in the Peloncillas. Once anybody entered, they either kept going to the far end or retreated. Climbing the canyon walls wasn’t going to be easy—in fact it might be impossible even if there weren’t outlaws waiting to pick off anyone making their way to the rim along a steep, narrow path.
“That’s a shooting gallery, Barker,” Dravecky said in a low voice. He inclined his head in the direction of the canyon mouth so he and Barker could speak in private.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Barker said, beating him to the punch. “A simple ambush in there and we’re dead. We ride past a couple outlaws and they have us bottled up good and proper.”
“I’m the town marshal, not a federal deputy like you,” Dravecky said.
“I won’t think less of you if you go back to Mesilla,” Barker said, knowing it was a lie. He would. And Dravecky knew it, too. The marshal wiped his face with his bandanna and looked from the obvious trap to the six men clustered behind them on the trail.
“They’re not the ones I’d’ve picked to guard my back,” Dravecky said after a long spell.
“Me, neither,” Barker said.
“If we all go back, you’re still headin’ in after the Kid?”
Barker saw no reason to answer. It was more than the most vicious outlaw he had ever run across in that canyon. The trail had been left so there wouldn’t be any doubt where the gang had ridden. It didn’t take a deep thinker to know this was bait and that he would be riding squarely into the trap.
Besides the Sonora Kid, he had Nate to think about. If he had to arrest his own son, he would, but he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Going in alone would force him to use different tactics. He’d sneak in, try to find Nate, and get him out of the outlaw camp in the dead of night—praying that that wasn’t all that was dead in the night. He would rather be captured by Apache raiders than the Sonora Kid.
“You live in Mesilla very long, Marshal?” Dravecky asked unexpectedly.
“A few years.”
“That makes you a citizen of the town, don’t it?”
“As much as anybody. Me and the wife have done well by the people in town.”
“Then it’s my duty to protect a citizen of the town. You ride in and you got me at your side.”
Barker thrust out his hand. It wasn’t trembling hardly at all as he took Dravecky’s hand and shook.
“You’re a good man, no matter what the others say,” Barker said.
“Others? What others? You mean the mayor. What’s Pendleton have to—” Dravecky stopped, then laughed, startling the rest of the posse. “You mangy ole prairie dog. You had me runnin’ there for a minute.”
“It’s getting close to sundown,” Barker said. “We can either go in or wait for morning.”
“In,” Dravecky said without hesitation. “We can’t afford to give them that much of a head start on us.”
“Men,” Barker called. “You make sure your six-shooters are loaded and ready. Your rifles, too. Everybody got spare ammo, like I asked you to bring?”
Two men hadn’t brought any beyond what they carried in their six-guns. Barker and Dravecky split what extra they had among the men. There was no telling who would need it the most if they had to fight.
When they had to fight.
They entered the canyon, its walls rising like the jaws of a vise on either side of them.
“Marshal, the trail’s too narrow for us to spread out. We’ll be sittin’ ducks if they’s up in the rocks already.”
“You can ride a ways off the trail, down near the stream’ll be easier going,” Barker said. The canyon was hardly a hundred feet wide in places. “Just don’t stray too far and keep as many of the posse in sight as you can.”
“They’ll pick us off if we scatter,” Dravecky said. He spun the cylinder in his Colt, then jammed it into his holster. “What are we waitin’ for? I got a hot meal promised me back in town.”
“You’re not married,” Barker said.
“That cute little waitress at the restaurant? You know the one?”
“Griselda?”
“She’s the one. Up from New Braunfels, she is. Doesn’t speak English so good and thinks I can help her.”
“You don’t speak a word of German,” Barker said.
“Might be, after a good meal, we can find things that don’t need words.”
“Some words might be the same,” Barker agreed. And then all hell broke loose.
He heard the explosion followed by a whistling sound that deafened him. An artillery shell crashed into a rock not twenty feet away, lifting Barker off his horse and casually tossing him aside. Landing hard, he had the wind knocked out of his lungs. Pain shot through his chest as he struggled to breathe. He propped himself up on one elbow and saw distant flashes from the canyon walls behind them.
The worst possible thing had happened. They had ridden past the secreted outlaws and now had to get through withering fire to retreat.
There was no way they could ride into the mouth of that mountain howitzer.
“Can’t get outta here,” Dravecky said. He dived, arms cradling his head as a second shell whined through the twilight and exploded closer to the river.
“They’re losing the range,” Barker said. He realized he was shouting and toned down his words. The ringing in his ears deafened him.
“They got two of us. Henry and the Ellison boy went to water their horses. Shell hit ’bout where they were.”
A third attack came. Barker looked up and saw the shell glowing orange-hot in the night. He made a quick appraisal of where it would come to earth and found cover an instant before it caused an eruption of dirt and rock on the trail in front of them.
“We have to get out of here,” he told the marshal. “Retreat. Get whoever’s left and get out. Watch for the snipers.”
“What are you going to do? You can’t attack them single-handedly.”
“I’ll cover your retreat.”
“We won’t make it even with your covering fire—with us, Barker, with us!”
He hesitated. The Sonora Kid—and Nate—were deeper in the canyon. He had spotted the ledge where the howitzer was being fired. If he started shooting for that spot, he might persuade them to give up using the cannon.
“Four of us, Barker. That’s al
l that’s left. You, me, two others. It’ll take at least four rifles to shoot our way out.”
Barker judged that the gang had only one sniper on each wall. The four of them against two outlaws. But even still, those were bad odds due to tactical position. They lacked the high ground, although the gathering darkness provided them with some cover. If they didn’t fire unless it was a clean shot, they could retreat.
The howitzer spat another round that arced above them to blast a crater in the trail.
“Back. We’ll all go back.” Barker quickly explained his plan, such as it was. Ride fast, stay low, don’t give themselves away with unnecessary firing.
It wasn’t much of a plan, but it had to be better than galloping into the bore of a howitzer.
“What’s the matter? You all givin’ up? I didn’t think you had the sand to fight! Hell, I knew you didn’t!”
“That’s the Sonora Kid,” Dravecky said. “I recognize his voice from when he was yellin’ at me whilst I was pinned down in the jailhouse.”
The ringing in Barker’s ears refused to die down. He heard the words but only barely.
“Stand an’ fight. Stand an’ die!”
“Let’s ride,” Barker said, swinging into the saddle and clinging to his mare’s neck. She shied, but he held her on the almost invisible trail. The shell exploded only a few feet from where they had been stopped. If Barker hadn’t ordered them to retreat, they would have been blown to smithereens. As it was, he had only the sniper rounds and his own humiliation at turning tail and running to contend with.
The two outlaws fired constantly, even if they had scant targets. Barker saw one of the posse throw up his arms and fall backward from the saddle. Barker had to herd Dravecky ahead of him to keep the marshal from returning.
“He’s gone. Dead. No hope,” Barker rasped out.
Then came a screaming that ended with another explosion just behind him. Mason Barker felt himself lifted up and thrown ahead of his horse by the exploding artillery shell. He lay on the ground staring up at the cloud-veiled stars and then they slowly faded into utter blackness.
The Sonora Noose Page 19