The Right Side of Wrong

by Reavis Wortham

  Bell was right. An almost physical wave washed before them as whispered conversations passed the word. Since John still hadn’t seen any guards, he reasoned this was the time when people were sleeping deeply, or they were extremely bored.

  Maybe their luck would hold.

  Guerrera was still trussed like a turkey when they rushed back into the reception area, but he’d managed to wriggle against the closed door. When John gave it a hard shove, the steel banged off Guerrera’s head. While Bell watched the hallway and Ned covered the front door, John yanked the bandana from Guerrera’s mouth, untied his feet, and released the belt.

  “Spit that rag out,” John ordered, yanking Guerrera to his feet. Unsteady, he leaned against John, and then feeling brave, planted his feet and shouldered him in the midsection in a vain attempt to knock the deputy off his feet.

  It was no match.

  Angry and sweating heavily, John grabbed his cuffed arms and slammed Guerrera face first against the cinder block wall. That done, he wrenched the capitán’s arms so that he bent forward with a hiss of pain, exactly as he’d ordered his deputy to do with Cody the day before.

  “You listen, mister. I ain’t got time to fool with you. Do what I say and keep quiet or so help me I’ll finish breaking that jaw.”

  Cowed and beaten, Guerrera turned his face upward to John. His nose was broken, one eye had begun to swell, and blood flowed from a gaping gash on his chin.

  “Si. Si!”

  “Now that you’re listening,” Bell said. “We want you to take us to Cody right now! You know where he is, and so help me if things start to get out of hand, you’ll be the first one to go down.”

  “No comprende.” Guerrera acted as if didn’t understand.

  Bell repeated himself in a blaze of sharp Spanish, and Guerrera finally admitted defeat. “Third floor. Back right corner. As far as possible from the entrance.”

  Again Bell translated the directions. This time John grabbed Guerrera’s cuffed hands and pushed him out in front. “Lead the way.”

  Back in the hallway, Guerrera lurched right. “Uh, uh.” Ned shoved the hand-drawn map under the man’s nose. “We know where we’re going, but you’re gonna take us this way and up them stairs in the corner.”

  The other direction led to the same place, but at least Ned was familiar with the left-hand hallway, and he wanted Guerrera to know right off they were in control.

  The overwrought procession once again moved out, hurrying toward the stairs that led to the third floor. Conversations literally buzzed like a wasp’s nest.

  Fuga de la cárcel! Jailbreak!

  In his mid-sixties and completely out of shape, Ned was winded by the time they reached the third floor landing with their prisoner. Again in the lead, John opened the door and gave them the nod that the coast was clear. They stepped into an exact copy of the first floor, except this time open cells lined both sides of the building.

  Guerrera ducked left, but John kept a tight grip on his wrists. The news had somehow already reached top floor and shabby, broken prisoners lined against the bars on the double row of cells, waiting on the raiding party.

  As they passed, hands reached out to the Texans. At first Ned was frightened, but he quickly realized the prisoners wanted to get their hands on Guerrera. He didn’t care what happened to the man, but at that moment, he still needed him.

  At least until he found Cody.

  Their luck finally ran out as they reached the next turn. A sleepy guard stepped around the corner and directly into Guerrera. Recognizing his commander, he jerked tall and straight, then recoiled at the sight of his commander’s damaged face and the Americans behind him. The guard opened his mouth to yell, but John’s fist slammed squarely into his nose with the force of a sledgehammer. The guard went down without a sound. Guerrera’s feet tangled up with the fallen man and he almost tumbled down himself, nearly jerking John off his feet.

  A hand darted through the iron bars quick as the strike of a water moccasin, and when it retreated, Guerrera recoiled, gagging, and fell backward against John.

  Blood jetted from the severed artery in his neck as if from a fire hose.

  “Oh my lord.” John gasped in a shocked, clear voice as Guerrera slipped bonelessly to the floor.

  “Goddamn it!” Ned quickly knelt beside Guerrera, grabbed a handful of hair, and yanked his head upright. The man’s panicked eyes told him they both knew Guerrera had only seconds left. “That solid door at the end, right?”

  Guerrera thrashed and gurgled.

  “You know what I’m saying! Make it right before you die, you sorry sonofabitch! Which one of them doors down there?”

  Guerrera jerked sideways, trembling as the same arm struck again through the bars, this time driving a sharpened blade deep into the capitán’s side. Instead of pulling back into the cell, the prisoner worked the makeshift knife deep inside, wriggling it forcefully, doing as much damage as possible.

  “Goddamn it!!” Ned hauled Guerrera’s body out of reach along the concrete floor.

  At the same time, John kicked hard and broke the man’s arm. The entire floor came alive when the prisoner shrieked and fell back into his cell.

  Without responding to Ned’s desperate question, Guerrera shuddered. His eyes rolled back in his head.

  Shouts in Spanish echoed down the halls. Confused guards called back and forth. Prisoners filled with vengeance cried out the same statement over and over in a cacophony of rejoicing.

  Guerrera es muerto!

  Guerrera es muerto!

  John and Ned didn’t need any translation this time.

  Guerrera is dead!

  “Yeah, and so are we.” Bell’s wide eyes blazed defiance.

  Chapter Forty-four

  “We need to run, Mr. Ned.” John was up and rushing down the corridor before Ned thought to answer.

  It was almost the same statement he’d hollered that night in the bottoms when they carried Top and Pepper out of danger. The similarity wasn’t lost on Ned.

  Danger was obvious. They charged down the exact middle of the corridor to avoid the forest of hands bristling through bars. The jail’s designers had estimated exactly how much space was needed to safely pass between the cells, and the Texas lawmen had only inches to spare. Finally, at the corner, the cells were no longer open cages, but instead were behind solid walls.

  Over the din, Ned heard shouting as the guards reacted. All attempts at being quiet were long gone. Ned evaluated four ominous blank doors. “Cody!”

  “Guerrera es muerto!” drowned his voice.

  All three men took up the cry at the same time to be heard over the discord. “CODY!”

  Instead of an answer, loud thumps reverberated in the hallway as the doors beside them were kicked from the inside. “This one!” John held out his hand. “Keys.”

  “Dammit, they’re on Guerrera’s belt.” Ned looked back down at the corridor to find the capitán’s body pulled against one of the cells. Hands plucked at the corpse like feeding piranha, and above it, a bearded prisoner fumbled a key into the cell’s lock.

  With a disgusted look on his face, Bell rushed down the corridor. Before he reached them, the cell door slammed open, spewing a crowd of rough, desperate men.

  “Claves!” Bell shouted.

  Keys!

  With an expert flip of his wrist, one prisoner ignored him, twisted a second lock, and yanked the door open. Another wave of men boiled free. It was only the beginning. Like bulls, a crowd surged toward Bell, but when he raised the BAR, they stopped. Even if they didn’t recognize the big automatic rifle by name, the very design announced that it was designed to kill people in volume.

  It was too late anyway. The keys had already opened another cell and quickly passed hand to hand away from the increasingly desperate lawmen trying to save Cody.

  “Alto!
” With the rifle still trained on the escapees, Bell retreated toward his men. “The keys are gone!”

  Gunshots rang out around the corner.

  Voices howled amidst the riot when the guards began shooting the escaping prisoners.

  John set his feet and kicked the metal door. It didn’t budge. He kicked again with the same results. “Cody! Back up!” He aimed the shotgun at the door frame instead of the lock, and pulled the trigger. The report hammered their eardrums, dampening Ned’s hearing. The full charge of buckshot, nine .32-caliber pellets, destroyed the metal frame, but didn’t completely release the lock.

  “Again!”

  The second shot wasn’t enough either, but the third mangled the metal enough that the door sagged open.

  What rushed through the door wasn’t Cody. An apparition of violence exploded into view. A bald man nearly John’s size, shirtless upper body completely covered in jail-house tattoos, was finally free after many, many years of torture and incarceration.

  There was a reason his eyes were wide, dark, and devoid of emotion.

  They were the eyes of criminal insanity.

  The hugely muscled Mexican slammed into John, knocking the surprised deputy back into the cinderblock wall with the sound of a raw steak hitting concrete. He swung a fist that would have torn John’s head off his shoulders had it connected, but John parried with the shotgun to block the blow.

  The scarred giant’s knuckles broke against the stock with the sound of a snapping chicken neck. The pain didn’t faze him.

  In the gray light of early morning, neither Ned nor Bell had a clear shot. It was all between the two big men, as Bell kept the mayhem at bay behind them.

  The babbling prisoner grabbed the twelve-gauge, trying to lever it from John’s hands. Instead of yanking and pulling, for the second time that morning John did the opposite of what most people expect.

  He attacked.

  Using his sole advantage, John kneed the Mexican in the groin and pressed forward, cracking the stock into the monster’s cheek as the man woofed in pain. Biceps bulging, John roared with the effort and jammed his shotgun across the man’s neck.

  It was a fight for survival, violent and rabid.

  With his adversary pinned against the wall, John kneed him again and again in the crotch until the man released his hold on the weapon. When it gave, John slammed his forehead into the prisoner’s nose. Blood erupted in a torrent. John twisted the shotgun free and slammed the butt sideways into the man’s broken nose again. The third time he pounded a direct strike between the eyes with the butt, driving all of his power into a killing blow. An audible crunch closed the encounter. The prisoner’s legs became rubber.

  He smacked face first onto the floor and died.

  The deafening report of a shotgun once again echoed in the close confines. John jumped to face the next threat. He was relieved to see Ned shuck another shell into his twelve-gauge and fire a second charge into a door frame directly beside them. This time when the door opened, Cody’s swollen face appeared.

  Relief washed through all of them as Ned grabbed Cody in a quick bear hug.

  Chapter Forty-five

  The keys made their way completely around the third floor, and the freed prisoners had control. Grudges quickly settled themselves through a variety of homemade weapons pulled from hidden places. Men bled out on the grimy floors as the rampaging crowd charged the Texans.

  “Alto!” Bell shouted. For the first time, he opened up with the BAR. The automatic rifle was deafening as he directed his fire over the prisoners’ heads. They recoiled at the concussive explosions of the heavy 30.06 rounds, many dropping to the ground for safety. The much greater mass retreated down the corridor.

  Bell ejected the spent magazine and slapped another into place with satisfaction. “The right tool for the job.”

  Cody held out his hand. “You have anything for me?”

  Ned pulled the revolver from the small of his back, and handed it to Cody, butt first. Confident it was loaded, Cody hefted the pistol.

  Bell fired again, ejected the empty magazine, and slammed another one home. “We gotta go!” He pointed to the way out. “The same way we came in! Vamanos muchachos!”

  John didn’t need instructions. He rushed past the three men and led the charge to retrace their path. Shrieking prisoners fled the quartet.

  Heart thumping, Ned was surprised at how many cells had already emptied in such a short amount of time. Almost trotting, he thumbed more shells into his empty shotgun. Higher pitched gunfire crackled throughout the jail as the guards finally rallied enough to try and turn the tide in their favor.

  Acting as a wedge, Big John charged downward past a crowd of rejoicing prisoners running before them. At the sight of the Texan’s arsenal, the freed inmates sidestepped and raised their hands as they ran, laughing their way to the next floor.

  John led the way down two flights of stairs to the ground floor where the noise wasn’t as loud beside the closed door of the stairwell. Still, it was only a matter of time before the mob flooded the stairs as they rushed toward freedom.

  Ned paused and laid his hand on the door to the main hallway, as if checking the temperature in case it was hot. “Not many of them have made it this far down. Them guards’ll be waiting on whoever comes through.”

  His back against the wall, John grasped the door knob. “It’s the only way out!”

  Tom Bell covered the stairwell above. “Careful.”

  “Cody, you gonna make it?”

  The young constable squinted through his good eye and gave Ned a grin. “I’ll be better when we get back to our side of the river.”

  John twisted the knob, cracked the steel door, and a bullet whistled through the narrow opening to pop into the opposite wall with a vicious splat. He shoved the door closed as more bullets rang against the steel.

  “Now what are we gonna do?” Neither Cody nor Ned had an answer.

  Tom Bell stepped forward, crouched on one knee, and held the BAR at the ready. “Open it again and get ready to run. They’re expecting unarmed prisoners, not us.”

  “Let’s go,” Cody said.

  John again cracked the door open and winced as bullets richocheted off the steel. With a low growl, Bell stuck the muzzle of the BAR through the opening. Like Vengeance on two feet, the dance began when the monstrous rifle opened up on full automatic. Powerful 30.06 slugs punched through concrete walls as if they were made of paper.

  His aim was once again high, giving the guards a chance to decide whether they wanted to hang around. When he stuck his third magazine into place, he lowered the muzzle and hosed the area beyond the door in a roll of thunder. If they wanted to fight, then he’d give it to them. “Open the door!”

  They burst into a corridor filled with the smell of cordite, smoke, and dust. Half a dozen Mexican guards sprawled in awkward positions, surrounded by their dropped weapons. Others retreated in a rout to be cut off by escaping prisoners suddenly appearing from the far staircase Ned, John and Bell had originally used.

  The two groups converged. Guards were immediately engulfed with no time to beg for their lives. Screams, groans, and curses rocked the hall.

  Taking advantage of the rapidly fading opportunity, Bell led the way and darted into the main reception area. The original guard was gone, the room empty, and the front entrance gaped open.

  Outside, pale light revealed the cars parked nearby.

  “Almost there,” John said.

  “They’re most likely waiting.” Shaking like a leaf from exhaustion and fear, Ned wondered at Tom Bell’s calm and composed demeanor.

  “We can’t stay here.” Breathing hard, seeing through only one eye, Cody checked the loads in his pistol for the first time, unable to remember if he’d fired the weapon. “I’ve had all this place I can stand.”

  Bell motioned for the
m to get against the wall. “Wait! Here they come.”

  In seconds, a flood of freed prisoners rushed from the corridor into the reception area. Ignoring the Texans and the arsenal pointed in their direction, they saw freedom in the open street. The tightly packed mass of rejoicing Mexicans burst into the street to be cut down in a withering hail of gunfire as soon as they emerged. Pushed from behind, a steady stream of men raced into the chaos of the street amid a hailstorm of bullets.

  It was a slaughter.

  The fusillade continued as bodies piled outside the doorway, tripping men trying to escape. Shouts and cries in Spanish were indecipherable to Ned and Cody, but the common language of pain was clear to everyone in that hellhole.

  Surviving prisoners fell back in the reception area, well away from the open door, realizing a world of death waited outside. They continued to ignore the Texans against the wall, who ignored them back.

  When the roar of gunfire fell off, John knew the men outside were reloading.

  Ned had no time to prepare himself for what was about to happen. John kicked the door farther open and stumbled over a body. He caught his balance and ran outside, firing high and shucking fresh shells into his shotgun. He dropped to a knee behind a car.

  Bell followed, the BAR hammering the dawn.

  Chapter Forty-six

  Surprised by the wall of gunfire coming from what they thought were unarmed men, the mismatched army ducked behind their cars, frantically thumbing shells into empty guns.

  Instead of Mexican police or the military they expected, the Texans faced a well-armed gang loyal to a man they thought was still alive, Guerrera. Cody recognized the mock uniforms, the same ones that executed Whitlatch and his gang, and charged outside, vaguely aware of a ragged volley of return fire.

  “These ain’t the police! They’re soldiers who work for the bad guys. They’re the sonsabitches who took me! Pour it on ’em!”

  John and Tom Bell lowered their aim. Hellfire erupted from their weapons in a continuous ear-splitting barrage. Ricochets yowled off into the distance.