“Gracias, señor.”
“Is my friend still downstairs?”
“Señor Wilcox? Sí. I think he intends to wait for you. He is playing poker with some other men.”
That came as no surprise. Wilcox seemed to like gambling.
Braddock closed the door with his foot and set the tray on a small table. He poured a couple of inches of tequila into one of the glasses and carried it over to Carmen.
“Here,” he told her. “Drink this.”
She took the glass, gulped down the liquor, gagged a little, and shuddered.
“Not used to drinking, are you?”
“I am...not used to...many things,” she said. “All of this...” She moved a hand in a vague gesture to indicate the room around them. “This is new to me.”
Braddock glanced around the spartanly furnished room. It held a bed, a single chair, the table with a basin of water and a cheap oil lamp on it. He had seen worse, though. The floor had a rug on it, and a thin curtain hung over the single window, open to let in a little breeze. As a whore’s room, it wasn’t that bad.
“You don’t have to be ashamed,” he said. “Folks do what they have to do in order to survive.”
“You do not understand, Señor...?”
“George.”
“Señor George. It was not my choice to come here. I was taken from my village and brought here. Stolen with all the others by evil men.”
“Others?” Braddock repeated.
Carmen nodded. “More than two dozen women and girls, some as young as ten years old.” She swallowed hard. “And now we are all doomed.”
Chapter 14
Braddock had to pour another drink for her before she could go on with the story. She didn’t shudder as much as she downed the liquor this time.
She told him about the dawn raid on the village of Santa Rosalia where she had lived with her family.
“So many of the men were killed, including my father,” she said in a voice hollow with grief. Braddock saw the shock and horror of that morning on her face as she relived it in her memory. “Then they rounded up the women and put us onto carts like nothing more than...than sheep. We were nothing but livestock to those terrible men.”
She was right about that, Braddock thought.
“Then their leader, he...he pointed to me and had one of his men bring me to him. That man, Gonsalvo, tore my clothes from me and left me naked and ashamed.”
“This Gonsalvo, he was their leader?” Braddock didn’t know the name.
Carmen shook her head. “No, no, Hector Gonsalvo was the, how do you say it, the segundo...the lieutenant. The leader was Martin Larrizo.”
That name rang a faint bell for Braddock. He thought for a moment and dredged up the details from his brain.
The Rangers had suspected Larrizo of being involved with several raids across the border into Texas to steal cattle and loot isolated ranches. As far as they knew, he was just a minor bandido.
Maybe Larrizo had in mind becoming something bigger, and the mass kidnapping of the women of Santa Rosalia was a start.
“Go on,” he told Carmen.
She frowned at him in confusion. “Why do you ask me these questions? Why do you want to know about me? I thought we would...”
“I can see how upset you are. I just figured you might like to talk a little and tell me about it. I’m a nice hombre, after all.”
She peered intently at him for a long moment, then shook her head.
“No. You are not an evil man, I can sense that. But you are hard and dangerous and...and not nice.”
Braddock laughed and said, “I’m sure some folks would agree with that last part. But I still want to know about what happened to you.”
So far, he didn’t have any idea if Carmen’s story had anything to do with the mission that had brought him to Juarez, but again, connections existed between Palmer and Hernandez, so that meant Hernandez’s other activities might be involved, too.
“It is an ugly thing,” Carmen went on. “Larrizo took me as his...his prize. His men were not allowed to touch the other prisoners, and if they did, Larrizo or Gonsalvo would kill them. Gonsalvo told the men this. But Larrizo had his way with me. Until then I...I had never been with a man before. He said he had to...sample the merchandise.”
She had handed the empty glass back to Braddock after downing the tequila. His fingers tightened on it in anger until he thought it might break.
He suppressed that fury for the moment and told her, “I’m sorry you had to go through that, Carmen, I really am. Where are the other women now? Are they still together?”
“I do not know. I think...maybe they are. Larrizo and his men, they brought us to a place...They blindfolded us so we could not see where we were going...and when they took the blindfolds off, we were all in a room with stone walls and no windows and only one door which was always guarded. They gave us food and water and kept us there.”
“You weren’t with Larrizo anymore?”
She shook her head and said in a small voice, “I think he had grown tired of me.”
“But he didn’t take any of the other women to replace you?”
“No. We were all there.”
“How’d you wind up here?”
“Gonsalvo came and got me. He put a...a bag of some kind over my head this time, instead of blindfolding me, and brought me away from there. The next thing I knew, I was here at Señor Hernandez’s.”
Braddock tugged at his earlobe as he frowned in thought. He said, “Wait a minute. Tell me everything you remember about being taken out of that place where the prisoners are kept.”
“Why?” she asked. “I do not understand—”
“It might be important,” Braddock said. He wasn’t quite sure why, either, but his gut told him to find out as much as he could.
Carmen took a deep breath. “There is nothing to remember. Gonsalvo covered my head, and then he held my arm so tight it hurt, and he took me upstairs and lifted me onto a horse. We rode and rode, and then he took me down from the horse and we went up more stairs, and then we were here. I have seen little but the inside of this room...and the men who come to me here...since.”
The wheels of Braddock’s brain turned faster now. Carmen didn’t seem to realize it, but she had told him something. When Gonsalvo had left the prison with her, they had gone up some stairs, Carmen had said, and gotten on a horse.
That meant the other women and girls were being kept below ground level, probably in a cellar. That would match the description of no windows and only one door.
But a cellar where? Right now, that was impossible to answer, and Braddock still wasn’t sure why he needed to know, other than the fact he didn’t like the idea of all those women ultimately facing the same fate as Carmen.
Braddock rubbed his chin and asked, “Did Gonsalvo say anything when he brought you here?”
“He...he made a joke, or at least acted like he thought it was funny. He said someone else wanted to see what they would be getting for their money. He said for me to get used to it. But I think he was angry, too, that he and the rest of Larrizo’s men had been ordered to leave the prisoners alone.”
Braddock didn’t say anything. A picture had begun to form in his head, a picture that would explain everything he had come across so far.
It was a damned ugly picture, too.
But before he could ponder that any more, a knock sounded on the door. Braddock glanced toward it, then looked back at Carmen and said, “Take your clothes off.”
Chapter 15
She gave him that confused look again and said, “I had started to think you did not want—”
“Now,” he told her in a quiet but urgent voice.
She stood up, peeled the blouse over her head, pushed the skirt down over flaring hips and kicked out of it.
The covers were already pulled back on the bed. Braddock motioned toward it.
“Don’t mention what we talked about to the other women who work for
Hernandez,” he told her.
“I don’t talk to them.”
“Good.”
He wished he could tell her to have faith, that everything would be all right. He wished he could promise he’d see to it.
But he didn’t know any of that for certain and didn’t want to give her false hope. She had survived for this long. Maybe she could hold out for a while longer.
Another knock sounded on the door, a sharper rapping this time. Braddock turned toward it and glanced over his shoulder at the bed. Carmen sprawled on top of the covers, knees up and legs slightly spread.
Braddock opened the door. The pair of Hernandez’s men stood there, just as he expected.
“Señor Hernandez is back,” the talkative one—if you could call him that—said. “He wishes to see you, as I knew he would.”
“Fine,” Braddock said. He straightened his hat a little, as if he had just put it on. He saw the men look past him at Carmen lying on the bed. Their scrutiny probably embarrassed her, but that couldn’t be helped. He turned slightly and told her, “Vaya con Dios, señorita,” then went out and closed the door behind him.
From what he could see of the main room below, things had indeed gone back to normal. Wilcox wasn’t in his line of sight, but he supposed the gunman was still playing poker. The musicians played another sprightly tune for the lissome young woman to dance to.
The hard-faced pair led him to a door in the far corner. One of them opened it and revealed a short hallway with another door at the end of it. There was an apartment at the back of the building, Braddock realized. It probably served as Hernandez’s private quarters.
One of the men knocked on the far door, opened it, and ushered Braddock into a sitting room every bit as luxurious as Shadrach Palmer’s on the other side of the river. They really were two sides of the same coin, Braddock thought...except Hernandez didn’t look like a dumpy little storekeeper at first glance.
Hernandez was taller and more powerfully built than Palmer, with a full head of dark brown hair lightly touched with silver here and there. He was clean-shaven except for long sideburns. Braddock had a hunch women considered him very handsome.
Hernandez appeared to have been riding recently. A fine film of trail dust clung to his boots and whipcord trousers and short, dark brown jacket. He wore no visible gun, but a slight bulge under the jacket might be a pistol in a shoulder holster, Braddock noted.
“The gringo, Señor Hernandez,” one of the men who had brought him in murmured.
Hernandez’s eyes regarded Braddock from under prominent brows. He said, “You are the one who killed Calvin Larkin?”
“I didn’t know his name,” Braddock said, maintaining the fiction that Larkin hadn’t been his target all along, “but yeah, I reckon I’m him. My handle is George.”
“From what I am told of the incident, you are a very dangerous man, Señor George. You killed not only Larkin but the two men who work with him. All three of them had considerable blood on their hands, I suspect, and would not be easy to kill.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” Braddock said with a faint shake of his head. “I haven’t been in El Paso for long.”
“You are not in El Paso now. You are in Juarez. And in Juarez, I am the law.”
“So I’ve heard. I was protecting one of your employees when I stepped in, though. That ought to be worth something.”
Hernandez blew out his breath and said, “A prostitute. Less than nothing. Larkin was a potential...business associate.”
“I’d apologize for ruining your plans, but I still say the son of a bitch had it coming to him.”
“No doubt. Calvin Larkin was a very unpleasant man. And if I were to ever do business with him, it would have been in the future, not now. Now I already have arrangements in place. So in a way, Señor George, I suppose I owe you my thanks. You have...simplified my life, let us say.”
“Always glad to be of help,” Braddock said dryly.
Hernandez looked at him for a second, then laughed.
“I think I like you,” he said. “You have a certain boldness about you. You remind me of me. I’m told you came in tonight with Dex Wilcox.”
It wasn’t really a question, but Braddock said, “That’s right,” anyway.
“So you work for Señor Palmer as well.”
“Just started.”
“And while waiting for me, you spent time with Carmen?”
“Yep.”
“You enjoyed your time with her?”
“Very much so.”
“Good. You can become accustomed to such pleasures. I’m sure that we will be seeing each other again.”
Hernandez turned away in obvious dismissal. The other two men moved up closer to Braddock, who said, “Buenas noches, Señor Hernandez.”
Hernandez just grunted and didn’t say good night.
The men escorted Braddock out. Once they reached the balcony, he said, “I reckon since your boss gave his seal of approval to what happened, I’m free to go.”
“Certainly. And you are welcome back here.”
“Obliged for the hospitality,” Braddock said. He started down the stairs.
The picture in his mind was even clearer than before, and just as ugly as ever.
Chapter 16
Braddock spotted Wilcox as he went down the stairs. The gunman slouched at one of the tables, playing poker with four other men. Wilcox must have seen him, too. He looked at the cards in his hand, shrugged, and threw them in, folding so he could leave the game. He stood up, nodded to the other players, and then headed for the stairs to meet Braddock at the bottom of them.
“Well, I see Hernandez didn’t have you taken out into the desert and left in a shallow grave,” Wilcox said with a grin.
“I got the feeling he wasn’t too happy about me killing Larkin,” Braddock said. “He hadn’t decided yet about double-crossing Palmer and throwing in with Larkin.”
“Then you came along and made up his mind for him.”
“He said pretty much the same thing.”
“That’s what the boss wanted,” Wilcox said. “Hernandez probably suspects Palmer might have sent you here to get rid of Larkin, but the way it all played out, he can’t be sure about that. For the sake of keepin’ the peace, he’ll give Palmer the benefit of the doubt. You wound up doin’ a mighty fine job, George. The boss is gonna be pleased.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Braddock said. “I could use a nice steady job for a while.”
“Until the heat dies down enough in Arizona for you to go back, eh?”
“Who knows?” Braddock said. “I might decide I like it in Texas.”
Wilcox’s grin slipped a little, but he didn’t say anything except, “Come on. Let’s get back across the river.”
They left the place and walked toward the bridge a few blocks away. In the warren of alleys and shacks spreading out on both sides of the main street, a dog barked and a woman cried. Typical nighttime sounds, Braddock thought. He wished there had been some way for him to take Carmen out of Hernandez’s, but he hadn’t been able to think of any that wouldn’t threaten his plans.
He decided to probe a little more and said, “You know, I got to thinking about it, and I believe I’ve heard of you, Dex. You used to ride with Black Jack Ketchum, didn’t you?”
“What if I did?” Wilcox asked, his voice sharp with sudden suspicion.
“I don’t mean any offense,” Braddock went on. “In fact, I’ve always admired fellas who could pull off stopping a train and holding it up. Seems like that would take an awful lot of both guts and brains.”
Wilcox grunted and sounded somewhat mollified as he said, “You’re damn right about that. “The Reno brothers and then Jesse and his boys showed us all how it’s done, ’way back when, but since then the railroads have gotten better about protectin’ their trains...and fellas like me have gotten even better at holdin’ ’em up.”
“Must be sort of tiresome for you, hanging around town like this
and running errands for Palmer when you’re used to bigger and better things.”
Wilcox’s voice had a knife edge to it again as he said, “Don’t ever mistake me for an errand boy. Palmer’s got a damned big deal in the works, and he never could’ve pulled it off without me. He knows it, too.”
“I’m sure he does,” Braddock said. He’d had a hunch Wilcox had been in charge of the train robbery that had netted Palmer the shipment of rifles. Now Wilcox’s boasting made him certain of it. “What’s this big deal you’re talking about?”
“You’ll find out soon enough if the boss hires you. After tonight, I don’t reckon there’s much doubt about that. In fact, once he hears about the slick way you handled that whole Larkin business, he’ll be really happy. You’ll be his fair-haired boy, I’d say.”
Braddock shook his head as they reached the bridge over the Rio Grande and started out onto it.
“I wouldn’t go that—”
Before he could continue, Wilcox yanked out his gun, lunged at Braddock, and chopped at his head with the revolver.
Chapter 17
From the corner of his eye, Braddock saw Wilcox make his move. It wasn’t a complete surprise. Wilcox had seen what the newcomer could do and feared that given time, Braddock would worm his way into Wilcox’s position in Palmer’s hierarchy of hired guns.
Things probably never would have gotten that far, but Wilcox had no way of knowing that.
Braddock twisted aside, getting out of the way of the blow so it hammered down on his right shoulder instead of crushing his hat and maybe busting his skull.
It was bad enough getting hit the way he did, because it made his arm and hand go numb—and that was his gun hand.
He jerked back and swung his left arm at Wilcox’s gun, knocking the revolver aside for a second. That gave Braddock enough time to kick Wilcox in the belly. Wilcox groaned and staggered back a couple of steps, but he didn’t drop the gun.
The two of them were alone on the bridge. A half moon floated overhead, giving them enough light to see each other. Wilcox straightened up from the kick, bared his teeth in a grimace, and said, “I didn’t want to shoot you, George—”
Gun Devils of the Rio Grande (Outlaw Ranger Book 5) Page 5