by Ray Hogan
“Agreed. But how can we bring this about?”
Angela moved her slender shoulders beneath their sheath of cool sateen. “Who knows? From here it is not possible to say. We can only follow, search for opportunity.”
“Of course. And once they are assisted, it is unquestionable this Adam Rait will consider negotiating.”
“True. But would not a better plan be to assist and permit them to continue on unaware of our presence? You will recall that the man Escobar advised Rait to take the wagon train to the village of Tupelo?”
“Yes, I recall.”
“Is that not in the area of your soldiers and their secret hiding place?”
Hernando Bernal’s features lighted. “Certainly. What could be more convenient than to lead the wagons into their reach? What luck. Do you know they are called the Ghost Soldiers by the Indians?”
“No, I was not aware.”
“They strike swiftly and disappear. Strike again and vanish. It is said they drive the Juáristas mad.”
“A most clever arrangement, my general. Do you favor the plan?”
“It is perfect. However, Adam Rait will not cross the border … he has said as much. And I hesitate to ignore my orders from Mexico City and bring my men onto foreign soil. It would be wise for you first to make an effort …”
“That is understood. But it would also be wise to be moving toward the secret rendezvous in event—”
“In event you again fail, is that it?”
“There is always the possibility.”
Hernando Bernal smiled broadly. “I fear Mexico City overestimates the powers of women in such matters as this. The military … the force of arms … it does not fail.”
“Yes, my general,” Angela said, also smiling.
Chapter Sixteen
After Griswold had marched them in, back out, and in again, Adam Rait gathered the teamsters in the center of the barn, where the intersecting runways formed a large square.
“Got to move fast and quiet,” he said. “Handy, you stay at the front doors. Cushman, take the back. Sing out if you see anybody coming.”
“What’re you aiming to do, Cap’n?” Vernon asked.
“Find a way out of here.”
“Ain’t going to be easy. That lieutenant and his bunch went through here good.”
“That lieutenant’s not up against what we are.”
“We might get a chance to make a break in the morning,” Jim Gooch said. “Was we to find some horses.”
“Morning’ll be too late. Start looking around for loose boards in the walls … maybe a place where we could dig under … a tunnel. And while you’re at it, keep your eyes peeled for something to use as weapons … wheel spokes, piece of a wagon, anything like that.”
The men separated, began to prowl the dark interior of the barn. Adam, with Joe Denver at his side, went first to the rear where he made a careful but quiet examination of the door.
It was locked from the outside by a hasp and peg, he thought, but was not sure. Peering through a crack he saw that he was right; he also located the sentry, standing directly in front of the double panels.
He checked each of the windows. Both were small and high in the walls. They could forget them insofar as an escape route was concerned—and Griswold had wasted the men he stationed beneath them. The front entrance was similar to the back.
“We even rattle a board they’re going to hear us,” Denver said when they returned to the runway. “Don’t hardly see how—”
“Wonder what’s above?” Rait said, looking up.
“Loft, I reckon,” the teamster said and then brightened. “Sure. Ought to be doors at both ends so’s they can throw in hay. Ought to be a ladder, too.”
A dry squealing was issuing from one of the stalls. Adam crossed to investigate the sound. Two of the crew were working at a feed bin above the manger, tearing out the iron bars that controlled the quantity of hay fed into the box below. They paused as Rait halted behind them.
“Here’s our weapons,” Zeke Kelly said, tapping one of the rods. “Got ’em in every stall.”
“Good … only go easy. We don’t want that racket bringing in the soldiers.”
There were three of the iron lengths to each bin, and six stalls: eighteen half-inch bars about three feet long. Over half the teamsters would be armed, and with far better weapons than guns, under the circumstances. Whatever they did would have to be done silently, otherwise Cook’s entire command would be down on them again.
“Ladder’s here,” Joe Denver called softly from across the runway.
Adam hurried to where the teamster waited. Unhesitating, he began to climb, placing his feet on the rungs close to the upright, not trusting the dry, splintered wood in the center. Reaching the loft, he pulled himself through the opening, stirring up a small cloud of choking dust. Denver, grunting and sweating, followed.
Streaks of light marked the location of the doors at both front and rear. Adam touched the teamster’s arm. “Let’s try the back.”
They moved toward it slowly, taking each step with care, endeavoring to avoid loose boards that might squeak and alert the sentries outside the building. Reaching the door, little more than half full size, Adam halted, placed his hand against the cracked wood, and tested it gently. It moved an inch, hung. Exploring the right side of the panel, he found the trouble; a double length of baling wire had been passed through a hole in the door and secured to a staple in the facing; it would be simple to release.
The danger would lie in the screech of undoubtedly rusty hinges when they were disturbed. The sentry was directly below, and to hope he would not hear was wishful thinking.
Adam gave it some thought, and then again touching Denver, retreated to the ladder. He started to descend, changed his mind, and made his way to the front of the loft. Ignoring the door, he crossed to a corner and placed his eye to a crack that afforded him a view of the street.
Jonesburg was going full swing; the saloons and the general store were open, and soldiers and civilians alike were milling about in the dusty haze that hung over the roadway.
Rait observed the activity in silence, wondering where Cook had quartered his men. The town itself was not large enough to accommodate them all, that was apparent; he and the teamsters had been placed in the only vacant building of sufficient size.
The flicker of several campfires drew his attention as his glance swept laterally across the town. He nodded in satisfaction. The soldiers were bivouacked along the eastern edge of the settlement, and the wagons were to the west. Once out of the barn they would not be compelled to pass near the camp. Turning, he moved back to the ladder and followed Denver to ground level.
He found the men waiting. They had removed the bars, and those who were not thus equipped had provided themselves with clubs salvaged from the destroyed feed bins.
“Reckon we’re ready as we’ll ever be,” a man with a savagely scarred face said. “How we doing it?”
“Wait,” Adam replied. “Street’s full of soldiers. Let things quiet down.”
“I thought you was in such an all-fired hurry?”
Adam could barely make out Bill Gannon’s features in the dim light. “I am. We’ve got to be a long way from here by daylight if we expect to shake Cook … but we’ve got to get out of this barn first.”
“How long before we can start?”
“The colonel strikes me as being one to go by the book. He’ll have them all bugled in pretty quick, I’d guess. Then we make our move.”
“How’re we doing it?”
“Simple, but touchy,” Rait said. “We need one man to go up into the loft, open the back door, and drop down on the sentry. It’ll take somebody who can move quietly.”
“That’s me,” Kiowa Jack Green said promptly. “I shed my boots, ain’t no catamount living can walk softer
.”
“You’re it, then. The moment you knock out the guard, open the runway doors … even if you hear the other guards coming. We can’t help you if we’re still locked in.”
“They’ll get opened,” Kiowa Jack said. “You-all just be ready.”
“What kind of weapon you got?”
The teamster held out a short length of wood shaved to roundness; it was a part of a broken singletree.
“Wouldn’t want nothing better … ’cepting maybe my old knife.”
The quavering notes of “Taps” floated sweetly through the night. Kiowa Jack bent and began to remove his boots.
“Thirty minutes yet,” Adam said. “Give them time to settle down.”
It was nearer an hour when Earl Handy, watching from the streetside door, passed word to Adam that all lights were out and there was no one to be seen.
Kiowa Jack moved to the ladder. Rait had briefed him on the bailing-wire latch, and cautioned him also as to the probability of the hinges squeaking.
“Just you leave it to me,” the old man said. “Little gob of tobacco spit’ll work fine.”
“Which way do we go when we get outside?” someone asked in a tense whisper.
“Wagons are west of us. That’s straight ahead.”
“Going to be open ground outside them doors. Is there any cover close?” someone else asked.
“Won’t know the answer to that until Kiowa gets his job done.”
“What about them guards standing watch at the wagons? Not forgetting them, are you?”
“No, but they shouldn’t give us any trouble. Twice as many of us as there are guards. We’ll cross that creek when we get to it. Everybody set?”
Metal squeaked faintly at the rear of the barn, Adam wheeled, alarm racing through him. Maybe Cook was back—making a final check. Rait watched the double doors swing back slowly to admit a flood of starlight. Outside he saw the sentry lying face down, unmoving.
Chapter Seventeen
Stilling the murmur of surprise that ran through the men, Rait motioned for them to remain, and stepped to the doorway.
It could be some sort of trap. But that thought faded quickly when he saw the broad stain of blood covering the sentry’s back. There could be only one answer—they had a friend in the settlement or among the soldiers. It didn’t make much sense, but the guard was there—and he was very dead.
Halting just within the door frame, Adam looked around carefully. There was no sign of the other sentries. The town lay dark and silent to his left. Without turning, he raised his arm, beckoned to the waiting teamsters. They came forward at once, pulled up around him.
“Leave one at a time,” he said in a low voice. “Wait there,” he added, pointing to a clump of trees on the far side of the cleared ground. “Joe … stick with me.”
The crew began to leave the doorway, each man delaying until the one preceding him had gained the shelter of trees. One paused long enough to snatch up the dead soldier’s rifle.
“When they’re all across,” Rait explained to Joe Denver, “we’ll close the doors and try to make it look like nothing’s wrong.”
“With him laying there?” the teamster said, pointing at the sentry.
Adam stopped one of the crew to relieve him of his iron bar. Stepping back into the barn, he entered the first stall, and, wedging the length of metal between two thick planks, bent it into a double hook.
Returning to Denver, he waited until the last man was across, then closing the doors quietly, he slipped the peg into the hasp.
“Help me hoist the guard.”
Together they lifted the man, brought him to the doors. While Denver held the body upright, Adam placed the top hook in a convenient knothole, and then suspended the sentry from the lower.
The man’s head sagged forward, and his arms hung limply. Close examination would reveal quickly that he was dead, but from a distance—from the corners of the barn—he would appear to be slumped against the wall, sleeping.
“Let’s go,” Adam murmured urgently when the job was finished. “Pushed our luck pretty far as it is.”
He waited until the stocky teamster had vanished into the shadows, and with a final glance at the quiet settlement followed hurriedly. Talk was running wild when he reached the men.
“Who do you reckon put that toad-stabber into the soldier?” was the first question to greet him.
Rait shook his head. “Anybody’s guess. But he sure did us a favor. Move on. We’ve got no time to waste hashing it over.”
He pushed through the men, taking his bearings from the scatter of houses, and struck off at a fast walk. Behind him the crew continued to speculate.
“Had to be somebody from town.”
“Hell, that don’t make no sense. Was the town that told that prissy colonel where we was.”
“Could’ve been one of his soldiers, doing it for cussedness.”
“That don’t hold water, neither. As I recollect, they wasn’t exactly friendly.”
It was a matter of no concern to Adam Rait. They were free, and that’s all that counted. Free for the time being anyway. If they were lucky and the escape wasn’t discovered until morning, they’d have a chance. But only a chance, keeping fifteen wagons and a string of horses from the sharp eyes of fifty free-riding cavalrymen would be quite a chore.
They reached the camp and halted in a narrow ravine a few yards above the horses. Rait put his attention to locating the guards. The fire had been kept up and the area was well lit. He had no difficulty in pointing out the soldiers to the crew. Some were leaning against the wagons, dozing, but the majority were awake.
“Two men to each sentry,” he murmured, drawing the teamsters around him. “Move in close so’s you can jump your man fast. Use the iron bars … and don’t let any of them pull a trigger. One gunshot will bring Cook down on us in a hurry.”
“How’ll we know when to move in?” Gannon asked.
“Watch the campfire. I’ll circle around and walk in from the yonder side. When you see me stop, that’ll be your signal.”
Denver nodded his understanding. “You figure to keep the guards looking at you?”
“That’s what I’m hoping for. Get at it. We’re losing time.”
Twenty men glided off into the shadows leaving Sancho, the boy Felipe, One-Eye Johnson, and Malachi Lee behind with Rait.
“You want us going with you?” the bearded Kentuckian asked.
“Best you sit tight here. Too many of us showing up at the fire would make them suspicious.”
Adam waited out a full five minutes, allowing the men to get set, and then, ducking low, followed the ravine to its end, and cut right into the trees. Pausing there, he took a deep breath and walked boldly into the circle of firelight. Instantly a deep voice challenged him.
“Halt! Who’s there?”
The nearest sentry peered at him from across the flickering flames. Adam raised his arms high, continued to advance. He was taking swift count of the soldiers, wanting to be certain no change in number had been made and that he had drawn the attention of all.
“You hear? Halt, or I’ll shoot!”
Ten men. All accounted for. Coming to a stop, he said: “Friend.”
At that moment all ten sentries went down, struck from behind by a teamster, while his partner leaped forward to catch the falling rifle, preventing its accidental discharge. The scheme had gone off like clockwork.
Pleased, Rait hurried to the wagons. Sancho, and the others who had waited in the ravine, came up, and there was a burst of excited conversation.
“Get your weapons … over in the supply wagon,” Adam said, cutting the talk short. “Soon as you do that, get hitched up.”
Within three quarters of an hour the sentries had been securely trussed and gagged and the wagons made ready to roll. Rait, astride his bay,
rode to where Denver and Ben Tipton waited in the lead wagon.
“The river’s on ahead about five miles. Keep them coming fast.”
“We above or below a ford?”
“Don’t know for sure,” Adam replied. “I’ll have a look. Just head out. I’ll let you know in time.”
They were above, and in a few minutes he returned and guided Denver and the others toward the shallow part of the stream, halting, however, a good hundred yards short of the water.
“What’s the trouble?” Denver asked, standing up.
“I’ve got an idea how we might draw Cook off our trail when he comes rushing down here in the morning. Not much cover the way we’ll be going, just low hills and brush. He’ll spot us or our dust quick … unless we can turn him into the wrong direction.”
The rest of the teamsters came trotting up, wondering at the halt. Rait turned to them. “Unload the last wagon. Scatter the cargo among the others, and be damned sure its lashed down tight.”
The men stared. Darby Sims said: “What’re you wanting to do?”
“Don’t waste time asking questions!” Adam snapped. “Get at it!”
Denver dropped from his high perch. “I know you’re in a powerful hurry, but I got to be told what you’re figuring on.”
“I want you to take the empty wagon and head south down the river. Felipe’ll drive one of the supply wagons and follow close behind you. I’ll take the train on across and keep going west.”
“Meaning you’re trying to make Cook think the whole works turned south, that it?”
Rait nodded. “We’ll brush out the tracks leading down to the water, leave the ones you make when you turn. If Cook looks sharp, he’ll see there’s only the tracks of two wagons, but I’m guessing he’s going to be in such a hurry he’ll take the bait.”
Joe Denver nodded. “I’ll help that along a mite. I’ll tie me some brush on the back of my rig, stir him up plenty of dust to see.”
“Good. How long you think you can keep him busy?”