“Hush now,” hissed McGivens. He hauled her to the earthen path before the barn, where seven of his men gathered around them.
The heat soaked her quivering form as McGivens snickered to his posse. This is going to be a fine, fine show, now isn’t it?
Blanca hated herself for fearing the gunman so much. Her heart thundered against his restraining arm, her body trembled like a newborn fawn. She wanted him to know that it was rage, not terror, that made her shake so violently, but visions of her son growing up an orphan—or worse, the idea that others of McGivens men might already have their boy—raced through her mind and fueled her anger.
“Cortez!” McGivens roared, his lips near Blanca’s ear.
She watched helplessly as Guillermo stiffened with alarm, threw down his hammer, and raced from the barn.
“The deed,” said McGivens, smiling broadly, a look of rapture creeping across his face at the thought of slitting the woman’s throat. “If you please.”
Guillermo hesitated, but only for an instant. He bolted into the house, the sounds of his frantic rummaging and cursing as he hauled the trunk from the foot of the bed bringing laughter and crude remarks from the equally crude men who made up McGivens’s posse. Then came a snarl of triumph, as Guillermo emerged from the house, deed in hand.
“Bring it here,” McGivens said, smiling wickedly.
“No!” Blanca said fiercely. Fear flickered in her eyes as she felt the edge of the knife bite a fraction of an inch into her flesh with its hungry, ice-cold edge, but her pride gave her strength. “Guillermo, don’t!”
His lips pressed tight with suppressed fury, Cortez looked beyond his wife and stared the demon straight in the eye. “Please, señor, this land is all we have.”
Voice high and cracking, McGivens shouted, “ ‘And the lord shall expel them before you, and ye shall possess their land!’ ”
The gunman snapped his fingers for the deed.
Snarling with defiance, Cortez tossed it to the ground. Hurling Blanca to the dirt, McGivens snatched up the paper and drew back, allowing his posse to take aim on the helpless couple even as Guillermo helped his wife to her feet.
“You talk like a man of God, but you’re the devil!” screamed Cortez, the breath raw from his throat as hatred swelled within him.
McGivens stole a glance at his gleaming guns. “My dear friend, I simply offer you a choice: ‘Salvation’ or ‘Damnation’…course you gotta die to find either one.”
“How true,” said a familiar voice.
Blanca’s eyes widened as she saw the man in black press his sword point against the back of McGivens’s neck. The flesh around the gunman’s scar crinkled as he silently swore.
“Drop your guns,” commanded Zorro. “All of you.”
Nostrils flaring, heart hammering, McGivens threw down his weapons and nodded to his men. Exchanging angry murmurs, they reluctantly tossed their guns to the dirt.
Zorro fixed his gaze on Blanca and Guillermo. “Get in the house.”
The couple raced inside, nodding gratefully to their savior. Out of the corner of his eye, Zorro saw McGivens’s men repositioning themselves, fanning out in a wide arc around him. He knew at once what they were planning—and he was ready for them.
Driving McGivens forward with his sword, Zorro edged him closer to the oblong water trough.
“Tell your men at the railroad, their time is over,” hissed Zorro.
“Railroad?” The scarred man laughed mournfully. “You are one blind Mexican. You got no idea what you’re getting yourself into…’’
“Neither do you,” Zorro assured him. With a spinning kick, Zorro sent McGivens face first into the trough. Great jolting splatters of water burst from it as the scarred man splashed down, his arms and legs flailing.
“Kill that Goddamn Mexican!” the floundering gunman wailed.
Zorro leaped for the adobe wall, scaling it with ease as he heard McGivens’s men snatching up their weapons in response to their boss’s sputtering command.
The frantic chickens and startled pigs within the enclosure scattered as Zorro dropped down among them. Breaking into a run, Zorro heard his pursuers crest the wall and flop down to the muddy earth, cocking their weapons. Racing ahead in a wild zig-zag pattern, Zorro felt his heart leap into his throat as explosives rang out at his back and clumps of dirt flew up on either side of him. Then—
Click-click-click.
All three riflemen were out of bullets. Whirling, Zorro raised his sword, determined not to give his enemies time to reload.
Ahead, at the house, the soaked and still dripping McGivens led four of his hired guns to the rancho’s back porch. His gaze skimmed across their faces. Then he chose the one with the least resolve and nodded to him. With a noticeable quiver, the short, curly-haired man whose only redeeming feature was his creative use of swear words, lifted one boot and showed the sole to the door. Before he could kick it down, a shotgun blast ripped through it, hurtling the shrieking man back, his chest a gaping hole, the ragged edges of his coat crackling with tiny flames.
McGivens leaped for cover, quickly gathering his three remaining killers together behind the water trough. Drawing his guns, he loosed a barrage at the porch door, the windows, and the walls.
Within the cabin, a relentless hail of bullets tore over Guillermo and Blanca’s heads. The baby was now cradled in Blanca’s arms. Reloading his shotgun, Guillermo propelled his beloved wife and son toward a hatch in the floor. His friend Alejandro had told him that creating such secret hiding places was not necessary in this new, free land, but Guillermo had preferred playing it safe.
“Get in!” screamed Guillermo.
“Don’t let them hurt you,” begged Blanca.
He kissed her and caressed his son’s cheek as if he might never see either of them again, bullets buzzing overhead. “I won’t, I promise. Go.”
She lowered herself into the crawlspace beneath the house. Their eyes met once more, then he closed and locked the hatch, covering it over with a rug. Cracking open the barrel of his shotgun, he loaded two more shells and prayed that his aim would be true.
With no time to reload their weapons, McGivens’s hired men brandished their deadly blades and charged Zorro with a chorus of furious howls.
“Three against one,” Zorro mused. “Hardly seems fair—for you.”
Zorro raced ahead to a gathering of driftwood stacked high enough to keep the animals penned in. All three men careened after him as he leaped onto the driftwood, the large logs teetering then beginning to roll and falter beneath his boots as he attempted to scramble over them and into the cornfield beyond. Two of the three men advanced clumsily. From the manner in which they brandished their swords, Zorro guessed their weapons were normally regarded as nothing more than overgrown pig-stickers, something to be used against unarmed opponents.
A shorter, raven-haired man with what appeared to be dark Italian features leaped out before the other two. He expertly employed a balestra, a great, showy hop followed by a skillful fleche attack. Zorro whirled, his sword sparking as he easily deflected the blow aimed for his chest
“Not bad,” Zorro remarked with a roguish grin. The logs slipped and scrambled beneath his feet as the man surged at him once more. Zorro dodged the thrust and kicked his diminutive opponent in the ribs, sending him faltering back onto his cohorts. The logs rolled and piled onto the trio as Zorro leaped off the logs, and ran toward the great rows of corn ahead.
“I don’t know what McGivens is paying you,” taunted Zorro as he disappeared into the tall stalks. “Whatever it is—it isn’t enough!”
Beneath the rancho, Blanca lay on her side in the dust, her eyes wide with fright as she held her beloved son close. Her husband’s shotgun rang out and was chorused by explosive bursts of return fire from the invaders, drowning out her baby’s cries.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she turned her head away. Madre de dios—merciful lord, I beg of you, spare your humble servants. Let us live for our child
, please!
When she opened her eyes once more, a bright flash of light pierced her vision and made her flinch—but before she could look away, she realized that the sudden illumination revealed a clear path stretching from her hideaway to the barn.
A sign from above! Crossing herself quickly, she crawled forward and scrambled out from beneath the porch into the breezy open air, which was marred by low drifting clouds bearing the hellish stink of gunpowder.
Suppressing the urge to cough, she kept low and raced ahead for the barn’s welcoming doors.
She didn’t see McGivens spot her from behind the trough, signaling two of his men to follow.
Sunlight refracted off the towering blades of grass and curling husks rustling high above the heads of the angry fighting men. Cries and curses emanated from the narrow maze-like channels where Zorro evaded the pair of less experienced swordsmen following him. The far more formidable opponent he had sparred with earlier was certain to spring up at any moment.
Sighing, Zorro dove deeper into the maze, disappearing and reappearing often enough to madden his two loutish pursuers. Once they were frothing, he strode into full view, allowing them to close in on him from either side.
He held his stance until the tips of their blades were within inches of impaling him, then he burst backward, watching with grim satisfaction as his attackers ran each other through. Shuddering, the dying men clung to one another, eyes wide. They sank as one, drops of their blood glistening on the trembling forest of stalks surrounding them.
The true attack came practically without warning.
Zorro might have been run through himself had he not seen a darting shadow out of the corner of his eye. He quickly leaped to one side as the Italian appeared, his blade biting through Zorro’s heavy cape and scraping his silver medallion, which had swung to one side. With a sharp, “Hah!” Zorro punched his attacker full in the face and then sprung back.
They fought with a flurry of powerful lightning strikes, riposte thrusts and retreats. The Italian expertly executed a coupe, or cutover, a deceptive attack passing his blade over the tip of Zorro’s sword, followed by a clever compound series of bold attacks and feints. Jamming Zorro’s sword high and away from his body, the Italian landed his fist on Zorro’s surprised face.
Touché!
Retreating a few paces to catch his breath, Zorro gazed deeply into the brooding eyes of his attacker. In the early days when Alejandro wore the mask of Zorro, he often wondered what could possibly drive a man to become a killer for hire, to treat life and death as casually as one might treat the choice of entrée at an all too familiar restaurant. He’d even asked the question once of a man to whom he’d had no choice but to deal a fatal blow.
“Some just enjoy it,” the man croaked before gasping his final breath.
The Italian swordsman enjoyed killing. Zorro could tell just from the look in his eyes.
Zorro planted his feet and allowed his opponent a dozen rapid hits against his blade. All the while, the masked hero studied his opponent’s stances and lunges, the precise manner in which he willed his body and his blade to be one.
With a few more strikes, Zorro would know precisely how to fell this murderous wretch.
But he would not be given that much time.
Zorro could see the Cortez barn from here. Blanca was out in the open, running for its shelter, unaware that an evil giant and his cohort loped gleefully behind her.
The air hissed. Zorro’s blade flashed, catching the Italian’s sabre in a sudden shower of sparks. The Italian was on him, taking advantage of his distraction, a gleam of sunlight alerting Zorro to the presence of a second, smaller blade now clutched in the Italian’s free hand.
Leaping back, Zorro avoided the short blade and trapped the man’s sabre with his own. He lunged at the hand holding the knife, grabbed the man’s wrist. Twisting it brutally, he snapped the bone and shoved him away, unmindful of his sudden shrieking.
Turning his back on the fallen man, Zorro bolted for the barn.
Blanca entered the barn. With shaking hands she locked the door shut, then shrieked as it exploded inches from her fingers, a bullet ripping through the lock. Whirling, she dove beneath a mound of hay an instant before the door banged open and two men barreled in. The light of the raging sun outside cast their faces partially in silhouette, but Blanca didn’t need to see them clearly to know they were devils. Who or what else would follow a man like McGivens?
If he was a man at all, and not the devil in the flesh.
She heard her pursuers separate, one moving toward the hearth. It is not a sin to send the devil back to hell, Blanca told herself as she set the baby down—and erupted from beneath the hay and snatched a poker with a glowing crimson tip from the fire. One of the gunmen whirled and with a savage scream, Blanca drove the tip into his chest with a sickening thuck. He stiffened and coughed, blood bubbling from his chapped lips, his murderous gaze locked on hers as his twitching hand groped for her throat.
“Filth,” she snarled, forcing him away. Bellowing, the impaled man stumbled back, flames bursting from his coat as he fell into a bale of hay which ignited with a startling whoosh, sending tongues of hellfire streaming up the walls.
A second larger man charged as the raging fire engulfed the barn. He’d abandoned his rifle, sweeping a sword out with his huge hand instead. She could see him plainly now: he was not a demon, just a common man, with drink on his breath and the desire to hurt others blazing in his eyes. Hotly pursued, Blanca scrambled onto a ladder and climbed toward the hayloft, where an open window beckoned. With a cry of frustration, the strapping man vaulted onto the ladder and spidered toward her. Just as she was about to clear the second floor landing, a hot, greasy hand closed over her ankle, and she shrieked as she was hauled back into the empty air. She plummeted a dozen feet down, landing painfully upon her back on the baking earth in a mad tangle of limbs, alongside her groping attacker.
Cracking her elbow into his throat, Blanca scrambled free and sprang to her feet, her baby still on the ground. Her opponent was quick, his hand closing over the hilt of his blade in a blur. Snatching it up, he aimed it at the frightened woman’s heart, ready to run her through. The fires spreading across the barn cast an amber glow on his ugly face, and spit gold into his dark evil eyes.
A high sharp whistle sounded over the crackling flames. A whip snapped, its tip coiling around the broad man’s arm and violently yanking it back, jerking the weapon from his determined grasp. The blade whisked through the air—and Zorro darted to one side to avoid its sharp and eager point. A startled cry exploded behind the masked man. Zorro craned to look over his shoulder, just in time to witness the wounded Italian from the cornfield sink to his knees and collapse as the strapping man’s sabre buried deep in his chest.
A sudden wall of flames rose between Blanca and her child. Zorro snatched up the infant and whirled as his opponent then grabbed a huge hammer from Guillermo’s forge, leering as he raised the weapon. Zorro thrust out his free hand for his fallen sword—and snatched it back as the hammer fell, its thunderous blow thumping explosively against the earth, missing his fingers by a mere fraction of an inch. The hammer whirled again, his attacker swinging the weapon hard enough to take Zorro’s head off with a single blow.
Stumbling back beyond the weapon’s terrible reach, Zorro crashed into a collection of shovels and pikes. Grabbing one of the shovels, Zorro swung it around, slicing it low in a punishing arc aimed at his opponent’s knees. The big man laughed, leaping high like a gleeful child skipping rope to avoid the shovel’s blade, his hammer sailing down toward Zorro’s skull as the shovel harmlessly flashed beyond him. Landing with a heavy thud, his hammer narrowly missed its target.
Sweeping a pile of burning hay up at the face of the surprisingly nimble man, Zorro thrust his free hand into the array of fallen tools at his feet, throwing pikes, plates and whatever came to hand at the seemingly invincible foe, driving him back with a series of thuds and angry groans.
The baby wailed in his arms, and he kissed the boy’s forehead and hummed a little tune he used to sing to Joaquin.
From all around, the fires rose and boldly licked at them with lascivious desire.
Sensing his own peril, the man grunted, his huge hammer thudding to the ground as he drew a great broadsword from beside Guillermo’s forge.
Zorro heard a heavy moaning creak from above. Worried that the flaming roof was about to collapse, he looked up and spotted pitchforks, scythes, and a trio of machetes dangling from a weakening roof beam. A straining rope anchored low and within reach held them in place.
The large man’s sword cleaved the thick air, the furious slash of the great broadsword bold and powerful enough to cut a man in two. Zorro dived beneath the crescent arc of the blow. Snatching up his own fallen sword, he struck clean through the rope securing the cache of sharp tools. He heard a snap, a shriek, and a clangor of madly rushing steel raining down from directly above his attacker’s head. The sounds that burst from the man when the steel struck home might have been more at home in a butcher shop—and were mercifully muffled by the roar of flames. The swordsman’s threat was ended—but everywhere Alejandro looked, geysers of crackling flame rose in challenge.
They were trapped!
Guillermo raised his shotgun, cautiously peering a few inches higher than he had dared mere moments ago, when the seemingly ceaseless barrage from outside had laid ruin to the home he had built for his family. Had Señor Zorro put down the mad dogs that had come for him?
Fury tingeing his world a bright crimson, Guillermo sprang to his feet, shotgun ready as he faced the door, almost hoping to see the grinning face of Jacob McGivens—so that he could empty his weapon into it.
There was no one. His ears rang as strange sounds echoed outside, and his nostrils flared as he whiffed smoke. Was McGivens setting fire to the house?
Blanca!
A sickening wave of terror welling up inside him, Guillermo raced to the crawlspace hatch, surprised to see the rug swept to one side, the hatch thrown open, the broken lock laying off to one side. It looked as if it had been kicked open from within.
The Legend of Zorro Page 14