Bannerman the Enforcer 18

by Kirk Hamilton

  “Not from where I’m standin’,” Cato said flatly.

  Garcia continued to smile and shrugged, his dark eyes hard. “We have rooms prepared for you upstairs, señors. Much more comfortable than the one you had in Los Moros.”

  Yancey looked at him sharply, something in the man’s tone warning him that all was not as it seemed.

  “And we can come and go when we like?” he asked.

  Garcia made a gesture with his hands. “It would be best if you stayed in your rooms until you are required, señors ... You understand?”

  Yancey raked a hard glare around, taking in the officer, Cannon and, finally, El Halcon. He nodded slowly. “Sure, I understand. We might have silk shirts and there might be clean sheets on a feather bed upstairs, but we’re still prisoners ... all we’ve done is exchange one cell for another.”

  El Halcon sniffed loudly and there was a swift cold gleam of teeth beneath his waxed moustache. Yancey suddenly realized that the man was smiling, amused. But, of course, the smile did not touch those mad eyes.

  There were no armed guards on the door of the set of rooms given to Yancey and Cato but, when they went out into the passage, there was always a Mexican apparently dozing at each end: one near the stairs, the other near the window.

  From the window they could see down into the courtyard and a flagged area behind the stables. Here was a separate adobe building that likely served once as a bunkhouse for the vaqueros. But it had been altered now: windows covered with heavy oak planks, the door strengthened and guarded by two armed men. The wagons that had been used to transport the stolen guns down from the Rio were nearby and the agents guessed that the contraband weapons were stored inside. The ammunition and powder were probably there too.

  The building was marked as a prime target by Yancey and Cato—if they could ever get out of the ranch house. Cannon came to see them late in the afternoon of the first day and told them that El Halcon’s ‘army’ of peons was slowly converging on the rancho from all points of the compass.

  “Hold up there, amigo,” Cato said, shaking his head. “That wasn’t part of the deal ... Fact, this bein’ kept prisoner wasn’t part of the deal either.”

  Cannon looked very sober. “El Halcon makes the deals in this neck of the woods, Colt. It ain’t healthy to buck him.” He smiled abruptly. “Don’t worry, he’ll see you’ve got no complaints. He wants you to be happy. That’s why he sent this along.”

  He went to the door, opened it and snapped his fingers. Two flashing-eyed señoritas, painted and smiling mechanically, came into the room and stood almost shyly by the wall for the approval of Cato and Yancey. Cannon grinned, winked and went out fast, closing the door after him.

  Yancey shook his head slowly as the shortest of the two girls came towards him, smiling widely, showing him a bare shoulder, easing the neckline of her peasant blouse a little. He wasn’t averse to a little female company, but he had other things on his mind right now ...

  Then he spun sharply towards Cato and the second girl. “Well, I’ll be ...!” he heard Cato exclaim. “Felicia!”

  “Johneeee!” cried the girl, tall and willowy, with a small mole high on her right cheek. Her teeth flashed brilliantly against her dusky skin as she threw her arms around Cato and embraced him. He clutched her to him and kissed her bare neck. He whirled her around once and then set her down, pushing her back at arm’s length and looking at her.

  “Well, I reckon you’re handsomer than ever! That husband of yours must be treatin’ you right these days.”

  The smaller girl, still standing by Yancey, was smiling, seeming pleased that Felicia and Cato knew each other. Yancey frowned and Cato turned to him, an arm around Felicia’s waist.

  “Guess you wouldn’t know Felicia, Yancey, but you remember I was nearly caught in—er—compromising circumstances, I think you called it—with a married lady in this here town when we first met up?” i

  Yancey nodded. He remembered. The fact that his gunshot at some bandits had made Cato look out a cantina window in time to see Felicia’s husband, had started their friendship. Cato, on the run, had seen Yancey in trouble, and together, they had shot their way out of town ...

  “This the girl, huh?” he asked, gesturing towards Felicia.

  The girl nodded as emphatically as Cato, clinging to his left arm. “This is her ... Where is your husband now, honey?”

  Felicia sobered a little and drew a hand across her throat in a cutting motion. “El Halcon ... Ramon was caught stealing gold. He died ... ’orribly!” She shuddered and the other girl was sober too.

  “But you work for him,” Yancey said and she shrugged.

  “I have to live. But some day I will kill him. He had no need to be so cruel to Ramon …”

  “Er, Yance ... Maybe you and the other gal there’d like to kind of go and admire the view from the other room for a spell, huh?” Cato suggested with a solemn wink. Yancey frowned and began to speak, but Cato added, “While Felicia and me have a little—talk. I figure we got quite a few things to discuss.”

  Yancey nodded slowly, his eyes holding Cato’s gaze levelly. “I savvy, amigo. Come on, señorita. Let’s you and me take a little walk.”

  The girl smiled and took his arm, following her out as Cato took Felicia’s hand and led her across the room ...

  It was night. Black, star-studded desert night with the hacienda gleaming whitely, a ghostly collection of buildings, in total darkness except for the faint glow of a hallway lantern showing in the upper section of a top floor window. It was the hallway outside of Yancey’s and Cato’s room that was lighted, and the two guards lounged and dozed at their normal positions. One at the top of the stairs, the other by the window.

  They looked up as the door of Yancey’s room opened quietly and Felicia and her girlfriend slipped out into the passage. Both looked a little disheveled and adjusted their clothing as they turned and blew silent kisses back into the room. Then, laughing quietly, they started down the hall, aware of the appreciative and envious eyes of the guards. Felicia stopped, tapping a thoughtful finger against her lips as the man by the top of the stairs made a sly remark in Spanish, calling to his companion, but his words obviously meant for the girls. The smaller señorita giggled and rolled her eyes mischievously at Felicia, who smiled and put more sway into her hips as she started forward again. The guard straightened, said an incredulous, “Aiy-eee, querida!” and propped his rifle against the wall, smoothing back his untidy hair. The small girl moved seductively towards the man near the window and he, too, left his rifle leaning against the wall as he waited impatiently for the girl to reach him ...

  Within minutes both girls were caught up in passionate embraces and the guards had their minds occupied with thoughts that had nothing to do with guarding the top floor of the rancho.

  They died happily, never feeling the thrust of the buckle-blades as Yancey and Cato drove them home.

  “You be all right, Felicia?” he asked, checking the action on the Snider rifle he had taken from the dead guard.

  She nodded. “Good luck, querida. Perhaps one day we will meet again ... ?”

  He kissed her but broke off as Yancey called urgently. The big man had the window thrown up and one leg already over the sill. As Cato ran down the hall towards him, Yancey, holding the rifle in one hand, lowered himself by his other hand on the sill, hung for a moment and then dropped the remaining few feet to the courtyard. He was joined by Cato a few moments later. Crouching, cradling the Sniders across their chests, both men turned towards the rear of the house and into the flagged yard around the stables.

  Yancey stopped dead as he saw movement in the shadows near the stable doors and Cato cannoned into him in the dark, slipped on the flagstones and fell. The rifle clattered from his hands, shockingly loud, skidding across the terracotta. Cato swore, rolled, snatched at the weapon as Yancey saw that he had not been mistaken: a man had been lurking in the shadows by the stables, an armed man, who now stepped out into the light, his ri
fle coming up as he called a challenge. Yancey figured the game was up as of right now and he snapped the Snider’s barrel into line with the guard and triggered. The bolt-action, small-caliber continental weapon whiplashed and the guard spun completely about, dropping his own rifle, but not going down. Yancey worked the bolt swiftly, up, back, forward, down and lock, and squeezed off a second shot. This time the man went down and lay still but by then there were shouts from the stables and the house, as well as from the guards down by the armory.

  “See you back in Texas, Johnny!” Yancey yelled, for they had decided while the girls had been distracting the guards in the hallway, that if trouble started, they would separate and make their own way back to Texas. If they lived long enough, of course.

  “Good luck, pard!” Cato called, crouching, rifle butt braced into hip, one hand working the bolt as fast as he could, while he squeezed off shot after shot at the men pouring out of the stables, until the box magazine was empty. Then he ran forward, yelling, swinging the long-barreled rifle by the muzzle, slamming the iron-bound butt into the face of a Mexican just getting to his feet. He jumped over the man as he went down, brought the butt up into the groin of another man, and lost his grip on the gun altogether. He snatched at the man’s pistol, whirled and was in time to ram the muzzle deep into the soft stomach of a man who was swinging at him with a machete. The explosion of the pistol was muffled and the recoil almost tore it from his grasp. The Mexican screamed and was blown back three feet by the blast. Cato crouched on one knee, swinging the pistol around, finding out that it was a double-action English Webley and that there was no need for him to cock the hammer between each shot: all he had to do was pull the trigger. This he did four times and three Mexicans went down yelling and, suddenly, there were no more guards between him and the long line of horses.

  Cato rammed the unfamiliar revolver into his belt and dived into the first stall, ripping saddle gear from wall pegs. Outside, guns were hammering and he wondered how Yancey was making out …

  Yancey’s rifle was empty, too, and he threw it at the only man still moving in the flagged area. It caught the Mexican a glancing blow and Yancey went in under the man’s arm, straightening fast, bringing the top of his head up into the man’s face. He felt the nose go and his hair was suddenly wet with gushing blood. He chopped a blow into the man’s neck and wrested the rifle from his hands, fumbled and dropped it. The man was still falling and Yancey grabbed at the gun holstered at his side. He had trouble getting it free of the holster and someone started shooting at him from the house. Then the gun came free, a heavy, bulky weapon, and he swung with it in both hands and triggered at the gun flash in a lower floor window.

  It was only when he was cocking the hammer back for a second shot that he felt the strange metallic bulge on one side and looked at it swiftly in the dim light. It was enough to tell him, together with a swift examination by his fingertips, that he was holding Cato’s Manstopper. The guard must have taken it for himself and was wearing it when he rushed Yancey. The big agent bared his teeth in a grin, dived for the flags and rolled swiftly in towards the hacienda as guns in the house fired at him again. He came up against the adobe wall, near a window, gun at the ready, and then he heard a woman’s scream inside the house, a scream that chilled his blood. A moment later, Felicia’s body thudded onto the flags beneath the window and he heard her life bubbling out of her open mouth, saw the gaping wound in her throat. Even as he stared, the body of the small Mexican señorita crashed down on top of Felicia. Her throat, too, had been cut.

  From a window above, came a stream of rapid Spanish, followed a few seconds later by Cannon’s breathless voice:

  “That’s all the mercy you can expect from El Halcon, Banner! Except he promises you’ll die a lot slower!”

  Shaking with all-consuming rage, Yancey didn’t pause to think: he leaped to his feet and dived headlong through the nearest ground floor window, feeling the shattering glass slicing at his flesh and ripping his white shirt. But he ignored the wounds, somersaulted when he landed in the room and a gun thundered twice in the darkness. He rolled fast towards the muzzle flashes and caught a glimpse of someone diving through the doorway into the hall while he was still rolling. Squirming onto his stomach, dragging the heavy gun around with a grunt, Yancey squeezed off a shot and heard it thud solidly into flesh, followed by the heavy crash of a big body. He jumped up and went through the door fast, gun cocked. He almost fell over the sprawled body of Cannon and the giant twisted, one hand clawing at his back, trying to bring his gun up and around with the other hand. Yancey shot him dispassionately in the middle of the face ... and reeled back as white-hot pain drove through his left shoulder and upper arm. He blinked at the knife hilt protruding from his flesh, slanted upwards, telling him even through the red haze of pain that it had been thrown from up the stairs.

  Yancey fell to one knee as a gun roared up the stairs and lead whined past his ear. Feeling the pain flooding through him and the blood coursing down his arm, Yancey fought off the dizziness and thumbed the toggle on the gun-hammer that would change it to the shotgun barrel.

  He heard footsteps and looked up to see the small, mad eyed form of El Halcon stalking down towards him, a smoking pistol thrust out in front of him, clearly wanting to be close enough to see his bullet go into Yancey. The big agent was almost out to it with pain from the knife and he fell onto his side, strained to bring up the Manstopper as the Hawk came down the stairs a further two steps, stopped and raised his gun, sighting carefully at Yancey’s lower belly.

  Yancey felt consciousness slipping from him as he made one last effort, brought the Manstopper up and dropped hammer. The gun thundered and leaped from his weakening grip. But the pattern of buckshot was sufficient to catch El Halcon, raking upwards from midriff to face, sending the man staggering back against the wall, clawing at his shredded cheeks. He cannoned off the wall, stumbled and fell forward, his head ramming between the carved upright of the banister rail.

  He was dead when Cato rushed in, took in the bloody scene at a glance, and knelt swiftly beside Yancey. The big agent opened his eyes, focusing with difficulty.

  “You’re supposed to be on your way to ... Texas,” he gasped.

  “Was just startin’ out when I heard the old Manstopper. Couldn’t leave then.” He gestured briefly to the dead rebel leader. “See it did its usual good work.”

  Yancey nodded, clutching at his wounded shoulder. “We can’t leave that armory full of rifles for the Hawk’s men when they arrive, Johnny.”

  “All taken care of,” Cato said. “There’s a long fuse burnin’ now into a keg of black powder in the middle of the buildin’. Fact is, we better get out of here mighty soon.”

  “Help me up,” Yancey grunted, lifting his good arm towards Cato ...

  They were on a knoll, maybe half a mile away, a crude bandage and pad over Yancey’s wound, when the armory blew. It was spectacular: a thunderous detonation and a sheet of multi-colored flame to start with, then, as black, white and gray smoke boiled up, the stored rounds of ammunition started to go, arcing up in trails of fire, crackling and spitting. Even out here, they felt the force of the blast wave washing over them like the dry heat slamming out of an open furnace door.

  “Must be a hole ten yards wide,” opined Yancey quietly.

  “Just like the Fourth of July,” said Cato as fresh cartridges started exploding.

  Then they turned their mounts and started north, back up the long trail to Texas.

  BANNERMAN 18: DAY OF THE LAWLESS

  By Kirk Hamilton

  First Published by The Cleveland Publishing Pty Ltd

  Copyright © Cleveland Publishing Co. Pty Ltd, New South Wales, Australia

  First SMASHWORDS Edition: May 2018

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Series Editor: Ben Bridges

  Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Published by Arrangement with The Cleveland Publishing Pty Ltd.

  About the Author

  Keith Hetherington

  aka Kirk Hamilton, Brett Waring and Hank J. Kirby

  Australian writer Keith has worked as television scriptwriter on such Australian TV shows as Homicide, Matlock Police, Division 4, Solo One, The Box, The Spoiler and Chopper Squad.

  “I always liked writing little vignettes, trying to describe the action sequences I saw in a film or the Saturday Afternoon Serial at local cinemas,” remembers Keith Hetherington, better-known to Piccadilly Publishing readers as Hank J. Kirby, author of the Bronco Madigan series.

  Keith went on to pen hundreds of westerns (the figure varies between 600 and 1000) under the names Kirk Hamilton (including the legendary Bannerman the Enforcer series) and Clay Nash as Brett Waring. Keith also worked as a journalist for the Queensland Health Education Council, writing weekly articles for newspapers on health subjects and radio plays dramatizing same.

  More on Keith Hetherington

  The Bannerman Series by Kirk Hamilton

  The Enforcer

  Ride the Lawless Land