Long Road to LaRosa (West Texas Sunrise Book #2)

by Paul Bagdon

  The first round struck a rock twenty feet to his right and ricocheted, its scream like that of a banshee. Then a cacophony of rifle and pistol reports tore the night apart. Ben swung Snorty back and forth in wide arcs at a full, breakneck gallop, making his path impossible to predict. The fires rushed toward him, and he saw dark shapes moving rapidly past the flames.

  Snorty was as strong as a locomotive as Ben drew close enough to see that some of the outlaws had their backs to him and were firing away from him. He threw a pistol shot at a man with a rifle standing in front of the left fire and saw a quick spit of dirt about four feet in front of the outlaw. Ben raised the muzzle of his pistol a few inches and squeezed the trigger twice. The rifleman went down.

  Ben dragged Snorty into a sliding right turn and then into a left, placing him on a course between the two fires. A slug soughed by his shoulder, touching his sleeve as gently as a mother’s touch, and another geysered dirt a yard in front of Snorty. A fat man swung a rifle toward him and then fell to his knees as Ben fired by instinct, without aiming.

  The fires were much closer now—twenty yards—and then ten in a heartbeat. Ben aimed at an outlaw and squeezed the trigger. The hammer fell on a spent cartridge. He holstered the gun and took a wrap around the saddle horn with the ends of his reins, leaving Snorty enough slack to continue his run. Then he reached into the pockets of his vest.

  Lee counted her shots, firing first toward one fire and then the other, keeping her horse at a fast lope. She took a wrap around the saddle horn with her reins and pushed the cylinder of her pistol open with her thumb, letting the spent cartridges drop free. Then, taking them one at a time from between her teeth, she fed in six fresh bullets. She clicked the cylinder closed, freed the reins with her left hand, and turned her horse back in the direction from which she’d come. She was close enough to the pandemonium near the fires to hear the curses and yells of the outlaws as they fought against their unseen attackers.

  She was much closer to the outlaw camp than Ben had wanted her to be; it was her decision, she believed, and she’d opted to come into the action, where she could do the most good. A bullet whispered past at chest height, and another buzzed over her head. Again she counted her shots. She placed two rounds toward what appeared to be a cluster of three or four outlaws, then fired two more at a muzzle flash. Her fifth round went directly into the fire, scattering bits of burning wood into the air. She shot at another muzzle flash and then tucked the pistol into her pocket and slowed the gray as she reached back to her saddlebag for more ammunition.

  Strangely, the sharp click of a hammer striking a cartridge reached her ears over the almost-constant gunfire from the camp. Then, immediately, she heard a hoarse, guttural string of profanity and felt a body slam against the side of her horse. Strong, hard hands were wrenching at her left arm and shoulder, attempting to dump her from her saddle. Her weakened horse stumbled under the impact but caught his balance.

  Lee clenched her fist and swung hard at the face of the outlaw who was now almost in her lap. The sweat on the man’s face glistened in the light from the fires, and her breath caught in her throat. It was the outlaw she’d floored during the bank robbery in Burnt Rock. She swung again and again at his face in a panicked frenzy. His eyes, embers against his skin, radiated pure hatred.

  The gray, confused and beginning to panic, moved clumsily, not allowing the outlaw to get his feet under himself steadily enough to use his weight and superior strength to haul Lee down from her horse. The man bettered his grip, still cursing, one arm over her lap and clenched over her right leg, the other dragging at her left shoulder. Her fist skidded across the sweatslick face without much effect until she punched his nose with a fear-generated strength she didn’t know she possessed.

  Blood gushed from the man’s nostrils in torrents, spattering her clothes and face. But his grip didn’t loosen—instead he boosted himself almost across her lap. The fetid, hot gasps of the man’s breath gagged her as she continued to pound at his face. She screamed and grasped a handful of his thickly knotted, greasy hair and did her best to wrench his head backwards.

  But her strength was nothing against the bull-like muscles of his neck. The man was double her weight and was fueled by unadulterated hatred. She let go of his hair and jammed her right hand into her pocket in search of her pistol. Even though the weapon wasn’t loaded, she could use it to batter his face. But his hold on her leg made reaching the gun impossible. She struggled to get her fingers around the bone grips, strained to wedge her hand under the gun. It was futile. Dear God, please . . .

  The tips of her fingers touched the flat surface of the piece of knifelike stone she’d found days ago. She screamed again and pulled the stone free. She clutched it in her fist and swung the weapon in a vicious arc across the outlaw’s face.

  The blade gouged down the length of his cheek from beneath his ear to below his jaw—and then it pierced flesh and seemed to sink away from her hand. The outlaw’s eyes flared as he opened his mouth to scream, but he was only able to bring forth a wet, gurgling sound. He released his grip and fell away, striking the ground on his back. She looked back at him. Both of his hands were moving toward his throat. She brought her horse under control and raced out into the darkness.

  Ben bent forward at the waist, his hands clutched around as many cartridges as each would hold; two from his left hand escaped and dropped to the ground. The fires were within yards of him, and then within feet. Fewer bullets sought him out as he barreled toward the opening between the fires, guiding Snorty with knee and leg pressure, urging yet more speed with his voice.

  Clusters of men gaped openmouthed at him as if he were an apparition; a few stopped midmotion. Ben straightened in the saddle and pitched a handful of bullets into the fire on his right. The fire to the left was too far away to reach with an offside pitch. He used his right hand to pull Snorty into a sliding stop and then rolled the horse back over his haunches and hurled him back toward the fire. As his horse scrambled into a gallop, he twisted in the saddle and dug both hands into his saddlebag, filling them with bullets and then clutching them tightly at his waist.

  The outlaws were no longer stunned; lead screamed past him, the slugs seeming as thick as a cloud of angry wasps. He kneed Snorty into a collision course with the fire and prayed for more speed. He could see the men’s faces clearly now, as well as the barrels of rifles belching fire and the muzzles of pistols flashing quick bits of whiter light. A bullet slammed the cantle of his saddle. Another round gouged a long furrow across the top of Snorty’s rump, and another smacked Ben’s left stirrup, jarring his boot loose.

  Then Snorty was in the air, launching over the fire, the flames licking greedily at his sweat-drenched belly. He and Ben were weightless for a moment, floating, and then were captured once again by gravity.

  Ben opened his hands and let the cartridges cascade into the conflagration. For the smallest part of a second, his eyes met with those of Zeb Stone, who was standing in a half crouch, his mouth pulled back in a lupine snarl. Ben knew their battle would be to the death—the clashing of their eyes sealed the violent pact. There was no going back, and he didn’t even want to.

  The bullets in the right fire began exploding as Snorty dug away from the camp. Outlaws sprinted away, running awkwardly, their shoulders hunched and chins tucked.

  The crackling of shots and the screams and yells of the outlaws fell rapidly behind Ben as Snorty carried him away from the melee. The cartridges exploding in the fires had a different sound than those fired from the guns—a sharp crack! rather than the deeper voice of a shot muffled by the chamber and barrel of a weapon. In a few moments the ammunition in the fires had done its work, and the only gunfire Ben could hear was a random round. Those too ended in another few moments.

  Ben rode hard, putting space between himself and the outlaw camp. He doubted the outlaws would come after him, but he wouldn’t swear to anything where Zeb Stone was concerned. After a while, he brought Snorty down to a
slow lope, letting his mount carry that gait for a good distance before reining him to a walk.

  Then he drew rein and dismounted. When his fingers moved over Snorty’s rump and down his flank, the horse flinched and took a quick step backward. Ben’s fingers came away with a thick wetness on them. He lowered his head to Snorty’s skin and peered closely where his fingers had touched. He cringed when his eyes picked out a foot-long channel carved into the hide and muscle of the horse’s right flank. He found another, shorter furrow low on Snorty’s rump.

  Neither wound seemed to be bleeding badly, but both were open to the air, and flies would be a problem the next day. He moved to Snorty’s head and rubbed his hands up and down the dripping horse’s muzzle, still speaking softly to him. He tugged the bandana from around his neck and used it to wipe down his mount’s chest and sides. Snorty grunted with pleasure, his breathing rapidly returning to a normal pace. When he snorted almost thunderously, Ben figured his partner hadn’t suffered any long-lasting ill effects.

  Ben too was coming down from the massive wave of adrenaline that had carried him through the assault and escape. The images, sounds, and smells of the battle washed over him; he could feel slugs reaching for him, touching his clothing, hissing past his ears. He shook the thoughts away and instead focused on Lee.

  But pictures once again flashed through his mind—far more frightening pictures than those of before. Lee being shot from the back of her horse. Lee slamming into the dirt and rocks. Lee screaming as half a dozen desperados dragged her up from the ground . . .

  He shook his head violently. I told her to stay out of range. She’d do that—she’d obey me. She knew how important it was that she stay out of pistol range. She wouldn’t . . .

  But he knew she would.

  Ordering Lee Morgan to do something was like ordering a hawk not to protect her nest. Ben searched the darkness around him, looking for her. He loosened Snorty’s girth, grabbed the reins, and walked ahead of the horse. After a hundred yards he passed his hand under the saddle. Snorty’s hide was cool, and his breathing was slow and normal. Ben mounted up as the sun was peeking over the black line of the horizon.

  They weren’t much more than three hundred yards apart when they saw one another. Two tired horses galloped toward each other across the prairie in the seething heat of the direct sun, and Ben and Lee were out of their saddles and into each other’s arms.

  They soon found a small oasis where the stream that cut through the prairie—the same stream they’d bathed in a few days earlier—formed a shallow pool. Ben shot a prairie hen and a fat blacksnake and built a fire, not bothering to conceal the smoke. Lee took Snorty into the pool and washed him down with the tepid water, sluicing it over his wounds and inspecting them carefully, looking for any sign of infection or any bit of foreign matter. She then mixed a paste of soil, water, and bits of reddish clay from the streambed and applied it thickly over the gouges in Snorty’s hide.

  They didn’t speak much as they set up their camp and made preparations to sleep through the day until it was time to ride.

  “We gotta get this over with soon,” Ben finally commented. “I need to get some coffee.” When Lee failed to respond, he asked, “What happened last night?”

  “What happened,” she said carefully, “is that I’m sure I killed another man. He had hold of me and was trying to pull me out of my saddle. It was the man I hurt back in Burnt Rock, in the bank. I had a piece of shale, I guess it was, that I picked up a while ago. My pistol was empty. I stabbed him in the neck. He let go of me and fell back. Then I rode away.” She put her head in her hands.

  “I’m sorry that happened, Lee.” He waited for a moment and then went on, his voice a bit louder. “But if you’d stayed out of range like I told you to, it wouldn’t have. Stone wouldn’t post men out that far—they’d be useless in an attack on the camp. You were in close enough so that this thug could get his hands on you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t he shoot you? He must have—”

  “His gun was empty—jammed or empty,” she interrupted, her tone matching his. “I heard the hammer strike before he grabbed me.”

  “You shouldn’t have been there! I told you—”

  “I know what you told me, Ben. And you might care to remember this: I’m not your wife, and I’m not subject to you!”

  Ben wrestled with a smile for a moment. “I’ve noticed that,” he said. “A married man wouldn’t be shiverin’ under a saddle blanket all alone at night if he had his wife with him.”

  Lee blushed for a moment.

  Ben poked at the dying fire, and the moment was gone. “It’ll be over soon,” he said. “I’m real sorry you were put in a position where you had to protect yourself again. The only thing I can tell you is what I said before. Your cause is a just one.”

  “I know that.” She fell silent, and tears filled her eyes. “But I can’t just forget what’s happened. I’ve taken two lives, and I’ll never be able to wash the blood from my hands, not for as long as I live.”

  “All the more reason for you to head—”

  “If you tell me that I should leave you now and go back to Burnt Rock, I’m going to thump you a good one! That’s a settled issue!”

  Ben smiled. “Feisty today, ain’t you?”

  Stone yanked his horse’s head around and jogged back to regroup his gang. The outlaws, down to nine men, slumped in their saddles, their shirts and vests soaked with sweat. Several had rags or clothes wrapped around their arms or legs, blood seeping through the soiled fabric of the shirts taken from those killed during the raid of the night before.

  “You men are ridin’ like a bunch of squaws bein’ run by the cavalry,” Stone snarled. “Right as you sit there, you each got more money than you ever dreamed of havin’. You gonna let a Bible-thumpin’ voodoo man an’ a city woman take it away from you an’ run you off like a buncha sheep? Is that what you cowards want?”

  None of the men met his eyes. He wrenched his horse into the midst of the loosely clustered desperados. “I’m gonna tell you this again: We ain’t stoppin’ till we ride into LaRosa. We’re gonna go through the night an’ we’re gonna go through the day till we get there. If a horse drops, that man walks if he can’t get a ride on somebody else’s crowbait, an’ we ain’t slowin’ down none for him either way. We’ll divvy up the money soon’s we hit the town. We’re gonna take over that place like we own it. After that, any man who wants to head out can go ahead an’ do it. Any who want to ride with me are welcome to stay on. After I kill that marshall, I’m headin’ deeper into Mexico. There’s lots of places that ain’t even heard of us yet, an’ it’s a sure bit they ain’t ready for us.”

  Stone jabbed his spurs into his horse’s sides and jogged ahead, turned, and faced the men. “I held back two quarts of whiskey. We’ll pass the bottles till they’re empty. If anybody else is carryin’ whiskey, git it out an’ pass it around.” He added as an afterthought, “I’ll kill any man who drops out or tries to break away before we git to LaRosa.”

  He took a quart bottle from his left saddlebag and tossed it toward his gang, following it with the quart from his right saddlebag. He gave them ten minutes to pass the bottles and spoke again. “You want to watch me gun the marshall, that’s fine with me. Maybe you’re thinkin’ it won’t work out the way I want it to, and the lawman’ll kill me. ’Fact, you’re probably hopin’ that’s the way of it. It ain’t gonna happen that way, but you’re free to come an’ watch the show.” He spat on the ground next to his horse. “Let’s git to it. We got some ground to cover.”

  The clouds that had obscured the moon the night before had been whisked away by a brisk breeze that came up while Ben and Lee slept away the heat of the day. The wind had died by the time they saddled up, but the cold front behind it dropped the temperature to an October level. Lee’s gray wasn’t much good for any gait beyond a lope, and that for only short periods of time. Snorty, however, invigorated by the change in the weather, t
ugged at his reins and crow-hopped a few times to show his rider he was tired of the dull pace.

  “This boy is gonna drive me crazy,” Ben said. “I need to let him out a bit to get his edge off. If Stone stops about the time he usually does, we’ll be on him before too awful long. Maybe I can catch a look at their camp—see where they’re vulnerable.”

  “But he’ll have lookouts tonight. Maybe we should stick together.”

  Ben shook his head. “I’m afraid you’re runnin’ out of horse. That gray is tryin’ his best, but he probably hasn’t had decent care in a year or more. It’s better I go on ahead, an’ you hold to a walk an’ save what he’s got in case we need to run for it.”

  Lee touched the outside of her pocket, feeling the hardness of the grips of her pistol. The double handful of bullets she’d loaded into the pocket offered a reassuring weight against her leg. “You’re right. I’ll keep moving as fast as I can without killing this poor animal.” She looked around, turning in her saddle. “I’m not sure of the directions.”

  “Just keep them two stars—see that one an’ then the one below it?—off to your left, just like they are now. I’ll be back in two, maybe three hours. It’s hard to tell how much ground Stone might’ve covered.”

  He reached out to her, and she took his hand and held it. Neither spoke. When Snorty tugged at the bit, they loosened their grips. Ben turned Snorty away and gave him some of the slack he’d been holding.

  It was a good night for riding. The moonlight was soft and shadows were deep, but the rocks and depressions in the prairie floor were obvious enough that if Ben missed seeing them, Snorty didn’t. Better than two hours out, he reined in next to a shattered whiskey bottle that had caught the moonlight. Shards and bits of glass glinted like fresh snow some distance around the largest piece of the bottle. It had been used as a target. In another half hour, he came upon a second bottle, and then a third. He slowed Snorty to a walk, scanning the land ahead of him. He squinted to pinpoint a fire and strained to hear a curse or a yell. There was nothing.