That made another one dead, three to go. Stark cat-footed through the darkness. He had learned a lot from the Vietcong during the time he’d been in Southeast Asia. The VC dressed in black, moved fast, and were never exactly where you expected them to be. They struck from odd directions, so you couldn’t anticipate their attacks. Stark had hated the little bastards, but he admired their fighting ability and their mastery of offbeat tactics.
He was at the front of the house now, and as he peered along the porch he saw one of the gunners standing in front of the picture window, laughing crazily as he fired. The glass was all blown in, and the spraying bullets were wreaking havoc in the living room. Angry that his home was being desecrated this way, Stark aimed and fired.
Just as he squeezed the trigger, though, the gunner’s weapon ran dry, and he leaned forward to drop the clip. Instead of taking him in the head, Stark’s bullet grazed the back of his neck. The man cried out in pain and lunged forward, diving through the shot-out picture window.
The bastard was in the house!
“Elaine!” Stark said urgently into the microphone. “One of them is inside! He’s in the living room! Elaine!”
There was no reply. With a feeling of chill horror, Stark realized he hadn’t heard a word from her since the shooting started.
He wanted to dash around the house and get into the garage to make sure she was all right, but he knew he couldn’t. For one thing, he still had three enemies to deal with, and for another, if he came busting in there unannounced and she was all right, she might just shoot him before she realized who he was. He had to stick to the plan and take care of the other three gunners before he could go check on Elaine.
The man in the living room pretty much had to stay there. If he ventured elsewhere in the house, he might fall prey to his own companions’ bullets. Stark stepped up onto the porch and moved as quietly as possible along it toward the shot-out window. He couldn’t go in that way; the moonlight, dim though it was, was still brighter than the stygian darkness inside the house. If he tried to go through the window he would be silhouetted against that glow and present a perfect target. If the gunner trapped in there had any sense, he would have his weapon trained on the window and would fire at the first sign of motion there.
Stark reached down to his belt and took out one of the little cylinders he had tucked there earlier. Silently, he laid the rifle down on the porch and straightened. He took the Colt Model 1911A .45 from behind his belt on the other hip and racked the slide. Then he snapped the highway flare in half and tossed it through the broken window into the living room. A second later the flare burst into flaming life with a hiss, and the gunner started firing wildly.
Stark rammed his shoulder against the front door and knocked it open. Diving into the hall just inside the door, he rolled over and pointed the .45 through the arched entrance to the living room. The bright red flare showed him the gunner twisting around and letting off shots blindly in every direction. A couple of them whined over Stark’s head. He fired the Colt three times, watching in satisfaction as the bullets crashed into the gunner’s body and smashed him against the wall. He bounced off and fell loosely to the floor. He lay there without moving, in the stillness of death.
Then and only then did Stark realize he had been hit by one of the wild slugs. It had plowed a bloody furrow across the outside of his upper left arm, and as blood trickled hotly down his arm, the wound began to hurt like blazes. He gritted his teeth and ignored the pain as he stood up. He went into the living room long enough to stomp out the small fire on the carpet caused by the flare, and then he stepped back out onto the porch.
Something was wrong, and he knew immediately what it was: other than some fading echoes, the night was quiet again. The shooting had stopped. That meant the remaining two gunners had overcome the killing frenzy that had gripped them. That made them much more dangerous adversaries, and so did the fact that by now they must have figured out that something had gone wrong. Their simple murder mission was fucked. Now they were in a fight for their own lives.
Stark put the pistol behind his belt and picked up the rifle again. He headed for the far end of the porch, but before he got there a shadowy figure lunged around the corner of the house and opened fire. The gun in the man’s hand stuttered and belched flame. Stark threw himself forward, firing the Winchester as he fell, working the lever as he landed and rolled and bullets chewed up splinters from the boards beside him. He fired again and saw the gunman fly backward as if a giant finger had poked him in the chest. The man landed on his back, arms and legs outflung.
As he pushed himself up, Stark felt a stinging on his face and another trickle of blood. One of those flying splinters had sliced across his cheek, opening a gash that hurt like hell. His muscles, still a little sore from the fight in the Blue Burro, ached in several places, and he knew he would have plenty of fresh bruises in the morning . . . if he lived that long. He winced as he took a step. His right ankle was a little twisted, but not so badly that he couldn’t use it.
He reached the corner of the house and started along the side. The other gunman ought to be somewhere over here, he thought.
That was when he heard the garage door go up.
“Elaine!” Stark cried, unable to hold back the exclamation. He broke into a run, heedless of his safety, all thoughts of stealth gone now. The garage door had been securely locked, but one of those bastards could have blasted the lock apart with automatic weapons fire.
Careening around the corner, Stark saw the open garage, as black inside as the maw of a hungry beast. He had taken just a couple of steps in that direction when muzzle flame bloomed in the darkness. Something pounded hard against his right shoulder, knocking him off his stride. He knew he was hit and he tried to keep his balance, but he couldn’t do it. He fell, losing the Winchester when he hit the ground. As he rolled over, pain engulfing his entire right side, he groped with his left hand for the butt of the .45 at his belt.
But that arm was wounded, too, and he was slow and awkward. The pain of his injury seemed to hamper him not only physically but mentally as well. His brain processes just weren’t working like they should. He knew he ought to be sending out nerve impulses to his muscles, commanding them to move and move fast, damn it, but everything was haywire now. He blinked as he saw the dark figure step into the open doorway of the garage and train a weapon on him. Stark’s fingers finally closed around the butt of the pistol at his waist, but he knew he was going to be too late.
The lights in the garage came on, throwing a blinding glare in Stark’s face. Shots roared as he involuntarily squeezed his eyes shut. When he was able to open them in narrow slits a moment later, he saw the final member of Ramirez’s crew of gunners. The man had dropped his weapon and leaned against the pickup, one hand on it for support. Blood welled from his mouth. He swayed there like that for a second and then pitched forward onto his face. Stark pushed himself up into a half-sitting position and saw the dark bloodstains on the man’s back.
Elaine stood there behind him, her arm outstretched, a pistol rock-steady in her hand. A tiny thread of smoke curled from the barrel.
From where he lay just outside the garage, Stark asked, “What took you?”
Slowly, Elaine lowered the gun. Her face was pale, completely washed out of color, but still composed. She stepped forward, bent to check for a pulse in the neck of the man she had just shot, and looked up to give her husband a nod.
“He’s dead.”
“Good,” Stark said. “I’m pretty sure all the others are, too.”
“Pretty sure?” Elaine repeated.
“Best I could do at the time.”
“Stay there. I’ll check.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Stark was too weak and numb to move. “Be careful.”
She was back only a few minutes later, her face still ashen and her features tightly under control. “Were there five of them?”
“That’s right.”
“They�
�re all dead, then.” She dropped to a knee beside him. “You look like shit, John Howard.”
“Feel like it, too,” he grated. “Are you all right? I got worried when your phone went dead.”
“Bad choice of words,” she said dryly. “I’m sorry. I dropped it when I went diving into the garage, and the battery popped out, and my foot kicked it and sent it flying, and I just couldn’t find the damned thing in the dark. I knew you’d be worried, but I figured it was best just to wait for you to come for me.”
“Instead, one of those killers came for you,” Stark said, his voice bitter with self-recrimination.
“That wasn’t your fault. Anyway, I got him. We’re a team, John Howard, and a mighty good one at that.”
“Yeah,” Stark agreed softly. “A mighty good team.”
“Let’s get you into the truck. You need a doctor and a hospital.”
“You’ll have to put gas in it,” Stark grunted as she helped him to his feet. “Cans are in the storage shed.” His right side was covered with blood. “I want to take a look around first, see how much damage was done to the house.”
“I can tell you that: it’s shot to hell. But that doesn’t matter. It’s just a house. We’re what’s important, and we’re fine. At least, we will be once we get you patched up.”
Stark would have agreed with her. He opened his mouth to do so. But then the world went away and he was too busy passing out to worry about anything else.
Twenty
The smell of flowers was so strong when he woke up, he thought for a second that he must be at his own funeral. He expected to hear the organ start playing a dirge at any moment.
Instead, he heard an unfamiliar voice saying, “Ah, he’s waking up now.”
“It’s about time.” That voice belonged to Elaine, and Stark felt a vast wave of relief wash over him at the knowledge that she was all right.
He managed to pry his eyes open and was glad that the first thing he saw was her face as she leaned over him with an anxious frown. “John Howard?” she said. “Are you all right?”
Stark tried to answer her, but his mouth didn’t want to work. Finally he was able to wrap it around some words. “I’m . . . fine . . . how about . . . you?”
“Don’t worry about me,” she told him. “You’re the one who’s been unconscious since last night.”
“Last . . . night?”
“That’s right, Mr. Stark.” The owner of the other voice moved into Stark’s line of sight. He was a young Asian man in a white lab coat over casual clothes. “You lost enough blood that you went into shock, and I can tell from looking at your other assorted bruises and scrapes that you’ve been mistreating your body lately. You’re not a young man anymore, you know.”
Stark closed his eyes for a moment to bring his temper under control. Even as weak as he was, he didn’t like being talked to in such condescending tones. When he opened his eyes again, he said, “I reckon you must be a doctor.”
The young man nodded. “That’s right. Dr. Alvin Lu. I just moved here and started working at the hospital.”
“Dr. Lu has taken good care of you, John Howard,” Elaine put in.
“Where’s . . . Doug?”
“He was by to check on you earlier, and he said he’d be back around lunchtime, but to call him if there was any change in your condition. I’ll let his office know that you’ve woken up.”
Stark nodded slowly. He trusted Doug Huddleston more than he did some snot-nosed kid. Seemed like they were making doctors younger and younger all the time. And then he realized that he was starting to sound like Uncle Newt. The thought made a pang of sorrow go through him.
He looked at Lu and asked, “What’s . . . the extent . . . of the damage, Doctor?”
“Well, you have two bullet wounds,” Lu replied without looking at Stark’s chart, “one in your right shoulder, one in your upper left arm. The one in your shoulder is the more serious of the two. I cleaned and sutured the one in your left arm, and it should be fine. As for the other, the bullet went straight through, luckily missed the bone, and didn’t deflect and do even more damage. In time you should regain the full use of that arm.”
“How much . . . time?”
“A month, maybe six weeks. You also have a cut on your face that required a couple of stitches. I have some experience with cosmetic surgery, so I went ahead and did that myself, rather than calling in a specialist. There shouldn’t be much of a scar.”
“I reckon I’m past worrying too much . . . about how handsome I am,” Stark said. “Anything else?”
“Just the loss of blood and general wear and tear on the body. My medical advice would be to take a vacation as soon as your shoulder is healed up enough for you to travel. Go to Acapulco or some place like that. Lie on the beach in the sun for a few weeks, and get a lot of rest. You need it.”
“That sounds wonderful, Doctor,” Elaine said. “You don’t know this workaholic husband of mine, though. He’ll say that he’s got a ranch to run.”
“It’s the truth,” Stark growled.
Lu said, “I’ll let the two of you work that out. Right now I have other patients to check on. I’m glad that you’re awake, Mr. Stark. I didn’t think we were going to lose you, but you never know.”
With that he left the room, which had flower arrangements sitting on every available space. Stark waited until the door was shut, then said, “Kid could use some work on his bedside manner.”
“Yes, but he’s a good doctor,” Elaine said as she sat in a chair beside the bed. She reached out and took hold of Stark’s left hand with both of hers. She squeezed it tightly. “You really had me worried, John Howard.”
“Why? You know how tough I am. I got shot up before, in Vietnam.”
“Yes, but then I didn’t have to see you lying there covered with blood, with your face so pale you looked dead. By the time you got home from over there you were pretty much yourself again.”
Stark nodded. “I knew I was coming home to you. That gave me plenty of incentive . . . to heal up.”
She smiled and held his hand, and they sat there quietly for a while, just glad to be with each other. Stark felt his eyelids getting heavy. He tried to keep his eyes open, and when Elaine noticed the struggle, she said, “It’s all right, John Howard. You go right ahead and sleep. You need the rest.”
“Don’t want to . . . go away from you . . . again.”
“You won’t,” she told him. “You’ll be right here, and I’ll be with you. We’ll never be separated again.”
The news that Stark was awake and recovering from his wounds got around fast. Devery, W.R., Hubie, and Everett were the first ones to come by to see him. After handshakes all around, Devery got down to business by saying, “We’ve all been thinkin’, John Howard. You set us up.”
Stark frowned. “How do you figure that?”
“You knew Sam Gonzales was wrong. You knew Ramirez was gonna come after you again. We could’ve stayed to help you, but instead you sent us all home.”
“It wasn’t your fight,” Stark said.
“The hell it ain’t,” Hubie put in. “It’s every decent citizen’s fight. The courts have put the criminals’ rights above ours for so long I reckon we just got used to goin’ along with that, even though it don’t make a lick of sense.”
W.R. said, “We forgot how to fight back. But we’re learnin’ again.”
“We’re learnin’ from you, John Howard,” Everett added. “You’ve showed us the way.”
Stark couldn’t sit up, but he was able to lift his head from the pillow. “Now, hold on just a minute,” he said. “I never set out to show anybody the way to anything. I just wanted to protect my ranch and my family.”
“That’s what we want, too,” Devery insisted. “That’s why we’re gettin’ together with all the other ranchers and farmers and even some folks from here in town, and we’re puttin’ together a patrol system. We’re gonna do what the government can’t—or won’t—do: shut down the b
order and keep this little chunk of Texas safe from invaders.”
“Because that’s what they are, you know,” Everett put in. “Invaders. Just like an army tryin’ to come in here and take over and have ever’thing their own way. Well, it ain’t gonna be like that no more. No, sir.”
Stark looked around at the solemn faces of his friends and said, “Y’all are serious about this, aren’t you?”
“You’re not the only one who can fight back against evil, John Howard,” Devery said. “It’s our fight, too, and pretty soon those damn drug runners are gonna know it.”
Stark looked over at Elaine. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to talk any sense into their heads.”
She smiled and said, “About as much chance of that as there is of anybody talking sense into your head, John Howard.”
He gave a grim chuckle as he let his head back down on the pillow. “I know when I’m beat,” he said. “But you boys better be careful. You don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for.”
“It’s the bad guys who don’t know what they’re in for,” Hubie said with a grin. “But they’re fixin’ to find out.”
Stark had been glad to see his friends. His next visitor wasn’t so welcome.
The door of the hospital room swung open not long after Devery and the others had left, and Sheriff Norval Lee Hammond came in. He took his hat off, nodded politely to Elaine, and then said to Stark, “I hear you killed five more men last night. Gettin’ to be a habit with you, ain’t it?”
Before Stark could answer, Elaine said sharply, “My husband only killed four men last night, Sheriff. I killed the fifth one. Have you come to arrest us both this time?”
“I’m still conductin’ an investigation,” Hammond growled. “I’m not ready to make any arrests.”
Vengeance Is Mine Page 20
