The Storm Family 6

by Matt Chisholm

  He went close to the first and looked down into the purple face of Gregorio Nunez. His eyes were bulging.

  “For the love of God,” the man whispered.

  Mart drew his knife and slashed at the rawhide holding the man. As soon as he was released, the man stretched himself out limply on the floor, groaning helplessly.

  A familiar voice said: “Uncle, are you a-goin’ to stand there all night or do I get free too?”

  Mart moved on and found his nephew trussed as helpless as a calf with his feet tied above his head to a ring in the wall. Rage blossomed hotly in Mart. He slashed through the rope suspending the legs. Jody’s feet hit the floor with a thud. In a second Mart had severed the rest of the bonds. Jody sat up, rubbing his wrists. He looked like a pretty sick boy.

  Mart said: “Get on your feet, the pair of you. We don’t have a minute.”

  “You joshin’?” Jody demanded. “Me—I feel like I don’t have feet.”

  Gregorio said: “Give me a gun. Just put a gun in my hand so that I can kill one of them as they enter here.”

  Mart said: “You get up an’ quit foolin’ around. I have need of you two. These bastards have Aragon an’ we have to get her out of here.”

  At this, the Mexican sat up. His face was now more its natural hue. His face grimacing with pain, he struggled to his feet.

  “We have heard a great deal of shooting,” he said. “Do any of our people have guns?”

  “Jesus Maria and Valdez.”

  “Good men,” Gregorio said. “We have a chance.”

  “Listen,” Mart said. “They’re comin’. Is there any other way out of here but the door?”

  “The window is small and it is barred.”

  “See if there are any guns around. Then put out the lights and hack out those bars. Rustle now.”

  He crossed the room fast, flung himself flat before the doorway and peered down the corridor. He saw them coming in a bunch. He fired into them. There were yells and they ran back from his lead.

  He knew that was just fine. For now. Within minutes, he knew they could come at him from two directions. Behind him Gregorio exclaimed with joy at the finding of a revolver. Jody swore because he couldn’t find one. But he discovered a knife. Mart called to the Mexican and tossed him his own knife. Then the lights went out. A moment later, Mart heard them attacking the wall with their knives.

  He heard an infuriated curse.

  Jody snarled: “It’s stone under the plaster. It’s goddam stone.”

  Mart said: “Stone has mortar. Work on that and ease the stones put. Do I have to do all your thinking for you?”

  Jody said: “The bars are in the stone.”

  “Aw, for crissake,” Mart said.

  Somebody fired from down the passage and a slug knocked splinters off the doorjamb in front of his face. He winced back from it. The shot came from the right. They were on both sides of him already. “Hurry it up,” he told the other two, “I ain’t about to enjoy this.”

  There was a snapping sound and steel tinkled on the floor.

  “Mother of God,” Gregorio swore, “the knife is broken.”

  Mart shoved his rifle around the corner, fired one shot, levered and then drove a second shot in the other direction. A brief silence followed. He had a nasty feeling in the pit of his stomach that they weren’t going to get out of this. He thought of the woman, Aragon, and wondered if they would dare harm her. The thought sickened his mind. Here was he fretting about his own life and hers could be in danger. But he had to stay alive if he was to be of any help to her. In that moment, lying there waiting for the next slug to come his way, he realized how fully he was committed to her in his mind, this woman he had seen no more than two or three times.

  He went to snap off another disencouraging shot, but the hammer clicked emptily. He reached into his pocket and replaced the empty loading tube with a fresh one.

  Then he thought: The stairs. A man above me on the stairs could blow my head off.

  He had no sooner entertained the thought than the possibility materialized. A shot came from above and tore into the planks of the floor no more than an inch from his left hip. He reared to one knee, levering and firing as fast as he could move, driving a hail of lead up at the stairs above him, hearing the bullets smacking into the wall and ripping at the wood of the banisters.

  He didn’t remain in the open doorway any longer. Backing up hastily, he slammed the door, threw down his rifle and started to drag the heavy table across the door, shouting for the other two to give him a hand. They stumbled through the dark to him. He yelled for Jody to light the lamp. As he heaved at the table and managed to get one end of it across the door, a match flared and light blossomed in the large room. He looked around at the strained faces of his companions.

  “Jode,” he said, “you take my rifle. If anybody shoots through that door, you shoot back at ’em. But I reckon it’s thick enough to stop lead.”

  He and Gregorio jammed the table tight against the door, then Mart spied a heavy cabinet and he and the Mexican dragged that across the room to reinforce the barricade. That done, he and Gregorio once more attacked the window. Mart found a table knife which he used to break out the ancient mortar. The Mexican used Mart’s knife. It was slow and sweat-raising work.

  There came a heavy pounding on the door.

  “You men come outa there. You don’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hell.”

  Jody fired at the door and shouted for him to go to Hell.

  “We have the woman. You don’t want nothing to happen to the woman.”

  Mart bawled back: “She don’t mean a damned thing to us.”

  Gregorio howled with rage at this, but Mart clapped a heavy hand over his mouth, hoarsely whispering: “We can’t do a thing till we get out of here, hombre. Keep working.”

  They renewed their attack on the mortar with a will born of desperation. Mart’s knife broke. He cursed and threw down the useless handle. He started searching the room for some other implement. Men started to throw themselves furiously at the door. Jody fired again and again, but the lead was not penetrating. The barricade started to give. Gregorio ran to help Jody.

  In the open fireplace, Mart found an old poker and a heavy firedog. These he carried back to him and started to use them as a chisel and hammer. Now he started to show some progress. He worked two large stones loose and they seemed to be held in place only by the bars cemented into them from above. He used the poker as a lever, straining down on the loosened stones. The sweat leapt from him until his clothes were saturated. He strained every muscle in his body to its utmost. He went beyond the limit of his strength and was forced to stop and rest. Thought of Aragon made him seethe with exhausted impatience. He attacked the stone again and suddenly it gave and the two large blocks of masonry came loose, coming down against him so that he had to leap back.

  “I did it,” he called to the other two. There was triumph in his voice, but he knew he would have to make a larger hole than that. He attacked the stones below the hole with a savagery that brooked no opposition. He managed to loosen one stone and then started smashing at it ferociously with the firedog until his hands were bleeding and sore. Suddenly, the mortar holding it was rent and the stone was wrenched from its bed and crashed out of sight below. Without pausing, he smashed the one beside the new gap from its bed and it followed the other into the night.

  He fell against the wall, utterly exhausted. But he had to think. He watched Jody and Gregorio at the door. A slight gap appeared in the opening. The Mexican leaned forward and fired two shots point-blank into it. The gap immediately disappeared as Jody threw his weight against the cabinet.

  Valdez—Mart thought. The man was near the corrals and he had a gun.

  He shoved his head through the hole.

  “Valdez—up here,” he bellowed. “We’re coming out.”

  Maybe the man could give him some kind of covering fire and maybe he couldn’t, but it was worth a try.

 
; He had seen a rope somewhere around. He searched the room and found one looped over the back of a chair. He tied one end of it on the ring that had held Jody’s feet suspended and dropped the other end out of the window.

  What was the most risky—staying here to the last or getting down that rope first?

  All his questions seemed to be answered on the spot tonight. As he pushed his head through the hole to peer out below, there came the crack of a gun and a bullet hit the wall of the house and sang away into the night. A gun was fired from the direction of the corral. A revolver. That would be Valdez. Somebody in front of the house fired back at him. Then a rifle opened up from the west and Mart knew that Jesus Maria wasn’t standing around doing nothing. Hope started to rise in him.

  It was going to be bright blue murder going down that rope, but it was nice to know there was some help around.

  “I’m going down,” he called to the other two. “Valdez and Jesus Maria are shooting for us, but there’s a reception committee down there. Watch out for yourselves. Follow fast.”

  “I’ll go, Mart,” Jody said, but Mart was already half out of the hole, his hands on the rawhide rope, shoving off with his knees and swinging out into the dark. Holding onto the rope for dear life, he started to walk down the wall. For what seemed to be several seconds no shots came his way. The firing from below seemed almost continuous. Then a bullet smacked into the wall beside him and he thought: Aw, what the Hell, loosed his grip from the rope and dropped into the maw of darkness below.

  It was a long drop and he had the unpleasant feeling that it was going on forever. When he landed, he landed very hard, rolling violently.

  A man shouted near him in the darkness. He gave himself another roll as a gun went off close at hand and tore his gun from leather, thumbing and triggering at a dim figure almost over him.

  There was a pounding of feet and in his confusion he did not know whether a man was running away or toward him. A rifle fired from the trees to the west. He was showered from above by something which he guessed was mortar. One of the others was escaping through the hole. Guns banged faintly and he knew there was shooting above him in the room.

  As he staggered to his feet, something heavy hurtled down on him from the darkness above and he and the new arrival went down in a heap and a breathless tangle of arms and legs.

  In Spanish, he heard a vehement: “Blood of Christ,” and knew that Gregorio was with him. Mart lay there panting, feeling that his back had been broken.

  “Move,” Gregorio told him. “The young one is not far behind.”

  The Mexican rolled clear and they scrambled to their feet. Mart started along the wall of the house, going east. A bullet passed close to him. He dove flat, hugging the wall, gun in hand, searching for a target so that he could offer Jody some covering fire. Gregorio was running toward him. There seemed to be spasmodic fire from every direction and he had no idea of who was shooting at whom.

  Suddenly, Gregorio seemed to trip on his own feet. He went down heavily, struggled to get to his feet and collapsed flat on his face. A yell from above told Mart that Jody was on his way. Mart pushed himself to his feet, shoving his gun away into leather and ran forward. He caught Gregorio by the collar with both hands and started dragging him. He had no clear idea where. Feet pounded. Jody was up and running. Then his nephew was near.

  “Take his feet,” Mart yelled.

  Jody, with only one hand free on account of the rifle, wound an arm around Gregorio’s knees and Mart took the Mexican under the armpits. They carried him awkwardly with Mart going backward.

  A man approached them on the run from the direction of the corrals. They knew it was Valdez when they heard him shout: “Keep away from the gate. They have a man in the tower.”

  They carried Gregorio with Valdez helping now close up against the high wall of the first corral and laid him on the ground. Lead began to pock the wall behind them and they knew that the man in the tower could see them. Mart felt completely defenseless and vulnerable. Without the wounded Gregorio, they might have stood a chance. With him, they were lost.

  They were saved momentarily by a single rifle to the west which opened up on the man in the tower. Jesus Maria had spotted him. They mentally blessed him, Mart relieved Jody of the rifle and told him and Valdez to carry the wounded man into the first corral. The two of them hefted Gregorio and started at a shambling run for their objective. At that moment, they came under fire from above and Mart knew that men were firing from the newly enlarged window. He could scarcely make it out from where he was standing, but he fired several shots at it and the shooting abruptly stopped, showing that his aim was fairly accurate.

  He saw the other two men lay Gregorio on the ground and Valdez opened the heavy gates of the corral. Mart started after them. By the time he reached them, the firing from above opened up again. As they stumbled with their burden into the shelter of the corral, they were followed by a hail of lead.

  They laid Gregorio to one side of the gate and Mart half-closed the gates, watching the yard with rifle in hand. Over his shoulder, he told Jody: “Boy, check if he’s dead.”

  A moment later, Jody said: “He’s alive. Just.”

  Mart said: “You two catch horses like you never caught horses before.”

  “With our bare hands?” Jody wailed.

  “There is a shed,” Valdez said. “There will be ropes.”

  Outside the corral silence had taken over. Mart reckoned Styree and company were having a think. Next, they would move to prevent a mounted break from the corral. The minutes ticked away. He could feel the tension building in him now. Waiting at a time like this always did that to him. When the action came again, he would be calm. Where the Hell was Valdez with the ropes? Had seconds or minutes passed since he had run across the corral?

  Valdez came, running, tossing a rope to Jody. The horses were bunching at the far end of the place. Valdez was talking to them in the hoarse soothing tones of a horseman. Jody was saying: “Come on now, boys, be nice now.”

  Mart squinted his eyes. He thought he could see the man in the tower. He wouldn’t waste a shot on him now. He’d leave the shooting till the others made a break. There came no sound from the house. He remembered the woman’s scream. It still seemed to be sounding in his ears.

  He heard a whoop of triumph from Valdez as the Mexican dabbed a rope on a horse. The rest of the animals bunched and ran, skittering with tossing heads and rolling eyes around the edge of the corral and then shied away from the smell of blood as they came near Gregorio. Jody caught one. As he came up, Mart said: “Get Gregorio up on him an’ tie him on.”

  “We don’t have all that rope,” Jody said. “We need four horses.”

  “Three,” Mart told him. “I ain’t a-comin’ yet awhile.”

  “I don’t go outa here without you,” Jody yelped. “Why, if”n pa ever heard tell of me …”

  “You do like I say. There’s Jesus Maria over in the timber yonder.”

  “An’ there’s Aragon,” Jody said icily.

  “That’s right,” Mart drove back at him. “There’s Aragon.”

  “I reckon I owe her at that,” Jody admitted with some reluctance. “She did her best to save my hide.”

  “Why we’ll never know.”

  Before Jody could reply, Valdez was there with a chunky bay. Jody told him Mart aimed to stay. Valdez protested. Mart told him to go to Hell. Valdez shrugged. If a man wanted to get himself killed, that was his business. He fashioned a hackamore with the rope and vaulted on the bay’s back.

  “We want another horse,” Mart said, “for Gregorio.”

  “There is no time,” the Mexican replied. “Give me him here and we will go while we can.”

  They fixed a rendezvous. Mart and Jody lifted the wounded Mexican and laid him across the bay’s shoulders. Jody vaulted onto his horse. The animal started pitching. Jody kicked him in the gut and sent it scampering across the yard toward the gate. Valdez gave a yell and went after him, his
little horse doing nobly under the double weight.

  Mart was surprised that one gun only opened up from the house. He had the rifle trained on the man in the tower. As soon as he saw the glitter of moonlight on the raised rifle-barrel, he fired and the man ducked down out of sight. In the same instant, Jesus Maria opened up from the west. The man in the tower didn’t appear until the two riders had swept through the open gateway. Mart heard their hoof beats die away in the distance.

  He opened the gates wide and walked back into the corral. The horses bunched in a far corner and then, as he came close to them, broke out. He thought they would all pass him without his being able to catch one. He had the rifle in his hand and it was a near impossible task to catch a moving horse and get aboard. But he caught a sluggish roan, nearly fell as he grabbed the flowing mane, managed to stay on his feet and vaulted onto its bare back. The rest of the bunch went through that gateway as if it were the doorway to a horse’s heaven. He came last as flat as a man could lay himself along a horse’s neck, eating the dust of the animals racing ahead of him. He yelled a couple of Reb yells to keep them moving, but they didn’t need any encouragement. They crossed the yard at a flat run, went out through the gateway and thundered onto the plaza. With some difficulty, he managed to swing his bolting mount to the right into the west, shouting out to Jesus Maria not to shoot.

  The roan nearly carried him clear through the trees to the far side, but he succeeded in slowing it enough to slide to the ground and land running. The roan disappeared into the night. A moment later, he came up with Jesus Maria.

  “How does it go?” Gomez demanded.

  “So far so good, but Gregorio’s hit bad. The señorita is still in the house.”

  The Mexican made a clucking sound of sympathy for Gregorio. He said: “Do we go get the señorita now?”

  Mart said “no’. Jesus Maria must gather what food he could, catch a horse and ride after the others. If he could lay his hands on any weapons so much the better. He told him where the rendezvous was. The Mexican nodded. He would do everything he was asked, but he was uneasy about leaving the woman in the hands of these men.