by Steve Lee
The horses were suspicious at first. Then they got the idea and there was no holding them back. They pressed eagerly forward, bunching up, squeezing out of the gate one at a time. In less than two minutes, the corral was empty.
Sloane paused briefly to watch the horses thundering away, the flying-maned palamino leading them under the moon. Then he snatched the guard's leather hat from the ground, clamped it on his head and ran into the darkness as the cries of alarm and running footsteps grew rapidly louder.
* * *
From the cover of a barn, Sloane watched the vaqueros race over to the empty corral, drawn from their fire by the noise of the stampeding horses. They ganged up alongside the corral, all waving their arms and shouting at once. Pretty soon Aguilar ran up and joined them and he shouted louder than all the rest of them. Whatever it was he shouted sent the vaqueros scooting towards the stables. There were more horses in the stables and moments later the vaqueros rode out in pursuit, lashing at their mounts with quirts. Sloane allowed himself a smile. The escaping horses would be in Alaska before the vaqueros caught up with them.
Aguilar was left alone by the corral. He watched the horsemen recede into the night, then turned and headed back towards the hacienda, shaking his head. Sloane walked towards him, the wide leather hat tugged low over his face.
When Aguilar saw the man in the rainbow poncho approaching, he stopped and yelled something Spanish in an angry voice. The man in the poncho kept on coming. Aguilar yelled louder and angrier. The man came steadily nearer. Aguilar's hand flew to the butt of his pistol. He had the pistol half out of its holster when something struck his hand with such violent force that the gun was torn from his grasp. He thought a bullet had hit him. Then he remembered he hadn't heard a shot.
Sloane followed up the lightning kick with an inverted fist strike to the head. Aguilar sprawled backwards, twisting as he fell. Sloane helped him on his way with a snap-kick in the ass.
When he'd got tired of lying with his nose pressed into the dust, Aguilar groggily palmed himself up onto his knees. Sloane was waiting for him. He curled his left arm round the Mexican's neck, tight as a noose. He kept him doubled-up at waist level.
Aguilar squirmed in the iron grip but he couldn't break it. Twisting his head round, he succeeded in getting a look at the man who held him.
'You!' He sounded surprised and disgusted at the same time.
'Sure looks that way, don't it,' said Sloane.
'Please, señor… unhand me. Let me go…'
'Now don't tell me you want to leave already — just when we were gonna have ourselves a nice quiet little talk…'
'Talk?' Aguilar asked weakly.
'Sure, I know all you Mexicans love to talk. You talk and I'll listen… First you tell me who killed the girl's folks — the old Chinaman and his wife…'
Suddenly, Aguilar's eyes were wide-stretched and fearful-looking. 'You are mistaken, señor, I…'
'You had Joe killed,' Sloane patiently reminded him. 'You had him killed when you heard he'd gotten a look at El Muerte's gang and you were afraid he'd remember you an' Toro. Because you two were with El Muerte when he went raidin' across the border…'
'You're mad!' Aguilar laughed. It was a desperate-sounding laugh.
'Damn right I'm mad,' said Sloane. 'I'm mad as Hell and I'm gonna take it out on you!'
Sloane's knee slammed into Aguilar's face. Six times. Aguilar spluttered, his mouth full of blood.
'Now you tell me who killed 'em… Tell me and maybe I'll let you crawl out of here whilst you still got a face.'
'Go to Hell!' Aguilar spat.
Sloane's knee hammered him again. Blood dripped steadily from Aguilar's nose and mouth and beaded the dust.
'Talk some more,' said Sloane. 'I like the sound of your voice.'
'I spit on your mother's grave!'
'You're just bashful,' said Sloane. 'What you need is some encouragement…'
Sloane's knee did some encouraging. It was very persuasive encouragement. Soon Aguilar was talking like he had jawbone diarrhoea.
'It was Toro killed the Chinaman,' he said. 'I do not know who killed the woman…'
He tried to raise his head. He couldn't.
'Señor, believe me… I never wanted to go with that madman… Don Luis ordered us!'
'How 'bout the girl?' Sloane asked. 'She all right?'
Suddenly, Aguilar seemed to have lost his urge to talk.
'The girl…' Sloan repeated, applying pressure.
Aguilar grunted with pain. 'Sullivan took her,' he sullenly revealed.
Sloane gripped the Mexican's head tighter. He almost jerked it from his neck.
'Who the Hell is Sullivan?' he demanded.
Aguilar couldn't answer. He was struggling for breath. Sloane relaxed his grip obligingly.
'An Americano,' Aguilar gasped when he could. 'Don Luis gives to him girls — in exchange for guns… for the revolution.'
'Where'd he take her?'
'They left yesterday — for San Francisco.'
'Hell!' said Sloane.
Then he let Aguilar drop. The Mexican slumped heavily to the ground.
'If I see you again — I'll kill you!' Sloane promised him. He turned on his heel, moving away. When he'd taken three steps, he pivoted suddenly, his roundhouse kick swiping the knife from Aguilar's hand. Before even his feet touched the ground, two stabbing fingers had buried themselves in the softness of Aguilar's throat. Impaled on the deep-thrust fingers, Aguilar swayed, staring at Sloane with horrified surprise. He made choking sounds, liquid breaths gushing from his mouth. Then Sloane jerked his fingers free and Aguilar fell, his face slopping down into his own blood.
Sloane turned once more and continued on his way.
* * *
They'd left an ageing vaquero to stand guard over Billy. The guard was heaping wood on the fire to keep it ablaze when he noticed the man in the rainbow poncho approaching. He recognised the poncho. It belonged to a good friend of his.
'Hola, muchacho!' he called out cordially.
Sloane strolled up to the guard and, without a word, chopped a hand at his temple. The vaquero fell dead. Sloane threw the leather hat into the fire and the poncho followed a moment later.
'I'm sure glad to see you,' said Billy with relief.
The dead guard had a machete at his waist. Sloane slid it from its sheath and slashed through the ropes binding the young Chinaman.
'Things gettin' a bit hot for you round here?' he asked.
'Hot enough. They were fixing to stick me on that fire and roast me.'
'Nice people,' said Sloane.
Billy flexed his arms to get the circulation going. His pleasure at being released was quickly over. He looked downcast.
'Su Fan's gone,' he said. 'A guy called Sullivan — '
'I know,' said Sloane.
He took hold of Billy's arm and led him from the fire. He pointed into the distance where the vague forms of trees reared darker against the sky than the blue of night.
'Over among them trees, you'll find a horse,' he told Billy. 'Take it. They won't have gotten very far in a day. Not in this country.'
Billy searched his face, frowning.
'How about you?' he asked.
Sloane looked narrowly at the Chinaman.
'She's your woman, ain't she?'
Billy shifted his eyes from Sloane's face. He nodded wordlessly.
'Then get after her… I got business here needs finishing.'
Sloane turned and walked from him.
'Sloane…'
Sloane paused to look back at the Chinaman.
'Did you…?' Billy left the question unfinished.
'I got him,' said Sloane.
'I'm glad,' said Billy. And smiled.
Slapping the flat side of the machete against his palm, Sloane headed for the smaller of the two adobe buildings. The one with barred windows.
* * *
There was a guard at the top of the stairs. The machete in Sloane's h
and went snickety-snick and the guard's head went clumpety-clump as it rolled down the stairs.
At the door, Sloane hesitated, listening to the whimpering cries of the girl inside — and the coarse laughter of the men with her. For a moment he thought the girl was Su Fan. He thrust the thought aside but the anger remained. He opened the door and entered.
Inside the room, five vaqueros stood with their backs to him. None of them spared him a glance because all their attention was on the bed over at the other end of the room.
Toro was on the bed and he wasn't alone. There wasn't much to see of the big Mexican except his big bare ass. It was the fastest moving thing in the room. Toro was doing something to the naked girl pinned beneath his weight. He looked like he was enjoying himself. The girl didn't seem to share his enthusiasm. She was sobbing as she drummed her fists ineffectually against the massive body jammed between her legs. The girl was Rosalia.
Toro was laughing at her struggles as he had his fun. Then, suddenly, he reared his head and howled with pain. Something had bitten into one of the fat white cheeks of his ass. Something sharp… A shiny metal star.
Sloane threw another of the shuriken as the five Mexicans whirled to meet him. It buried itself in the throat of one of the men, opening up a vein. The man shrieked and fell back, a fierce red spray spouting through his clutching fingers. Into the belly of the nearest Mexican, Sloane buried the machete to the hilt. Then, before the body had even started to fall, he launched himself into the air for a flying swing kick — his foot crunching into the faces of all three men on a single pivot. The vaqueros skittled to the floor.
One of them had not learned his lesson. He was still alive and he was trying to aim his gun. Sloane's left foot pounded his gun-hand whilst his right came down in a crushing dragon stamp on the man's chest. Sloane felt the rib-cage collapse beneath his stamping foot.
Then he felt something else — a massive arm winding round his neck with crushing strength. Another pinning his own arms to his side. Sloane thrashed against a merciless grip as Toro lifted him from the ground, pressing a knee into his back, arching his body with a spine-cracking force. The Mexican was slowly breaking him in half!
Sloane kicked strongly backwards. His heel hooked into soft yielding flesh. A groan of pain burst from the big Mexican's lips. He gritted his teeth against the pain, refusing to break the strangle-hold. Again Sloane's foot slammed between his legs. Toro groaned louder. Tears splashed down his cheeks. But with the insane determination of a fanatic, he tightened his grip.
Sloane hammered his foot back a third time into the Mexican's flesh. This time the pain was too much even for Toro. With a roar of agony, he released his hold and Sloane slipped from his grasp. Toro doubled up, clutching his bruised manhood. Sloane pivoted fast and his leaping roundhouse kick exploded against the side of Toro's thick skull. The blow hurled the Mexican backwards. Sloane leapt after him, battering the big man's chest with a straight-legged flying kick. Toro hurtled back even faster. The wall was waiting for him and the whole room shuddered when they found each other.
Rosalia clapped her hands delightedly. She was huddled on the bed, a blanket not quite covering her nakedness, following the fight with lip-biting attention.
'Give it to him,' she told Sloane as Toro raised himself from the floor. 'Give it to him good!'
Toro glared at her. His eyes promised her death when he'd finished with Sloane. He seized a chair from the floor and hurled it at the American.
Sloane chopped the chair out of the air. Toro was right behind it, a low bestial growl rumbling from his throat as he advanced. He made fists of his big-knuckled hands and struck at Sloane, wielding his arms like wooden clubs. Sloane's hands moved with blinding speed, blocking the hail of blows and snapping back dragon-fisted punches. He was weak from loss of blood and knew his punches lacked their usual power. Toro knew it too. He stood his ground, taking all the punishment Sloane could give him. He paid no more attention to the fists that pounded him than if they were raindrops. He knew Sloane was weakening. Sooner or later one of his battering punches would smash through Sloane's defences and open the way for more. Many more. And then he would tear the American apart piece by piece, doing to him what El Muerte's bandits did with their victims. Not with a knife but with his bare hands.
The two men stood there for a long moment, furiously exchanging blows. Soon Toro's nose was twistedly broken and his thick lips torn. His whole face was covered with blood and it rolled down his chest in spiky streams. But his endurance was rewarded. One of his thick-knuckled fists clubbed through the block that met it and hammered the wound at Sloane's temple, gouging it raw.
Sloane staggered, his head blasted by pain. His arms hung limp, his defences briefly forgotten. The Mexican sent a second hammer-headed blow cracking against his head. Sloane dropped, pole-axed. With a growl of pleasure, Toro moved in to boot Sloane's head from his body.
Sloane was down but he wasn't finished. His sweeping kick jerked the Mexican's feet from under him. Toro rubbed cheeks with the floor. Things look different from the floor. You notice things you don't always see from six feet up. Toro noticed something now. The sword Aguilar had left propped against one wall.
Scrambling up, Toro made a dive for the sword. Rosalia saw it too. She scrambled from the bed after it. Toro got there first. He snatched the sword and backhanded Rosalia across the mouth. She fell. Swerving round, Toro saw that Sloane was still lying on the floor, his head wracked with pain. Toro rushed at him, sword raised to strike.
Choking fury chased away the pain in Sloane's head when he saw the Mexican coming at him clutching a sword. Sloane recognised the sword. It belonged to Chang Fung.
Towering over the fallen American, Toro hauled the sword back two-handed over his head for a butchering downward thrust that would cut Sloane in two. Roaring a bulllike bellow of triumph, he struck.
Sloane answered Toro's roar with a savage ki-ai yell of his own. The falling sword got no further than the fore-arm block which shattered Toro's arm. The same instant, Sloane's stiff-fingered right flashed out in a knife-hand thrust. The deep-thrust hand sank to the wrist in Toro's solar plexus. When Sloane yanked out his bloodied hand, it was no longer empty.
Voicing a long and terrible scream, Toro staggered back and slammed into a wall. The expression on his face was a fearful one. Rosalia saw it and she squeezed her eyes shut with a trembling shudder.
Toro's eyes and tongue were straining from his head. Then something in his face flickered out and his eyes became opaque. He slid down the wall and lay sprawled in a heap, his life emptying out onto the floor.
Sloane rose to his feet and steadied himself. He took a step forward and looked down without pity at Toro's spasm-jerked body. The Chinese proverb said: A Man shall not live under the same Heaven as the Murderer of his Father. Now he could start living again, Sloane thought.
The gods had other ideas. Rosalia's scream warned him when the two men silently entered behind. He whirled round, snapping into a defensive crouch. But fists were no defence against the pistol-shot that nailed him to the ground.
Chapter Thirteen
The smoking Deringer held delicately in his hand, Don Luis Fernando de Silviera y Castilia stepped deeper into the room. Behind him came Manolo. The servant glanced nervously from side to side, his levelled Springfield rifle following the sweep of his eyes. As he reloaded the small elegant gun, Don Luis allowed his gaze to wander over the bodies of the dead vaqueros. Toro's body held his attention for slightly longer. He did not like what he saw. His expression showed his distaste. A movement raised his eyes to the bed across the room. On the bed Rosalia watched him apprehensively. Her hands gripped a blanket. She tugged it higher to cover her nakedness.
'Modesty is a rare virtue in a whore,' remarked Don Luis. He had finished reloading his gun. He raised it in her direction.
Rosalia shrank from the pistol pointing at her. Then she felt the coldness of the wall pressing against her bare back and she knew she could ret
reat no further.
'I disown you,' said Don Luis. 'Goodbye, Rosalia…'
'No… Please, no…' she begged. She shook her head, appealing to him with her eyes.
'You should be pleased, my dear…' Don Luis told her. 'Few people in Mexico are so fortunate as to die in bed…'
He blasted her. Rosalia's body jerked, slamming against the wall. She made a sound that reminded Don Luis of their lovemaking. Then her head sank onto the bed, staining the sheets with her blood.
Don Luis turned his attention to the wounded American. Sloane was painfully raising himself from the floor. He leaned his weight against the wall, one hand clutching the spreading red stain at his shoulder. He looked at Don Luis, his gritted teeth a mockery of a grin.
Again reloading his pistol, Don Luis strolled towards him, casually stepping over the bodies of his men.
'You have caused me much trouble, Señor Sloane,' he said. 'My first shot was aimed only to wound you. I wanted to see you suffer. My next shot will make you suffer a little more… And the one after will kill you.'
Don Luis pointed the Deringer, aiming low.
'Now that's what I call real ungrateful,' said Sloane. 'Shootin' me fulla holes when I been to a whole lot of trouble gettin' that skull back for you.'
He shook his head, looking pained. He didn't have to fake the pain. 'Yeah, real ungrateful…'
Don Luis stared at him. 'You have the skull?' he said flatly, hardly aware that he had lowered his gun.
'Uh-huh,' Sloane acknowledged, in spite of his pain enjoying the sudden change of expression in Don Luis' face.
'Where is it?' The aristocrat's voice was eager. His eyes searched the blood-splashed floor.
