He supposed he should have thought of that before he agreed to bring her here, he told himself. At the very least he should have taken off his badge and pretended to be just a drifter. But it was too late for that now, so he would just have to deal with things as they were.
"You stay in here," he told Rosaria as he pulled his clothes on. "There's no need for you to get involved in this trouble. It's between me and the Rurales."
"I'm the reason you're here."
"Not really," Braddock said. He buckled on his gunbelt. "Tull Coleman's the reason I'm here. All of it comes back to him. Hawley, the Dutchman, all of it." He picked up his hat and put it on, then said again, "Stay here."
"Braddock—" She clutched at his arm as he started past her. He paused and looked down at her, and she put her arms around his neck, pulled his head down, and kissed him with the sort of fierce hunger that a whore wasn't supposed to feel. As she broke the kiss she whispered, "I'm sorry."
"It'll be all right," he said. He wasn't sure he believed it anymore, but he said it anyway.
He walked through the empty cantina. The man in charge of the Rurale patrol was still out front, shouting and demanding that the Ranger surrender. He abruptly fell silent as Braddock stepped through the open doorway.
"Buenos dias," Braddock said with a nod as he confronted the man, who wore the same sort of gray woolen uniform as the other Rurales, only with a few more decorations such as a red sash tied around his waist. He also wore a sheathed sword as well as a revolver. Braddock made a guess as to the man's rank and went on, "What can I do for you, Capitan?"
The officer was short and stocky and like most of his men sported a thick, dark mustache. He glared at Braddock and said, "You are a Texas Ranger."
Braddock glanced down at his badge, smiled faintly, and nodded. "That's right. Ranger G.W. Braddock, at your service."
"I am Capitan Emiliano Mata, and you are not at my service, señor. You are my prisoner."
Braddock kept a carefully neutral expression on his face and in his voice as he asked, "Now why would you be arresting me, Captain? I haven't done anything wrong. I haven't broken any Mexican laws."
"You are an American in Mexico without official permission."
"How do you know I don't have your government's permission to be here?"
Mata's face flushed angrily. "I am in charge of this area. I would have been told."
"Well...folks from both sides go back and forth across the border all the time, I suspect, and nobody thinks much about it."
"Not Texas Rangers. Many times in the past the Rangers have come across the Rio Grande and attacked the Mexican people illegally and for no reason."
Braddock had heard about some of those border skirmishes, and he didn't view them the same way Mata did. Right now, however, that didn't matter. Outnumbered the way he was, arguing about the history between their two countries would just antagonize the Rurale captain and make the situation worse.
"I give you my word, Captain, I mean no harm to your people. In fact, I was about to leave Esperanza and head back across the river to Texas. If you'll just let me get my horse, I'll move along and this little incident will all be over."
If by some chance Mata let him go, he could always wait on the other side of the Rio Grande until the Rurale patrol had left the village, then come back across and get Rosaria. By now he had accepted the idea that she would come with him, although he didn't know what he would do with her in the long run.
Captain Mata laughed, but it wasn't a pleasant sound. "This incident, as you call it, will not be over until you have been dealt with by Mexican law. I hereby place you in custody. You will be sent to Mexico City and given a trial." He paused. "Then you will be sent to prison, probably for the rest of your life."
"Because I was a stone's throw on the wrong side of the river?"
"Because you are a damned Texas Ranger," Mata said as his face twisted with hatred.
That hollow feeling inside Braddock had grown until it just about filled him. He knew now there was no way out of this. He was vastly outnumbered, and Mata was determined to impress his superiors by arresting a Texas Ranger.
He didn't suppose it would do any good to tell Mata that he wasn't really—
Braddock's jaw tightened as he cut that thought short. He was a Texas Ranger, no matter what anybody else said, and by God, he wasn't going to deny it just to try to save his own hide. The law was more important than that. The law was more important than anything, even his own life.
Especially his own life, because without the law it was nothing.
"Unbuckle your gunbelt, drop it, and step away from it," Mata ordered. He rested his hand on the butt of his own pistol.
"I don't reckon I can do that," Braddock said in a quiet but determined voice.
"Then my men will kill you."
Braddock had moved only a few feet beyond the doorway. He had a hunch that if he acted quickly enough, he could throw himself backward and get behind the protection of the thick adobe walls before the Rurales could shoot him.
But then they would just lay siege to the cantina and pour lead through every door and window, and Rosaria was in there. The fate that awaited him was bad enough, but it would be worse if he was responsible for her death. If he surrendered, the Rurales wouldn't have any reason to hurt her.
"All right, Captain," he said. "Tell your men not to get trigger-happy. I'm going to drop my gun."
"Carefully," Mata advised. "I would rather have a live Texas Ranger to send to Mexico City...but I suppose I could send your head if I have to."
Braddock unbuckled his gunbelt and lowered it to the ground. He stepped away from it and moved toward Mata with his hands held at shoulder height.
"Noooo!"
The scream came from inside the cantina. Braddock jerked around and saw Rosaria charge out into the open. She bent and scooped his Colt from its holster, and as she raised the gun she cried, "Braddock, run!"
"Rosaria, no!" he shouted. He took a step toward her, but it was too late. She had already thumbed back the hammer, and flame spouted from the gun's muzzle.
The next instant, a thunderous roar like the world was ending filled the village as the Rurales opened fire. Horrified, Braddock saw a dozen crimson flowers bloom on Rosaria's white blouse as rifle slugs ripped through her body.
He twisted back toward Mata, determined to kill the captain with his bare hands before he died himself.
That wasn't fated to be, either. Mata had charged at him and was practically on top of him already. The Rurale officer had drawn his sword and swung it in a vicious stroke at Braddock. The blade slammed into Braddock's head and drove him off his feet. Hot blood sheeted down the side of his face as he fell. He saw it splatter redly in the dust around him.
The Rurales closed in. Booted feet crashed into his ribs. They struck him with rifle butts as well. The brutal torture went on for what seemed like hours before Mata's harsh voice forced the men back.
Standing over Braddock with the bloody sword still in his hand, Mata grinned down at him and said, "Do not think you will be lucky enough to die here, Ranger. You will live to see the inside of a prison cell. But for now, look at the puta who tried to help you."
He pointed with the sword, and Braddock seemed powerless not to turn his head and gaze across the dusty ground at Rosaria's body. She lay sprawled on her back with her head twisted toward him so that he could see her face, frozen in lines of agony, and her empty, staring eyes. He wished he could tell her how sorry he was, but it was far too late for that.
Mata was still gloating, but somewhere along in there Braddock passed out, so at least he didn't have to listen anymore.
Chapter 14
Coleman kept his horse moving at a fast pace as he headed for the border. He didn't want to run the animal to death, but the rage he felt at Jeff Hawley's death made him less cautious than he might have been otherwise.
Not foolhardy, though. He didn't try to catch up all in one day. He stoppe
d that night and let his mount rest for a few hours while he grabbed a little sleep himself. But he was up well before dawn, steering by the stars now. The tracks he'd been following headed due south, so he took a chance they continued that way. If he lost the trail, he'd backtrack and find it in the morning. But if his guess was right, he had made up some of the gap between himself and his quarry.
Prey might be a better word, he mused as he rode through the pre-dawn gloom. Because he sure as hell intended to kill whoever was responsible for Hawley's death, slowly and painfully if at all possible.
When the sky grew light enough for him to see, Coleman found the tracks very quickly, confirming that his hunch had been right. The three horses were still heading for the border. He rode on through the day, stopping only when he sensed that his horse was about to give out.
As long as this one got him where he was going, that was all he really cared about. He could put his hands on another saddle mount whenever he got there. After everything he had done in his life, he wouldn't hesitate to steal a horse.
He made camp for a while again that night, then pushed on. At mid-morning, he reached the Rio Grande. He could see the crude adobe structures of a Mexican village not far away on the other side of the river.
Had it been bandits from south of the border who killed Hawley and burned down Dutchman's Folly? That seemed possible to Coleman, although as far as he knew there hadn't been much raiding along the border recently.
There was only one way to find out. The river was low enough here to ford, so Coleman sent his exhausted mount plodding through the water.
He noticed right away that quite a few horses were tied at the hitch racks in front of a building marked simply CANTINA, painted in somewhat shaky letters on the adobe above the arched entrance. Coleman counted eighteen saddled animals. Several men in gray clothes and sombreros lounged around the place, some of them hunkered on their heels in the shade cast by the walls, smoking short brown cigarettes, talking and laughing among themselves.
Coleman saw a few of the villagers moving around, too, going back and forth from the well by the church or visiting the settlement's one store. They avoided the sombreroed men.
Coleman had never encountered Rurales before, but he had a pretty good hunch that was who these men were. Any sort of authority rubbed him the wrong way. The sight of the Rurales made him want to turn around and get the hell back over the border.
The tracks had led across the river and into this village, though. The men he was looking for were here, and Coleman didn't intend to leave without them.
The Rurales paid no attention to him as he rode up to the store and dismounted. He would have preferred going into the cantina—it was always easier to pick up information in a place where men were drinking—but he didn't want to risk it. Maybe he could find out what he needed to know in here.
The inside of the place was cool and shadowy, full of the smells of coffee and peppers and spices. Coleman didn't see any customers, but a squat, bald man with a dirty apron over his clothes stood behind a counter in the back. A look of alarm appeared on his face as Coleman approached him.
Coleman put a friendly grin on his face and tipped his hat back. He could be plenty charming when he wanted to.
"Howdy, amigo," he said. "How are you today?"
"You are a Texan?" the storekeeper asked nervously.
"That's right. Is that a problem? I didn't think folks paid too much attention to the border around here."
"Today is not a good day to be in Esperanza," the man said. "The Rurales have captured a Texas Ranger who had no right to be here. You...you are not one of those devils, are you, señor?"
"Me?" Coleman said. "Do I look like a Texas Ranger?"
"You don't look that much different from the man who was captured by Capitan Mata. You are the same sort, I think."
The storekeeper turned his head and glanced toward a barred door behind him. Coleman wasn't sure why he did that, but the gesture seemed to have some meaning.
"Now hold on a minute," Coleman said. "I'm not sure I take kindly to being told I remind somebody of a Texas Ranger. I've had my own run-ins with those boys. What happened to this one?"
The storekeeper licked his lips and nodded toward the door. "He is locked up back there in my storeroom. El Capitan told me that if anything happened to him, he would have my head. And I believe Capitan Mata. He is a very hard man. You don't want him to find you on this side of the border, señor. Please, if you need supplies, tell me what they are. I will gather them, and then you should get back across the border as quickly as you can!"
"Tell me more about that Ranger," Coleman insisted. Something stirred in the back of his mind, something he couldn't quite bring himself to believe, but he wanted to hear more with his own ears.
"He is tall and lean. Like you. His hair is brown, without the red in it like you have. And he has a mustache."
That sounded like...No, it couldn't be, Coleman thought.
The storekeeper went on, "When he was talking to Capitan Mata, he said his name was...Braddock, I think."
Coleman stood there like he'd been punched in the gut. He had trouble getting his breath for a moment. His pulse hammered in his head. When the reaction settled down, he said to the storekeeper in a flinty voice, "Tell me what happened here. Tell me all of it."
That didn't take long. When the storekeeper was finished with the tale, Coleman was convinced it really had been none other than G.W. Braddock who had ridden into Esperanza with one of the village girls who had gone off to be a whore in Texas. The girl was dead now, and Braddock, wounded by the Rurale captain, was locked up only a few yards away. Coleman trembled with the desire to stalk over there, open the door, and empty his Colt into Braddock.
There were a couple of reasons why he didn't do that. One was the knowledge that the shots would bring the Rurales on the run, and in all likelihood he would never leave this village alive.
The other was curiosity. Coleman knew good and well that Braddock wasn't a Texas Ranger anymore. Why was this Captain Mata so sure he was? Coleman wanted an answer to that riddle.
He also wanted to get Braddock out of here and back across the border, so he could deal with the bastard in his own time and on his own terms. But again, if he tried to bust Braddock out of captivity, the Rurales would kill him. The odds were just too high.
But Frank Wiley and the rest of the gang were on their way here, Coleman thought with a smile.
And when they arrived, the odds would be totally different.
* * *
A groan welled up from somewhere deep inside Braddock. Part of it was due to the terrible pain that filled his head, but mostly it was composed of despair and sorrow. As soon as he'd returned from the welcome oblivion of unconsciousness, he had remembered how Rosaria died.
He hadn't cried over his ma's death, or his pa's. He hadn't shed tears like that since he'd buried his dog. His father had driven that out of him. So his eyes remained dry now. He wasn't going to cry over a whore, even one he had come to like a little. But she had died trying to help him, so inside he mourned.
A little scurrying noise made him lift his head and open his eyes. He was in a small room somewhere with adobe walls, a hard-packed dirt floor, and a thatched roof with enough gaps in it to let in several shafts of sunlight. Burlap sacks of grain were stacked against one of the walls. A rat perched atop one of the sacks it had evidently just torn open. Its beady eyes stared at Braddock for a second, then it darted away, disappearing through the rip in the sack.
"Eat yourself to death, you furry little bastard," Braddock rasped. His voice sounded foreign to his ears.
He sat up, which made the storage room that was his makeshift prison spin crazily around him for a moment. He lifted a hand to his head where it throbbed the worst and his fingers touched cloth. A quick exploration told him that a rag of some sort had been tied around his head to serve as a bandage over the gash Captain Mata's sword had opened up. The cloth was crusty with d
ried blood. Braddock knew he had been unconscious for quite a while.
When his head settled down he looked around and tried to figure out if there was any way out of here. He assumed the heavy wooden door was barred on the other side, and there might even be a Rurale standing guard out there, too. The storeroom didn't have any windows. He might be able to tear a big enough hole in the roof to climb out...if he could stack up those grain sacks high enough to reach it.
But even if he succeeded in doing that, Mata's whole patrol was probably still in the village. He'd have to get through them and then make a dash for the river, more than likely on foot.
The odds of him getting away were so slim as to be non-existent.
But at least if he tried to escape, he could force them to kill him quickly, rather than having to endure a years-long death in captivity in some hellhole of a Mexico City prison. That was what he was going to do, Braddock decided. He would go out fast, and if he could get his hands on a gun before he died, he would take some of the brutal sons of bitches with him.
He tried to stand up. That was a bigger job than it sounded like. Every muscle in his body was stiff and sore from the beating the Rurales had given him. He had to rest both hands on the rough wall and lean against it to steady himself as he climbed slowly, inch by inch, to his feet. By the time he was upright he was covered with sweat and his chest heaved from the exertion.
Braddock sleeved some of the moisture off his face and waited until his heart stopped racing before he tried to move again. The room wasn't spinning around any more, either. Carefully, he moved over to the sacks of grain and started rearranging them to form a slope he could climb to the roof.
He disturbed the rat, who burst out of one of the sacks and scurried into a corner. Braddock smiled grimly and said, "I know how you feel."
Then he heard voices on the other side of the door. His heart sank as the bar scraped in its brackets. That meant it was being taken down, and the door was about to be opened. Braddock set himself and got ready to charge out as soon as he got a chance. He would go ahead and make them kill him right here and now.
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