by Tony Masero
A group of white men sprawled lazily outside the cabins below the manorial building; they smoked pipes and pulled frequently at basket-nested jugs. The mix of uniform and rough costume marked them out them as Bond’s band of Confederados.
‘Pretty lax down there,’ he observed to Ricardo. ‘No guards or lookouts, nor any defenses I can see.’
‘They think they are safe behind that wall,’ said Ricardo. ‘They have ruled cruelly for too long and now all they do is drink and take women. Their caution is forgotten, they are no longer soldiers.’
‘Sounds like the rot has set in then.’
‘I think so, senhor,’ Ricardo agreed.
‘Makes things easier.’
Kirby noted the long stable building on the far side of the courtyard and the Confederate saddling up a pony outside, he jerked his chin in the soldier’s direction.
‘Looks like a messenger about to leave.’ Kirby bit his lip and considered the options. ‘Let’s take him down,’ he said decisively.
They scampered swiftly from the tree and joined Guatano who had been standing guard below. With a swift explanation to the Indian the three made their way into the jungle to prepare their ambush.
The trail was easy to find, as there was only the one route in and out of the estate and with Guatano ahead they took up position on each side of the broad track.
Sinking down into the undergrowth, Kirby waited patiently for the double-door gateway set in the walls to open and their prey to come out. From his position, Kirby could see the broad back of Guatano and decided he was beginning to like the silent Indian; he carried out his tasks with efficiency and expertise and without the necessity to be told what to do. There was no doubt he was a bold and fearless warrior as he had demonstrated already. With his silence and ability to move like a ghost through the jungle, Kirby was glad he was on their side.
The gate creaked opened.
The three watchers kept their eyes firmly fixed on the rider and once he was out of sight of the estate amongst the trees they made their move.
Guatano launched himself from his hiding place; he bounded along the track behind the soldier, and then leapt into the air. His heavy body collided with the Confederate’s back, knocking the wind from his body as the two fell from the pony and crashed onto the ground.
As Guatano rolled away and rose easily to his feet, Ricardo caught up the reins of the twisting pony and held him steady. Kirby was immediately on the surprised soldier; he straddled the man and pushed his Colt between Jaines' panting lips.
‘One word,’ snarled Kirby. ‘And you swallow lead.’
Jaines' eyes went round in angry shock and he looked across at the other two, his mind racing as he tried to understand what was going on.
‘Get up,’ said Kirby, levering himself off the fallen man.
‘What is this?’ asked Jaines. ‘You fellow’s Bandeiras come looking for gold?’
Kirby shook his head negatively. ‘No, sir, it ain’t that at all. What’s your name, soldier?’
‘Alistair Jaines, what’s it to you?’
‘Nothing at all, Corporal Jaines.’
‘Then what you want with me?’
‘Where you bound to, soldier?’ Kirby asked, keeping his pistol centered on the man’s forehead. Behind him, Guatano moved in and removed the pistol from Jaines’ latched holster.
‘Looking for some of our men that’ve gone missing,’ Jaines answered, standing unsteadily on his feet. ‘You come to the wrong place you looking to do some robbing here.’
‘It’s not robbery we’re after,’ said Kirby. ‘Now move along, we’re taking you back to what’s left of your little raiding party.’
‘This’ll go bad for you,’ warned Jaines angrily. ‘There’s boys back there that’ll cut your heads off for messing with men of the Circle.’
‘Save your breath and walk,’ advised Kirby, shoving him in the chest with his pistol.
They found Belle waiting anxiously back at the Bandeiras campsite.
‘What happened? I heard a shot.’
‘Nothing to us,’ said Kirby, pushing a recalcitrant Jaines ahead of him. ‘Took us a prisoner, is all. The shot was Bond playing at lord and master as he downed one of his own workers. Fella’s a regular fat rat now. He’s gone to the dog’s, Belle, and that place of his, well, it looks like one mean old hell hole alright.’
‘He’s here then?’ said Belle quickly, with a hungry look in her eye. ‘You’re certain?’
‘He’s here alright, him and his bunch of n’ere-do-wells.’
Belle’s blue eyes altered to a cool gray as she turned to Jaines, ‘And this is one of them?’
Tiago and the rest of the Bandeiras men came up quickly as they advanced with the prisoner into the clearing.
‘Yep,’ agreed Kirby. ‘Meet Corporal Alistair Jaines. Fine looking fellow, ain’t he?’ Kirby tugged at Jaines’ sleeve and dragged him over towards the bound figure of Benjamin. ‘Come on, Corp. Come and say ‘hi’ to one of your own.’
‘Corporal!’ cried Benjamin at sight of the soldier. ‘They took me and killed the others, they’re all dead, Corporal Jaines,’ he gabbled. ‘Nothing we could do, they had us cold.’
Jaines turned angrily on Kirby, ‘You shot down Ahab and the others?’
‘’Fraid so,’ Kirby mocked an apology. ‘But they was nasty beggars, beating on women and such.’
‘You think they were nasty, wait ‘til you meet their friends,’ muttered Jaines.
‘Now you set there,’ ordered Kirby. ‘We’ll have to tie you I fear. Just ‘til we figure how it’s going to go down.’
Tiago pressed up close behind Kirby, ‘Leave him to us,’ he urged. ‘I will see he is baked alive in clay, just as the Indians do it.’
Guatano laughed aloud, a strange sound amongst all the serious talk. ‘Yes, this I would like to see,’ he said, his lips creasing into an eager grin whilst his eyes stayed as cold as stone.
‘Sorry, boys,’ said Kirby. ‘Not at this time. You just hold your cannibal ways in check for a spell. We’re going to need these fellows.’
‘You have a plan?’ asked Belle.
‘I got something rattling around,’ Kirby allowed. ‘Let’s sit a spell and work it out.’
They gathered in a group away from the prisoners and talked softly as Kirby outlined his scheme.
‘Must I?’ complained Belle, looking across at Jaines in distaste.
‘Has to be, Belle,’ said Kirby. ‘You’re the only one here with hair fair enough to pass of as the Corporal.’
‘So let me have it straight? I dress up as the soldier boy there and we take Benjamin with you alongside as a captured prisoner.’
Kirby nodded, ‘You stay back behind Benjamin; I’ll ride alongside him with my hands tied up loosely like I’m a captive. We get entry this way.’
‘Then what?’ Belle asked.
‘Then we play it by ear. We shoot who we have to and take Bond alive if we can.’
‘Sounds simple,’ allowed Belle with a wry look of dismay. ‘You always have to go in like a bull in a china shop? Maybe we should consider this a little more.’
‘What’s to consider? These guys are falling apart, they’re so liquored up and exhausted by all their shenanigans they don’t offer any prospect of a real fight.’
‘Sounds easy,’ Belle answered doubtfully. ‘A bit too easy for my liking.’
‘Belle,’ sighed Kirby tiredly. ‘You gotta have a little faith. It’ll work like a dream, trust me. We’ll toddle in there, plug a few Rebels and take your beloved Bond back to Pinkerton’s fond embrace. Easy as pie.’
‘Damn you, Kirby Langstrom. Why do I love you so? You’re such a painfully reckless soul.’
‘Maybe that’s just why you do,’ grinned Kirby.
‘I think we need more,’ Belle said.
‘Like what?’
‘You said there were stables. How about a little fire in there, they’ll need to handle the horses and that could give us some e
dge.’
‘We have to get inside the walls first.’
‘And what of us?’ interrupted Tiago. ‘What part do we play in this?’
‘Well, Tiago, there ain’t no call for you to be involved. This ain’t your fight.’
‘But it is,’ said Tiago angrily. ‘They have shamed my clan and me, taken my wife and child and my sister-in-law from us and threatened them with much abuse. Maria has told me everything. They had plans for my child; to do things to a young girl you would not like to hear. I promise you, senhor Kirby, for this they shall pay. Myself, my son and all of us are with you in this.’
Kirby turned to Guatano, ‘And what about you?’ he asked. ‘You only hired on as a guide, there’s no call on you to take up arms here.’
Guatano shrugged, and looked past Kirby at the two prisoners. ‘I am the last of the Goitacá,’ his dead eyes for once glowed with a burning passion. ‘When they could not kill us with blade and gun they burned us from our homes. Then they used torture and enslavement and whilst we still lived they brought disease. Gave us as gifts of blankets full of the sickness of red spots. You are going to kill white men, the kind of men that did this to my people,’ he smiled thinly. ‘How can I refuse?’
‘Okay, Guatano. Hope you’re good at lighting fires.’
Chapter Fourteen
Jaines did not approve one bit of being left behind alone at the camp, naked and bound wrist and foot with all the womenfolk and children for company, particularly as some of them were looking at him in a weird and threatening manner, particularly the one mourning woman with ash streaking her cheeks.
They had stripped him down and Belle had struggled into the man’s tunic. It did not fit her too well; with the pants ballooning over boots tops and the shirt leaving enough arm length to cover her hands down to her fingertips. The only part that fitted snug was across her chest, where her well-endowed front stretched the outfit to busting. With the Confederate forage cap canted at an angle on her blond hair, Belle hid behind the leading figure of Benjamin whilst Kirby rode alongside him, his head hanging and hands behind his back as if tied. In reality he held his Colt aimed at the young man.
‘One false move,’ he promised Benjamin as they approached the main gate. ‘And I’ll blow you from one side of the road to the other.’
‘D…. don’t worry,’ stuttered Benjamin, staring at the pistol from the corner of his eye. ‘I’ll play it straight.’
‘Be sure you do,’ warned Belle from behind him. ‘Because if he doesn’t nail you I surely will.’
They had separated from the others down the trail, with Tiago and his men making for the trees and a sniper’s overview of the courtyard. Guatano had loped off alone, heading around the perimeter intent on his mission of firing the stables.
‘They open that door,’ Kirby whispered to Belle. ‘And we head for the main house right off, leave Tiago to take care of the rest of them. We go direct for Bond, okay?’
She nodded assent.
‘What about me?’ Benjamin asked in a quavering high-pitched voice. ‘You ain’t going to shoot me, are you?’
‘You play your part and then you can light out and go where you will,’ promised Kirby. ‘I ain’t about to shoot you down.’
‘Thank you kindly,’ Benjamin breathed an obvious sigh of relief.
‘Give them a call,’ ordered Kirby as they pulled up outside the gate.
‘Ho, there!’ shouted Benjamin. ‘You gonna let us in or not?’
It took a while but eventually a sleepy head poked over the parapet and stared gloomily down at them.
‘Who that?’ the man asked belligerently, bringing a rifle into view. It wavered some and Kirby reckoned the fellow was probably still recovering from a big night and had one hell of a hangover, at least it seemed to Kirby that his temperament was scratchy enough.
‘Why, you know me. It’s Trooper Benjamin and Corporal Jaines, coming back in with a prisoner.’
‘A prisoner, huh? Where’d you pick him up?’
‘We caught him at the Bandeiras village.’
‘So where is Ahab, he was out on that run, weren’t he?’ asked the man with a long yawn. ‘Where’d he get to?’
‘Come on,’ hissed Kirby in an aside to Benjamin. ‘Get the fool to open the gate.’
‘You going to open up or do we have to wait here all day until you get your thumb out your ass?’
The man at the parapet snorted, ‘What’s the all-fired hurry? There ain’t much that happens around here anyway.’
‘We have to get this fellow up before the Grand Knight pronto, might be he’s got something to tell.’
‘Okay, okay,’ grumbled the man in bored voice. ‘I’m coming,’ Slowly his voice became more indistinct as he descended from view. There was the sound of a bar being shifted and the heavy wood gate cracked apart and slowly eased itself inwards as the guard pushed the two doors back. ‘Come on then,’ he waved his hand irritably as he stood at the open gate and urged them in.
‘Thank you, sir. Hope your head feels better real soon,’ said Kirby politely as he leant across Benjamin and fired his pistol at point blank range into the man’s brain box.
The fellow bucked away at the shot. He slammed up against the gate behind and slid down, his rifle dropped and forgotten as his head drooped and blood escaped in a steady stream down his dirty shirtfront.
‘Get out of here!’ Kirby called to Benjamin as he and Belle urged their ponies on. Benjamin did not hesitate, he whirled his pony around and pummeling the beast’s ribs with his heels galloped off down the way they had come.
As Kirby and Belle swirled into the desiccated garden in front of Bond’s balcony, the sound of the shot brought a tumble of men from the cottages alongside. As the men appeared in clear view a fusillade of firing came from the high trees around the perimeter of the walls as Tiago and his men opened fire. Clouds of dense white smoke flew into the courtyard along with a hail of lead. A few of the running men buckled and flew forward in a tumble into the dust of the yard. They lay there still and dead as their companions headed for cover and began to return fire.
Kirby swung down from the saddle and searched around for some kind of entrance into the building. They had pulled up under Bond’s array of torture posts and the two looked up in distaste at the dangling bodies hanging there. Every one of the victims was already dead and there was nothing that could be done for them. Belle looked back at the battleground behind her and saw smoke beginning to seep skywards from the stable buildings. Guatano had managed to start his fire. There was a sudden explosive burst of flame licking from under the eaves of the long roof followed by the frantic screams of terrified horses.
Belle heard the cries of concern from the trapped Confederados alongside the courtyard. Then with a crash the stable doors flew open and horses dashed out, bumping and colliding with each other in their haste to escape. In the dust and wall of smoke that billowed from the stable doors, a lone figure ran out. He stood a moment, bow and arrows in one hand and the long mane of hair tied back in a knot. Guatano, whose face was painted from eyes to chin with the red dye, bellowed a loud war cry and lifting a machete high he began a run across the courtyard. He followed the path of the escaping ponies but the animals swerved aside as they saw the buildings blocking their way ahead and as they separated Guatano was exposed to the gunmen stationed there.
Kirby shook his head in dismay as Guatano reached the halfway mark across the wide courtyard. Bullets were beginning to whine around him as the Confederates spotted the lone figure. The earth sprayed up in little burst as bullets pattered at his racing feet. Uncaring, Guatano ran on, he seemed oblivious to anything as petty as hot lead.
‘He ain’t going to make it,’ Kirby estimated.
‘He might if we help,’ said Belle, cranking a shell into her rifle.
‘Damn right,’ agreed Kirby, kneeling and taking aim.
They both had the cover of the building, which formed a rectangular u-shape with two short wings o
f stone extending outwards from each end of the house that enclosed the courtyard and the crucifixion posts. Shooting around the corner of the nearest wing, Belle and Kirby began a series of well-aimed shots to keep down the heads of the Confederates, who had now found themselves caught in a crossfire from both Tiago and the two Pinkerton’s.
The Confederates attention was diverted by the new angle of intervention coming at them and they forgot about Guatano, cursing and shouting at each other as they backed away and wormed into deeper cover amongst their cottages.
To ignore the Indian proved to be a foolish thing to do.
With a roar Guatano was in amongst them. The Confederates were hiding in the alleyways between their small houses and some were firing from the windows. Their position was tight and Kirby knew it would take something to winkle them out.
It seemed ‘the something’ was about to be the figure of Guatano as he charged between the buildings, roaring his battle cry and slashing with the machete, pausing only to occasionally loose off one of his deadly arrows.
Tiago and his men not wishing to left out, dropped from the trees and came running through the open gates, intent on joining Guatano in the fray. It seemed things were going well and with a decisive nod at Belle, Kirby determined they should now go after Xavier Bond.
As the two of them made for a side door, a shot rang out from above and Kirby frowned as a neat hole appeared in the brim of his hat. Through the hole, he could see Bond looking down at him, aiming for another shot from the edge of the balcony.
Both Belle and Kirby leapt sideways away from each other. Belle made it to the small side door and pushed her way inside but Kirby was caught in the open and Bond’s next shot caught him on the run. The bullet slapped against his left shoulder, spinning him around and sending him in an overbalanced run straight into the stone wall. With a dull clunk, Kirby’s head connected with the solid stone blocks and he rebounded to fall stunned to the ground.
With a smile of satisfaction, thinking he had downed Kirby permanently, Bond heaved his bulk away from the balustrade. He looked over to see the stable buildings pouring out flames and black smoke in roiling wall. To his left the gun battle was still going on amidst his soldier’s homes and as he looked towards the barracks that made up the slave’s quarters, he was surprised to see them all gathering. As if they were an audience paid up for the entertainment. Bond did not like the look of the silent mass of black faces, he sensed that given the right kind of signal they would throw off their fearful reserve and come running to overthrow him.
