CHAPTER ELEVEN
On their approach to Trinidad, Dave McHugh had noted a good spot for an extended camp with running water, good grazing for the animals and a certain amount of shade from the harsh glare of the noonday sun. Mounting up, they rode in that direction and within a short time had established the outline of a Ranger camp with a designated kitchen area, horse lines and even a demarcated area where Abbie and Minny could perform their toilette in seclusion.
Supper was cooked and eaten, and afterwards pipes were lit as the group lay contentedly smoking and leaning on their saddles. Abbie and Dave had a brief talk about the joint plans for the morrow and, their conversation at an end, Captain McHugh got up and strolled over towards the horse lines.
There came a sudden crack, and a long gout of flame lit up the dark undergrowth on the edge of the clearing. McHugh pitched forward on his face in front of the Appaloosa that he had just brought an evening treat as the sound of galloping hoofs advertised the fact that the would-be assassin was rapidly vanishing in the darkness.
Abbie, together with others, ran forward to where Dave was lying. ‘Somebody bring a light here!’ was the cry and a lantern was brought. Dave was on his face, both arms outstretched with his hands clutching at the coarse grass. The ball had hit the leather V of his suspenders and had been deflected in a deep furrow across his back and gone under the right shoulder blade. An inch lower and it would have smashed his back bone. As it was, he had sustained a life-threatening wound.
It was decided to get him to Padre Pedro as quickly as possible as apparently he was the only one with the skills to attend to such a wound. As the Rangers prepared a primitive stretcher on which to place their wounded captain, he opened his eyes and called for Sergeant Campbell, the one who had identified Abbie as the Pinfire Lady. ‘Sergeant Campbell!’ he called out weakly, and when the latter appeared he said, ‘Sergeant, in my absence I’m appointing Captain Penraven to command the unit. Have the men obey her as they would me.’ And he sank back unconscious on the litter.
Leaving Sergeant Campbell to organize the night camp, with strong advice that all keep out of the campfire light, Abbie accompanied the four men carrying the litter through the town to the priest’s house. The dwelling was in darkness and she knocked quietly on the door. After a short silence, Father Pedro opened the door and Abbie whispered her appeal that he tended to their wounded commander.
There was no hesitation. He beckoned to her to bring Captain McHugh in and quickly turned up the wick of an oil lamp standing on the table. The captain was placed on the same couch that had held Jed Oldberg and the little priest prepared to operate for a second time that day.
The five from the camp waited until Father Pedro had extracted the lead bullet and had packed and bound the wound. Abbie insisted on giving the priest an offering over Father Pedro’s strenuous objections to pay for anything the captain might need, since it was considered too dangerous for him to be moved. Reluctantly, the little padre accepted Abbie’s offering and volunteered the information that Jed had left earlier but had agreed to return and have his wound re-dressed.
Abbie and the others walked quietly back through the silent street to their waiting camp and as she walked along, her thoughts wandered over some of the strange paths she had travelled in her short life.
What would Aunt Sarah have to say about some of the more recent events? She suppressed a girlish giggle as she considered her aunt’s probable comment regarding her niece’s latest enlistment. ‘Oh Abbie, they don’t even have a decent-looking uniform!’
The rest of the night proved to be uneventful and at first light Abbie went with two of the Utes to scout the area from whence had come the shot that laid Captain McHugh low. She watched with great interest as the two braves carefully searched every inch of the ground and then, satisfied with their examination, moved away from the camp to a spot where the would-be dry-gulcher had left his horse.
Abbie had discovered the area where the shooter had waited but that was the limit of her finds. Her two companions added far more detail. The man had been short of stature, they said, showing her where the leaves had been burnt at a certain height by the blast of his weapon. He was probably Mexican by the remains of a tortilla thrown in the bushes. He walked with a limp since his foot imprints were uneven and he wore riding boots with a hole in the left sole. One other factor they took pains to explain to Abbie; the shooter must have waited a long time since he had found a need to relieve himself and both braves insisted in demonstrating with sign language where he had stood to urinate.
Abbie fought to keep a straight face and continued to display a solemn mien as befitting a chief and her two followers. She called to Minny to pass on her next instructions. They were to take their horses and follow the trail left by the shooter’s steed but to be very careful that they were not observed.
She meanwhile returned to camp and indulged in a welcome cup of scalding hot coffee and a sourdough biscuit. After her hurried breakfast, Abbie took two of the Rangers into town and went to check on Captain McHugh. Father Pedro was absent celebrating mass in the adobe church but she was pleasantly surprised to find Jed Oldberg pottering around in the priest’s house and acting as a one-armed male nurse to the wounded ranger.
‘Jed Oldberg! I’m really pleased to see that you’re up and about. But what are you doing here?’
Jed turned his face away, but not before Abbie had noticed that it was cut and swollen. ‘What on earth has happened to your poor face?’
Jed made a feeble effort to explain that he had stumbled and fallen in the dark, when his tale of woe was interrupted by the voice of Padre Pedro coming from the doorway.
‘The boy lies, Señorita Commandante. He left here and returned to the place where he had been living before yesterday. Ace Lonergan is the one who beat the boy. That big brute is almost twice Jed’s size and doesn’t have one arm in a sling. Lonergan and maybe some others of Jed’s so-called friends left the lad unconscious in the alley. One of my little flock found him and brought him to me. Jed himself won’t talk about it but among the peons it is common knowledge.’
Jed stood there, head down, facing the stove with his face in shadow. Abbie went over and put her arm across his shoulders. ‘Come and sit down next to me, Jed. Is it true what the Padre has told us? If you have any friends in Trinidad it is us, not that bunch of hoodlums. Start at the beginning and give us the complete story.’
Seated together at the opposite end of the long leather couch where Captain McHugh lay sleeping restlessly, Abbie slowly obtained the story from a reluctant Jed. Despite Father Pedro’s pleas, he had decided to leave a short while after his bullet wound had been dressed and returned to the saloon where he had hung out before the affair in the plaza.
To his surprise and dismay, his erstwhile friends cold-shouldered him or alternatively made derogatory comments about his stupidity in challenging a Ranger, even if she was only a woman. Others jeered at him, deriding his pitiful shooting, the lack of speed with which he cleared leather and the sad fact that he didn’t get off a single shot. The main point was that he had drawn attention to himself and was no use to their bunch any more.
At that moment Ace Lonergan had entered from a back room and, shouldering the crowd aside, came face to face with a white-faced Jed Oldberg. Ace was livid and trembling with a worked up rage as he described Jed as a dumb farm hick and went on to refer to him and his parents with vile insults, which had finally prompted the boy to swing a wild weak punch while defending their honour. Ace had laughed as he had knocked the blow to one side, exclaiming that Jed had given him a valid reason to lick the tar out of him, which he had then proceeded to do until the unconscious boy was thrown out into a side alley. He was found by Manuel Ortega, who had brought him to the padre.
Abbie made one of her split second decisions. ‘Jed, you’re coming back with us to the Ranger camp. You could probably stay here with Father Pedro but it wouldn’t be fair to him and I suspect that you wouldn’t
be safe anywhere in town. Unfortunately I suspect that Lonergan and company believe that you have, or will, pass on information to us and they may decide to silence you for good.’
In vain, Jed was protesting that he didn’t, in his words, ‘know nothing’ to tell the Rangers, when a shot came through the window and smashed into the wall behind the stove, which convinced him that it wasn’t healthy for him out on the streets of Trinidad.
One of the Rangers was instructed to remain with Captain McHugh until relieved, while the other would go with Abbie and escort Jed to the Ranger camp.
The trio left the priest’s house and walked down the street with Abbie and Ranger Tom Budner walking on either side of the apprehensive lad. Initially all went well but as they approached the saloon where Jed had had his so-called pals, a small crowd gathered on the porch and others pushed their way through the bat-wing doors to join them. Then the cat-calls started, directed at the boy as well as the two Rangers.
A hulking great figure stepped off the porch and confronted them. ‘Hey! Where d’ya think you’re taking young Jeddy boy?’
In a loud clear voice, Abbie responded, ‘He’s being taken into protective custody. Though it’s none of your business. Get out of the way and let us pass!’
‘Hold on now, young woman! Nobody speaks to Ace Lonergan like that. Besides which, it is my business. That boy works for me.’
Jed whispered a fervent, ‘No I don’t any more. I quit yesterday!’ as the trio sidestepped and made as though to walk around the fuming Lonergan.
‘Don’t take another step or it’ll be the worse for you! Jed, get over here!’
Abbie stepped in front of Jed and effectively blocked him from Lonergan. ‘Mr Lonergan! Or whatever your name really is. You are becoming more than a trifle tiresome. Why don’t you be a good little boy and run along home and play with your toys or something. Off you go now! Shoo!’ And Abbie made shooing motions as though driving off a troublesome dog.
Her actions had the desired effect. There was a roar of laughter, which for a short while at least had the porch crowd on her side, while Lonergan stood there feeling ridiculous. Renowned for having a very short fuse, the jeering comments from the boardwalk coupled with Abbie’s contemptuous reaction to his attempt to assert his perceived authority provoked the inevitable reaction.
Lonergan exploded into a volley of foul epithets directed at Abbie, the mildest of which referred to her as a ‘fatherless Ranger whore!’ and thereafter got more and more obscene and insulting. Abbie just stood and smiled sweetly at him, which drove Ace to distraction. He dragged at the holster on his right hip, drawing the Remington .44 that he carried.
By gunfighting standards he was pitifully slow since Lonergan traditionally used his fists and boots to enforce his will. Abbie permitted his pistol to actually clear leather before she drew her 12mm pinfire and put a bullet into his left kneecap, followed by a shot that smashed into his beefy right arm and caused him to drop his pistol.
Ace roared with pain and anger, and made the mistake of hobbling towards his female adversary, whereupon Abbie reluctantly placed her third shot in his right leg, dropping him down into the dirt of the street. With a distinct sense of déjà vu, she walked forward and placed the hot muzzle of her pistol right between his eyes in the middle of his forehead. Like a rabbit hypnotized by a snake, Ace Lonergan stared along the barrel of her cocked pistol, now fully aware that a slight pressure on the trigger could send him into oblivion.
The porch crowd had become silent as the drama unfolded before them in the street and now there were polite murmurings as Abbie spoke quietly to Ace. ‘Mr Lonergan, I think that you should get your wounds attended to and as soon as you can travel you get out of Trinidad and find somewhere else to reside, preferably a long way away!’
With that last remark she decocked her revolver and, slipping it into its holster, she turned to her two companions and suggested, ‘C’mon let’s get back to camp!’ As they walked away they could hear Ace pleading for someone to come and help him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Arriving back at the Ranger encampment, Sergeant Campbell hurried over to report that the two Indian braves who had set out to try and trail the man who had shot Captain McHugh had returned with some interesting news.
Abbie bade them come over and, using Minny to enlarge upon their limited English, listened to their story. The two Indians described how they had tracked the shooter westward for quite some distance and then had lost the trail amid stony ground. They apparently had spent some considerable time casting around in ever increasing circles and eventually were successful in picking up the tracks once more. They described the terrain of low hills with an arid parched soil, not quite desert yet certainly not good grazing. When the two braves noted a thin column of smoke rising lazily in the air they proceeded, slowly and cautiously, and peering over the brow of a rocky outcrop, they were surprised to see in a wide valley a large well-guarded hacienda.
In a mixture of English terms, Pidgin English and sign language, the Utes described a series of buildings that showed signs of having been burned and abandoned in the past but recently renovated.
They had carefully made their way right around the hacienda and were able to sketch an outline in the dirt stressing the fact that both the walls and the gateway had armed guards.
Abbie sat and pondered over this latest information. It was, she felt, imperative that she had a discussion with Captain McHugh to compare views on what she thought was the situation in and around La Trinidad. As she sat mulling things over, there was a shout of ‘Hello the camp!’ and a party made its way into the light of the campfire.
She was delighted yet concerned to see that the group that had hailed the camp consisted of the Ranger she’d left at Father Pedro’s cottage and four peons carefully bearing a litter, upon which was reclining a grinning Captain McHugh. Hurrying over to where the litter was deposited Abbie knelt by his side and, clasping his extended hand, burst out with, ‘David McHugh! What on earth are you doing here? You’re supposed to be still abed in the care of Padre Pedro!’
Captain McHugh explained that he and the good padre had discussed his condition in great detail and it had been agreed that as long as he rested he would be much safer with his own men, especially considering the shot through the window. ‘There seem to be two factions in Trinidad. There are the law and order people led by Padre Pedro and I imagine most of his flock and also probably a sprinkling of some of the Texan townspeople. That’s one group. Then there are rowdies led by people like Ace Lonergan who have entirely different motives for being here and indeed there may be yet others who have yet to reveal themselves.’
Abbie nodded in agreement as these had been her thoughts when McHugh had arrived. ‘However,’ she said. ‘I think that the web extends much further than the town.’
She described the Utes’ report and called to one of the peons drinking coffee by the fire. ‘Señor, do you know anything about a big hacienda maybe fifteen miles to the west of La Trinidad?’
He was most definitely uncomfortable with her question. He rolled his eyes heavenward and looked around the campsite as though seeking an avenue of escape. Abbie put a hand on his right shoulder and, gripping him firmly, shook him gently, saying, ‘Come now, hombre! You are a brave one, otherwise Padre Pedro would not have chosen you to assist the wounded El Capitán. What do you know?’
After several false starts, the peon summoned up his courage and told her and Captain McHugh the story of Hacienda Alvarez. Don Casimir Alvarez and his family had settled on a large tract of land granted to them by the King of Spain. For more than 100 years the Alvarez family had lived there and had prospered. Then one awful day the Comanche had attacked in overwhelming numbers. They had captured, looted and burnt the hacienda. None had been spared. Thereafter the location had got a name for being haunted and this story had grown as the years had passed. Strange lights were seen when the hacienda was viewed from a distance and one or two hardy souls h
ad completely vanished when venturing too close. These unfortunates had never been seen again. ‘It is a most evil place, señorita!’ And he fervently crossed himself.
Abbie and David McHugh looked at each other and she was the first to break the silence. ‘So! We have yet another factor to be considered. Who is out at the Hacienda Alvarez and why did they take a pot-shot at you?’
‘There is another strange thing that must be part of the equation, Abbie. That man Gomez, El Caudillo, your posse was chasing. Who finished him off? It would seem that he deliberately came to Trinidad but for some reason he was decidedly unwelcome. Did he meet his end at the hands of the good people of the town, the bad element or the ones who take shots in the dark?’
Their attempts to unravel the mysteries of La Trinidad were interrupted by the arrival of an agitated Mexican riding an unhappy mule. Without dismounting, he passed on a message from the padre that there was yet another body hanging in the street and he called for Rangers to come to the scene of the crime. Abbie looked at McHugh and shrugged her shoulders. ‘Well, David, you’re hardly in a position to trot into town so I’d better go. I’ll take three of my own men with me.’
Five minutes later, Abbie and three of her ranch hands were on the trail back into town. A large crowd was gathered in front of the livery stable staring and whispering at the sight of yet another body hanging from the hoist above the open door. Pushing their horses through the crowd, the quartet dismounted and looked up at the corpse of Ace Lonergan slowly turning round and round in the night air.
Abbie stared up at the corpse in dismay. During her mismatched duel with Lonergan she had had no desire to kill her opponent and indeed had deliberately shot to merely disable him, yet here he was dead and irrationally she felt somehow responsible.
Pinfire Lady Strikes Back Page 7
