Pinfire Lady Strikes Back

by P J Gallagher

  Felipe’s hand loosened its grip and his head fell back. Abbie realized that she was alone in the room with two dead men, one, an enemy, the other a friend for whom she had developed a certain attachment over the weeks despite the vast difference in their cultural backgrounds.

  Heavy footsteps broke in on her reverie and she looked up as Sergeant Campbell entered the room. He paused momentarily on the threshold at the tragic scene before him and then, as though to rouse Abbie from her sorrowful pose, in a loud voice rendered his report. ‘It’s all over, Cap’n Abbie! The last of the outlaws has surrendered but most of them shot it out to the end, as did the Comanche warriors. So we’ve only got three prisoners. Regretfully we lost two men from those on the walls, and, of course . . .’ nodding towards Felipe’s corpse . . . ‘This poor lad here. Which, I might add, I’m sorry to see. What are your orders, Cap’n?’

  Abbie rose to her feet and mentally shook herself with the realization that, regardless of her personal feelings, she was still in command of the expedition and decisions had to be made. She thought rapidly and assembled a series of suggestions of actions that should be taken.

  ‘Well, Sergeant, this is what I think should be done. Assemble the released prisoners from the cellar. We will have to transport them back to La Trinidad with us. Ensure that we have ample stocks of food from the storeroom to feed all our people and have a work party report here to me. We are going to burn this nest of evil so that it will not be used as a haven for outlaws in the future. I don’t know what the laws of Texas are regarding arson, but that is what I think should be done!’

  Abbie paused in her report of the final hours of Hacienda Alvarez and stared silently into the flickering embers of the campfire. Captain David McHugh waited patiently for her to continue with her report. At length his temporary captain straightened herself, took a deep breath, and described how the body of Felipe, their only civilian casualty, had been buried with full military honours on a hillside facing Mexico and that one of the ex-prisoners had carved a simple headstone to mark the place.

  The body of Antonio Alvarez and those of his men, together with the dead Comanche, were stacked in the dining room of the hacienda. All the rooms were amply doused with oil from the well-stocked store rooms and barrels of gunpowder placed where their explosions would do the most damage. Then the Rangers, the ex-prisoners and the well-guarded surviving outlaws evacuated the site and retreated to a safe location as Abbie lit a torch and tossed it into the room of the dead.

  Hurriedly she had mounted her bay and, putting the spur to his flanks, she made haste to put a fair distance between herself and the anticipated inferno.

  The oil-saturated timbers caught immediately and the fire spread rapidly, followed by a series of loud booms as one after another the barrels detonated. The flames became a raging inferno as though Hell itself was trying to arise from the desert. The roof caved in, followed by the partial collapse of the outer and inner walls, and as the conflagration consumed the hacienda, Abbie had realized that her Texan mission was coming to an end.

  Captain McHugh, though expressing his condolences over the death of Felipe, was lavish in his praise at the way in which Abbie had conducted what went down in Ranger history as the Alvarez operation. In return, he was able to provide solutions to a couple of minor mysteries that had remained unanswered. It will be remembered that as the Rangers had first entered La Trinidad they had seen the corpse of Benito Gomez, the late El Caudillo, hanging from the livery barn hoist. One of Padre Pedro’s flock had finally let slip what had actually happened.

  When Gomez had entered the town he had headed for a cantina to slake his thirst and had immediately been confronted by a group of fellow Mexicans who had suffered at the hands of him and his gang. As they were arguing what to do with him, he had suddenly collapsed and was already dead when he was hoisted and left swinging at the livery stable. The men responsible for stringing him up thought that their act might cause some of the more lawless elements of the town to see the error of their ways.

  The similar hanging of Ace Lonergan was believed to have been done at the command of Antonio Alvarez, who apparently had come to the conclusion that the former was drawing too much attention to himself and had failed to carry out his instructions to get rid of the Ranger presence.

  The perpetrators had slipped into town and since they were his fellow gang members he had been easily persuaded to go with them unwittingly to the place of his own execution.

  Abbie’s work in La Trinidad was ended and she and the surviving members of her Colorado City posse were now eager to head north after a brief ceremony, during which they were officially discharged from the Ranger service. As she stood by her bay preparing to swing into the saddle to lead her group homeward, Captain McHugh came up to bid her goodbye. ‘Goodbye, David,’ Abbie said with a catch in her voice, ‘Go home to that wife of yours on the Brazos! I would be happy if you had a twin brother around somewhere.’

  McHugh reached forward to shake her hand and suddenly changed his mind and grabbed her in a fierce hug. ‘Abbie, you’re a true comrade and the best pal I’ve ever had. Take care of yourself and, rest assured, Texas will never forget the Pinfire Lady!’