Bannerman the Enforcer 5

by Kirk Hamilton

  Soon the drone of talking in the camp faded and was replaced by snores and the gruntings of men settling into their blankets. Animals howled around the canyon rim. Yancey drifted off into sleep, giving up the struggle with his bonds. He had heard Collins say that they had another full day’s travel before reaching the village they were planning to raid. There was nothing Yancey could do, even if he could get free. No law here that he could ride to. By the time he could get back to the Rio and find the border patrol, the raid would have taken place and Collins would be headed back north with his slaves.

  He might just as well get what rest he could; the only thing he could do now was to try to make a break for it during the fighting. He couldn’t stop the massacre but he might be able to get help to stop Collins and Blayne getting their slaves back to the Rio.

  He slept soundly. It was the feel of cold steel against the flesh of his wrists that woke him.

  Yancey’s eyes snapped open but he didn’t move, sorting out his senses, figuring what was going on. A knife was sawing gently at the ropes that bound his wrists. The rest of the camp was quiet. He moved his eyes without moving his head and saw that there didn’t seem to be any movement. Then he saw a man settling down into his blankets further around the edge of the pool, heard his grunts and the rustle of the coarse cloth. At first he thought the man was getting out of his blankets but he was lying down and pulling them up over his head.

  “Johnny?” Yancey whispered, figuring the man settling in was the other night guard who had been relieved with Cato by the second shift.

  “Quiet!” a voice hissed.

  The last rope parted and Yancey kept his hands in position, flexing his fingers to get the circulation going again. A hand touched his shoulder and squeezed, tugging slightly to the left, away from the camp. Yancey eased his body over slowly that way, doing a complete three hundred and sixty degree roll, carefully, so as not to make any noise. He saw the silhouette of a man’s head and a rifle barrel. It was Cato all right, briefly blotting out the stars, then the shadow was moving back into the rocks and Yancey got to all fours, slowly straightened, looking warily back at the dark, sleeping forms around the waterhole.

  He followed Cato into the rocks and the smaller man led the way up the slope to a flat ledge with rocks studded around it and where they were screened from the camp below. Cato turned and unslung something from his left shoulder and handed it to Yancey. It was his gun-rig. Yancey’s teeth flashed briefly white in the darkness.

  “I damn well knew you hadn’t turned rogue gun!”

  “Lot of folks wouldn’t agree with you,” Cato said, and there was a flash of white where his mouth was. “Pulled it off pretty well, huh, the governor and me?”

  “Sure as hell did. How come so much secrecy? What’s the big deal?”

  “That was the trouble,” Cato said, glancing back towards the sleeping camp. “We didn’t know. Dukes had gotten word that Blayne was ridin’ all over the state, buyin’ up gambling notes. But only those that belonged to hombres known to be fast with a gun. He’s long been suspected of being mixed up in the wetback slave trade it seems, and there were all the indications that he was getting ready for some kind of big deal. Dukes’ Rangers had heard whispers along the border, too. Then he got this idea of plantin’ either you or me on Blayne, but trouble was, Blayne knew us as Enforcers. So the only way Dukes reckoned he could do it was to discredit one of us, make it look like we was discredited, and then try to plant us on Blayne. I was the logical choice, he figured. I was always rangin’ through saloons with women, drinkin’, playin’ the occasional game of cards. So he set me up with a fake background of gamblin’ trouble in Laramie and you know the rest. He figured it’d look more genuine if you weren’t in on it and you and me argued when you tried to straighten me out.” He grinned again. “Only thing was, I reckon he wasn’t expectin’ you to join Blayne’s bunch too!”

  Yancey nodded. “Did his best to get me busy on something else. But I cleaned up the chore and got the whisper you’d been seen as a prisoner in Vernon. Thought I could help out. Blown your chore now, have I?”

  Cato shook his head. “Found out what I needed. Knew there wasn’t time to get back to the Rio for help and couldn’t even guess where the nearest Federale post is. So I reckoned the only thing to do was for us to bust out of here and get to the village ahead of this bunch and warn ’em so’s they can be prepared to fight.”

  “Idea’s okay, except for one thing: we don’t know where the village is.”

  “I do. I heard Blayne and Collins talkin’. Place called San Felipe. Day’s ride to the southwest.”

  Yancey was dubious. “Day’s ride for Collins and Blayne who know where they’re headed. We don’t know the country, Johnny. We’re likely to get ourselves lost and they could get there ahead of us.”

  “It’s the best we can do, Yance. Unless you’ve got some other idea.”

  Yancey had to admit he hadn’t.

  “Then we better get movin’, pronto. I’ve just been relieved by the second shift of guards. There’s two of them: one up on the ridge above the waterhole, the other back that way.” He pointed off into the night. “Horses are over there in an arroyo. If we can get out without wakin’ everyone up, maybe we can scatter their mounts and leave them afoot.”

  “That sounds more like it,” Yancey agreed enthusiastically. “Let’s get down and see what we can do.”

  Then they froze as a gun hammer clicked back to full cock and Waco Wyatt’s voice spoke out of the darkness.

  “I knew we couldn’t trust you, Cato.”

  Yancey didn’t hesitate. He was still holding his gun-rig that Cato had handed him and he fired through the bottom of the holster as he whirled to face the sound of Wyatt’s voice. He caught a glimpse of the man silhouetted against the stars and then the gun flash momentarily blinded him so that he heard the blast of Wyatt’s Colt but didn’t see it fire. The bullet whipped past his face as he dropped to one knee, seeing Wyatt’s shape drop down behind some rocks. The man was yelling, but there was no need for him to waste his breath: the gunfire had already alerted the camp and men were spilling out of blankets, reaching for their shooting irons.

  “The arroyo!” Cato snapped and ran off with Yancey hard on his heels.

  The big Enforcer turned, figuring Waco Wyatt would make another try for them and saw the man’s head as he rose from behind some rocks. Yancey threw himself down, gripped his right wrist with his left hand to steady his gun as he brought the foresight around onto Wyatt’s silhouette and dropped hammer. The gunfighter fired at the same time so that the shots blended, but it was Wyatt who jerked back with a sick moan and they heard him flailing amongst the rocks in his death throes.

  Yancey stumbled in the dark, came to a slope and fell, skidding and sliding and rolling down into the deeper blackness of the arroyo. Horses were whinnying and he could hear them moving restively, yanking at hobbling ropes and tethers. Cato was ahead of him, grabbing the two nearest animals.

  Yancey staggered upright out of the dust and hurriedly buckled on his gun-rig, spotting several men topping the rise, and there was a ragged line of spouting flames as the guns fired down into the arroyo. Yancey triggered and a man lurched and crashed forward, rolling and tumbling down the slope towards the fugitives. Cato swore aloud as one of the horses ripped free of his grip and ran off. The other reared and pawed the air wildly so that he had to let go the rope. Swearing again, he dropped to one knee and began shooting with his rifle, levering and triggering as fast as he could work the action. The man Yancey had shot flopped in against the big Enforcer’s legs and Yancey saw something gleaming as it skidded down the slope a few feet away. He dropped his smoking six-gun into the holster and lunged for the object. It was the dead man’s Winchester and Yancey got it to his shoulder and working fast.

  Two more yelling men jerked and flopped down the slope. Another let out a pain-wracked scream and fell back. The guns on the ridge fired a final ragged volley and then they h
eard Collins’ rasping voice ordering them to get under cover.

  Yancey got to his feet and lunged for the jerking ropes of the plunging horse line. Cato was ahead of him, hunting knife sawing at the tethering ropes. They threw themselves across the backs of the frightened animals the moment they had them free, used their heels and twisted fingers in the manes to jerk their heads around and make a run for it down the length of the arroyo.

  The men on the ridge ran along the top now, shooting down at them, trying to stop them. Blayne roared for them to quit as he heard the agonized whickering of a horse that had been hit by Some of the wild, flying lead. There were a dozen or so more gunshots and then they ceased and Cato and Yancey burst up out of the arroyo onto the starlit wastes of the badlands. They ran the frightened horses for another mile before hauling them back to a walk and then stopping altogether to let them take a spell.

  They sat atop a small rise and tried to settle their own heavy breathing, straining to listen above the blowing and snorting of the sweating animals. There were only the night sounds but even these were muted by the horses trying to get their breath.

  “They’ll be along,” Cato said grimly. “Collins don’t seem the type to wait till sunup. I reckon we can give ’em the slip all right in the dark, Yance, but come daylight they’ll walk all over us. They know this country a hell of a lot better than us.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to cover as many miles as we can before sunup.” He hipped on the horse’s heaving back. “Moon’s lifting over the sawtooths there, so that means to head south and west we’ll have to cut across there. That way.”

  “Right into the heart of the canyon country,” Cato said. “I tried to sound out the hombre I was on guard with. He’s worked for Blayne before. Knows there’s a quick way through those canyons, but it’s so complex he reckons he couldn’t find the trail if his life depended on it. Well, mebbe, but you can bet your britches Collins and Blayne’ll take the quick way while we’re hung up in there tryin’ to find a way out. I reckon that’s where we’re gonna lose the most time, Yance. Time—or our lives.”

  “Well, we ain’t gaining any ground by sitting here palavering,” Yancey pointed out, moving his reluctant mount forward.

  Cato set his horse after him and they rode in silence until they reached the first broken rocks at the edge of the canyon country.

  The rocks rose like ragged ramparts and only a deeper oblong of darkness, with a hint of starlight at the top, indicated the entrance. They were about to move in when Cato spotted something glistening and reflecting the moon. It was a small rock-pool, almost hidden by a slanted slab of granite. They drank their fill, right alongside the thirsty horses, letting the animals drink first before plunging their own faces in. In the dark, there was no way they could tell if it was bad water or not just by sight, but if the horses didn’t hesitate to drink, then they figured the water was sweet enough. It tasted flat and stale and left a metallic scum on their teeth so they guessed it was probably full of alkali. With bellies sloshing, they swung aboard the horses and set the animals into the canyon. Once in through the entrance, they could see the way the defile twisted and turned by tilting their heads back and following the river of stars they could see slowly flowing by between the wall edges. The ground underfoot was rough and rocky and the horses stumbled frequently; occasionally their hoofs struck sparks from the granite or flint or quartz.

  There was no way of hearing if they were being pursued in here for the narrow walls magnified the animals’ progress as they stumbled and clattered over the rocks. The only thing they could do was to allow the horses to have their heads, pick their own way through at their own speed. If they tried to hurry them, they would likely only fall or snap a leg. It was nerve-wracking, knowing that pursuit could be close behind them, but there was no other way. Maybe Collins and Blayne knew an easier trail through here and they might well find the bunch waiting for them at the other end.

  “Marnie’s been worryin’ the hell out of me,” Cato confessed abruptly, his voice, quiet though it was, echoed off the walls, startling Yancey.

  “She sure was cut-up pretty bad about it,” Yancey told his pard. “You didn’t give her any kind of a hint?”

  “Couldn’t risk it. It was one of the things that kind of made it look authentic, me runnin’ out on her and her bein’ so upset. I hated like hell to do it to her, Yance, but there was no other way.”

  “It was rough on her, Johnny,” Yancey said, and there might have been censure in his voice. “Hellish rough.”

  “I know, damn it!” Cato gritted. “I thought of leavin’ her some kind of note, but I knew it wouldn’t be any good. If I did that, she’d brighten up right off and it wouldn’t look right to Blayne. He’s a very careful hombre, which is why he stays in business. Dukes was gonna try to make it a little easier for her, don’t ask me how, and soon as I got word to him what was afoot, he promised to let her know the truth.”

  “Well, far as I know, she still thinks you ran out.”

  Cato cursed. “Sometimes wonder why the hell I do this, Yancey. Stay as an Enforcer, I mean. Hell, I ain’t even a Texan!”

  “Me, neither,” Yancey admitted.

  “Yeah, well it’s even more of a mystery why you stick at it. Your old man owns half the country in real estate, railroads, lumber mills and riverboats and so on and you could be part of his empire, taking things easy. But here you are, close to dying in some remote Mexican, snake-ridden canyon, stinkin’ worse’n a polecat, saddlesore, and plumb tuckered, ridin’ your guts out to warn a bunch of peons who likely don’t even speak American and who probably would be better off for food and shelter if we let ’em be taken back to Collins’ spread.”

  “Hogwash! You don’t believe that!”

  “Guess I don’t, but I’m kind of tired of it all, Yance, and this deal particularly has gotten to me. It’s what I had to do to you and Marnie that bothers me. You’re okay now, you know what’s goin’ on, but you must’ve reckoned me for a real low son of a bitch for a while there,”

  “For a couple of minutes, mebbe. But then I just couldn’t swallow that you’d gone rogue like that. Which is why I turned up at Blayne’s camp.”

  Cato smiled slowly in the darkness, grabbing at his mount’s mane as the horse stumbled. “Well, it still leaves Marnie and I’ve got me one lousy taste in my mouth about her.”

  “Well, I reckon it won’t be easy making her understand, Johnny,” Yancey told him candidly. “She was really cut-up and it’s gonna take a lot of talk to make her see why you couldn’t give her some kind of a hint.”

  Cato didn’t answer and they rode on without further talk.

  Three hours later, with just a hint of oyster gray starting to show above the sawbacks in the east, they neared the end of the defile through the canyon. They knew there were more ahead of them but they felt more confident now daylight was approaching. The stars were fading in the sky and there was a heavy blackness deep down in the defile where they rode. The horses slowed to a snail’s pace and picked their way through a maze of broken rubble and jutting rocks, worming their way through the last narrow confines.

  Then, abruptly, they were out and in a wider, sandy-floored canyon, and they could already make out three or four darker areas that were likely other defiles running out of it.

  Cato hipped on his mount and Yancey saw his teeth flash in a grin. “By hell, we did it, Yancey! We got through okay and ahead of ’em! We’ve still got a long way to go but we’ve got ourselves a mighty good lead!”

  And, hard on the heels of his words, a bunch of armed men rode out of the deep shadows around the canyon walls, their guns leveled at the two Enforcers.

  Chapter Ten – Under the Canyon Rim

  Yancey and Cato whirled their mounts but froze when more armed riders appeared out of the shadows. What light there was glinted off naked gun barrels, all pointing in their direction, and polished leather and a lone saber blade.

  “Judas!” Yancey breathed, lifting hi
s hands shoulder high. “Federales!”

  “They could be just as bad as Collins’ bunch by the looks of ’em,” Cato opined, raising his hands too.

  They had left their rifles resting across their knees and now two soldiers walked their mounts close, leaned out of their saddles and took the weapons. They also took their sidearms and there was an exclamation of surprise from the man who took Cato’s Manstopper. The officer, the man with the saber, snapped an order in Spanish and the men took the weapons across to him. Someone struck a vesta and Cato’s heavy gun was examined closely. The soldiers around the canyon kept the Enforcers covered with their Mauser, bolt-action rifles, a legacy from the time when Napoleon tried to establish part of his empire in Mexico.

  The officer rode across, hefting the Manstopper. He paused in front of and between the Enforcers, looking at them, but they could not see his face because of the deep shadow cast by his peaked cap. “Gringo,” he said, addressing Cato and indicating the heavy gun he held. “What kind of weapon is this?” His English was heavily accented and some of his words were difficult to understand. While Cato worked out what he had said, the officer grew impatient, lifted his saber threateningly. “Answer me, gringo!”

  “Sure, take it easy, amigo,” Cato said. “That’s a gun of my own making.”

  “Ah! You understand guns, eh?”

  “Some. But, listen, amigo, never mind the guns for now. We got some trouble for you, heading this way. Bunch of men—bound for San Felipe on a slave-raid.”

  “Si, we know,” the Mexican said casually, still fascinated by Cato’s heavy gun. “You are part of them, eh?”

  “Hell, no!” Cato said: “We were their prisoners, busted loose and were tryin’ to find San Felipe to warn the villagers. We don’t know our way around these canyons any too well.”

  The officer merely stared at Cato and Yancey figured that if they could have seen his face it would have shown disbelief.