Ride for Vengeance

by William W. Johnstone

  Matt took stock. He hurt all over, but his arms and legs worked and as he flexed his fingers, he knew he could still hold a gun. “I got nicked in a few places and beat all to hell,” he told Sam, “but I reckon I’m not hurt too bad. How about you?”

  “Same here,” Sam said with a nod.

  “You look like you lost a lot of blood.”

  “Most of it’s not mine.”

  Matt managed a tight grin. “Yeah, I saw you usin’ that bowie knife like you were the Grim Reaper and it was your scythe. I hope you sent a lot of those bastards straight to hell.” He looked around. The street was littered with bodies, and more corpses were piled up on the porch in front of the town hall. Matt heard wounded men groaning. “Or maybe that’s where we are.”

  “No, this is still Sweet Apple,” Sam said. “We’d better try to find Seymour.”

  Both of the blood brothers had been too young to take part in the Civil War, but they had heard Matt’s father speak in hushed tones about the aftermath of the great battles. The scene in Sweet Apple’s main street was like something out of one of the elder Bodine’s war stories, although on a much smaller scale than the carnage at places like Chancellorsville or Gettysburg. Despite that, both Matt and Sam felt horror welling up inside them as they hurried among the wounded and the slain, looking for Seymour Standish.

  This was the second time in recent months they had seen what was left after a town had been raided by a gang of killers. It had happened up in the Panhandle, too, and that attack on the settlement of Buckskin by Deuce Mallory’s gang was what had started Matt and Sam on the trail that eventually led them to Sweet Apple. Mallory and his men had done more widespread damage; the attack by Alcazarrio seemed to have been concentrated on one specific spot—the town hall. That thought made Matt frown. Why would a Mexican revolutionary target a hearing to resolve a legal matter over water rights, if that was indeed what had happened? And how had he known it would be going on at this particular place and time?

  Matt had no answers for those questions, and he put them aside anyway as Sam exclaimed, “There’s Seymour!”

  The marshal was struggling to sit up as he leaned against the boardwalk in front of Abner Mitchell’s general store. A sheet of blood covered one whole side of Seymour’s face. Matt and Sam ran over to him. Each of them got hold of Seymour under an arm and lifted him to his feet.

  “How bad are you hurt, Seymour?” Sam asked as the marshal sagged in their grip.

  “I . . . I don’t know.” Seymour lifted a trembling hand to his head. “I remember there was a shot . . .”

  Matt looked at the shallow, bloody furrow in Seymour’s scalp, an inch and a half above his left ear. “Looks like you got creased,” he said. “Head wounds bleed a lot, and you’ve probably got a hell of a headache, but maybe you’re not hurt too bad.”

  “Got any other bullet holes?” Sam added.

  “I . . . I don’t think so.” Seymour steadied a little as the blood brothers held him up. “No, I’m all right. Just a little dizzy, and like Matt said, my head hurts.” He looked around at the devastation along Main Street, and his voice cracked as he asked, “My God, what happened here?”

  “Alcazarrio,” Matt said.

  Seymour blinked. “That Mexican bandit? Yes, I . . . I remember now. I saw him leading the charge into town. But why would he attack us again? The first time he wanted to steal those army rifles, but now . . . there’s no good reason . . .”

  Suddenly, as if something had just occurred to him, Seymour jerked around, pulling out of their grip. His eyes desperately searched the boardwalk in front of the store.

  “Maggie!” he cried in a choked voice. “She was right here!”

  Well, she wasn’t now, Matt saw. In fact, he didn’t see any sign of Maggie O’Ryan anywhere up and down the street. He remembered how she had been fighting with Rebecca Jimmerson when the bandidos attacked. It appeared that the Jimmerson girl had vanished, too. Matt supposed that he ought to be grateful the bodies of the young women weren’t lying there, killed in the battle. But at the same time, he had a bad feeling about their disappearance.

  “I have to find her,” Seymour said. He started stumbling along the street, looking for Maggie.

  Matt and Sam glanced at each other. The same thoughts that had gone through Matt’s head had occurred to Sam, too. “If those girls are gone, it’s probably because some of Alcazarrio’s men grabbed them,” he said.

  Matt nodded in agreement. “I don’t reckon they raided the town just for that, but they weren’t gonna pass up the chance to kidnap a couple of good-looking young women either.”

  They started to join Seymour in looking for Maggie and Rebecca, but they were sidetracked by Mayor Mitchell and J. Emerson Heathcote, who came up to them looking stunned. The newspaperman was limping and had a bloodstain on the left leg of his trousers. He had been nicked in the fighting, too.

  “Dear God, what are we going to do?” Mitchell asked. “What happened? Why . . . why did those Mexicans attack the town?”

  Matt shook his head and said, “I don’t know why they hit us, but the first thing you need to do, Mr. Mayor, is see about helpin’ the wounded. Anybody who’s not hurt too bad should be carried into the town hall.”

  “The doctor’s already here,” Heathcote said. “He heard the shooting and came to see what had happened. Come along, Mayor, we’ll give him a hand.” He put a hand on Mitchell’s arm and led him away. The mayor still seemed to be stunned and distracted by this second outbreak of unexpected death and violence in his town.

  Matt and Sam started after Seymour again, but then they heard horrified screaming coming from inside the town hall. They exchanged a look and then started trotting in that direction, wondering what fresh outrage they would find in there.

  Esau Paxton and Shad Colton both appeared on the porch of the building before Matt and Sam got there. Paxton had his right hand clamped over his upper left arm. The blood that oozed between his fingers told Matt and Sam that he had been wounded there. Colton seemed to be unharmed, just extremely upset. He saw Matt and Sam hurrying toward him and yelled, “They took the girls!”

  The blood brothers bounded onto the porch, ignoring the steps. “What?” Sam asked. “You mean—”

  “Sandy,” Paxton choked out between teeth gritted against the pain of the wound in his arm. “Those bastards took Sandy.”

  “And Jessie,” Colton added, his voice every bit as bleak as that of his cousin and former partner. “The big one, and a hawk-faced son of a bitch who was with him, they rode up and grabbed Jessie and Sandy, like that was all they wanted.”

  Matt and Sam looked at each other again, and suddenly things were a little clearer to both of them. Matt remembered how single-mindedly Alcazarrio had ridden right into the town hall. During the bloody chaos, the bandit leader and one of his men had been able to snatch Jessie and Sandy and get away with them. Was it possible that the two young women had been the real targets of the raid all along?

  “What about the rest of your families?” Sam asked.

  “My boy Dave was wounded,” Paxton replied, “but I reckon everybody else is all right.”

  “A lot of my men were shot down,” Colton snapped. He glared at Matt. “They couldn’t even defend themselves because they didn’t have their guns.”

  “That was Judge Clark’s decision, not mine . . . but if it had been up to me, I’d have taken your guns, too, Colton.” Matt frowned at both of the cattlemen. “If you two old pelicans had been able to get along, there wouldn’t have been any need for this hearing in the first place!”

  For a moment, it appeared that both Colton and Paxton were going to react angrily to Matt’s words, but then Colton shrugged and said, “What’re you gonna do about this, Bodine? A posse’s got to go after those bastards and try to get our girls back.”

  Matt nodded. “That’s exactly what’s gonna happen, as soon as we can get it organized.”

  “Not hardly,” came a growl from the doorway. J
udge Simon Clark limped out of the town hall, using his shotgun as a crutch. His right leg was covered with blood from the knee down. “Somebody show me where the telegraph office is, so I can send some wires and get the army after those bandits.”

  “The nearest army post is in El Paso,” Paxton objected. “Troops can’t get here in time. Those raiders will be back across the border long before the army shows up.”

  “What about the Texas Rangers?” Clark asked.

  Colton shook his head. “Same problem. They’re too far away to help us.”

  Matt spoke up, saying, “Chances are that Alcazarrio and his men are already across the Rio Grande, or they will be soon, no farther away than it is.” He shook his head. “We’ll have to go into Mexico to rescue those prisoners.”

  “You’re talking about an illegal incursion into another sovereign nation,” Clark warned.

  “You got a better idea, Judge?”

  “Yeah. Let me go along, too.” Clark’s lips drew back from his teeth in a grimace. “I been fightin’ outlaws since before you was born, youngster. Just let me throw a saddle on my horse . . .”

  As the judge started to turn, his wounded leg gave underneath him. He would have fallen if Sam hadn’t caught hold of his arm.

  “Looks to me like you’re hurt too bad to go chasing after bandidos, Your Honor,” Sam said as he steadied the judge. “Why don’t you go back inside and get off that wounded leg?”

  “Damn it—” Clark started to protest. Then he sighed and shook his head. “You’re right, young man. The shape I’m in, I’d just hold you back, and I don’t want to do that. You mind givin’ me a hand?”

  “Not at all.” Sam helped the judge back into the town hall.

  While Sam was doing that, Matt heard his name being called. He turned and saw Seymour stumbling toward him. “They’re gone,” Seymour said in a hollow voice as he came up to the porch.

  “You mean Miss O’Ryan?” Matt asked.

  Seymour nodded. “And Miss Jimmerson. They’re both gone. I found some people who saw them grabbed up by the bandits and carried away.” He covered his face with his hands and asked in a strained, muffled tone, “Dear Lord, what are we going to do?”

  “First thing you’re gonna do is buck up, Seymour,” Matt said, deliberately hardening his own voice. “You’re the law here. Folks are gonna be lookin’ to you to lead the posse.”

  Seymour lowered his hands and blinked. “Posse?”

  “That’s right. You didn’t think we were gonna let those bastards get away with what they’ve done, did you?” Matt pulled his right-hand Colt from its holster and started reloading it with fresh cartridges from the loops on his gunbelt. “We’re going after Alcazarrio. We’re gonna get those prisoners back safe and sound, and we’re gonna settle the score for what that son of a bitch did to Sweet Apple.” Matt snapped the gun’s cylinder closed. “You with me, Seymour?”

  Seymour had straightened as Matt was talking. His face was still ashen under the blood that was drying on it, but he was able to swallow, nod his head, and say, “I’m with you, Matt. All the way, as far as it takes.”

  Chapter 18

  It was past noon before things started to settle down in Sweet Apple. By that time, Matt and Sam had been able to get a pretty good idea of the toll taken on the town by Diego Alcazarrio’s raid.

  Four young women had been kidnapped: Jessie Colton, Sandy Paxton, Maggie O’Ryan, and Rebecca Jimmerson. Eleven people were dead: eight men, two women, and a ten-year-old boy who had been trampled by some of the raiders’ horses. Twenty-seven more men, women, and children had been wounded, many of them seriously. Without a doubt, the death toll would rise as the hours and days went by.

  There was only one doctor in the settlement, but a couple of barbers and an old Mexican who was known to be a curandero were pressed into service to help the sawbones. The town hall had been turned into a makeshift hospital for the most badly injured. The walking wounded had been treated and sent home.

  Since Matt and Sam had as much experience at patching up bullet wounds as many medical men, they tended to each other’s injuries, cleaning the creases with whiskey and bandaging them. They changed into clothes that weren’t bullet-torn and bloodstained, then went to the marshal’s office and found Seymour loading the rifles from the rack on the wall. The dried blood had been swabbed off his face, and a white strip of bandage was tied around his head.

  “How are you doing, Seymour?” Sam asked as he and Matt came in.

  Seymour nodded. “The doctor says that I should go to my hotel room and lie down. He thinks I should take it easy for the next few days, maybe for as long as a week. He says it’s not wise to take chances with head injuries.”

  “And what do you say?” Matt asked.

  Seymour worked the lever of the Winchester he was holding. “I say we’ve got bandits to track down and prisoners to rescue.”

  Matt grinned and said, “That’s the spirit,” but Sam frowned in concern.

  “Are you sure about that, Seymour?” he asked. “You don’t want to get off somewhere in the middle of nowhere and then not be able to go on.”

  “I’ll be able to go on, don’t you worry about that.” Seymour laid the rifle down and picked up another one to load. “I won’t come back without Miss O’Ryan.”

  “You know that’ll mean crossing the border? You won’t have any legal jurisdiction down there in Mexico.”

  “I’m aware of that. Do you think the Mexican authorities would help us if we contacted them?”

  “The rurales?” Matt shook his head. “I reckon there must be some good, honest men among ’em, but by and large they’re almost as bad as outlaws like Alcazarrio’s bunch. Alcazarrio calls himself a revolutionary, but mostly revolutions in Mexico mean one bunch o’ bandits is tryin’ to replace another bunch.”

  “Then it’s very much up to us, isn’t it?”

  The blood brothers both shrugged, and Matt said, “That’s about the size of it.”

  “I’d say we have no choice but to pursue them,” Seymour declared. “And I’m prepared to do whatever is necessary to rescue those women. Why would Alcazarrio go to so much trouble just to kidnap four young women?”

  Matt and Sam had been thinking and talking about that very question. Sam said, “We don’t think Alcazarrio planned on kidnapping Miss O’Ryan and Miss Jimmerson. That’s just something that his men did in the heat of the moment.”

  “What about Miss Paxton and Miss Colton?”

  “Reckon they’re the ones he was really after,” Matt said. “It takes money to start a revolution, even when you’re really just a bandit, and the fathers of those two gals are a couple of the richest men between San Antonio and El Paso.”

  Understanding dawned in Seymour’s eyes. “He’s going to hold them for ransom!”

  “I’d be mighty surprised if he didn’t,” Matt said.

  “Will Mr. Colton and Mr. Paxton meet Alcazarrio’s demands?”

  “We don’t know,” Sam said.

  Matt added, “But I’ve got a hunch that givin’ in to a polecat like Alcazarrio will rub those two the wrong way. Men who can carve out homes for themselves and their families in a place like West Texas, fightin’ weather and outlaws and Indians the whole way, aren’t the sort to just go along with it when they’re hit. They hit back.”

  “You think they’ll want to join the posse?”

  “I’d say it’s pretty likely. We haven’t talked to them yet, but—”

  The door of the marshal’s office opened then, breaking into what Matt was saying. Cornelius Standish stalked into the room, followed by Warren Welch, Daniel McCracken, and Ed Stover.

  “Seymour!” Standish said. “Is it true what I’ve heard? Miss Jimmerson has been abducted?”

  “That’s right, Uncle Cornelius,” Seymour replied. “I’m not seriously wounded, by the way.”

  “I knew you were all right,” Standish snapped. “I asked about you after that terrible uproar. All that shooting!�
� He shuddered. “Things like that never happened back in New Jersey, or anywhere else that’s civilized!”

  “Well, this part of Texas isn’t exactly civilized yet, at least not completely,” Seymour said. “That’s why it would be a good idea for you to go back home, Uncle Cornelius. You don’t belong out here.”

  “And you do?”

  Seymour finished loading the rifle in his hands and worked the weapon’s lever. “I’m starting to, I hope. Don’t worry about Miss Jimmerson. We’re going after those brigands, and we’ll bring her back safely, along with the other prisoners.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  Seymour stared at his uncle. “What?”

  “I said, I’m going with you.” Standish gestured toward his companions. “So are they.”

  Matt grunted. “Appreciate you fellas volunteerin’, Mr. Standish, but I reckon we can get along without a handful of dry-goods salesmen.”

  “I was in the war, sonny,” Stover snapped. “Killed plenty of Johnny Rebs at Petersburg. I don’t suppose killing greasers is that much different.”

  “And I can handle meself in a fight, never you doubt it,” McCracken added. Welch didn’t say anything, but his calm smile showed that he was confident in his abilities, too.

  “You have extra firearms, don’t you?” Standish asked.

  Seymour shrugged. “There are several extra rifles here, and Mayor Mitchell has said that the posse can take whatever weapons and supplies it needs from his store. Arming you won’t be any problem.”

  “What about horses?”

  “Plenty of mounts on the Double C and Pax,” Matt said. There was no real argument against Standish and the other men coming along, except for their inexperience. “We’ll be ridin’ pretty hard and fast, though. You’d have to keep up.”

  Standish took a cigar from his vest pocket and clamped it between his teeth. “Don’t worry about us keeping up,” he said. “Just find the men who kidnapped my secretary. How soon will we be leaving?”

  Seymour looked to Matt and Sam for the answer to that question. Matt said, “I hope we’ll be ready to ride in another hour or so.”