When he called her that, she thought about her wedding band she had slipped into one of the trouser pockets. It was the first time she’d had it off her finger since her marriage to John. Although not wearing it bothered her, she still didn’t want the men to know she was married to the sheriff. She would just have to put up with that odd feeling of not having a ring on her finger.
“Well, I’m still the prisoner of a gang of ruthless bandidos,” she answered curtly. “You can draw your own conclusions from that, Señor Romero.”
“I told you—”
“Yes, I know. You’re revolutionaries, not outlaws. That doesn’t change the fact that you robbed the bank and shot up Tombstone.”
“No one was killed in Tombstone,” Chaco said. “No one except one of my men.” His voice caught a little. “A good man. Shotgunned to death by the sheriff like an animal.”
“You can’t blame Sheriff Slaughter for that.” Viola’s voice was cold. She knew she was probably treading on dangerous ground, but she couldn’t stop herself from adding, “That man would still be alive if you hadn’t ordered him to help you rob the bank.”
Chaco turned his head away, and as he did Viola saw the pain flash across his face. Obviously, the same thought had occurred to him during their flight toward the border.
“We all knew the risks,” Chaco said without looking at her. “The fact remains, I gave orders that no innocent people were to die in Tombstone, and my men followed those orders. They always shot high or wide.”
Viola thought back to the frightening, confusing few minutes that morning when gunfire had raged in the street. She couldn’t remember seeing any of the townspeople falling to the bullets, but that didn’t mean Chaco was telling the truth.
Maybe his men were just poor shots.
After a moment of silence, he went on, “If you need anything, tell me or Gabriel. We will see to it that you’re treated decently, señorita. You must stay with us for now, but if you cooperate there is no need for you to suffer.”
He left her and walked away. His back was stiff as he departed. She always seemed to offend him or embarrass him whenever he spoke to her.
Well, that was just too bad, she thought. She had been plenty embarrassed to spend half the day dressed only in a nightgown in the company of strange men.
Gabriel ambled over to her and sat down on another rock. He took a slender black cheroot from the pocket of his charro jacket and lit it with a lucifer he snapped to life with his thumbnail. When he had the cigar burning to his satisfaction, he took a deep draw on it and blew out the smoke. “You bother Chaco, little one.”
“He bothers me,” Viola snapped. “You all do.”
Gabriel shook his head ponderously. “Now, that is where you are wrong. We could bother you. Many of us would like to bother you a great deal. But none would dare. Do you know why?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me,” Viola said.
“I will. No one will molest you because Chaco passed among us and made sure everyone understood that he will kill any man who dares to lay a finger on you in an improper fashion.”
Viola frowned. “He did that?”
Gabriel puffed on the cigar and then nodded. “He did.”
“Why would he do that? Out of the goodness of his heart?”
“Exactly. You see”—Gabriel drew on the cheroot again—“our amigo Chaco used to be a priest before he decided he could serve El Señor Dios with a gun in his hand better than with a Bible.”
“A priest? Really?”
“Es verdad,” Gabriel said with a solemn nod. “Father Tomás. But when he put that aside he became Chaco again, as he had been since he and I were both niños. We grew up together, you see, in the same village. Different blood, but as close as hermanos. Brothers.”
“How does a priest become an outlaw?” Viola asked with a frown.
A grin stretched across Gabriel’s rugged face. “God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform, eh? This is what the holy book says?”
“Don’t tell me you used to be a priest, too?”
Gabriel took a last draw on the cheroot, dropped the butt, and ground it out with his boot heel. “Me, little one? No, I am an outlaw. I have always been an outlaw.” He stood up. “You would do well to remember that.”
It was unlikely she would forget.
Chapter 10
Slaughter’s instincts warned him once again, and he had already started to throw himself aside as the gun blasted. The report was deafening and the shot was so close he felt the sting of burning grains of powder against his cheek as the slug whipped past his ear. It had missed him by an inch, no more.
He brought the Henry up, but before he could pull the trigger a rock rolled under the heel of his left boot and threw him off balance. The dark figure lunged at him and clubbed at his head with the gun that had almost put a hole in him.
Slaughter twisted aside so that the weapon didn’t crush his skull, but the blow landed on his right shoulder with enough force to make his arm go numb. He fumbled with the rifle, but couldn’t stop it from slipping out of his grip.
The attacker barreled into him. Slaughter went over backward. The light of the quarter moon was faint, but it was enough for him to spot the gun swinging toward him again. He pulled his head to the side just as the gun erupted for the second time. The bullet struck the ground next to his head and sprayed grit across his face. Some of the painfully stinging stuff went in his eyes, momentarily blinding him.
Slaughter struck out with his left fist, aiming the blow at the spot where he thought his assailant was. His instincts were right again. His knuckles hammered against the man’s ear. Slaughter hit him again and heaved up from the ground. The weight of his attacker left him.
Unable to see or hear much, Slaughter rolled away. He thought he was headed in the direction of the streambed. That hunch proved correct as the ground suddenly dropped out from under him and he fell a few feet to land in the sandy bed.
He used his good arm to push himself up onto his knees and scrambled toward the bank. Although he wasn’t as good a shot with his left hand as he was with his right, he reached across his body and drew the Colt. As he crouched next to the bank, he drew back the hammer.
Footsteps pounded toward him. A man shouted, “Sheriff! Sheriff Slaughter!”
It was Mose Tadrack. Confident it hadn’t been Tadrack who attacked him, Slaughter called, “Mose, be careful! Find some cover! There’s somebody else out here.”
Feeling began to work its way back into Slaughter’s right arm and hand. He opened and closed his fingers to speed up the process. As soon as he felt like he could handle the gun again, he switched it to that hand.
As he stood up slowly, he swept the Colt from side to side. His keen eyes searched the shadows for any sign of movement. He didn’t see anything. Either the attacker was hiding and waiting for another chance at him, or the man had fled once his attempt on Slaughter’s life had failed and the rest of the group had been alerted.
More shouts came through the night as the other members of the posse approached to find out the meaning of the shots that had jolted them out of sleep. Luther Gentry called, “What in tarnation’s goin’ on out here?”
“Sound off,” Slaughter ordered. “Who’s out here?”
One by one the members of the posse called out until they were all accounted for. Slaughter figured the bushwhacker wouldn’t make another try with all of them awake and on edge, so he climbed up out of the streambed.
“What happened?” Grover Harmon asked.
“Somebody snuck up behind me and tried to blow my head off,” Slaughter replied. “When that didn’t work he tried to bust my skull with his gun.”
“Did he get away?” Pete Yardley asked.
Diego Herrara added, “Did you get a look at this malo hombre, señor?”
“Yeah, I reckon he got away,” Slaughter said, “and no, I never got a good look at him. He was just a shape in the darkness. Fought pretty good for a few mi
nutes before I got loose from him and he took off.”
Gentry said, “You know what it sounds like to me? Those outlaws we’re trailin’ left a man behind to discourage us from comin’ after ’em. He figured that if he killed you, Sheriff, there was a good chance the rest of us would turn around and light a shuck back to Tombstone.”
“That’s just what I was thinking, too,” Slaughter agreed with a nod.
“Do you think he’ll come back tonight?” Ross Murdock asked nervously.
Slaughter pondered that question for a moment, then said, “Now that he’s lost the element of surprise, it’s not likely. He’ll probably try to catch up with the rest of the gang.”
He looked around for his hat and rifle, found them, and went on. “You fellows go on back to your bedrolls and try to get some more sleep. I’ve got a hunch the excitement’s over for tonight.”
“You sure about that, Sheriff?” Harmon asked. “The rest of us could stay up, too, or at least somebody could take over what’s left of your shift.”
“I’m fine,” Slaughter said somewhat testily. His right arm ached a little, but the feeling was back in it and he didn’t have any trouble using it. “Who knows how long we’ll be in the saddle tomorrow? Get your rest while you can.”
Gentry nodded. “That makes sense, I reckon. Come on, boys.”
Except for Mose Tadrack, the men returned to their bedrolls.
“Maybe we better stand guard together, Sheriff.”
Slaughter reined in the urge to respond angrily. He was the sheriff, dadblast it, he thought, and here was a drunken swamper feeling sorry for him and acting like he shouldn’t be alone.
“No, we’ll each take one side of the camp, just like we were doing before,” Slaughter said coolly. “I won’t get taken by surprise again.”
Tadrack shrugged. “Whatever you say, Sheriff.” With his rifle under his arm he moved off to take up his previous position.
Slaughter stayed where he was. He abandoned his previous plan to scout around the camp. He didn’t think another threat was going to come from the outside.
Despite what he’d said when Luther Gentry suggested one of the outlaws had lurked behind to ambush them, Slaughter had thought of another, more likely possibility as soon as things calmed down a mite.
With everyone supposedly asleep except him and Tadrack, one of the posse members could have crawled out of his blankets, catfooted after Slaughter, and bushwhacked him. During the commotion following the shots, the traitor could have hurried back and pretended to join the others as they came to see what had happened.
That theory made sense, but he had absolutely no proof of it. Still, he was going to keep a close eye on all of them from here on out. To his way of thinking, Jack Doyle was the most likely suspect. The gambler worked for Morris Upton, and Upton had a grudge against Slaughter. He could have told Doyle to volunteer for the posse and wait for an opportunity to dispose of the sheriff.
If Doyle was the would-be killer, he would make another attempt or do something else to slip up and reveal himself, and then Slaughter would have him.
Or maybe the bushwhacker really was one of the bandidos who had robbed the bank. Either way, the truth would come out eventually.
Until it did, Slaughter was going to proceed on the assumption that there might be a viper in their midst.
If there was, sooner or later he would stomp that snake.
* * *
The rest of the night passed quietly. Slaughter had all the men up while the sky was still gray with the approach of dawn. By the time it was light enough to see the trail they were following, they were in the saddle, ready to ride.
Jack Doyle wasn’t acting suspicious, but that didn’t mean anything, Slaughter decided. The man was a professional gambler. If Doyle was the bushwhacker, he had enough of a poker face not to give that away.
The mountains still looked tantalizingly close as the sun rose. They would reach the Mules today, Slaughter thought, and ought to make it all the way through them before nightfall.
The outlaws had probably camped somewhere up among the peaks. They would come down on the other side, hit the flats, and then it was only a few miles to the border. The feeling had grown stronger inside Slaughter that the posse wouldn’t be able to catch up in time to keep the fugitives from crossing into Mexico.
He wasn’t going to turn back, even if it meant giving up his job as sheriff. Viola was the most important thing in the world to him. He would stay on their trail all the way to hell and back if he had to, and he wouldn’t stop until his wife was safe.
Mid-morning, Slaughter spotted a column of dust rising ahead of them and a good distance off to the east.
He wasn’t the only one who saw it. Luther Gentry rode up alongside him. “Look over yonder, Sheriff.”
“I see it.”
“You reckon it’s the bunch we’re after?”
Slaughter’s eyes narrowed in thought. “I don’t hardly figure how it could be. That much dust has to come from a good-sized group of riders, all right, but they’re coming toward us. Their course will cross ours if we keep going the way we are.”
Gentry rubbed his angular jaw and frowned. “Yeah, you’re right. But if they ain’t them bank robbers, who in tarnation can they be?”
“One way to find out.” Slaughter turned in the saddle. “Everybody make sure your guns are ready.”
Then he heeled his horse into a faster pace and hurried ahead to intercept the strange riders.
Chapter 11
Viola didn’t know if what Gabriel had told her about Chaco ordering the rest of the bank robbers to leave her alone was true or not, but no one came near her during the night other than the burly outlaw, who seemed to have been appointed her guardian and companion.
Gabriel brought her tortillas and jerky for her supper, and after not eating all day, even that meager fare was good. She ate hungrily and washed the food down with water from the spring-fed pool.
Then he brought blankets for her to make into a bedroll. When she stretched out, she thought it would be impossible for her to sleep under the circumstances, but exhaustion took over and a black tide of oblivion carried her away. She didn’t wake until morning.
Her muscles were stiff when she got up, but they loosened when she stood up and stretched for a minute. As a girl helping her father and brothers drive cattle, she had spent many a night sleeping on the trail in a bedroll under the stars, so the sensation was nothing new to her.
As always, Gabriel was nearby.
“I need some privacy,” she told him.
“Go behind those trees over there, but I’ll be close enough to hear if you try anything.”
Coolly, she said, “That’s not really what I’d call privacy.”
“It’s the best you’re going to get, chiquita,” he said with a shrug.
Viola didn’t think arguing would do her any good, so she went along with his suggestion and just tried to pretend that he wasn’t there. When she came out from behind the trees she didn’t look at him.
“Breakfast will be ready soon,” he told her.
“And then what?”
“Then we keep going until we reach our destination.”
“And where is that?”
Gabriel walked off as if he hadn’t heard her, but she knew he had.
That brought a frown of consternation to Viola’s face. She had assumed they were headed across the border into Mexico. But Gabriel had acted a bit odd when she’d questioned him, and she couldn’t help but wonder what it meant.
Chaco came over to her. “Did you sleep well?”
“As well as can be expected . . . as a prisoner.”
“I would prefer to think of you as a . . . guest.”
“You can think of me however you like, Señor Romero, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m your captive.”
“Perhaps not for much longer.”
“It can’t be soon enough to suit me.”
Gabriel came up with her
breakfast then—more tortillas, with some beans wrapped up in them—and Chaco moved off to supervise the men as they got ready to break camp.
“You should not hate Chaco,” the big outlaw said as Viola ate. “He truly regrets having to put you through this.”
“He didn’t have to. He could have left me in Tombstone.”
Gabriel’s massive shoulders rose and fell. “It is true we did not plan to bring a hostage with us. But when Fate presented us with you, perhaps Chaco saw it as what El Señor Dios intended all along. Quien sabe? It would be good if Chaco had someone to make his life easier. He torments himself so.”
Viola stared at him in disbelief for a moment before asking, “Are you really trying to play matchmaker between me and that . . . that outlaw?”
Gabriel grinned. “You are both young and easy to look at. You would have very beautiful babies.”
“Oh. Oh!” Viola was so angry she could barely speak. She wanted to throw the tortilla in her hand in Gabriel’s face. With an effort she controlled her emotions and said in chilly tones, “That will never happen.”
Gabriel shrugged again. “It’s something for you to think about, anyway, little one.”
Viola wasn’t going to think about it, not for one second. She was a married woman; she wasn’t going to play up to another man, even if it might be to her benefit.
But if it slowed them down and gave John a better chance to catch up to them . . .
That thought came unbidden to her mind. She scolded herself for allowing it.
But when Chaco came over to her a short time later and asked if she was ready to go, she forced a faint smile onto her lips. “Could . . . could we wait just a little while longer? I’m still so tired from yesterday.”
Chaco shook his head. “No. I’m sorry. You must mount up now.”
Clearly his question had just been a formality. He didn’t care if she was ready or not. They were going.
Viola turned her head and glared at Gabriel, who was already in the saddle. He shrugged and extended a hand to help her onto the horse.
So much for that big hairy Cupid’s suggestion.
* * *
Texas John Slaughter Page 6
