Texas John Slaughter

by William W. Johnstone

  Winters was the last man out of the church. Donelson waved for him to follow and started across the street in a crouching run toward Romero’s men. Winters looked shocked, but after a second followed his commander.

  Donelson was uncomfortably aware that almost three dozen Mexican bandits had him in their gun sights as he approached. He was no coward, though. He holstered his gun and held out his hands in front of him to show the bandidos that he wasn’t attacking them. They had taken cover at the corners of buildings and behind water troughs and rain barrels. Donelson didn’t know who any of them were, but he headed toward the largest group he could see.

  “Hold your fire, amigos!” he called, hoping that at least some of them spoke English. “We’re on the same side, remember?”

  As long as Romero and the other three bandits were still inside the church, the men had no way of knowing that Donelson wasn’t telling the truth. They hadn’t seen what happened in the sanctuary.

  One of the men leveled a revolver at Donelson and snapped in heavily accented English, “Talk fast, gringo. What’s going on here?”

  “Sheriff Slaughter and the other prisoners got loose. They got their hands on some of those rifles and killed Romero and your other men in there, as well as one of my men. The rest of us barely got out alive.”

  A torrent of rapid Spanish exploded from the man. Most of it was probably cursing, Donelson thought. But as far as he could tell, the bandit had swallowed the lie completely.

  “We’re going to have to work together to get those rifles for you and avenge your compadres,” Donelson went on. “What do you say, amigo?”

  “I hate to spill blood in the house of El Señor Dios, but none of those gringo dogs will get out of there alive!” the bandit said as his mouth twisted in a snarl of hate.

  That was exactly what Donelson wanted to hear. “Pass the word to your men. Let them know what’s going on. I’ll talk to my men, and we’ll figure out our plan of attack. For now, throw some lead through those doors so I can get back across the street without one of those prisoners picking me off.”

  The outlaw nodded in agreement and started issuing orders in Spanish. A moment later, guns began to hammer again as the Mexicans fired at the mission.

  Donelson and Winters sprinted back across the street to rejoin the other deserters.

  As Donelson reached the cover of a supply wagon, he dropped to one knee to catch his breath. Winters hunkered beside him and grinned. “That was some mighty fast thinkin’, Colonel. If them pepper-bellies knew the truth, they’d want to kill us mighty slow and painful-like, but you got the stupid bastards on our side!”

  “We’re still going to win, Winters. But there’s one wild card that could still ruin everything for us—Hernandez.”

  A grim look came over Winters’ face as he said, “Listen, Colonel, I’m sorry. I thought sure that varmint was dead—”

  “He may be by now,” Donelson cut into the apology. Winters’ previous failure didn’t matter at the moment. “But we have to be certain he can’t tell anyone else the truth. Find him and make sure he’s dead. If he’s not, kill him . . . and anyone else he may have talked to.”

  Winters nodded. “I understand. I’ll take care of it. Good and proper this time.”

  “See that you do.”

  As Winters scurried off on the deadly assignment he’d been given, Donelson looked again toward the mission. The guns were in there, and somewhere in the squalid little village was a small fortune in stolen loot. When he rode away from La Reata, he intended to have it all with him, including the beautiful Viola Slaughter.

  But if he had to give something up . . . well, soon he was going to be a very rich man who could have any woman he set his sights on.

  “It would be a great shame, Mrs. Slaughter,” he murmured. “But if you have to die, then so be it.”

  Chapter 26

  In a crouching run, Slaughter was on his way to check on Viola and Romero when shots exploded again outside. Bullets traveling at different angles screamed through the open doorway like a cloud of angry lead hornets. Slaughter flung himself to the floor as the barrage threw splinters from the alter into the air, smashed statues, and thudded into the benches.

  “Everybody stay down!” Slaughter bellowed.

  The way those shots were coming from both sides of the street confirmed something he had worried about. Donelson must have lied about what happened inside the church and blamed everything on the prisoners. He had fooled Romero’s men into helping him attack the place. The bandidos knew nothing about Donelson’s planned double cross.

  But Gabriel Hernandez knew the truth, Slaughter thought as he kept his head down and the shooting continued. Gabriel was out there somewhere, if he was still alive, and could ruin all of Donelson’s schemes.

  Donelson was smart enough to know that, too. There was a good chance he would send someone to find Gabriel. The cold-blooded killer Winters, more than likely.

  Slaughter hoped Hernandez would be all right, but there was nothing he could do to help the big outlaw.

  What he had to do was get those doors closed. As long as they were standing wide open, it gave the men outside a perfect target to shoot at. They could keep the air inside the church full of flying lead.

  Warning bells went off in Slaughter’s brain as the gun thunder abruptly stopped. The most logical thing to follow such an intense barrage was a rush. He came up on one knee and called, “Get ready for an attack! Don’t everybody fire at once!”

  That was the problem with single-shot rifles. A concentrated volley would empty their weapons and they would all have to reload at the same time. If they had been armed with repeaters it would have been a different story. He wished he’d had the chance to explain some tactics to his companions.

  At least some of the men had experience fighting Apaches, so it wasn’t their first battle. Slaughter knew he’d have to hope for the best.

  Some of the bandits hit the doorway then, yelling and shooting as they tried to force their way into the church.

  Coolly, Slaughter drilled the first man through the head. His falling body blocked the others for a second, and that gave the posse time to fire a ragged burst of shots that ripped through several more of Romero’s men. That blunted the attack and forced the others to fall back. The charge was over almost as soon as it began.

  As soon as the doorway was clear, pistols and rifles began to roar again outside.

  Bullets whined and sizzled through the air not far over Slaughter’s head as he crawled toward the doors. He paused and looked to the side as he passed the place where Viola and Romero lay between benches. Romero was either unconscious or dead. Viola’s face was pale and drawn, but she meet Slaughter’s gaze without fear and even summoned up a faint smile of encouragement. He nodded to her and kept crawling.

  Each had said plenty during that brief moment their eyes met, even though they hadn’t uttered a word.

  When Slaughter was close enough, he used the Springfield to extend his reach and stretched his arm out to hook the nearest door with the tip of the rifle barrel.

  Outside, Donelson shouted, “Don’t let them close those doors!” as the door began to swing shut.

  As soon as the door had moved enough to give him a little protection, Slaughter sprang to his feet and put his shoulder against it. He shoved the heavy wooden panel until it slammed closed. He felt the vibration as it shivered under the impact of dozens of bullets. The wood was too thick for the slugs to penetrate.

  From the corner of his eye he saw Joseph Cleaver dash along the aisle and grab the other door. The bank teller was slender, and he moved fast enough that he didn’t present a good target for the gunmen outside. He swung the other door closed with a crash.

  Slaughter threw the heavy iron bolts attached to the doors. Brackets were on either side of the doors so a bar could be placed in them to make the entrance more secure. The old missions had been built so they could be defended against Indian attacks. Slaughter didn’t
know where the bar was, but Father Fernando probably did.

  Outside, the guns fell silent again. Donelson would need a battering ram or possibly even a cannon to breach the doors.

  Slaughter had barely turned away from them, however, when the stained glass in several of the windows shattered and exploded inward. With one avenue of attack closed off to them, the attackers had switched their approach.

  Each side wall of the sanctuary had four of the tall, narrow windows. Slaughter called to his men, “Spread out, one man to each window! Take several rifles with you and load all of them before you start shooting. That way you can keep up a steadier fire!”

  He had seven men, so with himself as the eighth, they could cover all the windows. He didn’t know how much help he could count on from Chester Carlton, but if the man could load a rifle, point it in the right general direction, and squeeze the trigger, at least he would keep some of the attackers occupied.

  Cleaver had demonstrated some unexpected courage dashing down the aisle to close the other door with bullets flying all around him. He was inexperienced, but he might make a fighter yet.

  As the other men scattered to the windows, Slaughter ran to Father Fernando’s side. The priest knelt in front of the altar, praying fervently.

  “Father, is the rear door securely barred?” Slaughter didn’t like to interrupt a prayer, but he needed to know the situation.

  Pale and haggard, Father Fernando looked up at him and nodded. “Yes, Sheriff Slaughter, it is. Is there any way we can put an end to this violence?”

  “Not just yet, I’m sorry to say. What about the bar for the front doors?”

  “In the storage room,” the padre said. “The Indians have been peaceful since I’ve been here. We haven’t needed it.”

  “We do now,” Slaughter said grimly.

  “I’ll get it.”

  “Keep your head down whenever you’re moving around,” Slaughter warned him.

  “The Lord will protect me, my son.”

  “I don’t doubt it, Padre, but give Him a hand and keep your head down, anyway.”

  The defenders began to fire from the windows. The shots cracked on a fairly steady basis.

  Slaughter hurried over to Viola and Romero. Viola was sitting up and had tugged Chaco’s head and shoulders into her lap. He stirred and opened his eyes as Slaughter knelt beside them.

  “My men!” Romero exclaimed as he tried to sit up. “I must—” He fell back into Viola’s lap as his strength deserted him.

  “Take it easy, Romero,” Slaughter said as he rested a hand on the man’s shoulder. The bandit leader had lost a lot of blood from the wounds in his left side and right thigh, but if he could regain consciousness long enough to call out to his men and tell them to attack Donelson and the other deserters instead of the mission, the fight would change in a hurry.

  That hope was dashed as Viola said, “He’s passed out again, John. But I think the bleeding has stopped.”

  “Do what you can for him,” Slaughter said. “Try to bring him around again. If he can put a stop to his men attacking us and turn them against Donelson, we might actually have a chance here.”

  “I’ll do my best,” she said with a nod.

  Slaughter took half a dozen rifles and a box of ammunition to the lone unattended window. Shards of stained glass crunched under his boots. He loaded all six rifles. With as many Springfields as they had inside the church, if he’d had a dozen loaders he and his men could have kept up a steady fire on the attackers for a long time. As it was, they could still put up a good fight.

  The mission was the southernmost building in La Reata. As Slaughter looked out the window he saw that the attackers had drawn a couple supply wagons even with the church and were using the heavy vehicles for cover. The mule teams had been unhitched and led away. He felt sure they had done the same thing on the other side of the mission.

  Bullets still flew through the broken windows, but the barrage was no longer constant. The return fire from Slaughter’s men made the killers duck. If the mission had been a few miles farther south, it would have been a true Mexican standoff, Slaughter thought with a grim smile as he brought one of the Springfields to his shoulder and sent a .45-70 round tearing through the canvas cover on one of the wagons.

  The question had become whether he and his companions could hold off their enemies until something happened to change the stalemate.

  Chapter 27

  It had taken four men to pick up Gabriel and carry him to Mercedes’ bed. Once there, they had placed him on his stomach so that she could get to the wound in his back. She cut away the heavily bloodstained shirt to expose the injury.

  Her initial guess appeared to be right. He didn’t have a bullet hole in his back. The narrow wound had been made by a large knife. She was a little surprised that the weapon hadn’t pierced his heart and killed him instantly. The angle of the thrust must have been wrong and caused the knife to barely miss that vital organ.

  El Señor Dios had been watching over Gabriel and protecting him, Mercedes thought, and for that she sent a heartfelt prayer of thanks heavenward as she sat on the bed beside the big outlaw.

  “Bring me a bottle of whiskey and a clean rag,” she told her bartender, who had helped carry Gabriel to the bed.

  Since the wound had stopped bleeding, she couldn’t do much for him except clean it and keep him comfortable. He would have to rely on his own fierce determination and iron constitution to see him through.

  The bartender returned with the whiskey and the rag. Mercedes soaked the piece of cloth and swabbed away the dried blood around the injury. Then she carefully parted the edges of the wound and dribbled the fiery liquor into it. Even though Gabriel was unconscious, he groaned as he felt the whiskey bite into his raw flesh.

  Tenderness filled Mercedes as she looked down at him. Gabriel and her brother were the only ones who could still provoke that feeling in her. For a woman to be successful running a bordertown cantina, she had to harden her heart. She couldn’t allow herself to be ruled by her emotions.

  But with Gabriel it had always been different, ever since they were children. Mercedes accepted this. And of course she loved her brother, as well. Their parents were long since dead, so Chaco and Gabriel were the only people she had left to care about.

  She worried about Chaco. As soon as she laid eyes on Donelson, she knew the gringo cavalryman was not to be trusted. She understood that Chaco had to do business with him in order to get the rifles he needed for the revolution, but she wouldn’t feel good about things until the deal was done and the captain was gone from La Reata.

  The attack on Gabriel made things worse. Mercedes felt sure one of Donelson’s men was responsible.

  A sudden burst of gunshots from down the street in the direction of the old mission made her leap to her feet. “Chaco!” she exclaimed.

  She hated to leave Gabriel’s side, but he was unconscious and she had done what she could for him. She rushed out of the bedroom and into the main room of the cantina. It was empty except for the heavyset bartender. Mercedes figured her customers had scurried for home as soon as the shooting had started.

  “My rifle!” she snapped at the bartender.

  He reached under the bar, picked up the repeater, and tossed it to her. Mercedes caught it. Most women wouldn’t have been able to handle a heavy weapon like the Winchester with such ease, but as she liked to point out to Gabriel, she was not most women.

  A pang went through her. She couldn’t stand it if Gabriel died.

  She forced that worry out of her mind and hurried to the entrance. As she looked out carefully, in case any bullets were flying in her direction, she saw the tense confrontation of Chaco’s men on one side of the street and Donelson’s on the other.

  Donelson and some troopers rushed out of the church, firing through the open doors behind them as they fled. They hunted cover, but Donelson stumbled to the side. He waved to another of the deserters and surprised her by running across the st
reet to join some of Chaco’s men.

  For a second, the urge to lift the rifle to her shoulder and put a bullet in the captain gripped Mercedes, but she checked it because she didn’t know what was going on. She was sure that Chaco had been headed to the mission to confront Donelson when he left the cantina, and the fact that he didn’t emerge from the church made fear for him stab through her.

  Donelson was talking to Chaco’s men, and there seemed to be a truce forming between them, which was puzzling. It might be better to wait, she decided reluctantly, until she had a better idea of what the situation really was.

  Over her shoulder, she told the bartender, “Go keep an eye on Gabriel. Let me know if there’s any change in his condition.”

  “Sí, señorita.”

  She stayed where she was by the door, watching warily. Donelson and the trooper with him—the one called Winters, Mercedes thought it was—ran back across the street to join the other cavalrymen. A few minutes later, riflemen from both groups opened fire on the mission.

  Mercedes’ hands tightened on the Winchester. Chaco was still in there. She was sure of that. Donelson was trying to kill her brother, just as he or one of his men had tried to kill Gabriel.

  As the battle raged, she snugged the rifle’s butt into her shoulder and rested its barrel against the doorjamb.

  Just let that gringo dog Donelson show his face again, she thought, and she would put a bullet through his head.

  * * *

  Lonnie Winters cursed bitterly as he looked in the shed where he had hidden Gabriel’s body and saw the stack of grain sacks shoved aside. He didn’t understand why the big bastard wasn’t dead. Winters had killed men before by stabbing them in the back like that, more than once, in fact.

  Somehow, Hernandez had lived. In order for Winters to redeem himself in Donelson’s eyes, he had to remedy that.

  The injured man had dragged his feet as he left the shed, so his trail wasn’t difficult to follow. The marks were obvious on the dusty ground. After following them for a while behind the buildings, Winters realized that Hernandez had been heading for the cantina.