“I don’t know, but I’ll try.”
“Alphonso, help him.”
With the boy’s hand on the cup, too, to steady it, Braddock lifted it and sipped the clear liquid inside. The fiery bite of it told him it was tequila.
“Don’t drink it all,” the woman said. “I’ll use it to clean the wounds, after I have washed them.”
“Yes, ma’am, that’s just what I had in mind.”
She lifted his shirt and used the wet rag to swab away the blood that had flowed from the holes and dried after Braddock emerged from the river. Then she squeezed out the rag, took the cup, soaked the cup in the tequila, and pressed it deep into the bullet hole.
Braddock said, “Ahhhh,” and leaned his head back, baring his teeth.
The woman repeated the process with the hole Braddock had made to get the slug out. It hurt just as bad, but he expected it this time and didn’t react quite as strongly.
“Come inside,” the woman said. “You must lie down.”
“I am mighty tired.”
“You must lie on your side so I can pour tequila into the wounds.”
“Oh. Well, that’s gonna hurt.”
Alphonso said, “And Papa will say it is a waste of good tequila.”
“Never mind what your papa will say,” the woman snapped. “Help the gringo.”
With their assistance, Braddock hobbled inside and lay down on a bunk with a straw mattress. It felt good and Braddock might have dozed off right away, except the woman made good on her word and carefully tilted the cup to let raw tequila run into the holes in Braddock’s hide. He didn’t yell out loud, but he didn’t miss it by much.
The burning pain still filled him enough he was barely aware of it when the woman slid the Colt from its holster. Braddock wanted to object. His instincts rebelled at the idea of anybody taking his gun.
But he didn’t figure she planned to use it against him. If she’d wanted him dead, she could have let him fall down in front of her house and lie there until the sun and the fever killed him. She could get that pitchfork and stab him full of holes. She didn’t need to shoot him.
Through slitted eyes, he saw her place the revolver on a table.
“Stay away from the gun,” she told Alphonso in a stern voice. “Do not touch it. Do not even get near it.”
“Yes, Mama,” the boy said.
She turned to Braddock with her mouth open to say something else to him.
He didn’t know what it was, because just then he passed out again.
Chapter 21
“Gracias, Señora Sanchez,” Braddock said around a mouthful of tortilla and frijoles. When he’d regained consciousness that morning, he wouldn’t have given odds on him still being alive by now, let alone eating ravenously. He could feel strength flowing back into him from the food and the strong coffee he sipped between bites.
She still didn’t look too happy about him being here, and neither did her husband Enrique. Alphonso and the other six children seemed to find the Tejano endlessly fascinating, though. No doubt the Sanchezes had used stories of the Texas devils to frighten their children into behaving, and now here was one of them sitting right in their own jacal. So far he hadn’t eaten the head off of any of them.
Sanchez said, “You are certain, señor, that the man who tried to kill you will not come here and harm my family?”
“I don’t see how that could ever happen,” Braddock said. “I told you, he’s convinced I’m dead.”
“You cannot know this, señor. You cannot be certain of what is in a man’s head.”
“No, I suppose not, but I’m convinced it’s true in this case. You see, this fella...he wouldn’t want me on his trail. We didn’t know each other for very long, but I reckon he understood that about me. If he didn’t believe he’d killed me, he would have kept on looking for me.”
Sanchez sighed and said, “It seems all I can do is trust you. I cannot blame my wife for helping you. She has a good heart.”
“You have a good family,” Braddock said. “If I can ever pay you back for all you’ve done, I will.”
Sanchez glanced at the open door, where the last light of day faded, and said, “Just go, señor, as soon as it is dark, and do not come back here again.”
Braddock had slept about half the day, then woken up long enough for Señora Sanchez to clean his wounds again and change the dressings she had put on them after he passed out. While he was awake, Alphonso had fed him some hot stew. Then Braddock had gone back to sleep, and when he woke up in the late afternoon, his fever had broken and he was extremely hungry and thirsty.
Since then he’d had more of the thick stew with chunks of goat meat swimming in it, along with tortillas and beans and a couple of cups of coffee. Señora Sanchez had changed his bandages again, binding them tightly in place with strips of cloth.
“Be careful,” she had told him. “Do not move around too much.”
That would be difficult, because he had things to do, but he didn’t tell her that.
Wouldn’t want her to think all her hard work keeping him alive might go to waste before the night was over.
When he’d finished eating, Braddock reclaimed his gun and cleaned and dried it as best he could. It seemed to be in good working order, but he wished he had his gear so he could give it a good cleaning. Everything he owned was back in the boarding house in El Paso, though.
Only about thirty-six hours had passed since his meeting with E.J. Caldwell in the Camino Real. With everything that had happened, it seemed more like weeks to Braddock.
Señora Sanchez shooed the youngsters away from the table while Braddock worked on his gun. Her husband sat on the other side of the table and regarded Braddock gloomily. He had some tequila in one of the clay cups and sipped it now and then.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“Well, since you don’t have a horse I can buy or rent, and I figure I’d look sort of foolish riding that burro with my feet scraping the ground, I reckon I’ll walk back to Juarez. It’s not much more than a mile, you said.”
“You are shot last night, nearly bleed to death, and now you would walk a mile back into the face of danger. Most people would say you are loco.”
Braddock smiled faintly and said, “I’ve been called that before, and worse.” He shook his head. “But what else am I going to do? You don’t want me staying here.”
“It is true, I do not. This farm provides a living of sorts for us. It cannot support a Texan with your appetite, too.”
Braddock laughed, and Sanchez smiled a little, then grew more serious as he went on, “You are the sort of man who cannot turn his back on trouble.”
“One of these days I might. But not just yet.”
“You will keep on saying that until someday it is too late.”
“You could well be right about that.”
Braddock had resigned himself to such a fate when he put that bullet-holed Ranger badge in his pocket and started riding the dangerous trails alone. But he would do as much good in the world as he could before fate caught up to him.
Tonight, as he told Sanchez, he planned to head back to Juarez. He wasn’t sure yet what he would do once he got there, but Wilcox believed he was dead, Palmer wouldn’t know what happened to him, and by now Hernandez might have found out that apparently he’d dropped off the face of the earth. None of them would be looking for him.
He had figure out some way to turn that to his advantage.
Satisfied he’d done the best he could with the Colt, he stood up and slid it back into leather. His movements were a little stiff, partially because he was sore and partially because Señora Sanchez had tied the bandages so tight.
He reached into his pocket and found a couple of silver dollars. One he gave to Señora Sanchez, the other to Alphonso.
“Gracias to both of you,” he said. “You saved my life, and I’ll never forget it.”
“You are leaving now?” Alphonso asked.
“I have
to.”
“But you will come back to see us someday?”
Braddock glanced at the boy’s father, who scowled.
“None of us knows the future, Alphonso, but this I do know: wherever the two of us are from now on, we will be amigos.”
The boy’s face lit up in a smile.
Sanchez followed Braddock outside, where the last of the daylight was gone and the stars were beginning to come out overhead.
“I would tell you to go with God,” the farmer said, “but I think you already have a companion.”
“El Diablo?” Braddock said with a grim smile.
“Es verdad,” Sanchez said.
Chapter 22
It didn’t take long for Braddock to discover he wasn’t as well-rested as he’d thought he was. Putting one foot in front of the other required a lot of effort and determination, but he kept doing it anyway.
He followed the river toward the bordertowns on each side of the Rio Grande. After a while he could see their lights ahead of him.
Señora Sanchez had removed his boots and allowed them to dry outside in the sun during the day, but even so, they still weren’t made for walking. Braddock paused, leaned against a mesquite, and pulled them off so he could walk in his stocking feet. He had spent a lot of his life on horseback, so being a-foot rubbed him the wrong way.
Maybe he should have considering borrowing that burro from the Sanchezes after all...
He didn’t know how long it took him to cover the mile or so to Juarez. An hour, maybe, although it seemed longer. When he reached the outskirts of town he stopped and put his boots on again, then headed for Hernandez’s place without any clear plan in mind, thinking only that whatever he did next, Hernandez’s was a place to start.
The long walk had given him time to think about everything he had learned the night before. The women and girls who had been kidnapped from Santa Rosalia were the key to the whole affair, he decided. Shadrach Palmer had whores upstairs at Casa de Palmer, and if the rumors about his extensive criminal connections were true, he probably had a piece of every brothel in El Paso. He would need a steady supply of women.
Maybe Hernandez, in partnership with the bandit Martin Larrizo, had an arrangement with Palmer to supply those women, in exchange for the shipment of army rifles. Those Krags were worth more than the prisoners Carmen had told Braddock about. That was a callous thing to think, Braddock knew, but it was true. However, those unfortunates might be just the first installment on the payment.
There were plenty of other villages Larrizo, Gonsalvo, and the other bandits could raid.
Braddock wasn’t sure why they wanted the rifles, other than the fact outlaws always wanted more and better weapons. Maybe Larrizo harbored some crackpot notion of staging a revolution and setting himself up as dictator of this part of Mexico. Loco schemes like that were common south of the border. Every common bandido fancied himself an emperor, it seemed.
That idea had begun to form in his mind after Carmen had told him about the captives, and after turning the theory over and over in his head during the walk to Juarez, it seemed even more reasonable and likely.
If Braddock had made the correct assumption, hundreds of women, maybe more, eventually would face an ugly fate. And untold numbers of innocent men, women, and children might die if Larrizo managed to rally an army, even a small one, and launch a revolution. The effort might be doomed to failure, but it would be a bloody slaughter while it lasted.
Braddock had no proof of the plotters’ intentions, but his instincts told him he was right.
Even if he wasn’t, those women were still being held captive somewhere not far from Juarez. He had to find them and help them somehow.
All those thoughts led him to Hernandez’s place, where he circled around to the rear of the big, brightly lit building.
He had in mind seeing if there was a back door so he slip inside and maybe reach the second floor without being seen. He wanted to talk to Carmen again and try to find out more from her about where the prisoners were being held.
A stable stood behind the building, and as soon as Braddock saw it he thought about saddling a horse and tying it somewhere nearby, in case he had to make a quick getaway. Before he could even attempt that, however, the question of whether Hernandez’s place had a back door was answered. Light slanted out toward the stable from the door as it swung open.
Braddock pulled back in the shadows beside the stable.
Four men walked out of the building and came toward the stable. Braddock eased an eye around the corner to take a look at them.
Hernandez strode along a few feet in front of the other three. Tonight he wore black trousers, a short black charro jacket, and a flat-crowned black hat.
The other three were dressed like vaqueros in rough clothing and sombreros, but the guns they wore told Braddock they were pistoleros, not cowboys. Hernandez’s bodyguards, more than likely.
Clearly, Hernandez intended on going somewhere, as he had the previous evening. Braddock wondered where.
One possible answer suggested itself to him immediately.
Braddock heard Hernandez say something about “the mission” as the men went into the stable. He didn’t know if Hernandez meant the errand that brought them out tonight or a specific place, a Catholic mission. Plenty of those could be found all over the region.
Braddock could tell from the noises within the stable that the men were saddling horses. A harsh voice, instantly recognizable as not being Hernandez’s smooth tones, said, “Something is wrong with my cinch. The buckle is coming loose.”
“Fix it and catch up to us,” Hernandez snapped. A moment later, he rode out with the other two men. They turned south.
Braddock stood tensely in the shadows. With Hernandez and some of his men gone, he stood a better chance of being able to sneak into the main building without being discovered.
But another opportunity had presented itself, and Braddock didn’t want to waste it. The chance might not amount to anything, but there was only one way to find out.
Hernandez and the other two men had ridden out of sight by the time the third man emerged from the stable.
Braddock was waiting for him, gun in hand.
The pistolero wasn’t expecting any trouble, right here behind his boss’s headquarters. He rode loosely in the saddle. The horse had taken only a few steps when Braddock dashed out of his hiding place. He grabbed the man’s arm and jerked him out of the saddle violently enough that the man’s sombrero flew off. Braddock struck swiftly with the Colt, which he had reversed in his hand.
The gun butt thudded hard against the pistolero’s skull. The man grunted and tried feebly to struggle. Braddock hit him again.
This time the pistolero went limp.
Braddock holstered the Colt and reached down to take hold of the unconscious gunman under the arms. He dragged the man into the stable, which was dimly lit by a lantern hanging on a nail in one of the posts holding up the roof. Braddock spied a pile of straw and dumped the pistolero on it.
The man’s breathing was shallow. He might wake up after a while, or he might not. Knowing the pistolero worked for Hernandez and probably had plenty of blood on his hands, Braddock didn’t really care either way. He found a pitchfork and heaped straw over the man until it completely covered the senseless form.
Using the pitchfork made Braddock think of Señora Sanchez. He checked the bandages she had placed on his injuries. Neither of them felt wet, so maybe his exertions hadn’t started the wounds bleeding again.
What he hoped he would discover when he followed Hernandez and the other two men made him not mind running the risk of re-opening the wounds.
The horse had danced off a few yards when Braddock grabbed its rider, but it still stood in front of the stable. Braddock approached slowly and carefully, talking in a low voice. Horses had always responded well to him, and this one was no exception. The animal let him get hold of the reins.
A thought occurred to Braddock.
Before swinging up into the saddle, he looked around and found the pistolero’s sombrero lying on the ground nearby. He picked it up and put it on. That would make him look less suspicious to anyone who saw him.
Then, with a grim smile on his face, he mounted up and rode after his quarry.
Chapter 23
Braddock knew only one main road led out of Juarez heading south, but he didn’t know whether or not Hernandez and the others planned to take it. So he pushed the pistolero’s horse at a fairly rapid pace starting out. The men had about a ten minute lead on him, but he thought he could make that up.
He had to be careful, though, because he didn’t want to ride right up behind them and have them spot him. Even though he rode the third man’s horse and wore his hat, he knew he couldn’t maintain the masquerade more than a few seconds. It was a fine line, getting close enough to spot them without being spotted himself.
No doubt Hernandez would wonder what had happened to his third bodyguard, but Braddock didn’t believe the man would turn back from his errand because of that.
He hadn’t seen any sign of the men he was after by the time he reached the edge of town. Braddock reined in for a moment and let out an exasperated sigh. All he could do was keep going on the main road, he decided.
A few minutes later, he came up behind an old, white-bearded peon slowly pulling a handcart. The man must have taken produce or maybe some chickens into Juarez to the market and was late getting started back to his farm. Braddock pulled up beside him and said with the sort of harsh arrogance he figured the pistolero would have used, “Hey, viejo, did three men ride this way a little while ago?”
The old-timer nodded and said, “Sí, señor. They rode very fast. I had to pull my cart aside, else they would have trampled me.”
“That’s what you get for being in the way.” Braddock started to ride on, then paused and added, “But gracias for your help.”
“De nada, señor.”
Braddock didn’t have any more silver dollars, but he had a fifty-cent piece, he recalled. He found it and tossed to the old man, who displayed good reflexes despite his age by catching it in the dim moonlight.
Gun Devils of the Rio Grande (Outlaw Ranger Book 5) Page 7
