by Gabriel Hunt
“You are free to go whenever you wish,” Escalante went on, as if reading Gabriel’s thoughts. “I would advise you not to leave without taking us with you, though. These mountains are full of peril.”
“I remember,” Cierra said. “Thank you for your hospitality, Paco.”
Escalante shook his head. “It is the least I can do, señorita.”
Cierra got up and went to the hut. Gabriel stayed where he was for a moment, to give her some privacy, and he said quietly to Escalante, “What happened to that lieutenant of yours, the one who went against your wishes and led the attack on the plantation?”
A sad smile curved Escalante’s lips. “What do you think happened to him, Señor Hunt?” He drew the machete that was sheathed at his hip and ran the ball of his thumb along the keen edge of the blade.
Gabriel nodded. “I see. In my country, there’s a saying, when a subordinate makes a mistake, about how ‘heads must roll.’ But it’s only a saying.”
“Your country,” Escalante said, “has the luxury of sayings.”
Cierra was waiting for Gabriel when he got back to the hut. She rose from the crude bunk and said, “Get your shirt off.”
“What, no foreplay?” Gabriel said with a grin.
“We’ve got to look at that flag again. The one with the map.”
He stripped his shirt off, wincing as it brushed his cuts, and tossed it on the bunk. Cierra helped him untie the strips of cloth that held the flags in place on either side of his torso. The regimental flag, which had been against his back, had been sliced through in multiple places by Tomás’s whip, but General Fargo’s personal standard had been safe against his chest. They spread it out now and studied it in the light of the hut’s single lantern.
Gabriel’s finger traced the lines that marked the course of the river. “We’ll have to ask Escalante if he can figure out what river this is.”
“I can tell you that already, from the way it’s oriented in relation to the mountains. It has to be the Black River. It flows from the mountains up into the rain forests, then makes its way across to the Caribbean. You just can’t see that on this map.”
“You’re sure?”
“Trust me,” she said.
Gabriel smiled and leaned closer to the flag. “Too bad the old boy didn’t draw a big red X on here to mark the spot where he was going,” he muttered. “That would have been a big help.” He frowned and put a finger on the flag. “Unless he did…”
Cierra studied the small, black-rimmed hole in the fabric that Gabriel was pointing to. “A bullet hole. Hardly surprising considering that this flag went through a battle. There are several holes like that in the other flag.”
“There are holes, but not like this one,” Gabriel said. “Look at that dark ring around it.”
“Some sort of smudge. In all these years, there’s no telling what sort of dirt got on it.”
Gabriel shook his head. “I don’t think that’s dirt. I think that’s a burn. A powder burn. The hole is smaller, too. A ball from a musket didn’t make it. I think somebody held a small caliber weapon, maybe a derringer, right up to the flag and fired a shot through it. That wouldn’t have happened in battle, and it’s not likely it happened by accident, either.”
“Then you’re saying…”
“I’m not saying, I’m asking: What if that hole is our big red X?”
Gabriel saw excitement spark in Cierra’s eyes. “You think General Fargo fired that shot to mark his destination?”
“Who would think twice about a bullet hole in a battle flag? But there it is, right in the middle of that wider space between two of the mountains.”
“A valley,” Cierra whispered.
“That’d be my guess.”
“It could be,” she said. “It could.”
“And since there’s nothing else on the map that could…”
Cierra nodded, convinced. “The question is, how can we get there.” She bent closer, counted markings on the flag with her finger. “It’s one, two, three mountains past the river.” She looked up at Gabriel. “That’s about five days’ travel from here on foot, maybe two on horseback.”
“What about the pickup? I’m not sure Escalante’s going to give it back to us, but…”
Cierra shook her head. “There are no roads fit for such a vehicle.”
“I guess we’ll have to put our hands on some horses, then.”
“Escalante will know where to find some,” Cierra declared. “And he feels he owes me.”
“He does,” Gabriel said, “but don’t overestimate his altruism. If he comes with us, he’s liable to want a cut of what ever it is the general was after, assuming it’s still there.”
“So let him have a cut. Do you begrudge him that, Gabriel? If he helps us?”
“We don’t even know what it’s a cut of. Whatever it is might not even be there anymore.”
“We have to assume it is,” Cierra said. “General Fargo never went back to the States with the treasure he was after. And your mysteriously youthful Mariella Montez wouldn’t have come to New York with that flag and set off all the fireworks if she didn’t think there was something still there to find. And a man like Esparza wouldn’t be so anxious to get his hands on something unless it was pretty valuable.”
Gabriel nodded. “But they might all be wrong.”
“In that case, Escalante will get a cut of nothing. And so will the Hunt Foundation. But if there is something to find, we’ll all get a piece of it. We need all the help we can get, Gabriel. You’re an impressive man, but you can’t do it alone. We have to risk letting Escalante help us.”
Gabriel knew she was right. It was a risk, indeed, trusting a bloodthirsty old bandit like Escalante. But they had come too far and been through too much danger to turn back now. If they were going to find out the secret of the mysterious valley that lay there in the mountains, beyond the Black River, they would have to take the chance.
Chapter 16
Gabriel woke up with an armful of warm, nude, female flesh, which almost made up for the fact that he was lying in a narrow bunk with nothing but a thin, bug-infested mattress for cushioning in a crude hut in the middle of the Guatemalan mountains. Cierra stirred sleepily against him. Her hand rested on his chest, and even though he didn’t think she was fully awake yet, it began sliding down over his belly toward his groin.
Gabriel would have encouraged her to continue that exploration if not for the fact that he heard footsteps coming toward the hut. They stopped right outside the door, and Paco Escalante called, “Cierra? Señor? I have news.”
Cierra came awake the rest of the way and sat up, taking the threadbare blanket with her and holding it over her breasts. “Gabriel?” she said, her voice a little fuzzy with sleep. “What time is it?”
“Morning, looks like,” Gabriel replied as he swung his legs out of the bunk and stood up. Except for the ragged bandages from last night, he was as naked as Cierra was, and the light that came in through the cracks in the hut’s walls threw slanting bands of illumination across his body. The effect looked better on her, he thought as she threw the blanket aside, stood up, and reached for her clothes.
“Just a minute, Paco,” she called to Escalante.
They had been allowed to bring in some of the supplies from the pickup. Instead of the peasant blouse and long skirt she had been wearing the day before, Cierra pulled on khaki trousers and shirt and a pair of boots. Gabriel tied on the flags, fore and aft, and then dressed in a pair of tan pants and a blue shirt. They left the hut and went to see what Escalante wanted.
The bandit leader greeted them with a smile. “You both slept well, I hope?”
“Reasonably,” Cierra said, and Gabriel asked, “You have news?”
Escalante nodded. “Sí. I have contacts all over the country, and a short time ago I received word of another group of travelers passing through the mountains not far from here. They have three trucks and many supplies and weapons. My men would like to ambus
h them.”
“What business is this of ours?” Cierra asked.
“They also have a prisoner with them, my scoutreports. A young woman. A beautiful young woman.”
“Mariella?” Gabriel said.
Escalante shrugged. “Perhaps. My source did not know her name. There is only one way to find out for certain. But when I heard about this prisoner I thought of the woman you told me about, the one taken by men working for Vladimir Esparza.”
“Esparza’s had her all this time,” Gabriel said. “He’s probably been trying to force her to reproduce the map for him. If he’s coming here, it means he was finally able to break her and get the information. Now he’s trying to get there ahead of us.”
Cierra looked at Gabriel. “You can’t be sure it’s her. You can’t even be certain that these men work for Esparza.”
“Señor Escalante’s men want to ambush the convoy either way,” Gabriel said.
Escalante nodded. “This is true.”
“I will go with you,” Gabriel said.
“If you’re going, I’m going,” Cierra said.
“It will be dangerous,” Escalante warned. “We will be outnumbered. But we will have the advantage of surprise, and the terrain will favor us if we can get ahead of them and meet them at a spot of our own choosing.”
“Can we?” Gabriel asked.
Escalante grinned. “No one knows these mountains better than I do, Señor Hunt. We can get around them on horse back and set up an ambush.”
“Let’s do it, then,” Gabriel said.
“And what if you’re wrong about who it is?” Cierra said.
“We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it,” Gabriel said.
They ate breakfast in the saddle. It had been a while since Gabriel had been on a horse, and it felt good to be riding again. You didn’t get to ride much growing up in New York City, but over the years he had visited a lot of places where a good horse was the best means of transportation, and Paco Escalante and his men had some fine mounts.
Gabriel didn’t ask himself where the bandits might have gotten those horses. Some things it was just as well not to know.
“You look like you’ve ridden before,” he commented as he looked over at Cierra, who swayed slightly in rhythm with her horse’s gait.
“Every day, when I was a child,” she replied. “My father always said I could ride before I could walk.”
“You’re not the girl I took you for when I first met you.”
She snorted. “I should hope not. You, however, are exactly the sort of man I took you for.”
She kneed her mount gently and rode off. Gabriel followed close behind.
Their encounter at the museum seemed like more than two nights earlier, he thought. He wondered how Michael was doing back in New York. It didn’t seem likely that Esparza would have any reason to go after him at this point, but Gabriel hoped he was keeping a low profile nonetheless.
Escalante led the group, which numbered fifteen not counting Gabriel and Cierra. They followed a trail that left the jungle behind and climbed high into the mountains. The path hugged the side of a slope that fell away dizzyingly on one side and rose to smoking volcanic peaks on the other. They would be in trouble if one of those sleeping giants decided to erupt, Gabriel knew. But it was one more thing they couldn’t do anything about, and Gabriel put it out of his mind.
“Careful,” Escalante called over his shoulder. “It’s a long way down.”
“I can see that,” Cierra said. “Don’t worry about me.”
“I’m not. I’m worried about that fine horse you’re riding, señorita.”
She laughed. She was directly behind Escalante now, with Gabriel behind her and the rest of the men strung out along the mountainside.
Tomás was directly behind Gabriel. He had caught the thickly built bandit glaring at him several times. Gabriel wasn’t too happy with having Tomás at his back, but that’s where el jefe had stationed him and that’s where he rode. Escalante had explained to all fourteen men that Gabriel and Cierra were under his protection, and Gabriel was fairly confident Tomás wouldn’t go against his leader, not while Escalante had his machete at his hip. But it was a possibility Gabriel couldn’t dismiss entirely.
The air was crystal clear, the sky a beautiful blue. Despite the hazards, Gabriel found himself enjoying the ride. But the enjoyment was short-lived. After climbing for about an hour, the trail began dropping again. Gabriel suddenly spotted a road far below them, and along that road crawled three trucks.
Esparza’s convoy, he thought. It had to be.
He pointed them out to Escalante, who claimed to have already seen them. “Can we still get ahead of them?” Gabriel asked.
“This trail will allow us to reach the Black River bridge before them,” Escalante said. “That’s where we will stop them.”
From behind Gabriel, Tomás called, “Will we blow up the bridge?”
“Then we could not use it if we needed to, amigo,” Escalante replied patiently. “We will find another way.”
They followed the steep, winding path downward until they came to a stream spanned by a sturdy-looking, one-lane wooden bridge. The bridge was about fifty feet above the water, which raced along at a good clip and bubbled over its rocky bed.
“The Black River,” Escalante announced. “Listen.”
Gabriel listened and heard the grumble of truck engines coming from the west. It was hard to tell how far away the convoy was, but Escalante seemed to think they had plenty of time. He didn’t appear to be in any hurry as he gave his orders.
They led the horses across the bridge and then hid them in a stand of trees on the far side of the river. Escalante picked out eight men to conceal themselves around the western end of the bridge. He went to the eastern end with the rest of the men. Gabriel and Cierra crouched in a clump of boulders near the road as the bandits spread out, using rocks and brush for cover.
“My men will open fire when the trucks are in the middle of the bridge,” Escalante explained. “They will shoot out the tires on the lead truck and the one bringing up the rear, trapping the one in the middle as well. Then the men in the trucks will have no choice but to surrender, because we’ll be able to pick them off if they try to get off the bridge.”
“You’ve used these tactics before,” Gabriel guessed.
“Multiple times. And why? Because they work,” Escalante said. “My men are nearly always outnumbered and we are rarely as well armed as our enemies. But they are the best shots in the mountains and know no fear, and between that and our tactics we have survived.”
“You think I could have my Colt back?” Gabriel asked.
Escalante grinned and pulled the weapon from behind his belt where he had tucked it. “I do think so,” he said as he handed the gun to Gabriel. “Your rifle is over there on one of the horses. You have time to get that, too, if you want.”
“I’ll use it,” Cierra volunteered. “I can handle a rifle.”
Gabriel hurried over to the horses, got the Winchester and a box of ammunition, and moved in a crouching run back to the boulders where Cierra and Escalante had hidden. The trucks’ engines were louder now. The convoy would reach the bridge within minutes.
Gabriel handed the Winchester to Cierra. She worked the lever to jack a round into the chamber. Her expression was grim and a little scared, although she appeared to have her fear well under control.
“I want the prisoner,” he said to Escalante. “If they’re Esparza’s men, I don’t care what you do with the rest of them.”
“That will all depend on whether or not they want to surrender the trucks and everything they hold. If they are willing to trade a long walk back to civilization for their lives, we will let them go.”
Gabriel didn’t really expect that to happen and didn’t much care. He just wanted to get Mariella away from her captors before all hell broke loose.
The lead truck came into view around a bend about two hundred yards from the b
ridge. One by one, the other two vehicles followed it, and all three of them lumbered toward the Black River. Gabriel worried for a moment that caution might lead whoever was in charge to order that the trucks cross one at a time, but they had no reason to fear a trap.
The truck rumbled out onto the thick planks of the bridge. The span was long enough so that fifty yards still separated the lead truck from the eastern end of the bridge when the vehicle bringing up the rear was fifty yards from the western end.
Escalante had drawn a bead with his rifle. When he fired, it was the signal for his men to open fire as well.
Shots roared out from both ends of the bridge. Cierra joined in, aiming at the tires on the lead truck. The driver of that truck slammed on his brakes as one of his front tires exploded. The truck veered sharply toward the flimsy railing along the side of the bridge.
Gabriel held his breath. If the truck went through that railing and plunged into the river, everyone in it might die in the crash or be drowned by the fast-moving stream. He had no way of knowing if Mariella Montez was one of the passengers.
The driver was able to bring the truck to a stop a couple of feet short of the railing. Its other front tire had burst now from the bullets ripping into it, and the truck slewed diagonally across the bridge as it came to rest, blocking the narrow span completely.
The driver of the truck in the rear had thrown his vehicle into reverse and tried to back off the bridge. He must have guessed what the bandits were trying to do. He was too slow, though. Bullets shredded his rear tires, and the truck ground to a halt on its wheel rims.
They had the convoy pinned down, Gabriel thought. Now all they had to do was get the men in the trucks to surrender.
That wasn’t going to be easy. Men with rifles leaped from the canvas-covered backs of the vehicles, took cover between them, and opened fire in both directions.
Escalante’s men were too well hidden, though, to be taken in the fusillade. Like phantoms they darted from rock to tree to bush, so that the men trapped on the bridge never knew where the next shot was coming from. Individual shots, quiet and sure, picked off the men from the convoy; one by one they dropped their rifles and sprawled on the bridge planks to lie motionless in death.
