“That’s too damn true,” agreed Charlie. He squinted up at the early afternoon sun. “If we step to it, though, I think we still got a chance to make it by nightfall. We’ll all walk for a ways. Then you gals can climb up double on my horse and me and Josh will keep wearin’ down our boot heels.”
They started out. Charlie took the front position, leading his horse; Josh fell to the rear, leading the packhorse. After a short ways, Cleo fell back and walked beside Josh. When she glanced over and saw that his eyes were shiny, she pulled a handkerchief from the waistband of her skirt and silently held it out to him. When he was done using it, he handed it back and she returned it to her waistband. After a few more steps, she slipped her hand in his and they walked like that for quite a ways.
* * *
Estarde split his force into two groups of seven. Those who separated from him were sent to General Almarez with the weapons and other goods that had been confiscated from the defeated Rurales. Along with them went a handwritten note from the colonel detailing the great success of the engagement and an assurance that Estarde, though somewhat delayed, would soon be returning from north of the border with even more weapons and ammunition purchased from the gunrunners in Bright Rock.
The groups parted and each went their individual way.
Estarde pushed those who rode with him at a hard, nonstop pace until they reached the Rio Grande. There he called a short halt to rest and water the horses, grab a bite to eat, and replenish their canteens. Some of the men took the opportunity to peel off their shirts and fling themselves into the river.
It was during this brief, raucous interlude that Firestick and Moosejaw got their first chance to talk alone for a few precious minutes. They sat on the riverbank, with their feet in the water, tipping their heads close together while the nearby splashing and whooping kept their words from traveling too far.
“I suppose,” said Firestick, “we oughta look at this as a lucky break—gettin’ swept up by these rebels and then findin’ out they’re headed straight for Bright Rock, right where we want to go.”
“Yeah. A lucky break,” Moosejaw muttered wryly. “Only question is whether it’s all bad luck or we can manage to squeeze some good out of it.”
“We’ve got to squeeze some good out of it,” Firestick declared. “What we know for sure is that Estarde and his men are headed there and some gunrunners are waitin’ for ’em. What we think we know is that the women and the skunks who took ’em are headed there, too. The real question is whether the skunks are somehow part of the rest or if they’re on their way for reasons strictly their own.”
“How are we supposed to find out?”
Firestick made a sour face. “I don’t know. But it occurs to me if we could get two of the sides—don’t matter which ones—fightin’ against each other—either over the guns or over the women—we might have our chance to yank Kate and Cleo out of the middle of it.”
Moosejaw regarded him. “Ain’t sayin’ it’s a bad idea, mind you. But it’s kinda light on details, don’t you think?”
“Just be ready to follow my lead when I open the ball.”
“Like I’m gonna have much choice,” Moosejaw said under his breath.
CHAPTER 50
Three-quarters of the sun had sunk behind the western horizon when they started down the main street of Bright Rock. The old, sagging, partially dilapidated buildings cast long shadows, many of them oddly angled and grotesque in shape.
“I know it don’t look like much, especially in the fadin’ light,” admitted Charlie as they paused to gaze down the empty, tumbleweed-strewn street. The air was still this evening, so even the freshest clump of sagebrush that had drifted in lay still and lifeless looking. “But we’re bound to find some solid structures, and like we told you before, me and Josh will make some right nice dwellin’s out of ’em.”
“This place looks a million years old,” Kate said dejectedly. “When was the last time anybody actually lived here?”
* * *
Halfway down the street, four men were crouched behind the windows of the old hotel building, cautiously eyeing the approach of the new arrivals.
“Don’t look like no ferocious, country-savin’ Mexican revolutionaries to me,” muttered Keefer Fleming.
“Who are they, then? And what in the world would cause ’em to show up here?” said Beaudine Jeffers, his young, sparsely whiskered face wearing an earnestly puzzled expression as he peered over Fleming’s shoulder.
One window down, Lefty Gramlich said, “Judging by the fact they’ve only got one saddle horse and a packhorse, I’m guessing they had some trouble somewhere out on the trail and wandered this way looking for help.”
“What kind of help would they expect to find in a ghost town?” Fleming sneered.
“I’m not saying they came here intentionally,” Lefty snapped peevishly. “Did you hear me say they were wandering? Probably half-desperate.”
“Well, worse luck for them, they ain’t gonna find no help here,” Vic Mason said with a flinty look in his eyes. “Estarde is due to be showin’ up any time. He’ll be expecting to see us—and only us. He spots a bunch of new faces, he’s liable to get suspicious and back off. We didn’t buck the damn army and lose Hawkins and sit here baking in this rotting pile of wood all this time to have it queered by some poor lost pilgrims!”
Beaudine made a distasteful face. “Jeez, Vic. We ain’t gonna just . . . kill ’em. Are we?”
Mason glared up the street, not looking over at the younger man. “We’re gonna get rid of ’em, Beaudine, whatever it takes.”
“Here now, let’s not get too hasty,” said Fleming, who was continuing to study the approaching four. “I’m seein’ me a couple women there amongst our visitors. And by the shape of ’em and the way they move, they ain’t no fat old farm wives nor slat-thin, wore out ones, neither. That makes ’em something I’d say we ought not be in a big a hurry to get rid of.”
“We get paid and finish what we came here for,” Mason said out the side of his mouth, “there are plenty of women for you to chase down when our business is done.”
* * *
“I tell you, I got me a wrong feelin’,” Josh was saying as they walked slowly down the street. “We ain’t alone here; we’re bein’ watched.”
“Take it easy, pard,” Charlie told him. “You’re just feelin’ a little spooked by the old buildings and the sun goin’ down and all. Just because they call it a ghost town don’t mean it’s got any ghosts.”
“I know what Josh is talking about,” spoke up Cleo. “I don’t believe in ghosts, but I don’t think we’re alone here, either.”
“See, Josh, now you’re spookin’ the women,” said Charlie. “All of you just calm down. Ain’t nobody came around this old place in years. Nobody but us showin’ up here this evenin’.”
“In that case,” countered Kate, “what do you call that stepping out in the street up ahead?”
All eyes followed her words to the sight of Mason and Fleming emerging from the hotel and stepping off its sagging front porch.
The four new arrivals stopped walking. In a low voice, Charlie was quick to say, “You gals might see this as a chance to flee. But I’d think twice, was I you. Take a good look at the way those hombres are hung with guns and the way they’re holdin’ themselves.”
“Plus there’s a couple more still in that building,” Josh added. “I seen ’em through the windows.”
“I ain’t going nowhere,” said Cleo.
Kate said nothing. But neither did she flee. Her appraisal of the men up ahead, even without Charlie’s advisement, told her they were trouble—even more trouble than she already had.
“Come on ahead, folks. We don’t bite,” said Mason, real friendly-like. His smile widened and he extended one hand, motioning them forward. “We’re as surprised to see you as you are us.”
Again in a low voice, Charlie said, “Come on. But, as we move ahead, ease on over toward the opposite side of t
he street in case we got to make a sudden dive for cover.”
The four walked forward. Unhurriedly. Gradually edging toward the opposite side of the street from the hotel building.
Up ahead, Mason and Fleming stood waiting. The windows of the hotel looked on like lifeless, black eye sockets. But Josh knew better. There was life—and maybe sudden death—hiding in the darkness of those sockets.
They drew closer to the waiting men. As they did, Fleming’s eyes hungrily devoured the women, feasting first on one and then the other. And then, as the four got closer still, his focus locked strictly on Cleo and he couldn’t hold back a sudden exclamation. “Hey, I know you! From El Paso a few months back—you ain’t no farm wife, you’re nothing but a damn saloon whore!”
Josh took a lunging step and suddenly was standing in front of Cleo, his hand coming to rest on the grips of his Colt. “Take that back, you foul-mouthed son of a bitch! This woman is gonna be my bride!”
There was no holding it back then. Josh touching his sidearm triggered an involuntary response from both Fleming and Mason. Though both were experienced gun hands, neither made claim to being especially fast. Still, it came as a surprise to them, as well as Lefty and Beaudine observing from inside the hotel, that the simple cowboy-looking pair of Josh and Charlie cleared leather equally as fast as the hardcases.
Guns popped and spat flame frantically—too frantically for much accuracy to come into play. The closeness of the exchange meant that all four men were simultaneously and rather awkwardly trying to duck and dodge as they snapped off their shots. Fleming’s hat went flying and he backpedaled wildly. Mason got his feet tangled and nearly fell as he crouched low and tried to shift sideways at the same time. Josh stood resolutely in front of Cleo and kept firing, barely shrugging as one of Fleming’s slugs punched through the meaty area of his left arm, just missing the biceps. Charlie yanked Kate around behind his horse and leaned out around the animal’s heaving chest to trigger more shots. “Get in the building! Get inside to cover!” he shouted.
The others scrambled to follow his command. Josh pulled Cleo and himself around behind the packhorse, following Charlie’s example and using the animal for a shield. Slugs coming from the hotel windows, now that Lefty and Beaudine finally had a clear field of fire without risking hitting their comrades, whapped into the bundles on the packhorse’s back, kicking up mini geysers of dust.
The building Charlie was trying to get everybody into had the look of an old store. There was a walk-through door in the middle of its front, with large windows to either side. These windows, of course, had long since been absent any glass. Charlie and Josh were trying to get their respective horses to plunge through these openings to make it inside. Bullets cut the air high and low, more of them striking the bundles on the back of the packhorse, others chewing into the weathered wood of the old store. Charlie had nearly succeeded in getting his horse to make the leap inside when the poor beast took simultaneous hits to the side of its neck and the back of its head and collapsed with a painful shriek. As the carcass went down, Charlie and Kate wheeled away and made their own dives over the low windowsill and rolled to relative safety inside. Moments later, Josh got the packhorse to make the leap through the window on the other side, and he and Cleo followed.
Switching now to their rifles, Josh and Charlie—the latter having managed to grab his from its saddle scabbard as his horse went down—quickly took up positions in the corners of the wide store windows and began returning more measured, more carefully aimed fire. Kate and Cleo hunkered close by and began reloading for them.
Only thanks to the shooters inside the hotel laying down a barrage of cover fire, also from repeating rifles, were Mason and Fleming able to desperately scramble in off the street without getting riddled to pieces.
CHAPTER 51
After the brief stop at the Rio Grande, Estarde pushed his men even harder to reach Bright Rock before sundown. Only after the shapes of the old buildings came into sight up ahead, with the last sliver of the sinking sun getting ready to slip behind the western horizon, did he signal a slowdown. Scarcely had the rebel group slowed to continue their approach at an easy canter, however, when the sound of gunfire suddenly erupted from somewhere within the gray husks they were riding toward.
Estarde reined his mount to a full stop. Firestick and Moosejaw pulled up on one side of him.
“What do you make of that?” Firestick said.
“I do not know. But I do not like it,” said the colonel, aiming a deep frown toward their destination.
“Could it be your gunrunner friends are fightin’ amongst themselves? Or are they maybe doin’ some target practice with the inventory?” said Moosejaw.
As abruptly as it had started, the shooting from up ahead stopped.
Estarde’s frown deepened. “We did not come all this way to turn back at the mere hint of a skirmish,” he said. “Let us proceed up the street. Cautiously. Fan out and keep a close watch on all sides.”
* * *
From a side window of the old hotel, Beaudine glanced out and saw the group of men entering town at the far end of the street. He called out to Mason. “Vic—you’d better come see this! I think Estarde just arrived.”
The gang leader hurried over to the window and looked out for himself. “Damn! Of all the lousy timing,” he spat. Then, over his shoulder, he told the others, “Hold your fire! No more shooting at those peckerwoods across the way. Don’t give ’em a target and don’t give ’em a reason to fire back. If we can draw Estarde in close enough, I can call out to him and get him to join us on this side. Then we’ll have those bastards over there outnumbered to a fare-thee-well and we can bring this to an end right quick!”
“We don’t need no bunch of ragged-ass greasers to help us handle a couple no-account cowboys,” protested Fleming.
He started to add on something more but Mason cut him short. “Shut up, Fleming! If your crudeness with women hadn’t caused you to shoot off your mouth out there in the street, we could have had this over with already. But you couldn’t hold your tongue then, so you’d damn well better do it now.”
* * *
Estarde and his men proceeded slowly down the street, fanned out wide across most of its width. Firestick and Moosejaw rode off to the colonel’s right. Seven sets of alert eyes swept ahead, darting from side to side, high and low, probing every window and doorway. As they drew closer, the carcass of Charlie’s fallen horse became the focal point for many.
“Something more than target practice went on here,” Moosejaw grated.
When they’d gone another half a block between the empty, weather-battered buildings, a voice suddenly called out from a side window of the old hotel up ahead on the left. Vic Mason appeared there for only a moment, waving his hat and shouting, “Estarde! Over here! Take cover and come around on the back!”
Estarde froze for a fraction of a second, trying to comprehend what he’d seen and heard and decide on what his reaction should be. In that half a heartbeat’s hesitation, another voice cried out from up ahead, this time on the right. “Elwood!” Hearing that voice say that singularly meaningful name, Firestick’s reaction was instantaneous. Jerking his horse hard to the right and simultaneously hollering “Moosejaw!” he spurred straight for a narrow alley strewn with heaps of drifted sand and broken bits of an old rain barrel, its curved gray staves poking up like broken stumps of teeth. Moosejaw came pounding right behind him.
Since the old store had no side windows, those inside hadn’t had any awareness of the revolutionaries riding in until Mason shouted and drew attention to them. While Kate immediately recognized Firestick and could not hold back from calling his name, Josh and Charlie interpreted what happened next all as part of a single threat. Hearing Mason call in a familiar tone from across the street and then seeing two of those he’d called to suddenly break away down an alley on their side, the cowboy duo believed they were witnessing an attempt to get around behind their position. So they promptly op
ened fire on the two making the break, trying to stop them. This caused the rest of the men in the street—seeing two of their own being shot at—to open up on the store windows out of which the lead was pouring. And with all that busting loose, the men in the hotel, in spite of Mason’s order to hold their fire, began shooting, as well.
The air suddenly filling with flying bullets caused Estarde’s indecision to rapidly evaporate. Echoing Mason’s words, he swept his arm in wild motions to his left and shouted, “Take to cover on this side of the street! Around back of the old hotel!”
The five remaining revolutionaries, including Estarde, spurred their horses hard to plunge between and behind the buildings on the left side of the street. Bullets from Josh and Charlie blistered the air around them and gouged chunks of rotted wood out of the structures they raced to get in back of for cover. Amazingly, no slugs scored a hit on any of the men.
But Charlie Gannon wasn’t so lucky. In his desperation to stop the men he thought were attempting a flanking maneuver and then drive back the rest of those riding with them, he exposed himself too openly to the gunfire pouring out of the hotel. A bullet smashed high into the right side of his chest, just below the rifle he held raised and butted against his right shoulder. He flew back from the impact and hit the floor on his left side. His rifle fell clattering to the floor.
* * *
“I got one! I’m sure of it. I saw him go down!” crowed young Beaudine Jeffers from a front window of the hotel.
“Yeah, well keep quiet about it and get your own fool head down or somebody will damn sure return the favor,” Lefty scolded him.
“Aw, let the kid crow a little bit,” said Fleming. “Whatever he did, it looks like he took the fight out of ’em. They’ve stopped shooting again.”
“That don’t mean it’s permanent—not permanent enough to start taking chances,” argued Lefty.
“Lefty’s right,” interjected Mason. “Just go back to holdin’ your fire and keepin’ ducked down low. Estarde and his men will be comin’ in through the back in a minute, and then we’ll have the upper hand for sure.”
Blood and Bullets Page 29
