Bullet Creek (15 page)

Beyond the gully, Tom saw no dust rising along the trail, which meant the wagon had stopped somewhere back in the chaparral. Tom fingered his rifle, hoping the shooters hadn't seen the dust. It was hard to tell, but so far it appeared that all four were still slinging lead at the cabin.

Navarro raked his gaze around the yard and the gully. The yard was barren and level right up to the gully's lip. There was no sure way to get around the man hunkered there without being seen. Turning, Tom stole along the cabin and snuck a peak around the opposite corner.

A man was still triggering lead from behind the knoll. Tom watched him. The man emptied his rifle and withdrew his head behind the knoll's lip as Louise's Winchester blew up widgets of dust and sand around him.

Navarro studied the terrain. There was more sage on this side of the cabin than the other, and two fairly large rocks and a stubby pipestem cactus offering cover from both the knoll and the barn. He got down and swiped his hat from his head.

Dragging his rifle along in his right hand, he snaked eastward across the yard, wending his way through the sage clumps, the heels of his hands and his knees picking up several sharp goatheads. Climbing to his knees, he crouched behind the pipestem. Smoke puffed from behind the knoll straight ahead and twenty yards away, the rifle barking loudly.

Navarro ran crouching into the chaparral and circled around behind the knoll. The shooter appeared before him, hunkered belly down near the hillock's crest. The man fired over the lip, then drew his rifle back, casually ejecting the spent shell, which clattered tinnily over the rocks.

He, like the others, was taking his time. This was probably more fun than chasing de Cava cattle or digging wells. Besides, if the shooters didn't kill Navarro and the others before dark, they could gain the cabin under cover of darkness and set fire to the roof.

Drawing deeply on the brown paper cigarette dangling from his lips, the man rammed a fresh round into his rifle's chamber. He lifted the barrel to the knoll's lip. A shot from the east window blew up sand and shrub branches, causing the man to jerk the rifle back down. He grinned gamely, removed his cigarette, spit sand from his lips, then stuck the quirley back in his mouth and set his rifle between two sage clumps atop the knoll, aiming at the cabin.

Tom stopped at the base of the knoll, six feet from the man's tooled boots with shining, razor-edged Chihuahua spurs, and grunted, “You've been flanked, amigo.” The man's back tightened; he swung the rifle around.

Tom shot him twice in the chest, one smoking hole appearing beside the other on either side of his breastbone. His head slammed back against the knoll; grunting, he dropped his rifle, which slid to the knoll's base, coming to rest against Tom's left boot. The man exhaled loudly, his legs relaxed, and his eyes closed.

Not giving the man a second glance, Navarro wheeled and headed toward the corral.

“Hold your fire, amigos,” a Spanish-accented voice called loudly from across the yard, stopping Tom in his tracks. “I have a pretty girl and an old man here, and I do not think you want to see them hurt.” The man chuckled loudly.

Navarro turned toward the yard and pushed through mesquite shrubs as the voice rose again. “Senor Sanchez, Mr. Navarro—are you listening? I am going to kill these two if you do not come out and face me like men, amigos.”

Tom knelt between a boulder and a barrel cactus, and angled his gaze across the stage yard. Mordecai Hawkins and Billie Brennan stood between the open barn doors, slumped and dirty, as though they'd rolled in the dust. The girl's blue plaid gingham dress was torn off one shoulder, and her long auburn hair was mussed. Hawkins's wasn't wearing his hat; a rivulet of blood ran down his cheek from his right temple.

Behind and between them, using them both as shields, stood a stocky Mexican in a black-and-red-striped shirt and gaudy black sombrero. Partly cloaked by the barn's shadows, he held a pistol in each hand, one pistol aimed at Hawkins, the other at Billie. His teeth shone white between his parted lips.

Navarro whipped back around, then hurried over to the man he'd just killed. He and the dead man were of similar sizes, with similar frames. What the hell? It was a long shot but it was the only chance he had of getting close to Hawkins and the girl.

Leaning his rifle against the knoll, he crouched down and pulled the man's head up by his collar, and jerked the ragged poncho over his head. Letting the dead man fall back against the knoll with a thud, Navarro draped the poncho over his own head, ignoring the blood splotches. He stood, grabbed the man's sombrero off a nearby sage clump, and snugged it down on his head, the horsehair thong dangling beneath his chin.

“Amigos, I am growing impatient,” the Mex yelled from the barn. “Do I have to kill the old man to show that I am serious?”

Navarro picked up his Winchester and, holding it low in his left hand, pushed through the shrubs and walked purposefully, almost cockily across the yard, heading in the general direction of the barn. He made a show of keeping a watchful eye on the cabin, as if worried about getting shot, but kept his right eye skinned on the north side of the yard, where another Mex knelt behind the corral gate, grinning through the slats while fingering the hammer of the repeater in his hands.

Spying movement straight ahead, Tom turned his gaze that way. The man who'd been shooting from the gully had emerged and was walking slowly sideways toward the barn, keeping his Sharps carbine trained on the cabin. The Mex in the barn rapped one of his pistols against Mordecai's head.

“Goddamn it, you are making me angry. I give you three seconds, and I keel the old man! One. . . .”

Navarro stopped. If he got much closer to any of the four shooters, he was bound to be recognized.

Which one should he shoot first? The man behind Hawkins and the girl was out of the question.

He raised his rifle quickly toward the man from the ravine, who stood about thirty yards straight across the yard, and fired. He saw the man's knees buckle and heard him grunt as, jacking another round and wheeling sharply right, he took quick aim at the man in the corral, who'd whipped a wide-eyed gaze at him.

The man hadn't even started bringing his rifle up before Navarro triggered a shot. The round slammed into the rail before the man's head, the concussion making a hollow thwack!

Ramming another round into the chamber while keeping the rifle's butt snugged against his shoulder, Navarro dropped the barrel slightly and fired as the man began rising off his knees, his hands tightening around his rifle. Navarro's shot caught him just above his left hip, spinning him around with a surprised shriek.

Tom swung his gaze to the barn, where Mordecai had done what Tom had hoped—thrown himself into the Mex. Triggering both pistols into the air, the man fell backward, Hawkins throwing himself on top of him, his hands flailing after the guns.

Navarro was sprinting toward them when a shot popped, echoing across the yard. The slug burned across Tom's left shoulder blade, throwing him down hard on his left hip.

Disoriented, Navarro glanced around, saw the man in the corral extending his smoking rifle over the top slat, fury in his bunched lips and brown eyes, long hair brushing across his cheekbones. The rifle stabbed smoke and fire, the slug tearing into the ground six inches to the right of Tom's right hand, the twanging sound of the ricochet echoing across the yard. The man lowered his rifle, levered another round.

As he brought the barrel across the slat, Tom gained his knees and extended the Winchester. He squeezed the trigger a half second before the other man triggered his Spencer, the bullet burning a furrow across Navarro's upper left arm. Tom's own slug drilled the man through his right shoulder, swinging him half around before he dropped to both knees. One of the milling horses—a big bay with a white Z across its face—gave a screeching whinny as it trampled him.

Tom jerked his head left. Between the barn doors, the Mex had pushed to his knees and was aiming his right pistol at Hawkins, down on all fours and regarding the Mex with fury in his eyes.

Left of the Mex, cowering on her knees and staring at the Mex and Hawkins, Billie screamed. A rifle cracked behind Navarro—two quick, furious shots, one slicing across the Mexican's right temple, the other slicing through the slack of his shirt under his raised right arm.

He swung around toward the cabin, eyes snapping so wide Navarro saw as much white as iris, and gaining his feet, both cocked pistols extended straight out from his shoulders, bolted toward the cabin.

The rifle behind Navarro spoke again, drilling a small, round hole through the Mex's neck. The man stopped, a dull groan seeping up from his throat as a bright blood drop appeared on the lip of the hole. He stood frozen, wide eyes blinking slowly. The eyeballs rolled back in the man's head as the rifle cracked again, and another hole appeared high in the Mexican's striped shirt, simultaneous with the whack and crack of the slug through the man's breastbone.

As the man stumbled back between Billie, who had thrown herself facedown on the ground and covered her head with her arms, and Mordecai, who was climbing to one knee, Tom turned to the cabin.

Sanchez stood on the stoop, just before the wide-open door. The wizened, old man still wore his sombrero. His feet were spread, knees bent, his Spencer rifle snugged to his shoulder. A wisp of gray-blue smoke curled from the barrel as the segundo, staring at the dead Mex now lying prostrate between the barn's open doors, slowly lowered the rifle to his hip.

Louise's anxious face appeared in the shadows behind him, the woman tall enough to peer over the segundo's right shoulder. Looking around and seeing that the threat was gone, she pushed passed Sanchez, leapt off the porch, and sprinted across the yard to the barn. With a glance at Navarro, who remained on his left hip in the middle of the yard, sucking air through his teeth and feeling as though a grizzly had tried making a meal of his left shoulder, Louise knelt and took Billie into her arms.

Sanchez started down the steps to Navarro, but stopped suddenly when he spied movement inside the corral. He lifted his gaze beyond Tom, seeing through the corral slats that the man Tom had wounded was crawling through the fear-milling horses toward the corral's far northeastern corner.

Navarro followed his gaze, then cursed and climbed to a knee. Sanchez planted a firm hand on Navarro's shoulder.

“I will get him,” the segundo snapped out through gritted teeth, breaking into a run.

Sanchez rounded the corral's front corner and ran heavily on his old legs due north, following the man whom he recognized as Pancho Tangoria, shambling off through the chaparral. In a shade patch, Tangoria stopped suddenly and turned toward Sanchez, swinging his revolver around, triggering off a shot.

The slug plunked into a corral post, scattering slivers. Sanchez stopped, raised his Spencer, and fired at Tangoria's crouched, retreating form. The gun clicked empty.

Cursing and watching his quarry disappearing into the desert's spindly foliage, Sanchez set his rifle against the corral post, unholstered his big Russian .44, and walked slowly into the chaparral, swinging his gaze from left to right, listening, wary of an ambush.

The segundo couldn't let the man return to Real with the news that Sanchez had met Navarro. If he did, Real would consider Sanchez a traitor, and there'd be nothing more the segundo could do to stop the war.

Sanchez moved across a shallow wash and pushed through spindly desert willows, bending the branches back with his left hand. Ahead and right, heavy thuds sounded. Sanchez crouched and raised his pistol. Mounted on a sleek cream mare, Tangoria thundered off through the brush, then was swallowed quickly by the rocks and greasewood.

Sanchez holstered his pistol and sprinted toward the cottonwood to which the other four horses were tied. He untied a dun Arabian, heaved himself into the saddle, and rammed his spurs against the horse's ribs, the dun leaping northward into an instant gallop.

He and the Arab dashed through the desert for maybe fifty yards, following his quarry's sifting dust, when the cream came into view straight ahead along a swale. Sanchez unsheathed his .44 and snapped off a shot. Startled, the cream jerked slightly left, throwing the slumped rider off its right shoulder.

Tangoria clawed at the saddle horn, missed it, and hit the ground on his right shoulder, his right foot hanging up in the stirrup. He was jerked around and dragged on his butt for several feet before the boot slipped free, and the man piled up against a boulder.

The cream gave a whinny and galloped off, its reins whipping.

Sanchez slowed his horse. Revolver extended, he stopped the dun ten feet from Tangoria, slumped back against the boulder. The man's face was a sweating mask of pain, blood splotching his shirt, his right leg hideously twisted.

“Madre,” he grunted, raising his anguished gaze to the horse and rider shading him. “Help me. My leg is broken!”

Sanchez didn't say anything. His dun lowered its head and shook, making the bridle chains clatter.

Tangoria studied Sanchez, lips puffed and bloody from the fall. He had a thumb-sized mole at the right corner of his mouth. It quivered as he glanced down at his empty holster. Looking back up, he swallowed hard. “You wouldn't shoot an unarmed man, would you, Sanchez?”

The segundo's face was a leathery mask, eyes like coal. Snapping the Russian's hammer back, he raised the gun, squinted his left eye, and aimed down the barrel.

“No!”

Sanchez drilled the man through his open mouth, the desert valley causing the pistol shot to sound little louder than a snapping branch. The man's head bobbed and fell.