Scorpion (24 page)

Gandy chuckled. “Just you try and keep up, Brass Buttons.” He raised his hand and the Rangers fanned out, twelve to a side, then began to check their loads and tuck loaded cylinders into their coat pockets.

“We take ’em straight on, Snake-Eye?” Cletus Buckhart asked, breathing quick from the excitement.

“There ain’t no other way.” Gandy rode out in front of the Rangers, and when he spoke, his low voice carried all along the line. “General Valentin Najera’s down there, lads. I don’t know how many men he’s got with him, but there’s bound to be plenty to go around. We come here to show him that no man can do what he done and get away with it. The way I see it, back on the road to Linares when he ambushed and mutilated our compadres, it was like he throwed a glove in our faces. Let’s see if he can wear it.”

“Suits me. How about the rest of you boys?” old Blue Napier said in a gravelly voice. He tugged his hat down on his head and tied it off beneath his chin.

“I didn’t ride all the way out here for my health,” Leon Pettibone said.

“That’s for damn sure,” another voice added down the line. Almost everyone laughed.

“What do you aim to do with me, Gandy?” Ned Tolliver spoke up. His voice was a reminder to the others of the seriousness of their position.

“Any one of you hell-for-leather riders want to sit out the dance and nursemaid Ned?” Gandy asked. He waited for a reply, and when none was forthcoming, took the silence at face value. “Looks like you’ll be joining us.”

Tolliver gulped and stared down at his bound hands. “Then give me a gun for heaven’s sake.”

Pettibone had to laugh again. “Ned, you are a kidder.”

“You can’t expect me to charge them Mexicans unarmed!” Panic crept into Tolliver’s voice.

“Don’t worry, Ned. From what I hear, Najera’s a friend of yours,” Gandy said. And with that he dismissed the turncoat and was deaf to the man’s protests. Snake-Eye rode on back to Ben and wheeled his horse into line, then nodded to McQueen. “The men are ready, Lieutenant.”

Color crept to Ben’s cheeks at the implication he should lead these men into battle. The past would take a long time to heal. There was still a part of his soul scarred with the shame of his earlier failure. “It isn’t for me to lead you,” Ben said.

“That’s for us to say,” Gandy replied. “Let me put it this way. Texas Rangers are a peculiar breed. We don’t follow the uniform, we follow the man.”

“Waiting on you,” a voice drifted up from the ranks.

“Take the point, Ben,” another man drawled.

Ben glanced to either side and saw in the moonlight the faces of those around him. They were a wild, often disreputable lot who had no use for medals or authority. But they’d charge through all Perdition to pluck the devil’s beard.

“Time’s wasting,” said Gandy.

For Valentin Najera, the time of reckoning was at hand. It wouldn’t do to keep the general waiting. Ben McQueen touched his heels to his mount, and the animal started forward and quickly broke into a canter, then a gallop, bearing its rider to victory or death.

Valentin Najera, his arms folded across his chest, studied the hacienda from the barn’s darkened doorway. His black eyes never seemed to blink. Like Caesar studying the scene of his intended triumph, Najera played out in his mind the assault on the hacienda. He cursed the moon which bathed the ranchyard in silvery light. The fires had diminished, though they still served to illuminate the area around the hacienda. But time was wasting, and he was anxious to end this affair once and for all. He had given Don Sebastien’s widow an opportunity to come out of this alive, and she had hurled the kindness back in his face. Only his most trusted men were with him, vaqueros whose solitary devotion to the Najera family was unquestioned. What transpired this night would be buried beneath their silence.

“Jefe?”

“What is it?” he asked without turning to look at the mestizo.

“Felipe has just died,” Mariano Rincón said.

“It was to be expected. A belly wound is bad … very bad.”

“The men are angry. Felipe was young and full of song,” Rincón said. He scratched his belly, hooked his thumbs in his gun belt and took a step closer. The mestizo was full of misgivings now, but he could see no escaping his predicament. Things were turning out badly. Raúl Salcedo was dead, and there was no telling how many of the dragoons would join him. But Rincón could not bring himself to sneak away under cover of night. Blood demanded blood. The defenders of the hacienda must be made to pay. And there was his own position to consider. Mariano Rincón had, by default, assumed Raúl’s place at the general’s side and hoped to make the most of it.

“Then gather my soldiers,” Najera said. “I grow impatient. By now the widow and her household are weary, their eyes grow leaden and their spirits dampened by fear of the inevitable.”

The general stepped into the yard and, oblivious to any danger, started toward the water tank. He knew what effect this would have on his men. In the barn, half a dozen dragoons grabbed their muskets and pistols and followed Najera as he strode toward the hacienda. They went on foot, moving stealthily in the night, each man thinking of the generous reward
El Jefe
had promised them. The general and his soldiers chose their steps wisely so as not to alert the widow and her hirelings until it was too late. The soldiers on the roof of the bunkhouse scurried down to join in the attack and alerted their compañeros within, who filed out through the front door, closing ranks with the general. Najera ran at a crouch toward the water tank, where another couple of uniformed vaqueros hastily reloaded their weapons and fumbled as they tried to salute.

Najera, in the lead, motioned for the mestizo to bring the men on the run, but when he turned to address the breed, the general found the man kneeling with his hand on the ground and facing the front gate through which the column had ridden earlier in the evening.

“What is it?” the general hissed.

“Someone comes. Many horses.” Rincón looked up, worried.

“You’re imagining things,” Najera scoffed.

“No. I can feel the earth. It does not lie. Wait. There … now … do you hear?”

Najera listened. At first he heard nothing but the wind and the silence. Then his own ears picked it up. Rincón was right. It sounded like horsemen approaching from the direction of Saltillo. His men? But why? Yet who else could it be?

A shot rang out from the roof of the hacienda and derailed his train of thought. Gunfire blossomed from the bullet-riddled windows. Lead slugs fanned the air. For a moment the dragoons looked confused, until Najera’s voice rang out and gave them purpose.

“To the hacienda, mi amigos. Break down the doors!” The general ran a gauntlet of gunfire as he charged the front of the house. His soldiers, electrified by the general’s command, rushed the hacienda. A couple of them staggered but kept advancing. Within a matter of seconds they had reached the porch and began to ram the shutters and front door with their rifle butts. A trio of marksmen under Rincón’s command kept Zion pinned down behind the battlements. The segundo could only loose a blind shot or two through the thatch roof at the men below. His attempts proved futile at best. To actually lean over the wall and take aim meant his death.

Within the hacienda Josefina and Elena were forced to abandon their positions in the study and dining room under a hail of lead that showered both women with splinters and chunks of adobe brick. Josefina had to catch Isabella about the waist and drag her out of harm’s way. The child was full of fight and refused to give an inch to the soldiers shooting point-blank into the windows. The women and Father Rudolfo retreated toward the protection of the barricade, their final redoubt. They held their fire now, saving the ammunition for their last stand. The front door continued to hold, but the bar that prevented the soldiers from entering was beginning to splinter and crack; the hinges were coming apart.

Isabella clung to Niño, who barked and bared his teeth at the men outside. Josefina took a deep breath and aimed her pistol at the front door while Elena aimed the shotgun. The widow could only hope that Valentin Najera was fool enough to be the first to enter. The padre began to recite the Lord’s prayer as he reloaded the two remaining single-shot pistols. The noise outside increased, the gunfire becoming all the more furious, intensifying, as if the forces outside had swelled in number.

“My God,” Josefina whispered beneath her breath. “How many of them are there?”

“Not that many,” Elena shouted, to be heard above the thunder of drums. Her eyes were watering from the gun smoke.

Suddenly the hinges and wooden bar gave way and the heavy oaken door came crashing down into the room along with one of Najera’s soldiers, who toppled through the doorway and sprawled on top of the door as it hit the floor. The defenders held their fire; the dragoon was already dead, his uniform torn from several wounds. From the terrible din outside, Josefina realized a battle was raging, but it wasn’t the one she’d been fighting. Gunshots and war cries to rival any Comanche’s reverberated in the night. Whatever else was happening, Najera’s men had ceased their assault.

The trapdoor in the hall opened and Zion scrambled down into the lower reaches of the hacienda and rushed into the room, his .45 caliber pistol in hand. He quickly surveyed the women huddled behind their barricade and was relieved to find them unharmed. His expression was one of elation.

“Zion … what’s happening?” Josefina asked.

“Deliverance!” he roared, and charged out of the room and into the melee.

Ben tightened his hold on the reins and leaned forward over the neck of the gelding as the animal took the three-foot wall in stride. He beat Gandy’s mount by a nose. The other Rangers weren’t far behind, riding hard and shooting straight. The Texas hellions loosed a volley from their Colts as they bore down on the Mexican soldiers bunched in front of the hacienda. Najera’s men retreated from the porch and scattered out into the yard, where they returned the fire. Startled by the unexpected attack, the Mexican dragoons hoped to fight their way to the barn, where their own mounts were corralled. The exchange of gunfire and the proximity of the Rangers caused the suddenly leaderless command to change their plans and take up a formation around the water tank as the Rangers rushed to surround them like a horde of howling Comanches.

A bullet missed Ben by inches when he rode up to the hacienda. He fired at a pair of retreating figures, one of them disturbingly familiar, as they darted around the corner of the house then re-emerged to fire a volley at McQueen. From out of the corner of his eye Ben saw Snake-Eye Gandy’s gelding stumble and fall. Horse and rider appeared grievously wounded. Forgetting the battle that engulfed the ranchyard, Ben leaped from the saddle and rushed to his friend’s side.

“Snake-Eye!” Ben dropped to his knees next to the Ranger and put a hand to the man’s chest. Gandy groaned, opened his eye and tried to focus. Gradually his vision cleared. He tried to speak. Ben lowered his ear to the man as he struggled to form words while trying to catch his wind. The Texan sucked in his breath and channeled all his strength, then tried again.

“Behind you!” Gandy managed.

McQueen twisted in time to see that one of the Mexican soldiers he had chased from the porch had returned and was brandishing a large-bore musket, aimed directly at his chest. From a distance of only a few yards, the man couldn’t miss. Ben glanced toward the pistol he had foolishly tucked in his belt. The dragoon grinned, shook his head and said, “Too bad, hombre.” He squeezed the trigger, but a gunshot proceeded his own. The Mexican arched his back and fired into the air, took half a step and fell face forward on the ground. Zion, his pistol trailing smoke, trotted off the porch and ran up to join McQueen.

“You boys are the prettiest sight these eyes have ever seen,” Zion said. “Is he all right?” he added, looking down at the Ranger.

“I’m just pinned, and I think my ankle’s twisted, but I ain’t gone under yet,” Gandy said, speaking for himself. He glared at Ben. “Glad to see there’s someone else around here to pull you out of the fire when I ain’t able to.”

Ben grinned. If Snake-Eye had the energy to scold him, then the crusty old Ranger wasn’t hurt too bad. He and Zion pulled Gandy out from under the horse and, using the dead animal for cover, crouched behind the carcass and fired at the dragoons clustered around the water tank.

“Stay with him,” Ben said to Zion. The segundo nodded. “And thanks,” he added with a glance toward the dragoon lying nearby.

“I owed you one,” said Zion.

“You owe me two,” Ben corrected.

“Who’s counting?” the segundo replied and winked.

As Ben scrambled back toward the house, he noticed Josefina and Isabella watching him from the doorway. He stopped for a moment, outlined against a swirl of charging horses and fighting men, this tall redheaded stranger who had come to their aid once more. He waved. Josefina raised a hand.

“He came back, Josefina,” Isabella said.

“Yes,” the mistress of Ventana said.
This one last time. El Alacron.

Ben skirted the melee and hurried off in pursuit of the other man who had escaped around the side of the house. A riderless horse plunged past him. He looked over his shoulder and saw two more. The dragoons, outnumbered, were putting up a desperate struggle. The Rangers would pay a dear price for victory. Most of Najera’s men made their stand at the water tank, where they peppered the circling riders with gunfire. For their part, the Rangers surrounded the dragoons and fired from horseback. The Patterson Colts began to take a serious toll among Najera’s men.

As Ben looked on, one of the Mexicans clutched his uniformed chest and fell backward. A second man on the opposite side of the water tank shrieked, dropped to his knees and tried to fire his gun, until another three slugs ended his efforts. A third dragoon came too late to his friend’s aid, then, enraged, charged the Texans, emptying one saddle with a pistol shot and wounding another Ranger, poor Leon Pettibone, who took a saber slash to the thigh. Cletus Buckhart broke from the ranks and shot the swordsman twice in the chest. Then Cletus shuddered and clutched his shoulder as a bullet glanced off his collarbone. The young Ranger galloped out of harm’s way as the air became thick with bullets. It was a grim and dirty business, the two forces like wild animals clawing and fighting, joined in a death-lock grip which only one would survive. Najera’s most loyal vaqueros exhorted their compadres to fight on, proclaiming this a battle to the death. As the hopelessness of their situation became evident, this outcry began to wear a little thin on the less resolute.