Scorpion (25 page)

Ben turned his back on the fray in pursuit of the second shadowy figure who had bolted from the front of the hacienda. He had caught a brief glimpse of silver hair as the man leaped from the porch, and instinct told him that whatever victory the Rangers might gain here at Ventana would be for naught if this man escaped. Ben eased past the corner of the house, searched the ranchyard and caught a glimpse of his prey racing toward the corral. Ben broke into a run, gun in hand, his long strides eating the distance between the hacienda and the barn. The Mexican reached the corral, turned and spied McQueen. He snapped off a shot, then vaulted onto the back of the nearest horse and leaned down, struggling to open the gate. Ben doubled his efforts and drew close enough to confirm his suspicions that the man in the corral was none other than Valentin Najera.

Suddenly the gate swung open and Najera made his break for freedom. Ben loosed a bloodcurdling scream, waved his sombrero over his head and emptied his revolver into the ground in front of Najera’s horse. The terrified animal reared and pawed the air, glanced off part of the railing, arched its back as a shard of wood dug into its belly, then bucked and twisted and tossed Najera to the ground.

Ben tossed the revolver aside and drew his second Colt. Najera was up and running, his own pistol spewing flame and powder smoke. Ben reached the corral and would have tried a shot but the horses were in the way. The animals were milling around in a tight circle, unnerved by the gunshots and the presence of both intruders in their midst.

Ben crouched low and eased his way past a big brown mare, worked past a pair of geldings, then paused, stalling for time, trying to listen, and hearing the labored breathing of the horses and the sound of their hooves thudding upon the trampled earth. Then came the whisper of the long knife, a gleam of steel. Ben twisted, saw the saber slicing toward him, and parried the blade with the barrel of his Colt. A booted foot caught him in the belly and knocked the wind out of him. He brought up the Patterson and fired at his attacker. Najera darted away. Ben dropped to one knee and aimed, but the gun wouldn’t cock; the cylinder was jammed. Najera was on the move, but the moonlight revealed his path. Ben glanced about for a weapon and spied the basket hilt of a saber jutting from a saddle scabbard on one of the geldings. He slid the weapon free, climbed the corral fence and resumed the hunt.

Ned Tolliver worked his way to the edge of the ranchyard and dismounted near the bunkhouse. He looped his mount’s reins over the hitching post and with an over-the-shoulder glance to see he hadn’t been followed, hurried inside the long, low-roofed adobe structure that had housed Don Sebastien’s rancheros. To his relief, he found the room empty. Tolliver feverishly began to search through what few belongings had been left behind by the men Najera had pressed into his army. The hammering gunfire served to heighten his tension. None of the Rangers had seen him ride away. He could escape unnoticed. But he wasn’t about to ride off into the mountains with his hands tied.

Tolliver searched in vain. There were no knives, nothing sharp to saw loose his bonds with. Then his gaze settled on the Franklin stove in the center of the room. He crossed to its side and felt the black iron. It was warm to the touch. He opened the trap and his expression became triumphant. Coals … some of them still pulsing with life. He took a scoop from the side of the stove, scraped out a pile of embers onto the floor, then lay on his belly and blew on the coals until they glowed crimson. He held his wrists to the embers and bit his lips to keep from yelling at the pain. His skin began to blacken and blister. He focused his hatred on Ben McQueen, who had cheated the grave and ruined his plans. Another time and place and he would have his revenge.

“You’ll pay,” Tolliver said through clenched teeth, blocking the agony by concentrating on McQueen. Just at the moment when even hatred failed, the leather bonds imprisoning his wrists separated with a snap. He crawled across the room to a black-enameled pot of cold coffee on a nearby table and poured the liquid over his wrists. His great, chest-heaving sobs were the only sound save for gunfire and the cries of the wounded.

A sense of urgency swept over Tolliver. Rather than waste even a few precious seconds searching the bunkhouse for supplies, he resolved to make good his escape, steal a few necessities from some outlying farm near Saltillo and leave Mexico for healthier climes. There would be time enough to plot McQueen’s comeuppance.

Tolliver headed quickly for the front door. He could see his horse at the hitching post, framed by the doorway. His wrists hurt but he’d tend to them later. Let them hurt for now; it was a price he was willing to pay to secure his escape. He plunged through the doorway and out onto the porch. An arm immediately encircled his torso, and a familiar voice whispered in his ear.

“Sorry amigo, I need your horse,” Mariano Rincón said. The mestizo’s right hand swept across Tolliver’s throat, and steel glinted in the moonlight. The knife’s deadly kiss slit Tolliver’s throat from ear to ear. His wire-rimmed spectacles hit the floor, to be crushed underfoot as Tolliver struggled in vain against the mestizo’s ironlike hold. The turncoat clawed at Rincón’s forearm, Tolliver shoving and twisting while his lifeblood soaked the front of his shirt. He died unheralded, unmourned, too late for regrets or any saving grace.

Mariano Rincón propped the corpse upright in a chair on the porch then hurried over and untied Tolliver’s horse. The mestizo’s movements were fluid and very fast. There wasn’t a moment to spare. Having survived a gauntlet of gunfire, the last thing Rincón wanted was to tangle with the Rangers again. Without so much as a glance toward his compadres, the mestizo led the horse around behind the bunkhouse. Only then did he climb into the saddle and ride off into the night. It was time to return to the mountains and leave this war behind. As for Ventana, he never wanted to hear the name again.

The grave markers in the Quintero family plot loomed like bone-colored tablets in the moonlight. The lone oak tree spread its heavy arms in what might pass for prayerful supplication above the final resting place of the Quinteros. It was here that the general turned when Ben McQueen called him by name.

“Najera!”

In the ranchyard the gunfire ceased as the last of the general’s personal guard, four weary soldiers, tossed down their weapons. The Rangers, oblivious at first to the confrontation in the graveyard, immediately began to tend their wounded and tally the dead. It was Snake-Eye Gandy who alerted his men to Ben’s absence and the fact that the battle was far from over.

The general searched his belt in vain for the cartridge box with which to reload his pistol. He’d probably lost the damn thing when the horse threw him. No matter. He had his saber. The general tossed the pistol aside and motioned for Ben to enter the graveyard. McQueen obliged. The ghosts of those he had led into an ambush demanded this final confrontation.

“One of us will not leave here alive,” Najera said, warily advancing on the americano. The general was visibly shaken, like a man who has survived a hurricane that’s obliterated a lifetime of work. Where had the damn Rangers come from? How had they found him, here of all places?

He could escape, though, and live to fight another day. Only one man stood in the way. Just one …

Ben extended his blade until he and the general stood at sword’s point. A gossamer veil of cirrus clouds drifted across the face of the moon. In the distance coyotes wailed. Then, from the branches of the oak tree in the center of the family graveyard, a gray owl took flight, its wings outstretched against a backdrop of iridescent stars.

Najera lunged. Ben parried and retreated. The general slashed, missed, lost his footing, caught himself and swung his saber. Ben caught the general’s sword with his own blade, the hilts clashing together, and Ben shoved the smaller man back. Overconfident because of his size and strength, Ben moved in for a quick kill. Najera taught him the error of his ways. The general regained his balance and sliced upward, cutting Ben from belly to breast bone. Ben gasped and retreated toward the oak tree as the pain coursed through him like fire. His size only made him a bigger target, nothing more. The wound, though superficial, hurt like hell, and blood began to seep along its length. Najera pressed his advantage with a thrust toward the bowels that Ben just barely managed to avert, then a slash to right and left. Ben defended himself as best he could, cheating death once, twice, then a third time. The clang of steel on steel rang out in the stillness. Blades like silver talons flashed in the moonlight. Najera tried for a killing blow. Ben slammed against the tree and nearly knocked himself unconscious. He blocked the thrust and used the hilt of his weapon like a battering ram to deliver a savage uppercut that caught Najera flush in the mouth and sent him reeling among the graves. If Valentin Najera had drawn first blood, Ben McQueen had certainly accounted for the second. The general staggered and spat blood and bone, wiped a forearm across his puffed, ruined lips and tried to curse Ben. But the words came out garbled. Najera’s front teeth were gone and his upper and lower gums were split and horribly mangled.

Najera lost control in that instant. Blinded by rage and the agony of his battered mouth, he charged forward, sword raised as if to behead Ben and in the process cleave the tree like a lightning bolt. He was unstoppable, invincible. He held the power of the gods in his right hand.

Ben stood poised, uncowed by the general’s onslaught, and waited until the last possible second. Then, as Najera’s blade slashed for his throat, Ben dropped to his knees. The general’s sword cropped a tuft of his red hair and sank into the tree trunk with a sickening thwack. Ben rolled to the right, leaped to his feet and drove his saber into the general with all his strength.

Najera gasped and staggered back, tearing the saber from Ben’s grasp. The blade, entering just below Najera’s eighth rib on his left side, had passed through his vitals. Like a skewer through a chunk of meat, a foot of steel protruded from underneath his right arm. He rose up on his toes; his mouth dropped open, but he had no voice to scream. The effect was all the more horrible for the silence issuing from the mortally wounded man’s contorted features. He sank to his knees, braced himself against a grave marker. Through blurring vision Najera read the name “Don Sebastien” and laughed, a horrid chortling sound, then sank to the earth.

Ben McQueen heard the gate creak open behind him and turned. Snake-Eye Gandy and Zion were standing just outside the fence. Ben stumbled toward them, his legs growing weak.

“You can lean on me,” the segundo said, offering Ben a shoulder. The americano gratefully accepted.

“You all right?” Gandy asked, limping along as they left the graveyard and headed toward the hacienda.

Ben thought of all that had transpired. The loss and regaining of his memory, his honor, his own dignity. He had made mistakes, but he had tried his best … in both lives, as Ben McQueen and as the man called Alacron.

“It’s time to bury the dead,” Ben McQueen said.

General Valentin Najera sucked in a mouthful of air, found the pain unbearable, and coughed, his features contorted. He was dying. It had all been for naught. But he had made such careful plans. He had foreseen everything, except this. But how? Who had brought it all about and caused his downfall? That was his prayer, just to know a name, a face. Who?

He felt something tickle his outstretched hand. He turned his head to the right and managed by force of will to hold back the curtains of everlasting night that even now framed his sight. He tried to focus, and through a velvet, shimmering haze saw something scuttle across the palm of his hand then conceal itself beneath the leaden weight of his wrist. General Valentin Najera died without understanding that fate had provided the answer to his question.

A scorpion.

Heartfelt salutes to my indomitable agent Aaron Priest, who keeps me off the streets and at the computer. To my parents, Ann and Paul Newcomb, and brother Jim, I can only say that every day I realize how blessed I am to have you on my side. And lastly, a special thanks to Louis L’Amour for words of encouragement long ago in Dallas. I was just starting down the trail then. Mister L’Amour, if you’re seated around that celestial campfire with the likes of the Duke and Wild Bill; Colonel Tim, Gabby and the Mesquiteers, may I say “Vaya con Dios” … and I hope you’re pleased.

Kerry Newcomb was born in Milford, Connecticut, but had the good fortune to be raised in Texas. He has served in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and taught at the St. Labre Mission School on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana, and holds a master’s of fine arts degree in theater from Trinity University. Newcomb has written plays, film scripts, commercials, and liturgical dramas, and is the author of over thirty novels. He lives with his family in Fort Worth, Texas.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1994 by Kerry Newcomb

Cover design by Connie Gabbert

978-1-4804-7885-5

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com