The Border Empire (9 page)

“I'd rather face El Diablo than take the news of these killings to Nogales or Juarez;” Wooten said gloomily. “They'll be lookin' to us for more horses to be sold in Texas, an' we don't have men for the job.”

Near dusk, the trio returned to their lodging house. El Lobo watched them enter, and as quietly as he had arrived, he departed, a grim look of satisfaction on his rugged face.

“There's only three of them, then,” Wes said when El Lobo had returned.

“I see no more,” said El Lobo. “Wooten, Selmer, and Coe.”

“I reckon you want Selmer and Coe,” Wes said.

“Sí,”
El Lobo replied. “I show you where Wooten sleep.”

They waited until well after dark, past the supper hour. The packsaddle had been left in the cave, and El Lobo rode the bay, leading Wes down alleys and byways. They reined up behind a darkened house, dismounted, and tethered their horses to a hitching rail. From the darkness, Empty materialized and took his position with the horses. Following El Lobo, Wes entered the hall of the house. Near the front door, a lit lamp sat on a table.

“Wooten,” said El Lobo softly, pointing to a door.

“We'll be leavin' here on the run,” Wes said. “How long?”

“Uno momento,”
said El Lobo. “No longer.”

He pointed to the door of the adjoining room, placing his hand on the knob. Taking the knob of the first door in his left hand, Wes tried to turn it, but found it locked. El Lobo, faced with a similar situation, nodded. Simultaneously, they kicked in the doors and then stood to one side. Guns roared from within the darkened rooms, and chest-high, lead ripped through the open doorways. Wes and El Lobo had only to fire at muzzle flashes, and the roar of their Colts became a drumroll of sound. They paused just long enough to assure themselves there would be no return fire. They stepped out the back door, mounted their horses, and rode away.

Eventually El Lobo reined up.

“What is it?” Wes asked.

“I am not finish,” said El Lobo. “Wait for me in the hills to the north of town.”

Without further explanation, he was gone. Wes rode on, Empty loping beside him. In the hills, where he could still see the lights of the village, Wes reined up. In less than half an hour, he heard horses coming. Empty growled a warning, and a voice spoke from the darkness.

“El Lobo comes.”

“Come on,” Wes said.

He came closer, riding a black horse that was all but invisible in the faint starlight. The bay followed.

“I go for my horse, my saddle, and my Winchester,” said El Lobo.

“Bueno,”
Wes said. “We'll need the bay to carry the packsaddle.”

Nobody dared venture into the bloody rooms of the lodging house until dawn. The constable came and, discovering the dead men were not Mexican, turned his back on the grim scene.

“Por Dios,”
said the alcalde, when he arrived.
“Americano diablos.”

In the late afternoon, a telegram arrived from Nogales, addressed to Dana Wooten. It demanded an immediate answer, but there was no address, and the
Mejicano
telegrapher shook his head. Even then, the Señor Wooten and his
companeros
lay dead, awaiting the digging of their graves. The old one crossed himself.

E
l Lobo listened in silence as Wes told him of the killing of seven outlaws suspected of being part of the Sandlin gang, headquartered in Namiquipa.

“With seven gone,” Wes said, “how many more are we likely to find in Namiquipa?”

“No more than five,” said El Lobo. “One of these be Kazman, the
segundo.”

Having rested the horses, they mounted and rode on.

 

Since returning from Chihuahua, Jake Kazman had been closemouthed and surly. His remaining men—Dantzler, Shatiqua, and Boudlin—could only speculate as to the cause. The trio had been playing poker. At the sound of a galloping horse, they dropped their cards on the rickety table and stood up. Jake Kazman came out of the other room and peered out the cabin's window.

“Damn,” Kazman said, “it's Turk Corbin.”

As they all knew, Corbin was one of the lieutenants from Juarez, and he never,
never
rode the hundred and seventy miles to Namiquipa unless there was hell to pay. This time would be no different, for Corbin didn't beat around the bush.

“Telegrams to Wooten in Chihuahua have all gone unanswered,” said Corbin. “What's the trouble down there?”

“Who says there's trouble?” Kazman demanded.

“The boss in Juarez,” said Corbin shortly. “Ignore just one telegram from Juarez, and Wooten's hide wouldn't hold shucks. You know it, and he knows it. Now what do
you
have to say? You had eleven men. Where are the others?”

“Dead,” Kazman said grimly. “Somebody bushwhacked 'em and took the horses they was bringin' in.”

“And you did nothing,” said Corbin in a dangerously low voice.

“I wasn't here at the time,” Kazman said desperately, “but Dantzler sent Shatiqua and Boudlin to investigate. They—”

“Let them tell me what they found,” Corbin said. “I don't want it secondhand from you.”

He turned his cold eyes on the unfortunate pair, and they swallowed hard. Shatiqua managed to speak.

“They was ambushed in an arroyo an' looked to have been dead near three days ‘fore we found 'em. Buzzards an' coyotes had been busy. Horses was gone.”

“Horses leave tracks,” said Corbin with scathing sarcasm.

“An' rain washes out them tracks,” Boudlin added. “We hadn't more'n started trailin' 'em when it rained for near two hours.”

“I can't deny that,” said Corbin. “Before the rain, what direction did the tracks lead?”

“Toward Chihuahua,” Shatiqua said.

“There may be some connection between this and the unanswered telegrams to Wooten in Chihuahua,” said Corbin. “I'm going there to see for myself, and I'll telegraph Juarez as to what I find. Juarez ain't goin' to like your holdin' back word of this ambush, Kazman, especially if it's got somethin' to do with the silence from Chihuahua. You'd best be comin' up with some answers. Damn good ones.”

Corbin left the cabin, mounted his horse, and rode south. Nothing was said for a long moment as Dantzler, Shatiqua, and Boudlin turned accusing eyes on Kazman. Dantzler was the first to say what his companions were thinking.

“You just rode back from Chihuahua, an' you ain't said a word to us about what you learned. Somethin' is wrong, an' when Corbin figures it out, we'll all catch hell because we didn't report it. We got the right to know what you learned, and if you don't tell us, then there's enough of us to beat it out of you.”

Each of the three had his hand near the butt of his revolver, and Kazman was careful not to make any foolish moves. When he began speaking, his words had a profound effect on his companions. The implications of what they were hearing hit the three of them like a bolt of lightning.

“My God,” Dantzler said, “that explains why the horses was turned loose. Somebody's out to kill us. Every damned one of us.”

“Looks that way,” said Kazman.

“Damn you,” Boudlin said. “Instead of keepin' this under your hat, you should have sent telegrams to Juarez an' Nogales. If we don't mount a force an' go after this bastard, he'll pick us all off, a few at a time.”

“He's got a handle on it,” said Shatiqua. “Wooten and his men are all dead, an' the
pistolero
that killed 'em will be headin' for the next nearest camp. That's us, sure as hell.”

“Then we can't wait for help from Nogales or Juarez,” Dantzler said. “If a killer's on the way, he'll be here today or tonight. We got to post a guard, an' I don't mean just at night. One of us oughta be on watch right now.”

“I'll take the first watch,” said Boudlin.

He was about to step out with his Winchester when a slug crashed into the door just inches from his head. He fell back inside, slamming the door, while his companions began scrambling for their weapons.

“That'll give 'em something to think about,” Wes said, as he and El Lobo hunkered in some brush.

“Night come,” said El Lobo. “They run like coyotes.”

“They'll have to do it afoot,” Wes said. “Soon as it's dark enough, one of us will slip over yonder to the corral and spook their horses.”

“Sí,”
said El Lobo. “I go.”

The distance from Namiquipa to Chihuahua was more than sixty miles, and riding a tired horse, Turk Corbin arrived after dark. He would stay the night, but even before he sought food and shelter, he went looking for Wooten and his men. He knew the old house where they roomed, but when he pounded on their individual doors, he got no response. It being well past the supper hour, they could be in the cantinas, he reasoned. But before he could leave the building, a door opened and he was facing a suspicious housekeeper.

“I look for the Señor Wooten,” said Corbin.

“Muerto,”
she mumbled, crossing herself.
“Muerto.”

“The Señor Wooten's
companeros?”

“Muerto,”
she said, closing the door.

Turk Corbin shook his head. There had been thirteen men besides Wooten. Fearful of the outlaws, the town had long been buffaloed. Alphonse Renato, the figurehead constable, would have some answers. That is, if he knew what was good for him. But the door to the constable's office stood open, and Corbin found the pudgy constable in a cantina across the street.

“Renato,” said Corbin, “I got some questions, and you'd better have some answers.”

Corbin pointed across the street to the vacant office, and without a word the fearful Mexican left the cantina. Reaching the office, he sat down behind a battered desk. Corbin remained standing, and, his hand resting on the butt of his revolver, he spoke.

“What happened to Wooten and his bunch?”

“Muerto,”
said the constable. “El Diablo.”

Corbin spent an hour questioning, threatening, and shouting before eventually learning what the old constable knew. He learned of the cantina where Wes and Maria had shot three of Wooten's men, and he went there. The Mexican bartender recognized him and tried to escape into a back room, but Corbin stopped him with a word.

“You got some talkin' to do, bucko,” Corbin said.

Corbin learned only that two men had entered the cantina, and that when three of Wooten's gang had followed, there had been shooting.

“Two
hombres
shot the three who followed, then,” said Corbin.

“Sí,”
the Mexican bartender said.
“Dos hombres. Pistolas rapido.”

Turk Corbin stabled his weary horse and took a room for the night. The information he had obtained was sketchy at best. He knew that three of Wooten's men had been shot in the cantina, and he knew that one of the
“hombres”
who had done the shooting had been a woman. Having captured her, Wooten had obviously used her to bait a trap for her companion, only to have it blow up in his face, costing him four more men. The killing of Wooten, Selmer, and Coe accounted for a total of ten men. What had become of the rest? All the more puzzling, Wooten and his companions had occupied two separate rooms, but appeared to have been simultaneously gunned down in their beds, an impossible feat for a single gunman.

“Damn it,” Corbin snarled in the darkness, “who is this phantom killer, and is he one man or two?”

He lay awake far into the night pondering the problem, and the more he speculated, the less he blamed the Mexicans for being spooked. Of all the unanswered questions weighing on his mind, he narrowed it down to the three that bothered him the most: Who was this devilish killer? What was his motive? And how did he know so much about the Sandlin gang? It seemed he and his companion had ridden unerringly to the arroyo where they had gunned down seven men, and had gone from there directly to Chihuahua. Where might the killer strike next?

“Namiquipa!” he said aloud as the revelation hit him.

He kicked back the covers and got up, unable to sleep. Whatever was about to happen in Namiquipa would have happened long before he could return there. He decided the four would deserve whatever they got, for he believed he hadn't been told everything and that Kazman had known or suspected there was trouble in Chihuahua. Come dawn, he would telegraph to Juarez all he knew or suspected.

After the first slugs from Wes Stone's Winchester had driven Boudlin back into the cabin, there was only silence.

“Damn it,” Shatiqua growled, “why don't they do somethin'?”

“They?” said Kazman. “There's just one man.”

Dantzler laughed. “Hell, one man with a Winchester firin' from cover is good as an army. He's just waitin' for dark an' givin' us time to get spooked.”

“We're not more than a mile from the village,” Kazman said. “Somebody's bound to hear the shooting.”

“Sure they will,” said Dantzler, “but that bunch of Mexes won't care if we get shot to doll rags.”

“Come dark,” Shatiqua said, “I'm takin' my horse an' gittin' the hell away from here.”

“Come dark,” said Dantzler, “none of us will have a horse. If you aim to run for it, now's the time, but that stable's sixty yards away. It ain't likely you can outrun a slug from a Winchester.”