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Authors: Johnny D. Boggs

West Texas Kill (11 page)

BOOK: West Texas Kill
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He heard the muffled report of the Winchester. Looked. Wickes and the brown never broke stride. Savage swore. Doc Shaw had missed.
Yet almost as soon as the curse had left Savage's lips, Ray Wickes slipped from the saddle, and fell into the dust. The brown kept running, but Savage didn't care.
By the time Savage reached the others, they had rolled Ray Wickes's dead body on the ground, marveling at the bullet hole that had hit Wickes in his temple and blown out the left side of his head. One Ranger pocketed the dead man's watch. Another removed the badge and tossed the star up to Savage, who caught it, slid it into his pocket beside the crucifix he had taken off the Rurale lieutenant a few days ago.
“Doc Shaw sure can shoot,” Ranger Eliot Thompson said.
“He can,” Savage agreed.
“What about the horse?” Ranger Joe Newton asked.
“Let it go. Horse can't talk. We've spent enough time here. We need to get to Marathon. See to that whore. Let's ride back. Pick up Bucky and Demitrio, my hat, my horse, and my other .44.”
“Should we bury him?” Thompson pointed at the corpse.
“Wolves and ravens will take care of Lieutenant Wickes,” Savage said. He turned the bay around, and loped away.
CHAPTER TEN
The chain bit into Dave Chance's neck, drawing blood. His brain screamed for air, but Moses Albavera appeared to be getting stronger, not weaker, despite the fact that Chance's left hand gripped the black man's throat like a vise. He struggled to free his right hand, but Albavera's knee wouldn't budge. Chance kept his left hand locked just beneath Albavera's Adam's apple, and managed to turn his head, feeling the rugged chain rip deeper into his flesh.
He was closer to the fire than he realized. The coffeepot sat on the rock. He wondered . . . could he reach it?
Immediately, he released his grip on Albavera's throat. The black man seemed surprised, but instinctively took a deep breath, relaxing his grip just a bit. Chance's arm shot out, grabbed the enamel pot. Once blue, burned black from years of use, the pot was scalding. It burned his fingers, his palm, but Chance didn't care. He lifted the pot, and flung it.
Albavera let out a savage oath, but didn't scream, ducking as the hot coffee splashed against his shoulder and neck. He fell off. Chance barely heard the clanging of the manacles, the pot clanging on the dirt. He was too busy filling his lungs with oxygen. He tried to lift the Schofield, but his right hand wouldn't work, numbed from the pressure of Albavera's knee. Chance grabbed the .45 with his left hand, and brought the revolver up.
Albavera had stumbled and was sitting up, his back against a lava boulder. He reached for something and stood.
Chance cocked the Schofield and aimed as best he could, though he had never been much good at shooting left-handed. He pulled the trigger. The .45 bucked savagely in his hand.
In the close confines of their boulder den, the pistol's report sounded like a cannon, causing Chance's ears to ring painfully. Yet he heard the whine of the bullet ricocheting, and felt the slug sail over his head, barely missing him. Through the smoke, he saw the bullet had knocked Albavera back on his haunches, slamming something black against the boulder to the prisoner's right.
The cast iron frying pan.
Albavera had lifted the heavy skillet, used it as a shield, and saved his life. The Schofield's bullet had slammed into the center of the pan, ricocheted off—damned near killing Chance in the process—knocking the skillet out of Albavera's hand, landing him back on his butt.
Flexing the fingers on his right hand, Chance felt the blood flowing down his throat and neck, but his hand remained asleep. He tried cocking the Schofield with his left hand. Albavera was on his feet, running toward the horses. Chance aimed, but held his fire, not wanting to hit the horses, which were stomping and rearing.
“Stop!” Chance's voice sounded muffled by the ringing in his ears, like it was coming from within a deep well. He took a step.
He had removed saddles and blankets from both mounts, but had left the bridles on. He hadn't bothered hobbling the horses, figuring they might need to vamoose pretty damned quick if Don Melitón's men found them. He'd considered keeping the horses saddled, but decided they didn't need to stand around all night with that extra weight. Those saddles weighed close to forty pounds apiece. As Albavera grabbed the reins to the Andalusian, Chance wished he had hobbled the sorrel and the stallion, or at least haltered them.
Albavera flew onto the back of the gray Andalusian with ease, yelling something. Chance couldn't make out what he said, but the horse turned, and leaped over the saddles. The black man looked like he had been born on horseback. With a grimace on his face, he leaned over the horse's side, Indian style, to keep Chance from hitting him. Guessing, Chance figured, that a man like him wouldn't want to shoot a horse.
He didn't—not kill nor wound a horse like that.
But he would.
Yet as Albavera leaned, his hat, miraculously still on his head, flew off. Chance looked surprised, but not as stunned as Albavera, who, instead of leaning onto the stallion's side, pitched off, and fell into the dirt. As the Andalusian loped away, past Chance, he heard the shot.
The second round carved a furrow across Chance's left side. He dived back toward the fire, landing hard, saw the Andalusian split two riders loping into the little canyon levering fresh rounds into their Winchesters as they rode. Vaqueros. Don Melitón's men. But only two of them.
He could feel his right hand again, and quickly changed hands holding the Schofield. Cocking it with his left hand, he rose to his knee. One of the riders wheeled his horse, and dropped the reins. Smoke and flame belched from the Winchester, the bullet tugging at Chance's collar. Chance squeezed the trigger, dived to his left, and came up ready to fire again.
The horse, a palomino, loped out of the maze of lava rocks. The vaquero lay spread-eagle on the ground, a Winchester at his boots, something by his head. The skillet.
Another shot boomed. Chance ran in a crouch, stopped, and dived out of the way of another running horse, also riderless. Stepping out of the dust, he aimed the Schofield at Moses Albavera.
The black man stood behind the saddles, the sawed-off Springfield rifle in his hands, smoke serpentining out of the short barrel. A few rods in front of the saddles lay the other vaquero, his head a gory mess. Behind Albavera stood the sorrel, sidestepping, snorting, but not running.
Spotting Chance, Albavera straightened, and glanced down at the rifle in his hands.
“You're empty,” Chance said, not lowering the Schofield.
“Don't I know it.”
Both men sounded terribly hoarse.
Albavera dropped the rifle onto the saddlebags, leaned against a boulder, and started massaging his throat. Chance walked slowly, pressing his left hand against his bloody side. His throat felt raw, pained, as if he had swallowed a ton of torrid sand. His eyes burned. He didn't bother a glance at the dead vaquero. He wasn't about to take his eyes off a man like Moses Albavera. He had made that mistake too many times already.
The black man lowered his hand from his throat with a smile. “Where'd you get a grip like that?”
When Chance didn't answer, Albavera spoke again. “You damn near crushed my windpipe.”
“I swung a sixteen-pound sledgehammer for the Texas and Pacific for six years,” Chance said. He remembered that too well. Swinging that sledge in the heat of July, laying track from Longview to Dallas. He'd felt like a kid when he started. Hell, he had been a kid, but he built a lot of muscle over those years. Figured he'd lay track all the way to San Diego. That was the T&P's plan, to build a transcontinental railroad in the south, but the railroad never got out of Texas. Back in '81, T&P crews had met the Southern Pacific in Sierra Blanca, about a hundred or so miles east of El Paso. By then, Chance had left the railroad and was riding for the Texas Rangers. Course, it had been the T&P that had gotten him the job with Captain Savage.
“How far will that Andalusian of yours run?” Chance asked.
“He's stopped.” Albavera pointed. “Already loping back.”
Chance kept his eyes on the black man, but he heard the hooves of a horse.
“All right,” Chance said. “I'll saddle the horses. You bury those two men.”
“Bury them? With what?”
“Your hands.”
Albavera shook his head. “They wouldn't have buried us.”
Chance didn't reply.
“Well, what happens after I bury those two?”
“We'll ride out.”
“What about supper?”
“You threw supper away. You want to pick up those pieces of salt pork, go ahead.”
“Horses will be worn out.”
“I imagine they will be. But”—he gestured at the closest dead man—“I don't want to get trapped here by Don Melitón.”
Albavera shook his head. “You don't have to worry about that.”
“Those dead vaqueros say different.”
“Those aren't vaqueros, Sergeant Chance.”
The Andalusian trotted right on past Chance, and walked straight to Albavera, nuzzling his chest, pushing him back. He laughed, grabbed the bridle, and rubbed his hand on the gray's neck. “See for yourself,” the black man said.
Chance risked it. The rider was a Mexican, all right, with a huge sugarloaf sombrero, the brim splattered with blood. He couldn't recognize the face, wouldn't have even been able to call it a face, not after the impact of that .45-70 slug. Chance moved closer, keeping Albavera is his sights, and knelt beside the dead man.
It wasn't one of Don Melitón's riders. He remembered the don's vaqueros had been armed with Spencers; the dead men carried Winchesters. Chance studied the man closer. He wore gray britches, Apache moccasins, and a canvas jacket over a muslin shirt. A dagger was sheathed in a yellow sash, two bandoliers of .44-40 cartridges were strapped over his chest, and a couple of gory scalps were affixed to the bandoliers. Probably Apache hair.
Tugging at the man's jacket, Chance pulled a leather pouch from the inside pocket, and dumped it onto the ground between the dead man's legs. A rosary. A few pesos. A rabbit's foot. And a half dozen Morgan dollars. He picked up one of the silver coins, hardly a scratch on any of them, and checked the date. Freshly minted. Undoubtedly stolen. He gathered the dollars, slipped them into his vest pocket. Something else was stuck in the sash. Chance pulled out a pewter flask. Liquid sloshed inside, and he unscrewed the lid, sniffed.
Tequila.
He closed the lid, and shoved the flask into his waistband.
Carefully, rapidly, Chance looked over at the man he had killed, saw the sinking sunlight reflecting off the conchos that lined the sides of his
calzoneras
. That's what had made Chance mistake him for a vaquero. That and the Mexican saddle and old sombrero. But he also had a bandolier, although his was strapped across his waist, and he wore the gray jacket of one of Porfirio Díaz's Rural Guards.
“Rurales,” Chance said, rising. “What are two Rurales doing this far north of the border?”
Albavera stepped from behind the gray stallion. “Not Rurales. Likely bandits in Rurale uniforms.”
“Most of the Rurales I've run across are bandits.”
“Spoken like a true Texan.” Albavera laughed.
Chance ran his finger over his jacket, and found the bullet hole in the collar. “We match.”
“Not quite,” Albavera said. “Prince Benton's bullet went through my left collar, not right. Besides, my coat's a lot more expensive than that rat-chewed mackinaw of yours.”
“Why do you think they hit us?”
“Heard our ruction, most likely. Figured we'd make easy pickings. You want some water?” He picked up a canteen. “Yeah.” Chance holstered the revolver, and stepped toward Albavera.
“So, how'd you go from swinging a sixteen-pound sledgehammer to wearing a peso star?” Albavera asked after Chance had taken a long pull from the canteen. As he asked he noticed a few things about the Ranger:
1.
Chance kept his right hand on the butt of the Schofield revolver holstered high on his hip.
2.
He kept his distance from Albavera, and never took his eyes off him. Rarely even blinked.
3.
His throat and the side of his neck were raw, bleeding, from where Albavera had tried to choke him to death, and his side was bleeding from a bullet wound, but the Ranger didn't seem in any pain. Unlike Albavera, whose hands still rang from having that skillet shot out of his hands, and whose throat felt raw. It had hurt just to swallow the mouthful of water from the canteen. Of course, he wasn't about to admit any of that.
4.
The white Ranger didn't wipe the spout of the canteen after Albavera, a black man, had drunk from it.
The latter impressed him the most. Maybe Chance was too damned tired. Or maybe . . . oh, yeah. Albavera grinned. Chance would have had to take his right hand off that .45's butt to wipe the canteen.
“Ever hear of the Constantine gang?” Chance asked.
“Can't say I have.”
“They were a band of brothers along the Arkansas-Texas border. Three of them. They tried to rob a Texas and Pacific that was bound to Texarkana.”
Albavera grinned again. He took the canteen back, but before he drank, he said, “And you just happened to be on board.”
Chance nodded. “Work detail. I was in the smoking car. Playing poker with the boys.”
“When it was all said and done, the Constantine gang was no more. That it?”
“Something like that. I shot Will dead. Put a bullet in Greg's shoulder. He lived long enough to hang. Mickey McGee, an Irishman I worked with, crushed Robert's head with a sledgehammer before Robert could shoot me.”
“All that . . . just to protect the railroad?” Albavera drank.
“Railroad hell,” Chance said. “Those bastards aimed to rob us.”
BOOK: West Texas Kill
2.93Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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