Ambush at Shadow Valley (11 page)

Clarimonde quickly looked away from the grisly scene, not letting the horror of Soto's action keep her from looking for a way to protect Bess. ‘‘We must get you out of here. These men are monsters. They will kill you!''

She quickly grabbed a handful of dried meat scraps from the tabletop and fed the hungry animal. Stooping, she hugged the coarse neck again and said, ‘‘I know you only came to protect me. But you have to go. We have to get you past these men. You must go back and stay with Papa and Little Bob.'' Tears rolled freely down her cheeks as she spoke to the curious face, knowing her words were not understood.

Leading the dog gently but firmly by the nape of her neck, Clarimonde looked back out onto the courtyard and said, ‘‘You must
go
quickly, while these two are not watching.'' She turned the animal loose with a bit of a shove toward the doorway, gesturing with her arm in a sweeping motion to make her command understood. ‘‘
Gehen sie
, Bess!'' she ordered in German, telling the animal to
go. ‘‘Gehen sie.''

The dog circled slowly and whined as if in protest. Then, obediently she ran out the door and hurried away along the perimeter of the courtyard. Clarimonde watched intently, silently praying under her breath until the shepherd had made it most of the way to where the smaller entrance gate stood ajar. "Please
hurry,
Bess! You must make it out of here! You must!'' Clarimonde whispered, seeing Ransdale strike a match and hold it to a freshly rolled smoke dangling from his lips.

But the big shepherd didn't make it all the way to the front gate. Ransdale caught sight of her as she hurried along silently, running low to the ground, partly hidden by a wall of shrubs and brightly colored flowers. "What the hell—?" he said in surprise, his Colt coming up cocked and aimed. ‘‘It's one of her damned wolf dogs!''

‘‘Then shoot it,'' Soto shouted, the Indian's blood running down his chest, his arms, his face.

From the open doorway where Clarimonde stood, she screamed, ‘‘No!'' just as Ransdale's shot rang out.

The shepherd, hearing the woman's voice, turned in time to see the man's gun buck in his hand. She felt the bullet whistle through the air only an inch from her lowered head. But before Ransdale's second shot exploded, the big bitch, fearful for her master's safety, spun in the dirt and sprang across the ground like a streak of gray furry lightning.

‘‘Yiiii!'' Ransdale shouted in terror, standing with his feet spread, unable to get an aim on the attacking animal. His third bullet ricocheted harmlessly off the stone tiles as the bitch dived into him. Instead of going for his throat, Bess clamped her powerful jaws around his crotch and slung her head back and forth viciously as his screams filled the air.

‘‘Stop playing with the dog!'' Soto shouted, reaching for his Colt lying in its holster on the ground where he'd laid it. He raised the Colt with a bloody hand and took aim.

‘‘No!'' Clarimonde shouted again, running from the doorway toward the blurred tangle of man and animal on the courtyard floor. But she stopped abruptly, her hands going to her mouth to stifle her scream as Soto's bullet hit the shepherd squarely in the side and sent it tumbling away with a loud, pitiful yelp.

‘‘Help—help me, Suelo,'' Ransdale pleaded in an injured tone, both hands cupping his bleeding crotch. His Colt lay in the dirt a few feet away. ‘‘I'm ruined. . . .''

As Soto stepped over to Ransdale, the wounded dog yelped pitifully, struggling to get back on all fours. Clarimonde hurried toward the animal, but before she could get to her, Bess had managed to rise and stumble out the open entrance gate. ‘‘Stay back from that gate, Clarimonde,'' Soto commanded. She froze as she heard him cock his gun hammer.

Tearfully, Clarimonde said, ‘‘But she is still alive. I must go to her.''

‘‘She's as good as dead, and you know it,'' Soto said callously. As he spoke he lowered his Colt; the two listened to the painful yelping of the wounded shepherd disappear deeper down the hillside. In a moment it stopped altogether. ‘‘There, what did I tell you?'' Soto said.

‘‘What—What about me?'' Ransdale groaned on the stone tiles at Soto's feet. He reached up with a bloody hand and tried to grasp Soto's naked, blood-slick leg.

‘‘What about you,
mi amigo
?'' Soto said harshly. ‘‘Like you said,
you're ruined.
Now I must get three of Satan's demons to replace you.''

‘‘No, wait,'' Ransdale said quickly. ‘‘I'm good. I'll be all right. I can still handle my job. I'll just get cleaned up some—''

‘‘Adios, Nate,'' said Soto, cutting him off. He effortlessly moved his lowered Colt sidelong just enough to put a bullet in Ransdale's right eye. Ransdale fell back limply, his hand still clutching his crotch.

Clarimonde flinched at the sound of the gunshot. She stood weeping for the shepherd, her hands covering her mouth. ‘‘She—she only wanted to save me,'' she said brokenly, staring out toward the vast, rugged hillside beyond the mission walls.

Soto walked up close behind her; she could feel heat from his naked, blood-gorged body. ‘‘Nothing can save you
from
me,
except
me, dear Clarimonde,'' he whispered into her ear. ‘‘Is that what you want? Do you want me to save you?''

After a moment of silence, without turning to face him, Clarimonde replied, also in a whisper, ‘‘Yes, save me. Save me from you.''

‘‘Good.'' Soto smiled with satisfaction and looked himself up and down. ‘‘I'll go finish with the Indian. You prepare us some food for the trail. Let's get moving. The lawmen are bound to be close enough to have heard all the shooting.''

Chapter 9

The ranger and Hector had been following only glimpses of partial hoofprints now and then on the rocky ground, at times finding traces of the shepherd's paw print in pursuit. But when they'd heard the sound of gunfire on the distant trails above them, they struck out toward it without hesitation. After an hour of pushing their horses, they'd made it to the fork in the trail and found clearer prints on the narrow, softer dirt path leading back toward the old Spanish mission.

‘‘We can't stop now—we're too close,'' Sam said, noting the slant of sunlight falling over the slopes on the western horizon. He nudged Black Pot forward and added to Hector, ‘‘Watch out for a trap.''

"Sí
, I am always watching,'' Hector replied, nudging his horse along beside him.

Moments later beneath the canopy of overhanging pine and spruce, in the grainy light, the ranger stopped at the sight of the big shepherd limping weakly alongside the trail toward them. ‘‘Hold it, Hector,'' he said, although the young lawman had already spotted the wounded animal and had drawn up his reins. ‘‘Here comes the big female shepherd the old goatherd told us about.''

Seeing the animal stop and wobble unsteadily in place, the two stepped down from their horses and led them slowly forward. ‘‘Easy, girl. We won't hurt you,'' Sam said quietly, seeing the dazed and wounded animal take a stand, her blood-matted hackles standing high on her neck and shoulders.

But the shepherd would not be consoled. As Sam and Hector took another step, she growled deeper and bared her fangs, in spite of blood and saliva swinging from her flews.

‘‘It's not working,'' said Hector, stopping alongside the ranger. ‘‘This one is not going to let us get past her on the trail.''

‘‘We've gotten too close to let these birds slip away from us now,'' Sam said. Yet, even as he spoke, the two stepped back cautiously until the shepherd's growl lessened.

‘‘But what do we do about this wounded animal?'' Hector asked in a lowered voice, seeing the big shepherd had faced them down in her weakened state.

Sam didn't have to consider it. ‘‘We're going to help her if it's not too late,'' he said. Without turning toward Hector, he nodded toward a tangle of bracken and downfallen limbs along the trail and added quietly, ‘‘See if you can find me a good long branch.''

As Hector stepped away to the side of the trail, Sam walked around his stallion, took down a coiled rope from his saddle horn and took out a rolled up length of rawhide strap from his saddlebags. The shepherd settled down, but watched both men closely, her loss of blood causing her to have to straighten herself up every few seconds to keep from losing her balance.

With the ten-foot-long pine limb Hector brought him, the ranger fashioned a snare. With an open loop on one end of the limb, and the rope wrapped around the limb leading up to his hand, Sam stepped forward, Hector right beside him, his gun cocked in case the shepherd found the strength to attack. ‘‘Easy now, girl,'' Sam said again as they moved closer.

But this time the shepherd had grown too weak to put up a fight. She faltered and went down on her hind quarters. Taking advantage of the narrow opportunity, Sam slipped the loop over her head and drew it tight before she had time to collect herself.

Feeling the rope grow snug on her neck, the big animal lunged and growled and fought, even summoning the strength to rise up once on her hind paws and snarl, then try to force herself forward. Sam held on to the limb and the rope and braced himself until her strength waned and she fell onto her side, lying panting in the dirt.

Handing Hector the limb and the rope, Sam said, ‘‘Keep some pressure on, while I get in there. I don't want her in my face.''

‘‘I've got her,'' said Hector, holding the limb steadily, bracing himself, prepared for anything.

With the length of rawhide from his saddlebags, Sam hurried in close and kneeled down beside the shepherd. Knowing that at any moment she could decide to make another lunge at him, he quickly hitched a muzzle around the middle of the animal's strong flews, wrapped it back around her head and tied it securely behind her ears. He let out a tight breath, patted her head and examined the deep gunshot wound in her side.

‘‘You can ease off on it now,'' he said to Hector. ‘‘I believe she's lost too much blood to put up any more of a fight.''

"Sí,"
said Hector, ‘‘if we don't stop the bleeding, I think she will soon be dead.'' He laid the limb down and stepped back toward his horse. ‘‘I will tear up an old shirt for bandages.''

In the distance a streak of lightning licked across the sky, followed by a low rumble of thunder. ‘‘Hurry,'' said Sam, ‘‘we've got a storm brewing.'' He glanced in the direction of the thunder as he rubbed a gloved hand back along the shepherd's fading eyes. ‘‘This brave gal has come too far and done too much to be left out here to die.''

In the first purple shadows of darkness the young novice had ventured back into the mission. With her came the Mayan Indian woman who had fled earlier under her mate's insistence. Before slipping back inside the walls, the two had watched the mission from the shelter of pines for a long time after the men and the German woman rode out along the high trail. Yet they still approached the mission warily. Once inside the walls, they quickly locked the entrance gate behind themselves.

Upon their arrival in the darkened courtyard, the two women lit torches, found the bloody claw hammer lying in the dirt and immediately removed the slender iron spikes that held the unconscious priest's hands nailed to the thick oaken door of the rectory. Then they laid the wounded priest on an old canvas gurney that the Mexican army had left behind at the end of some long-forgotten campaign against the dreaded Apache.

As the women started to raise the gurney between them, the priest groaned, ‘‘Don't move me . . . I—I must pray for the dead.''

‘‘Padre, you are awake!'' the novice said in surprise.

‘‘There is . . . a lawman coming,'' the priest added in a rasping voice. ‘‘Do not lock the gates.''

The women gave one another a dubious look. ‘‘He is out of his head,'' the novice whispered. In the distance, thunder rumbled across the high valley floors.

‘‘Listen . . . to me,'' the priest insisted in a weakening voice. ‘‘Prop me up. . . . Unlock the gates.''

Under the priest's instructions, the novice ran to the gates, unlocked the small entrance gate and ventured a look up along the dark trail before running back to the rectory door. Together, the women cleaned and dressed the priest's wounds in the torchlight. They leaned the gurney up on a straight-backed chair so the priest could oversee the courtyard while they went about the grim chore of gathering the dead. Unable to raise his bandaged hands or his arms, the priest managed to say a prayer over the elderly nun as the two women carried her body off the stone tiles.

When it came time to gather the pieces of her mate's decapitated body, the Indian woman stopped the novice from helping her and gestured for her to attend to the priest instead.

From a short distance down the trail, Sam and Hector began hearing the eerie sound of the Mayan's mourning chant coming from the dim circle of torchlights glowing above the mission walls. ‘‘It sounds like they've been here and gone,'' Sam said gravely.

‘‘I swear by the saints, if they have harmed these people . . .'' Hector left his vow unfinished, realizing there was nothing more he could do to these men than what he had vowed to do in the first place.

‘‘If they haven't been hit too hard, I'm hoping we can leave the shepherd here to be looked after and stay tight on their trail,'' said Sam, noting a flash of lightning in the east. ‘‘If this storm gets between us and them, it'll be hard tracking.''