One of them opened the big door that went back to the cells and we went through. Gold Tooth went first, then me, then Hays and his bucket, and then the second guard. Jailers, or anybody that goes near the prisoners, don’t carry weapons for the simple reason that they’re running the risk of having one taken away from them. Not that that mattered because I had no intentions of giving them time to use them. We walked down the hall between the line of cells on both sides, heading toward the end where Norris was bunking. About halfway down, just as we came opposite Elizandro’s cell, I stopped and bent over like something was bothering my boot. I slipped my hand inside, and when I straightened up I was holding the derringer. Gold Tooth had stopped also and turned back to face me. I let him see the little gun, then rammed it in his belly. As I did I held a finger of my left hand to my lips indicating he should not make a sound and emphasized it by prodding him a couple of times with the derringer. His eyes got big in his brown face and his gold tooth was showing but not because he was smiling. To my left I heard a quiet chuckle and, out of the corner of my eye, I could see Senor Elizandro standing at the door of his cell smoking a cigarillo. He said,
“Muy bueno.
”
I said, “Hays, you got the other one?”
He said, “Got his hands over his head, boss. He’s quivering a little, but all in all he’s being right nice about matters.”
I said, “Take his keys and hand them to Senor Elizandro.” Then, to the
caballero,
I said, “Señor, as soon as you can find the right key and get yourself out of your cell I want you to take this derringer from me and put these two in your cell and keep them quiet.”
He said, “I thenk that will be very possible.”
I heard a lot of jangling and rattling of keys and then Elizandro was beside me. I felt his hand on my gun hand and I let the derringer ease into his grip. He said some words in Spanish to Gold Tooth and he moved with good speed into the cell that the señor had lately been occupying. I turned around. Hays was herding his man in behind Gold Tooth. I said, “Just keep these two quiet. Don’t shoot unless you have to.”
Hays said, “We better hurry, boss. Somebody is likely to get curious what we doing back here.”
I took the keys off the belt of Hays’s jailer as he passed, picked up the bucket of beer-bottle bombs and hurried back to Norris’s cell. He was sitting on his bunk, staring down at the floor, seemingly unaware of all that had transpired. I fumbled with the keys until I found the right one, unlocked his cell door and swung it wide. He looked up. He said, “What’s this?”
I said, “I think they call it a jailbreak.”
“Oh, no!” he said. “Not on your life!”
I had reached into my pocket and come out with the primer cord fuses and was starting to fit them into the holes in the top of the bottles. I glanced up at him in some surprise. I said, “What?”
He was just sitting on his bunk shaking his head. “Oh, no. I’ll be no party to a jailbreak. I’ll have my day in court and show how wrongfully I’ve been treated. I’m not going to be a party to an illegal action.”
I was still busy stuffing the fuses through the waxed-over holes in the caps of the bottles, trying to vary them so some would go off in a second, others two seconds, others longer. My intent was to keep up a continuous run of explosions as we were trying to race through the office of the jail. I stared at him. I said, “Are you crazy?”
He crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall of his cell. “I certainly am not. I know my rights and I will have my due process of law. I’m considering legal action against these people for false arrest.”
I said, “Norris, this is Mexico. They
ain’t
got no due process or whatever you call it.” I could feel the seconds ticking by and knew that time was running out. “Norris, we have pulled guns on two Mexican jailers. We are in too deep to back out now. Get your ass up and get out of here. This thing is dangerous enough without you costing me time.”
“No, sir,” he said.
I couldn’t believe it. I said, “Four men are risking their lives to get you out of here. Now get off your fat ass and move it!”
“Nope,” he said, still with his arms crossed resolutely.
I was squatting down by the bucket, still inserting fuses. I looked behind me. Hays and Elizandro had the two guards inside the cell with the door shut and locked. The guards had their hands on the top of their heads, but they were being helped to behave by the two derringers pointed at their bellies. There were no prisoners in the few cells near Norris, but I could see several on down the line. They were up against the bars watching, in some fascination, what was going on. Most of them appeared to be peons, probably arrested for being drunk or for petty theft or because some
federale
wanted a shot at their wife without the old man interfering. I looked at Hays. He had a most anxious appearance about his face and he made little hurry-up signs to me with his free hand.
I turned back to Norris. “We are out of time. Are you coming?”
He took a deep breath and began, as if he were explaining to a child, “I have told you I have been wrongfully arrested. I am going to insist on my rights. I am going to stay in this jail cell until I get redress of the wrongs that have been done me. My position . . .”
He kept going, sounding like a Philadelphia lawyer, but I wasn’t paying him any attention. I took out the ten-inch fuse, rammed it into one of the bottle bombs and then got out a lucifer match. I struck it on the sweaty concrete floor and lit the fuse. Then I rolled the bottle bomb across Norris’s cell floor until it came to rest under his bunk. He looked up, startled, stopping his lesson in constitutional law. He said, “What’s that?”
I stood up, grabbing the handle of the bucket. I said, “That’s a bomb, Norris. It’s going to go off in about five seconds. You go ahead and sit there on your principles if you want to but I’m getting out of here before I get mine blown off.”
Then I turned and started running up the walkway between the cells. As I passed Hays and Elizandro I said, “Come on!”
Behind me I heard Norris yell, “Justa!”
By then, though, I wasn’t paying him a whole hell of a lot of attention. I reckoned him to maybe have more sense than to sit on a bomb.
7
We got to the door. Hays and I knelt by its left side. We both got a match lit and then I bade Señor Elizandro to push the door open as far as he could without exposing himself. I said to Hays, “Light the short fuses first and then work your way up. We want to keep them going off in a steady run. And roll the damn bottles along the floor. Don’t throw them.”
About then I felt a breath on the back of my neck and Norris saying, “Goddam you, Justa! I’m never going to forgive you for this. You—”
But his words were drowned out by the explosion of the bomb I’d rolled under his bunk. It went off much louder than I’d expected. It went “
KA-BOOM!
” making the granite walls echo and reverberate like a thundercloud had turned loose in their midst. Unfortunately it was one of the ones I’d put the nails in and I could hear them singing around and wanging off the bars and the granite walls. I hoped none of the peons would get hit. I would have liked to have freed them, but it would have just complicated matters.
By now Hays and I had both got a cigarillo lit and drawing and we commenced lighting fuses and rolling the bottles out into the outer office. I saw the desk sergeant turn, startled, and look toward our door. But it was a little late for his curiosity. While we were rolling out the last of the bombs the first began going off and I was considerably stunned by the effect they were having. The black powder would blow up, igniting the kerosene, and then you not only had an explosion, you had a sheet of flame rising up in all directions. On top of that there were the nails and the splinters of glass flying around.
I was still crouched down. I said, “Get ready. Norris, the horses are across the street. Follow me and Hays.”
I took the derringer out of Senor Elizandro’s hand. I had retained two of the short-fused bombs for the work at the outer door. Elizandro said, “You have my thanks, señor.”
I said, ’I just hope your men have started their work.“ They were supposed to start firing at the troops outside as soon as they heard the sound of the first bomb.
I waited another second for the flying nails and glass to subside a bit and then I went charging through the door. The outer office looked like hell. It was brighter than any room I’d ever seen. There was smoke and fire everywhere. I could see a few indistinct forms through the fog of cordite, but they looked confused and uncertain.
But the desk sergeant was still standing there, his mouth open. I shot him twice with the derringer, then dropped the little gun and grabbed up the sergeant’s service revolver that was still lying on his desk and took several shots at some of the forms I could see through the smoke.
We ran toward the front door. I had the two remaining bombs in my left hand and the lit cigarillo in my mouth. Hays shoved the big front door open as I lit one of the bombs, tossed it along the front of the building to my left, lit the other and tossed it to the right. Behind me I could hear a few gunshots being fired but none were coming my way. Through the open door I could hear the sound of heavy firing and I hoped that Elizandro’s men were doing a good job of covering fire.
I waited an instant more until I heard the bombs go off and then I said, “Go!” and ran crouching through the door that Hays was holding open.
I didn’t have to tell anyone to stay low. There was smoke and flames on both sides of me and I had to step over the body of one of the
federales
as I ran into the street. Across, I could see Elizandro’s men firing steadily at the front of the jail. I was running too fast to get a clear view, but I had the distinct impression of terrible carnage. Mostly I saw bodies laying in front of the jail, but here and there I caught a glimpse of a
federale
down on one knee, carbine to shoulder, firing back. In the middle of the street I stopped, letting the other three go on past me, and whirled and fired the last three remaining cartridges at the policemen. Then I threw the gun down and ran toward the corner where Ben was supposed to be.
He was there, carbine to his shoulder, firing at the federal militia. He saw us coming and stopped long enough to pitch a pistol to Hays and then to throw my gun to me. I turned, knelt, and fired the full chamber of bullets at the remaining riflemen. When my revolver was empty I jammed it in my holster and whipped around to get horseback. I felt something hit my boot and felt a slight pain in my ankle, but I had no time for that. I could see that Jack had brought the horses up, rounding them off and pointing them north. I could see Norris and Hays getting mounted. Hays had turned in the saddle and was firing back over my head as I sprinted toward my own horse. Off to my right I could see that Senor Elizandro had made it to the safety of his own men who were continuing to faithfully lay down covering fire. There would be no one coming out of the front door of that jail unless they were crazy.
I reached my horse and swung into the saddle on the jittery animal. Ben was coming behind me. I said, “Let’s get the hell out of here!”
And we began pounding down that dusty main street with onlookers lining the sidewalk gawking and staring. I heard what sounded like a few gunshots and felt the zing of something going over my head. I didn’t know if them nonparticipating parties along the way were stupid enough to get involved, but I pulled out my saddle gun and fired a few shots over their heads just to give them fair warning that we weren’t just funning.
A block ahead I saw Lew with this
Capitán
Davilla. They were both in uniform. As we closed on them I could see Lew take Davilla’s horse on lead and begin slowly loping past. We came up to them and then he clapped spurs to his horse and fell into our rear at the same dead run we were going.
The little street that turned west came up before I’d expected it, but I reined my horse in and swept us around its corner, still going almost full tilt. A few peons were lazing their way across the street, but they heard the thunder of our hooves, took one startled look and got the hell out of the way. In point of fact it was a wise decision on their part because we weren’t stopping for anything.
I could not remember all the little twists and turns that Lew and I had mapped out, but I just kept us racing down those little narrow streets, turning this way and that but always heading west. The sound of gunshots was long past and all I had to do now was concentrate on getting us into open country and heading for cover. When I could I took a quick glance back over my shoulder, half dreading I might see an empty saddle. But they were all there, Hays and Jack just behind me, Norris behind Ben, and, bringing up the rear, Lew with Davilla on lead. The
capitán
was hunched over, looking mighty uncomfortable tied in his saddle the way Lew had trussed him up. I wasn’t shedding no sympathy on him.
At long last we left the town, passed a few lonely looking adobe shacks, and then we were in the open country. I pulled my horse down, intent on saving him after the long run he’d had, and put him into a ground-eating lope. The rest behind me did the same except Norris who spurred his horse to come even with me. I took one look over at his face and I didn’t like the look of it. He was saying something to me, leaning toward me out of his saddle. I pretended not to hear. I looped the reins around the saddle horn and then twisted backwards to reach into my saddlebags for spare ammunition. Still going at a pretty good lope I took the time to reload my .42/.40 and my saddle gun. When I shoved the saddle gun home in its boot I waved Norris back. He wanted to say something else but I just kept my gaze straight ahead, calculating the ground and the direction we had to go.
I turned us straight west, whipping my horse through the stunted underbrush and the rocks and the cactus. I was careful of my animal, but I was more careful of what I knew were the inferior beasts that Ben had been able to buy in Monterrey. Off to my right I could see the first of the little line of wooded ridges that I was counting on for cover. I gradually turned us northwest. Calculating the time and the month of the year we were in, I figured we didn’t have much more than three hours until dark. I wanted to make as many tracks as possible before the moon got up. We may have shot the hell out of the
federales
at the jail but there was a whole bunch more around and available.
And then there were the
rurales
to consider. Of the two, I didn’t prefer either one. All I knew was that I had a hundred miles of ground to cover before I could bring my people to safety.
We kept riding, taking a pace that the horses could stand across the sometimes green but most often barren landscape. After two hours I called a halt and ordered everyone out of their saddles to walk their mounts. Of course that did not include
Capitán
Davilla, whose poor animal would have to put up with whatever it could bear. We had no intentions of untying the good
capitán.
As we walked, leading our horses to give them a much needed blow, Norris came up beside me. He said, “I just want you to understand that I’m doing this under protest. I want you to know that I could have won my legal way out of that jail without you resorting to tactics equivalent to theirs.”
My ankle was hurting and I was weary and still a little scared. My patience was short. I said, “Oh, shut up, Norris. I don’t want to hear any more of this foolishness. Now drop back and keep out of the way.”
He said, “No, we’ll discuss it now.”
I had been kind of glancing around. Looking to my right, just past Norris, I suddenly saw a small band of riders coming toward us at a gallop. I yelled, “Company coming. Mount up!”
I was amazed they could have gotten after us so fast. Hell, as far as I was concerned we’d left that jail in a shambles. But then there must have been a police barracks somewhere near who’d been able to get up a catch party Johnny Quick. But as I swung my leg over the saddle I took another look at the intruders. They were no more than a half mile away and coming fast. Near as I could tell there weren’t but about five of them and it would have been the last word in foolhardiness to have attacked an equal party such as ours on an open plain. Hell, in another moment we’d have been able to start picking them off with our lever action Winchester carbines. I sat my horse for a second, watching them, then put him into a slow walk. I kept seeing them get closer. They did not look like
federales
or
rurales.
I wished mightily for the old ship-captain’s spyglass that my father kept in his room, but that was a good three hundred miles away. I would have to content myself with my own eyesight.
I looked ahead. The nearest cover, the little scrub-covered ridge, was too far off to break for. We were out in the middle of a flat, barren plain with an unknown enemy bearing down on us. When they were about a quarter of a mile away I called for a halt. I said, “Dismount. Put your rifles across your horses’ saddles and get ready to fire. But no man shoots until I do.”
Looking down the line I yelled for Lew to lead Davilla out between us and the advancing party. I watched them coming on, wrinkling my brow as to who they could be. They were near enough now for me to get a count; it appeared to be six men. What six men would be foolish enough to charge down the guns of an armed and hostile group of men as desperate as they must have known we were? That is, if they knew who we were and they were chasing us.
I kept watching them come on, their horses’ hooves raising a small dust cloud as they galloped over the plain. They grew bigger and bigger. I started to tense up and carefully took aim over my iron sights. Then I relaxed as I recognized the lead rider. I said, “Oh, hell!” I took my rifle down and swung into the saddle. I said to the others, “Never mind, it’s Senor Elizandro.”
Ben said, “Is that the
politico
?”
“Yeah, only he was supposed to have gone the other way.”
Ben said, disgustedly, “Ain’t that just fine. And I imagine he’s brought some company right behind him. Goddammit, Justa, what does he think he’s doing?”
All I could do was shake my head. We stood steady watching them come on. Ten yards away they came to a jolting and shuddering stop as they pulled their horses up. Their animals were good and lathered up and their flanks were heaving. A man with one eye could see they’d been put through a hard run and they weren’t the quality of horseflesh could stand much hard usage. Senor Elizandro put his hand to a sombrero he’d got somewhere. He said, “Well, good day, my good friend. We have the good fortune to meet again.”
I said, “Señor, what the hell are you doing here? You promised me you were going southwest.”
“Aaah, yes,” he said, smiling. “That was the plan. But by bad chance we ran into a large party of
federales
who had heard the shooting and were coming to the jail for the rescue.” He shrugged. “We had no choice, since they outnumbered us to a great extent, except to turn the other way.”
“Well, did you have to come straight to us?”
He smiled and swept his hand around. “Was there any other way for me to turn? Besides, you seem to have excellent luck, Meester Williams.” He gestured toward the little ridge in advance of us. “I think perhaps we should progress forward. I think maybe there are some
policía
coming.”
I looked off in the direction he’d come from. Far off in the distance, maybe several miles, I could see a thin column of dust rising toward the sky. I said, “Well, that is just wonderful. I break you out of jail and you bring the police down on me.”
He said, gently, “Did you not think they would chase you anyway? Your leetle bombs did much work. An idea, by the way, on which I congratulate you. It was excellent planning.”
“Let’s move,” I said, with no attempt to hide my ill temper. I looked back to see how Elizandro’s men had fallen in with my party. I saw Benito. He gave me a big smile and a wave. Then I saw Jack sort of bending over in his saddle. Then I saw the red splotch on his white shirt near his left side. I said, “Jack! What the hell’s the matter?”