Lawman from Nogales (9781101544747) (20 page)

“I know what you need,” she purred.

But Hector would have none of it, although he did stop long enough to take a deep breath.

“No,” he said, “I must keep my head clear, to do what I must do.”

“Are you running away, Pancho?” Tereze asked, almost with a giggle—the same giggle he had grown used to hearing from the doves before he'd taken over the cantina.

Hector turned to her with fire in his eyes, shotgun in hand.

“Does this look like
running
to you?” he said to her, breaking the shotgun open.

He shoved two fresh loads into the barrels and snapped the gun shut. Without waiting for her reply, he tossed a bandoleer of shotgun ammunition onto his shoulder, then jerked his Colt from his holster, checked it and holstered it loosely.

Tereze sighed and relaxed back onto the damp sheets.

“It's probably just the Torres brothers and their gang,” she said idly. “There's nothing to worry about. It's no big secret that Henri keeps their money hidden until things cool off after a robbing spree.”

“
Worried
?” said Hector. “I am not
worried.
Perhaps it is the Torres brothers and their gang. I must still be prepared to protect what is mine.” He turned and stomped out through the door of the cantina, the din of music and laughter rising and falling as he opened and closed the door behind himself.

Jesus. . . .
Tereze shook her head.
The same squirrel after all.

 

As darkness overtook the land, the Torres brothers and their Gun Killers rode on toward Wild Roses at an easy gallop. When they entered the town, Teto veered away from the others. He rode past the Perros Malos Cantina and turned at the far corner. Luis and the others hitched their horses at the rails out in front of the cantina and filed inside. As they entered, the music stopped. Drinkers looked around, recognized the dust-streaked faces and hurriedly began to empty their glasses and mugs of beer, rye whiskey, tequila and mescal.

By the time Luis Torres and the gunmen crossed the floor, a wide empty space had been made for them at the bar. Some drinkers only shied back away from the Gun Killers; others left the cantina altogether, grabbed their horses or donkeys and rode away.

As the sound of hooves fled away into the night, Hopper Truit stepped up and stood across the bar from the gunmen. She spread her hands along the bar edge, giving them a good view of her cleavage behind a low-cut gingham blouse.

“Evening, Luis . . . gentlemen,” she said, nodding in turn at the hard faces staring back at her. “I hope you came thirsty enough to raise this joint and set it down sideways,” she said with a crooked smile.

Truman Filo let out a whoop and said, “You damn well right we did—”

But Luis cut the excited gunman short with a raised hand. The rest of the men fell quiet along the bar. The remaining drinkers stood staring intently.

“I understand the Bad Dogs Cantina has changed hands,” Luis said. “We want to meet the new owner before any serious drinking gets under way.”

Before Hopper Truit could reply, Hector stepped inside the front door, his shotgun cocked and leveled in one hand, his Colt leveled in his other.

“
I
am the new owner,” he said, stepping forward across the floor. Some of the remaining customers now slipped out the side doors and the open rear window.

“Easy
,
amigo,” Luis Torres said. “We came to drink and talk a little business with Three-Hand Defoe, nothing more.”

“Three-Hand Defoe is there,” Hector said, gesturing toward the drying, blackened residue of what was once Defoe's face still stuck to the wall. “Start talking.”

The gunmen turned their heads as one and looked at the grizzly glob of flesh and bone fragments stuck to the wall. A single gold-capped tooth hung from the center of it, above part of Defoe's lolling tongue. Flies circled and whined.

The gunmen gave a dark chuckle, examining the remains.

“We heard you killed him,” Luis said.

Truman Filo commented, “This looks like a vulture came flying through too low and too fast.”

Ignoring Filo's remark, Luis turned from the disgusting death mask.

“
Sí
, I killed him,” said Hector, not mincing words, “and I now own what was his. I will kill any man who tries to take it from me.”

“I'm not interested in what was his, or what you think is yours. We only want what's ours,” Luis said. He looked Hector up and down. “You thought we might show up seeking vengeance.”

“The thought crossed my mind,” Hector said flatly. Cocaine powder still bubbled and boiled in the back of his brain, but he kept himself calm, in check, ready to kill to protect his ill-gotten desert empire.

“Aren't you the one the whores call the squirrel?” Filo asked.

“Hey! We called him that with the utmost respect and affection,” Hopper Truit cut in, Hector turning a scorching glared at her.

“That day is over,” Hector said. “This day has begun.” He gestured at the shotgun and Colt in his hands.

“No more
squirrel
, eh?” said Filo with a wide, taunting grin.

“Only if you wish me to hang your portrait beside Three-Hand Defoe's,” Hector replied calmly.

Filo just stared at him.

“Easy, everybody,” Luis said. To Hector he said, “The Bad Dogs is your place now. We call you whatever you want to be called, eh?”

“Call me Pancho,” said Hector, his guns lowered slightly.

“
Pancho it is,” said Luis. He looked at Hopper Truit with a smile and said, “Pour all of us drinks now that we have met our new friend.”

Hector let his guns lower a little more, but upon hearing the sound of boots enter the cantina door behind him, he swung around and aimed both guns at the man who entered—Teto Torres.

“It is not there!” Teto exclaimed to Luis, staring at Hector with a smoldering glare on his face. Behind Teto stood Sidel Tereze, wearing nothing but a wrinkled gray bedsheet.

Hector understood instantly. While Luis and these men had kept him talking, Teto had gone around and searched his living quarters.

Hector started to swing back around toward Luis Torres and the other gunmen, but before he could do so, Luis stepped forward and slammed his rifle butt into the back of his head.

The gunmen gathered around Hector as his consciousness spiraled downward and away.

As he went down, Luis kicked both of Hector's guns across the floor.

Filo raised his Colt, cocked it and said, “Want me to put a couple of hot ones in his head?”

“Back away, Filo,” said Luis. “Your stupidity is starting to get on my nerves.” He looked across the cantina as Sidel Tereze walked forward, her breasts cradled in her arms behind the bedsheet.

“What about it, Tereze?” he said. “Did you see him take the money?”

“I saw nothing,” Tereze said, looking down at Hector. “I didn't even know the money was there until Teto came in and pulled up the floor planks.”

“All right,” Luis said to the men, “tie him to a chair. This squirrel wakes up, I don't want him getting away.”

Chapter 22

The Ranger knew when Erin Donovan had once again left in the middle of the night. Like the time before, he'd lain quietly in his blanket and listened as she'd saddled her horse and led the animal away. When he was certain she was gone, he stood up, picked up his saddle and blanket and walked over to his dun. Seeing him step in closer, the coppery dun chuffed under its breath and sawed its head up and down.

“I know,” said the Ranger, as if defending the woman's actions to the watching horse. “She's just scared—unsure of herself.”

He rubbed the dun's muzzle and looked off in the direction Erin had taken down along the hill trail.

Rosas Salvajes . . . ,
he said to himself.
She's headed right back to where we started in Wild Roses.

He couldn't say he was completely surprised, but it would have been good to see her do what she'd told him she was going to do—take a ship out of Tampico, go home to Ireland, put the Mexican badlands behind her.

He recalled his words to her when she'd first mentioned leaving. Maybe that was the only advice he had a right to give her, or anyone else here in this wild, merciless land.

But so much for that. . . .
She was an outlaw's woman. What had he expected her to do?

Anyway, he reminded himself, his work was cut out for him in Rosas Salvajes
.

He took the lead rope from the dun's muzzle and slipped the bridle up into place. Letting the reins hang free, he pitched the saddle up onto the dun's back and cinched it for the trail.

He hadn't pressured the woman into any particular direction; he had made up his mind early on not to butt into her personal business—not even to question her story any more than necessary for his own safety's sake. Where she was now headed, she was headed of her own free will.

Yes, he believed so, he told himself. And from everything he'd heard and seen and discerned of her and her situation, that man was Teto Torres.

He let out a deep breath as he finished cinching the saddle and laid the stirrup down the dun's side.

He could make no sense of a beautiful young woman like Erin Donovan taking up with the likes of an outlaw like Teto Torres.

But who am I to say?
he asked himself, picking up his Winchester from where he'd left it leaning against a tree. Would life treat her any better had she chosen to spend it with a lawman, a man like himself?

Would the trail have been less rocky, the sun less scorching, the narrow line between life and death any less precarious had she taken up with a man like himself? How thin was the line separating an outlaw from the badlands and a lawman from Nogales?

He checked the rifle and shoved it down into his saddle boot—a little harder than usual, he noted. He didn't know why, but it bothered him somehow, her being gone. Even though there had been no suggestion of anything between them, it had felt good being near her. Her presence made him feel more like a
man
and less like a
lawman.

Was that a good thing? he asked himself.
Here in this time, this place?

He led the dun closer to the glowing ember remnants of the fire. Dropping the horse's reins, he walked over and rubbed the fire out with his boot. He stood staring out across the night sky in a silence as lonely as death until the dun ventured forward almost shyly in the darkness and stuck its nose to the side of his neck.

“I'm all right,” he said, turning, adjusting his big Colt in its holster. He rubbed the horse's long jawline and patted the side of its head. He took up the reins from the dirt, swung up into the saddle and turned the dun toward the trail.

Erin kept her horse at a safe pace until she reached a wide, flat plateau stretching three hundred yards across the hillside.

“Please, Blessed Mother, no more wolves,” she whispered to the dark sky, collecting the horse beneath her.

In the pale moonlight, she batted her heels to the horse's sides and brought the animal up into a gallop. With the night wind whipping her hair and clothing, she kept the quickened pace until she reached the other side and started down the trail leading into a steep, narrow canyon.

She brought the horse to an abrupt halt and sat for a moment staring into the mouth of the canyon. Raising the big Starr from her lap, she looked at it for a moment, knowing it wasn't loaded. Hefting the gun by its barrel, she weighed its value as a club.