The Mission War (20 page)

“Something like it.”

“Let's hope it doesn't end the same.”

Jessica Starbuck, still managing to look beautiful despite the long battle, the gunsmoke on her face, and her tangled honey-blond hair, said, “It will end the same if we stay here, won't it, Ki?”

“I wouldn't say so.”

“You can say it.” She looked around. “There are only three of us here. If we stay here, we die sooner or later.”

“So it would seem.”

“Then,” Jessie said, “we have to move, don't we?”

“We can't move,” Diego said.

“Why not? The
bandidos
have mobility—we have none. If we don't move, we lose; you both admit that. Therefore, we have to move,” she said.

“Sneak out,” Diego said with distaste, “and run to the hills?”

“Run, hell,” the blonde said with passion, “attack!”

Diego and Ki looked at each other in the darkness. The suggestion was absurd. Or was it?

“There's a handful of snipers out there,” Jessica went on. “Where are the rest of the
bandidos?
Sleeping more than likely. Resting for a final assault in the morning. And how can we fight them back again? Sorry, my father was a practical man and just a little of that has rubbed off on me. We can't beat them back—not again. We only have one other option. We attack.”

“The logic is impeccable,” Diego Cardero said, “but as a practical woman, you know it's impossible.”

“I said my father was practical, but damn all, he was also bold. When there's nothing left to do, when everything has to be won or lost on a single roll of the dice—damn it, you roll ‘em!”

“Of course,” Diego said, “you have an idea of how to go about this escapade.”

“I have a thought or two. If either will work, I don't know. I know what happens if we stay here, though, and I don't like it, do you?”

“No,” Cardero said, dropping his bantering tone, “I don't like it either, Jessica.”

“What are you thinking?” Ki asked, looking down the parapet at his soldiers, some of whom slept with their backs to the wall.

“First the snipers. Likely they are the only sentries out. Why would Mono and Don Alejandro need any others?”

“You intend to find the snipers?” Cardero was incredulous, but apparently ready to go along with the madness now. “How?”

“Simplest thing in the world as long as they keep firing, isn't it?” Jessica responded.

“Simple, maybe. Just watch the muzzle flashes,” Cardero commented, “but then what?”

“Then,” Jessie said with her own brand of logic, “Ki will take care of them.”

Cardero started to laugh, but Ki was thoughtful. As he looked out over the open ground between them and the burned town, a sniper did fire. He marked the position—it was unlikely the man would move. The sniper would have chosen what he thought was good cover, taken his canteen and perhaps a bottle with him, and settled in for the night's harmless fun of sniping at the Mexicans in the tower, keeping their nerves on edge, keeping them from sleeping before the next attack, and tagging one now and them.

“Then what, Jessica?” Ki asked quietly. “Suppose it can be done? What do we do after that?”

She answered, “Got any of that powder left?”

Ki and Diego exchanged a glance. “Some,” Ki replied. “Enough to keep our muzzle loaders in action for another day.”

“Or,” the blonde suggested, “enough to make one last whopping explosion. Right down Don Alejandro's throat.”

Nobody but Jessie was high on the plan, but she hammered at them until they admitted there wasn't any real alternative. If they didn't strike quickly that very night and strike decisively, there was every chance they would die, that every single man, woman, and child in the mission would die, that Mono would continue his depredations, that the cartel under Don Alejandro, as Brecht was calling himself, would continue.

No one liked the plan, but they decided to go ahead with it. Diego began making fuses. Jessie heard him mutter, “This better work. I'm down to my last cigar.”

Ki was also preparing himself to go out onto the plain and take out the snipers. For an hour he crouched behind the parapet, watching and at times rising and moving around intentionally drawing their fire. In the end he announced, “Five of them—I hope. Two in the gully, two to the south near that knoll, and one in the broken trees near the town.”

“You can see the camp, can't you?” Jessica asked and Ki nodded.

He could see Mono's camp, the camp of Don Alejandro—north of town, not far from the river where a bluff crumbled away. A small fire burned and that meant only one thing: The
bandidos
had made their night camp there.

“Sorry, Ki, if I've gotten you into something you don't like,” Jessie said, touching his arm briefly.

There was no need for apologies, no time to reconsider. Ki began to work his way toward the staircase, to move down into the night in his monk's robes. Maria was there at the head of the stairs.

“You are going out?” she asked. She bit her lower lip anxiously.

“Yes.”

Then there was nothing to say. Her hands rested on his shoulders and fell away after a light, meaningful kiss, and Ki was on his way.

The first one couldn't have been much easier. Ki found the sentry sleeping, a bottle propped up on his chest between his brown, gnarled hands. He never woke up as Ki applied pressure to the carotid arteries and slowly starved the brain of its blood. Ki took the man's Winchester and moved on, a dark, shadowy thing in the gully. The moon glossed the open land, shadowed the depressions deeply. The second sentry was wide awake and sober.

It didn't do him any good. Ki was a wraith, and as the startled guard brought up the knife he drew from his belt sheath, Ki blocked the thrust. His wrists crossed to catch the Mexican's wrist, deftly grabbing the arm and twisting. With the sentry off balance, Ki's knee smashed into his face, and he fell back, unconscious or dead—Ki didn't care which.

The next one was more of a problem. Alone in a small depression, he was surrounded by open ground. There was no way even Ki was going to approach unseen. As Ki, huddled in the gully, watched, the sniper fired twice at the bell tower. A bronze bell rang distantly and the reaction of the sniper's body seemed to express satisfaction. He got to his knees and peered toward the mission.

The
shuriken
was a soundless thing, whispering deadly threats as it spun from Ki's hand and caught the sniper in the eye. The man pawed at the throwing star and then collapsed.

Ki moved on, after taking that one's rifle as well. He glanced at the moon—how much time before dawn? How much time before Mono and his cartel boss decided to attack again?

The other two were awake but not alert. They were playing cards, drinking, and apparently only now and then rising to take a shot at the bell tower.

They took no more shots as Ki leaped between them, scattering cards and silver money. The narrow, scarred Mexican leaped up, trying to escape from Ki's onslaught. He couldn't escape, couldn't dodge the blow that Ki drove into the
bandido's
heart, stopping it immediately.

The other man was Halcón.

He had a pistol in his hand. Halcón was smiling, sure he had won. Ki, apparently surprised defenseless, had already planned his move against Halcón. Turning, he slapped out with his left hand, a seemingly futile and soft gesture, but the gun went flying as Halcón grabbed his broken wrist. Enraged, the Indian charged blindly. Ki's staggering blow stopped the bandit in his tracks, and as Halcón tried to fight back, Ki finished him with a middle-knuckle blow, a strike to the center of Halcón's forehead. Bone crushed beneath the master's hand, and the bandit, waving his hand uselessly, reflexively, went down to lie beside his dead companion.

Ki picked up the two Winchesters and started on, still glancing at the moon, counting the minutes, seconds. The low campfire burned ahead, dark against the willow-clotted river, and Ki looked to the knoll above it. Had Jessie and Diego made it? Was any of this going to work?

A bandit sentry appeared to Ki's right and he went to the ground, not wanting to risk another confrontation now that he was this close.

The wait was interminable as the sentry rolled a cigarette, muttered to himself, turned around, and walked back along the river toward the camp.

The sky was paling and Ki watched it anxiously, knowing that with the dawn the
bandidos
would be up and moving, knowing that without the night to cover his movements he had no chance at all.

He moved through the brush, smelling the damp sage and the river beyond, then climbing the sandy knoll to come face to face with a man and a Colt revolver.

“Jesus,” Diego Cardero rasped, lowering his weapon, “you can be too damned quiet, you know.”

Diego helped Ki up and together they walked to where Jessica Starbuck waited with her two barrels of black powder.

“Where have you been?” she asked Ki.

“Train was late.”

“They're starting to stir,” she whispered, and Ki peered downward, seeing the men in the bandit camp—some still asleep in their blankets, others gathering around the fire for morning coffee.

“Preparing for the slaughter?” Diego asked.

“Yes.” Jessie was impatient, and she was right. Do it now, before they were fully awake, before they were alert and ready to fight, before some chance movement, some casual glance toward the knoll, could give away the plan.

“Now,” Ki said, “light the fuses.”

Chapter 18

Jessie struck the first match and touched it to the crude rag fuse. Crude it might have been, but it worked. A sparkling, sputtering serpent writhed toward the can of black powder, and Jessica Starbuck rolled it down the bluff into the heart of the outlaw camp.

Heads lifted curiously. Then the
bandidos
leaped into panicky motion, diving toward cover.

It didn't do most of them any good. Five pounds of black powder went up with a flash and boom like a mountain thunderstorm. Ki and Diego opened up with their repeating rifles, picking off the fleeing outlaws. The second keg of gunpowder followed the first and the detonation killed a dozen men, tearing bodies apart and flinging them into the willows.

Horses bolted, The
bandidos,
many of them still uncertain as to what had happened and wandering aimlessly around the camp, were easy targets for the merciless Winchesters.

Through the screen of rising smoke, beyond the chaos of the camp, Ki saw the man he wanted. Mono, wildly gesturing, pistol in hand, was urging his men to take the knoll.

There wasn't a chance in hell of that as bandit after bandit went down before the rifles fired from above, fired until their barrels were red hot.

Mono took to his heels, and Ki saw his objective—the big bay horse apparently dazed and standing in the willows, already saddled, its reins trailing. Ki tried one shot; he missed as the bullet clipped brush beside Mono's head, and then he dropped the hammer of an empty chamber.

Mono was on his horse, riding northward, and Ki got to his feet.

“Ki!” Jessie cried, but there was no stopping him. He tossed his repeater to Jessica.

“Reload this and use it.”

Before Jessica Starbuck could respond, Ki was off at a run, following the bearded, maniacal bandit leader northward.

He ran easily, weaving through the tall willow brush with his heart pounding heavily but steadily in his chest. Mono was there ahead of him. The bandit turned in the saddle and emptied his Colt wildly in Ki's direction. Ki never slowed down. He ran on, splashing across the wide, shallow river to cut off Mono's escape.

Mono was riding hard, following the river. He was there and then he wasn't. Suddenly the land was empty; the distant shots Jessica and Diego fired were the only sounds.

Ki crouched, waiting and listening. A horse nickered and he lifted his head.

Mono charged out of the brush, trying to ride Ki down. Ki flung himself to one side, reaching out and grasping at Mono's leg. All he caught was stirrup and he held to that grimly as Mono kicked at him viciously and rode the horse into the stream.

The horse's right foreleg buckled as it found a hole in the river bottom, and Mono was thrown as the big bay rolled. The thrashing hooves of the frantic animal narrowly missed Ki's head and he dived under, coming up to face Mono who still had his Colt in his hand.

Ki kicked, driving the revolver from Mono's hand, and the bearded giant roared, while coming in and wildly thrashing his arms and winging his massive fists at Ki's head.