.45-Caliber Cross Fire Read online

  “Hold up,” he told Lusk, pulling back on Renegade’s reins.

  “What is it?”

  “A rider.” Cuno jerked his chin to where he’d spied the single rider sitting atop the hill, little more than a blue-yellow smudge against the southern horizon. But there was some white in the smudge, as well, as Cuno felt apprehension tingle along his spine as he reached back into his saddlebags for his spyglass.

  He telescoped the lens and brought the sage-stippled hill into focus. The smudge clarified into a slender, tan figure mounted on a cream horse. He couldn’t see much of her, but he could see enough to see that she was a woman—the same Yaqui queen he’d seen before trailing him and Camilla. Her bare legs and arms shone like liquid gold in the west-angling sun. Her face, angled toward Cuno, as though she were staring back at him, was a tan oval between the wings of her long black hair.

  Cuno glanced back at Lusk, who was directing a pair of army-issue field glasses toward the hill. The redheaded sergeant lifted his upper lip above his tobacco-brown teeth. “There she is. The little Yaqui she-devil her ownself.”

  “You’ve seen her before?”

  “Ojos del Fuego, the Mescins call her. Fire Eyes. Don’t know her real name, and I don’t know who started calling her Fire Eyes—or what hombre could have gotten close enough to see her eyes and live—but that’s what they call her around here, even up in Arizona. She’s the one leadin’ the Yaqui in these parts on their miserable war parties. She’s got several separate bands around Sonora and western Chihuahua, and she leads ’em all. Been devilin’ us since we crossed the border. We was out lookin’ for her when we ran into you.” Lusk ground his teeth. “Slippery bitch.”

  Cuno was staring again through his spyglass at the comely queen sitting her cream war pony like some vision out of an old Mexican legend. She sat so still, glowing golden, that she might have been a statue. Suddenly she lifted her carbine high above her head and held it there—a mocking, threatening salute of some kind.

  Then she lowered the rifle, reined the cream around, and disappeared down the other side of the hill. Gone, as though she’d only been a figment of Cuno’s imagination.

  “What the hell you suppose that meant?” Lusk said, lowering his field glasses.

  Cuno reduced his spyglass and slipped it into its saddlebag pouch. “I have a feelin’ she wasn’t welcoming us to Mexico.”

  Lusk chuckled. He booted his horse ahead, and Cuno reined the paint around, continuing to cast cautious glances behind him as he followed his guide for a mile or so across the desert, crossing a couple of shallow dry washes before dropping into a narrow canyon with fifty-foot limestone walls streaked with sandstone and granite and pocked with bleached, white dinosaur bones.

  Lusk stopped at a bend in the meandering canyon floor, raised an arm, and shouted his own name.

  Cuno saw the Gatling gun maw protruding from between two rocks in the right side of the canyon wall. A head covered in a straw sombrero rose from behind the Gatling gun, showing a bearded face with a cigarette dangling between its thick lips, and the gunner said, “Who’s your friend, Lusk?”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “No shit?”

  “Would I shit you, Carson?”

  Carson told Lusk to do something physically impossible to himself, and Lusk chuckled as he glanced at Cuno, and the two continued riding along the gravelly canyon bottom, rounding the bend past the Gatling gun and entering a broad area where green started to show, even a few ironwood and paloverde trees lining a thin stream that flowed out of the rocks on the canyon’s left side.

  Seven or so wagons were parked near the stream. On the stream’s other side, horses and mules were picketed in a long line, some now drinking water while men moved amongst them with feed bags and curry combs. Other men sat around fires on the canyon side of the stream, some sitting on rocks, playing cards, or sleeping in the shade of the paloverdes.

  From a quick count as he and Lusk approached the group, Cuno figured there were around twenty men here—some in uniform, some half in uniform, some in trail-worn civilian clothes. Those who’d helped him out with the Yaqui, including Sapp, were just now unsaddling their sweaty, dusty mounts. Sapp was talking to a tall, middle-aged man riding a steeldust army mount, and they both turned to Cuno and Lusk with interest. Cuno and Lusk drew their horses up to the tall man while Sapp set his saddle on his shoulder and led his horse to the stream.

  The tall man was smoking a long black cheroot. He sat regarding Cuno from beneath bushy eyebrows. His eyes were steel blue, his face broad and hard, the cheeks tapering severely to strong jaws. He wore a dark brown mustache flecked with gray. Muttonchop whiskers of the same color angled down to meet his lip corners with stiletto-sharp points.

  He was dressed like a gambler or a southern gentleman in a black plantation hat, black clawhammer coat, string tie, and whipcord trousers tucked down into high-topped, stovepipe boots. Two pearl-gripped .45s jutted from cross-draw holsters on both hips, and a bulge beneath the coat bespoke a shoulder gun.

  “Who’s your new friend?” he asked Lusk in the resonate, slightly gravelly voice of a longtime smoker, keeping the blue eyes, sharp and probing as knife blades, on Cuno.

  “Major Bennett Beers, meet Mr. Cuno Massey,” Lusk said, shuttling his gaze between the two.

  If Beers recognized the name, he didn’t let on. He didn’t extend his hand but only drew deeply on his cigar and said while letting the smoke trickle out his nostrils, “What brings you to Mexico?”

  Cuno wasn’t accustomed to such bald questions, and this one annoyed him. He saw no reason to lie, however. Whether these men were really soldiers or not, their being in Mexico was most certainly illegal. He had no idea if it was as illegal as Cuno’s business here—running from murder and other sundry hanging offenses—but those covered wagons and the hard looks of Beers and Sapp and Lusk and the others, he’d have bet silver dollars to navy beans it was. If not, they were obviously more concerned with their own business than trifling with one of the many wanted Anglos in Mexico.

  Cuno said, “Had a run of bad luck, decided to see if I could turn it down here.”

  Beers glanced at Lusk. “What do you think?”

  “I think he had run of bad luck north of the border, Major.”

  Beers turned back to Cuno. “You want a job, Massey?”

  Cuno glanced at the wagons and the other men milling around them, most looking toward Cuno while smoking or playing cards or breaking out bottles. The wagons were California rack-bed freighters—good, rough-country implements for hauling moderate-sized loads up and down steep mountains or rocky trails. They all appeared to have double-thick iron-shod wheels, reinforced undercarriages, drag shoes, and rough lock chains. Whatever they had on board was probably heavy, and since it was being hauled this far into Mexico, it must also be valuable.

  “We lost four men over the past couple of days to the Yaqui. I need scouts and drivers. If you’ve skinned a mule team before, I could use you in a wagon. Two dollars a day plus grub, whiskey, and group security. Down here, in case you hadn’t noticed, security is a mighty precious commodity.”

  Before Cuno could reply, someone said, “I’d take him up on it, Massey. Not too many lone wolves survive this deep in Mexico. Not even handsome young men still cutting their milk teeth.”

  A woman’s voice.

  Cuno shuttled his gaze beyond Beers to see the voice’s origin—a blonde about his own age sitting in one of the driver’s seats. She was dressed like a man and she was lounging back in the driver’s seat like a man, smoking a cigar similar to Beers’s, and she was holding a bottle of whiskey by its neck. She was even drunk like a man, eyes a little bleary, slurring her words.

  But the body inside her rough trail clothes was all female. And the brown eyes gazing admiringly across Beers at the parties’ new teamster was as female as the rest of her. To a dangerous degree, Cuno instinctively noted.

  Beers glanced over his shoulder at her and then turned back t
o Cuno. “Don’t mind her. That’s just Flora. And when I say don’t mind her, it’s for your own good. Flora may look as pretty and innocent as Christmas morning, but she’s as mean as a whole nest of slithering Mojave green rattlesnakes. She’s been known to cut a man’s throat for passin’ a single harmless glance across her tits.”

  Beers grinned broadly at Cuno, making his eyes narrow devilishly. “And she’s all mine.”

  8

  SPURR DROPPED TO a knee in the middle of the trail and traced the furrow of a wagon wheel with the index finger of his right hand.

  The furrow, which appeared here at the intersection of the trail he’d followed out of the pueblito and another trail swinging in from the east, was about two days old. If there’d been little wind through here, that was. If wind had obscured the furrows, it might be newer, but he didn’t think there’d been wind—you could tell by the amount of dust and broken branches on trees and shrubs, and the amount of leaves and mesquite beans on the ground—and certainly no rain.

  So the furrow could have been made by one of the wagons he was following, time-wise. But this track was narrower than those he’d seen before, leading away from Fort Bryce and taking the shortest route over the border into Mexico. So… while it could belong to one of the wagons belonging to the killers masquerading as soldiers who’d sacked Fort Bryce, it likely was not. Which meant, after a day of scouring the terrain south of the pueblito he’d never learned the name of, he still hadn’t cut the caravans’ sign.

  After he’d taken the blond gang member, Del Hammond, into custody, he’d found the two wagons belonging to Hammond’s party, and hid all three wagons loaded with rifles and ammunition as well as dynamite, in a narrow box canyon and closed off the mouth of the canyon with rocks and brush. Of course, anyone familiar with the area would likely find them, if they happened upon the canyon, but it was a chance that Spurr had had to take. He hoped that after he’d rescued Abel Hammerlich’s daughter he’d be able to somehow get the wagons back to the border, or summon the U.S. Cavalry to either destroy them and their contents or take them into custody.

  He’d spanked the mules back in the direction of the pueblito, where he hoped they’d be well cared for.

  Spurr cursed as he straightened and looked back at the coyote dun he was trailing behind his big roan, Cochise. The blond brigand he’d brained in the boneyard, Del Hammond, lay belly down across the coyote dun’s back, to which Spurr had lashed the killer’s saddle. He’d taken Hammond with him as a guide of sorts, because he hadn’t been sure what else to do with the man. The pueblito had boasted no hoosegow, and he couldn’t very well just turn the killer loose, though trailing him along as he followed the other killers would likely slow him up.

  And so far the man had been a tight-lipped trail guide…

  Spurr walked over to the coyote dun, down the left side of which Hammond’s head hung, one cheek pressed taught to the horse’s belly, just beneath his own blue-striped saddle blanket. Hammond wore no hat, because one wouldn’t stay on his head in such a position. So Spurr had stuffed the man’s hat into his saddlebags, and with a strip of cheap twine he’d tied a burlap swatch over the man’s head, to keep the sun from burning him raw. It made Hammond, whom Spurr had had run-ins with back in the Indian Nations, where Hammond and his brothers had sold whiskey to the Choctaw, look a little like an mannish old lady heading outside to hang wash on her line.

  Spurr had tied Hammond’s hands to his ankles beneath the horse’s belly. Now, as Spurr’s shadow fell across the killer’s head, Hammond blinked his eyes.

  “How you feelin’, Del?” Spurr said. “You enjoyin’ the ride, are ye?”

  Hammond licked his lips and squinted one eye up at the old lawman. “You’re an ugly old bastard.”

  Spurr knelt beside the man, the better for the outlaw to see him. The lawman pressed his index finger against Hammond’s cheek, through the burlap swatch. “If you were a little better trail company and told me exactly where your pards is headin’ and who they intend to sell them guns and ammo to, I’d allow you to ride right-side up, like a normal man, stead of some smelly, old cadaver being hauled to town for bounty.”

  “I don’t like you, Spurr.”

  “Don’t like myself sometimes.”

  “I gotta piss.”

  “Piss down your leg. Er…” Spurr grinned. “I reckon in your position it’d come down your sleeve, wouldn’t it?”

  “You old bastard—you don’t understand!” Hammond slammed his head against his horse’s side, gritting his teeth and causing his face to swell up between the flaps of his ridiculous scarf. “I don’t know where they’re headed. Bennett didn’t tell us—only that once we got there, we’d be rich enough to spend the rest of our lives in Mexico without ever havin’ to work again!”

  “Who is this Bennett Beers, anyway? That his real name?”

  Hammond let his head sag against his horse. His shoulders rose and fell as he breathed, a picture of frustration. “I can’t tell you that. Christ, you know what would happen to me if I so much as whispered a word about him?” His voice was shrill with exasperation, genuinely frightened.

  “Who’re they sellin’ the rifles and ammo to?”

  Hammond said nothing, just hardened his jaws and stared at the old lawman’s boots.

  “The girl still alive?”

  “I can’t tell you nothin’, damnit!”

  “All right.” Spurr sighed, rose, and walked back over to where Cochise stood, glancing back dubiously at the man hanging belly down over his horse. He wasn’t sure if Hammond knew the gang’s destination or not, but he had a feeling he did, and that it would just take time for the blond outlaw to tell him what he wanted to know.

  “Ain’t that a sorry sight, Cochise?” Spurr said, stepping into his saddle. “That ain’t the way a man’s s’posed to ride his horse, now, is it?” He glanced back at Hammond. “Just wait till tomorrow. Gonna be mighty sore after two days ridin’ with all the blood in his head and feet and his belly grinding against his backbone.”

  Spurr chuckled, clucked the big roan into motion, pulling the dun along behind by its reins, and heading off down the trail at a fast, jouncing trot. Chief Marshal Henry Brackett wouldn’t approve. But the chief marshal wasn’t alone down here in Mexico. Spurr was.

  Hammond’s voice quavered beneath his horse’s clomping hooves. “Spurr… you… son of a bitch!”

  They continued south across the Sonoran Desert, Spurr watching for sign of at least one of the three groups of wagons that had split up at the border. Finding one trail would lead to the other caravan, if both parties hadn’t already met up again. They likely had, as they were far enough from the border that they wouldn’t think any U.S. federals or even bounty hunters were clinging to their trail. This was Mexico, after all, and there was safety in numbers.

  By now, they were either expecting to meet up with Hammond’s party soon or looking for it. Which meant that Spurr had to keep a sharp eye out not only for wagon tracks but for a possible bushwhack. He’d be a hell of a lot less conspicuous if he weren’t trailing Hammond belly down across the dun.

  Later in the day they came to a jog of chalky buttes. Spurr knew from his map that the west fork of the Rio Yaqui, wet only part of the year, flowed through this area of central Sonora. He reined Cochise down, dismounted, and tied both his horse and Hammond’s horse in a clump of half-dead cottonwoods around which sparse tufts of relatively green grass grew. He left Hammond hanging silently across his saddle. The killer had stifled his screaming complaints lest he should attract Indians, banditos, or, just as bad for both him and Spurr, Mexican Rurales.

  Grabbing his Winchester, Spurr climbed a rocky trough between two buttes, moving as quickly as he could but taking it easy, as he felt a familiar throbbing in his chest. He pressed his fist against his breastbone, as though to quell the complaints of the tricky ticker, and kept climbing.

  He reached the crest of the buttes and found himself staring into a hundred-foot gorge on t
he other side. A dark stream about three feet wide and rippling softly across its rocky, sandy bed, hugged the base of the cliff directly below Spurr. The stream and the gorge continued to his right before curving away from him after sixty or so yards. Near the bend, he spied movement and quickly doffed his Stetson and ducked his head, nearly pressing his chin to the ground.

  He gave himself about fifteen seconds, hoping he hadn’t been seen, then lifted his head but kept his rifle down so the sun wouldn’t flash off its brass frame. With only the top of his head protruding above the crest of the gorge, he directed his gaze to a horseshoe bend on the stream’s far side. Someone stood on the edge of the stream, looking around, a carbine hanging by a rope lanyard down a tan back.

  Down the back, long, coarse black hair hung.

  Spurr’s weak ticker chugged and gurgled, and he felt a muscle in his cheek twitch.

  Yaqui.

  Feeling an instinctive fear of the formidable native Mexican warriors though he’d never run into one before, he looked around quickly, and found more milling about fifty yards to his left and downstream from him. There were roughly seven in the group gathered around as many ponies, and a gallant-looking cream stallion with a red tribal mark in the form of a circle on its left hip.

  Spurr drew his head back behind a boulder on his left, shielding himself from the downstream warriors, continuing to hear his blood wash in his ears, and turned his attention upstream. A look of surprise flashed over his craggy, leathery features, and he narrowed his eyes.

  He’d assumed that the Yaqui he’d seen standing downstream from him was a buck. But he saw now that the bare-legged, bare-armed Indian just now wading into the stream and kneeling down in it and beginning to slowly cup water to her arms, was just about as female as females got. He could see little but rough details, and they were enough.

  Spurr felt his old heart hammer wickedly as he hunkered low and watched the girl, done washing her arms, suddenly lift her hands to her deerskin vest, which was all she wore on her torso. Throwing her long, rich mane of indigo hair back behind her shoulders, she opened the vest. Crouching low over the sliding stream that flashed in the waning sunlight, she splashed water to her chest and under her arms.