The Abilene Trail Page 8

  “Why deliver only half the steers now?”

  “Maybe to size us up,” Ben said. “I mean, if they think they could get the money and steal back the steers they could sell them to someone else and play the same trick on them.”

  “Hard to tell bandits from the good guys down here.” Hap looked off toward the river. “Kinda wish we had them Spencers you’re buying.”

  “It would be nice.” Using a kerchief from his back pocket for a pot holder, Ben poured himself a fresh cup of coffee. He gazed over at the jackals on the hillside bathed in the bloodred of sundown.

  “They coming back?”

  “They’ll be here. Maybe a little drunk on cactus juice and worn out from their attempts to conquer and subdue the entire puta population. But they’ll be coming.”

  He looked again toward the sounds coming from Mexico and smiled. Those whooping-it-up riders hitting the river abreast were his drovers. Thank God.

  “Going to be hard, Ben,” Hap said.

  “How’s that?” Ben asked, looking through the vapors off his too-hot-to-drink cup.

  “Having to listen to all that bravado about what lovers they are.” Hap chuckled and stirred the bean kettle with a long wooden spoon. “Glad I ain’t that young all over again.” He put both hands on his hips and straightened. “Why, it makes my back ache to think about it.”

  Ben nodded that he heard him. The boys were all back—no, he could see Miguel was missing. He hoped that boy was careful. No way they’d play nice, if what he suspected really existed. He kicked a pile of dry horse apples asunder—no one said his plans for this Kansas drive would all be smooth.

  Chapter 9

  “Not going to be much moon tonight,” Chip said, squatting down beside Ben.

  “Maybe why they wanted to put off selling me these steers until now,” Ben said, watching the pearly starlight on the rippled surface of the Rio Grande.

  “Could be. I heard the cattle earlier.”

  “They have some over there. Better be big steers or I’m not taking them.”

  “What’s keeping Miguel?” Mark asked.

  Ben shook his head. He set the Spencer aside and leaned it against the small mesquite tree. They had a good view of the river from their vantage point despite the lack of moonlight. Perhaps all his concern about bandits were unfounded; still, it never paid to take chances.

  The sound of the water rushing by, night insects buzzing, and a few lonely coyotes howling made the night’s orchestration. Once in a while some loud voices carried over from the village, but nothing much.

  “I spent lots of night’s like this with the rangers,” Chip said. “Course, I was sweating some Comanches sneaking up and whacking me over the head. You can get so uptight you want to scream too.”

  “Like war, it’s hell,” Ben said.

  “Rider coming.”

  Ben agreed, making out the outline. Maybe it was Miguel; he hoped so.

  He straightened and swept up the rifle. “I’ll go see what he knows.”

  “Señor McCollough?” the voice asked.

  Definitely not Miguel’s voice. Ben shifted the rifle in his hands and cocked the hammer. “Sí.”

  “Some banditos, they are holding Miguel, señor.”

  “How did you know me?”

  “I am Miguel’s cousin, Toledo. He was talking to a puta named Mia and these two banditos jumped him. They took him to a cathouse.”

  Was this a trap? Ben would have to chance it. Miguel was working for him. “Who are the banditos? You know their names?”

  “No, but they are bad hombres. They work for Salano.”

  “Who’s he?” Ben asked, hoping for an answer to his own question about the man.

  The youth shook his head. “He owns some cantinas and a cathouse.”

  “Does he have many bad hombres work for him?”

  “Sí, some bad ones.”

  “This place where they have him, can we get Miguel out alive?”

  “Oh, I hope so.”

  “Chip, get three horses. I’ll wake up the boys. We better get going.” He turned to Toledo. “Can you use a gun?”

  He held out his hands. “I can use one, but I don’t have one.”

  “I’ll load you one. Don’t shoot me or my men is all I ask.”

  “Sí, Señor McCollough.”

  He already was covering the sandy ground to the bedrolls. “Everyone up; we’ve got big problems.”

  “Huh?”

  “Hap, you, Digger, and Billy Jim need to guard the camp. Salano’s men have taken Miguel prisoner.”

  “Taken Miguel? What we going to do?” Hap asked, jerking on his pants.

  “Mark, Chip, Toledo, and I are going over there and get him out.”

  “It could be a trap.” Hap jerked his belt tight.

  “Could be. You watch things. We don’t come back, you boys may as well go home. Loan me your pistol,” Ben said to Hap.

  He handed it over to him. “Like hell we’re leaving you or them here—”

  “Hap, if the four of us can’t handle it, an army can’t.”

  “Damn it, Ben, be careful.”

  He nodded with the extra pistol in his waistband and hauled his saddle to the outline of the horses that Chip had returned with. The blanket in place, he threw on the saddle and reached under for the cinch. His mind ran through a thousand things.

  “Here, Toledo.” Handing him the handgun, he said, “Boys, we don’t need to shoot each other. We need to be ready, but use a split second’s worth of caution too.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They mounted up and crossed the river. Toledo led the way; he swung them around the village so they came in from the south. Ben thought he could see the bedded-down cattle on a starlit flat. They rode up a steep trail to the back of some houses, dismounted, and hitched their reins to some mesquite brush.

  Toledo pointed to the crest and a sprawling building with several lights in scattered windows. Ben considered a plan. If he and Toledo went into the place, secured one of the working girls, and got her to lead them to Miguel, maybe they could get in and out with little bloodshed or shooting.

  “Chip, you and Mark stay here. If we can get to him, we may be coming on the run. Be ready to ride.”

  “Yes, sir. You need us, we’ll sure come help.”

  “I understand, but we take too many up there, it might wake up some sleeping giant.”

  “I savvy that,” Chip said.

  “We’ll be here, Ben, if you need us,” Mark said.

  Ben acknowledged that he’d heard him and started after Toledo.

  “You know this place?” he asked with his Colt in his hand.

  “Some. I been here a few times.”

  “Good.”

  They entered through the back way. The youth led the way. Toledo pointed to a shadow and both drew back. Ben could smell the strong musk of females—perfume and powder. That mixed with stale cigar smoke, whiskey, men’s sweat, and body odors saturated the air in the dark side hallway.

  Mumbling and singing to himself, a tall man came down a well-lit hall and turned in to the dark one where they stood against the wall. Ben bounced a gun barrel over his head and he collapsed. With the unconscious man rolled over, Ben ripped the handgun from his holster.

  “One of Salano’s men,” Toledo whispered.

  “Good, we’ve got one less. Do we have to check all these rooms for him?” He jammed the man’s handgun behind his belt buckle.

  “I don’t know which one he could be in.”

  “Someone does. They know where he’s at.”

  Toledo nodded, then looked down the hall and waved for Ben to follow him. Their way dimly lit by small, smoky candles at intervals, they hurried down the tile floor in the narrow confines. They stopped and listened at some loud hacking. A tough-talking guy in one of the rooms was coughing and ordered someone to get him some tequila—muy pronto.

  A door began to open, and both of them froze against the wall. Unsuspecting, a woman cl
osed the door with her back to them. Toledo reached out clamped his hand over her mouth and jerked the wide-eyed, scantily clad girl to him.

  “Where are they holding Miguel?” Ben hissed his best Spanish in her ear.

  She shook her head.

  “Damn it, where does Salano take his prisoners?”

  This time she indicated down the hallway. Ben motioned for Toledo to take her that way.

  “Don’t scream or we’ll kill you,” Toledo said, and she agreed to his terms. Free of his hand over her mouth, she breathed heavily. She was hardly more than a teenager, but he hurriedly pushed her on. Ben kept their backs covered until she indicated two doors. Ben swung her and the youth back out of the way, filled his fists with both pistols, and used his boot heel to crash open the double door.

  A puta screamed. In the dim light, a tall hombre went for his gun—too late. Ben snapped off a shot and sent him flying backward. Acrid gunsmoke boiled in the room and the candles went out. Someone crashed out the side window, and Ben tried to recall where he had last caught sight of Miguel, bound up in a chair.

  He holstered his gun and took the skinning knife from behind his back. “See where they went. I’ll get Miguel.”

  “They’re getting away.” And Toledo began firing his pistol out the window. Miguel was limp and cold when Ben touched the back of his hand to his face. He slashed the ropes binding him, put his knife away, bent over, and slung the boy’s body over his shoulder.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said to the youth standing by the starlit window.

  “Good idea.” Toledo raced over to the doorway. At the report of a pistol shot in the hallway, he jerked back.

  “Out the window,” Ben said. “We’ve got hornets stirred up in here.” He ducked low to clear the unconscious Miguel through the casing, then stepped out onto the ground. A couple of doves were screaming at the top of their lungs. They may have been before, too, but Ben had been too busy to notice it.

  Toledo fired a few more shots at the building to cover their retreat. No one returned fire. Chip and Mark came leading the horses with their guns drawn.

  “Ben, what’s happening?”

  “Mount up. We’ve got Miguel.”

  “He okay?”

  “Can’t tell. He’s out right now.”

  “What did they do to him?”

  “He’ll have to tell us.”

  “Were the girls in there pretty?” Mark asked, backing up at Ben’s elbow with his gun drawn.

  “About the same as the rest,” Ben said, putting the boy’s body over the saddle. Mark helped him load Miguel and held the horse. Then Ben stepped up into the saddle to hold him over his lap.

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  When they splashed across the Rio Grande, Ben’s back stopped itching. He felt relieved to see his three-man crew rush forward.

  “What happened?” Hap asked as Chip and Mark eased Miguel down.

  “They’re going to double-cross us, Señor Ben. They are going to deliver the steers, then stampede them back across the river,” Miguel managed in a weak voice, when they lowered him onto a blanket.

  “I thought so,” Ben said. He knelt beside the pale-faced youth while someone held up the lantern from the wagon so he could see. “Any wounds?”

  “No, but my head’s sore where they beat on it,” Miguel replied.

  “Lay there; you’ll get to feeling better.”

  “I am so glad to be out of that place. Whew.”

  “Who all was there?” Ben asked.

  “Some guy named Salano—I don’t know the others.”

  “What now, Ben?” Hap asked.

  “I’m thinking of a way to welcome them.”

  “You mean you’d do business with those crooks and murderers?” Hap gave him a disapproving scowl.

  “If I can get the cattle I need and get out of here, I don’t give damn if they’re sissies.”

  The boys chuckled.

  “Hap, you and two of the boys take your shotgun and my rifle; ride upstream. I figure the rustlers’ll be coming across before daylight. If they’re sending anyone over to stampede our cattle, they’ll cross up there, because they need to get around us to stampede the cattle back across the river. Downstream is too open for them not to be seen.”

  “What’ll you do?”

  “When they bring them across, I’ll look over the steers, count ’em, and buy ’em if they fit.”

  “But what if—”

  “If you three can stop them so they can’t stampede them back into the river, the rest of us may stampede them toward home.”

  Hap nodded in the candle’s reflected light. “What about Miguel?”

  “I’ll be fine,” the youth said in a hoarse voice.

  “In the wagon you’ll be safe,” Ben said. “Toledo, you want to go to Kansas?”

  “Ah, sí, señor.” A smile spread over his dark face in the firelight.

  “You’re hired. Get Miguel comfortable in that wagon and fix him up with a loaded gun. Billy Jim, gather the horses and tie them on a picket line. I don’t want them run off in the confusion. Then get back here; we’ll need you and every gun we got.”

  “Yes, sir.” And he ran off to obey.

  “I’s help him,” Digger said, and headed off into the night.

  “I’m taking Mark and Chip with me,” Hap announced. “When we figure we’ve turned them back or they don’t come, we’ll come back and help you.”

  “Sounds good. Don’t take any chances, boys. I need you healthy.” That did not leave him with the most experienced hands, but he nodded. In minutes, two of the three were busy saddling horses, and Hap was digging out his brass twelve-gauge shells from a wooden ammo box in the wagon.

  Billy Jim was standing close by when Ben poured himself a cup of coffee. “Guess this is some of that stuff you talked about?”

  “It is. I didn’t mean for it to happen so soon.”

  “Well, we signed on.”

  He smiled at the youth. “Bill, we’re going to get those steers like he promised me, and we’re going to Kansas, too. Going to be a cold day in hell before some two-bit border bandit outdoes you and me.”

  “I’ve been blowing holes in them cactus too,” he bragged.

  “I know you have. Guess Salano and his bunch should have been warned.”

  “They should have been.”

  “Better get a little shut-eye. I’ll watch things and see about Miguel. We’ve got cattle coming in the morning.”

  “ ’Night.”

  “ ’Night, Mr. Ben,” Digger said. “All them hosses be tied up close, like you say.”

  “Good, get a little sleep. Toledo, look in them pans if you haven’t eaten. Hap usually has something left to gnaw on.”

  “Sí.” The youth went to rummage for something. “When will you go to Kansas?”

  “When the grass greens in March. Until then I wanted to graze these cattle and settle them down, cut out the wildest ones. There’s a blanket in the wagon to wrap up in; going to be cold around here in another hour.” He tested the north wind by turning his face to its force—it had been trying to blow in all afternoon.

  Blanket on his shoulders, he heard the distant pop of Hap’s double-barrel scattergun. Double-shot buck from the muzzle of a Greener was a sure stopper at close range. Chip must be levering rounds from the Spencer, for the sounds of the shots were too smooth. So they had their heads down. Those bandits caught off guard in the faint light of the moon, crossing the river, could only hit the side of a barn if they were lucky.

  Digger set up in his blankets. “I better go see what’s happening, Mr Ben.”

  “Got your Colt loaded?” Ben asked.

  “Oh, yes, sir.”

  “Digger, be careful; they may think you’re one of the bandits.”

  “I be singing ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ when I gets close.”

  Ben chuckled. They ought to know no bandit could sing that song. “Go see.”

  After a half hour
of his worrying, Ben heard horses and voices. He rose, shifted the Colt on his hip, and waited.

  “Them bandits ain’t coming back,” Hap said when he rode in close and put his shotgun in the wagon by the seat. “When they was halfway across I stood up and told them in Spanish if they was rustlers, they better get their asses back to Mexico, and all hell broke loose. So I figured we had the right ones.”

  Ben agreed—he’d had lots of faith in his ex-noncom’s expertise at leading a patrol.

  Billy Jim was up by then, taking their horses and asking questions.

  “I don’t know, Bill, I ain’t never killed a man before,” Mark said, sounding troubled.

  “Don’t get no easier either,” Chip said. “Won’t ever get no easier.”

  Ben let the boys talk. Times like this, spilling your guts helped.

  “How many?” he asked Hap.

  “I think a dozen to fifteen. They came riding quiet. We let them get in the middle of the river before I challenged them. Then they opened fire. Caused the confusion I expected when we shot back. Hated about the horses getting shot, but we couldn’t pick targets, only silhouettes.”

  Ben agreed and walked over to Mark. “Ain’t nothing anyone can say. It’s a tough deal. But I’d sure rather have him in the river floating for the gulf and you all unharmed.”

  “I understand, Ben,” Mark said. “He wouldn’t turn back. Kept coming. He could have reined his horse around. He was in the middle of the river—kept coming at me, shooting and screaming.”

  “You did what you had to do.”

  “I didn’t think I could—I mean, shooting at them was one thing. But it came down to me and him.”

  Ben clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, but we’ve got more rivers to cross between here and there.”

  “I know. I won’t wait the next time.”

  “ ’Night, boys,” Ben said, and went back to the wagon.

  Hap handed him his whiskey bottle. Ben took a swig. The firewater cut all the way down to his stomach. It even cut the film off his teeth.

  Your son did some growing up tonight, Jenny. That smart-mouthed ranger boy might make a real hand, and even Billy Jim would do. He shook his head at Hap’s offer of another drink. Morning was only hours away.