‘Robles!’ he said. ‘Leave them.’

  The small man left without an argument, though he threw angry scowls towards Waco. Pushing back his chair Tortilla made a sign, the music started again and the girl resumed her dance. The bandido leader rose and walked towards the bar where Waco and the Kid leaned.

  ‘I apologize for Robles, gentlemen,’ he said, nodding to Phillipe who reached for a bottle.

  ‘Keep your hands above the bar top!’ growled the Kid, sounding mean as all hell and watching Phillipe.

  ‘A wise precaution, señor,’ remarked Tortilla. ‘You seem to have been around more than a little.’

  ‘Let’s say we weren’t neither of us born yesterday, or the day afore,’ the Kid answered.

  ‘I’ve seen you somewhere before, señor.’

  ‘Likely, I’ve been there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Somewhere.’

  From the way he let out the last word the Kid considered that line of conversation now closed. Tortilla had good men at his back, but he didn’t aim to push the two salty Tejanos any, they looked like they would push back fast and forcibly at any man who tried. So he took the easy way out. Throwing back his head he roared with laughter.

  ‘You are making the funny,’ he said, and bellowed forth another laugh. ‘Now drink, señores. Is all on Tortilla, whom I am.’

  With that Tortilla headed back to his table and the pleasure of watching the girl dance. After a few minutes she decided enough was plenty and came to a stop, then jumped down to flop on to Tortilla’s knee and lock her arms around his neck.

  ‘How long do we stay here, Tortilla?’ asked Robles.

  Forcing his head from the girl’s thrust up face, Tortilla looked at the other man and grinned. They spoke Spanish and the two Tejanos did not show any sign of understanding.

  ‘Until the man comes to pay for the meat. Then we take it where he wants it and after that look for more cattle.’

  Although they gave no sign of understanding both the Kid and Waco knew every word spoken. They also knew that Joel had called things right. Tortilla had been behind the slow-elking and Jackie’s death. Now he awaited the arrival of a man who would buy the meat.

  Time ticked by. The Kid and Waco could guess that by now their friends had the place surrounded. So far Tortilla’s men had no thought of their danger. The time had come to move on, get out while the going was good.

  ‘How far to the border, barkeep?’ asked the Kid.

  ‘You are leaving, señor?’ asked Tortilla, extracting himself from the girl’s hot-lipped kisses for a moment.

  ‘Sure, we want to be south of the line as soon as we can.’

  ‘Then I wish you luck.’

  At that moment the door started to open. The Kid and Waco exchanged glances. Nobody ought to be coming in and yet the door swung open and a shape loomed at it. A shape they both knew and who in the moment the door opened recognized them.

  ‘What the—!’ began the man, his hand lifting and pointing at the two Texans. ‘If this’s a trick—’

  ‘Waco!’

  The Kid barked one word, all he needed to say. Waco flung himself to one side, his gun coming into his hands as he headed for the side door. At the same moment the Kid went forward, racing for the main entrance. The bar lights glinted on steel, shining steel of the bowie knife in his left hand, dull blued on the barrel of his Dragoon Colt in the right. A man came up, hand fanning at a gun butt. The old Colt boomed like a young cannon, its round, soft lead ball smashed into the man’s chest and threw him off his feet, into a bunch of his amigos who planned to intervene but left it a mite too late.

  From the corner of his eye Waco saw Robles rear up, knife sliding out. The young Texan’s left hand Colt turned and roared, Robles went down, his knife dropping at his feet. Then Waco saw the side door, saw too its bolt lay closed. There would be no time to start fooling with the bolt, so Waco took the only way out. He swerved on the run, hearing lead slap by his head. Apparently one of the yelling, startled bunch had a gun out even if he didn’t shoot too well. Ahead lay a window and Waco hurled at it, arms coming up to protect his head, holding the Stetson hat firmly in place. He hit the window, going through it, carrying glass, frame and sash with him.

  ‘It’s me!’ he yelled as he lit down rolling on the ground outside.

  ‘I was expecting maybe General Robert E. Lee?’ yelled back Red’s voice. ‘Get those fingers off the triggers, you bunch!’

  With long strides Waco raced across the open, swinging off out of the light and feeling the welcome shadows close in on him. He reached the trees and at the same moment a hideous scream, cut off into a low gurgle, came from the front of the cantina.

  Waco started to turn but Red’s hand caught his arm and held him.

  ‘Quit it, you young fool!’ Red snarled. ‘I’ll bust your head if you try and go back.’

  ‘Damn it to hell, Red!’ Waco hissed back. ‘That might have been the Kid!’

  ‘I know that!’ Red’s voice sounded low, vicious and savage. ‘But even if it was you can’t do a damned thing.’

  Confusion and pandemonium reigned in the cantina. Tortilla’s bunch were all more or less under the influence of Phillipe’s ripe old tequila and fuddled by the turn of events. Even Tortilla, most sober and dangerous of them all, found himself hampered and impeded by the terrified girl clinging to his neck and screaming fit to wake the devil.

  The Kid raced across the room, making for the still half open door. Before him stood Manny Meyer, owner of a store in Teckman, holder of a contract to supply beef to the Army post outside city limits. Only it looked like he aimed to hold his purchase price down by buying stolen meat.

  From their first meeting the Kid had never cared for Meyer and it had nothing to do with the other man’s Hebraic extraction. With a father who had been an Irish-Kentuckian and a mother with Comanche and French-Creole blood the Kid could hardly set himself up over any man for his birth and would not. His dislike of Meyer stemmed from many things, including an unproved suspicion that the other man had been behind the selling of liquor which sparked off a bloody Kiowa reservation riot and cost several lives.

  Right now Meyer half-heartedly blocked the Kid’s way to freedom, a thing on a par, for danger, to standing between a starving grizzly bear and the only way out of a cave.

  Meyer dropped his hand, shoving aside his coat and reaching for the butt of his gun. He hesitated as the Kid rushed nearer, then fell back a pace. The gun came out, but the knife licked across in a backhand slash as the Kid kicked open the door. He heard Meyer scream, felt the knife blade bite home, sink in, heard the scream die off in a hideous croaking and felt blood gush out over his hand. Then he passed through the door in a rolling dive. He had heard the window shatter behind him and Waco’s yell. The boy looked to have got out safe which was all the Kid cared about.

  Running as fast as he could the Kid made the trees, felt a hand grip his arm and haul him into the safety and cover of a tall tree. Mark looked at him, relief showing even in the shadowy shelter of the tree.

  ‘You hit?’ Mark asked.

  ‘Nary a scratch.’

  ‘The boy?’

  ‘He went through the window over to the side there. After that I don’t know,’ replied the Kid.

  A yell from the other side of the building, around Red’s section, cut off any further speech making. Mark and the Kid knew that voice, knew it and felt the relief bounce through them.

  ‘Mark! Dusty!’ yelled Waco. ‘Is Lon out safe?’

  ‘Safe as I could be, boy!’ called the Kid.

  At that moment the door of the cantina slammed closed and lights started to go out. Tortilla didn’t aim to give in without a fight, that was for sure.

  Inside the cantina Tortilla had hurled the girl aside, too late to stop the two Tejanos leaving and making good their escape. He put life into the excited and yelling bandidos. One look told him Robles would never rise again, the man the Kid shot lay sprawled on top of a table, blood spurting and oozing as his life twitched away. Meyer sat by the door, his back to the wall, his unfired gun at his side, his head tilted back and under his chin lay a terrible gash which exposed flesh, the windpipe, almost to the bone. Blood gushed from the wound, his white shirt was white no longer.

  Everything had happened so fast that Tortilla and his men could not co-ordinate their efforts for seconds after the abrupt departure of the Ysabel Kid and Waco.

  ‘Out with the lights!’ Tortilla yelled. ‘Shut that door!’

  Both orders were obeyed, light after light flickering out, men grabbing their weapons and heading for cover, some to the kitchen, others to the small side rooms. Behind the bar Phillipe stood and shuddered. How long would it take Tortilla to start thinking, and ask how come Phillipe had not recognized the two Texas men.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Battle of Phillipe’s Cantina

  For a few moments after the Kid and Waco made their escape from the cantina and all the lights flickered out inside, nothing happened. Both inside and out the waiting men listened for the first hostile sound.

  Hondo Fog had been a lawman for several years, more than he liked to remember. This was no new situation to him and he knew how to handle it. He had good men at his back, maybe as many on hand as had Tortilla inside and maybe even better with their guns.

  Now the problem was how to get Tortilla and his men out of the cantina with as little loss of life as possible. Which meant a rush at the door was out, so was the thought of mass charge from all sides. At men hidden behind stout adobe walls that would be nothing less than suicide.

  ‘Tortilla!’ Hondo called.

  ‘I am here, señor!’ came the reply from inside.

  ‘We’ve got you surrounded, light the lamps, then come out with your hands raised high.’

  A cackle of laughter came back, derisive and wild. ‘You come on in and get me, hombre.’

  ‘We can do that, too!’ Hondo answered. ‘Buck!’

  ‘I hear you, Uncle Hondo!’

  ‘Turn their hosses loose!’

  ‘Loose they are!’

  Buck’s reply anticipated the event by five minutes, it having taken him that long to inch around in the dark and throw open the log pole gate of the corral and dive for cover as lead ripped from the cantina towards him. His men knew what to do, they yelled, whooped, fired shots in the air and startled the corral horses out through the gates. In the confusion Buck made good his return to cover.

  ‘Your hosses are gone, Tortilla!’ Hondo called. ‘It’s only a matter of time. Come on out!’

  ‘NEVER!’

  ‘How about your men?’ countered Hondo and repeated the speech in Spanish.

  He knew he would never make bandidos like that bunch surrender without a fight. Bom in a land where ley fuga, the law of being shot while trying to escape even when not trying to escape, was standard practice among law enforcement officers, no Mexican bandido would give himself up while there was a cat in hell’s chance of fighting clear.

  ‘My men stand with me!’ Tortilla answered. ‘If you want us come and get us!’

  There Hondo had it. He gave the men their chance to come out, now they must be shot out, fired upon until either they were dead or surrendered. Only Hondo wanted the firing to be controlled, not wild with lead flying every which way.

  ‘Tell the boys to take time out to make sure of their cover, Dusty,’ he ordered. ‘And tell them I don’t want any heroes. They’ll stay under cover and shoot until I give the order to move in, which won’t be while there’s a chance of any of them taking lead.’

  ‘Yo!’ came Dusty’s cavalryman answer.

  Passing around the circle of men Dusty gave his orders, or his father’s orders, for the way they would carry on the fight. He collected Waco on the way for the youngster preferred to be around the floating outfit’s members unless urgent duty took him elsewhere. The word passed from man to man, soon all knew what they must do and all affirmed their intention and ability to do it.

  Yet through the night there could be but little doing. Tortilla, like a wise general, looked to his position. Inside the cantina’s adobe walls, reasonably safe from Winchester rifle bullets the cowhands rarely carried weapons of greater power than the .44.28 caliber model of 1866 or the .44.40 Model of 1873; his men faced danger only when exposed at a window. They had food in plenty, water or wine to last them for days—but ammunition would need careful nursing. They had only what rested in their belt loops, or the straps slung over their shoulders. So they must not waste any of it.

  ‘Keep down!’ he ordered. ‘Don’t start shooting until we know how things look out there.’

  All his life Tortilla had been an incurable optimist. He believed firmly that some divine power shielded him from the fate of lesser bandidos. It had been this belief which led him to lead his own band and pull audacious raids which somehow seemed to pay off. It led him north of the line, north of his usual haunts, to raid an area most owlhoots, Mexican or American, would have steered well clear of. Now he felt sure that it would take him out of this hole, that things might not be as bad as they seemed.

  Dawn’s arrival showed Tortilla he was right. Things weren’t as bad as they seemed, they were a damned sight worse.

  Hondo Fog had never risen above the rank of major in the Texas Light Cavalry but he also had the capabilities of a wise general. He gave the word that the men should pair up in their cover, one to sleep, the other to watch, turn about through the night and all to be awake when the first light of dawn showed. A fair percentage of the men had ridden in the Texas Light during the war and all knew how to take and obey orders.

  The men, all of whom were used to sleeping where they could, all managed to get some sleep during the waiting hours and all were awake and alert at dawn.

  The side door slid open slowly, inching away, first a tiny slit, then widening. Red Blaze watched this, he swung the Spencer carbine and lined it as a man stepped out. The man held a Winchester carbine and stepped forth warily, his face gaunt and wolf-savage in the cold half-light of dawn.

  ‘Hold it!’ Red snapped.

  Whipping up the carbine waist high the Mexican fired a single shot, but it ripped a chunk of wood from the tree behind which Red stood. The old Spencer boomed in reply and the man whirled around, crashed into the door, then slid down. His arrival in such a manner caused the men inside some worry for he blocked open the door. Already lead from Red’s party began to pour in through the open door, slashing and tearing through the air even if it hit nothing. A man crawled along the wall, bent and grabbed the dying bandido’s hand, then dragged him bodily back into the room. At the other side another man slammed the door closed and lead drummed on, passing through but too spent to do further damage.

  Red’s shot brought on a rapid volley from all around the building as both sides, keyed up by waiting, began to bombard the other’s positions. Soon it would be light enough to see everything clearly and Hondo gave the order to hold fire until they might see what they shot at.

  All around the building the Texans took up their positions with fight-wise eyes. Pete Blaze put his knowledge of the cantina to good use by scaling into the stout branches of a tree and sitting there, rifle held ready and able to cover a kitchen window, look into one of the bedrooms. He also, and more important from his point of view, could see over the low wall and to the flat top of the cantina with a trapdoor in the center.

  Shortly after the sporadic fighting brought on by Red, Pete saw the trapdoor inch up. He rested his Winchester on a limb and gave a low whistle which brought Johnny Raybold, who had been his pardner through the night, to the foot of the tree.

  ‘They’re coming!’ Pete mouthed and Johnny’s nod told he understood.

  A man’s head showed through the trapdoor, then he started to crawl out, a slim, savage looking half-breed holding a Sharps carbine. The door stayed up and a second man emerged, carrying a Le Mat rifle from the look of it.

  Pete did not fire without warning, even though his position would be no insecure one if under fire from men on the roof top.

  ‘Drop the ri—!’

  He never reached the end of the third word. The Sharps carbine lashed up into a shooting position slightly ahead of the Le Mat and into its user Pete threw his first bullet. The man spun around and pitched forward, stumbling and reeling towards the edge of the low wall. A volley of shots ripped up into him and he crumpled forward over the edge.

  Pete saw none of this for now he had troubles of his own. The second man made a flying dive, landing under the shelter of the low wall. Now Pete had trouble for he sat out there, exposed like a coon on a log and just waiting for a redbone hound to swim out and haul him off—only it wouldn’t be a hound, it would be a bullet from that Le Mat rifle, the barrel of which was already inching out into view.

  Down below Pete, alert and watchful, Johnny saw the rifle and read its message correctly. He rested his Winchester against the side of the tree and aimed with some care. Then he touched off a shot and saw dirt erupt from the wall an inch to the right. Without even thinking about what he did Johnny levered home another bullet and touched the trigger. This time his bullet struck the barrel of the Le Mat, throwing it into the air just as its user pressed the trigger. The bullet went into the air, the rifle spun from its user’s grasp and he turned to dive headlong towards the open trapdoor.

  He almost made it. Pete’s rifle beat a tattoo, dirt spurts rising in line behind the man, inching up on him. One struck home, then another, even as the Mexican’s head and shoulders passed over the lip of the trapdoor. Slowly the body slid on, going out of sight, falling down the ladder resting up to allow exit through the trap door. The trap collapsed as the man fell through and Pete breathed a sigh of relief. He did not believe there would be another attempt to use the roof as long as he could stay where he was.

  ‘Watch those downstairs windows!’ he ordered his party. ‘I feel sort of exposed up this ways!’

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17