Amigos in arms, p.9
Amigos in Arms, page 9
“I’m looking for my sisters,” he told her.
It was only when the last of the cell doors was opened that Burrell was reunited with his sisters. It was a tearful reunion, with the girls clinging to their big brother. They were both very shaky and weak from the fever that had laid them low.
“Oh, Burrell, they killed Ma and Pa. It was awful. We just wanted to die.”
“When we saw you come in, we thought you had come to take us back.”
“There, there, hush now. You are safe. I’ll take care of you.”
Burrell introduced his sisters to Dorthea, Jackson, and Marianna. There was a lot of noise as the liberated prisoners chattered amongst themselves. They milled around, seemingly unable to grasp the fact that they were free. Among them was a black man whose face was badly swollen from a beating. The sisters called to him, and he approached cautiously.
“Burrell,” Valerie said, “this is Hector. He tried to help us.”
“These girls are my sisters. You got my gratitude for whatever you tried to do for them.”
“They wanted to use these young girls,” the black man told them. “When I objected, I got in trouble. Cesar called me a lot of bad names. When I went for him, some of my so-called pals grabbed me and held me while Cesar did this.” He pointed to the bruises on his face. “Then Cesar had me locked up. I think he had plans for me when he got back. He likes to make people suffer.”
“He’s one sadistic bastard, all right,” Burrell said.
He reached out and grasped Hector’s hand, then introduced him to the rest of his little party. As they finished acknowledging each other, Burrell looked around at the men and women they had freed. They were obviously bewildered by the sudden change in their fortunes, standing about not knowing what to do with their newfound freedom.
“Let’s get these people out of here,” Burrell said. “They seem a mite confused.” He raised his voice. “Everyone upstairs. We got to get out of here pronto afore Cesar returns with his gang. If that happens, then we’ll all be right back down here in these cells again.”
Dorthea repeated his instructions in Spanish. There was a rush for the stairs, and the crowd of released prisoners climbed to the upper level. There were about fifteen men, while the women outnumbered them by at least two to one. The noise increased when they got up top, where they milled around, not knowing what to do next.
“I guess we ought to get these bozos organized,” Burrell said, shaking his head. “Maybe they need someone to tell them what to do.”
“You just got elected, Burrell,” Jackson said, clapping his pal on the back.
Burrell gave him a disgruntled look but then shrugged and clambered on top of a sturdy table.
Chapter 24
“Listen up, folks. I got something to tell you.”
The hubbub continued, and Burrell yelled louder. Gradually, the throng’s attention centred on the man standing on the table, and the noise quietened. Dorthea was tugging at his trouser leg.
“Yeah?” Burrell asked, looking down at her upturned face.
“Most of these people are Mexican. They’re not going to understand whatever it is you want to tell them.”
“Huh? What the heck…?”
“I got some Spanish. I can translate.”
Burrell bent and hauled Dorthea up beside him on the table.
“Right,” Burrell yelled, holding up his hand for attention. “I reckon you need to organise yourselves. Find some weapons, and saddle up whatever mounts there are. Then we ride out of here. No one knows when Cesar and his gang are due to return. The sooner we get moving the better.”
With Dorthea translating, they got the attention of the crowd.
“Señor Burrell…”
Ovidia had stepped forward and was endeavouring to tell him something. Dorthea translated.
“There ain’t no horses. The gang took all the mounts with them.”
Burrell stared at her.
“No horses! Hell, dammit!”
“We’ve got my horse and Dorthea’s,” Jackson interpolated.
The two men stared at each other.
“There’s you, and me, and Dorthea, and Valerie, and Ophelia. Two horses ain’t going to handle that.” He swept his hand around. “And what about all these people? No way we should abandon them.”
“That means we’re trapped here. What the hell do we do now?”
“There’s only one thing to do, and that’s fight. It’s what you and I do best, Burrell. It’s what we’re trained to do.”
Jackson looked around the room at the crowd of bemused people, still not quite used to the idea of freedom.
“We got these folks here to assist us, only I’m not too sure we got the right recruits for the job.”
“Folks,” Burrell yelled to get their attention. With Dorthea translating, he outlined the situation. “I figure we got a change of plan. There ain’t no horses. We had hoped to escape from this here place, but there’s one little flaw in that plan. There ain’t no means of getting away. So, we’re trapped here.
“We could try to escape into the desert and hope to evade Cesar and his men. We’d be on foot, and they’ll be after us on horseback. It won’t take them long to run us down. To make the journey to the nearest place of safety might be at least a day’s ride. Walking, it might take two or three days, if not more. Some of us might make it; then again, maybe not.
“The way I see it, we got two choices: we run and are hunted down like rabbits, or we stay here, barricade ourselves in, and fight Cesar and his bandits when they return. There’s food and water aplenty to last us. Cesar will be howling at the gates wanting into his refuge. He got nowhere else to run. If we block him, he’ll throw himself on this place like the crazy animal he is.”
Burrell paused while Dorthea translated. Because of this process, it took a while to get the situation across. However, the crowd listened attentively, off and on chattering amongst themselves.
“If we’re to hold out, it’ll take luck and pluck. You decide. If some of you want to take your chances out in the desert, no one’s going to stop you leaving. There’s probably weapons and ammunition lying around. So, you can help yourselves to whatever you think you’ll need to survive out there. You might think it is an impossible task to defeat Cesar and his murdering gang, but let me assure you it can be done. They ain’t nothing but ordinary men. And if we work it right, we’ll have the advantage of surprise on our side.”
Burrell paused and wiped the sweat from his face. He could think of nothing else to say. The place erupted into a cacophony of voices as the crowd took in what Burrell had told them. Burrell was calling for quiet, but no one was taking any notice. It was Jackson who started applauding.
“Bravo, Burrell!” he yelled, madly clapping.
It got the attention of the crowd, and one or two joined in. Suddenly, everyone was clapping and calling out.
“Señor Burrell, Señor Burrell! Bravo!”
When the racket died down, it was discovered no one wanted to leave. The wiser heads were able to appreciate they had a better chance of survival if they followed the leadership of the people who had freed them from their imprisonment.
Once that was decided, Burrell and Jackson set about organising the defences in anticipation of Cesar’s return. They discovered the armoury. Although it was padlocked and no one knew the whereabouts of the key, Jackson shot the lock off. Then rifles and hand guns were distributed.
Some of the women were put in charge of the kitchen. Jackson knew an army must have food and drink to keep up morale. While all this was going on, Burrell was assessing the defences.
The building was sufficiently remote so as not to attract attention from the Rurales or the army, who liked to stay close to their barracks. Thus, the forces of law and order posed little or no threat to the bandits once they were holed up in their refuge.
As Burrell worked with his recruits, a plan was gradually forming in his mind. He knew their chances of success were slim. All he had at his disposal were peasants inexperienced in fighting, whereas Cesar had a force of fighting men. However, he figured they had certain advantages.
The one thing they had in their favour was the element of surprise. Cesar would arrive back at his hideout unaware it was held by a hostile force. A sudden unexpected attack on his men, who most likely would be fatigued after their expedition, would have a devastating effect on the bandits' morale, and they might just cave in or flee. The other advantage, the quality of which he was not sure, was the desire for revenge harboured by the members of his own little force that might just carry them through the fight.
“It’s all in the lap of the gods,” Burrell said. “We either defeat Cesar or he slaughters us.”
Someone cleared their throat behind him, and Burrell turned to see Hector gazing sombrely at him. The black man now wore a holstered pistol and carried a rifle. Knowing the man had been a member of Cesar’s gang and unsure of his loyalty, Burrell let his own hand drop to his holster.
“I just wondered if you might have a use for me. If Cesar wins this battle, then I’m a marked man, same as you.”
Burrell relaxed somewhat and nodded.
“I guess. What you want to do?”
“I want to fight. I can use a rifle better than most.”
Burrell’s eyes narrowed.
“You a good shot, then?”
“Fair.”
“Okay, see that tower? I want you up there. Take as many men as won’t get in each other’s way. It’s the highest point, and you’ll be the first to spot Cesar and his gang. When you see them coming, you let us know. Then we all sit tight an’ let them come on in.”
Burrell swept his arm around the courtyard.
“We let them get in here, and this’ll be the killing ground. I’m hoping to split them up. If we can get part of the force crowded in here and the remainder isolated outside, that would be to our advantage. While we’re fighting them in here, you start killing anyone left outside the walls. Instruct the fellas you take with you on how to make every shot count. But don’t start shooting afore my lot inside start our own attack.”
Burrell paused and squinted quizzically at the black man.
“It’s an important job. Think you can handle it?”
Hector grinned wolfishly as he eyed the tower.
“From up in that tower, it’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel.”
“Okay, Hector, go select your men.” As Burrell watched the black man walk away, he muttered, “If I had a dozen men like you, I would have no qualms about fighting Cesar and his bandits.”
Chapter 25
Burrell heard the shout and saw the arm raised from the tower. Something tightened in his gut.
“Jackson!” he yelled. “Hector’s spotted them. Get everyone ready.”
There was a frenzy of activity within the courtyard as men armed with rifles and bandoleers strung across their chests scurried to their posts. Burrell stood on the steps of the house which faced the arched gateway through which the horsemen would come. He had donned a wide-brimmed sombrero. Squatting down, he scooped up a handful of dust and rubbed this over his face. Lounging against the parapet of the veranda, he hoped he appeared as a replica of the men he was to fight.
To one side of the courtyard was a hog pen with a couple dozen animals. Burrell suggested Jackson should take some of their force and position them inside this. Jackson had difficulty recruiting men to accompany him in the hog pen. Most wanted to remain in the supposed safety of the house.
The hog pen was the perfect ambush position. The low adobe wall, just over three feet, was the ideal height for a man to kneel behind and have some protection from incoming fire. Jackson had four men with him spaced along the wall, some kneeling, some squatting, but all now hidden from sight.
Inside the house, a two-storey structure, Burrell had more defenders positioned at windows, both upstairs and downstairs, while up in the water tower Hector had three volunteers.
When they opened the armoury, they had found weapons aplenty. Now each man had with him at least a couple of loaded rifles and two or three revolvers. In weaponry alone they were a formidable force, but as Burrell knew, more than half the men he had armed had never shot a gun before, much less killed anything bigger than a chicken for the pot. While organising his little force that morning, some of the time had been taken up with showing the rookies how to shoot.
“Just point it at his belly. Imagine you’re going to drill a hole in his guts.”
This was good advice, for Burrell knew when under fire inexperienced shooters tended to shoot high. They needed every shot to count. He was just hoping the sheer mass of firepower would win the day.
Scattered here and there amongst the men were the women, also armed. Burrell had failed to dissuade them from wanting to take part in the fighting.
“It ain’t no job for no woman.”
“You want us to cook tortillas and beans and make coffee while you men are out here fighting? No, Señor Burrell. We have the gun, and we fight as well as any man.”
They had ganged up on him, and in the end he had to give way. He compromised by putting most of the females in the upstairs windows, where he figured they might be in marginally less dangerous positions.
“Remember, no one fires until you hear me fire. Keep hidden and wait for that. Then put those sights on them fellas that imprisoned you, that raped your women, that killed your family and friends. You must show no mercy. These bandits are rats in your barn that you have to exterminate.”
They nodded appreciatively. These simple farmers could appreciate the parallel image of destroying vermin.
The hoofbeats could be heard now, and Jackson felt the nervous anticipation that always comes before going into action. Cesar was coming home with his fierce band of killers, and Burrell had rallied a handful of peasants to overcome a gang of hardened bandits. He lounged against the door with his rifle cradled in his arms. To all appearances, he was one of the men left behind to keep Cesar’s stronghold secure.
The men in the hog pen across the courtyard were looking at the gringo and thinking how calm he appeared. It made them ashamed of their own fear. Without exception, all were scared as they waited, nervously fingering unfamiliar weapons. If they could have seen inside Burrell’s mind, they would have been surprised to observe he was just as scared and nervous as were they, but he hid it well as he waited for the action to begin.
They came through the gate under the archway, weary, thirsty, and hungry after a long and arduous ride. Cesar was in the lead, authoritative-looking on top of the big grey he rode. Burrell straightened up from his slouch and waved a greeting.
Cesar did not acknowledge him but cantered forward, obviously seeing nothing amiss. He was tired after the long ride to recover their hidden hoard of gold. Behind him trailed his men, looking forward to feasting and drinking, and glad to be back. Cesar hauled the big grey to a halt.
“Take my horse,” he bellowed to the man in the doorway as he began to dismount.
He was slightly puzzled to see the man on the steps raise his rifle. Then Cesar, supreme survivor, sensed the danger. Cesar was a primitive man. He lived and reacted like a brute animal. When a threat arose, he relied on basic survival instincts to see him through the danger. Even as Burrell was raising the rifle, Cesar responded instinctively. Instead of dismounting, he drove in his spurs and screamed out a warning to his men.
The big horse, startled into action, plunged forward and onto the steps, where Burrell was bringing his rifle up to shoot the bandit chief. As the animal mounted the steps, Cesar slid down from the horse and dodged into the courtyard.
Burrell, caught out, managed to trigger off one shot before being hurled backwards as the animal careened into him. Then he was frantically rolling aside as the iron-shod hoofs struck sparks from the steps, and the horse ploughed headfirst through the big front doors and inside the hallway.
Chapter 26
Burrell scrabbled about on hands and knees as he desperately tried to keep from being trampled by the thrashing hooves of the enraged beast. He had lost his rifle in the rush to duck back inside the house. Now he dodged frantically as the animal kicked and plunged inside the narrow confines of the hallway. It had nowhere to go. Its master, Cesar, had disappeared and left the horse to wreak mayhem.
Burrell was in mortal danger. The breath had been punched out of him when the horse cannoned into him. Now he was on the floor, rolling about to avoid being trampled. The noise was thunderous as the beast crashed around in panic; banging into walls and doors, its hoofs striking sparks from the stone floor. In its fright the animal whinnied and flung its head from side to side, froth forming on its mouth and flecking its chest.
As he scrambled about in the hallway, Burrell could hear firing from outside and cursed himself for not shooting Cesar as he entered the courtyard. Now the bandit chief was loose and directing his men in a counterattack.
“Dammit, I had every eventuality covered,” he yelled at the horse.
The mean eyes came round and glared at Burrell before the horse lunged again at its victim.
Outside, the battle had started in total confusion. The men crowding into the courtyard behind Cesar did not understand what was happening. They saw their leader leap down from his horse and the animal rush into the house. They assumed they had reached the safety of their hideout and, with their defences down, their reactions were slowed.
For a fateful moment there was a quietness about the old monastery, a silence that was only illusory. In reality, there was plenty of noise—the jingle of harnesses, the creaking of leather, the grumbling of men wanting nothing more than a long drink of tequila and a woman on their lap. Suddenly, the seeming silence was broken by a shout as Cesar rallied his men.
