Jack Iron (28 page)

“No thank you,” she said. “Not that I couldn’t use it. My father taught me to shoot. But after all, I pay you to defend me against these savages.”

“Indeed?” Zion replied. “You pay me?”

“Now that papa is …” Isabella glanced toward the coffin lying in the wagon. Her eyes grew red and she quickly averted her gaze. She refused to give in to her emotions, fearing she might unleash an uncontrollable flood of tears. Don Sebastien had raised his daughter to be strong. In that respect she was much like her father. “Dead,” the ten-year-old finished. “And now that he is dead … someone has to pay you.” She sniffed back a tear and wiped a forearm across her nose, leaving a smear of mud on the tip. Zion grinned and wiped it off with the coffee-colored bandanna he wore around his neck.

“And what will you pay me for saving your life, señorita?”

“Nothing,” she replied matter-of-factly.

“Nothing? So little?”

“A gentleman always saves the
lady’s
life. That’s expected,” Isabella patiently explained. Didn’t Zion know anything? she silently wondered. She did not want to hurt his feelings if he really didn’t know.

“Oh … then I best get on with it,” the segundo replied.

“Well, I should say so,” Isabella concurred. A couple of geysers erupted from the shallows as gunfire continued from the hillside. Bullets filled the air like a swarm of angry bees, forcing the black man and his two charges to squirm even lower in the cold creek and hug the sides of the wagon. Josefina began to moan, then she stifled her outburst, aware at last of frightening her threatened stepchild.

Zion glanced at his own mount, a sturdy, hammerhead gray with a deep, powerful chest and tapered legs. The animal was tethered to the back of the wagon, and every time a bullet ricocheted off into the sunlight, the gelding would whinny and tug violently against the lead rope securing him.

“Easy,” Zion softly cooed. “Easy now.” If worse came to worst and the red heathens charged, he’d put Isabella on horseback and send the sturdy gray galloping on its way, leaving himself and Josefina to take their chances. It was his job to rescue the “lady,” Isabella had said. That might take a bit of doing, he thought. Well, sir, he lifted his eyes heavenward as he spoke the words in his heart, if my name hasn’t come up in that book of yours … I could sure use some help.

Zion squinted over the sights of his shotgun and waited. He didn’t put much stock in praying, but a man never knew. And alone with the lives of two innocent women depending on him, anything was worth a try. So he rested his cheek on his gun stock and waited, watching the sky for some heaven-sent sign. He should have set his sights lower, to the crest of the ridge above the ambushers, where a worn and battered man with red hair prepared to answer the segundo’s desperate prayer.

The coin reflected the burnished brilliance of the yellow sun burning against an azure backdrop of sky. Red Hair caught the silver disk in the palm of his hand and tucked the shiny object back inside his shirt before its gleaming surface caught the attention of the three men below. He counted two men on his left and another solitary figure draped in a black-and-scarlet-banded serape off to the right. All three men were about ninety yards below the ridge line. Red Hair studied the valley floor, where countless wagons had worn a rutted road among the hills. Directly below, the road dipped down and cut across a creek whose wide banks showed signs of flooding in the past, but today the silty stream looked about a foot and a half deep.

Trails of powder smoke drifted in the air over the heads of the men on the hillside and curled in sooty tendrils above the wagon and its defenders. A black man rose up to fire at the attackers and immediately ducked down. Shading his eyes against the glare, Red Hair also made out two women behind the wagon. The three were pinned down and obviously in need of help. He took a moment to study the situation and to catch his breath.

Two of the men on the hillside wore dusty, colored shirts and faded buckskin leggings. They appeared to be armed with muskets and pistols and to be taking orders from the lone gunman in the scarlet and black serape. A broad-brimmed sombrero hid this man’s features, while the other two were hatless, their long black hair gathered back from their eyes by strips of cloth. Even as Red Hair was appraising the situation, the men on the hillside loosed another volley at their intended victims behind the wagon. Chips of wood exploded from the lid of the coffin lying on the wagon bed. A woman with blond hair began to scream at the gunmen to leave her poor husband alone. Her pitiful voice carried up the hillside, and her sobbing lingered long after the gunshots had faded.

Red Hair cautiously studied the rubble-strewn path that would take him right behind the Comanches and the man in the serape. The path ended roughly thirty-five feet from the gunmen and just a couple of yards above them. Red Hair assessed his chances. For one final fleeting instant he considered turning his back on the wagon and the people in the creek who were in such a desperate predicament. But somehow he could not bring himself to walk away. They needed help, and he was elected.

“So be it,” he muttered, and moved shakily toward the path. The going looked simple enough, but Red Hair hadn’t counted on the lingering effects of his wounds. The ground suddenly began to spin and grow spongy as he set foot on the path. The head wound he had suffered—how long ago, he could not remember—and the hunger gnawing at his belly had taken their toll. Yet he managed to will the world into place and steady himself on his feet. For one horrid moment the ridge seemed to writhe like a snake. Then it ceased, and Red Hair continued down the path.

“Nothing to it,” he said through gritted teeth. One step at a time, one after the other, he was careful not to disturb a single stone. He was a man of skill, stealth came naturally to him. Unfortunately, the ridge chose that moment to buck and toss one last time. Red Hair sucked in his breath and tried to suppress the surge of nausea that swept over him. He struggled to keep his balance and ride out the dizziness. All of a sudden his boot heels slid in the rubble and his legs went in two directions at once. He was falling, sliding, bruising his shoulder and rolling over and over, then onto his backside. He started a small avalanche of gray rocks and chunks of hard-packed clay. The noise of his arrival not only halted the fight below, but caused every eye to turn in his direction as the wounded man tumbled down the path.

Down behind the wagon, Zion had finished reloading, and watched with mouth agape as this stranger joined the fray. “Who in the hell …” he muttered. For a moment he thought it was Carlos returning to help those he had abandoned, but he changed his mind after catching a glimpse of the man’s red hair. Well, whether friend or foe, the fellow sure knew how to make an entrance. Too bad it appeared to be his exit as well. Of course, this new arrival might be some renegade come to join his compadres on the slope. The segundo took up his rifled musket and sighted on the falling man. Why take chances? Perhaps it was best to put a bullet in him as soon as he came to rest. He waited to take the shot he was determined not to miss.

The ground leveled out and Red Hair came to rest lying flat on his back against the slope. The world settled into place as rubble continued to rain down around his shoulders. The slope had clawed his shirt to tatters, but somehow he had managed to hold onto the pepperbox. The Patterson Colt was still holstered at his side. A quick assessment of his arms and legs told him he was bruised but not broken, though his rear end hurt like hell where he’d slid over a prickly pear cactus. Still, he was alive, and that was good. He grinned, realizing he had cheated death again. He didn’t have long to relish his victory. A Comanche war whoop shattered the silence.

Bullets fanned the air near his head. A geyser of dirt erupted inches from his thigh. He flattened against the earth as the leader of the trio, the man in the serape, snapped off a shot from a double-barreled pistol. The braves on the left came forward at a run, ignoring their intended victims behind the wagon in the creek for this new threat. It was plain to see they intended to quickly dispatch him before returning their attention to the besieged travelers below.

Red Hair moved instinctively. His bleeding fingers curled around his holstered gun while he raised the Allan pepperbox in his left hand and squeezed off a shot. The two Comanches were short, with sloping shoulders and dark features framed by stringy black hair that hung in ponytails past their shoulders. Though on horseback they were without peer, afoot the two seemed devoid of any natural grace. And the time it took them to traverse the hillside and reach Red Hair proved their undoing. The first shot from the pepperbox missed by a yard. Red Hair turned and fired his Colt at the man in the serape, just to keep him honest.

The leader of the ambushers howled as a lead ball creased his thigh. He changed his course and leaped back behind the limestone ledge he had so foolishly abandoned when he thought he had an easy kill. This unwanted intruder lying on his back on the slope was nothing like Carlos, the ranchero who had tried to escape. No, Carlos had been a coward at heart, and it had taken little enough effort to follow him up the hill, shoot him in the back, and leave him to die in his own juices.

A second bullet from the Patterson Colt wasn’t as lucky as the first, but it kept the gunman on his right pinned down, allowing Red Hair to return his attention to the Comanches. The path they followed across the slope bunched the two of them together, the older of the two braves in the lead. He carried a brace of double-barreled percussion pistols. The scowling warrior a few paces back brandished a pepperbox revolver that spewed gun smoke as he fired past his companion.

Red Hair rose up to snap off another shot from the .32 caliber pepperbox. The pistol seemed to explode in his hand. A blinding flash of fire erupted from the muzzle as the remaining five barrels ignited almost as one and loosed their loads in a deafening blast. The recoil tore the gun from his grasp and nearly dislocated his shoulder. It was a miracle the pistol didn’t explode and blow off his hand. Even so, the simultaneous discharge of the remaining five gun barrels left the man’s arm numb. Bullets from the pepperbox trimmed the spindly outstretched limbs of an ocotillo and ravaged flesh and bone. The Comanche in the lead went flying backward through the black smoke as if hurled from a catapult, trailing an arc of crimson from his ravaged chest. He slammed into his companion, who managed to brush the dying man aside and press his attack. The two combatants were scarcely a stone’s throw apart when a bullet from Zion’s musket buzzed the Comanche and distracted him from his intended prey.

From his vantage point behind the wagon, the segundo had seen enough to realize the “bricktop” who had stumbled into the fray was not of the war party. Zion tossed the musket aside and, taking the pistol from Isabella, ordered the women to remain under cover, then he charged out of the creek and clambered up the limestone slope toward the ambushers.

The Comanche hesitated, seeing Zion come on at a run, then returned his attention to Red Hair. Too late. The brave leveled his pistol, but the Patterson Colt spoke first. The brave rose up on his toes, fired into the air while his free hand clutched at his skull. He twisted, pitched to the side, and rolled down the cactus-dotted incline to splash facedown in the shallows. A trace of bubbles escaped his lips, a tenuous trace of life … ebbing … ebbing … ended.

Red Hair scrambled to his feet and charged the limestone ledge the man in the serape had retreated behind. Any second he expected to dodge a hail of lead. Red Hair stumbled, cursed, regained his balance, thumbed the hammer of his Colt. Fifteen feet, then ten, a leap and a bound and he rounded the ledge, his finger tightening on the trigger.

Nothing. The man in the serape had vanished along a boulder-lined path that wound upward and away from the arroyo, disappearing into a thicket of mesquite trees. As sweat stung his eyes and dripped from his jaw, Red Hair found himself staring at a scorpion scuttling over sun-baked stone. He sighed and almost relaxed. Boots scraped the rocks behind him, and the man with the Colt swung his weapon around to confront this new threat.

Zion immediately held out his hands.
“Muchas gracias, mi amigo.”
It took him a moment to realize the dusk-caked, bruised figure standing before him was a norteamericano. The segundo tucked the big .45 caliber Allan in his belt, then wiped his hand on his vest before extending it in an offer of friendship. “You came along at a mighty opportune time, my heaven-sent friend. The name is Zion. Maybe you’ve heard of me. I ride for the Quinteros. You’ve heard of Ventana … Don Sebastien’s ranch …” The segundo’s voice trailed off as he spied the uncertainty in the norteamericano’s eyes.

“Who is it?” Isabella called out. The girl had completely disobeyed Zion’s orders, left the protection of the wagon and crossed the stream to the other side, taking care to avoid the dead Comanche in the creek. Zion glared at her, but the girl’s question was one that was foremost in his mind as well, and he looked back at their benefactor for an answer.

The man with red hair shrugged, holstered his gun, and wiped the sweat from his eyes with the back of his hand. His brow furrowed in thought, but even the attempt hurt. He had a Patterson Colt, the remnants of a uniform, and a silver coin dangling from around his neck. The coin, which he wore like a medal, bore the curious initials GW scrawled across the face of some monarch etched on the shiny surface.

“I don’t know,” he said. Benjamin Bittercreek McQueen shook his head and abandoned the effort. Desperation sounded in his voice. “I … don’t … know.”

Z
ION OVERTURNED A FLAT
slab of chalk-colored stone and with the toe of his boot nudged a scorpion out into the sunlight. The brown insect scuttled across the white dust, its pincers raised, the curved, barbed tail arched threateningly.

“They’re always where you least expect them,” observed the segundo, tormenting the defiant insect with a mesquite twig. “In your boots, under a blanket, right where you choose to, uh … squat.” The barbed tail struck at the offending stick. “And they pack one hell of a sting.” He looked over at the red-haired young man seated across the campfire. “Like you.”