Jailbreak (14 page)

“Nothin’, Justa,” he said. “Little nick. Don’t amount to a hill of beans.”

I swore. “When did you get hit? You were supposed to be back out of the way.”

Ben spoke up. “He wouldn’t stay back. He come up by me to give more fire.”

“Damn you, Jack!” I said. “You wasn’t to have any part of the gunplay. Now you’ve gone and got yourself shot. You told me you was too old for this sort of thing! Why didn’t you listen to yourself?”

Before he could answer, Señor Elizandro said, gently, “I think it would be good if we moved.” He pointed toward the dust cloud. It was visibly larger. “I think they come pretty queek.”

“Let’s go,” I said.

We set off at a canter, aiming for the corner of that low ridge. I yelled back, “We’re going to take it slow. I don’t want to raise any dust. Lew, how’s your man?”

Lew said, “He ain’t real happy right now. I think he’s got a busted wrist. Don’t know how that could have happened.”

I had originally estimated the ridge as being some two miles distant. But it seemed the more we rode the further away it got. Heat shimmered off the barren plains making it difficult to see clearly in that westerly direction. I took a squint at the sun. It was coming down toward the horizon and I calculated there couldn’t be much more than an hour and a half before it started coming twilight. Dark was our ally; it would cover our dust and disguise our intentions.

Elizandro said, politely, “Perhaps we should go a leetle more
rápido
.”

“No,” I said. “We’re doing just fine. By the way, what the hell is your calling name? Your first name? I’m getting tired of calling you senor.”

He said, “Miguel. Until my father’s death I was called Miguelito because, as you say it, Miguel was also his calling name.”

“We do the same thing in Texas,” I said. “Except we refer to them as Junior.”

“I know,” he said.

“You know a lot about the United States and you speak damn good English. How come?”

He said, “I lived in San Antonio for some time. I went to school there at the small college they have.”

“Yeah?”

He was looking off in the distance, watching the advance of the catch party that was beginning now to almost grow visible as mounted horsemen. “Yes,” he said. He hesitated, then said, “Perhaps I came this way because I will have to leave Mexico for a time. I have some very powerful enemies in the government. I think I will do better across the Rio Bravo, or the Rio Grande as you call it.”

That alarmed me. I said, “Listen, Miguelito, I’ve got my own troubles. I got no time to be messing in Mexico’s politics. If you’ve brought a hornet’s nest down around our ears on account of your business, I ain’t going to take that too kindly.”

He smiled. “I will ask you again if you do not think they would have chased you anyway?”

I said, “Maybe not as hard as they’re going to be chasing you.”

He said, “My men and I will take the hard parts. We will fight the rear-guard action if it comes to that.”

Which made me think of something that had been on my mind. I said, “You should have been eight. What happened to two of your party?”

He made a motion with his hand. “They were killed. Mexican politics are very violent. It is difficult to last long as a politician in these times.”

I said, “The same can be said for your horses. Looks like you rode them pretty damn hard. You’re liable to be fighting a rear-guard action, all right, but that will be because your horses have played out.”

Miguel smiled and said, “Oh, no. It is a well-known fact that Mexicans are the best horsemen in the world. We know that because we keep telling each other. We’ve been killing horses since the time of the
conquistadores
, but we are still the best horsemen in the world.”

I just gave him a look. Then I glanced toward the horsemen that were quartering toward our right flank. The ridge had mercifully drawn a little nearer. I waved my arm forward and touched spurs to my gelding. He responded even though I knew he had to be damn good and tired. I put him in a gallop, Señor Elizandro keeping pace beside me. I looked back. Our little band was strung out with Lew and his
capitán
bringing up the rear. Jack was still hunched over his saddle horn, but he seemed to be riding easy in the saddle. I could just hope he wasn’t too bad hurt, but I wouldn’t know about that until I got a look.

I kept watching the catch party coming up on our right. They had the angle on us, but they were a good deal too far off to present an immediate threat. As we swept around the west end of the little ridge I calculated the police party was still a good two, three miles away.

Ahead of us there were other ridges and I debated about going on further, perhaps forting up behind the second in the line, or perhaps the third. They weren’t ridges exactly, not what I thought of as a ridge. They were more little long, narrow humps of sand and rock and cactus and brush with every kind of thorn you could imagine. They didn’t seem to have much order or much reason; they just seemed to rise out of the floor of the plain more or less as an afterthought. I knew, of course, that they stepped their way toward the distant mountains but they were so far off you didn’t immediately connect them with the little humps that looked so friendly to my eye.

I decided to take a stand behind the first knoll. I knew the horses needed rest badly and I knew that standing at the first ridge would leave the
federales
unprotected on the flat plain. We might be able to deal them considerable discouragement with some well-placed shooting.

We swept around the end of the ridge and I led us to a halt about halfway down its quarter-mile length. I yelled back, “Take the bits out of your horses’ mouths and loosen their girths, but don’t unsaddle. Lew, you better get your prisoner off that animal’s back before he craters. Just hog-tie him and lay him on the ground. And hurry! We haven’t got much time.”

I dismounted, pulling out my carbine as I did and digging down in my saddlebags for a handful of extra ammunition. I said, “Miguel, tell your men to take their rifles and get up on the ridge. Tell them no one fires until I do. Make that very clear to them.”

He let loose a volley of Spanish and his men began swinging out of the saddle and doing as my party was doing. “Jack,” I said, “you stay down here and look after the horses. Rig you up a picket rope if you feel up to it. But stay down here!”

He didn’t say anything. I thought he looked a little drawn and white-faced, but I was in too big of a hurry hustling people up on the top of the ridge. I had let my horse’s reins drop. He would ground halt, being trained not to walk far trailing his reins because he’d found out the hard way that he would step on them and that would bring a result not to his liking. I had my carbine in my hand and I scrambled up the little slope, dodging through the brambles and briar bushes. My ankle was hurting pretty good and I had no doubt that I’d caught a slug through my boot, though just how bad it was I didn’t have time to look into. I went up toward the crest yelling for Ben. I wanted him beside me. If any delicate shots had to be made, he was the one that would make them.

When I got to the top I collapsed behind a bramble of greasewood and peered out. I could see the riders now. There appeared to be about thirty or forty of them. A voice to my left said, quietly,
“Federales
and
rurales.
See the difference in the color of the uniforms? The
federales
are tan. The
rurales
are green. Fortunately for us I see more
federales.”

I looked over. Señor Elizandro was lying just to my left. He had a rifle laid out before him. I said, “They’re still at least a mile away. But riding hard.”

“They have good horses,” he said. “They will come straight on. They are not very intelligent. They will have expected us to do what they would do—keep running. They would not have considered the ambush.”

I said, “Then they got a hell of a shock coming.”

Ben had come up to my right. He flopped down and looked at the oncoming riders. He said, “They keep coming like they are, I’d figure about five minutes.”

I raised my head and looked down the line. Señor Elizandro’s men were deployed to the left. Counting Norris, we were five of our party anchoring the right side, the side the catch party would try to flank. Lew was at the very end. I called down to him and asked how the
capitán
was doing. I still hadn’t made up my mind as to how best to utilize my hostage.

He called back, “Got him tied down on the ground. Jack’s watching him.”

“How’s Jack?”

“Little unsteady, Justa.”

I said, because they were getting a little too close to be talking out loud, “Pass the word—nobody fires until I do.”

The word went to my left in Spanish and to my right in English. Then I said to Ben, “Tell me when you think you can hit your first target. I’ll wait about a half a minute after that for the rest of us.”

Ben said, “We’re going to kill an awful lot of horses.”

I knew how he felt about that but it couldn’t be helped. Horses just made much bigger targets than men and, at the range we’d open up at, there was little chance of just hitting men. But a dead horse was just as good as a dead man so far as their pursuit went. They weren’t going to be able to ride double and catch us. I said, “Forget it, Ben. I never taught you it was easy doing these matters.”

“Yeah,” he said. He licked his lips, watching the riders coming on. They sure as hell weren’t saving anything for the next day. Ben said, “What the hell, we’ll probably be doing them horses a service by shooting them. God knows they is fixing to get rode to death.”

I looked down the line. Norris was laying next to Hays. I could dimly see a rifle in his hands through the underbrush. I didn’t know where he’d gotten it; borrowed it off of Jack, probably.

The light was starting to go. I figured it wasn’t more than a half an hour to good dark. I tried to think of the date, trying to figure how much moon to expect, but all that did was bring on guilty thoughts of how near the date was and how little time I had left. But, hell, I couldn’t blame the woman. She’d put up with my foolishness about as long as any mortal woman could. She wanted a husband and a settled life; she didn’t want to be married to some wild man that was always chasing around the country getting into trouble. She couldn’t have cared less that I was laying on a lonely hummock in Mexico fixing to shoot it out with the police troops. As far as she was concerned I should have been at home seeing to getting our house built and picking out my best man.

Ben said, “Getting pretty close.” He shifted his rifle into a firing position. “You might want to tell these folks that at the distance we’ll be shooting they need to aim low. Us up above them is likely to make for high shooting.”

I passed the word down. Ben knew how to shoot and there was no mistake about that. He’d learned from Buttercup, who might have been the worst cook God ever invented but who knew more about shooting than anyone I’d ever met.

I waited a minute more. They were closer. The time was coming. From my left Señor Elizandro said, “Are you puzzled why they should ride so straight into an ambush?”

I said, “Yeah.”

He said, with almost amusement in his voice, “Because they must keep their jobs. And because they know there are thirty more coming behind them. And because they do not believe they will be the one that is shot.” He paused. “I do not think you understand the mind of the Mexican, Señor Williams.”

“I reckon not,” I said. My mouth was starting to get a little dry.

He said, “I do not know about this ’reckoning’ business, señor. But I do know about shooting men. I think you are feeling bad about shooting at these men as they come after us.”

I turned my head left and said, in a hard voice, “Look here, you are the
jefe
with your men. Right now I’m the boss. Just keep your damn opinions to yourself.”

Ben said, “I could hit one right now.”

I sighted my rifle, concentrating on the leader. He grew ever larger as they closed toward our position. But Señor Elizandro’s words were bothering me. I said, out of the corner of my mouth, “What do you mean talking to me like that? Hell, you ain’t even supposed to be here.”

He said, quietly, “I was only complimenting you on your sense of honor, señor. I meant no insult. And I apologize, once again, for my presence and that of my men. But you must admit that we might prove valuable.”

I said, “Just shoot when I do.”

By then the party was no more than two or three hundred yards away. They were already taking the bend to outflank us to the right. I sighted again on the leader of the catch party. Ben said, “Dammit, Justa, shoot! They going to be in our back pocket in another minute.”

Coming out of the jail I had shot the desk sergeant without a qualm. And I had perhaps shot one or two others in the smoke and confusion. But that had been in hot blood. Now I found myself reluctant to shoot men who’d done me no harm and were simply exercising their jobs.

The lead rider grew bigger in my sights. I aimed for his chest and squeezed the trigger. He flipped off the back of his horse like he’d run into a clothesline.

At my shot the others began to fire. At first it was sporadic, but then they got in unison and began to lay down a deadly and devastating barrage. At first the whole crowd continued to come on but then the leaders began to falter and turn back. After about four or five volleys I could see the terrible effect our fire was having. Horses and men were down all over the place. Occasionally I would see a man who’d had his horse shot out from under him catch on with a
compadre
and swing up behind him and ride hell-bent for the rear, racing to get out of the range of our fire.

It was all over within two or three minutes. I could see a few wounded men crawling around on the floor of the plain. I’d stopped firing, as had my people, but to my left rifles still exploded, aimed at the wounded men. I said to Señor Elizandro, “Dammit, tell your men to quit firing. We don’t shoot the wounded.”