The Mission War (24 page)

Ki raised his rifle and fired through the curtained window four times. They heard a muffled moan and then a thud. Ki smashed the remaining glass from the frame and stepped over the sill, rolling into the room, his rifle ready. But the room was empty, except for the bullet-riddled bandit on the floor.

Jessica was into the room now, eyes flashing, rifle muzzle searching for a target.

Ki jabbed a finger in the direction of an inner door, and they started that way, crossing a deep red, expensive Turkish rug that was now bloody and passing heavy dark oak cabinets and a gilt table set with candelabra.

Ki was on one side of the door, and as Jessica pressed herself against the wall on the other side, he kicked it open, drawing a spate of gunfire from the other side.

Crouching, Ki stepped into the doorway and returned the fire.One bandit stood at the foot of a long curving staircase, rifle on the floor before him, his hands futilely trying to hold his guts in. His eyes empty; his face etched with pain.

“Where is he?” Ki said to the man, shaking his arm and feeling only anger toward the badly wounded warrior. “Where is Brecht?”

“Brecht?” the
bandido
repeated and blood frothed from his lips.

“Don Alejandro,” Jessica said, “where is Don Alejandro?”

“Up ...” the
bandido's
arm lifted, gestured vaguely up the stair case, and then fell as the man died, falling to the tile floor. Ki's eyes lifted to the stairs and he smiled faintly, ferally.

He glanced at Jessie, considered asking her to stay below, and discarded the idea. Her own eyes gleamed with the need to find Brecht, to find this cartel thug and finish him.

Ki started cautiously up the stairs keeping close to the wall and low. A door opened above, and from out of the darkness, a gun blasted three times, sending Ki to the floor. From behind him, Jessica's rifle spoke and the door was slammed shut again.

After glancing at Jessie, Ki started toward the landing. A single lamp illuminated the stairs softly. Outside, the guns continued to fire, their reports only small popping sounds inside the thick-walled house.

Ki stopped abruptly and lifted his head. He smelled smoke.

He turned and looked at Jessica who eyes had narrowed. She smelled it, too. Ki reached the landing on all fours and then rose sharply to his feet. Smoke was billowing from beneath the heavy door before him.

Ki moved to the door and kicked at it. A shot rang out, smacking dully into the wood. “Brecht!” he called out and again a gun fired. Ki kicked at the door again. The smoke was thick now in the hallway, and touching the door, Ki could feel the heat within.

He backed off quickly and just in time. The door caught like kindling, exploding into flame, and in seconds the landing was engulfed in twisting, angry red fire.

“Get back, Jessica; the house is on fire!”

“Brecht's in there,” she shouted back.

“If he is, he's dead. We'll be dead as well if we don't clear out. Now!”

Ki felt the fire against his flesh, smelled his own hair singeing as he returned to the staircase, grabbed Jessie's arm, and started toward the outer door. The flames behind them moved like a whirlwind of fire, sweeping down the stairwell. In what seemed a matter of seconds, the entire upper story of the house was engulfed in flames. Smoke clotted the lower story as well. Ki still had Jessie's arm as he fought through the firestorm and smoke toward a window. He kicked it out and they rolled through, breathing fresh air in deeply.

Ki glanced up. It was no good. The entire house was going. He could smell the coal oil in the smoke clearly. Brecht had planned ahead. When he saw which way the battle was going, he had splashed fuel oil throughout the house and then struck a match. Now Brecht was going up in flames, wrapped in crackling fiery tongues of his own funeral pyre.

“God,” Jessica said, “what a way to go!”

“Pity for the man?” Ki asked stiffly.

“For anyone who goes that way, Ki. Never mind—let's go.”

As they crossed the courtyard, something upstairs gave, and with a shuddering moan, half the second story floor fell, caving in to send sparks and flames out the windows and leaping into the night sky like a vast, vengeful torch. Jessie and Ki climbed the wall again and returned to the pit. There Diego, Maria, and the remainder of the peon army stood in awe, watching the house burn, crumble, sag, and die.

Chapter 21

Around Jessica Starbuck and Ki, the cheers sounded as loud as the roaring of flames. The night was bright with fire, alive with high spirits. The people of San Ignacio broke into impromptu dances, and this time Maria had no reason to scold them for their joy. This time their was nothing to diminish their joy.

The Indians stood in small groups, some still clinging tensely to their captured weapons.

“What is it they want?” Ki asked Diego.

“Permission, perhaps? Permission to go, to leave this place of horrors.”

“They don't need our permission to do anything,” Ki answered. “Tell them to go wherever they choose, to do as they like.”

“Diego,” Jessica Starbuck said, “tell them one more thing. Tell the Papagos that they had a great warrior among them, a man much responsible for saving their lives. Tell them that they must honor the memory of Fly Catcher.”

Diego nodded and walked off to talk to the Indians. Maria clung to Ki's arm, tearful yet smiling. Jessica stood alone for a long while, listening to the flames and watching the great house die as the flames went out. There was only the moon above the vast desert then, its cool light soft and peaceful.

“Let's go,” she finally said to Ki. “I don't want to watch this anymore.”

Ki was surprised. “No? I thought you would enjoy this moment, Jessica. It's over now, all over.”

“Not over, Ki. You know it and I know it. Sometimes I wonder if it will ever be over.”

Ki didn't answer. He left her to her thoughts. Jessica Starbuck turned, sighing. Then she walked slowly away from the scene of destruction. On a night like this, she thought, on an endless empty night like this one... but Marshal Longarm, her special someone, was far away. She could only walk on as the pale moon rose over the destroyed cartel house.

Watch for
LONE STAR AND THE GUNPOWDER
CURE
forty-seventh novel in the exciting
LONE STAR
series from Jove
coming in July!