.45-Caliber Desperado (17 page)

Mateo was looking away from Cuno at the locomotive, where his big gringo lieutenant, Wayne Brouschard, was holding a rifle on the fireman and the engineer. Raising their arms high, the trainmen had their backs to the locomotive's massive right rear wheel. Brouschard's head was turned toward Mateo, but now, receiving some unspoken command from the gang leader, the big man turned toward the trainmen.

He raised his Winchester.

“No!” Cuno cried, lurching forward but taking only one leaping stride before Brouschard's rifle cracked twice quickly, and both train men bounced against the side of the locomotive and fell in heaps to the railbed.

CUNO STARED IN shock at the two dead trainmen, both slumped on their sides, the engineer with his head on his arm, blood pumping from the hole in his chest.

“Mateo!” Camilla cried.

As the girl began to harangue her brother in Spanish loudly and shrilly, Cuno walked stiffly along the railbed, heading for the panting locomotive. Brouschard walked toward him, a devilish leer twisting the man's bearded lips.

The gravel-paved railbed was narrow, and Brouschard gave no ground to Cuno. As they met, the man brusquely nudged Cuno with the rear stock of his rifle, snorted, and kept walking straight ahead toward Mateo and the rest of the gang. Cuno only vaguely felt the nudge. His body was numb with shock. A weird, low shriek rose in his ears.

He stopped to stare down at the dead men.

He dropped to his heels, absently picked up a handful of gravel, ground it around in the palm of his hand and let it dribble out through his fingers. Slowly, the shock of the killings receded. A strange sort of quiet calm oozed into his brain.

Why should he have felt such shock? True, he'd promised the men they'd live. But he'd known who Mateo de Cava was. He knew the brand of men he'd thrown in with. He himself had already killed a town marshal and several bounty hunters. If he hadn't killed them, he'd either be dead himself or back in prison. Riding with Mateo de Cava, he was as responsible for the sacking of the brothel as Mateo himself was.

How could it have been any other way?

That was the price you paid for running with a pack of wild wolves. And Cuno would likely go on paying it until he decided he'd had enough. The trouble was, he was just as much a fugitive as Mateo was. And leaving the gang would almost certainly mean he'd be run down and killed.

Not jailed. Never again would he allow anyone to jail him.

Killed.

Was he ready to die?

Cuno straightened, turned away from the dead men, and strode back toward the group. He straightened his hat on his head and grabbed up Renegade's reins. The others had mounted their horses and were galloping east along the tracks, dust sifting behind them.

Only Camilla remained. So did Frank Skinner, his horse facing east, the old bank robber's lean face turned to regard Cuno fatefully.

“Get used to it, kid,” Skinner said. “It's a long way to Mexico.”

He flipped his reins against his sorrel's withers and bounded after the others.

Camilla leaned back against her chestnut's saddle fender. Her face was drawn and pale, and her eyes were rolled up to stare at Cuno. She was furious with her brother.

She opened her mouth to speak, but Cuno cut her off as he swung up onto Renegade's back.

“Mount up,” he said.

“He had no reason to kill those men.”

“Yes, he did.”

She frowned. “What?”

“They would have gone back to the camp and blabbed about the direction we rode off in.” Cuno gave her a hard look, deep lines cutting across his broad, tanned forehead above the faded bluing of his broken nose. “What the hell's your problem, anyway? You killed plenty of prison guards.”

“To save you!”

“Well, you saved me.” Cuno hiked a shoulder. “Now, mount your horse and get the hump out of your neck. Like Frank said, it's a long ride to Mexico.”

 

That they were headed for Mexico now, there was little doubt. Mateo led the gang straight south without wavering. Before they were more than two hours away from the stalled train and the two dead men they'd left there, two of the wounded were killed, their bodies left unburied upon the prairie.

Cuno rode up near Mateo and Brouschard. He felt the need to ride close to the leader, to prove to himself that he'd thrown in with the man and would follow through with whatever needed to be done to save himself as well as the rest of the pack. This wasn't a fully formed decision, but a decision it was.

Camilla rode back and to the outside. Cuno rarely looked at her, because he didn't want to see the reproof in her eyes. But when he did cast his gaze in her direction, the castigation was there, and it made him confused and uncomfortable—one, because she was why he was here in the first place, and two, because he knew that for whatever reason she loved him. He thought that, given time, he could love her as well and that they could maybe find happiness together somewhere down the trail.

But they had a long way to ride before he could start thinking about such things as happiness.

Late in the afternoon, they stopped at a creek to water the horses and refill their own canteens. It was here that Brouschard, apparently feeling as though his position as Mateo's first lieutenant was being threatened, made a fateful play.

When Mateo had ordered everyone to mount back up, Cuno walked over to Renegade. Brouschard had just slipped Cuno's saddle off the paint's back and tossed it into the brush.

“What the hell are you doing?” Cuno asked him.

“I've decided I like this horse.” With a grunt, Brouschard leaned down to pick up his own saddle and tossed it onto Renegade's back. The horse jerked sideways with a start and nickered skeptically. “I'm going to take him. You can have mine, kid.”

Cuno chuckled. “I don't want your horse. I want my horse.”

“My horse is a perfectly fine horse. Good enough for you, anyway. This horse here”—Brouschard gave Cuno a hard, challenging look over Renegade's back—“is my horse now.”

Bitter fury flashed behind Cuno's retinas. Balling his cheeks but keeping his face implacable, he walked around behind Renegade and turned to face the big, bearded Yankee. A big bowie flashed in the man's hand. The jagged edges of coffee-stained teeth shone, set deep inside his shaggy blond beard flecked with steeldust gray.

He moved forward, crouching, shuffling to and fro, showing big yellow teeth through that menacing smile. Sweat dribbled down his dusty, red cheeks from his hat brim.

A murmur rose amongst the other men. A few of the horses nickered as the men moved around them to get closer to the two challengers. Cuno caught a brief glimpse of Mateo. The outlaw leader's attention had been directed toward Cuno and Brouschard, and his dark eyes lit with amusement.

Brouschard leapt forward, slashing the big bowie from left to right. Cuno stepped back, leaning forward as he sucked in his belly, avoiding a crossing slice from the wide, razor-edged blade by a hairsbreadth. Brouschard slashed again from the opposite direction. As the knife passed close once more, Cuno lunged quickly forward, bringing his big right fist up fast and hard. It smacked resolutely against the big man's heavy jaw.

Brouschard's eyes snapped wide. He shook his head as if to clear it. Cuno had opened a three-inch gash in the man's face, just above his jaw. Blood flowed to the corner of his mouth from a cut on the inside.

Cuno grinned. “You'll want to remove your saddle from my horse.”

The men around them chuckled and sidestepped, pivoting to follow the action. Cuno glimpsed Camilla striding off toward the creek.

Brouschard's face turned crimson. He gave a furious yell and slashed at Cuno once more. A few years ago, Brouschard would have been a formidable foe. But he had a good seven or eight years on Cuno, and he'd packed on extra weight that slowed him down.

Cuno was quicker on his feet. He had more strength in his fists. The left he jabbed at the bigger, older man split Brouschard's upper and lower lips in the very front of his mouth.

Brouschard stumbled back, spitting blood and bits of his broken front teeth. Not letting up, Cuno followed him, dodging another blow from the knife to hammer the man twice more, savagely, widening the cut on his left jaw. Brouschard screamed and bulled toward Cuno, keeping the knife low but swinging it up, threatening the young freighter with a painful disemboweling.

Cuno stepped back, kicked his right foot high, connecting solidly with Brouschard's wrist.

There was a cracking sound. Brouschard screamed again and dropped the knife. His wrist hung crookedly. Cuno bulled toward him, head butted him twice, until the big man was staggering straight back, brows bloody, and shaking his head again to clear it.

“Best get your senses back, Brouschard.” Cuno's voice was deep and tight. “Maybe I can help.”

He slapped the man's fleshy face twice, then grabbed him by his collar and began pulling him toward the creek. Brouschard cursed shrilly, spitting blood and teeth, and then Cuno had the man's hickory shirt halfway up over his head as he led him, staggering and screaming and pin-wheeling his arms, through the brush along the creek and then on into the water. The big man hit the creek with a splash.

Cuno followed him in, grabbed the back of his shirt collar with one hand, and shoved his head under with the other.

He held the man down, biting his lower lip with the effort.

Brouschard fought to raise his head but could not find purchase at the bottom of the creek. Frantic air bubbles rose around his head. He flung his arms up, trying to grab Cuno. Finally, Cuno released the man. Brouschard's head came up, his lower jaw dropping as he sucked a deep, loud breath, water streaming off his head and down his face and beard.

Cuno slid his pistol from his holster, rocked the hammer back. His eyes were like agates. “You wanna haul your saddle off my horse now?”

The others had followed Cuno and Brouschard into the brush. They stood along the shore of the creek, watching bemusedly. Mateo hung back, leaning a shoulder against a tree. Camilla was sitting on a log, separate from the others, elbows on her knees, staring grimly toward Cuno. The breeze brushed the yellow weeds around his boot tops.

Brouschard continued sucking air, rubbing water from his eyes.

Mateo said in a menacing singsong, “Better kill him . . .”

Cuno spread his boots on the creek's gravel bottom and shoved his cocked Colt up to Brouschard's face. “Get over there, or I'll kill you here.”

On his knees in the creek, looking like some overgrown, waterlogged muskrat, Brouschard slid his hand down his bearded face and looked grimly up at Cuno. He slid his eyes to the others standing in a shaggy line along the shore. He looked once more at the cocked Colt in his face, then rose heavily.

Lumbering past Cuno, he stepped onto the bank, stopped, glanced once more over his shoulder at Cuno. His right brow was cocked, the eye hard as granite in a mountain wall. The others stepped back, making way, sneering but saying nothing as the big man strode slowly in wet-squeaky boots over to Renegade and slipped his saddle off the paint's back. Swinging around, he hauled the saddle over to his blaze-faced coyote dun and tightened the belly straps.

He did not look up from his work but kept his head lowered, face hard and expressionless. The others shared mocking glances then, shrugging and muttering, and began moving back to their own waiting horses.

Cuno walked out of the stream and holstered his pistol.

Mateo said in the same menacing singsong as before, “Should have killed him, Yankee.” Then he rolled off the tree and headed back to his horse.

“Cuno.”

He turned to Camilla sitting on the blown down cotton-wood. She was toying with a long weedstock. She looked at him with desperate pleading.

“Let them go to Mexico.” Rising, she dropped the weed and strode toward him, the breeze bending her sombrero's broad brim that cast a shadow over the top half of her face. “We'll ride west. Nevada, California. It doesn't matter. But west.” She grabbed his suspenders and looked up at him desperately. “Please.”

Cuno wrapped his hands around hers, leaned down, and kissed her.

“Damn cold in that Nevada high country of a winter,” he said softly. “Too hot in the summer. Me—I never been to Mexico.”

Fear made her voice thin as she shook her head and said, “It is no good for us there. Not with Mateo . . . Brouschard. You should have taken Mateo's advice and killed him. He will not rest until he kills you now.”

“With them's as safe as anywhere. Come on.”

He snaked an arm around her slender waist and guided her back to the horses. She stiffened her body and pulled away.

They mounted up and followed the others south.

SPURR SMELLED THE railroad camp before he saw it.

Usually, you smelled privies and stock pens before you reached a town. A half mile outside of the railroad camp, which he and Mason had spotted from a high bluff in the west, still on the relatively fresh trail of the de Cava gang, Spurr smelled charred lumber. The smell was almost as bad as filth.

Mason smelled it, too. The sheriff shook his head as he and Spurr booted their mounts into lopes. “Got a bad feelin' about that smell.”

Spurr grunted his agreement. Gangs like that of Mateo de Cava had a habit of laying waste to anything and anyone along their trail.

It was dusk when the two followed the trail of twenty or so shod hooves into the encampment lying along the freshly laid spur-line rails. Off to the right of the trail, on the other side of the railroad tracks, a half-dozen men in rolled up shirtsleeves and battered hats were digging a large hole in the ground.