Bittner, Rosanne (2 page)

"Damn
it, Hawk, where are you?" Ken grumbled. There was plenty of scrubby cover
several yards away from the cabin, however, all was clear for a good twenty
yards or so between the brush and the cabin. How in hell did Hawk plan to get
that dynamite in close? He slowly raised his head, aiming to start shooting
again and draw more fire, but before he could get off another shot, John
Hawkins bolted out from behind the rocks and brush at the back of the cabin,
giving out a war whoop like the wildest of Indians and charging up to the
cabin. Ken could see he was carrying four sticks of dynamite, all of them lit!

"Jesus,
Hawk, you're crazy!" Ken swore. He started shooting again, but already
bullets were being fired at John, and Ken worried the dynamite would go off
before John could get rid of it. He didn't know all that much about dynamite
and wondered if John himself did. The man had brought it along on a whim,
another one of those crazy notions he sometimes got.

There
was nothing Ken could do now but watch, sure he'd see his friend killed. It all
happened in only seconds. John ducked and rolled to avoid bullets, managing to
get himself to a back porch. There was only one window at the back, and whoever
was shooting out of it ran out of bullets. He cussed and drew his arm back
within, and before another man could take his place, John jumped up and threw
the dynamite inside, then made a mad dash away from the cabin.

"It's
dynamite!" Ken heard someone scream. "Get out! Get—"

Those
were the last words from inside the cabin. Before even one man could make it
outside, the place exploded in a fireball. Ken ducked down behind the rock, now
wondering if John would be killed from the explosion. He'd surely had no time
to make it to decent cover. Ken was surprised at how much damage four sticks of
dynamite could do, as logs and seemingly millions of pieces of wood and debris
flew overhead and showered down all around him, one big log landing just inches
away. When things quieted, he slowly rose, gaping at what was left of the
cabin, which was virtually nothing but a couple of logs that managed to cling
to the rock foundation. In the distance he could see the dust of the stampeding
cattle and horses that had been frightened off by the explosion.

"Damn
it, Hawk, now we have to ride out and try to round up all them cattle!" he
yelled. "What good does it do to find them for their owners if we turn
around and scatter them all over Texas!"

There
was no reply. Ken saw two bodies not far off, grimaced when he noticed one of
them had no head. He shook his own head at John Hawkins's penchant for
violence. Maybe this time that violence had caught up with him.

"Hawk?"
Ken shoved his six-gun into its holster and began a search. Two more bodies lay
closer to the cabin, one with an arm missing, another with both legs missing.
That one he recognized as Derrek Briggs. He figured Briggs was about the same
age as himself, late forties.

He
shook his head at what was left of the man. Briggs had been a fine-looking man
who simply drank too much and would rather steal for a living than work an
honest job. Ken scratched at a three-day growth of beard and looked around.

"Hawk!
Damn it, answer me!" He headed for the area behind the cabin, now littered
with so much debris he had to step over things. He chastised himself for
letting John use the dynamite, or even bring it along, but then nobody told
John Hawkins what to do. Hell, he had a good fifteen years experience on the
man himself, yet it was usually John who made the decisions. Hawkins seemed to
be kind of a natural-born leader, and Ken had never really cared about being in
charge of anything. He'd rather follow orders, except that was often not an
easy task when working with John Hawkins. If it weren't for the fact that
Hawkins was one of the most skilled men among the Texas Rangers, and the
not-so-unimportant fact that the man had saved his life more than once, he'd
ask to work with someone else. John Hawkins was only thirty-two, but he was
looking to get himself killed before he was forty, and he'd probably take his
partner with him when it happened.

Ken's
heart tightened a little when he finally spotted a body several yards away
lying prone amid brush and rocks and pieces of log. He knew then the real
reason he remained partners with John Hawkins. He'd learned to care about the
bastard, sometimes felt almost fatherly toward him. Of course he'd never tell
Hawk that. He didn't like talking about anything that bordered on the
sentimental, and Hawk would probably laugh his rear end off if Ken mentioned
anything to him about how he felt.

He
came closer, realizing he couldn't picture Hawk dead. The man was too mean to
die. He saw the long, black hair then. Some of it had come loose from where
Hawk had tied it behind his neck with a piece of rawhide. "Hawk? You
okay?" To Ken's relief he saw movement, but he also noticed blood on the
back of Hawk's shirt, in the area between the bottom of his leather vest and
the waist of his denim pants.

"I'm
just lying here trying to decide if I'm dead or alive," John answered.

Ken
rolled his eyes. "Damn it, Hawk, you had me scared to death! Why didn't
you call out to me?" He knelt beside him. "You hurt bad? There's
blood on the back of your shirt here."

John
slowly moved his arms, then got to his knees. "I think it's just a cut. I
felt something hit me." He rubbed at his head. "Back of the head,
too. Everything went black for a while." He winced as he turned to look at
the cabin, then he grinned. "I guess we got our men, huh?"

Ken
rose, removing his hat and wiping at sweat on his forehead with his
shirtsleeve. "I guess you could say that. You blew Briggs's legs
off."

"Really?"

Ken's
lips twitched in disgust. "I don't suppose you care."

John's
dark eyes showed a quick return of hatred. "He raped a little girl. No, I
don't
care how he died. A man makes his bed, he's got to lie in it."

"Which
means you're gonna die a violent death yourself some day."

"Probably."
John looked around. "I lost my gun somehow."

Ken
reached down to help him get to his feet. "I hope you ain't hurt so bad
you can't help me bury these bastards. I ain't gonna do it all by myself. It's
gonna be mighty miserable work in this heat."

John
winced as he moved his arms around, then reached behind his neck to pull the
rawhide strip from his hair. He shook his hair behind his shoulders then and
retied it. "Do we really have to bury them? Why not leave them for the
buzzards and coyotes?"

Ken
plunked his hat back on his head. "Because we're supposed to be civilized,
Christian men. Now I know for a fact you ain't neither one, but you'll be in
enough trouble for blowin' them bastards up. You'll be hanged yourself if you
don't give them a decent burial! Now let's see if we can find a shovel or two
in one of them sheds beyond and get to it."

John
grinned, looking around again. "Help me find my gun first."

They
both searched through the underbrush. "What the hell possessed you to run
straight up to the cabin like that? You got a personal death wish or
somethin'?" Ken kicked around at some debris.

"Well,
you know how it is with the Indian. He knows when it's a good day to die."
John looked up at the sky, which was overcast. "I realized this really
wasn't a good day to die, so I figured their bullets wouldn't find me
today."

"Oh,
yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Next time some outlaw is shootin' at me, you
let me know if it's a good day to die or not. If it ain't, I won't worry."

John
laughed at his remark. "If you're worried about what the fine citizens of
El Paso will think about this, forget it The biggest braggart about proper law
and order is Jim Caldwell, and he's nothing but hot air. I'm convinced he's up
to something
un
lawful himself."

"Like
what?"

"I
don't know—maybe cattle rustling."

"Caldwell?
He's
the biggest rancher in west Texas! Why would he need to rustle cattle?"

The
two men searched for more bodies as they spoke.

"I
don't know. I only know I don't trust the son-of-a-bitch, and he seems real
bent on getting me booted out of the Rangers, like he's afraid I might discover
something he doesn't want discovered. He talks almost too passionately about
justice and civilizing west Texas. I think it's all a cover."

"Yeah,
well, just try proving it Men like Caldwell keep their asses covered at all
times. Either way, what you did today will give him plenty of new ammunition to
get rid of you."

"I'm
not afraid of that puffed-up bag of wind."

Ken
spotted John's six-gun and leaned down to pick it up. "All I know right
now is you could make this job a lot easier on me if you'd behave like normal
men behave." He handed out the gun. "Here's your six-shooter."

John
was still grinning as he came over to take the gun. "You know I'm no
normal man. If you want to ride with me, you just have to face the facts. Maybe
you're just getting too old for this."

"Like
hell!" Ken gave him a shove and John laughed. Ken shook his head, thinking
it was no wonder the whores in El Paso swooned over John Hawkins. Indian blood
or not, he was probably the best-looking man around, especially when he smiled.
One good thing about being his partner was there were usually plenty of women
around when they were in town. The sad part was, the decent, marriageable ones
wouldn't give John the time of day, not even the Mexican
señoritas,
just
because he had that Indian blood. Ken had seen how some of them looked at him,
though. John Hawkins was six feet of lean power, one of those mixed breeds who
had inherited the best features of both Indian and white.

"Hey,
here's another body," John said. "This one is in one piece, but he's
dead."

"That
makes five. I already seen four others."

John
looked around, squinting, then pointed toward a huge oak tree in the distance.
"Look over there in that tree to the front of the cabin. That look like a
body to you?"

Ken
turned to look, noticing something odd-looking in the tree's gnarled branches.
"God Almighty, I think it is. You blew him clear up in that tree!"

John
nodded. "We're going to have to remember to bring along dynamite every
trip. Comes in handy, doesn't it?"

Ken
frowned. "I ain't bringin' that stuff along again. What if it had blowed
up while it was still in my saddlebags?"

John
raised his eyebrows at the thought. "I wouldn't have found enough pieces
to bury, I guess."

"Yeah?
Well, like I said earlier,
you
can carry the stuff next time! In the
meantime, we've not only got bodies to bury, we've got cattle and horses to
round up, thanks to you."

"We'll
get it done." John rubbed at his head again. "Let's go try to get
that body out of the tree."

"You'd
better let me wrap that cut," Ken told him, noticing the bloodstain on the
back of John's shirt was growing. "I expect it's deeper than you
think."

"Quit
fussing. I said I'm..." John suddenly stopped walking. He turned to Ken, a
strange look on his face. "Oh, shit!" With that his eyes rolled back,
and dark as his skin was, he literally paled, then fell flat on his face.

Tess
could hardly believe what her husband had done. She had already made up her
mind that Abel Carey was a coward at heart, a man who backed away from the
simplest confrontation, but this was incredible. Here she was shooting at
renegade outlaws to defend herself and their ranch, and Abel was in the
bedroom, supposedly to find more ammunition. There was no ammunition in the
bedroom. She'd screamed to him that there wasn't, but he'd gone there anyway,
and he had not come back out. He'd left her alone here at the front window to
fight off what she figured must be at least fifteen marauders.

Her
father lay dead out by the barn, his body filled with arrows. Terror engulfed
her. The barn was on fire, and some of the raiders had already made off with
horses and cattle. She fired her father's repeating rifle twice more, and one
of the attackers fell from his horse.

"Got
you, by damn!" she cursed, fighting tears that wanted to come. She had no
idea if the raiders were Comanche, Apache, or maybe Comancheros, a horrid
mixture of outlaws, whites, Mexicans, and Indians, who raided outlying Texas
farms and ranches and traded their loot in Mexico, including captured white
women. Whatever her attackers were, they were merciless, and her husband was
cowering in the bedroom. She was alone in this fight. She'd managed to hit two
of the attackers, but one had got back up, and there was no doubt in her
terrified soul that there were too many of them for her to hold out much
longer. She'd hoped they would leave after taking the livestock, but they
continued the attack. Deep inside she knew why. They were after her.

Some
had told her father he was a little crazy for settling way out here, almost a
day's ride from El Paso, no neighbors; but the land had been free, and by the
time they came here three years ago, free land was the only kind they could
afford. At least the Army, much as her father still hated their blue Yankee
uniforms, sent out patrols now and then from Fort Bliss to check on things. A
lot of good that did her now. Oh, if only a patrol was somewhere nearby.