Last Ride of Jed Strange (9781101559635) (19 page)

His heart thudded and his hat began to feel too tight for his head. Damn strange for the girl to light out on her own. When he'd left her atop the boulder, she'd been so sapped she could hardly hold her head up.

Squeezing the rifle in his sweating, gloved hands, he continued on past the horses, making his way farther into the mountain. He could see no footprints in the stone floor, but she'd had to have come this way. There were only two routes leading off from the alcove, and he'd already covered one of them.

He'd walked maybe sixty yards down the twisting, turning corridor, when the close walls fell back away from him and he walked out in a broad canyon flooded with daylight. Along both sides of the canyon were ruins like those he'd seen several days ago farther north—tiers of cavelike dwellings that had been built long ago by a long-vanished people.

Birds winged around the canyon, flashing in the sunlight. There was only a strong breeze down here though he could hear the rushing of the wind far above, where the jutting canyon walls touched the tan-blue sky.

Colter started walking forward. He opened his mouth to call for Bethel and closed it suddenly, frowning. He'd heard something. It came again, from far out across the canyon floor. Someone was singing. Loudly singing.

Gooseflesh rose along Colter's back. His sweating hands inside his gloves turned as cold as stones.

The man was singing a sad Spanish ballad at the tops of his lungs.

Colter had heard the voice before, the night he'd given Alegria sanctuary from the Balladeer.

Colter took one more hesitant step forward, trying to detect where the voice was coming from, muttering, “Who in God's name . . . ?”

A spur trilled behind him. He froze midstride. Something hard smashed against the back of his head. The tan dust and rocks sprang up to hammer his face an instant before everything went black.

Chapter 25

The same voice that Colter had heard just before the world had died sounded again, echoing in the deep, dark canyon of his unconsciousness. The familiar sound called him up through the muck. As it grew louder, he could feel someone lightly slapping his face.

He opened his eyes, squinting against the sunlight pushing around behind the big sombrero-clad head hovering in the air about eight inches from his own. He winced at the tequila stench of the man's breath, and blinked several times against the impossibility of the bearded, heavy-jawed face he was staring at.

The Balladeer.

The black hair hanging down from his sombrero was braided and trimmed with beads. It curled around the gold stud in his right ear. The man grinned, showing his teeth inside his beard. His nose was like a broad, crooked wedge, his small eyes like coals. His nose was brick red, while his cheeks owned the color and texture of seasoned saddle leather. Fine red lines etched the whites of his eyes, which were more yellow than white, and gunmetal-colored pouches hung beneath the drink-bleary orbs.

“
El Rojo
—it's you!”

Colter stared in mute horror, feeling as though he were genuinely staring at a ghost freshly risen from the grave. Maybe all the crazy stories he'd heard about the strange goings-on in Mexico were true. His tone was more shocked than angry. “I killed you, you son of a bitch.”

He tried to move his arms and legs. It was no good. He looked down the length of his lanky body to see that his ankles were tied to wooden stakes driven into the ground. Glancing up to each side, he saw that his wrists had been given the same treatment. He lay on the ground near the stream he'd seen before and which angled through the floor of the canyon, spread-eagle on his back, like a bug pinned to a wall.

He could hear water gurgling and churning to his left, only a few feet away. A river or stream . . .

Around him stood seven or eight Mexicans bristling with pistols and rifles, the bandoliers crisscrossing their chests flashing in the afternoon sunlight. Saddled horses stood around them, grazing the lush green grass lining the stream. Colter was vaguely aware that the wind's rushing atop the canyon walls had dwindled to a soft whisper.

The Balladeer's grin broadened, revealing a silver eyetooth. He placed his hand on Colter's face once more, pinching his chin between his thumb and hand, and jerked it from side to side. “You
tried
to kill me,
El Rojo
!” He laughed loudly, spit bubbles oozing between his tobacco-crusted teth. “The Balladeer—he's a tough
bastardo
to kill!”

The Mexican giant straightened until his full seven feet angled a thick, long shadow over Colter. The Balladeer grabbed the bottom of his red-and-white-striped serape and lifted the filthy garment to his chin. On his chest he wore a steel breastplate like that which Colter had seen on the dead conquistador. The plate hung from the Balladeer's neck by a stout rawhide thong. Three pale, round dents shone in the dark blue metal—all three bullet marks forming a triangle covering an area of the plate over the Balladeer's heart no larger than a ten-dollar gold piece.

Colter lowered his head in defeat and rolled his eyes around once more, jerking at the ropes holding his arms and legs fast. “What'd you do with Bethel, damn you?”

“What?” the Balladeer said. “Who?”

“You know who.” Colter gritted his teeth. “You touch a hair on her head, and . . .”

He let his voice trail off. The big Mexican stared down at him, appearing genuinely befuddled. Again, Colter looked around. Bethel was nowhere near.

“Oh,” the Balladeer said, nodding finally. He held his hand out, palm down, at the level of his belly. “The
rubio
muchacha?
Sí, sí
. I was going to ask you the same thing,
El Rojo
.” He bent his knees and shoved his face up close to Colter's once more, the raw, rancid smell of tequila making the redhead's eyes water. “And about the map.”

Colter stared at the man. He glanced at the others, who returned his look, eager interest in their eyes. For the moment, Colter placed his concern for Bethel's whereabouts and safety on a back burner. How had the Balladeer learned about Bethel's treasure map—if that was the map he was referring to. And what other map was there?

“I don't know what you're talkin' about.”

The big Mexican didn't buy it. Neither did the others. A man in a green felt sombrero and eye patch gritted his teeth and growled like an angry cur, balling his fists at his sides.

The Balladeer stared at Colter, feigning an expression of grave disappointment. He shook his head. “You cannot fool me,
El Rojo
. I know the girl is Senor Strange's daughter.
Mi amigos
who knew Strange in Tucson saw her there with him. He must have sent her the map, and she came down here to find her ole pa-pa. She had to have the map—because you two could not possibly have followed the trail you've been following without it. The one that led you here.”

The Balladeer smiled shrewdly.

Colter tried to buy himself some time. His skull throbbed from the braining he'd taken from the man who'd snuck up behind him. “How do you know Strange?”

“Never mind how I know that double-crossing bastard.” Machado leaned down and poked his right index finger three times hard into Colter's flat belly. “You tell me where the girl's map is, or you are going to die slowly,
Rubio
. And very bloody.”

It suddenly occurred to Colter that Bethel, having heard Machado's men stalking around, might have grabbed the Bible with the map in it and hid. He had to buy her as much time as possible to either hightail it away from here or find a secure hiding spot.

“Go to hell,” he said, flaring his nostrils defiantly at the big man. “Besides, you're here, ain't ya? What do you need the map for?”

The Balladeer glanced at the Mexican wearing the green felt sombrero. The man walked over to one of the horses and dipped his hand into a saddlebag pouch. When he pulled his hand out, it was clutching a chunk of rolled burlap. He handed the roll to Machado, who held one end and let the rest of it roll out in the air before him. The burlap was a strip about three feet long. Secured to the burlap with strips of rawhide were two daggers that shone so brightly in the sunlight, stabbing Colter's eyes, that Colter had to look away and blink.

When his eyes had adjusted to the glare, he saw that the perfectly tapering, double-edged blades and the hilts of both knives were solid gold. The cylinder-shaped handles were carved turquoise, each inset with one red, precious-looking stone. From end to end each delicate but savage-looking weapon was probably a foot and a half long.

They were beautiful weapons, both looking as though they'd been handmade only a few hours ago though they both gave off an air of antiquity. Were the daggers what Jed Strange had been looking for?

“We have two of these precious beauties,” Machado told Colter. “Stolen out of the old bandit's camp. He hid the third one, we think. The map will tell us where he hid it. And where we might find him . . . unless he is looking for us, maybe.” He grinned in delight.

Colter looked away from the precious weapons in disgust. As far as he was concerned, treasure hunting was as foolhardy as gambling. If those knives were what Jed Strange had left his daughter to find, and given his life for, he'd been a damn fool. Colter had no idea know how much the daggers were worth, but it wasn't enough.

“He ain't holed up with that third dagger,” Colter said. “And he ain't lookin' for you. He's dead. And there wasn't any map. We just knew to head for the Dragon Range, hopin' we'd run into him somewhere hereabouts.”

“No, no,
Rubio
,” Machado clucked reprovingly. “You lie. There are many routes into the Los Montanes del Dragones,
some with more water tanks. But you chose the same one we chose. The same one Strange chose—the one that leads to the treasure!”

The Balladeer glanced at the man in the green felt sombrero, who wound the burlap around the daggers and returned the bundle to the saddlebag pouch. “I am sorry to have to do this to you,
Rojo
.” He opened his coat and pulled out a stout, steel knife with a hide-wrapped wooden handle and a brass hilt. Dropping to one knee beside Colter, he cupped the redhead's chin in one strong hand, holding his head still, while lowering the blade toward Colter's left cheek. “You have obviously endured much misery”—he glanced at the scar in Colter's other cheek—“but I am afraid that, until you tell me where the map is located, you will endure much more . . . an even more repulsive-looking mark to wear to your grave.”

As the Balladeer touched the tip of the knife to Colter's left cheek, someone yelled in Spanish from somewhere behind Colter. Machado pulled the knife away and frowned back toward the narrow chasm through which Colter had fled the Apaches and walked into the banditos' trap. Colter heard the sound of horses moving toward him, and spurs trilling.

Finally, he saw another Mexican leading Colter's and Bethel's mounts into the crowd gathered beside the stream. The Mexican—a short man who wore a red bandanna over his head, under a tattered straw sombrero—had Bethel's Bible in his hand.

He dropped the horses' reins and held the Bible aloft, shaking it, with the top of the folded map sticking out of it. He shouted in Spanish, obviously informing his boss of his valuable find. Machado swung away from Colter, grabbed the Bible out of the little man's hand, slipped the map out of the back, tossed the Bible into the stream, and opened the folded paper.

He studied it for a time, shaggy brows furrowed, lips moving, murmuring to himself. Finally, he lifted his eyes and his chin, a smile stretching across his large, savage face. He spoke to his men in Spanish, and they all pricked up their ears, expressions brightening. He handed the map to the man in the green sombrero, and then, while the other men drifted off toward gear strewn along the stream bank, he walked back over to Colter. Lifting a gloved hand, the fingers having been cut out of the glove—he pressed a dirty index finger to his lower lip.

A shrewd light grew in his eyes. He smiled, chuckling with self-satisfaction, making a sharp knife of dread twist in Colter's guts.

“Ricardo! Javier!” He turned to two men who stood downstream a ways, near a freight wagon that Colter just now saw and that sat with its rear to the stream, tongue drooping. “Pull out one of those rifle crates and build
El Rojo
here a casket, huh? We want to give him a proper burial, now, don't we?”

Ricardo and Javier looked at each other. They turned back to the Balladeer and threw their heads back, bending their knees, laughing. Then, quickly, they ran around to the rear of the wagon, and presently they were hauling out a rectangular wooden box.

“What the hell you gonna do?” Colter asked Machado, who sat on a rock nearby, crossing his knees too daintily for a man of his size, casually trimming his fingernails with his big bowie knife while the rest of the men sank down around the several campfires blazing along the stream. He whistled contentedly to himself and ignored Colter's question.

While Ricardo and Javier hauled the box over to Colter, setting it down beside him, Colter's heart began hammering like a wolverine trying to claw its way out of a cage.

“Goddamn it,” Colter said tightly, looking at the box whose wooden cover was stamped
WINCHESTER REPEATING ARMS CO. NEW HAVEN, CONN
. “You got the damn map. Why don't ya just let me go?”

“For two very good reasons,
El Rojo
,” Machado said. “You tried to kill me. That is the best reason I can think of. I will admit you are very fast with your old pistol. Probably faster than anyone I have ever seen. If you had not used your gun on me, I might have even invited you into my gang . . . uh . . . despite the mark of Satan on your cheek there.” Indicating his own cheek with the knife, he chuckled. Ricardo and Javier were untying Colter's ankles from the stakes driven into the ground. “But the fact is, you did try to kill me. And what kind of man would I be if I let you go unpunished?”

“A damn reasonable one!” Colter said, watching the two men toss the ropes away from his ankles.

He stared at the box beside him as the two men untied his wrists. He glanced at Northwest cropping grass about twenty yards away, near Bethel's pinto, the reins of both horses dangling. Somehow, as soon as Ricardo and Javier had freed him from the stakes, he had to make a try for his horse. He didn't know what had happened to Bethel—she must have slipped away somehow—but he wasn't going to find her if they buried him alive in that rifle crate.

His left wrist jerked free of the stake. Then the right. Instantly, he tried to make a grab for the pistol on Javier's right hip, but his hand felt like a stone hanging there off the end of his wrist. The rope had cut off his blood supply, and now as the blood hammered back into the appendage, his nerves burned mercilessly. He groaned as he dropped to hands and knees, Javier pulling back and chuckling.

He rolled onto his back, clutching his wrists, feeling the blood trickling back into his feet, as well, his toes tickled by the flames of hell. Easily, Ricardo and Javier crouched over him, lifted him by shoulders and ankles respectively, and, while he feebly struggled, kicking weakly and striving to keep himself out of that damned gaping casket, they dropped him inside.

When they released him, he lunged upward, half turning and trying to climb over the edge of the box. Suddenly, the Balladeer stood over him, laughing, lifting a boot and smashing the heel into Colter's forehead.

Colter flew back against the side of the box. He stared up, heart thundering in his chest.

“No, goddamn it. Godamn you sons o' bitches to
hell
!”

The last thing he saw before Ricardo and Javier lowered the lid quickly onto the box, almost smashing his fingers between the lid and the box's right edge, was Machado's hysterically laughing countenance—laughing so hard that spittle was stringing from his bearded chin, and his beaded braids were dancing wildly beneath the broad brim of his leather sombrero.