Texas Killers (16 page)

“Here goes,” Waco mused. “If I'm wrong, I'll get hell!” While delivering the observation to himself, he swung to face von Farlenheim. Flashing down, his right hand brought the Army Colt from its holster, cocked the hammer and pointed the barrel at the treacherous Bosgravnian, yelling, “Drop that bottle. Men in the wagon, Dusty!”

A moment later, the erstwhile peaceful scene erupted into sudden, violent motion!

First every head turned in the youngster's direction!

Then each person began to react!

All Waco's doubts were swept away as he saw how the young Bosgravnian responded. It established in no uncertain manner that he was correct in the assumption that Alex had been substituted for Fritz. While the latter might have shown alarm, his expression would not also have registered such a look of guilt inspired fury.

“He knows!” Alex screeched, raising the bottle with the intention of hurling it at the youngster.

Hearing what was being said, Seraphin had paused and looked around. Seeing what was happening, he sprang onward with his right hand
reaching for the cord that allowed the wagon's side panel to fall open.

The original plan had called for the showman to wait until Alex had presented the Crown Prince with hydrochloric acid instead of the expected white wine. Then Seraphin was to produce a drink he had concealed on his person and propose a toast to the royal visitor and the United States of America. Not until the effects of the deadly corrosive liquid was distracting everybody else's attention would he have pulled the cord and allow the four men in the vehicle to make use of their ten gauge shotguns.

The scheme had been arranged in such a fashion primarily to deal with the four members of Ole Devil's floating outfit. Their well deserved reputation for capability in matters
pistolero
made it imperative that they were disposed of quickly and before they could go into action themselves. Once the shooting started, half a dozen more hired guns would dash from their hiding places and help with the slaughter. Finally the camp would be looted and the blame would be put by the
Comtesse
and the von Farlenheims who would claim they escaped because they had not returned from hunting when the attack was launched—upon a mythical gang of Mexican
bandidos.

At least, that was what should have happened!

Unfortunately for the conspirators, the keen eyes, memory and deductive ability of the floating outfit's youngest member had prevented the surprise attack from succeeding.

Knowing Waco, Dusty and Mark realized he was not indulging in a practical joke. So, having looked at him, they swung their gaze in the direction he had suggested. While doing so, each of them was pleased that he was seated at the side of the table closest to the medicine show's wagon. They had turned their chairs toward it and there was nothing to prevent them from rising hurriedly, with hands leaping to the butts of their Colts.

All the other people at the table were rising with alacrity and reaching for weapons!

As her hand closed around the butt of the Webley R.I.C., Charlene darted a look of alarm at Ludwig von Farlenheim. He too was displaying angry consternation at the suggestion that their scheme was going wrong, but that did not prevent him reaching swiftly toward the Smith & Wesson Russian revolver he was wearing.

Displaying the kind of coolness that had been in evidence in other moments of danger, Amelia sent her chair toppling over as she sprang to her feet and started to pull out her Webley R.I.C. She was
directing her attention to the woman at the other end of the table.

Caught just as unawares as everybody else by Waco's behavior, the Kid moved as swiftly as his two
amigos.
Although he was standing within a few feet of the youngster and saw what von Farlenheim was doing, he did not offer to intervene. Satisfied that Waco could take care of himself, the Kid rotated his right hand to enfold the walnut grip and twist the heavy old Dragoon Colt from leather as he lunged forward.

Suspecting that the bottle held some form of acid, which had necessitated the use of a glass stopper instead of a cork, the youngster did not hesitate when he saw he was being threatened by it. His forefinger had already depressed the Colt's trigger and all he needed to do was remove his thumb from the hammer. Swinging forward, it set the firing cycle into motion.

Before Alex could carry out his intention, Waco's Colt thundered. By accident rather than deliberate aim, the bullet struck and shattered through the bottle on its way into the Bosgravnian's chest. In addition to the pain inflicted by the lead, much of the acid, so suddenly released, sprayed over him. Screaming in agony as it began to burn, he toppled backward.

With his left hand grasping and tugging at the cord and the right beginning to pull free his Colt, Seraphin glanced over his shoulder. What he discovered warned him that not only was the plan misfiring badly, but his own life was now in jeopardy. So, as the well-greased bolt slid open and liberated the panel, he leapt toward the darkness beyond the wagon.

Although the hired killers in the vehicle were holding their shotguns, they had not been able to see what was happening outside. Their instructions were to be ready to go into action when they heard Seraphin proposing a toast to the Crown Prince and the commotion that would follow the words. While the disturbance had arisen, their leader had not delivered his signal. So, despite the sound of Waco's shot, they were taken unprepared when the panel began to tilt downwards. Nor did the sight which met their gaze improve the state of affairs. Colts in hand, two men who were acknowledged as high among the most deadly gun-fighters in Texas were running toward them.

Discovering without surprise that the danger Waco had implied in his cryptic utterance was materializing, Dusty and Mark were aware that there was only one way in which they might cope with
it. Continuing their advance, each of them began to fire the weapons he had drawn with speed and commendable accuracy. Muzzle blasts appeared to be continuous red glows as their Colts turned loose a holocaust of lead upon the men in the wagon. Already alarmed by the turn of events which none of them had envisaged, not one of the discomforted quartet was able to line his shotgun much less discharge it at the proposed targets. Each of them took lead as he was trying to make corrections to the drastically changed conditions. Struck by the second bullet from Mark's left-hand Colt, the man at the right screeched and spun around to discharge his shotgun's load into his nearest companion thus adding to the party's troubles. Apart from that, all four were felled without being permitted to put their weapons to use.

As was always the case in a precarious situation, the Kid forgot his white upbringing and reverted to the training he had been given to make him worthy of membership in the
Pehnane
Comanche Dog Soldier war lodge. It had converted him into a warrior second to none. Hurling himself between Liebenfrau and von Goeringwald, neither of whom was anywhere near as ready to take action, he bounded on to the table. By the time he landed, his left hand had joined the right to elevate the Dra
goon Colt to shoulder level and he had assessed where it would be most advantageously put to use.

Barely conscious that, having exchanged glances with him, the
Comtesse
had decided discretion was the better part of valor and was turning to run away, Ludwig von Farlenheim was bringing up his Smith & Wesson with the intention of carrying out his mission to kill Crown Prince Rudolph no matter what the cost to himself. He was hardly aware of the menacing black-clad figure that seemed to materialize out of thin air on the table and swivel from the waist toward him. There was a brilliant red glow and a thunderous bellow as, powered by no less than fifty grains of prime du Pont black powder, the old Dragoon flung a .44 caliber ball of soft lead in his direction. It came into contact with the center of his forehead, shattering through his brain and burst from the back of his head to kill him instantly.

Cocking the four pound, one ounce, thumb-busting giant of a handgun on its recoil, the Kid knew it would not be required to take further measures against von Farlenheim. His gaze swung away and, noticing what Seraphin was doing now that he had released the panel of the wagon, he launched himself from the table to give chase.

Extracting her Webley R.I.C. and drawing its
hammer to fully cocked, Amelia did not allow herself to be distracted by what was going on around her. Looking past the Kid as he was leaping on to the table, she saw that Charlene was starting to run away. With the thundering of the three Texans' Colts echoing in her ears, she set off in pursuit. Darting between Rudolph, Liebenfrau, the Baron and the rest of the royal retinue while they were still drawing their weapons, she ran swiftly after the departing woman.

“Charlene!”

Hearing her name as she was leaving the lighted area of the camp site, the
Comtesse
looked behind her. Cold rage swept through her as she discovered that the Englishwoman who had inflicted a painful and humiliating defeat over her was following her. Such was the fury inspired by the sight that she forgot her intention of joining the rest of Seraphin's hired killers and, if she could not persuade them to launch an attack upon the hunting party, joining them in their flight.

“God damn you!” Charlene shrieked in her native tongue, as she halted, turned, and brought up her revolver with the speed of determined desperation.

Even if Amelia had not been able to understand French, she would have known that her life was
threatened. She had seen Charlene shoot and knew that she was at a distance where the
Comtesse
could be counted upon not to miss. Coming to a stop, she adopted a similar technique to that of the Kid by raising the Webley with both hands.

Charlene was employing the same aid to accuracy, but there was one major and vital difference in what came next. The Webley R.I.C. had a double action mechanism which did not need to be cocked manually, but could be fired by squeezing the trigger. However, Amelia had drawn back the hammer and the
Comtesse
had not. So, although their shooting skill was practically equal, she had a slight—yet vital—advantage in that she required less exertion to discharge her weapon.

Both revolvers went off at almost the same instant!

Even as Amelia saw Charlene jerk under the impact of her bullet, she felt herself struck on the left side. Crying out involuntarily as the searing pain bit into her, she dropped her revolver and, as the
Comtesse
twirled around and then fell to the ground, she clutched at the source of the agony. Her questing hands became wet by the blood that was flowing from the furrow carved across her flesh.

“Whooee!” Dusty breathed, as the last of the four men in the wagon disappeared from view, looking at Mark. “
That
was close!”

“I don't want anything closer,” the blond giant replied. “If the boy hadn't yelled when he did—!”

“Yes,” the small Texan agreed, having no need for his
amigo
to finish the comment. Glancing to where the Kid was running by, he looked around to find out what the rest of the party was doing. “He saved our lives, for sure. The young cuss won't be fit to live with for weeks after this.”

“A
LL RIGHT,
C
APTAIN
F
OG,”
C
OLONEL
W
ILHELM
Liebenfrau said, as he and the small Texan came to a halt about fifteen feet from the edge of the small clearing they had entered. “Why did you ask me to come for a stroll with you?”

“I figured that it was time you and I had a talk,” Dusty replied. “And, considering what it's about, I reckoned
you'd
prefer we did it somewhere private.”

It was shortly after noon on the day after Charlene,
Comtesse de
Petain and her confederates had carried out their abortive attempt to assassinate Crown Prince Rudolph of Bosgravnia.

Of the would-be assassins, only Alex von Farlenheim and one of the men in the wagon had been alive when the guns stopped roaring. The cost to their prospective victims was the bullet wound, which had resulted in a broken rib, sustained by Amelia Benkinsop. To give Doctor Seraphin his due, he had warned the rest of his companions that the scheme had failed. He had been yelling for them to bring him a horse so he could flee with them when he heard the Ysabel Kid coming. Turning, he had made the fatal mistake of missing with his shot at the black-dressed Texan and was not granted an opportunity to remedy the error. A bullet from the old Dragoon Colt had written
finis
to his career as medicine showman and unsuspected professional killer.

When sending the Kid and Waco to inform the sheriff of Duval County about the incident, Dusty had also instructed them to bring back medical assistance for the injured. Not only had they returned from San Diego with the peace officer and a doctor, they had been accompanied by a woman. She had claimed to be a trained nurse who was passing through the town, having arrived that morning, on her way to take up an appointment in a San Antonio hospital.

Although Alex's wound had been fatal, he had
refused to supply Liebenfrau with the names of the other members of the Council of Noble Birth in Bosgravnia. He had died before the doctor arrived, cursing the Crown Prince, the Personal Attendant and declaring they would never find his cousin alive. Apart from telling his captors where the First Taster could be found, the hired killer had not been able to do more than explain how the assassination was to be carried out. Following the instructions they had been given, Mark Counter, Major the Baron von Goeringwald and Captain von Farlenheim's orderly had located him. Stripped to his underwear, bound, gagged and suffering from a concussion, he had been brought back to the camp. According to the doctor on examining him, he would not suffer any serious aftereffects as a result of his experience.

Once the various formalities had been completed, Dusty had asked Liebenfrau to accompany him for a walk. They had made their way to where bushes lined the banks of the stream which supplied the camp with water. It was about half a mile from the site and, as the hired killers had pointed out when learning what was expected of them, the nearest cover to it. Neither the small Texan nor the Personal Attendant had spoken until they arrived in the clearing and the latter raised the point which
he had been considering since he had received the request from the small Texan. Nor had either of them been as alert as they should have been as each was engrossed in his thoughts.

“That sounds almost ominous,” Liebenfrau remarked, but there was no levity in his manner and he speculatively eyed the young man for whom he had developed a great respect.

“It could well be all of that,” Dusty admitted. “Depends on whether I'm right about the reason why
you
hired Beguinage.”

“I?” the Personal Attendant repeated, his hard face showing no emotion. “Why would I hire him?”

“I
could
be wrong,” the small Texan replied, standing apparently relaxed yet as ready for instant action as a compressed coil spring. “But I don't reckon it was to have him kill His Highness.”

“Thank you for
that,
” Liebenfrau said gruffly, but with obvious sincerity. “But how did you know I had hired him?”

“Neither the
Comtesse
's crowd nor the anarchists had, so it had to be somebody else,” Dusty explained. “I couldn't decide who until his woman started trying to kill off those she blamed for his death and you was one of us she had a try at. Then I noticed how you got sort of edgy when you were
asked what you knew about Beguinage and that made me reckon I was on the right track. Waco allowed that he was figuring on the same lines when I talked to him about it.”

“You are both very shrewd young men,” Liebenfrau complimented. “And I suppose that you know why I hired him?”

“I've a fair notion,” Dusty drawled, the Bosgravnian's second sentence having been more of a statement than a question. “He was Europe's ‘premier assassin' by his and all your accounts. So you wanted to make sure nobody else hired him to kill the Prince. His chore was to take out anybody who looked likely to be after His Highness, but he was to make folks think he'd been paid to do it himself.”

“The last part was
his
idea,” Liebenfrau corrected. “From what I was given to understand, he thought it might have an adverse effect upon his future career if it became known that he had been hired to stop other people killing somebody.”

“And you went along with it as you didn't take to the notion of folks hearing you knew how to get hold of 'n' hire a longhorn like Beguinage,” Dusty guessed dryly.

“A man in my position must know many things,” the Personal Attendant pointed out, with
out any suggestion of annoyance. “And use even unfair means to do my duty.”

“Why sure,” Dusty conceded. “Not that I regret having done it, mind, but I wouldn't have had to kill him if I'd known what he'd been hired to do.”

“You will have cause to regret having done it,” a hard feminine voice with a trace of an undefinable foreign accent stated.

Taking a step to the right as Liebenfrau turned, Dusty looked at the speaker. Although his left hand had started to reach for the offside Colt, he stopped the movement with his fingers a few inches from the bone handle. As he had known from the voice, the woman who was standing partially concealed behind a bush had accompanied the doctor from San Diego in the capacity of nurse. About five foot seven in height, somewhat bulkily built and clad in a plain black two-piece travelling costume, he decided that there was something vaguely familiar about her. It was not her bland, matronly features. Nothing about them was eyecatching or memorable. However, the Winchester Model of 1873 carbine she was holding with the butt cradled against her right shoulder was handled with every evidence of competence.

“You were very wise to stop, Captain Fog,” the
woman stated, lining the carbine with disconcerting steadiness at the center of the small Texan's chest. “Or should I say ‘Mr.
Rapido
Clint'?”

“I thought he'd be gone and forgotten now I've got my hair back to its natural color,” Dusty replied, studying the “nurse” with greater attention than he had paid to her until that moment.

“I'll
never
forget
you,
or forgive you for what you've done,” the woman declared, gritting out the words. Then her voice took on a more mocking tone and she continued, “As I said, you were wise not to try to draw the pistol. I'm going to kill you anyway, but I want you to know who I am first.”

“Give me a chance and I'll make a right smart guess at
that,
” Dusty answered. “And when it comes to killing me, you'll need to be a better shot with that saddlegun than you were with that thing you used to throw the knife at the Colonel.”

“
She
threw it at me?” Liebenfrau barked, swinging his gaze to the small Texan. Not only did he display surprise, but puzzlement tinged his voice as he went on, “But I thought that was done by Beguinage's woman!”

“It was,” Dusty confirmed, without taking his eyes from the “nurse.” “At least by one of them.
Only mistake I made was not figuring he might have two working for him.”

“You have made other mistakes, too,” the woman corrected, with a hint of asperity.

“Only little-bitty ones,” Dusty countered, adopting a manner redolent of smug condescension as he had noticed that the annoyance came when he spoke of the women working for Beguinage. “I didn't recognize either you or the other girl as the nuns who were outside my room at the Portside Hotel the day I shot the snake
he
left there. But then, whoever notices what a nun looks like.”

“Who indeed?” the woman agreed, but her tone suggested she was finding the small Texan's attitude irritating. “Certainly nobody suspected
me
of leaving the snake, either in your room or to kill that man in Brownsville.”

“
He
must have taught you what to do,” Dusty drawled, waiting for the first chance he was offered to turn the tables and sensing he was taking the right line to bring it about. “Which I'm lucky I put him down, though. What I've seen and heard of
him,
he wouldn't've let you-all make the fool mistakes you've pulled since he was dead.”

“You think not?” the woman hissed. “Then that
is another mistake your so-great intelligence has made! Alphonse was my son and
I
am the Beguinage!”

“You?”
Dusty scoffed and there was the world of disbelief in the way he said the single word.

Although the woman's forefinger began to tighten on the carbine's trigger, she refrained from completing its pressure. Almost writhing in the fury that had been aroused by the way she was being underrated by such a small and insignificant looking person, she wanted him to learn he was not as brilliant as he clearly imagined himself to be. Her pride was wounded deeply by his comments, for she knew them to be completely wrong as far as her position in their organization was concerned.

On being ordered to leave her convent, having been caught in an act of misconduct with a visiting priest that had resulted in the birth of twins, the woman
¹
had turned to the life of a professional assassin. In addition to becoming an expert in her
new trade and building the organization which had kept her identity a secret, she had trained her children to be extremely capable assistants. It had been with a sense of malicious humor that she had adopted the name given to members of the Catholic lay sisterhood from which she was expelled.
²

Over the years, the Beguinage had rarely failed on an assignment. That they should have done so and in such a disastrous fashion while operating in a country which the woman had regarded as barbarous and poorly educated, when the police of every European nation had been unable to even identify them, made the defeat all the more bitter. So she had sworn to be avenged upon those whom she held to be most responsible. Having had no greater respect than Dusty for the ability of Marshal Benjamin Digbry, she had killed him to regain possession of her son's knife and, more important, because of a shortage of the poison which was contained in the pot. Wishing to terminate the affair as quickly as possible, she had told her daughter to hire a second party of men to kill the small Texan while she went to take care of Liebenfrau, who she
had anticipated would visit the livery barn on arriving at Corpus Christie. Having seen the preparations being made by the Texans, she had deduced the precautions they were intending to take, even to the splitting up of the party for the journey to the town.

Deciding to withhold from further activities for a time after her daughter's death, so as to lull her victims into a sense of false security, the woman had followed half a day or so behind the hunting party. As they had stuck to the stagecoach trail until approaching San Diego, this had not been difficult. On her arrival at the town, the story she had spread about being a nurse so as to avoid attracting unwanted attention had paid an unexpected dividend. She was asked by the doctor to accompany him to the camp, supplying a perfect reason for her to go there. Seeing Dusty and Liebenfrau setting off for a walk and noticing the direction they were taking, she had collected her Winchester from the buckboard in which she was travelling and had slipped away unnoticed to follow them. She was confident that they were sufficiently far from the rest of the party for her to be able to use the weapon without the shots being heard, and she hoped to be on her way to safety before they were missed.

“Me!”
the woman insisted. “Alphonse and Arelette were
my
assistants. It was I who taught them all they knew about kill—!” The words died away as she noticed that the Personal Attendant's right hand had moved until it was in position to open the flap of his holster. Her voice hardened, but she kept the carbine pointing at Dusty while going on, “Don't do that, Colonel. I mean
you
no harm!”

“Oh come on now, ma'am,” the small Texan protested. “You know you're lying in your teeth. You're not about to leave
anybody
alive who knows who and what you are.”

“I agree with Captain Fog,” Liebenfrau declared.

“There now,” Dusty said triumphantly, but stood as motionless as he had from the moment his hand had halted its reach for the Colt. “That gives you-all one hell of a problem, lady. You can't shoot us both at the same time and, while you're throwing lead my way, the Colonel's going to get his gun and drop you where you stand.”

“I swear to you—!” the woman began, turning her gaze to the Personal Attendant.

“Liar!” Liebenfrau thundered and took a step forward, flipping open the holster's flap to grip the butt of his revolver.

Before she could prevent herself, the woman started to swing the carbine in the Bosgravnian's direction. Her instincts gave a warning that he was not the greatest danger, but it arrived just a fraction too late.