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Authors: Kerry Newcomb

BOOK: The Red Ripper
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“William Wallace,” the big man softly replied. Ice worms burrowed into his spine. For a moment, he was transported back in time, forced to watch Samuel die, to look into the eyes of his killer. He experienced the same fear, became the same hunted animal running for his life. And, worse, Juan Diego didn't even remember the incident. The deaths of a few strangers meant nothing to
the governor's nephew. “And I have come to kill Juan Diego Guadiz.”
Esperanza's reaction was instantaneous. Her eyes widened, her jaw dropped slightly, mouth framed a silent
oh
, while she caught her breath.
“But enough about me,” William said. “Miss Esperanza, perhaps you would do me the honor of allowing me a dance or two.”
“You know my name?”
“A fellow named Stephen Austin pointed you out. I'd say he did me a favor.”
“Señor Austin is a friend—”
“Then I never envied a man more,” William interrupted.
“Wait,” she said and placed her slender brown hand on his arm. The effect was instantaneous, as if he had been struck by lightning. Electricity crackled through his body. William was caught between stalking off after Juan Diego and swooning at this woman's feet.
“Ma'am, beauty like yours is a fatal gift. Makes a man want to kill off his worst habits,” he said. “I reckon if you were to hold a rose, it would bloom all year.” William tried his most winning smile on her. But his tactic failed. She was looking past him toward a white-haired gentleman of average height, his features burned brown by the sun. He approached with short quick steps, an aura of wealth and quiet confidence preceding him.
“So there you are, my dear!” the older man exclaimed, closing with Esperanza. “Did you hold the governor's nephew spellbound?” He took her by the arm and faced Wallace. “She does me.” The
haciendado
looked regal in his silver-stitched waistcoat and trousers. A black sash and throat scarf matched his attire. “I see you have found a friend. I am Don Murillo Saldevar.”
“Pleasure to meet you, señor,” William replied. He glanced in Esperanza's direction. “I grinned a fox out of
its den once. She walked right out into the sunlight and into my grasp. I was hoping to do the same to your daughter.”
“Daughter, señor?” the gentleman crisply responded, eyes twinkling with merriment. Esperanza was an attractive, nubile woman, and Don Murillo was accustomed to the envious stares of younger men. “She is my wife.”
Wife!
The word struck William like a slap in the face. He almost recoiled from its impact. For the first time Wallace noticed the triple rings on the fourth finger of Esperanza's left hand. The blood rushed to his cheeks. How could he have missed the rings and made such a fool of himself?
“I was trying to say that señor Austin is a friend of my husband's,” Esperanza interjected with a winsome smile. She seemed more amused than offended by the situation.
“Yes, ma'am,” William stammered. “I understand. Please … excuse me … . My behavior was … Uh, anyway, I apologize.”
“For finding my wife beautiful? Come now,” Murillo said, clapping the big man on the shoulder. “I do the same.” The old
haciendado
laughed and leaned in close, lowering his voice, and continuing to speak in a conspiratorial tone. “So you know Stephen Austin, eh? And has he told you of our plans for Texas? We have earned the disfavor of the governor and General Santa Anna. I fear if either of those two come to power, it will make for heavy seas and rough sailing.”
“In all honesty, sir,” William said, “I only talked briefly with Austin. I knew him a long time ago, in another life. Much has changed.”
“I understand change. We are at the mercy of time and fate.” He placed his arm around Esperanza's shoulders.
The gesture had a curiously painful effect on William. He felt guilty for envying the landowner. “Once I was a grieving widower. I was like a ship, cast adrift. But Esperanza opened my heart to the wonderful possibilities of life.” His chest swelled as he beamed with pride.
“I, too, was rescued,” William told the
haciendado,
wryly adding, “but it was by the beast, not beauty.” He gave a brief recount of his arrival in Mexico. Esperanza's features were an open book to her soul. He could tell she was genuinely moved by his tale. Don Murillo listened with interest. He was more reserved but reacted noticeably at the mention of Mad Jack Flambeau.
“You know him?” William asked.
“Only by reputation,” Murillo conceded. “However, I fear your colorful benefactor is in trouble. Only a few minutes ago I saw him carried from the governor's mansion. He had been placed under guard. He looked ill-used from what I could see.”
“Where did they take him?” William glanced toward the governor's palace. His pulse was racing now, adrenaline rushing into his bloodstream.
“To the prison stockade behind the barracks, I should imagine,” Don Murillo suggested. “My wife and I are staying with my sister. If I can be of help—”
“And place you at risk? No, señor, you are kind, but no,” William said.
“You might appeal to the governor on behalf of Captain Flambeau. You are a well-spoken young man. He might hear what you have to say.” Don Murillo stroked his goatee as he studied the redheaded
norte americano.
This “William Wallace” was a big brute of a man, yet forthright, articulate, and obviously given to sentiment and passion. He was the kind of man the Texas frontier needed.
“The governor will ‘hear' me; I can promise that.”
William bowed to the couple and excused himself from their company.
Watching the big man stalk off with a long-legged stride that soon carried him from the estate, Esperanza experienced a twinge of regret. His farewell saddened her.
“What can he say to change the governor's mind?” Esperanza asked her husband.
“I think perhaps talking is at an end,” the landowner sagely observed. Don Murillo stared at the empty gateway Wallace had so recently filled and, in the seclusion of this side garden, sensed the passing of some great force. This encounter had been like the prelude to a storm and only hinted of the fury to come.
“ … YOU MIGHT LIVE TO SEE THE SUNRISE.”
Back alleys and narrow streets cut a serpentine course through moon-washed plazas where pastel-painted shops, cantinas, and houses marched up from the Bay of Campeche. Ocean breezes, scented with decay, set window curtains aflutter, stirred the branches of the palm trees lining the Avenida del Puerta, and hinted an age-old warning to the dried husks of summer: time is the hunter.
The
mercado
at midnight was a quiet, lonely hunting ground. Stray cats, their gleaming yellow eyes ever watchful for intruders, prowled among the shuttered stalls and paused to focus on the patrol as it worked its way across the marketplace and entered the Avenida del Puerta. Sgt. Cayetano Obregon halted the three men behind him and cautiously approached the sentry he had posted outside the Casa del Gato Negro.
“So, Emilio, what of the gringo?” the sergeant brusquely inquired, eyeing the front of the hotel.
His subordinate, a quick dark malcontent with a penchant for cheap whores, showed a row of crooked teeth as he grinned and cocked a thumb toward a side alley. “He just left, carrying his saddlebags to the stable. I think he is pulling out.”
“And abandon his friend, the Butcher of Barbados?”
“Sharing a room does not make them blood brothers,
my sergeant,” Emilio replied, leaning on his musket. The soldier removed his short-brimmed hat and ran a hand through his sweat-slick thinning black hair. The breeze felt cool on his head. Unlike the rest of the patrol, who were anxious to conclude this night's business and return to the celebration up at the governor's barracks, Emilio relished the prospect of a fight. He had no use for
norte americanos.
“I think he intends to leave Veracruz under cover of night and travel hard and far. I don't blame him. Juan Diego has a long, reach. I followed him to the widow's stable. Then I came back to wait for you. He is one big bastard.”
The other men heard and began to shift nervously where they stood, regretting the business they were about. No one wanted trouble on the governor's night, when the women were willing and the tequila flowed freely.
“Big trees make the most kindling,” Obregon said, appraising the men he had brought with him. These were the most sober men he could find. Five seasoned veterans should have no trouble cutting Wallace down to size.
William Wallace.
The proprietress of the hotel had provided his name but claimed to know nothing of her boarders save the fact that Wallace and the Frenchman had arrived earlier in the day. The widow took care to stress she had no part in whatever crime the gringo had committed.
But of course there was no crime, only a personal affront. The sergeant harbored no particular ill will toward Wallace. Sergeant Obregon was only following Juan Diego's orders. That was the way of things, life's chain of command.
“Come along then. Step easy now,” Obregon muttered to the patrol. Juan Diego Guadiz wanted Wallace in leg irons by sunup. The sergeant intended to carry out those orders to the letter. A few weeks in the governor's
jail would dull the edge on Wallace's pride.
Obregon tugged the pistol from his belt and checked to see if it was primed, then motioned for the patrol to follow him down the alley toward the stables at the rear of the hotel. A pair of tomcats, jealous over territorial rights to the alley, began to howl and hiss at each other. Emilio cursed and tossed a pebble in their direction. The felines scattered in opposite directions, abandoning their contested terrain to Obregon and his patrol. Emilio chuckled and glanced over his shoulder at his companions and saluted.
The rear of the alley was faintly illuminated by lantern light spilling through the main door, which had been left ajar. A breeze stirred and the door began to sway and creak on its rusted hinges. Obregon placed a finger to his lips in the universal sign for silence and quickened his pace. One of the men behind him inadvertently stepped on the broken remains of a tile that had slipped off the roof. The brittle clay crunched underfoot seemed deafening in the midnight stillness.
The sergeant whirled about, eyes blazing with hostility. Even Emilio knew better than to comment. No one moved for fear of directing the sergeant's anger toward himself. Unable to discern the guilty party, Obregon silently indicted them all. There would be hell to pay come morning and extra sentry duty for the lot of them. The sergeant continued on over to the front of the stable. As he placed a hand on the door, the light vanished, returning the interior to darkness. Obregon shook his head. So much for surprising the gringo. The sergeant stiffened his backbone, shoved the door open, and darted inside.
The moon's pale glare filling the entrance helped to illuminate the front stalls but left two-thirds of the interior in darkness.
This is not good,
Obregon thought. He motioned for Emilio and one other to take up a position on the left. The other two soldiers angled off to
the sergeant's right. A horse whinnied and pawed the earth at the rear of the stable. Obregon sensed someone waiting, watching beyond the reach of the moonlight.
“Well, what do we have here? Mad Jack's young squire?” said the sergeant, hoping to trick his prey into revealing himself, then continued in a stern tone of voice. “You are to come with us.” Obregon was accustomed to intimidating strangers. “Captain Guadiz wishes to speak with you again, about cards and the proper conduct of a gentleman and the price one must pay for impertinence. You can join your friend, the pirate, in the governor's jail.”
“Let me pass in peace,
cabrito.
” The words drifted out of the gloomy interior, the voice gentle yet ripe with warning.
“You call me an animal.” The sergeant's eyes narrowed. He would have given a week's pay for a lantern. Emilio found one, shook the chamber and discovered it empty of oil, and tossed the lamp aside. The glass chimney shattered on the hardened earth floor.
“You smell like a goat,” Wallace continued, unseen. “Be off. Dunk yourself in the ocean. And burn the uniform. You've lived in it too long.” Wallace sniffed the air, loud enough for all to hear, a gesture that only heightened his insult.
“Bastard! I'll teach you respect for the governor's guards.” Obregon shifted his pistol to his left hand and with his right unsheathed his saber. “Show yourself!” The soldiers pointed their bayonets toward the darkness.
“Put those toad stickers away. If you kill me, you'll still smell like a goat. And if I kill you, you'll smell even worse.”
Obregon's features contorted with rage. Unable to contain his anger, he loosed a stream of epithets and charged down the center aisle, sawing the air with his curved steel blade. Behind him, the patrol advanced in
a pack, muskets primed and ready, bayonets to the fore, each soldier convinced Wallace was cornered and helpless. That was their first mistake … and their last.
“Heeyahh!” A sombrero slapped across horseflesh. A pair of horses charged down the center aisle, scattering the soldiers. A pair of muskets belched smoke and flame and shot holes through the back wall of the stable. In the glare of the muzzle blasts Obregon glimpsed a great and terrible silhouette sweeping past him. He lunged forward with his saber. Wallace thrust a leg out and tripped the man, then hammered him across the back of the neck with a powerful forearm that sent the sergeant sprawling into a stall. Obregon hit hard; his pistol discharged, setting fire to the straw.
“Bastard!” one of the men shouted out, attacking with his bayonet. Shadows flew out to attack him. He skewered a bag of oats, a bridle, another bag of oats. A wooden bucket of slops materialized out of thin air and crashed over his head. Wallace spun the man about and planted a foot in the soldier's backside and propelled him toward his companions. Blinded, the soldier ran headlong into a post, splintering the bucket and knocking himself unconscious.
Emilio and his
compadre
glimpsed movement and fired simultaneously. “Got him!”
But Emilio's elation vanished as one of their own, framed in the glare of the muzzle blasts, stumbled forward, his hands outstretched, his expression “Why?” as he collapsed against a stall gate, then crumbled to his knees and curled over on his belly.
Emilio held his ground, but his
compadre
had lost his taste for battle. The soldier threw his musket aside and dashed to safety. Emilio pointed the bayonet at Wallace's belly as the big man loomed out of the dark. Sergeant Obregon struggled to his feet and, wielding his saber, charged the
norte americano
from behind. Juan
Diego's orders were forgotten now. This was personal.
Knives appeared in Wallace's hands, the dirk in his left hand, the short sword in his right. How many times had Flambeau tested him? Every day, rain or shine, come wind or high water, Mad Jack had prepared him for this moment.
Emilio lowered the bayonet and charged. Wallace, despite his size, proved to be an elusive target. He parried with his right, twisted about, ducked as Emilio tried to club him with the butt of his musket, plunged the dirk into the soldier's thigh, then knocked him senseless with the flat of his broad blade. Wallace heard the saber behind him as it sliced through the air. He spun on his heels.
Steel crashed against steel. The saber clanged against the short sword. Wallace stepped inside the sergeant's guard, opened a gash along the sergeant's cheek, sliced him down the length of one shoulder, and plowed a furrow in Obregon's flesh deep enough to hurt like hell but not enough to kill him. The sergeant was no match for the knife-fighter. He stumbled over the bodies of his fallen command, toppled backward, and crashed through the side of a stall. Howling like a wounded bear, he crawled hand over foot toward the front door. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Wallace advancing on him. The gringo's red hair, in wild disarray, looked like flames beneath the moon's baleful stare; the blades in his hands flickered with cold fire as he twirled them in his grasp.
“El Destripedor Rojo! He is here!” the sergeant moaned, crawling into the yard, trying to sound an alarm. The last of his patrol, the one frightened soul who had fled the barn, had no intention of confronting the Red Ripper. He clutched the holy medal he wore about his throat and vanished around the corner of the hotel.
“Ahorre qui vida!”
Obregon blurted, holding his
hands out before him and trailing blood in his wake. “Spare my life.”
Wallace slowly advanced, breathing hard, limbs trembling with blood lust, the blades of his knives stained with the crimson residue of battle. The two horses he had saddled waited near a trough a few yards from the barn. The animals whinnied and pawed the earth. A nighthawk soared past on its nightly foray, the rush of its wings in kinship with the beating of a warrior's heart. Wallace lifted the knives in his hands, glanced down at the sergeant, then slowly exhaled, cooling the fire within.
“Do as I say and you might live to see the sunrise,” he calmly advised.
Obregon nodded. He had no problem with that.
 
Dolores Medina, the camp laundress, waited while the two men gambled for her favors. She did not care which went first, just so long as both were quick. The woman was tired, her gums hurt, there was a nagging ache in the small of her back that no amount of pulque seemed to deaden, and she wanted to be on her way. But the jailers continued to argue over each other's seniority. The men were almost as drunk as the soldiers asleep throughout the barracks. The whole powder magazine could explode in a ball of fire and Dolores doubted any of the troops in the compound would rouse from their stupor to investigate.
But here in the guardroom her paramours were still on their feet. She was so tired of their quarreling yet knew better than to interfere. All the yelling had given her a headache. The laundress drained the last of the milky white pulque from her jug and set it on a shelf above her head. The cot creaked as the woman shifted her weight. She yawned, stretched a moment, and closed her eyes. Sweat trickled down the roll of fat under her neck as she turned her face to the wall. Moisture beaded
the inside of her thighs. She fluffed her cotton dress to fan her lower limbs, then left her clothing bunched at the waist and exposed the ample delights of her brown derriere to the lamplight while she tried to catch some rest. A few minutes later she began to snore and dream of being a young girl again, wild and fresh and dancing on the fringes of the sea.
“Más tequila, mi amigo,”
said Felix Salcedo, older by a fortnight, a wiry little man with bloodshot eyes. “More tequila, my friend.” He stabbed a thumb in the direction of the woman on the cot. “Another glass of tequila and she'll be pretty enough to lie with, eh?”
Carlos Pilar came from the same village as his friend. They had run whores from Tampico to Yucatan and chased Apaches until they learned better. There was no man Carlos trusted more than Felix, but there was no way he was going to bed a woman still wet from another man's juices.
“Another glass of tequila and it won't matter what she looks like. I'll not be able to find my pole.”
“Then I'd better hurry up and tend to her while you still can manage,” Felix said, attempting to rise from the table.

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