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Authors: Ralph W. Cotton

Lawman from Nogales (9781101544747) (29 page)

BOOK: Lawman from Nogales (9781101544747)

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“No, you cannot,” Hector said quietly.

“But I'm glad it misfired, Hector,” she said. “Do you hear me, I'm
glad
!”

“
SÃ
, so am I,” Hector said flatly.

“I want you to understand something,” she said. “My life has been much the same as yours. I have done nothing but struggle to keep myself alive since the day I was born. It's hard living like that every day. It makes one do things they would never dream of doing otherwise.”

Hector only stared at her, the rifle tight in his hands.

Erin reached a toe out and nudged one of the sacks of money.

“But with this money, things can be different for me now,” she said. “I know they can be different. I don't have to kill someone else in order for me and my baby to live. With this money, I can live and let live. I can raise my baby in peace, and not have to worry how I will feed and clothe it.”

Hector found himself staring at the sacks of money, realizing how different things would have been for him if he'd had the money sooner, before his wife, Ana, and his son left him.

“It is true what you say,” he whispered almost to himself. “There are those who would have us believe that money is not everything, and I envy those people. My life would not have been so bad if only I had money to make it better.” He shook his head slightly in regret.

“But not now, Hector,” she said, stepping forward toward him, the sacks of money lying at their feet.

Hector's wary look caused her to stop.

“You wanted to kill me,” he said, letting her know to keep her distance.

“Yes, and I am sorry for that,” she said, “deeply sorry. But that was before I knew how you feltâwhat you've been through. I don't want to kill you, Hector. I want to be your friend, your
compaÃ±ero.
” She paused and gave him an intimate look. “I'll even be your
Ãntimo compaÃ±ero
, if you will have me.”

His
intimate companion . . . ?
Hector swallowed the tightness in his throat and looked her up and down.
My God, she is beautiful
, he told himself.

This was not the time or the place to judge people hastily or harshly, he thought. Like most creatures here in the brutal desert lands, people did what they had to do for the very moment in which they lived. This was no time to discern what life demanded next from them. There was only this hot, insistent moment that demanded attention in order to stay alive.

“IâI want to believe you,” Hector said. “I would give anything to believe you. . . .”

“Then
do
believe me, Hector,” she said. “All you have to do is let yourself believe me.” She ventured a step closer to him, farther away from the big Starr revolver.

Hector let the rifle slump in his right hand, but he raised a finger for emphasis.

“You must give me your word not to try to kill me again,” he said with a half smile, the soothing feel of the cocaine surrounding him.

“You have my word, Pancho,” Erin said, stepping and putting her arms around him. “I will never try to kill you again.”

From the other room, the Ranger stepped out of the darkness and into the moonlit bedroom, his Winchester rifle in hand.

“Easy,
Pancho
,” he said quietly, having heard the woman use the name while he'd stood listening from the other room. “I'm not after either one of you.” He glanced at Erin as he spoke.

Hector's rifle lowered and hung in his hand.

“How long have you been there, Ranger Burrack?” Erin asked, taking a step back from Hector.

No longer “Sam.” Ranger Burrack now
, Sam noted.

“Not long,” he said. He stepped around to where the Starr lay on the remaining loose straw.

“This money is ours, Ranger,” Hector said firmly with a warning tone to his voice. He turned with the Ranger, keeping squarely faced toward him.

“If this was U.S. territory, I'd take the money and turn it in,” Sam said. “Down here, I have no claim on it. I don't even know which side of the border it came from.”

Hector gave Erin a look. “Do you believe him?” he asked.

“I believe him,” she said. “He's here for the Gun Killers, nothing more. Right, Sam?”

“Right,” Sam replied. He looked closely at Erin.

Erin thought she saw disappointment in his eyes. “Sam, I didn't mean toâ”

“Take the money and get going,” Sam said, cutting her off. “There's nothing to explain.”

Erin hesitated, then said, “Sam . . . there's enough money here for us to share it. If it hadn't been for you dogging the gang so hard . . .”

The look Sam gave her caused her words to trail to a halt.

Hector looked at the two of them with curiosity. Was something playing out here, or was it just the cocaine toying with his mind?

Sam grabbed the big Starr revolver, walked over to the open window and laid it on the sill. He picked up the candle, lit it and placed it in the window beside the gun.

“The gun battle is over. They're on their way,” he said.

“You will not fight them alone,” Hector said, stepping forward. “I will stay and fight beside you.”

“No,” Sam said, “I fight alone. This has nothing to do with you.”

“Nothing to do with
me
?” said Hector. “Look at what they did to me.”

Sam gestured a nod toward the sacks of money on the floor.

“The money is what did that to you,” he said. “It'd be a shame to get yourself killed before you enjoy what it brings you.”

Hector looked at the sacks of money, then up at the woman. He tipped his swollen, battered head a bit.

“You are right, Ranger,” he said. He stepped out and stood between the sacks on the floor. “But before I go, I tell you this. If you think you have seen the last of me, you are wrong. I will soon return to Rosas Salvajes and take my cantina from whoever is running it.”

“Good luck, Pancho,” Sam said, trying to dismiss the matter. He picked up the big Starr and turned it back and forth in his hand.

But Hector wasn't finished. He thumbed himself on the chest, the cocaine still hard at work, doing its job, starting to bring things to the surface that usually only boiled and simmered deep inside him.

“I will tell you something else,” he said. “You and your country have not heard the last of Pancho Pasada. I will use this money and whatever resources I have to bring other men like myself together. Bold men! Men who will not be denied what is ours just because you have made a mark in the dirt between our country and yours. We will be coming, Lawman from Nogales,” he said in a scornful warning.

“I'll be waiting,” Sam replied quietly but firmly. He held the big Starr up, his thumb over its hammer, knowing that the longer they talked the farther apart they would find themselves.

“Now get going.” He reached out arm's length through the open window, pointed the revolver straight up and fired it once
.

Hector and Erin stared at each other in amazement, hearing the blast, seeing the streak of blue-orange muzzle fire.

Sam fired it again, this time two shots
.

“Oh my . . . ,” said Erin. Why had it not fired for her?

He fired again, three shots
.
Then he laid the empty smoking gun on the windowsill.

“Are we through talking, Pancho?” he asked.

Hector started to say something more, but the woman took his arm and pulled him away.

“Help me with the money,” she said to Hector. Having taken a set of saddlebags from behind her saddle, she tossed them on the floor beside the money sacks. To Sam she said, “He has taken cocaine powder for his pain.”

“I figured as much,” Sam replied, watching Hector stoop down, open the sack and start stuffing the money down into the saddlebags.

Erin took a pair of saddlebags from behind Hector's saddle and put them on the floor to be filled.

She stepped in closer to the Ranger. “Sam, I feel like there is something I should say or do.”

“There's not,” Sam replied.

“You
did
save my life,” she said softly.

“And
you
saved mine,” Sam replied. “Now get moving before you end up in the middle of things here. You've got your baby to think of, and a life waiting for you in Ireland.”

“Sam,” she said, “I must confess to you. I've never been to Ireland in my life.”

He just stared at her.

“It's true,” she said. “My father came from Ireland before Bram and I were born. He was a Texan who came to Mexico in forty-six to fight in the Mexican army in the BatallÃ³n de San Patricio
.
I am named after Ireland, but I was born here in Mexico. My mother was Mexican.
This
is my native land.” She gestured a hand toward the darkness, taking in all of the wild, rugged terrain.

“So, the story about you and your brother, Bram, being orphansâ?”

“Lies,” she said bluntly, “along with everything else I told you. I lied to you. I lied to Teto and Luis. I have lied to everyone throughout my life because I was born on the wrong side of the border.”

The wrong side of the border . . .

Sam shook his head and gazed out across the dark purple night. In the east, silver sunlight began to swell above the jagged, black horizon.

“There's no right or wrong side of the border,” he said. “We're all the same.”

“That's easier to believe when you come here from Nogales,” she said. “It's harder to believe when you go to Nogales from here.”

Sam stared out in silence for a moment.

“Why are you telling me the truth now?” he asked quietly.

“I don't know,” she said. “I suppose I just needed to tell someone the truthâjust once in my life.” She paused and added, “You were honest, and fair with me.”

“How do you know?” Sam said quietly. He turned and looked at her. “How do you know I was being fair and honest? I could have been lyingâplaying along with you just to get you to lead me to the Gun Killers.”

Sam glanced at Hector, who was still busy stuffing the money into the saddlebags.
Reward money for the Gun Killers?
he thought, but he didn't say anything.

“You could have been, but you weren't,” Erin replied. “I would have known if you were.”

“So you think,” Sam said. He looked at her for a moment longer. “Get out of here, Erin. There'll be things happening here you won't want to see.” He turned and handed her the big Starr revolver. She shoved it back down into her waist.

Chapter 30

Teto and the five other Gun Killers put their horses into an easy gallop when the candlelight reappeared in the purple darkness. Riding up alongside Teto, Wade Carrico called out to him above the squeak of tack and the rumble of hooves.

“We need to slow down, Teto,” he said, “in case this turns out to be some kind of trap.”

“Keep your mouth shut, Wade, I'm warning you!” Teto called back to him.

“Listen to me, Teto, damn it,” said Carrico. “Whoever lit the candle did it to guide Erin to them, not us.”

Teto started to slow down, considering Carrico's words. But as he did, the signal shots rang out in the night from the same direction as the candlelight.

“Aw, hell,” said Carrico, seeing Teto boot his horse up into a faster gallop.

Teto laughed as all six of them raced along the dark trail.

“Don't you ever get tired of being wrong, Wade?” he called out.

Carrico cursed to himself as he booted his horse right alongside Teto's.

“This little Irish trollop is going to get us all killed one day,” he swore under his breath.

They rode on.

Four miles ahead of them, in the open rear door of the Pasadas' abandoned adobe hovel, Sam stood and watched Erin and Hector swing up into their saddles and turn their horses east into the first rays of rising sun. Sam raised a hand to Erin as she looked back at him from her saddle.

“Keep moving until you put a few river crossings between here and yourselves,” he said. But then he caught himself and stoppedâhe didn't need to tell Erin Donovan anything when it came to leaving no trail.

But she looked back and raised her hand. Then she turned and put her horse forward, her pair of bulging saddlebags tied down firmly behind her saddle.

Hector sidled his horse over closer to her as they rode along, his own money-filled saddlebags riding behind his saddle.

Sam watched them become smaller and more grainy as they rode on, until the purple darkness seemed to reach in and swallow them.

BOOK: Lawman from Nogales (9781101544747)

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