Authors: Shirl Henke
A mocking smile spread across his face. “Hilario will need to be near the fire when the sun goes down. Nights in the desert are cold when you sleep out in the open. I'll post guards. Every man will take his turn.”
“I've slept on the ground every time I traveled to Hermosillo. I know how cold it gets.” She could still feel her cheeks tingling with embarrassment, hoping none of the men had overheard their exchange.
“This time you'll be warmer. Two people in the same bedroll generate more body heat.” He kneed his horse and rode ahead to talk with Mateo and Tonio.
Mercedes was left to fret about their sleeping arrangements. Would her husband take her again as he had last night—right here in the open? Surely not with all the vaqueros sharing the same camp. She had asked to go with him to Hermosillo on impulse. His desire to acknowledge Rosario had not only surprised but touched her as well. Had she made a rash mistake in coming with him? He was an enigma to her, a dangerous stranger she had never understood. Since his return his behavior had grown even more unsettling. What if—the sharp report of a rifle shot broke into her reverie. Mercedes looked ahead to where the trail forked as old Tonio had described.
“I would not be so foolish,
patrón,
” a mocking voice said in harsh American-accented Spanish.
A tall, gauntly thin man with cold gray eyes emerged from behind a stand of weeping juniper at the side of the road. His unshaven face was deeply grooved with the squint lines of a man who had spent a lifetime in the desert. He held an expensive-looking American-made rifle aimed squarely at Nicholas’ chest. Four more men showed themselves, arranged on either side of the narrow draw, all hard-faced and armed with Henry repeaters and Sharps breechloaders. These grizzled foreigners were not likely working for the republican cause. They had the look of pro-imperial mercenaries about them, but might as easily have become simple banditti eager to kill anyone for a fresh horse and supplies regardless of politics.
The leader's eyes settled speculatively on Mercedes, who wisely tilted her head down letting the wide brim of her battered hat obscure her face.
He'll try to take her,
Nicholas thought with an oath, simultaneously wondering how he could get her out of the line of fire.
Raising his hands and smiling, he said, “I am Don Lucero Alvarado, once a rich man, but you can see how the war and those accursed republican scum have reduced my lot, traveling with nothing but a group of my peons. We fight for the same side, do we not?”
As they spoke, he edged closer to the man with gray eyes, trying to count all of the gunman's followers. Five of them. Even numbers, except that the
contre-guerrillas
were deadly professionals who could make short work of his men.
“I reckon you could say we're on the emperor's side,” the leader replied as several of his men guffawed. “If you're loyal to old Maximilian, then you'd be willing to share your woman with us.” He gestured to Mercedes with a leer.
“Yeah, we been without a woman fer weeks,” one of his companions said in English with a thick Southern drawl. He wore the tattered remnants of a Confederate uniform, probably a deserter from one army already.
“Get off those horses and let's have a look at her,” their leader commanded. Nicholas motioned to his men to comply. They could move more easily and shoot better from the ground—if only they knew how to hit anything!
Old Tonio and Mateo both knew guns and would be levelheaded in a pinch, but the three boys were about as likely to panic as to follow his orders. He scanned the rocks and spiky cactus along the trail for possible cover as the
contre-guerrillas
converged on them with rifles leveled.
“Just so there's no misunderstanding, why don't you men drop those guns,” the leader said with a genial smile that did not reach his wintry eyes.
As his prisoners complied, the boys with sullen alacrity and the older men with stoic slowness, Nicholas placed one hand on the gun belt at his waist, watching the way the gray-eyed man studied Mercedes. Even in the loose shabby garments it was obvious that she was young and comely.
One of the men jabbed his rifle in Nicholas’ back just as his chief seized the hat from Mercedes’ head and yanked her
rebozo
free. Her hair spilled down her shoulders like a golden curtain as the pins holding it up were ripped loose.
The outlaw sucked in his breath and spat an obscenity, grinning at her with pure evil. “A peon wench, eh? You looked too fine in spite of your disguise. You'll look even better with your clothes off.”
All his men gawked, transfixed at the beautiful golden-haired woman in their midst. The leader reached out to pull the drawstring on her
camisa
.
“I'll kill you if you touch her,” Fortune said in the cold, deadly voice of a stranger.
Mercedes’ eyes flew to her husband in shock. He issued the threat in English. The outlaw's hand froze in midair without touching her coarse cotton blouse. He turned those chilly eyes toward Nick.
“Well,
,
it looks to me as if you can't do a whole hell of a lot to stop me.” He eyed the rifle his man had jammed into his enemy's back, then turned his attention to the woman once more.
Before he could untie the drawstring, Nicholas yelled, “Now, Hilario!” and spun, drawing his Remington and knocking the rifle away from his back at the same time. He seized the barrel as it discharged in the air, then fired a slug into the center of the man's chest. From the hill behind them a series of shots rang out. Two of the outlaws crumpled as the scene erupted in chaos. In blindingly fast continuous motion Fortune rolled to the ground, firing and yelling orders for his men, who leaped to retake the weapons they had dropped while the
contre-guerrillas
fled to cover.
The gray-eyed man attempted to grab Mercedes and use her as a shield but she raised her knee and jammed it into his crotch while her hands clawed at his face. He doubled over, pulling her down with him onto the dusty earth. Nicholas feared risking a shot. Holstering his pistol, he leaped forward, yanking her attacker to his feet with his right hand, while unsheathing his wickedly gleaming knife with his left.
She struggled to her feet, searching frantically for a weapon as her husband yelled for her to take cover. She saw old Mateo sprawled in the dust clutching the ancient musket he had been unable to fire. She scrambled over to him. By the time she freed it from his lifeless hands and crouched down to take aim, the shooting had stopped. Two of their men were dead as were all of the bandits, except for the gray-eyed man who was locked in a desperate struggle with her husband.
Fortune crouched with the knife held low in front of him, its gleaming tip already red with blood he had drawn from his foe. The outlaw, too, had pulled a knife and the antagonists circled each other like two wolves, feinting and slashing, thrusting and parrying with the cunning and calm of seasoned veterans of numerous deadly contests. The three remaining Gran Sangre men stood at one side of the road. Hilario came sliding down the embankment, then stopped twenty feet away with his rifle raised. He could have shot the outlaw, but something he sensed in his
stopped him for the moment.
Mercedes, too, watched the lethal ballet being played out before her eyes. She had never imagined her husband could be this utterly ruthless. He had left her four years before, a spoiled, arrogant young aristocrat. Lucero had been capable of cruelty, the petty, careless sort of an indulged only son of wealth, but this was completely different. This Lucero was a killer, ice-cold and taunting.
“You're pretty fair with that knife, for a
gringo
,” Fortune said as the blade missed his throat by a fraction of an inch, allowing him the opening to inflict a long diagonal slash across the outlaw's chest.
Both men were bleeding profusely from superficial cuts, sweating in spite of the cool evening air. The sun dipped below the horizon, pooling sinister purple shadows around the combatants. Sweat slicked their arms and chests, mixed with blood, soaking through the ragged tatters of what remained of their slashed shirts, now reduced to little more than rags. Several times Hilario raised his rifle, only to lower it again. The bandit chief lunged and they went down with the outlaw on top. They rolled across the rough ground, each man with a death grip on the other's knife hand.
Mercedes muffled a cry of terror as Lucero's grip slipped and the outlaw's knife plunged toward his throat, but at the last second the blade missed its target, grinding harmlessly into the dirt beside her husband's face. Suddenly the gray-eyed man's body went rigid, convulsed and then collapsed on top of Lucero. She bit down on her fist to keep from screaming.
Nicholas shoved the outlaw's dead body from his and climbed to his hands and knees, panting for breath. “I said I'd kill you if you touched her,” he rasped out, again in English.
His knife was imbedded in his foe's heart. A long gash gutted the corpse, moving from his belly up beneath the rib cage to reach its deadly destination. Fortune pulled the blade from the spread-eagled body whose sightless gray eyes stared unseeing at the darkening sky. Wiping the knife on the dead man's pants, he calmly replaced it in the sheath on his thigh. Then his eyes quickly swept the scene of carnage, counting the dead
contre-guerrillas
to be certain they were all accounted for.
Mercedes watched his calm methodical actions in horrified fascination. When he finally looked at her, she could not meet his gaze and quickly glanced away.
Hilario also stared with great interest, his own eyes fixed on the knife strapped to the
patrón's
thigh. Don Lucero had handled the weapon superbly. The skill might have been perfected during his time with the
contre-guerrillas
, but it seemed most peculiar to the shrewd old vaquero that in acquiring such deadly dexterity with the blade the
patrón
had also learned to use it with his left hand.
Nicholas' eyes remained riveted on Mercedes as he pulled the tattered remnants of his shirt together. Most of it had been sliced from his body. He was covered with gore. Dust and blood were caked into a slimy yellow-brown paste that only a bath could cleanse. She had looked at him with such shock and revulsion that it rocked him.
This is who I really am,
he thought grimly, then remembered the casual brutality with which his brother killed men. Luce loved the stink of death. Nick had always hated it.
“Are you unharmed?” he asked her dispassionately.
She looked up and faced him then, swallowing the bile that rose in her throat. There was concern for her beneath his guarded expression and something else—a fleeting trace of pain? “I...I'm fine,” she said, realizing how inane that sounded. “You gave the command to shoot—how did you know that Hilario was up there?”
“I saw a gleam from the setting sun strike his rifle barrel and I gambled.” He shrugged. “It was that or let him tear your clothes off while I stood by. You're my wife, Mercedes. I protect what's mine.”
“And you always keep your promises,” she added softly, remembering his threat to the outlaw. And that he had made it in flawless, American-accented English.
“Always.” His voice was flat.
Neither could say how much time passed as they continued the silent exchange. Finally, Mercedes broke the spell.
“You're hurt. I'll get bandages to stop the bleeding.”
He shook his head. “Not now. We have to move out of here. The shooting could draw other unwanted attention to us. I've had a lot worse injuries that these few scratches.”
“Few scratches? You're blood soaked.”
“Most of it's his,” he replied with that familiar cheeky arrogance, grinning at her. Then he turned to Tonio. “Have Tomás and Gregorio load Mateo's and Jose's bodies on their horses. We'll bury them in the foothills when we camp. And gather up the bandits' guns. They are better than your old muskets.”
Hilario approached Nicholas who said to him, “We all owe you our lives, old man. I thank you most especially for my lady.”
The vaquero nodded shyly in the
patrona's
direction. “I am pleased that you are safe, Doña Mercedes.” Then he turned back to the . “You fought with great skill, Don Lucero.”
His fathomless dark eyes met Fortune's for an instant, then swept down to the knife on his left thigh. Neither man said anything more as they mounted up and rode toward the trail to the mineral pools.
By the time they reached the water hole, it was full dark. Nicholas chose a shelter naturally fortified by several steep rocky embankments. Everyone was subdued as the men made camp. The dead bodies strapped to the horses were mute testimony to how near they had all come to dying that afternoon.