The Thunder Riders Part 4

"So soon?"

He ran his hands down the insides of her thighs, and she jerked with a shiver. "I'd love to stay all night, but if Old Antoine wakes and finds me gone, he'll come looking for me." She kissed him again. "With his shotgun."

She rose and dressed quickly, shivering in the chill night, teeth clattering, breath puffing like cotton. When she'd stomped into her men's boots, she leaned down, kissed him again, and, without saying anything more, strode off in the night, her boots clattering on the rocks. He heard her labored breath as she climbed the bank, and then she was gone.

Silence enveloped him. The only sounds were the creek's gurgling and some night creature, probably an armadillo, milling in the brush on the opposite bank.

Yakima wrapped up in the quilts, which were still warm from their lovemaking, turned onto his side, and closed his eyes. It seemed only minutes before he opened them again and saw a milky wash above the eastern horizon. He heard cactus wrens and desert larks chirping and flitting about the brush. The creek to his left glittered like quicksilver.

When he threw the quilts back, the morning's metallic chill smacked him like an open hand. He rose and strode naked to the stream, where he leaned down for a long drink, then, hissing and grunting, slapped water across his body. Gooseflesh rose over every inch of him, but by the time he'd finished the bath and was heading back to his bedroll to dry himself with the quilts, he was as awake as he'd ever been.

He got dressed, stomped into his boots, donned his hat, and rolled his blankets. The sky was only slightly lighter when he propped his saddlebags and bedroll on one shoulder, climbed the creek bank, and, holding the Yellowboy in his right hand, traced a meandering course through the chaparral, back toward the town.

The liveryman, Suggs, was up and shaving in his lean-to living area off the main barn, so Yakima paid the man what he owed him for lodging his horses, then saddled Wolf and the paint and led them over to the mercantile up the street from Charlier's Tavern, which was still dark, the doors closed. The mercantile owner, Ralph Dixon, was sweeping off his front loading dock, his eyes not quite open yet, his gray hair showing the comb tracks through the pomade.

"Christalmighty, can you give a man a chance to drink a cup of coffee first?" he complained when Yakima tied both Wolf and the paint to the hitchrack and mounted the loading dock, where a bur-laden cur slept by a barrel of penny nails.

Yakima plucked his mercantile list from his tunic pocket, glanced at it, then gave it to Dixon. "I'm gonna have a quick breakfast. Be back in twenty minutes."

"You expect me to fill this in twenty minutes twenty minutes?" Dixon said, adjusting his steel-rimmed spectacles as he scowled down at the notepaper, clamping his broom under his right arm.

Yakima grinned and canted his head eastward. "You're burnin' daylight, Mr. Dixon." He moved down the loading dock's steps to the boardwalk below. He shucked his Winchester from the saddle boot, then ran his hand down Wolf's sleek, blazed face and scratched the paint's right ear. "I'll be back in twenty minutes. You two don't pick any fights."

Wolf snorted, eager to be on the trail again.

Yakima headed back down the street, toward the cafe run by a Mexican woman named Ma Chavez. Smoke wafted from the squat adobe hovel's stout chimney, smelling of burning mesquite, frijoles, and roasting lamb. As he pa.s.sed the Wells Fargo bank across from the tavern, he saw a light inside. Someone wasn't keeping banker's hours. No doubt getting ready for the gold shipment the marshal had mentioned.

"Hey, breed!" someone called softly from above.

Yakima glanced up at the bank's shake roof. One of the men he'd seen yesterday in the sheriff's office squatted there, holding a double-barreled shotgun across his thighs. His battered Stetson shaded his face, but a line of white appeared when he stretched his lips back from his teeth.

"Heard you busted Speares's snout for him." The man chuckled, the deputy sheriff's star on his worn blue shirt jostling slightly. "The sheriff is one sore hombre, up all night cussin' and drinkin' whiskey to dull the pain. His nose is big as a d.a.m.n beer schooner."

"Yeah?" Yakima said. "Maybe he'll keep it closer to home from now on."

The deputy chuckled again, shaking his head. "He's gonna make you pay. He's gonna make you pay big big."

"I reckon he'll try," Yakima said, stepping off the boardwalk and crossing the side street toward the cafe on the opposite corner.

Inside the dimly lit, earthen-floored cafe, he was taking a sip from his steaming tea mug and waiting for his food, when through the window beside him he spied movement on the opposite side of the street-a tall, broad-shouldered, blond-headed man in a funnel-brimmed Stetson, worn denims, and a red wool shirt under a deerskin vest to which a sheriff's star was pinned.

Speares was moving slowly this morning, almost lightly, as if every step pained him. He wore a big white bandage on his nose, fixed there with a broad white strip around his head, just beneath his hat. The light wasn't at the right angle for Yakima to make out much of the lawman's face, but he could tell the nose was swollen to nearly twice its normal size and was a shade darker than the lingering night shadows.

Speares pa.s.sed the cafe and paused before the harness shop on the opposite corner, near Charlier's, and clamped his Winchester under his left arm as he reached up with both hands to gingerly adjust the bandage.

Yakima muttered, "That must hurt like holy h.e.l.l," then blew ripples on his tea as he sipped it.

When Ma brought the hot skillet of eggs, green chiles, a pancake-sized slab of roast lamb, and several steaming tortillas, Yakima rolled up his shirtsleeves and dug in. He was half finished with the plate when his nearly empty tea mug began rattling softly on the table before him.

Growing in the distance, there came the rumble of wagon wheels, screech of leather thoroughbraces and trace chains, and thud of horse hooves. A six-horse hitch, judging by the sound. A deep-throated bellow rose from up the street, in the direction of the bank. "Whoooooahhhhhhhh!" "Whoooooahhhhhhhh!"

The gold shipment.

Yakima gave the stage only pa.s.sing thought. It reminded him of the deputy marshal. He hoped he hadn't tied the rope too tight around the lawman's wrists and ankles. If he had, the man had most likely been discovered by Apaches drawn to the burning cabin and was dying slowly over a honey-basted mound of fire ants.

Hearing businesslike voices and commotion outside, Yakima finished his last bite of lamb. His mug began shaking again. It shook so hard it slid around in the little ring of condensation left on the table. Yakima's knife and fork rattled against his plate. He felt the earthen floor quivering beneath his boots.

Outside, thunder rumbled. A horse whinnied. For a second, Yakima thought a rainstorm was approaching. Then he looked out the window, craning his neck and peering east down the street.

He froze.

A gang of riders appeared, riding h.e.l.l-bent for leather toward the cafe-a wild-looking bunch in dusty trail clothes, wielding rifles or revolvers as they flew as if driven by a wildfire, their wide-eyed horses laying their ears flat against their heads. The three lead riders-two wearing sombreros and short charro jackets, the third in a bearskin coat and bowler hat-began triggering their pistols or rifles, the one in the bear coat howling like a rampaging Indian.

More thunder sounded nearer the bank, and Yakima turned to see another group of howling desperadoes approaching the bank from the side street between Charlier's Tavern and the harness shop. Yakima couldn't see the bank or the stagecoach from this angle, but there was no doubt that both sets of riders were making a beeline for the gold shipment.

As both groups converged at the intersection west of the cafe, checking their mounts down to skidding, hoof-grinding halts, a barrage of gunshots rose suddenly. Pistols and rifles belched smoke and fire, the reports echoing around the canyon of adobe, wood, and sandstone facades.

Men howled and yelled. Horses whinnied and screamed.

Bullets spanged and barked into wood or thudded into dirt.

A double-barreled shotgun spoke above the cacophony-first one booming report, then another-making the window near Yakima rattle like a wind chime.

Seconds after the first group had pa.s.sed the cafe, Yakima grabbed his Yellowboy and jacked a sh.e.l.l into the chamber as he threw open the door. He'd taken a step onto the dilapidated stoop when a stray bullet plunked into the doorframe to his left, puffing dust and throwing splinters with a shrill ka-piinggg! ka-piinggg!

He flinched as he dropped to a knee, raising his rifle to port arms and looking toward the bank, where the desperadoes-a good fifteen or twenty men-were laying down a serious fusillade against the bank and the stagecoach from atop their milling horses.

This was no holdup, Yakima saw as one shotgun guard-probably a contract man hired by Wells Fargo- was blown off his feet and into the coach behind him. It was a ma.s.sacre.

Another guard lay beneath the open coach door, one leg resting atop the iron-banded, padlocked strongbox, his rifle lying in the dust to his left. The stage's driver stood in the box, returning fire with his two revolvers, triggering one pistol, lowering it, then raising and firing the other until two of the desperadoes drilled him at the same time-one bullet slamming into his chest while the other smacked his right cheek. The driver screamed and triggered another shot as the bullets flung him straight backward.

At the same time, a woman in a green traveling dress poked her feather-hatted head out the stagecoach door, screaming, her mouth forming a dark O against the porcelain white of her face. A bullet slammed into her shoulder and threw her back into the coach while three more bullets drilled through the coach's thin wooden wall in front of her, clipping her screams.

Yakima drew a bead on the desperado who'd shot the woman-a brown-bearded gent wearing a fringed buckskin tunic over which bra.s.s-filled bandoliers were crossed, and sitting astride a hammerheaded piebald. The man was pulling back on the pie's reins with one hand, howling like a warlock, and triggering a Winchester carbine with the other, when Yakima's slug tore through the crown of his snuff-brown hat.

The man's head jerked sideways and the hat flew off his head, revealing the b.l.o.o.d.y, bullet-smashed crown of his skull. As he dropped his carbine and the reins at the same time and sagged down the other side of the pie, several other desperadoes jerked startled, exasperated looks toward Yakima.

Yakima blew one out of his saddle while another rested the barrel of his Henry on his forearm and triggered a slug into the porch support post near Yakima's head. Yakima racked another round and drilled the shooter through his right forearm.

The man screamed and dropped his rifle. Reaching for it, he released his reins, and his bucking dun flung him off its back and into the dust-churned street below, where another dancing mount kicked him in the head and tossed him end over end.

There was so much gun smoke in the street-from the desperadoes' guns as well as from Speares, the shotgun guards, and the sheriff's deputies-that Yakima could see little but vague outlines of horseback riders dancing about the stagecoach.

He didn't give a good G.o.dd.a.m.n about Speares's men or the gold or the coach. He was worried about his horses. Wolf and the paint were tied before the mercantile on the other side of Charlier's. They were no more than forty yards from the fighting, well within range of stray gunfire and ricochets.

Quickly, Yakima thumbed fresh sh.e.l.ls into the Winchester'sloading gate and then, flinching at a ricochet that plunked into the stock trough before the cafe, bolted into the street, angling toward Charlier's. When he was halfway between the cafe and the harness shop, two bullets drilled the street before him. Another tore through the slack of his right buckskin cuff.

Yakima dove behind a stock trough and whipped his rifle over the trough's lip, aiming in the direction of the three bullets but seeing little except men milling inside the smoke cloud with here and there a fresh puff and a stab of gunfire adding to the growing, thickening web.

On impulse he fired at a horseback rider, hoping the rider was a desperado and not a stage guard-it was no longer possible to tell who was who in the chaos of men, horses, and gunfire-and cast a look up the street beyond Charlier's.

His glance went back to the tavern. A black-haired girl was hunkered down behind the well coping in the street before the tavern, a water bucket in one hand. She held the other arm above her head as if to shield herself from the gunfire.

Anjanette.

She had gotten trapped at the well when the desperadoes thundered into town.

Beyond, Wolf and the paint stood where he'd left them, at the base of the mercantile's loading dock. Both horses bucked against their reins knotted around the hitchrack. A man stood at the hitchrack, and suddenly the black bolted away from the mercantile.

The man followed Wolf into the street, then grabbed the saddle horn with one hand as he held the reins in the other and, hopping on one foot to keep pace with the skitter-stepping stallion, shoved his boot toe into the stirrup and swung into the saddle.

Wolf buck-kicked defiantly, reluctant to carry anyone but Yakima. The desperado held fast to the apple and slammed his pistol b.u.t.t across the top of Wolf's head.

"b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" Yakima growled as he lunged forward.

At the same time, obscured by gun smoke, a rider cut around the stone well coping, stretched out from his saddle, and grabbed Anjanette around the waist. The girl gave a clipped cry as the man, his laughter booming beneath the gun pops, pulled her across his horse's withers.

Anjanette shouted, "Let me go, you son of a b.i.t.c.h!"

Yakima snapped the Winchester to his shoulder, then let it sag in his hands. He might hit Anjanette.

She flailed with her arms on one side of the horse while kicking her legs against the opposite stirrup fenders. Holding her down with his right hand, triggering pistol shots with his left, the man spurred his screaming dun straight down the street toward Yakima.

Yakima let his Winchester hang low in his right hand and set himself to lunge for the girl. When the dun was twenty yards away, the laughing rider extended his revolver straight out from his shoulder, aiming at Yakima's head.

As the bullet plunked into an adobe wall, the horse's left shoulder slammed into Yakima's side. He grunted as the air burst from his lungs, and pinwheeled toward the other side of the street, piling up against a stock trough.

"Help!" Anjanette screamed above thundering hooves and gunfire, as the dun galloped on through the wafting smoke and sifting dust.

Yakima pushed up on his elbows, saw Wolf lurching toward him, the rider crouched low in the saddle, lips stretched back from his teeth.

Drawing air into his battered chest, Yakima rose to his knees and reached for his Winchester, keeping his eyes on Wolf. "That's my horse, you son of a b.i.t.c.h!"

The sentence hadn't died on his lips before a man shouted, "Move 'em out, boys!"

As the stage began careening eastward along the street, adding more dust to the gauze fogging the air, Yakima whipped his head to the right. Wolf was within twenty yards and closing, shaking his head and bucking defiantly as the desperado ground his spurs into the black's flanks.

Yakima stood and brought the Winchester to bear on the man in the saddle-a slender, hatless hombre in a frock coat and with a long, black mustache hanging down both sides of his mouth. He crouched forward, clamping his left arm to his b.l.o.o.d.y side.

Yakima snapped off a shot. Lead skidded along the side of his head, just above his ear, snapping his own shot high. At the same time, a pistol popped to his right, and Wolf and the desperado bolted on past Yakima and down the street behind the fleeing stage.

Ignoring another slug that whistled over his head, Yakima ran into the street. Thirty yards ahead, Wolf lurched to one side, buck-kicked, and craned his neck to peer back toward Yakima.

The mustang's black eyes were wide with fear and fury.

Again, the rider slammed his pistol atop Wolf's head and rammed his heels into the black's sides, cursing wildly. As Wolf stretched into a gallop, Yakima spat a curse through taut lips and drew a bead on the rider's back.

The rifle boomed. At the same time, Wolf jerked to the left, and the slug flew wide, shattering a window up the street.

The rider continued gouging the black with his spurs. Wolf loosed a shrill whinny, and the horse and rider tore around a bend and out of sight.

Yakima wheeled frantically, looking around for a horse. A riderless dun stood against the side of Ma Chavez's cafe, cowering under the brush arbor, ears p.r.i.c.ked, trembling. Yakima ran toward it.

A rifle exploded to his right, blowing up dust at his boots.

"Hold it, breed!"

Yakima whipped his head around. Sheriff Speares knelt in the street before the bank, racking a fresh sh.e.l.l into his Winchester's breech while aiming the barrel at Yakima. "You ain't goin' nowhere nowhere!"

Chapter 6.

Yakima stared at Speares through a red veil of anger. "Put that rifle down, fool. They took Anjanette." He turned his eyes toward the hills where the gang had disappeared. With each pa.s.sing second, the desperadoes were putting more ground between him and Anjanette and Wolf.

Speares curled his upper lip and stared at Yakima through the swollen mask of his face and the thick gauze over his nose, which was nearly as large as a child's clenched fist. Around him, a good ten men lay in b.l.o.o.d.y heaps, gun smoke wafting in the air. It was impossible to tell which were the Wells Fargo guards and Speares's deputies and which were the desperadoes.

Near the tavern, a horse sat back on its haunches, like a dog, struggling to rise while blood gushed from several wounds. Another horse lay dead.

"Don't play me fer no fool," Speares growled. "I know you're one o' them them. I seen you take out Fisk."

Speares canted his head toward the man lying draped across the stock trough fronting the bank. It was one of the deputies Yakima had seen in Speares's office the day before. Blood washed down the side of the trough beneath the deputy's chest, the tin star drooping on his shirt.

Yakima slid his eyes back to Speares. "If I shot him, it was because he was shooting at me me."

Speares snapped his rifle to his shoulder, squinting down the barrel. His voice broke as he shouted shrilly, "Shut the h.e.l.l up and drop that rifle! Stretch out on the ground, belly down. Now!"

Yakima stared back at the man, his chest rising and falling sharply. He wanted to take a chance, dodge right, and snap his rifle up, but Speares had him dead to rights. And Yakima would be no good to either the girl or the horse if he was dead.

He crouched, set the Yellowboy in the street, then, holding his hands shoulder-high, palms out, turned, dropped to his knees, then leaned forward and planted his chest and belly in the dust.

"Hands to the back of your head!" Speares shouted.

As Yakima did as he was told, another voice said in a horrified, bewildered tone, "What . . . what a horror. They took the stage . . . and the strongbox. . . ."

Speares said, "Shut up, Franklin" and moved toward Yakima. Out of the corner of his left eye, Yakima watched the sheriff crouch beside him, lift the Colt from his holster, then stand and wedge the revolver in his cartridge belt.

The sheriff had just opened his mouth to speak when one of the bodies near the harness shop moved. The desperado-a beefy man with long red hair and a beard-spat a curse from clenched teeth as he rose up on his arms, as though he were about to attempt some exercises. Blood and viscera stringed down from his bulging belly.

Speares swung his rifle around, taking three steps back from Yakima-out of Yakima's kicking range-and fired the Winchester. The bullet carved a black hole through the redhead's cheek, throwing the man sideways onto his back, where he expired with a loud fart and a deep sigh.

Speares swung back toward Yakima, loudly ejecting the smoking sh.e.l.l and seating fresh. "If you don't want the same, get up and start movin' toward the jailhouse."

"Christ," the man called Franklin said bewilderedly, as Yakima gained his feet. Yakima didn't have to look to know he was the dapper little man who'd been in the tavern last night with Speares. The banker. "So many . . . dead."