TWO MILES EAST of San Miguel, where the land dipped into a broad canyon at the foot of the mountains, Mama Grande reviewed her jailbreaking squad.
There were fifteen men standing on the floor of the canyon, all heavily armed, all hand-picked personally by her.
They wore dark clothing and their faces were masked by cork black. The moon was setting and by the time they went into action it would be full dark.
As she went over the plan with them one last time, Mama Grande sounded her usual calm, decisive self. But it was an effort to maintain that confident face, for much depended on the next hour. It was said, and it was true, that Mama Grande was the true leader of the rebel army, but none knew better than she, how much they all depended on El Diablo the magnificent. Without his flair and leadership in battle, they would never triumph over Colonel Prado—and Mama Grande would be without the man who was the closest she would ever have to a son. So they must succeed, she told them now. They had the plan, the numbers and the incentive to save Diablo from the hanging tree. If they failed tonight, they might never get another chance. Did they understand?
They assured her they did and she sent them off with her blessing, then returned to the others to wait. Waiting at such times was always the hardest part for Mama Grande, but it didn’t seem to have the same effect on Melissa Bergman. Waiting in the shadowed canyon to see whether El Diablo would live or die, Melissa was brushing her long golden hair and flirting with Cody.
Mama Grande’s eyes rolled skywards. Such a one for Diablo to lose his foolish heart to!
The hush of night lay over San Miguel as Duke Benedict and Branch Lucas made their silent way down the darkened slope of Hangman’s Hill.
Their horses’ hoofs were muffled and the men didn’t speak. They had done all their talking over five cigars and a plug of chawing tobacco beneath the gallows tree. There they had agreed to attack Garcia’s stout jail together quickly, but agreeing on a battle plan had proved more difficult and time consuming. Even now they were unsure that the plan would work.
The plan in theory was straightforward enough. They would stage a diversion to draw some of the deputies away from the jailhouse then move in. Lucas had stuffed a sack with dry grass which he carried slung over one broad shoulder. When lit, that grass would give off a singularly dense, putrid smoke. The grass sack would be set alight before it was tossed into the jailhouse. If all went according to plan, the jailhouse would quickly fill with dense smoke, hopefully keeping the lawmen fully occupied while the two men looped ropes onto the barred windows on the eastern side and used the horses to rip the windows out.
Benedict looked at the big figure riding ahead as they reached the arroyo flanking the town on the western side.
Branch Lucas had furnished his name only after they had shaken hands on their alliance and it was too late now for Benedict to back out. He knew the name, for sure. Branch Lucas was a name that even outlaws abhorred. To hear men talk, Lucas had killed more men than the plague. A killer for a partner, and a half-baked plan! He only hoped that Johnny Reb would appreciate what Benedict was going through just because he was dumb enough to let himself get jumped by a knife artist in a dark street.
Following the course of the arroyo, they finally halted beside the dark bulk of the big barn which they had picked out from the hill. The building was old and dilapidated and constructed of aged lumber. Doubtless it would burn well, but how many deputies a fire could be expected to draw remained to be seen.
Benedict consulted his watch. Almost two o’clock. The girl had told him the jailhouse guard changed at two a.m.
They planned to wait until two-fifteen to give the retiring deputies time to get to bed and the relieving men to settle down before starting the fire. They filled the waiting time by checking their guns.
Apart from his twin Colts, Benedict carried a two-shot pistol up his left sleeve and a tiny .22 five-shot in a spring holster in his right boot. He didn’t expect to have to use the small-bore weapons tonight, but checked them carefully just the same. Watching him ease the .22 from the soft kid holster on his calf, Lucas sneered:
“Now ain’t that somethin’? Only folks I’ve ever knowed to tote them pea-shooters are dancehall floozies and tinhorn card sharks. They must be breedin’ right peculiar lawmen these days, I’m thinkin’.”
“Ever been hit between the eyes with a bullet from one of these, Lucas?” Benedict replied softly, angling the tiny weapon towards Lucas.
Lucas’ great slab of a face showed no fear. He rolled his tobacco around his mouth and spat close to Benedict’s boots.
“Peeculiar,” he emphasized. “But don’t start actin’ mean with me now, Benedict, or old Lucas’ll think you’re goin’ yeller on him.”
Benedict looked away. Their unlikely partnership was already showing signs of cracking. He only hoped it would last long enough for them to get the job done.
Suddenly both men leapt to their feet as a fierce racket of gunfire shook the night. They stared east in the direction of the uproar. The sound of shooting rose sharply, fell away, then stormed again.
“What the tarnal—” Lucas began, then broke off abruptly as a wild shout carried across the rooftops.
“Bandidos! The bandidos are attacking the bank!”
The men exchanged a long glance as the shooting and shouting continued. Benedict remembered passing a large bank on the eastern side of town on his way in yesterday. If bandits were indeed attacking that bank, they sounded as if they were trying to shoot it off its foundations to get to the vault.
Then he looked quickly at the barn and back to Lucas. “Born lucky!” he yelled, and jumped to his feet.
“What?”
“Don’t lie there like a drunken squaw, man. Can’t you see? This is a miraculous stroke of luck. That shoot-up will provide a better diversion than if we torched every barn in town. Let’s ride!”
Big Lucas needed no second bidding. Leaping to his feet he followed Benedict down the slope in a sliding run then leapt astride his packhorse as Benedict mounted his saddler. Moments later they were clear of the arroyo and riding swiftly through the back streets towards the jail through a town that was stirring into life like an ants’ nest.
Turning into a laneway, the horsemen moved their horses to twin trees that stood directly behind the jailhouse yard. The building was ablaze with lights and they heard the sound of shouting from within. Lucas reefed the sack of grass from his shoulder and took out his matches. Benedict waited tensely until the grass began to burn, then led the way into the alleyway flanking the jail.
He reined in so abruptly that their horses tangled. The alleyway was filled with dark, menacing figures!
Moments later, a rifle roared, the gun flame lighting the alleyway with a hellish glare. Lucas tumbled from his horse with hot pain raking his ribs and the blazing sack landed squarely on Benedict’s horse. It leapt forward, squealing, and Benedict tumbled to the ground. On one knee, he swung his guns up to firing level. It seemed to his dazed senses that the alleyway was filled with surging, shouting figures, the crash of guns, and billowing clouds of putrid smoke. It was hell with all the fences down and he had no idea who the enemy was here, only knew that his only hope of getting out of this insane alleyway alive seemed to be to shoot his way out.
Then one of the milling horses slammed into Benedict, knocking him clean off his feet. He struck the wall head-on.
Brazos gripped the bars of the cell door so hard that the knuckles seemed near to bursting through the skin. His eyes were fixed on Benedict’s motionless figure in the opposite cell. He lay where they had flung him, arms outstretched, bloodied face turned towards Brazos. He was as still as death.
“Mother of God!” a voice groaned in lament from the adjoining cell. “Now they will hang the great Diablo so high he will surely die of the cold if the evil rope does not kill him. So brave my loyal soldiers and so bitter their failure.” Diablo’s voice rose. “And all because of your great amigo. All lost because of this one man. May he die, I say.”
Brazos’ eyes looked like sparks coming off flint as he jerked his head around. El Diablo was standing close to the bars. Too close.
Three swift strides carried Brazos across the cell. Seeing his expression, Diablo reared back but the brawny hand that reached between the bars was too quick. Twisting his fingers in the man’s shirtfront, Brazos hauled him forward, then drove his right fist through the bars straight into Diablo’s face.
Blood sprayed and El Diablo, hope of the hopeless and rebel hero beyond compare, went down like a sack.
“Madre!” he cried as his back hit the floor. Then as he somersaulted and banged his shins against the wall: “De Dios!”
“Maybe that’ll shut your mewlin’ mouth,” the Texan snarled, then swung as steps sounded in the corridor and Garcia appeared, followed by two deputies.
Garcia took in the scene at a glance. “So now the scum fight between themselves—”
“See here, Garcia,” Brazos cut him off angrily, “Benedict is hurt and needs a doctor. You can’t just leave him lie there.”
“He is alive,” Garcia said coldly. “He is luckier than the three who died in the alley. He is luckier than any outlaw has a right to be.”
“He needs a doctor, goddamn it!”
Garcia fingered the bloodied bandage on his left arm as he turned his head to look at Benedict. The sheriff had taken a bullet rip in the clash that had claimed the lives of three rebels and one deputy. Garcia had remained at the jailhouse while his men drove the tattered rebel survivors from the town an hour earlier. The man’s fury had abated and now he could afford to indulge in the luxury of triumph.
“If he dies it will save us the job of hanging him,” he said. He stared at Brazos. “But perhaps I shall hang him alive or dead.”
“What for?” Brazos challenged. “You don’t even know what happened out there.”
“Of course we know, gringo pig. Benedict and his henchman came here by stealth to try and free you, and their arrival coincided with the attack by the bandido scum who were attempting the same impossible task for him.” He indicated the bloody-faced Diablo who had struggled to his feet. “It would seem that even fortune is set against you, as well as justice.”
“What would you know about justice?” Brazos said wearily. “If there was any real justice that slug that creased your greasy arm would have split your guts and blown out your backbone.”
“Whistling in the dark,” Garcia mocked him. “Perhaps you would like to play a tune on your instrument to show how much you are unafraid, gringo? It seems I have not heard any music from you tonight.”
The deputies laughed despite the fact that they still looked shaken by the night’s violent events. Garcia smiled and fingered his scar, but there was tension in the man’s eyes, in the set of his chin. Garcia had emerged victorious tonight, but more through luck than design. He realized that but for the mix-up between Benedict and Diablo’s men in the alley, the night could have had a very different ending. With half his men drawn off to the bank, he may not have been able to survive a concerted attack on the jail by El Diablo’s men. It was even possible that Benedict and his giant companion, who had escaped in the confusion, may have bested them, for after the sheriff himself, the quality of peace officers in San Miguel fell away sharply.
Garcia frowned as he turned his back on Brazos and walked away. From the moment he had arrested El Diablo, his principal fear was of a rebel attempting to free him. Now, he decided he had to call in Colonel Prado. Prado would jump at the opportunity to share in the glory of El Diablo’s hanging, and the presence of his soldiers would virtually guarantee that the rebel scum wouldn’t attempt to save Diablo at the eleventh hour.
Too bad that he detested and mistrusted the Butcher of Toltepec as much as any cut-throat in the province. He decided he would simply have to bide his time a little longer before treating the town to the spectacle of a triple hanging.
The marshal! he sneered to himself as he drooped into his chair. A rogue outlaw, if he were any judge. He would enjoy seeing that fancy one hang almost as much as El Diablo and Brazos.
And it was right at that moment that Duke Benedict stirred.
“Yank!” Brazos called across the corridor. “Yank, it’s me, Brazos!”
A groan escaped Benedict’s lips and his head moved. Watching from his cell, El Diablo tenderly massaged his bloodied nose and glanced at Brazos’ taut profile.
He cleared his throat and said, “Perhaps Diablo does not mean what he said, amigo. Maybe the punch on the nose was deserved?”
No reply.
He tried again. “You understand, amigo, Diablo’s disappointment was great. Your companero is a brave one, and Diablo will pray that he survives.”
“Forget it,” Brazos said shortly. “It’s been a rough night all round.”
“Then we are still amigos?”
“Amigos,” Brazos grunted. Then, “Yank, can you hear me?”
Suddenly Benedict’s eyes opened, blinked at the crusted blood that had flowed from the deep wound in his scalp. After a long moment he turned his head and stared across. “Reb?”
“It’s me right enough, Yank.”
“Where am I?”
“I hate to tell you, but you’re in the hoosegow with me.”
“And me,” the Mexican put in. “El Diablo the magnificent.”
Benedict tried to rise but couldn’t make it. He closed his eyes and said, “What happened out there, Reb? Who were those men?”
“Diablo’s bunch, Yank. They staged the fight at the bank as a cover, then came in after Diablo. Seems you met head-on out there in the alley, which has got to take some prize for rotten luck, huh?”
“Did they get the fellow with me?”
“No, reckon he got clear, Yank.”
“Hard to kill, that one,” Benedict murmured, and his voice was weakening again.
“How do you feel, Yank?” Brazos asked urgently. “These sons of bitches won’t get a medic for you.”
“I’ve felt worse than this after a night of high living in Kansas City,” Benedict said with a touch of bravado. “Don’t worry, I’ll survive, Johnny Reb. Don’t forget I’m lucky by trade ...”
His voice faded altogether and he slipped into a deep sleep. He slept for four hours until the jailers came in to throw a bucket of water over him. He had an appointment with the judge.
Judge Brady Banner burped loudly as the deputies hauled the battered prisoner into the front office. The judge had enjoyed his customary breakfast of eggs, sunny side up, and two large glasses of straight tequila.
The good judge felt chipper. He was willing and able to deal with any back-shooting, jail-breaking, lawman-impersonating villain they cared to bring up before him this bright morning.
“So this is the miscreant?” he bellowed in a way that didn’t augur well for the accused. He tapped the sheet of paper Garcia had given him when he visited him earlier. “Benedict. Right?”
“Is right, Judge,” said Deputy Octavius. The sheriff had left Octavius in charge while he had his wound attended to, then caught up on some desperately needed sleep. The chief had gone to his rooms secure in the belief that nothing untoward would happen in daylight hours, while he regarded Judge Banner’s ‘trial’ as a mere formality.
The judge saw it that way, too. He’d had some misgivings about the Brazos case, but the facts here were as clear as could be. This man Benedict had attempted to free a convicted murderer from lawful custody and that was a hanging offence any sunny day in San Miguel.
But the motions had to be gone through, and summoning the waiting deputies from the front porch, he counted heads until he got to twelve, swore them in, then slammed his gavel down on the desk and burped again.
“The trial of the People versus Benedict is now in session!” he bellowed. “So let’s get to it!”
The judge was disappointed when Benedict offered no defense. But the sleepy deputies had plenty to say, and when the farce was finally concluded the judge called on the same deputies, as jurors, for a verdict. Guilty as hell!
“All right, boys, you can get on home and sleep some now,” Banner said leaning back in his chair. He waited until they had trooped out leaving him alone with the accused and four deputies before continuing: “Anything to say before I pronounce sentence, Benedict?”
“I’d like to sit down,” Benedict said with surprising meekness. “I feel indisposed.”
“Set the varmint down then, boys,” Banner ordered. He smirked as the deputies flung Benedict roughly into a chair.
“Reckon a man’s got the right to take the worst news he’s ever liable to hear sitting, eh?”
Benedict slumped forward, hands dangling between his legs. A deputy cuffed him but he seemed unable to straighten.
“Sick as a sow in an alfalfa patch,” the judge said with some relish. “Well, you’re about to get sicker, outlaw. I hereby sentence you to death by hanging at a time and place to be decided. Court dismissed!”
The gavel banged again and the deputies reached for the slumped prisoner whose limp hands were down near his boots now. Then suddenly the slender right hand wasn’t limp any more as it flicked up the trouser leg and closed over the butt of the tiny .22. The jailers had searched Duke Benedict before throwing him into the cells, but the boot top holster was a new trick on the lawmen of San Miguel.
The little pistol came out and up and Benedict burst erect, slamming his elbows brutally into the faces of the two men holding him. “Freeze!” he shouted as a pock-marked deputy swung his gun towards him, then hurled himself to one side as the .45 crashed.
Firing as he fell, Benedict drilled a slug through the deputy’s gun arm. Landing on his shoulder, he twisted violently as another gun stormed and brought down a shower of powdered adobe from the wall above his head. The .22 spat again spitefully, and the deputy went down. One man barred the door and was making a clumsy business of bringing his rifle into play as Benedict sprang upright and charged. Cannoning into the deputy with his shoulder, he struck viciously to the head with the pistol. He almost fell as he lunged over the falling body but regained his balance and streaked for the hitchrack.
A desperate bound carried him into the saddle of a startled brown mare. He fired again as a shape appeared in the doorway, then snapped the reins free, whirled and dug in his heels.
Early morning passersby gaped as the horseman stormed across the plaza, scattering pigs and chickens from his path.
A rifle boomed from the jailhouse door and the wild shot took out a window a good thirty yards to Benedict’s right. Wheeling around the ornate well, he put the horse into a zigzag as more guns opened up, then vanished down the street that led to the river.
He was clear of San Miguel before the first deputy filled a saddle, and was well out onto the plains before the horseman appeared a long mile behind.
He set the mountains between the horse’s ears and the fleet-footed mare ran like the wind.