“Are you estupido?” Bill Hoel’s voice was a crackling near-scream. He hobbled forward to stand leaning on his knuckles on the dining table, giving him what Esbeth thought was a simian look.
“They’re trespassers,” he shouted. “We take them to the front gate and firmly send them home. That’s it. Fina. Do you get it? How many times have I told you?”
“They kill Jorge.”
“These three?” Hoel waved a hand at Donnie, Karyn, and Esbeth, all still sandwiched between four of Estaban’s fellow guards, where they had been made to sit on chairs around the dining table.
“Some otras gringos.”
“Where’re they now?”
Estaban answered in Spanish, but Esbeth could make out that three men had been forced out the hole this one made. Estaban was pointing at Donnie.
Esbeth had never seen Old Bill Hoel before, something that a lot of the people in Hoel’s Dam could say. Now that she had, she was surprised. He seemed barely able to hobble across the room, his bowed legs were so bent from horseback riding or arthritis. This might not be the best time to sense his calm power either. He was so angry that small sprays of spittle sprayed from his face with each bit of bad Spanish he shouted at his men. If she wasn’t so worried about the situation for the kids, she’d have had more pity for Bill than anything. On top of everything else, he seemed to be having a pretty bad day. She knew she might feel even more sympathetic if she wasn’t having a somewhat snotty day herself, having just been marched in near double-time to a Jeep and then hauled to the ranch house.
Another of the guards came running into the room, stopped when he saw Bill’s expression.
“Now what?”
Again, Esbeth had to piece what was happening together from the scraps of Spanish she could make out from the conversation that went way too fast for her. But it seemed that some other Hispanics on the place were rising up and giving the guards a hard time now too.
“Where did they get guns?” Old Bill Hoel wanted to know of Estaban.
His shrug was over-elaborate. “Not many have. With others it is rakes and, you know, sticks. They can do no much.” His English was probably how Bill’s Spanish sounded to them.
Hoel spun and pointed a shaking finger at Donnie. “It’s you. Everything’s been fine until you come along, a Spurlock. I mighta known. The whole lot of you’ve been the curse of my existence.”
Please, Donnie, Esbeth thought, don’t say a thing. Be your usual clammed-up self. It was, of course, too much to expect.
Even with Karyn hanging onto his arm, the boy shot up out of his chair, knocking it over behind him with a bang that caused three of the guards to raise their guns. “You killed my grandpa, my uncle, and my dad. How can you call us a curse?”
“Oh, sit down and shut up, boy. I only met your precious dad once, and that was when he was younger than you are. I wouldn’t waste a flyswatter on him then, much less a bullet now.” Old Bill leaned closer, glaring at Donnie with an intensity that would have made Esbeth sit back down. But Donnie stood his ground and looked ready to climb across the table swinging, if he wouldn’t have been crushed to the table by two or three gun butts if he tried.
A crackle of shots outside broke the momentary tension.
“What the hell’s that? Gunfire? I thought you said they didn’t have guns?” Bill swung to Estaban. “You. Get out there and find out what’s going on, and stop it. Then I want you to get these people off my place as quick as you can, and I won’t be too upset if they pick up some splinters or gravel when they land.”
He spun and hobbled over to the window to look outside.
One of the guards set Donnie’s chair upright, and another grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him back down into it.
More shots sounded outside, these closer to the house.
Estaban left two of the guards and hurried out of the room with the others.
“You think this’s over,” Donnie shouted, “but I’ll never leave you alone. I know you at least caused the deaths of Grandpa and Uncle Hugh.”
Esbeth thought there might be truth in what he said, but she joined everyone else in the room in wishing he’d revert to the clammed-up version he’d been earlier.
Old Bill Hoel spun and glared, his head as grim as Death’s head itself. “The only thing’s ever killed a Spurlock yet is his own stupid greed. And you, boy, don’t seem any different or better’n the samples I’ve seen so far.”
* * * * *
“Down,” Tillis called out, and Gala and Logan each tucked low near the base of one of the trees.
“First guard we’ve seen, and he’s fifty yards off,” Logan said. “Why aren’t there more guards along this line of the fence?”
“He’s gone now.” Gala stood. She waved a hand around them. “Pecan orchard. It runs along here for a mile, and goes almost a mile in. It’s close enough to the lake for water to be pumped up for irrigation. Let’s go now.”
She started off at a trot.
Tillis kept an eye out for more guards. “You picked this approach for a reason. Why aren’t the guards as thick here?”
Gala kept her voice low. “We’re closer to the ranch house coming in this way, and to a couple of the villages on the grounds. Besides, the guards don’t like to come in here.”
“Don’t like to come into a pecan orchard?”
Gala waved a hand at a tree they were passing. Bits of ribbon still clung to it where something had been, but had been torn away. “You know how my people are.”
“I know I’ve seen wreaths of plastic flowers along the highways wherever a Hispanic has died in a car crash. Is this a . . .”
“Yeah,” Gala interrupted, waved an irritated hand for them to be more quiet. “It’s a graveyard, of sorts. But the guards are supposed to keep them from putting up memorials. Still, you’ll see ribbons around some of the trees here and there.”
They ran in silence for a while. But Tillis and Logan couldn’t help glancing around at tiny scraps of color, and dirt that might’ve been recently turned. There was even a small mound they passed as they ran that had to belong to a small child.
They were all quiet for another mile or two. It was hard to tell how far they’d run so far. Tillis was trying to measure it by the amount of sweat running down into his eyes. He rubbed at the corners of his eyes with his fingers and kept going.
“It’s not right that Karyn’s in the middle of all this,” Logan said.
In the distance, they could hear shooting.
“Not to mention Esbeth and Donnie,” Tillis added.
Gala still led the way, and they ran in single file. Every bit of the Texas vegetation through which they passed now seemed to possess either thorns or something sticky. Their jeans were covered with scratches and small burrs—from the little gray beggar’s lice to the bigger sand spurs. Twice they’d had to go out around a snake, and Tillis noted a scorpion that Gala had casually crushed with a boot step.
“How far are we?” Logan asked.
“This is the closest way to the house, coming in the back way from the lake side. But you’ve got to remember, this is one big spread.” Gala still didn’t seem to be panting, and that just inspired Tillis to run a bit harder to keep up. His shirt was soaked through, as was Logan’s, he could see when he looked back.
“Who’re we trying to link up with?” Logan asked.
“Well, it was Don Cinco Hernandez. He’d been a servant out here forever, but he’s dead now. He led the Cincos. You know, like in Cinco de Mayo. Now the bunch of them are led by a few of the younger, angrier men. They’ve been trying to muster strength to make a break. But Hoel keeps guards around the clock along the far fence, and another smaller ring around the house.”
“Must cost him a fortune.”
“He probably couldn’t afford it, if he paid all the Latinos who live here real wages.”
“Why hasn’t someone kicked their way in here before, straightened things out?” Logan was huffing, though not as much as Tillis, but it didn’t keep him from pumping Gala with questions.
“They’ve tried. But Bill has way too much clout.”
“How many guards are there?”
“Fifty or sixty, maybe a few more.”
“And we’re going to go up against all of them, just the three of us?”
“There’re the Cincos, don’t forget.”
“How many men do they have?” Logan asked.
“It’s not just men. Even the women have been preparing, and some of the children, saving up supplies, arming themselves until the time is ripe.”
“I sure hope they don’t think today is it.”
“Sshh. We’re getting too close now.” Gala slowed, and Tillis, for one, was glad for the more reasonable pace.
Tillis eased closer now that Gala had slowed, and asked, “Is that who’s keeping the firing going, the Cincos?”
“Probably they’re just running skirmishes for now, trying to draw the guards out of position, spread them out. It’s what we’ve got to hope for, if we’re to get into the house.”
“How long you think this shooting can go on, without drawing the attention of some kind of law?” Logan said.
“Think about how far we are from anything, and we’re heading into the heart of Hoel’s land, farthest from anyone who could hear or care. Besides, who pays attention to a bunch of shooting outdoors in Texas, anyway?”
Gala held up a hand and started to ease up around a ridge of rock covered by cactus that crested the hill they’d been slowly climbing.
Tillis reached to his back and slid out his automatic, slowly eased off the safety.
Whatever Logan saw on Tillis’ face made him get his own gun out, and begin moving to cover their left flank.
Tillis eased carefully to Gala’s right while she took her time getting to the crest and looking over the top. As soon as her head was above the rock, the chatter of an automatic rifle broke the quiet, and chips of rock and cactus sprayed up into the air while Gala ducked low behind the rocks.
“That’s not good,” she hissed. “There’s a line of them, and they’re advancing up the hill on us.”
“Where’re your Cincos now?” Logan said. He kept moving forward until he was near the cover of a rounded boulder.
Shooting started on both sides of them, while Tillis scurried low and ducked in beside Gala.
“You know, all these years Old Bill’s holed up out here, and no one could’ve ever come in on him if he just kept his nose clean. Those kids being lured onto the place’s what started all this. Is that the way you saw all this play out?”
She turned and looked up at him, her face dark and shiny with a light film of sweat. She looked fierce. He’d never seen her look more attractive.
“All I wanted was to get as many of these people out of here before any shooting happened.”
“It’s kind of late for that.”
“Not my fault.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“For doubting you a time or two.”
She gave his chest a small shove. “Go shoot at something,” she said.
He started scrambling off to her right, saw movement behind a sage, and fired into it. There was a scream, and a short burst went off into the air, chipping off leaves as whoever was behind the bush fell. He could hear Logan out on the other wing returning fire. Even in the blur of the moment, and concentrating on each step and bit of movement around him, he suddenly felt a rush of warmth for his old friend. It was as if Logan had been away on a long trip and had just come home.
A guard stood pointing his weapon in Gala’s direction, and Tillis fired two shots without raising his pistol higher than his hip. The man snapped back into the brush as if he’d been pulled by a cord.
Gala was pinned down now in the center of the fire. Estaban must be among them, and directing them to get the one who’d shot Jorge. Tillis saw one of the men sprint forward while firing.
Tillis wheeled, went into stance, and laid down a series of shots that met the man as he ran and snapped him double. He rolled to the open dirt and didn’t rise. Tillis dropped to the ground himself and scrambled to the small cover of a patch of scrub mesquite. He yanked the clip from the gun and started shoving in new shells from his pocket. He looked up, and there, to his left now, Estaban stood up from cover not fifteen feet from where Gala crouched as she returned shots over the top of her ridge.
Estaban dropped his automatic and took out the big .45 pistol he wore on his hip.
“Hey,” Tillis yelled, and loud as he could. “Pendejo.”
Tillis shoved the clip back in and jacked a shell into the chamber as Estaban spun at him. He was still raising his gun when he heard the shot, but it was from Gala’s gun.
Estaban’s gun hand slowly dropped, while he fought to raise it. But he crumpled to his knees, then fell to his side.
“Thanks,” Gala yelled.
“No problemo,” Tillis yelled back.
But, unlike the movies, where the loss of their leader causes troops to retreat, seeing Estaban fall only pushed the remaining guards to new heights, and there seemed to be more of them than Tillis had counted on. From every side he saw men come scrambling out from behind cover and open up with their automatics.
The cold realization suddenly slammed home that this all might be too much. There were too many of them. He glanced to Gala and to Logan, as if soaking up all he could before they were all swarmed over and killed by these angry, armed men. He seemed to see each tree and bush and leaf with the stark clarity of someone taking his last look at the world. Ahead of him two men rose at the same time, with gun barrels pointed his way.
Tillis dropped flat as a line of bullets lifted an entire small tree off the ground and tumbled it and its thorns across him. But lying there, in the chatter of the intensified shooting, he heard, or felt, something else. He lowered his ear back close to the ground. That was it. Horses.
He slithered out from under the fallen mesquite, and pulled its stickery limbs loose from him in time to stand and shoot down a man who ran directly toward him. He saw the hole appear in the man’s shirt, then the automatic tumble from the fingers, but the man still took a couple more steps before collapsing.
Past where he’d stood, Tillis could look down the slope behind the men firing at them. There were the horses, cutting through the brush like only Texas field horses can do, and on top of each horse was a man wearing a white hat.
“Rangers. By God, it’s Rangers.” He was yelling now. Shots came clipping in a line toward him, and he had to take a rolling tumble forward to dodge where they were headed. But when he rose, firing, the Rangers were closer, and shooting as they came up the hill, as fearlessly as he could hope for.
He saw flashes coming from one patch of cover and fired into it, and the shooting stopped. Some of the guards had stopped their charge and had spun to shoot back behind them now. Tillis saw Logan rise from his cover and take out one of them.
Several of the guards stopped firing, and broke and ran off to dive for new cover.
The horses were scattered through the brush, and the men on them were still firing at the guards as they made it the rest of the way up the hill. The lead horse, a big paint, came up around the back of Tillis’ spot and stopped; the rider dropped off, tied up the horse, and scrambled up beside Tillis. It was Tim Comber. The other rider who had come up with him fell sideways off his mount, but held the reins.
Tim called back, “You okay, Pudge?”
“Come’re and tie up this horse while I patch up.”
“You brought Pudge Hurley out here with you?” Tillis said.
Tim winked. “Had to deputize him. He was able to get us mounts. His place’s just across the road. We waited until we heard shooting before we came in.”
He went back and took the reins, while Pudge sat and whipped out a blue handkerchief, then started tying a tourniquet around one thigh above where blood was making his jeans shine damp in the sunlight.
“Now if that ain’t just it,” Pudge was shouting and laughing above the gunfire. “Now I’m the one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest.”
Tim Comber tugged Pudge over until the three of them were able to cover each other’s backs.
“I don’t know when I’ve felt better about seeing those white hats and so many stars,” Tillis said. “Isn’t that Billy Joe Jarrett out there, and Gus Thomas?”
“And Diamondback Johnson, Gil Bradley, and Mel Fiddler,” Tim said. “When you’re gonna deal in mavericks, I say dig to the bottom of the barrel.”
“How’d you free up the wildest bunch of all the Rangers for this?”
“Hell, when they heard about it, I couldn’t keep them away. And I wanted you to know you aren’t the only wild-eyed maverick wearing a star. There’re others just as high-maintenance, and just as worthwhile keeping.”
Pudge said, “I think I saw Mel take a hit back there.”
“But he’s still on his horse, you noticed that, didn’t you?” Tim was laughing.
“You Rangers are one crazy bunch, I’ll say that for you.” Pudge winced, and leaned forward to tighten the handkerchief around his leg.
Tim handed him a short stick to slip in the knot and twist to tighten it.
“This getting shot isn’t all it’s cracked up to be in the pictures,” Pudge said.
A burst from an automatic zipped past them. Pudge flattened himself, and came up spitting dirt.
Tim Comber rose and fired until his clip was empty. He dropped back to the ground while popping out the spent clip, pulling a fresh one from his belt, and shoving it in. He reached and slammed the flat of his hand on Tillis’ back. “Isn’t this a hoot?”
“If you say so.” Tillis rose and fired three controlled shots, and the automatic fire coming at them stopped. He dropped back down. Tim was smiling at him.
“You know I couldn’t fire you. I just know what a live wire you can be when you want to stir up something. I did know you were going out of your way to get me to change you to an unofficial status, and you couldn’t very well ask on your own behalf for a vacation in the middle of an investigation. But even I didn’t think you’d come up with this. I didn’t have anything official to stand on before, and I’m not so damned sure I do now. But something’s going on. I knew I could count on you for that.”
“What brought you out here?”
“I was keeping an eye on Morgan Lane.”
“And he’s out here?”
“Somewhere.”
Another horse rode up behind them, and Gus Thomas hopped out of the saddle and scurried up to them. “You okay, Lute?”
“Just taking a meeting,” Tim said.
Logan and Gala both rose and came running over at the same time, firing as they did. Logan dropped down beside them, panting, and held out an open hand to Tillis, who reached in his pocket and got out a handful of shells for him.
“Haven’t hit any squirrels, have you?”
Sprays of automatic weapon fire from two directions saved Logan from having to answer. It sent them all ducking low and scooting into a snug circle with their backs together in a way that would have made General George Custer proud. Gala popped up, fired, and one of the guns shooting at them stopped.
Logan was snugged in tight on the other side of Tim Comber and asked, “Where’s this Don Cinco I’ve been hearing about?”
“Depending on which way you came in, you might’ve passed him,” Tim said.
“What d’you mean?”
“He’s dead I suppose, based on all that’s going on here; probably buried out here on the place somewhere.”
“The loss of leadership was supposed to stifle the Cincos, was it?” Tillis asked.
Tim waved his gun barrel toward all the chaos going on around them. “You can see that there’s another plan that didn’t quite come together.”
“Seems to’ve worked for the Cincos, though I doubt it’s what Old Bill wanted,” Pudge said.
“Yeah, he hadn’t counted on them having as much firepower or being as mad as they got. Someone was slipping them weapons and prepping them a bit.” Tim tried to give Gala a meaningful glance, but she was bent over Pudge, holding his tourniquet stick in place while he reloaded his gun, what looked to Tillis to be a big replica of a single-action Sam Walker Colt.
“I guess our timing couldn’t be better,” Tillis said.
“Depends on how you read that. But, yeah, we’re sure here when the powder keg’s lit. They weren’t as organized as they might’ve been, but whatever started things out here seems to’ve gotten the Cincos off the blocks.” Tim hopped up, snapped off a couple quick shots, then dropped back down.
“We’ve got to get to the ranch,” Logan said. “Karyn.”
Tillis glanced to Pudge.
“You can have the borry of the horses, if that’ll help,” he said.
Tillis just nodded. He pointed toward some distant movement, and Gus rose and fired that way.
Tim turned back to Tillis. “If you’re gonna do anything else unofficial or unorthodox, you’d better get it done before I get there.”
He squinted at Gala, then Logan. “Don’t any of you get hurt. Our job, for the moment, is to calm these factions and keep them from killing each other—or, at the least, protect the more innocent ones from these guards. You go on and take point in the house situation, and we’ll be right behind you.”
“Wish I could ride with you. My horse is the roan there, Bucko. A damned good steed,” Pudge said. “Don’t know when I’ve had so much fun.” He winced, then fainted and fell back flat on the dirt.
“Get going now.” Tim turned back to where the automatic fire was picking up again.
Tillis, Gala, and Logan crouched low and ran over to the horses. They led them off a few feet until they had more cover, then they all mounted, and took off riding.
* * * * *
Esbeth was looking around the room in which they were virtual prisoners. Old copper pans hung along one wall, and the curtains matched everything else. There was a woman’s touch here, but it’d happened a while ago. She tried to imagine Old Bill living out here, surrounded by just his help, getting crustier by the year.
He swung back from glaring out the window and looked at them, still surrounded by a pair of guards. The deep, weathered lines in his face seemed beyond ever smiling, and he had two or three days’ worth of stubble. With hobbling, bowlegged steps, he went over to a cabinet that held plates and mugs. He opened a drawer and took out a very large single-action Western pistol, a .45 or .44, at least. Esbeth caught a glance of the end of the barrel, and it looked big enough for mice to crawl up inside. He limped in his unique way back to the table, holding the gun down low at his side, his face as full of hate as anything Esbeth had ever seen. He looked like there was something he wanted to say, but he was too full of bile to get it out. He spun and lumbered out through the door that led to the kitchen.
A few minutes later, he came back into the room with some rope and a silver spool of duct tape. The look on his face now was that of a trapped animal. He’d made some decisions, and not very good ones, Esbeth decided. But she was in no position to argue with them.
Bill tossed the rope to one of the guards, and nodded to Esbeth and the two kids. They got busy while he stood holding the big gun.
It was at that moment, as the tape was being pressed over her mouth and her wrists and ankles were bound to the chair, that Esbeth knew for a heart-of-stone fact that Bill Hoel had gone over the edge, that the years of living like this and fighting a constant battle with the growing resistance, as well as the past, had finally made him crack all the way. Until now, he could have probably calmed things down somehow and counted on all the favors ever owed him to straighten everything out. But that’s not the way he was able to see it now. For the first time, Esbeth sincerely feared for their lives, and she could see everything she felt reflected back from the bleak, widening eyes of Karyn and Donnie over the tape that sealed their lips as well.