THERE WERE FOUR of them: Mexican banditos. The swarthy complexion, the sweeping moustache and stubbly chin, gun belts worn crisscrossed over the chest; shirts of heavy wool that were dyed in strong colors; waistcoats adorned with silver buttons; dark trousers tucked into worn leather boots. Broad sombreros with decorated hat bands around the base of the crown.
Guns.
Guns drawn and pointing at McCloud.
Four men: five weapons.
They were spread in a curve around him. The one who had spoken was at the far right and it was he who had both pistols drawn. McCloud was unable to see any of their faces clearly enough to read their expressions, though their intentions seemed obvious enough.
His mind raced. Why were they there in hiding? Who were they hiding from? The gringos themselves or someone else? How many others were waiting in the semi-darkness of other parts of the village? Perhaps waiting for Onslow or Jamie to walk unwarily in amongst them?
And the girl?
How much had she known?
When she had hurried, frightened, away from him and into that place, had she realized the banditos were there, waiting? Had she, in fact, drawn him there on purpose?
A decoy. Trap. Bait.
Her eyes, dark in the room, still looked at him; her head still turned so that she saw him over her shoulder, past the fall of her hair. Her left arm was still away from her body, the hand midway through its arc of warning.
Warning or pointing him out?
‘I cannot say you are welcome, señor. We might have wished that you rode on without seeing us.’
McCloud stared at the speaker, trying to get a clearer impression. At the same time, always figuring out the percentages on each way of getting out of the building with all those guns aiming at his body.
More than ever, he found himself praying that one or both of the other gringos would come looking for him. Find him. He was sure that they would not.
‘But now you are here ...’ The Mexican spoke English with a strong accent, his voice high and always with a sense of amused surprise. ‘We must see that you are comfortable.’
The leader looked across at one of his men. ‘Jose, take his gun. We will tie him up and think what we are to do with him ... and his two friends.’
Jose started towards McCloud and the blood in McCloud’s veins began to race even as his heart seemed to stop beating. He held himself tense, thinking, thinking ...
The guns, the girl, the shadow, angles, angles, angles ...
Jose came up behind him and McCloud was aware of the presence of his body, even the fall of his breath, warm on the back of the gringo’s neck as he leaned closer. The hand reaching out to feel beneath McCloud’s coat; finding no weapon holstered at his hip, two hands touching him, feeling for the gun that Jose knew had to be there.
‘Be quick!’
The girl stepped to the right as the leader of the bandits spoke; for a single second she blocked the man’s aim. McCloud jabbed backwards with his left elbow and felt it thump satisfyingly into Jose’s chest, striking him directly below the heart.
Before the gasp of pain was out of his lips, McCloud had pulled his Colt Lightning clear, the short barrel coming easily from the greased leather of the holster. He dived for the wall, arm angled upwards, snapping off two shots even as he fell, hoping to make them count. Knowing that Onslow and Jamie would hear and come fast.
In the darkness it was difficult to tell what had happened.
One of his shells seemed to have struck home; a bandito was sprawled back against the far wall. Someone else, maybe more than one, fired at him as he rolled first this way, then that. He came up with the booming of pistol fire filling his ears and there was a body before him, coming at him fast and he jammed the end of the Colt’s barrel into it and squeezed the trigger.
The heavy weight bucked against him: a face that was all open mouth and a mouth that was spitting blood that splashed across McCloud’s own cheeks and nose and eyes and he was firing again and again then jumping for the door.
Seconds. That was all it had been. Less time than it takes to tell what happened. Seconds and fragments of seconds.
McCloud burst out into the street and the sudden brighter, colder light made his eyes blink and flicker and he dived for the dirt and somersaulted over in it. Came up with his gun at the ready, aiming at the door.
A Mexican face. The crossed belts. He aimed for the point where they met. The man disappeared back inside the building, the last thing a hand, fingers pointing outwards, then nothing. The door slammed shut.
Onslow and Jamie were running the length of the street, up from the fountain. Cade Onslow in the lead, forty yards in front of the Kid, the Mauser in his hand. Eyes already seeking McCloud out, questioning.
McCloud backed away across the street and as he did so something caused the sunlight to flash like a broken star.
‘Look out!’ McCloud yelled, pointed.
Running, Onslow, reacted fast; faster than most men could. It saved his life. The rifle shell tore at the ground where he had been standing and its successor struck inches away from the first.
Onslow brought up the Mauser and fired.
The rifle toppled slowly over the edge of the flat roof; an arm hung down; the shape of a sombrero at an odd angle. Onslow was running again, making up the ground to where McCloud had now established himself.
Jamie had gone from sight, ducked into one of the doorways along the street.
‘What the hell’s happening?’
‘Bandits. I walked in on them.’
‘And out again?’
‘Right.’
Onslow looked down the street at the building McCloud pointed out.
‘How many?’
‘There were four. I got one, most likely two.’
‘Anyone else in there?’
‘A girl.’
Onslow’s look said everything; McCloud tried to ignore it, checked the load in his Colt Lightning instead.
They were in a similar shack-like building to the one where the Mexicans had trapped McCloud. Only this one was open to the daylight and empty of other people. Three lengths of straw bedding were stretched out on the floor. Thin blankets rolled up alongside them. A single, straight-backed chair. A wooden chest on which two cooking pots stood. At one corner of the room an open grate for a fire—ashes and ends of charred wood.
‘That one on the roof—how many more d’you reckon there might be?’
McCloud shook his head. ‘They didn’t say anything.’
Onslow nodded slowly. ‘We’d best find out. Let’s deal with the ones we know about first. You get across the street, I’ll cover you. I’ll try and shout them out when you’re over. If not ...’
The rest didn’t need saying.
‘Where’s the Kid?’ asked McCloud as he crouched by the doorway, ready to make a dash for it.
As if in direct answer there came a high-pitched scream from lower down the street and the sound of something heavy falling. When McCloud and Onslow looked out, the body of another Mexican was in the middle of the dirt. One of the legs had become trapped underneath it where it had fallen; the arms were spread wide—the man himself wasn’t about to complain about anything. Even from there the gringos could see the red line that blurred about his throat and continued to thicken and spread.
‘That’s one question answered,’ said Onslow.
‘Right. Let’s answer another.’
McCloud sprinted low to the other side of the street, making the dust fly. He drew a couple of shots from the higher up, near to the church, nothing from the place he’d escaped from.
Onslow needed to know where Jamie was; he wanted to send him towards the church and stifle whatever fire might come from that direction. He ...
Onslow spun round at a sound behind him. Close to the chest and the cooking pots a door had opened. A Mexican was standing there, just standing, staring at Onslow. Directly at him. Not moving. Not making a play for the gun that was tucked into his belt. Not saying a word.
Onslow lifted his right hand and levelled the Mauser at the Mexican’s chest; he began to squeeze back on the trigger.
The Mexican fell face first, neither of his arms coming put to block his fall. Straight to the ground. The smack of the impact of face and bone cracked through the air.
Jamie Durham now stood where the Mexican had been, the blood on his knife sliding effortlessly to the tip of the blade and then in a steady drip, drip to the floor. It hit the heel of one of the dead men’s boots on the way, bouncing up and off.
‘The church?’ said Onslow, questioning, pointing.
‘Okay,’ Jamie replied and a moment later the doorway was empty again.
Onslow turned back to the street. McCloud had managed to get to the side of the building in which the Mexican leader was hiding.
Unless that had a rear door, too. In which case ...
‘Come out with your hands high and empty!’
Onslow’s command was clear and strong: it met with total silence. He called out a second time; a third. Then motioned over to McCloud.
They would have to hope that Jamie had had sufficient time to clear things up by the church.
Onslow levelled the Mauser, resting it on his left arm for steadiness. He signaled to McCloud through the open doorway and then began firing.
... seven, eight, nine. The clip was empty. As Onslow ejected that one and prepared to push another into place, McCloud kicked at the bullet-scarred door.
The wood splintered and gave and the door went back on its hinges. McCloud jumped into the interior and nothing was moving. Men stretched out on the floor like mattresses in the place across the street.
No one standing: no bandits: no girl.
The low room led into a smaller, square-shaped one with a narrow door at the side.
McCloud nodded to himself and slipped his Colt Lightning back into the shoulder holster. Began to walk back through the larger room to tell Onslow. Then they would have to search.
‘He’s—’
It might have been a tiny sound, a scraping of boot against floor or wall, the increase in pressure through arm and hand; it might only have been some well-honed sixth sense for survival. Whatever it was, something spun McCloud round as he started speaking. His right hand dived diagonally for the butt of his gun.
One of the Mexicans had been shamming, playing dead. But he was wounded and his reactions were hampered. Far too slow to deal with McCloud.
The two shots hit him almost simultaneously, throwing him back against the wall. Either would have killed him. .38 slugs that tunneled through his body and churned passages through fiber and tissue and edged against bone. The first burrowed into the neck, cracking through the windpipe and blunting itself against the plaster of the wall, bouncing back in and embedding itself lower down between the shoulder blades. The second shot was that much better aimed and split the heart asunder: gouts of deep red blood appeared at the already dead man’s mouth and the orifices of his ears, his nostrils.
McCloud grunted and went over to the other two bodies, turning them over with his boot. All the while keeping the barrel of the Colt pointing down at them. He kicked them, searching for any remaining signs of life.
There were none.
McCloud went back to the street. ‘He’s gone,’ he called over to Onslow.
‘Right. Jamie says a couple of ’em’s holed up in the church. I reckon that’s our men.’
Onslow and McCloud stood ten feet away from the bottom of the steps that led up to the church. Jamie Durham had once again ghosted out of sight.
The two gringos checked their weapons and glanced at one another, then looked at the man who was standing with his back to the church doors.
Onslow made as if to move and immediately the priest raised both his hands high, stretching them out at angles, barring the gringos’ way into the building.
The eyes in the youthful face showed no fear. There was a trace of doubt, but not for one moment in his sense that what he was doing was right. Doubt only as to what these intruders would do.
‘Stand aside, Father.’
The head shook from one side to the other in answer.
Onslow’s hand slid that much nearer to the butt of his gun.
‘Move!’
‘I cannot.’
‘Then, Jesus damn you, I’ll make you!’
It was McCloud, stepping past Onslow and drawing his Colt Lightning as he did so. Onto the first step, lips set tight and the end of the short barrel inches only away from the priest’s habit.
‘Those bastards in there tried to kill me. What business you got tryin’ to save ’em?’
‘It is my duty ...’
‘Duty my ass!’
‘The church is ...’
The end of the gun was thrust against the side of his head, cold metal pressing on the skin immediately below the right ear. The priest’s head was turned to one side, raised at an angle by the pressure.
‘The church is sacred. The men in there have sought its sanctuary.’ His voice was quiet and yet it carried beyond the two gringos to where the villagers had begun to gather.
Onslow glanced round at the women and the few old men, seeing the mixture of fear and condemnation on their faces.
‘Easy, McCloud,’ Onslow said and went up to the steps himself.
‘This damned fool is ...’
‘I said easy. Put up your gun.’
McCloud flashed Onslow a look but moved his gun arm away none the less; he did not, however, put the weapon back in its holster.
Onslow spoke evenly, knowing that to shoot the priest was something he should avoid if it were at all possible. ‘Those men in there. You knew they were there when we came. Knew that they were armed and what would happen if we came face to face?’
The priest nodded, his eyes for a moment not confident enough to look at Onslow, staring at the steps instead.
‘You shielded them, knowing them to be bandits and not worth the saving.’
‘Every one of God’s souls ...’
‘Knowing them to be killers.’
The priest pointed to the Mauser. ‘How can we tell the difference between those who claim to kill for good or evil?’
‘You could have warned us. Told us. We came into your village in peace. To trade. Would have left in peace but for your action.’
‘No.’
‘Yes.’
The priest closed his eyes momentarily, fingering his rosary beads. He was feeling young, so much younger than the men who stood before him; those who were inside his church.
Standing his ground between them for a principle he believed to be right. And yet ...
‘Tell them to come out.’
Again the shake of the head. ‘No. I cannot.’
Onslow took another step forward. ‘Then we must go in.’
‘Why? Why not take the food you wanted and ride on?’
Onslow’s eyes burned into him. ‘Because now it is too late. Now the killing has begun and it has to be finished.’
The priest moved his hands again, putting them out to ward off Onslow and McCloud.
‘We’re going in!’
McCloud caught hold of the priest’s right wrist with his left hand and twisted hard. The priest spun round and McCloud pinned him back with his gun arm tight about the throat at the top of the habit.
‘There’s nothing more you can do, Father,’ said Onslow and drew his Mauser.
McCloud sent the priest sprawling against the rough wall next to the door, amidst a muffled cry from the watching villagers.
‘Right?’ said Onslow.
‘Right.’
They raised a booted leg each and kicked hard against the double doors. Went in fast, turning low to right and left, firing as they went.
One of the Mexicans was caught stranded in the aisle between the rough wooden pews and fell to a mixture of shots from the two gringos.
Onslow and McCloud had ducked behind the first row of pews, peering now towards the far end of the church. At the figures that crouched in the pulpit to the right hand side, before the altar.
The Mexican leader and the girl: one behind the other. A glimpse of mustachioed face behind the paler skin of the girl’s cheeks. Her eyes closed, lips slowly moving, praying. The end of the Mexican’s pistol poking past her arm. His fingers gripping her, hard into the soft flesh below the shoulder.
Behind them the doors to the church swayed a little in the wind.
‘Let the girl go free. Let her walk out.’
The Mexican’s laugh was raw-edged, verging on the hysterical. ‘She is my protector. The little virgin saint who is guarding my life.’ His fingers dug into her arm still further and the side of her mouth twisted up with pain, though the words continued to be formed, soundlessly, on her lips.
‘See, even now, how she prays for me.’
‘You bastard, you’re goin’ to need it!’ shouted McCloud, the impotence of his anger showing through.
‘Señor!’ The bandit exclaimed in mock horror. ‘To blaspheme in the house of the Lord!’
‘Why, you ...’
McCloud showed himself a fraction too much and ducked back quickly as a shot from the Mexican’s gun carved a section of the wooden pew away close by where he was crouching.
‘You ain’t goin’ to stay there forever,’ said Onslow. ‘Prayers or no prayers.’
‘Oh, señor, that is true. Very true. We are leaving you here, the señorita and I.’
‘An’ how far do you think you’re goin’ to get?’
‘With a fresh horse, who can say, señor?’ He laughed. ‘It is only in God’s power to know such things.’
Onslow looked quickly around the church. The stone vases with their already drooping flowers; the light that came through the smeared windows in one wall; the brightly colored cloth draped over the table that served as an altar; the cross that stood at its center. On the opposite side of the church to the pulpit were the stairs that led up towards the bell tower. A single, hanging rope in the space alongside.
Onslow wondered where Jamie Durham was at that moment; heard a movement past his left shoulder and turned to see the priest standing in the doorway.
Ignored him.
‘When’s it goin’ to be?’ he called down the aisle.
‘Why be impatient, señor? We all have God’s time.’
McCloud was crawling along the floor on the far side of the church, using the pews to shield himself, hoping that Onslow would keep the Mexican occupied.
He was a third of the way along when the bandit leader made up his mind. He started to back out of the pulpit and down the few steps to the floor. He kept the girl close to him, never letting a large enough gap develop between them so that either of the gringos could get in a good shot.
The pair of them moved slowly to the head of the aisle, before the altar. Both Onslow and McCloud could see them clearly and both knew that they could not get the Mexican without risking the girl’s life.
Neither was willing to do it.
Onslow saw her and thought of his wife—how she had been held as a hostage to war and revolution. A helpless pawn who could do nothing for herself, make no move to save her own life. Onslow looked at the youth of the girl’s expression as she opened her eyes and saw the priest standing in the doorway and so obviously asked him to save her. Asked without saying a word: just a look.
And McCloud. He saw still the curves of her body that he had wanted to hold against himself, as close as the Mexican did now, but differently. Differently.
So neither of them used their weapons as the Mexican moved towards the door.
Not seeing McCloud immediately, he stopped and searched the church for him.
‘Ah señor, you are on your knees, too. So many people who today pray for my safety.’
He moved the girl’s body across his own, changing the angle with which he approached the wide doorway, still making it impossible for either of the gringos to act.
‘Father, you are here to give me your blessing for a safe journey.’ He lifted his head and began to laugh, stopping short when he sensed McCloud shifting his gun arm.
‘No, señor. It is not to be. Why do you not admit it?’
Then he was past the priest and out into the light, standing on the steps, the girl swiveled round to face the interior.
Carefully moving into the street, the crowd of villagers backing away before them, holding their breaths.
‘Wait!’
Jamie was on the roof opposite, standing now, his Colt Thunderer held by his side. A strange figure, outlined against the sun, the dark patch of his mask clear on one side of his face.
The Mexican stared at him first with alarm and then with only a smile. ‘You can do nothing. The girl ...’
‘Let her go.’
‘You must think I am a fool, señor. A man will never willingly give up his hold on life.’
‘Let her go.’
The Colt began its slow movement upwards; Jamie turned his body to one side and stretched his arm out, staring over it and along the top of the barrel.
‘Let her go.’
The Mexican shook his head and squeezed the girl’s arm until she whimpered with pain. Then, with a laugh, he pushed her into motion again.
The laugh was drowned by the sound of Jamie’s gun.
The two bodies, the man’s and the girl’s, bucked back and forth together as if the shell had welded them at a single burning stroke. The blood that immediately poured from the wounds of one sinking into the wounds of the other. Ends of torn skin and flesh seeking to knit with those of another body.
The girl’s mouth opened and her eyes looked towards the sky and it was doubtful if she saw anything, doubtful if she saw what she was searching for even if it were only the last, bright blue of day.
As she fell sideways, one hand clutching her side, the Mexican collapsed backwards. He fell and rolled over and back, the gun slipping from faltering fingers. His own eyes searching too. Only he was looking for the face of the man who had killed when he had been certain that it would not happen. The strange, masked face.
Strange ...
Masked ...
His eyes watered, blood seeped backwards from his nose and ear and clogged them, leaving him unable to focus. He saw a vague shape through the steadily darkening blur of red. Standing as if mocking him. Not a god that would protect him. Not a god at all.
A devil?
Jamie squeezed the trigger a second time and all thought ceased in the Mexican’s brain as the .41 slug smashed through the front of his face, obliterating it in a single moment of time.
Jamie Durham moved back out of the light and all of the crowd began to run. Some away from fear, others towards the dead bodies. Dead or dying? Hands lifted the girl up and other hands eased open her eyes, felt her pulse, found it there as sick as a bird that has fallen too soon from the nest and cannot survive alone.
The priest placed one hand on her forehead, the other on the crucifix of his rosary and prayed aloud that the girl might be saved.
McCloud and Onslow walked past them down the street to where the sacks of food had been stacked, ready to carry to the church for collection. They would do as they were. From behind one of the buildings Jamie came quickly, nodding at the other two gringos and going on down to the fountain to fetch the horses.
In less than ten minutes the supplies were loaded up and the three men were mounted and ready to be on their way. Faces stared at them from doorways and windows, fearing them more than the bandits they had also been frightened of but who they had, at least, understood.
Onslow clicked to his horse and touched its flanks with his boots. He rode to where the priest was still with the girl, kneeling now with her head resting on the rough cloth of his habit. Occasionally her eyelids flickered in the slightest of movements. Onslow dropped a bag of gold pieces down beside the girl’s body and turned his mount’s head away. As the horse regained the other two gringos, the slender arm of the young girl twitched and pushed the coins to one side through the dirt of the street.
Then it was still.
Onslow, McCloud and Jamie Durham rode on, leaving the village behind them.