Yancey crouched outside the rear door, his Colt cocked in his hand. Cato was around one side while Big John Early shouldered in the front door like a runaway buffalo.
The Enforcers heard the splintering crash and a moment later, the thud as the door was wrenched off its hinges. Someone yelled, then a six-gun hammered. Then came the thunder of Early’s sawn-off shotgun followed by a wild, pain filled scream and a thud. Furniture overturned and through the window, Yancey saw another gun flash. A man yelled and cursed violently. A heavy body jarred against the floor and then Yancey dropped flat as a body hurtled in panic straight towards him through the glass. The man came through with his arms over his face and head. The window-frame splintered. The glass shattered and showered Yancey. Then the man’s body hit the ground and his legs flailed across Yancey as the big Enforcer rolled, bringing around the Colt.
There was no need to use it. In the moonlight, he could see the man crouching there on hands and knees, moaning, arms ripped and bleeding, his face like a piece of raw meat. Yancey rammed a knee into his side and knocked him onto his back, then knelt on his chest, thrusting his gun barrel down into the bloody features.
“I got him!” he yelled and then the rear door was wrenched open violently and Big John Early came limping out, shotgun in hand. Behind him, Cato dragged a moaning, bleeding man, the Manstopper rammed against his spine. He flung the man against the wall and he groaned and sagged, slipping down the clapboards to huddle beside the man Yancey had covered.
The big Enforcer hauled the wounded man upright and shoved his back against the building, the gun muzzle still rammed tightly under his chin.
“You all right, Big John?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Early growled. “Bullet nicked my leg is all. Johnny, that hombre you got ain’t no use to us. He’s a petty thief, likely just got caught up in the raid we pulled. Ain’t nothin’ he can tell us worth a hill of beans. I don’t aim to waste time an’ money feedin’ an’ takin’ care of him till the trial. Throw him into that there vacant lot. He’ll be gone by mornin’ an’ we’ll all be happier ... Yance, you got the hombre who can tell you all about the Burdins if they come through here.”
Cato dragged the wounded man off and Yancey slapped the other man’s face back and forth, snapping him out of his daze.
“Mister, my pard an’ me ain’t got a lot of time to spare,” Yancey gritted. “We already overstayed our time to help out our pard, Big Bad John, an’ he’s kind of eager to repay us for standing by him and seeing there was no trouble at that cattle auction this afternoon. You want to tell me what I want to know or do I turn you over to John Early?”
The man’s injured eyes fluttered open and he grimaced, as he tried to wipe blood out of one eye. Cato came back, still carrying his Manstopper, nodded silently at Early’s enquiring look. Then the big sheriff nudged the wounded man roughly with his shotgun.
“Jed, you know I been tryin’ to get you dead to rights for a long time, helpin’ outlaws make it across the Border, provisionin’ ’em and so on. Well, that’s how I caught you tonight. Them two dead men in there are Willie Morton and Cass Blanco: they got rewards out on ’em an’ they was payin’ over their money to you when I hit that door. I can get you hung, mister. Or, should you decide to help out my pard there, I can get you a couple years on the rock-pile. But you ain’t got a helluva lot of time to make up your mind.”
The bleeding man, gasping, afraid of all the blood he was losing, rolled his eyes from Yancey’s hard face to Early’s.
“H—How long?” he croaked.
Early cocked the hammer on the shotgun. “’Bout ten seconds, I’d reckon. Give you any longer an’ you’re likely to bleed to death.”
“J—Judas! Gemme a sawbones, Big John!”
“Spill your guts, Jed,” Early said, not budging and Cato moved away to hold back the crowd that had been attracted by the gunfire.
Jed decided he didn’t want to bleed to death nor hang by the neck. He looked at Yancey with frightened eyes.
“Burdins, you—say?”
“You’re wastin’ time, Jed,” Early said, pushing the gun barrel hard into the man’s neck.
“Y—yeah. B—Burdins ... Th—they was here—two days back ... provisioned for the—ride into Mexico. Crossin’ the Rio at—at Iron Ford—upstream. There’s a—a hidden raft ... ”
“I knew they were headed into Mexico,” growled Yancey. “Where is what I want to know.”
“T—Tenayuca. C—cantina town, south of the Cordilleras de Cristo.” The man paused, still breathing raggedly. “Y—you’d be the—Enforcers?”
“We would,” Yancey snapped.
“Th—they gonna pay bandidos to—to bushwhack you.”
“Where, goddamn it!” snapped Early.
“A—anywheres along the trail. Bandit country all the way to the town.”
Yancey stood up, lips tight. Early signaled for the doctor to come and attend to the gashed man and then he and the Enforcers walked slowly away across the vacant lot and back towards town.
“Gonna be one helluva trail,” Cato opined, “watchin’ out for bandidos all the way.”
“Depends how much money they’ve got to spend,” Yancey said. “Might only have enough to buy one or two bushwhackers.”
“One’s enough if they catch us just right,” Cato said.
“Forget ’em,” Early said. “Got the problem solved for you. Morales’ vaqueros are returnin’ to Mexico tomorrow. They got to go way south of Tenayuca. They know the country like I know my own name. They can get you through safely, and quicker’n you could do it yourselves. You’ll take the Burdins unawares when you show up on their doorstep in that cantina town, Yance. The vaqueros’ll be happy to oblige after you standin’ by me at that beef auction and keepin’ the Venters bunch from startin’ a heap of trouble.”
“Sounds good, Yance,” opined Cato.
Yancey nodded. “Makes sense. With any luck, we ought to wind this up in another week.”
“Long as you leave time to get back here for my weddin’,” Early said winking. “Don’t you forget that, man. You keep thinkin’ you gotta be best man for me when you go in after them Burdins an’ you’ll come through all right.”
Yancey smiled crookedly.
He figured he might need a little more than that when he finally went up against Steve and Slim Burdin.
Things didn’t quite work out for the Burdins the way they figured.
Jed had provisioned them well and helped them across the Rio so that they dodged the Border Patrols. Then, once on the southern bank of the Rio, they were on their own. It wasn’t the first time either had been in Mexico but Steve knew the country better than Slim.
He knew where to find the bandidos, too, who, for a few pesos, would set up a series of ambushes along the trail south and take care of the Enforcers—providing Bannerman and Cato had gotten past the ambush in the hills north of Del Rio, of course.
If they hadn’t, then that was fine. The bandidos would then take care of any of the other outlaws who had survived the gun-battle with the Enforcers. The Burdins figured they couldn’t lose.
They rode into the Mexico borderlands without stopping the first day and they camped that night by a creek that entered a canyon a couple of miles upstream.
“Right through the far end of that canyon, is where we find Porfirio and his bunch of cut throats,” Steve told Slim as they huddled in their blankets. They did not light a fire. Steve said it would only attract the bandidos and many of the men who followed Porfirio did not speak English and likely wouldn’t stop to see if they recognized Steve before wielding their deadly machetes. “We’ll get there about mid-mornin’ an’ spend the night with ’em. Then we can head in a straight line for Tenayuca and, after that, if they’ve repaired the railroad after the last rebellion, we ride in comfort the rest of the way to Mexico City. After paintin’ the town red, we’ll head for the Gulf an’ catch us a schooner back up to Boston.”
Slim nodded, teeth chattering a little in the sudden night cold of the high border country. “Suits me. Long as this Porfirio carries out his side of the deal.”
Steve laughed shortly.
“Hell he’d cut his own mother’s throat for a bent peso!”
And that proved to be the trouble, Porfirio’s greed.
The Burdins found the bandits’ hideout all right, just where Steve Burdin had said it would be. They were taken through a series of guards that Steve called by name and into the camp proper. It was like a small town, a couple of adobe buildings, some clapboard shacks, lean-tos and tents. Men with machetes and dressed bullet belts on their chests moved about, casting curious glances at the newcomers.
Porfirio was small and lean, a cock-sparrow of a man with glinting dark eyes and a dry look to his swarthy skin. His nose was like an axe blade and his purplish lips smiled a lot but the smiles meant nothing.
Still, he welcomed Steve and Slim and called for pulque, then tequila, and food. Women in varying states of beauty and cleanliness hovered around the perimeter of the meeting, waiting to jump should Porfirio snap his fingers. But, for now, he ignored them and listened to Steve’s proposition, nodding slowly.
“Si,” he said, speaking in accented, slow English, mixed with a few Spanish words. “This Bannerman I know. Muy malo hombre, muy malo, Burdeen. And mighty quick with the gun.”
“That’s the son of a bitch. Him an’ his compadre, Cato.”
“Ah! Cato! That one I owe! He coaxed a woman away from my blankets once, turned her against me, so that she helped him escape. Si, Burdeen, it will be a pleasure to watch for Bannerman and Cato. A hundred pesos, no?”
Slim snapped his head up from his drink. “Hunnerd? Hell, I figured more on fifty, Steve!”
The elder Burdin made a swift sign. “How about sixty, Porfirio?”
The bandit leader threw up his hands. “You make with the joke! Ninety is my lowest price, Burdeen!”
But they finally settled on eighty pesos and Porfirio held out his little, claw-like hand and Steve went to his saddle bags to get the money. The bags slipped and the stolen payroll sack burst, spilling silver and gold coins onto the ground. Porfirio’s eyes slitted. Slim heard some of the other bandits suck in their breaths sharply at sight of the money. Steve cursed as he swiftly picked up the money: he hadn’t wanted the bandidos to realize they were carrying so much with them ...
He handed Porfirio the money and the bandit leader smiled and waved expansively. “We will hold a feast in your honor and you can leave tomorrow.”
“Uh—no, I think not, Porfirio,” Steve said, smiling a little tightly and looking sharply at his brother. “Might be best if we push off now. Got a long ways to go.”
He signaled frantically with his eyes to Slim who nodded and stood up, a mite nervously, looking at the hard, greedy faces of the bandidos. He nodded his thanks to Porfirio and waved casually as he stepped towards his horse. Then the bandit leader snapped something and Slim and Steve whirled, hands streaking for gun butts.
Their Colts came up blazing and the two men rushing them with upraised machetes spun away, falling to the ground, one screaming pitifully. Porfirio dived for cover, yelling at his men to cut them down. Steve shot a man in the face, dropped to his knees and fired under his prancing horse’s belly, bringing down another man.
“Ride out! Ride out!” he bawled at Slim, trying to get a boot into stirrup.
He got halfway into saddle when a machete spun through the air and sliced into his back. Steve Burdin screamed as the razor-sharp blade impaled him and, even as he fell back, his body jerked as it was riddled with a volley of bullets from a bunch of bandits running from their huts.
Slim, stunned, yelled his brother’s name and then, sobbing with the effort, threw himself bodily over his horse and yelled into its ear. The animal lurched forward but only took a half dozen paces before it shuddered and reared, screaming, going down with a dozen bullets in its body.
Slim Burdin threw himself off, hit hard, somersaulted, and came up on one knee. His gun was blazing, sweeping in a slow arc, bringing down a bandit with each shot. Then, when it was empty Porfirio stood up casually, teeth bared in a tight grin, holding his old British Webley pistol in both hands. Slim started to turn to run and Porfirio shot him through both legs. Burdin fell, screaming in pain. Porfirio, grinning all the time, strode slowly forward and emptied the big Webley into the outlaw. When he stood above him, he kicked the bleeding, shuddering body, rammed the gun into his cummerbund and snapped his fingers.
Two men brought him the saddlebags from the dead horses. The bandit leader examined them briefly and he grinned widely, a real warmth to it now.
“Tonight, we have fiesta!” he cried and his men cheered. “As for these carrion, bury them where they lie!”
Reaching into one of the bags, he lifted a handful of gold coins and let them trickle through his slim brown fingers.