The vaqueros took a week-long trail in their efforts to keep Yancey and Cato clear of any country where they might conceivably run into bandits who had been money-primed by the Burdins.
The Enforcers were impatient but knew that the Mexicans were not only doing their best, but were actually going out of their way to try to repay in part the Enforcers for helping out back in Del Rio. Morales himself was not with them, having stayed this time in Mexico. Conchita would stay on in Del Rio for a week and then return to the ranch and spend the last few weeks of her unmarried life with her father.
The vaquero leader was called Benito and he was a smiling young man who was eager for the Enforcers’ approval of all the precautions he was taking.
“Yeah, Benito, you’re doing fine,” Yancey told him as they rode slowly along through the foothills of the Cordilleras. “But we must be getting close to Tenayuca now, huh, compadre?”
“Si, not far.” Benito pointed a little vaguely. “Perhaps a day’s ride. But, señores, you have helped us all and Señor Morales would surely like to thank you in person. Why not come to the rancho?”
Cato shook his head. “We got business in Tenayuca as you know, amigo. We’ve got to get it done.”
Benito grimaced. “These gringo outlaws will still be there tomorrow, eh? The rancho is only another day’s ride beyond the Cordilleras de Cristos. Señor Morales will not forgive me if I do not bring you back so that he may thank you for your part in helping Sheriff Early keep the peace for us at the cattle sale.”
“Look, Benito,” Yancey said a mite shortly. “We’re already takin’ longer on this chore than we should. We’ll be cutting out for Tenayuca come sun-up tomorrow. If Morales wants to thank us for anything at all, he can do it at Conchita’s wedding. I’m being Early’s best man.”
Benito’s usual smile dropped abruptly from his face and he frowned, looking worried for a few moments before forcing the smile back again, but it was not the easy-going, warm expression that the Enforcers had come to know. It was kind of stiff around the edges and Benito seemed to realize it.
“Si, I suppose so, señor.”
“Hey, wait up,” Yancey said as the man made to ride off towards the rest of his men. “What’s wrong?”
“Wrong, señor?” Benito asked innocently, still trying to hold his smile. “Why, nothing. What could be wrong?”
“Well—I ain’t sure. Señor Morales will be at the wedding, won’t he?”
Again Benito’s smile slipped. “Of course, señor. He must give the bride away! Of course he will be there. Now, I must see to my men ... ”
Benito wheeled his mount fast, jammed home his big gut-hook spurs and galloped across to the bunched vaqueros.
“Don’t look like they need any seein’-to to me,” opined Cato.
“No,” agreed Yancey thoughtfully, staring after the young vaquero leader. “Somethin’ upset him, though. Not sure just what. Not up to him to be annoyed because we said we couldn’t spare the time to go see Morales. If anyone was gonna be riled over that, it’d have to be Morales himself. Seems to be something about the wedding.”
“Mebbe Benito had designs on Conchita for himself,” Cato suggested and Yancey glanced at him sharply.
“He ought to know better than that! He’d know he’d never have any chance, just an ordinary vaquero, with a hidalgo’s daughter. Still, nothing to stop him dreaming, I guess, and, after all a gringo sheriff mightn’t be such a cut above a vaquero when I think about it.”
“Yeah. Why you reckon Morales gave his okay for Conchita to marry Early, Yance? Seems an unlikely couple to me.”
Yancey grinned. “You’re just jealous!”
Cato grinned back. “Man, you can say that again!”
Yancey laughed and they rode on through the foothills. Come sun-up, they pulled out alone, their saddlebags bulging with food pressed on them by the Mexicans.
“Do not forget to call into the rancho and speak with Señor Morales, amigos,” Benito said. “Now, vaya con Dios!”
“Hasta luego,” Yancey said, lifting a hand to his hat brim. Then he and Cato rode off in the direction of Tenayuca and soon were threading their way along a narrow trail through the hills that had a lot of good places that could be used for an ambush.
They rode warily, rifle butts on their knees, eyes scanning the country around them. This was the last leg into the cantina town and if Burdin had left bandits posted along the normal trail south, he might not have bothered to cover this section. But they couldn’t take any chances so they rode warily, dismounting and checking out the trail on foot around the bends and beyond a big stand of boulders.
“Looks clear,” Yancey said as they topped a ridge and saw the white gleam of adobe buildings down in the valley below. He pointed with his rifle barrel. “That just has to be Tenayuca.”
“Yeah. Guess the Burdins got a mite over-confident or didn’t expect us to take any other trail than the straight south one where they set up the bushwhack. But, I tell you, Yance, that’s all wide-open country approachin’ that town. Which is likely why the Burdins picked it to hole-up. Gives ’em plenty of time to spot anyone comin’.”
Yancey nodded, and scratched at his stubbled chin. It seemed he was never going to be clean-shaven again, he thought irrelevantly, as he studied the country between the ridge and the sprawl of the town ahead and below. He looked beyond the cluster of buildings, swept his gaze in a long arc to the foothills.
“If we angle across the slope of this ridge and drop down into the cutting, Johnny, we ought to come out behind that butte, on the north-east side yonder. Trail down to Tenayuca from that direction’s studded with boulders and that sure looks like a hogback rise between the town and the last section. We could be practically in the town before the Burdins spotted us. If they’re still there.”
Cato glanced at him sharply. “You figure they might’ve moved on?”
“Railroad’s not far off. Passes to the south, about twenty miles. Goes in a dead straight line down to Mexico City. Steve jumped it last time I chased him down this way. He might try it again.”
“Then let’s get on down there and see if we can nail ’em before they do it!” Cato said, urging his mount forward.
Yancey followed and they swung right around and came in on the town by the north-east trail but there was no sign of the Burdins or anyone lighting out from the town at their appearance.
But there were plenty of eyes watching them, monitoring their every move. Mexicans, of course, were everywhere, lounging against adobe walls with large sombreros tilted forward over their eyes. This didn’t fool the Enforcers; they knew these men were experts at seeing everything that went on, even though they appeared to be dozing, faces hidden.
Then, when the Enforcers had ridden slowly back and forth through the few mean streets of Tenayuca, they figured the focal point of the town was the cantina itself. It had no name, but there was a covered porch with adobe arches and, as they started onto this, two men in American cowboy clothes, suddenly leapt up from where they had been hiding behind the low wall and vaulted over the rails at the end, running into the valley. One turned, gun blazing, but he made no attempt to aim, just got off two wild shots.
The Enforcers were carrying their rifles and split up without a word, Yancey going directly after the men, Cato racing around the cantina building the other way. Yancey skidded and flung himself flat against the wall as a bullet ripped a long line of dust-spraying adobe at head level. He snapped a shot at a man’s arm and leg disappearing around a corner and then ran forward, rifle cradled across his chest, working the big, oversized lever and flicking out the quick-fire toggle that would trip the trigger every time the lever was worked up and down.
He heard gunfire and a man swore. It was swiftly followed by the crash of splintering wood and then Yancey hurled himself headlong as he came to the corner, slid around, rolling, kicking off the wall so as to face along the other line of the cantina.
The man was waiting for him, but was disconcerted by Yancey’s violent appearance. He lunged up, snapping his six-gun around and down as Yancey worked the lever in three swift shots. Two hit the man and set his body shuddering. The third ricocheted from the wall in a puff of dust. Then the man bounced off the wall and fell flat on his face, unmoving. Yancey spun towards a sound on his right and held his fire as he saw Cato, rifle in one hand, dragging a disheveled, bleeding, limping man with the other.
The man had been hit in the leg and he was bleeding plenty. His face was battered and a long, slim splinter projected from his upper arm. Cato flung him to his knees where the man stayed, head bowed, moaning as he gripped the wound in his leg.
“Tried to run clear through a fence,” the small Enforcer said. “But he ain’t one of the Burdins.”
“Nor is this hombre,” Yancey said, standing now and heaving the dead man over with a boot toe. He raked his gaze around at the Mexicans who were tentatively gathering at the alley mouth, rifle ready. But no one made any hostile moves. Yancey squatted down by the wounded man, twisted fingers in his hair, and yanked his head back roughly, studying the pain-filled face. “Who are you?”
“Goddamn you, whoever you are!” the man hissed.
Yancey wrenched the man’s hair hard that brought a cry from his lips. He shoved the reeking rifle muzzle under the man’s chin.
“You want to keep walkin’ around with your head still on your shoulders, you’ll answer my questions, mister. I’m Yancey Bannerman, Enforcer for Governor Lester Dukes, and this here’s my sidekick, Johnny Cato.”
The wounded man swore softly. “Judas priest! Wouldn’t you know it! You don’t have no jurisdiction down here, Bannerman!”
“Aw, hell, a two-bit frontier lawyer,” growled Cato derisively.
The wounded man snapped his head around. “I’ll tell you who the hell I am!” he gritted. “I’m Ranger First Class Wallis Undine, undercover agent, and you two hombres just blew my assignment to hell and gone! Not to mention my damn leg!”
The Enforcers were rocked by the man’s words and somehow neither doubted him.
“You ran when we showed and you traded lead with us,” Cato pointed out.
“Sure I did! Damn it, I worked for three months to get in with Ringo Crane there.” He gestured to the dead man against the wall. “He’s one of a gang smugglin’ wetbacks into Texas. We were on our way down to meet the leaders an’ you hombres had to show up and blow everythin’ apart!”
“We don’t carry a crystal ball about with us, Undine,” Yancey said. “You started the shooting and you ran. What the hell were we to think?”
“Look, Ringo thought I was on the dodge. I had to run when he ran, shoot what he shot at, though I aimed high, I tell you! I had to make it look good! He picked you fellers for some sort of lawmen the way you rode back and forth through town lookin’ for someone. Aw, hell, Bannerman, someone’ll have your neck for this!”
“Not our fault,” Yancey said. “Just one of those things.”
“Hell almighty! Three months’ work gone just like that and you call it ‘one of those things!’”
“Luck of the game,” Cato growled. “We’re after the Burdin brothers. Know ’em?”
The undercover Ranger had stiffened and he nodded slowly. “Steve and Slim. Where the hell’re they? Both know me. If they show I’m sunk! But you could leave me here now and I might still salvage somethin’. Leastways, I could move on to the next link in the chain. After that it’s anybody’s guess what’ll happen. But you gotta keep the Burdins away from me. That’ll square this, if you can do that, huh?”
Yancey sighed and thumbed back his hat, trading glances with Cato.
“I guess from that, you haven’t seen them.”
Undine frowned. “Here?” He shook his head. “They ain’t showed here. We been hangin’ round for over two weeks waitin’ for word to move on south an’ we only just got it. Nope, the Burdins ain’t been anywhere around these parts, Bannerman.”
The big Enforcer frowned. “Word was they were making for Tenayuca, leaving a string of bushwhackers along the trail. We skirted the usual trail and came in from the north-east. But the Burdins should’ve been here by now.”
Undine shook his head. “Stake my life on it. They ain’t around here.”
The Enforcers were puzzled.
“Best get you to a sawbones, I reckon,” Yancey said and frowned as Undine gave a short laugh.
“Here? None around here, Bannerman. But I’d be obliged if one of you fellers could dig out this slug from my leg and bandage it for me. I’ll get by then and move on along the line towards the meetin’ with the big shots in this wetback combine.”
Yancey regarded him with some respect.
“Could be more dangerous than ever now.”
“Got to take that chance. I’ll tell most of the truth; that you’re a coupla marshals exceedin’ your authority an’ down in Mexico after the Burdins. You weren’t interested in me nor Ringo: we just happened to get in your way. This bullet wound might just get me accepted better’n anythin’ else I could come up with now that I think about it.”
“Could kill you, too,” Cato pointed out. “Easy to get infected if you ain’t got a sawbones to check it.”
“I’ll have one take a look at it when I get down to Mexico City.”
Yancey and Cato carried the man into his dingy room at the rear of the cantina, much to the consternation of the owner.
They got Undine drunk on tequila and Cato hit him flush on the point of the jaw. Then Yancey heated the blade of his clasp knife in a candle flame and cut and dug around in the bloody flesh until he was able to remove the misshapen lead slug. The wound bled copiously and he bound a thick pad tightly over it.
They waited until Undine regained consciousness and, although the man was in a deal of pain, he said he would be fine now and could make his own way. It bothered him that the Enforcers were still hanging around.
“Vamoose out of here,” he gritted. “Leave me. It’ll look better for us all. But I tell you one thing: the Burdins ain’t got this far south. We been watchin’ the railroad, too, and they ain’t jumped any trains farther south. You fellers’ve gotta head back north if you want to get ’em.”
That puzzled the Enforcers but they had to take the undercover Ranger’s word for it. He was a man who had been in this area for two and a half weeks, watching the country all around Tenayuca, and the railroad as well. If he hadn’t sighted the Burdins or gotten some whisper about them, then they sure hadn’t come this far.
“Looks like they pulled a fast one or that hombre was lyin’ back in Texas,” Cato said.
“Reckon he wasn’t lying,” Yancey said. “He told us what he believed the Burdins were gonna do. They must’ve changed their minds or had just told the others that, aiming to pull a double-cross.”
“Well, where the hell does that leave us?”
“With one helluva long search on our hands, Johnny,” Yancey told him resignedly. “One helluva long search ... And the sooner we get started the better.”
There were other cantina towns in the general area and the Enforcers checked these out one by one. They ran into a little trouble here and there and once it had to be settled with guns but after they had shot down four men in a mob who had tried to corner them in a dead-end street, they had no trouble getting free of that town.
By spreading a few pesos in the right places, they found that the Burdins hadn’t been spotted in Tenayuca for some time.
“It leaves just the trail back to the Rio, Johnny,” Yancey said at a cold night camp on a peak in the sierras, just below snowline. “We’ll have to backtrack clear to where they crossed the Rio.”
“Could be that any ambushes they got round to riggin’ will still be waitin’ for us,” Cato opined.
Yancey nodded slowly. “Yeah. That’s Porfirio’s territory, too, I hear. Your old amigo.”
Cato’s mouth was grim. “He swore he’d crucify me on a cactus with machetes next time we met. Ought to be interestin’ if we run into him.”
“We will,” Yancey told him soberly. “He runs things up that way, now. Moved in on Alvarez so that hombre told me yesterday. If the Burdins had to deal with him to rig the ambushes, chances are they didn’t get past him. If Porfirio sniffed gold, he’d gut them on the spot.”
Cato mounted swiftly. “No use puttin’ it off. Let’s go, Yance. I’m gettin’ kinda tired of the whole blamed thing now. Want it finished some way or t’other. Damn’ Burdins just ain’t worth all this trouble.”
Yancey was inclined to agree but they had the chore and couldn’t return to Austin and Governor Dukes until it was done.
Checking out their weapons carefully, they started back along the trail that would lead them to the border—if they could get by Porfirio’s cut-throats ...
There was no ambushes along the trail and this surprised them to a certain extent. They concluded that if bushwhacks had been arranged in the first place, then Porfirio had called them off, or the Burdins had simply never gotten past the bandits’ camp once they had shown they were carrying gold.
On sundown, they came upon a small encampment of three men on a sandy beach in the bend of a river that wound down out of the rugged Cordilleras. They were Mexicans and it was obvious they were supposed to be on guard but had chosen to stay huddled close to the campfire for it was cold on the slopes when the sun went down. The Enforcers crept in after dark and took the tequila-drinking Mexicans by complete surprise. They professed to know nothing, said they were shepherds looking for strayed sheep, but the crossed bandoliers and the old full-stocked, bolt-action Snider rifles gave truth to their true profession. When they saw Cato stirring the coals and placing the long blade of his hunting Bowie in the fire to get red hot, they decided to be more truthful.
They were Porfirio’s men, supposedly guarding the canyon hidden around the next butte. They told of two gringos who had come to the bandit camp and tried to arrange for two other norteamericanos to be ambushed when they showed. Porfirio had had them both killed, the men told the Enforcers and they were buried where they fell, in the high camp.
Right now, only Porfirio and three men were there; the rest were out on raids, pillaging and raping and murdering in the hills.
The Enforcers securely tied up the three guards, put them in a cave and then rolled three heavy rocks across the entrance. They might eventually get free but it would be long after the Enforcers had been to Porfirio’s camp.
They arrived at noon the next day and spent the afternoon in the hills, watching, counting. As the guards had said, there were only four men, including Porfirio himself, though there were a few women strolling around and the Enforcers knew these could be fighting women; they often were if they rode with the bandits.
But the women ran, screaming, from the camp, when the two Enforcers rode in just after dark, quick-fire rifles hammering like Gatling guns, cutting down the running, yelling, bewildered bandits. Cato whipped his mount around, lunged it after a man who was turning in mid-stride, trying to bring up a six-gun. The small Enforcer rammed into him with his horse and the bandit’s body was flung back several feet, where he hit a rock and lay, dazed.
Then Cato spun in the saddle as there came a wild yell and he caught a glimpse of Porfirio himself leaping at him from a rock, murderous machete raised. Cato palmed up his Manstopper, thumbing the toggle expertly to shot barrel. Porfirio’s body hit his horse’s rump and slid off. Cato jumped his mount around as the bandido leapt to his feet and drew his arm back, ready to hurl the machete. The Manstopper’s hammer dropped and Porfirio was blown to rags by the muzzle blast.
Yancey, meantime, had shot down one man and was drawing bead on the lone survivor. Suddenly, the man threw away his gun and lifted his arms sky-high. He was a fraction of a second too late. Yancey had already released the hammer. The gun bucked and the bandit went down without a sound and never moved again.
They could hear the women in the rocks, clambering higher up the slopes, sobbing with the effort, calling to each other, frightened. Cato dismounted and walked over to the man he had ridden down, stirring the moaning bandit with his boot.
“This one’s still alive—for now,” he called to Yancey.
The big Enforcer dismounted and ran across, thumbing fresh loads into his rifle’s tubular magazine. He placed a boot under the semi-conscious Mexican’s chin and eased his weight forward. The man gurgled, eyes wide and staring in fear.
“I could snap your neck in a second, amigo. The only thing that’ll keep me from doing it is if you tell me what happened to the gringos called Burdin ... ”
The man tried desperately to nod and Yancey kept the pressure on for a second longer, then eased off.
“Porfirio keel ’em,” the man rasped.
Cato leaned down and hauled the terrified man to his feet. He rammed his smoking Manstopper muzzle into his belly.
“Prove it, feller,” he gritted.
The man could hardly walk he was so afraid, but he took them just outside the camp and showed the Enforcers twin mounds of earth that had been dug away in a couple of places by scavenging mountain animals.
“They are buried there,” he gasped.
Yancey flung him forward so that the man dropped to his knees in the dirt. The Enforcer placed his gun muzzle against the back of the man’s head.
“Dig ’em up,” he ordered.
The Mexican looked horrified, began to whimper. But the Enforcers were adamant. They needed proof, needed to see the Burdins’ remains for themselves.
In less than an hour, they had proof that the Burdins were dead and their long search was over.
It was time to return to Texas.