Kate Dukes moved quickly down the long corridor, belting her robe around her, brushing her hair back out of her eyes as she moved. She saw the Ranger guard outside her father’s office and nodded to him as he held open the door for her. She went in and hurried towards the men in the center of the room.
Dr. Boles was bending over Cato who had been laid out on the couch, his chest bloody, face swollen, a cut and a lump over his right eye. Beside him stood the pale and drawn Jud Landon, covered in trail dust, blood staining the right side of his shirt. He had his hat in his hand and nodded to Kate, but she moved to stand beside the doctor.
“How badly is he hurt, Doctor?”
Boles sighed wearily, straightened his half-moon glasses on his nose. “I’ll have to dig to get that lead out of his chest. Don’t think it’s hit anything vital but he’s lost a lot of blood. Fact is, I’d better get on with it before he loses anymore.” He paused as Kate called for the guard to get a couple of men to lend a hand. “You didn’t tell your father.”
Kate shook her head.
“Good. No point in giving him a shock in the middle of the night like this,” Boles said. “It’ll all be over in the morning and we’ll be able to break it more gently to him.”
Kate put a hand on his arm as two men came in and lifted Cato between them. He looked very small as they carried him out.
“To the infirmary rooms,” Boles said and turned to look at the girl quizzically.
“Will Johnny pull through?” she asked.
He looked at her directly. “I think so. But I won’t know for sure until I get that bullet out and I can’t waste any more time, Kate.”
“Of course not, Doctor.” She watched him hurry out and the guard closed the door, standing on the inside, arms folded across his chest, rock-hard eyes watching the nervous Landon. Kate turned to the man. “You don’t seem to be badly hurt. What happened? Last time I saw you, you were riding out of town with Yancey and a couple of outlaws.”
Landon frowned. “Well, ma’am, I didn’t know that at the time. I was—well, I was still riled at Bannerman for not selectin’ me for the Enforcer Unit and for beatin’ me in that fight. When these hombres came to me and offered me twenty bucks to take them to Bannerman’s room, I thought, why the hell not?”
Kate showed her disgust and the Ranger on the door curled a lip. Landon flushed and glared at the guard.
“I could talk better without him around, ma’am.”
The Ranger straightened, shaking his head.
“I can tell you about Bannerman, ma’am,” Landon added quietly. “But not with him here.”
Kate frowned deeper, her teeth tugging at her lower lip. Then she nodded to the Ranger. “Wait just outside the door, Jim. I’ll call if you’re needed.”
The Ranger hesitated but Kate gave him a reassuring smile and he tossed one final warning look at Landon, then stepped outside the room, closing the door after him. Kate turned to Landon. “Well?”
“We camped in that old ghost town last night,” the man told her. “These fellers reckoned they had a job for me and I—well, I was glad to see Bannerman gettin’ the rough end of things for a change so I went along with ’em. But, when they was talkin’, I found out that they were takin’ Bannerman to Sam Burdin.” Kate tensed, her face reflecting the alarm she felt. Landon nodded grimly. “Yeah, just how I felt, ma’am! Burdin, I thought! Hell, I might’ve quit the Rangers but I sure wouldn’t work for a snake like that. And I knew we were in real trouble. I was tryin’ to figure a way out when Cato showed up at daybreak today, in the ghost town. Guess he trailed us: I think Bannerman left some sort of pointer. Anyways, Cato came in with guns smokin’ and there was one hell of a shootout. One of the men, Lee Darren, he put a bullet into Bannerman right off ...”
Kate gasped. “He what?”
Landon lifted a hand. “Be back to that in a minute, ma’am.”
“To hell with a minute!” snapped Kate shakily. “You get right back to Yancey now! Was he killed?”
“Ma’am let me tell this my way, please. There was a shootout, and I tried to do what I could, but they’d taken my gun. Anyway, Cato got hit but he’d downed one of them, Darren. While the other one was lookin’ to see how bad Cato was hit, I managed to get Darren’s gun and I finished off the other feller.”
Kate looked hard at him and Landon met and held her gaze.
“I took a look at Bannerman and he was hit pretty bad, bleedin’ a lot, but he was conscious. He’d seen it all and he told me to get Cato back here to the governor’s sawbones and to tell you what had happened. He didn’t want to come with me. Couldn’t anyway, ’cause I could only catch two horses. I seen Cato was pretty bad too, but I figured he could stand the movin’ better than Bannerman. So I got him on a horse and roped in the saddle. Then I got Bannerman comfortable as I could in that old ghost town shack and left him with a couple of guns.”
Kate was as white as her robe now. “You mean Yancey’s still out there? In that ghost town?”
“Yes, ma’am, far as I know. Told you, he wanted me to get Cato back for the medic to look at.” He moved his hat around in his hands. “Guess he sort of mebbe figured he ... well, he knew how bad he was hit.”
The girl put the back of her hand to her mouth. “You—you think he might be—dead?”
Landon moved his feet awkwardly, looking down at the floor. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“But you can’t know for sure! I mean, he was alive when you left ...”
“Yes, ma’am, he was, and I guess he’s a mighty tough hombre, but ... Well, he was bleedin’ bad.”
“You could find the place again?”
“Oh, sure.” He frowned. “You goin’ out to him, ma’am? I mean, now?”
“As soon as I get changed.” She frowned at his bloody shirt. “I’m sorry. What about your own wound?”
“Not much more than a graze, Miss Dukes. I’ll be okay. Be glad to take you back to Bannerman if you want. But better be just the two of us. I mean, if Burdin’s pards were around and seen a big dust cloud liftin’ ... Well, anyway, I reckon we could travel faster, just the two of us.”
Kate hesitated. “I certainly couldn’t drag Dr. Boles away from Johnny right now, anyway. I’ll get some medical supplies.”
“I’d sort of hurry, ma’am,” Landon said as she made for the door. “I mean, he was pretty bad. And could I have a drink or somethin’ to eat, if you don’t mind? I been ridin’ all day and I’m plumb tuckered.”
Kate felt contrite. “Of course. I’m sorry. I’ll send something in.” In her concern for Yancey, she had already forgotten, her suspicions about Landon, and the fact that Cato had been brought in, wounded and bloody, gave added authenticity to the ex-Ranger’s story.
Kate hurried out and Landon breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed to be working, he thought. He hoped like hell it did work, because if it didn’t, he was a dead man. Burdin would see to that.
~*~
Cato recognized the infirmary rooms when he came round. The sunlight flooded in through the windows and there was Dr. Boles’ special nurse arranging something on the small worktable. He coughed and caught her attention. He gave her a weak smile but the expression on her face didn’t change. He had never seen it change in all the time he had known her. She came over and pushed him back on the bed as he tried, weakly, to sit up. Then she hurried out of the room.
When she returned, not only was Boles with her, but Governor Dukes, too. The governor looked gray, his face etched with deep lines, and Cato knew his angina was troubling him again. He stood by, watching, as Boles examined the Enforcer’s chest wound.
“Draining nicely, nurse,” Boles said, then glanced at Cato. “How d’you feel, John?”
“Weak as a kitten,” Cato said hoarsely. “How the hell did I get here? Last I recollect, I was in some sort of shack with Yancey. He was tied up hand and foot.”
Dukes pushed forward, alarm showing on his face. “Tied up? You mean, he was a prisoner?”
Cato frowned. “Yeah. I trailed him to a ghost town, shot it out with Landon and Darren, nailed Darren. Landon was hit and he ran so I let him go, trailed him to a hidden canyon, but they jumped me. Was Luke Meeker, I think, who laid me out.”
He glanced from Boles’ face to that of the governor, seeing their bewilderment.
“I can see that’s not what you expected to hear,” Cato said, still hoarse, his voice weak. “But I came round when they were plannin’ somethin’ ... Wait, I’ll get it in a minute. Yeah! Landon was to bring me back here, say that Yancey was hurt, too, and use that yarn to get Kate to go with him.” He started to sit up, fell back weakly, breath quickening. “Judas! Has she gone with him?”
Dukes nodded. “Last night. But she had the sense to take a Ranger along, so maybe it’ll be all right. What was the idea, Johnny? They wanted to abduct Kate?”
Cato nodded slowly. “Near as I could figure. I didn’t let on I was conscious. They’re gonna use Kate as pressure to make Yancey assassinate you, Governor.”
“Good God almighty!” Dukes breathed. “What have I done? Looks like I’ve gotten both Yancey and Kate in one hell of a lot of trouble!”
“You better send someone after ’em,” Cato suggested. Dukes nodded, holding his left shoulder and rubbing at it.
Boles was concerned. He sat the governor down in a chair.
“Nurse, get the governor a double dose of digitalis, and see he drinks every drop.” He pushed Dukes down as the man tried to rise. “Damn it, stay there! I’ve worked around you long enough now to know what has to be done! Take your medicine and I’ll arrange for a patrol to get after Kate and Landon and that Ranger, pronto.” He turned to Cato. “You think it could endanger Yancey if Kate doesn’t get to Burdin?”
Cato shrugged, winced at the pain in his chest. “Yancey’s already in about as bad a position as he can get.”
“Right,” said Boles crisply and hurried from the room as the nurse handed the governor his glass of digitalis tincture.
~*~
The patrol returned in just over an hour. They had found the body of the Ranger who had accompanied Kate and Landon beside the trail. He had been shot in the back of the head and, though some of them were still searching for tracks, they didn’t figure on finding any; the trail had been covered too well.
Cato was too weak to move from bed and, even if he had been able to ride, he wasn’t sure he could find the canyon entrance again. He lay in the infirmary bed, ignoring the pain from his wound, staring at the despondent governor. One Enforcer shot, the other a prisoner, his daughter also. There was nowhere the governor could turn now, except to the Rangers and it wasn’t likely they could do anything before the Texas Day Parade through San Antonio that was to take place in less than twenty-four hours.
There was one chance, Cato thought.
“Governor,” he croaked and saw Dukes turn his head slowly, face tortured. “You’re forgettin’. You got a whole new unit of Enforcers you ain’t used yet.”
Dukes frowned. “But they’re inexperienced, John!”
“Inexperienced, hell! They came from the Rangers. They’ve had the best trainin’ Yance and I could give ’em! Turn ’em loose, Governor. Prove that you ain’t wasted the money. Turn ’em loose and see what they can do.”
Dukes slowly straightened. Cato wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw a little hope glinting in the governor’s eyes.
~*~
The place of ambush had been chosen well. The main crowd had gathered around the Plaza del Sol in San Antonio to watch the parade as it made its progress from the railroad depot, down Saber Road and into the plaza. It was to pass anticlockwise around the plaza and then exit via Alamo Way and continue out of town to the ruins of the old mission where a commemorative ceremony was to take place.
Burdin had set up the ambush in a room above a feed store, facing onto Saber Road, directly across the plaza. As Dukes appeared, leading the procession, he would be shot and all the rest of the parade would be behind him, in the narrow street. The anticipated chaos would fill the plaza, effectively blocking pursuit while Burdin and his crew made good their escape from the far side, out into open country.
That was the plan and Sam Burdin set Yancey up in the room over the feed store with its musty smells of dust and old sacks and grain. He had been brought to San Antonio the day before and he was desperate for news of Kate Dukes and Cato. He knew of Burdin’s plan, of course, to use Cato as a decoy to get Kate out of the mansion on Capitol Hill, but the rebel leader, in typical perverse fashion, had refused to discuss the matter anymore afterwards. His men, too, had been instructed, not to say anything to Yancey. It was another subtle form of torture used by Burdin and Yancey’s imagination ran away with him so that he thought the worst. Maybe Kate had resisted and been injured. Or worse, he hadn’t seen Landon around, so maybe the man had been spotted, and put up a fight, using Kate as a shield.
Or maybe Cato had died. There were too many rnaybes, so he thrust them from his mind. It was the only way; he had to work on the assumption that Kate was all right and Cato, too.
Burdin had thrown him into this room before daylight, still bound hand and foot. He had been released an hour ago and Luke Meeker had stood on guard at the door while Burdin himself had come in and set up the rifle on a box at the window. There were a series of clamps designed to hold the rifle so that it could point only out of the room, with enough movement for a short traverse and a downward motion. But it could not be turned back into the room without either tearing out the clamps or lifting the whole massive, empty crate.
“One shot,” Burdin told Yancey, holding up a shining brass cartridge. “That’s all you get. Cato ain’t the only one who knows about ballistics, Bannerman. I loaded this one myself and I cast the bullet. Kinda personal touch, you know? When the parade starts down Saber yonder, you’ll be given this cartridge in time to get it into the breech and take your sight.” His voice hardened. “And you’d better plant it dead center in Dukes’ chest.”
“Or ...?” asked Yancey, hoping he could now provoke some news of Kate.
Burdin smiled, put the cartridge away in his shirt pocket and nodded to Meeker. The outlaw opened the door and Kate Dukes was thrust roughly into the room, followed by Jud Landon. She was disheveled, her clothes a little dusty, but otherwise she looked well enough. Burdin and the others watched, blank-faced, as Yancey moved to her and took her in his arms. They made no move to stop the girl and the Enforcer embracing. Yancey thrust the girl back so that he could look down into her pale face. She blinked and forced a smile.
“You all right?”
Kate nodded, clinging to him, and he felt her shaking.
“Johnny?”
“He’s, fine, I guess. Dr. Boles was taking care of him when I left.”
Yancey’s bleak eyes sought Landon and the man looked away from that deadly stare hurriedly. The Enforcer moved his gaze to Burdin.
“Be no use askin’ you to let her go, I suppose?”
Burdin laughed shortly. “No use at all. Luke will be outside the door. I’ll stand here with the gal and she’ll have a gun-barrel against her head, Bannerman. So you shoot straight! Savvy?”
Kate paled even more and looked desperately at Yancey. He made his face go blank and squeezed her hand briefly as Burdin pulled her away and thrust her into a corner. He glanced at Landon.
“Get down in the crowd with the others, Jud, just in case anythin’ goes wrong. And stir up that crowd as soon as you see the governor’s hit. Whip ’em up into a frenzy, make sure they block that street long enough for us to get away.”
Burdin nodded and left the room.
“Stand guard outside, Luke,” Burdin told Meeker and the outlaw nodded, finished making his cigarette and lit it before moving out into the passage, closing the door behind him. Burdin’s gun was in his hand and he motioned with the barrel for Yancey to sit against the wall under the window beside the crate holding the rifle set-up. Then he stood in a position where he could cover both the Enforcer and the girl. But he kept the gun-barrel pointed mostly in Kate’s direction and Yancey knew he was hogtied as effectively as if he still had ropes on his wrists and ankles. One wrong move and Kate would be shot.
Yancey could see no way out. No matter what happened, he figured all three of them would be dead within the next few hours: Kate, Dukes and himself.
~*~
Cato moved about like an old man. He had defied Boles’ orders and gotten out of bed and insisted on accompanying the governor and his party by train to San Antonio for the parade. He had one advantage over the others—he knew Burdin’s men and what they looked like. He figured if he could get to a vantage point where he could watch the crowd through field glasses he might be able to pick out the outlaws and direct the Rangers or Enforcers to positions where they could be covered, and watched.
The new Enforcer Unit stayed close to Dukes: there was Cleve Shann, Mitch Denton, Ollie Shubridge, and Frank Parry. They were all aware of the seriousness of their first assignment and eager to pull it off successfully. Cato only hoped they wouldn’t be too eager and blow the deal, but they were experienced Rangers, and would be capable of assessing the situation and their actions. He hoped.
He was taken to the tower of the San Rosa Mission just back from the plaza and affording a high vantage point that covered not only the plaza itself, but the entrances to the streets that radiated from it. Other folk who had figured to use the tower to watch the parade were unceremoniously ousted and Cato was set up with large-magnification field glasses, a rifle and his Manstopper. A Ranger stood at the loft door, ready to relay any messages to the man who waited below. They would be passed on to a group of waiting Rangers and the Enforcers, directing them to their targets.
Dukes was in pretty bad shape; his nerves were shot because of the worry about Kate, and his angina was acting up again. Boles was dosing him with digitalis, insisting that he could not lead the parade. But it had been the tradition of Texas governors to lead the yearly parade to the Alamo and Dukes figured he couldn’t let his people down now. Cato reckoned it was suicide, too, but Dukes was insistent. He would not listen to suggestions about a closed coach with heavy panels and thick glass windows. Tradition called for him to don cowboy gear and ride his palomino at the head of the parade and that’s just what he was going to do.
In the bell tower, Cato moved his glasses slowly over the hundreds of people packing into the plaza below. There were kids all along the front, done up in their Sunday best. There were banners and streamers hung from the buildings, and the storefronts around the plaza had had a recent lick of bright paint. A brass band, the San Antonio Cowboy Band, struck up ‘Dixie’ and the crowd began to sing along with the music. Someone let off a string of firecrackers that had the Rangers reaching for their guns. The hot sun beat down on the festive scene and Cato, a little disoriented because of the drugs in him and the pain of his wound, wondered if he was only imagining that there could be deadly danger here.
It was a day that seemed to promise only happiness and gaiety and the threat of death seemed remote.
Then his glasses picked out Jud Landon below and the reality came flooding back with a rush. He called the Ranger, pointed to Landon’s position and the message was passed on. In a few minutes, when he looked at Landon again, he saw a big Ranger standing close behind the unsuspecting man, hand on gun butt.
Over the next half hour, Cato had pinpointed Matt Steed, and several more of Meeker’s men. He did not know where Meeker was and did not expect to see Burdin. The rebel leader would be with Yancey, setting up the attempted assassination. He raked the glasses around the buildings. There were several places that would be excellent ambush positions. Seemed to be a window over a feed store almost directly opposite Saber Road that could be used by a man with a steady hand and eye, a dead shot. There were also several false-fronts which would provide cover. A man only had to find a convenient knothole or make one for the rifle barrel to poke through. Around the plaza itself there were several other positions. They had all been checked out by the Rangers and local law.
Then he heard the drums strike up a rattling tattoo and the band began ‘The Yellow Rose of Texas’ and Cato knew it was too late for anything now. The parade had begun.
But that window over the feed store bothered him. It was the only one directly opposite Saber Road. It would take a dead shot to hit a target as small as a man from over there and kill him outright. A man would need to be an expert shot. A man like Yancey Bannerman.
~*~
The crate and the rifle set-up was set a few feet back into the room, in shadow, so that there was no danger of sunlight glinting on the barrel. Yancey was crouched over the rifle now, with Burdin standing behind him, his arm around the girl, a gun at her head. He had set down the cartridge on the floor beside Yancey but was making the man keep his hands on the rifle where he could see them.
The parade was coming down Saber Road from the old redbrick railroad depot which would still be operating a hundred years hence. The governor’s palomino was high stepping out in front and the rider waved his cowboy hat, gray hair shining in the bright sun. The crowds cheered. Dukes was followed by a troop of cavalry with foot soldiers coming on behind, rifles held across their chests. They wore the old-style uniforms of Santa Anna’s Mexican troops who had stormed the Alamo and put its defenders to the sword. These men would take part in the reenactment of the Alamo battle. Behind them, came the men dressed as the defenders, in old range clothes, mountain man outfits, even hessian, representing the men from all over America who had come to defend their liberty against the Mexican general.
There was a detachment of horsemen dressed like Santa Anna’s Lancers, drummers to give the beat of battle and old high-wheeled cannons dragged by sweating men bare to the waist.
The cheers were deafening as the governor stood in the stirrups and waved his hat high, saluting the crowd. Streamers fluttered and arced over the heads of the jostling folk in the street. The ones in the plaza pressed forward to see better.
In the room above the feed loft, Burdin nudged Yancey’s back. “Put that cartridge in the breech. Easy now.”
Kate was trembling, her face bone-white. She was breathing fast, leaning away from the pressure of the gun barrel against the side of her head.
“Yancey,” she whispered, her voice incapable of making any louder sound.
The Enforcer didn’t look at her. He picked up the cartridge, pushed it through the side-loading gate on the Winchester, then levered it into the breech.
“Now, take your sight!” Burdin ordered, his own voice harsh with tension. “He’ll be comin’ out of Saber Road in a minute. You nail him just as he enters the plaza, Bannerman. You try to hesitate and I’ll blow the gal’s head all over this room.”
Still Yancey said nothing. He nestled his cheek against the rifle butt, moved the weapon a little in the clamp mechanism and lined up the sights on the governor, waiting for him to ride out of the shadows of Saber Road into the blazing sunlight of the Plaza de Sol.
“Yancey, for God’s sake!” Kate cried. “You can’t! He won’t let us live, even if you do it! Please ...!”
Yancey had never heard Kate go to pieces like this before. But it was understandable: she had never had such pressure on her before. He really didn’t know what he was doing. He was following Burdin’s orders as they came, but, between times, his brain seemed leaden, dead, incapable of rational thought. There was just no way out. All he could think of was that he didn’t have to kill the governor. He didn’t think it would save Dukes, his not squeezing the trigger, but he didn’t have to do it! As Kate had said, Burdin would kill them anyway, and there was a chance, a slim one, but a chance, that the governor just might survive if he refused to ...
By God! He felt the sweat prickle his skin and slide down his face as he lined up the sights on the palomino, lifted them slightly, up the body of the rider to settle them squarely on the chest. His mind was working rapidly now. There was a chance after all! If he handled it right, there was.
He snapped his head around suddenly and Burdin tensed.
“Back to them sights, damn you, Bannerman! I’ll kill her! I mean it!” His thumb notched back the hammer of the gun he held to Kate’s head.
Yancey deliberately made his voice loud and startling, counting on it to back up his words, which were calculated to shock. “That’s not the governor on the horse!”
Kate stiffened and Burdin blinked, momentarily thrown by the news. Yancey hammered home his slight advantage.
“It’s Frank Parry wearin’ a beard!” Yancey bawled. “They must’ve figured it was too dangerous for Dukes ...”
Burdin growled in his throat and heaved Yancey aside. He started to make animal-like sounds as he looked through the window, staring in disbelief. Then he swung back, his Colt coming up fast as Yancey lunged for the rifle, trying to pull the crate back so that he had enough room to shoot at Burdin. He would never make it, he knew, and he shoved Kate roughly so that she fell sprawling. Burdin’s teeth were bared and his finger tightened on the trigger. Then he stiffened and his mouth opened in a soundless scream, his back arching back as if his spine had been snapped in two—which it had, by Cato’s bullet from the mission tower. He had seen the outlaw leader suddenly appear in the window above the feed store and knew it had to be the ambush position. In an instant he had snatched up his rifle and fired.
Only after Burdin was smashed forward into the crate with the clamped rifle did Yancey and Kate hear the sound of Cato’s distant rifle shot.
Yancey lunged for Burdin’s six-gun as it exploded wildly. The door was kicked open and Luke Meeker charged in, his gun seeking a target. Kate flung a chair in his path and he tripped as he fired. By then Yancey had Burdin’s gun in his hand. He rolled away, came to a half-sitting position and blasted across his body. Meeker fell back with half his face blown away.
Yancey clambered to his feet and dragged Kate upright. They went out of the room with its two dead men, hearing gunfire and screams down in the plaza. Boots pounded on the stairs and he pushed Kate behind him as Matt Steed came charging up, gun in hand. He and Yancey fired together and Steed’s body catapulted backwards, clattering as it fell. Yancey helped Kate down with him. They stepped over Steed’s body, then went warily out into the store and into the plaza. By the time they reached the edge of the walk, the gunfire had ceased. There were five dead men sprawled in the plaza and two Rangers were nursing bullet wounds.
From the mission tower, Cato waved and Yancey threw him a brief salute as a coach thundered into the plaza and pulled up in a cloud of dust. The door opened before it had stopped rolling and Governor Dukes stepped down, moving towards Kate, who ran to him to throw her arms around his neck. Yancey turned as the four new Enforcers came running up, guns in hand, and formed a protective barrier around Dukes and Kate. Yancey smiled: they had learned well. Parry was still wearing his governor’s disguise.
The whole program had been worthwhile, it seemed. Today they had come through with flying colors and he figured Ironsite would be used again and again in the future to train more Enforcer Units. He turned as Dukes pushed through his new Enforcers and shook hands with Yancey, Kate on his other arm.
“You sure did a good job on those boys, Yance,” Dukes told him. “The stand-in was their idea. The training was worthwhile, wouldn’t you say?”
“Sure, Governor,” Yancey agreed. “But, if it’s all the same to you, I’d like an assignment with some real action in it next time.”
Kate looked startled at the request and Dukes pursed his lips.
“I guess it can be arranged,” he said quietly.
Then Yancey slipped an arm about Kate’s waist and smiled wearily as Cato came limping up, helped by Dr. Boles.
“But not for a few weeks,” he said and Kate smiled broadly.