Bloodthirsty

They reached Verdugo Pass well after dark. By then, their eyes had had plenty of time to adjust to the transition into night. The wash of light pouring down from the moon and stars, out of the cloudless sky, provided sufficient illumination even against the looming wall of the Barranaca Mountains

Plus the light from the glowing coals of a campfire directly ahead was guiding them like a muted signal beacon beckoning sailors to a safe shoreline.

“What do you make of it?” Wainwright called from the wagon seat, not slowing the team any as he raised the question. His question came out in puffs of whitish-gray vapor caused by the warmth of his breath against the chill night air that had settled over the stark land in such sharp contrast to the afternoon’s blazing heat.

He was addressing Kent and Tarvel, who were riding about twenty yards ahead. Sweetwater was some distance to the rear, covering their back trail.

“Looks like somebody’s pitched a night camp right near the opening to the pass,” Kent called back to the general. “No sign of anybody moving around, most likely all asleep.”

“That wouldn’t be unusual, of course, for most travelers,” Wainwright said. “Go ahead, ride in closer and check it out. Use precaution, nevertheless.”

Kent and Tarvel gigged their horses toward the mouth of the pass and the unexpected sign of occupants who’d apparently stopped there for the night. They fanned out over the short distance and then converged back together from opposite sides before reining to a halt.

“Hello, the camp!” Kent called.

No response except for a snort from one of the three horses picketed back in a stand of high, stringy grass. Closer to the fading fire, the shapes of three men lay wrapped in bedrolls. High-crowned sombreros covered heads and faces propped on saddles serving as pillows. Spurts of ragged snoring rose from the shapes.

That wasn’t all that rose from the sleeping forms.

“Holy hell, do you smell that?” Tarvel exclaimed.

“I’d have to have my head cut off not to,” replied Kent. “Jesus! These boys smell like they drank half the tequila in Mexico and are snorin’ it back out.”

Tarvel tried his luck at rousting the campers. “Pancho! Chico! Hey, you bean-eaters, wake the hell up, you’re blocking the road.”

All he got for his trouble was more snoring and more reek of secondhand tequila.

Wainwright rolled up in the wagon, announced by the creak of leather and plodding of the team’s hooves as he pulled back on the reins. “What’s the situation?”

Tarvel gestured. “Just like we figured, some travelers decided to stop here for the night. Mexicans, from the look of it. Drunk as skunks, from the smell of it and the fact they ain’t wantin’ to be rousted.”

“No never mind about them,” Kent said. “They’ve built their doggone fire right in the middle of that mighty narrow mouth to the pass. There ain’t enough room for your wagon to get around and the coals to that fire are still too hot for the horses to be willing to go through.”

Wainwright frowned. “So what’s your hesitation? They have the right to camp alongside the pass if they wish, but they’re certainly not entitled to block the way for others. Quash that fire and scatter the coals. Clear the way as necessary.”

“Consider it done,” Kent said, swinging down from his saddle.

“Just be careful when you start kicking those coals around,” Tarvel advised his partner as he, too, left his stirrups. “We don’t want any to land too close to those snoring fools. A strong puff of raw tequila breath catches one wrong, we could all blow up or something.”

Of the three lumpy shapes lying on the ground, Buckhorn was the one farthest removed from the campfire. The other two were not men at all but rather bedrolls tucked around some carefully arranged rocks and twigs and heaps of dirt, augmented by the saddles and sombreros commandeered from the dead banditos back at the nameless village. The tequila stink assailing the nostrils of Kent and Tarvel was courtesy of a good dousing Buckhorn had given the blankets and sombreros.

Lying in the thick of the stink and listening to the comments from Kent and Tarvel, Buckhorn wondered wryly if maybe he hadn’t overdone it a bit with the dousing. That’s all he needed was to make himself half-drunk from the fumes when the time for precision-timed action was at hand.

He remained still and listened closely. With the sombrero over his face he had limited vision. He could see the wheels of the wagon off to one side and could hear the two men brushing and scraping at what was left of the fire, but he couldn’t see them. He’d heard no evidence at all of Sweetwater, which meant he was still lagging behind on their back trail. Buckhorn’s plan was to make his move when the wagon was just entering the narrow opening to the pass, hoping Sweetwater wouldn’t have caught up by then.

Abruptly, the sounds of Kent and Tarvel clearing the fire stopped.

“Hold it a minute,” said Tarvel’s voice. “Look at those horses on the picket line. Don’t that big gray one look familiar?”

“Hell, I don’t know,” Kent grumbled. “I can’t see over there that good. Besides, one gray horse is gonna look like another, especially at night like this.”

“No, not the one I’m thinking of. But I can’t quite . . . Wait a minute! Now I remember. I’m sure of it. That big stud belongs—”

“Freeze just like you are, boys.” Damn! Clear what was coming next, Buckhorn couldn’t afford to wait any longer. He’d flung back his blanket, knocked away the sombrero, and surged to his feet. His Colt was leveled on Kent and Tarvel. “Keep your hands away from your guns or those smoky coals you’re kicking around are gonna seem like a puny taste of what’s waiting for you if you make me blast you to hell.”

The two men standing on the smoldering ground where the fire used to be did indeed freeze—eyes blazing, backs humped, hands curled over the hoglegs strapped to their sides. But the hands held, dropping no lower. Hating him with those blazing eyes, they were smart enough to accept that he had the drop on them, reinforced by a keen awareness of how deadly accurate he was with that big Colt.

On the driver’s box of the wagon, Wainwright thrust to a standing position. “Buckhorn!” he roared. “Kill that son of a bitch!”

The force of the command, combined with Buckhorn’s momentary glance in the direction of the mad ex-general, was too much for Kent and Tarvel to continue holding back. Simultaneously, their hands made desperate dives for their guns. In feeble attempts to try and throw off Buckhorn’s accuracy, Kent dropped into a low crouch as he drew while Tarvel pitched himself to one side.

Neither effort gained any measure of success. Buckhorn’s first shot punched a slug square into Kent’s throat, slamming his gore-wrapped Adam’s apple out the back of his neck. Tarvel’s dive-and-roll tactic caused Buckhorn to spend his next bullet on a grazing shoulder wound, but the next one punched a mortal hit to the center of Tarvel’s chest as the gunman came out of the roll and tried to raise his own gun. He flopped onto his back and managed to shoot a hole in the sky with a spasm of dying fingers before his hand relaxed and the pistol slipped free.

Buckhorn wheeled around in time to see Thomas Wainwright bringing a Winchester to his shoulder and taking aim with it.

There wasn’t the slightest hesitation to Buckhorn’s response as words filtered through his brain. Priorities . . . The main job hired out to do . . . “You’ll have to kill Wainwright in order to keep him from killing you” . . .

He emptied the Colt’s remaining three rounds into the former prison camp commander and blew him off the wagon box.