Slocum crossed a small range of desert mountains on a trail that had been shown to him by a Yaqui Indian on a trip he made to leave Mexico unseen, after a collision with some crooked authorities. He later returned and had them all ousted and sent to prison.
His partners were taking different routes to meet at Lanya Montoya’s ranch, which was near Gomez’s hacienda. She would say, “You are meeting who here? . . . Oh, yes, I know him. Is he coming? . . . Good. Make yourself at home here.”
The fiery redhead would give him hell when he got there.
The way he went was longer, but few could have known the way he used, out of necessity. He watered his horse at some public wells in small towns. They had all been made up as fortresses, to hold out the Apache raiders that once roamed all northern Mexico. Slocum drew some attention, but he just smiled and rode on.
He arrived at Lanya’s ranch, and she burst out of her jacal to demand who he thought he was sending all these horny men to see her.
“You ain’t on your back now.” He laughed hard at her complaining, then kissed and hugged her. “How many are here?”
“A damn army of them. Did you say I’d do them all?”
“Whatever they said.” He put his arm over her shoulder and herded her toward the men.
“Did you all meet this lovely lady Lanya?”
“Yes, sir,” Ken said
“Good. If she has enough food, she will feed us.”
“If I am going to feed you, then I need some goats killed for supper.”
Ken rose. “Point them out. They will be skinned and dressed in ten minutes.”
She smiled. “You from Texas?”
“Yes, ma’am. And I have butchered a thousand goats growing up.”
“Excuse me.” She disengaged from Slocum and went to show him her choices and the ropes to hang them from, and then told the Kid to get some buckets of water from her well. He and Gordon went to get them. Charlie helped Ken, grabbing the goats by one hind leg and dragging the bleating ones to slaughter.
Lanya ran to get them her knives. Slocum held a bleating goat by the leg while Charlie went for the last one.
Ken stunned the first one with a hammer, knocking him unconscious. Charlie handed his to Slocum to hold and then helped him hang it by putting the goat’s back legs in the loops. Ken cut that goats’ throats to bleed them out. Then with a very sharp pocketknife he began to take the hides off, making his cuts from underneath.
The Kid blinked at his method. “Why you doing that?”
“So I don’t get cut hair all over him. My dad said to do that, and we’d get a kick in the butt if we laid an unwashed hand on the meat too. You don’t want that flavor on the meat.”
“You do that on a deer too?” the Kid asked.
“Hell yeah.”
“I bet that works.”
Ken agreed. “It damn sure does.”
“I’ll watch and do it that way from now on.”
The Kid and Charlie doused the goats down with buckets of water while the others washed up.
“You need them cut up?” Ken asked Lanya.
“I could use some help. You guys are damn good. Bring them to the kitchen meanwhile. I can fry the livers with onions and serve them for your snacks.”
“We’re coming,” Slocum said with one carcass on his shoulder.
The goats were finally cooked, and served along with red wine, tortillas, and beans; they ate well. Then they slept a few hours and saddled up under the stars. Everyone rechecked his weapons and the bombs made to blow things up at Gomez’s place. Each “bomb” consisted three sticks of blasting powder tied securely together, with a long fuse that could be shortened if necessary.
“That fuse takes four minutes to burn down. You can figure the rest,” Slocum told Ken and Gordon, who would handle the barracks. He and Charlie would deliver the armory explosion. He kissed Lanya good-bye, paid her forty dollars, which made her smile, and they rode eastward for the hacienda.
They arrived at four A.M. Charlie was beside Slocum as they made their way carefully to the house. The other three rode wide of it. The main guard was at the gate—the position once held by the horny one Roma had screwed for him while he inspected the house. Would they have more than one guard now that they knew they’d been breached for some reason?
On his belly, Slocum could only see one guard pacing around the gate in the darkness. When the guard walked north, Charlie knelt down on one knee and drew back his bow with the long arrow in place. When the guard turned back, the arrow took swift flight and struck him squarely in the chest. He managed only a grunt and fell facedown on the ground, unable to warn anyone.
The two ran past the guard’s quivering boots as he went through the last trauma before death. Slocum slid the gate open slowly with hardly a sound. Across the courtyard they ran to the front door, and to Slocum’s relief, it opened. Then they were in the chamber with the armory on the right. He opened the door, and from a high window starlight shone in on all the guns, rockets, and other equipment for war.
He lighted a match and so did Charlie. Fuses lit and sparkling, they tossed their bombs high on the stacks. Then they hurried out, and were a hundred yards away when the gigantic explosion blew the high tile roof off that portion of the house and more ammo went off too. Two minutes later, bam, bam, two more explosions followed.
“Good,” Slocum said to Charlie. “That’s the barracks.”
The raging fire consuming the casa shed light for a quarter mile around the place. Slocum drew up beside the Kid on the ridge.
“See anyone escape?”
“Hell no, and they won’t, or I’ll kill them. You see that roof explode? Whew! That was bigger than Fourth of July fireworks.”
“Keep watching,” Slocum told him, then rode on to find Gordon and Ken.
The barracks were in a raging fire as well. Dying men trapped inside were screaming, but none emerged from the orange glow of raging fire. Soon only the roar and crackle of the fire could be heard.
Gordon rode over with Slocum. “What if he wasn’t inside there?”
“We must wait and see. We should know today.”
“Where will we find food today?”
“There is a small village nearby, where Roma is, the woman who lost her eye helping me. I can check on her while we are there.”
“How much longer should we watch for them escaping?”
“Another hour. I sure hope we’ve got him. He won’t do much plundering and raiding anyhow if he did survive.”
Gordon shook his head.
• • •
They left the still-burning hacienda and rode to the village. A few street vendors made the men food and then they split up. Slocum had gone to the doctor’s house, and there he found a happy Roma, with a patch over her absent eye, rocking on the porch.
“Word is that bastard is gone,” she said, standing up and walking down using the handrail. “I am still dizzy. They say it will improve. Will you hold me?”
“Sure. I am glad you are recovering.” He held her to his chest.
“Señor Wade wants me to move into his casa. Should I go?”
“Only you can answer that. You know I am not a post that will be here for you.”
“I know, but I enjoyed my freedom. If I go there, I will have to fit his mold.”
“He has luxury you can’t find in this land.”
“I know, but I don’t value that as much as I do having my freedom to choose who I want and what I want to do. Like when I met you—I could have been stuck there, living there. I had fun riding with you until the end, and you could not have stopped that.”
“But today unfortunately you are weaker and more vulnerable.”
“I know. Did you end that bastard?”
“I think so. At least he has no guns and ammo.”
“Where will you go?”
He gave her a head toss north.
“God be with you, big man. Walk me up the steps. I feel a little dizzy.”
He swept her up in his arms and carried her back up. “You want back inside or in the rocker?”
“Rocker.”
He put her down on her feet and she sat down.
“Thanks. They treat me nice here. He looks out for me. I will be fine even one-eyed.”
He left her and rejoined his men. “Any word if he was away from the hacienda?”
They all shook their heads.
“How much time should we give it?” Ken asked.
“We can go through the ashes looking for bodies when things cool down.”
“We need to go back there now?” Ken asked
“Yes. Scavengers will be there, with the buzzards.”
“Should we buy some food to cook?” he asked.
“I guess. Our packhorses are a ways away. Get some firewood peddlers and some of these street vendors to go up there. You see they get food to take along. I will pay them well for the move. I must go see a man, and then I will join you at the hacienda.”
• • •
The men agreed and set out to get it done. Slocum rode up the hill to Martin Wade’s casa to have a talk with him. The very idea that Gomez might not have been in the house ate at him. There needed to be a positive sign he was no longer alive.
Wade met him at the gate when the guard had let him in and a groom had taken his horse. “Well, I hear the country has been relieved of a problem.”
“I hope so. No one is certain he was in the fire.”
“Come in. You had lunch?”
“No. I didn’t take time. I knew you had contacts. Keep me informed if you learn anything. I will be out there at the hacienda to check if we can find any remains.”
“I will have some lunch readied for you. Did you see my good friend today?”
“Yes, she is still very weak. Dizzy she said.”
“Oh, she is stronger than she was. But not well yet, I agree. I hope she makes up her mind to come here when she is stronger.”
Slocum dropped in a chair he showed him. “She has to make up her mind, and it isn’t straight thinking yet.”
Wade agreed.
His housekeeper brought Slocum some sopapillas and coffee. “The food is being fixed,” she said.
He thanked her and turned back to Wade. “We couldn’t be exposed checking on Gomez’s location before we made the raid, and we had no information.”
“Where could he be?”
“If he got word we were coming, he might have not taken a chance, since our spy operation had been discovered. I simply don’t know, but it bothers the hell out of me. Time will tell, I guess.”
His food arrived, served on a tray the woman set before him.
“Can I get you fresh soapapillas?” she asked him.
“No, I’m fine. Thank you.”
She brought more out regardless of his protesting.
Wade laughed. “She’s hard of hearing,” he said and then he snickered. “And fussy.”
After his meal, Slocum rode back to the hacienda and joined his men.
“The Kid’s gone back for the packhorses,” Ken said. “The ashes are still too hot to search the house. I don’t know—it all collapsed in so much, so what’s left of him might be just that—ashes.”
“That’s fine.”
“I talked to some peons who worked around here for him, and they think he was in the casa last night,” Gordon said.
“Good. We’ll find out.”
“What else can we do?”
“Nothing but wait and see.”
“Several widows of the men killed in the blast are here crying. They don’t know if he was in bed in there or not.”
Slocum agreed with the big man. Wait and see if maybe someone would come forward and tell them either way. Late evening the Kid came back with the packhorses. Everyone went to help him unload the animals.
“You learn anything?” Slocum asked.
“Maybe, I don’t know. I bought supper from an old bruja in a village near the hideout. She said Gomez had a woman in San Pedro he slept with often.”
“You get her name?”
The Kid shook his head. “No, she wouldn’t tell me.”
“What was that?” Gordon asked, and Ken also joined them
“The Kid says an old woman told him Gomez had a woman in San Pedro he slept with often.”
“Was he with her last night?” Ken asked.
Slocum shook his head. “She wouldn’t say. Only that he slept there often.”
The Kid agreed, taking off his own saddle. “I couldn’t even buy her name.”
“A couple of us need to ride down there. If he’s using a puta down there or a woman who lives there, a few pesos should buy that information off of someone.” Slocum was convinced that would settle the deal. Who should go?
“Ken, you and the Kid go see what you can find out. Some bartender or storekeeper will tell you all about his affair for a few pesos. We are only needing to know if he was here or there.”
The Kid swung his saddle back on his horse. “That old bruja won’t tell us, but I bet someone will, like you say. Money makes ’em talk.”
“Be careful. If he’s still alive he may have a henchman with him, and he could be like a sidewinder, aroused enough to strike, and hard.”
Ken agreed. “We’ll see, and we’ll watch our backs.”
“Meanwhile we’ll check around here. We need him removed from his place of power.” Slocum gave them money to bribe with and to eat on. They soon rode out, and he shook his head. Why was it so damn hard to find out if the outlaw had perished in the fire or was still alive?
If he was alive, Gomez was not going to show his face until he had enough force to fight them. And the Federales might get interested in the destruction of the hacienda and come see who did it. They needed to be ready to ride off if they were threatened in either case. His handful of men with stealth had wiped out Gomez’s base of power, but they were too small for a full-scale, out-and-out war.
“You need some sleep,” Gordon said to Slocum. “Charlie is surveying things around the area, looking out for any force or group that might be sent here.”
“Good. I will take a siesta, but don’t let me sleep over four hours.”
“Why don’t you use the hammock out back in the shade? I’ll be here and awake.”
Slocum shook his head. “You know I like things resolved. We damn sure don’t have this one done, or at least we don’t know if we do.”
“I will get you up if I learn one thing.”
“Good.”
Sleep didn’t come easy, but he soon fell off into troubled slumber.