High and Wild (2 page)

2

A
low stone wall was
once built around La Ciudad. It was too low to keep the Apaches out but high enough to slow them down if they came tearing out of the desert on galloping mustangs, which they used to do often and still occasionally tried, although their numbers were dwindling.

Haskell and Sonoma hunkered behind the wall. Breathing hard from their run, they shed their cumbersome
sombreros
and peeked over the top.

Seventy yards in front of them was a large
adobe
hotel called Palais Royal. It shouldered back against the starry sky on the far side of a horseshoe-shaped courtyard ringed with pecans and oaks and centered by a dry stone fountain. Near the fountain, a large fire burned, roasting a fat hog on a steel spit. Around the fire, peasants of all ages, shapes, and sizes danced, milled, yelled, and laughed, swilling from tin cups or straw demijohns holding wine bottles. Small children ran playing among the drunken adults. Dogs barked and circled the spitted hog, tongues hanging, eyes reflecting the dancing red flames.

Long-haired girls in flowered skirts and embroidered blouses that left their brown shoulders bare worked the crowd, carrying wooden buckets and gourd ladles, occasionally stopping to refill an empty cup. Haskell figured they were serving
bacanora,
a favorite border-country drink derived from the
agave
plant. He'd overindulged in the Mexican forty-rod a time or three in his past, and it had felled him like a mule's kick.

Beyond the reveling peasants, the Palais Royal was all lit up. Its long rectangular windows flanking the broad stone portico sparkled with light from fire and lanterns inside, wavering with jostling shadows.

Rurales
milled around out in front of the place—lower-ranking young men with caterpillar mustaches, armed with trapdoor Springfields fixed with bayonets. They cavorted with the happy peasants, sparking the serving girls and swilling
bacanora
. One was even playing with a yipping dog. Haskell suspected they were officially supposed to be guarding the hotel and their own offices in the drab barrack just to the west.

But everyone was happy and drunk tonight. Tomorrow Villarreal would probably be back raping and target-shooting at the peasants from his apartment windows, and the peasants would be snarling and plotting against him. But tonight all sins were forgotten. Let the
bacanora
and
sangría
flow like a river in heaven!

“How are we going to do this,
amigo
?” Sonoma asked in Haskell's left ear. “You say she's on the second floor? How in the name of hell are we going to get inside that place with all of this happening? Maybe Rupert was right.”

A clattering rose to Haskell's left. He turned to see a
peón
pushing a handcart up the trail that wound down into a swale in which the villagers chopped wood. The cart was stacked with bundled branches. A woman was walking along behind the cart, carrying another bundle of branches in her arms.

Haskell smiled at Sonoma. “Don't tell me God don't smile on fools.”

Ten minutes later, he'd paid the couple several
pesos
to let him and Sonoma take over their wood-delivering duties. The pair, whom the Pinkerton assumed were husband and wife, had been ordered to fetch more wood for the bonfire outside and the great stone hearth inside the hotel. The man and the woman, both dressed in
peón
's pajamas like Bear's own, including
sombreros
and rope-soled sandals, looked at each other skeptically.

They shrugged, tossed the coins in their hands, and then scampered off to join the other revelers around the fire.

Haskell grabbed the handles of the cart. Assuming the roles of the married wood gatherers, Sonoma picked up the woman's bundle of mesquite branches bound with twine, and Haskell pushed the rickety, squawking cart into the square fronting the Palais Royal.

They kept their heads down, not wanting to be picked out as interlopers. Bear knew that his size alone—he stood six feet six inches tall, with shoulders as broad as a barn door—made him stand out in any crowd. He just hoped that all the revelers were drunk enough and happy enough that they wouldn't pay the big, shaggy-headed, shaggy-bearded man with the long-legged and high-busted peasant woman flanking him much mind.

They added wood to the fire and set two more bundles down beside the roasting hog. Haskell tried to ignore the aroma of the cooking meat, the grease spattering and smoking onto the glowing coals beneath the spit and sending the succulent smells billowing.

He and his partners hadn't eaten much except rattlesnake and wild desert roots in the four days they'd been scouting the town and planning a way to rescue Miss Johnson. His belly groaned loudly, but he doubted anyone could hear it above the music of the wandering
mariachi
players, the crowd's generalized roar, and the barking of several dogs and the crying of several babies.

Haskell pushed the cart through the gate in the tall rod-iron fence that separated the grand hotel from the lowly commoners and into the flagstone courtyard. There were several
rurales
out here, smoking and talking on the balustrade, some peering enviously into the hotel through the large open windows.

Inside, someone was holding court—likely Captain Villarreal himself. The man's stentorian voice rolled out the Spanish in the way a Gatling gun spit .45 slugs. His victory speech was punctuated by shouts from his audience and the pattering of polite applause.

“The old bastard is really enjoying himself,” Sonoma growled into Haskell's right ear, as the Pinkerton scooped two bundles of wood from his cart.

“Hold your tongue,” he growled back at the Yaqui woman, “unless you want to be more cause for jubilation.”

“I'd gut him like a pig!” Sonoma hissed.

Bear walked up the broad stone steps and onto the portico fronting the large open doorway through which salmon-colored light flickered. A
rurale
sat on a stone ledge to the right of the open doors. He had one knee casually raised and was smoking a peppery cheroot, blowing the smoke out through his nostrils.

He was dressed all in gray except for the yellow stripes running down the outside of his pants. His straw
sombrero
with the silver eagle insignia pinned to the crown hid his eyes as Haskell and Sonoma walked up, keeping their own hats down to obscure their faces.

Haskell held his breath tensely as he strode past the young
rurale
. He spied movement behind him just as he cleared the door, however, and he glanced back to see that the
rurale
had wrapped an arm around Sonoma's waist. Sonoma stopped, keeping her hat brim down over her eyes.

Haskell could sense the tension in the girl, almost hear her heart beating behind those lovely breasts.

The
rurale
grinned lustily, expelling two streams of cigar smoke through his broad, pitted nostrils. He slid his brown hand up beneath the bundle of wood she carried. Sonoma lifted her chin so that her hat brim rose to reveal her eyes—two large, oil-brown saucers afire with slowly exploding Yaqui rage.

The
rurale
stopped his hand. He frowned up at the strange Indian-featured woman. Just as he began to harden his jaws and open his mouth to say something, Haskell switched his two bundles of wood to one arm, freeing up his right hand, which he wrapped around the man's throat. That cut off whatever the
rurale
had been about to say.

He dug his fingers into the man's neck, feeling the prickly stubble, and then jerked upward, with nearly every ounce of his considerable muscular weight channeled to his right arm.

The
rurale
gave a sharp grunt at the same time that his neck snapped like a branch

Haskell doubted that either sound would have been heard above the din around him. A quick glance told him that the other
rurales
on the portico were still directing their attention to the inside of the hotel. None appeared to have noticed anything out of order near the front door.

Haskell kept his hand wrapped around the
rurale
's neck, preventing the man from falling over the ledge to the flagstone-paved ground below and likely making a thud that would be heard by the others.

Haskell shoved the dead man back against the casement beside the door. When he was sure the
rurale
was going to stay there, the Pinkerton pulled the man's palm-leaf
sombrero
down over his eyes and then folded his arms across his chest so that anyone glancing toward him would think he'd merely passed out from too much
bacanora
.

Who wouldn't forgive him on such a joyous night?

Haskell, who was armed with only his bowie knife and a LeMat revolver wedged behind the rope belt of his canvas trousers, eyed the
rurale
's pistol. Quickly, he grabbed the combination revolver and shotgun and wedged it between his chest and the two bundles of wood he was holding in front of him.

Before, he didn't think he'd need much firepower. In fact, he'd thought he wouldn't need any at all. The LeMat and the knife had only been for insurance. But with Villarreal back in the village, all bets were off.

Barely fifteen seconds had passed since the
rurale
had waylaid Sonoma and received a snapped neck for his efforts. Now Haskell glanced back at the Yaqui. She arched a brow at him but said nothing. The tenseness in her eyes told him that she was well aware that they'd both dodged a bullet.

At least, the first one . . .

Haskell moved on into the hotel's large, cavern-like saloon and was immediately assaulted not only by the roar of Villarreal's strident voice recounting his glorious accomplishment in running down the notorious
banditos
but also by the heat and the stench of sweat, tobacco, and liquor that filled the room like something vast and palpable.

From a previous scouting trip, Haskell knew where the fireplace was—at the back of the room on his left. As he edged that way, along the perimeter of the mostly standing crowd, he glanced toward the long, ornate bar running along the room's right side, beneath a large second-floor balcony.

He stopped, raised a brow. Stifled a chuckle.

He had to hand it to old Villarreal, the captain knew how to throw a party.

The bar ran nearly the length of the room, ending near stairs leading up to the second floor. Above was a stout stone railing running along the edge of the balcony. A wooden winch had been suspended from thick cables above the rail. Ropes dangled from the winch down past the rail to the bar, where their opposite ends formed hangman's nooses around the necks of the three outlaws standing atop the bar, looking as glum as schoolboys caught peeking through the half-moon cutout in the door of the girls' privy.

Villarreal stood to the right of the three doomed men, who were dressed in the traditional leather vests, calico blouses, billowy neckerchiefs, and bell-bottom trousers of the common border
bandito
. Only these men were no common
banditos
.

The one in the middle Haskell recognized as the notorious one-eyed gang leader Pancho “the Snake” Calaveras, who led as bloodthirsty a bunch of thieves, rapists, slave traders, and killers back and forth across the border as northern Sonora and southern Arizona had ever known.

At the moment, Captain Villarreal—tall and hawk-nosed, his long, horsey face adorned with a trimmed gray beard—was expounding almost poetically on how he and his men had managed to run the gang to ground on the southern banks of the San Pedro. The
rurales
had killed the entire gang except these three—Calaveras and two of his senior-most lieutenants.

The crowd was made up mostly of moneyed shopkeepers, whores, and impeccably groomed and tailored
hacendados
from nearby
haciendas
, not to mention several
padres
who seemed to be enjoying the show—along with the liquor and the young
putas
—as much as everyone else. The men and the gaudily, scantily attired girls sat or stood in rapt attention, sucking on cigars or cigarettes and holding cups of
tequila
, wineglasses, or brandy snifters in their hands, fingers laden with rings.

They were all glassy-eyed and beaming, the men occasionally applauding the savage Villarreal's exaggerated detailing of his exploits.

Haskell himself silently applauded the old
rurale
demon for his accomplishment. Lawmen on both sides of the border had been after Calaveras's bloodthirsty gang for years.

Haskell continued toward the fire, keeping his chin dipped toward his chest, sidestepping through the crowd, careful not to step on any toes. A
peón
stepping on the toe of his better would be an insult for which the insulted might try to have him bullwhipped, and that would be another bullet that Haskell and Sonoma would have to dodge.