Lone Star 03 (24 page)

“Of course, Señor Ki. Sulfur we use to treat the bulls when the tick season arrives, and there is much gunpowder.” He cocked his head and squinted shrewdly at Ki, then added, “There is also a small amount of dynamite and some caps and fuse, if they will help you in your preparations.”

“How do you know what I'm getting ready to do?”

Eusebio smiled. He said gently, “I am an old man, Señor Ki, and I have lived through three wars since my youth. I served with Juarez when he drove out Maximilian, and later I marched with Lerdo to help defend our land in his battles against Díaz. I have made more than my share of smoke bombs and grenades, and what else could you be planning to make, with the devil Guzman and his cursed
rurales
attacking us with a cannon?”

“Will you help me show the women how to make smoke bombs, then? I only need a few—five or six. And if there's dynamite, I won't need grenades. When you've got the women started to work, I'd like for you to cut two sticks of dynamite in half and put fuses in them. And I'll want matches too.”

“Of course. I have some match-blocks that the herders use. How long do you wish the fuses on the dynamite?”

Ki frowned. “Fuse the smoke bombs very short. As for the dynamite, fuse two of the half-sticks for a quarter minute and the other two for a half minute.”

“Those are very short fuses, Señor Ki. Are you sure—”

“I'm sure,” Ki said firmly. “How long will it take you to do all this?”

“Twenty minutes, a half hour. The sulfur is in the shed next to this building, the dynamite and gunpowder only a bit further away.”

Lita arrived within the next few minutes, with her maid and one of the women from the kitchen. Ki started them cutting the silk cloth into large squares. While the women began snipping at the silk, he took Lita aside.

“I'm going to need your landaulet,” he told her. “It's the only closed carriage I've seen here on the ranch.”

“Yes. Use it any way you need to, Ki.”

“It may get ruined, or even destroyed,” he warned her.

“I wouldn't care. It's old, and I don't like it anyway. I only used it because Father insisted.”

Eusebio returned at that moment and interrupted them. For a few moments, Ki watched while the old man mixed gunpowder and sulfur together and then showed Lita and the women how to spread a thick layer of the mixture on a square of silk and fold and roll the fabric into a tight cylinder, then wrap the cylinder with the heavy thread to hold it together. Satisfied that Eusebio could be trusted to finish the job, Ki went to the shed where the landaulet was stored.

Over the protests of the tottery coachman, Ki attacked the varnished wooden panel below the driver's seat. With a hatchet he cut a narrow slit in the thin panel, an opening wide enough to allow the reins to have free play and for the driver to see where the carriage was heading. Then, after instructing the coachman to harness the carriage horse, he went back to the roof.

“They've finally got the cannon off the wagon, Ki,” Jessie announced as he emerged from the trapdoor. “It won't be much longer before they'll be shooting it.”

Ki looked at Guzman and his men. The old fieldpiece was off the wagon now. It stood in the center of the road, its muzzle pointing menacingly at the
hacienda. Rurales
were bringing up bags of gunpowder and cannonballs and stacking them beside the ancient cannon, obviously getting it ready to be fired.

“They'll need a shot or two before they get the proper elevation,” Ki said. “And we'll be ready to move in a few minutes. I'd feel better about this if I had real
nage teppo,
and could blind the
rurales
instead of depending on smoke bombs, but old Eusebio seems to know what he's doing.”

“Can you disable it, Ki? Without flares, and out of practice as you are?”

“I'm rusty at it, but I'm sure I can get close enough to the cannon to put down a smokescreen with the makeshift
nage teppo
Eusebio's got Lita and the women making, and I've got dynamite to finish the job with.”

“Ki, it's a long way from here to that cannon,” Jessie protested. “Even a
ninja
would think twice before trying to cover it, even with the right kind of equipment.”

“I think I can do what I've planned. I'll use the old landaulet to get as close as possible. I've fixed it so that the reins can be handled from inside.”

“Then I'm going to be handling the reins!” Jessie announced firmly. “This isn't a one-man job!”

“No, Jessie. The
rurales
will be shooting at the landaulet from the minute they see it. It's too dangerous.”

“Dangerous or not, I'm going to be inside it!”

Knowing when Jessie had made up her mind so firmly that he could not change it, Ki surrendered. “All right. Let's start now, then. By the time we get downstairs, everything should be ready for us to go.”

After a last look at the
rurales,
who were now clustered around the cannon, getting it ready to fire, they went down the ladder to the second floor and started for the stairs. They'd taken only a step or two when Ki stopped short.

“You'd better put our gear in the landaulet, Jessie. Rifles, saddlebags, everything. We don't know what we might need. I'll have our horses saddled, and we'll put them on lead-ropes behind the carriage. After the job's done, we'll want to get away faster than that old landualet will move.”

 

 

As Jessie and Ki rounded the corner of the
hacienda,
the landaulet swaying gently, they heard the first cannon shot. They peered through the hole Ki had cut in the front panel, and saw the cannonball send up a spurt of dirt when it struck the ground a hundred yards in front of the
hacienda
and almost as far from the side of the building.

“They'll need two or three more ranging shots,” Ki said. “With a little luck, we might get there just in time to spoil Guzman's plans, Jessie!”

Absorbed in the cannon, the
rurales
paid no attention to the landaulet for a few minutes. Then one of them pointed to the ancient carriage, and Guzman detached himself from the cluster of men around the fieldpiece to come to the front of the group and look. He waved to his men and shouted an order. Two of the
rurales
detached themselves from the huddle around the cannon and started for the picket line a short distance from the artillery piece, where the horses were tethered.

“Faster, Jessie,” Ki urged. “I need to be closer before I become a
ninja!”

Jessie was slapping the reins on the back of the carriage horse, trying to get it to move faster. Without taking her eyes from the road, she said, “I wish you had more cover, Ki. This ground is too bare even for a real
ninja
to cross without being noticed.”

Ki had been thinking the same thing.
Ninjas,
the professional assassins of Japan who specialized in the art of approaching their victims unnoticed, wore skin-tight coveralls matching the terrain on which they worked. Dodging from one bit of cover to the next, creeping on hands and knees, belly-crawling when the ground was bare, these silent killers had perfected their skill through centuries of practice.

“I don't want to get too close to the cannon,” he told Jessie. “And the
nage teppo
will give me enough cover to get to a place where I can throw the dynamite.”

“Those
rurales
Guzman sent to cut us off are on their horses now,” Jessie said.

“When they're halfway between us and the cannon, pull off the road and go across the range. The wind's coming from our left, so wheel that way when you pull off.”

Jessue gauged the distance between the landaulet and the
rurales'
position with an expert's eye. “Three or four more minutes, Ki. Get ready.”

Ki poised himself at the door opposite the
rurales'
position, and released its latch. Jessie kept looking straight ahead. The two
rurales
were midway between the landaulet and the cannon when she yanked hard on the left-hand rein, and as the carriage horse wheeled sharply, she gave Ki the word.

“Now, Ki! I'll pick you up on this side of the road when you've finished.!”

Ki jumped. The body of the landaulet shielded him from the eyes of the approaching
rurales,
who were interested only in watching the carriage and changing their course to follow it.

Because the
rurales
around the cannon fired the second shot just as Ki leaped from the landaulet, they were for the moment unconscious of their surroundings. Their eyes were on the cloud of dust raised by the cannonball, which had fallen only a few yards short of the
hacienda
this time, squarely in front of the entrance door.

He might as easily have walked up to the men around the cannon openly, on the road, Ki thought. Then, as the
rurales
moved to reload the fieldpiece and reset its range and elevation, Ki began using every scrap of cover and every subtle movement that his
ninja
instructors had taught him.

An instant before he reached a spot where he could throw the nage
teppo,
the
rurales
fired the fieldpiece for the third time. Before the smoke from the cannon shot had dissipated, Ki took one of the makeshift
nage teppo
from his blouse, snapped a match from the block he carried in his hand, and lighted the short-fused smoke bomb. The
rurales
were clustered around the cannon, reloading it. Ki tossed the nage
teppo.

It hit less than a yard from the knot of
rurales,
and at once began pouring out a dense cloud of yellow smoke as the gunpowder ignited the sulfur folded inside the silk.

Ki had the second
nage teppo
in his hand while the match he'd used to ignite the first still burned, and within seconds the new smoke bomb was adding its blinding, choking fumes to those of the first.

Before a minute had passed, Ki had tossed four of the
nage teppo,
and the cannon and the
rurales
around it were engulfed in fumes and blinding smoke.

While the
rurales
were milling in blind confusion, rubbing their eyes to restore their vision, Ki lighted the fuse on the first half-stick of dynamite. He counted to eight, giving himself a six-second margin of safety, before throwing the dynamite under the fieldpiece.

Before its fuse burned the remaining seconds, Ki had a second stick ready to throw. The first half-stick exploded while the second was in midair. The fieldpiece rocked with the blast, and the
rurales
around it were thrown like dolls, landing in a rough circle around the cannon, which now sat lopsided with one wheel of its carriage shattered.

Guzman had not been in the group clustered around the fieldpiece; he had been giving orders to the
rurales
forming into attack groups on each side of the road. The
rurale
commander wheeled his horse and galloped toward the cannon. The second dynamite blast spooked his mount and it began to buck. Guzman was thrown from the saddle, but he got up and began limping to his objective.

Ki had seen Guzman and waited to light the third fuse until the captain was at the fieldpiece, trying to comprehend the reason for the explosions. Guzman saw the dynamite when it hit the ground, and started running away, but the short fuse ignited the explosive before he'd gotten to safety. A chunk of the cannon's undercarriage caught him in the back of the head and Guzman sprawled to the ground, his skull crushed.

From both sides of the road, the mounted
rurales
were spurring toward the scene of the blasts. Ki waited until most of them had reached the shattered fieldpiece before throwing the last half-stick of dynamite. He started running toward the landaulet, no longer trying to hide. The
rurales
saw him, but before any of them could ride after him, the dynamite went off and men and horses were toppled like dominoes to the ground.

Jessie had gotten out of the landaulet and untied their horses the instant the two
rurales
who'd been sent to intercept her were drawn back to the cannon by the first explosion. She met Ki by the time he'd gotten halfway to the landaulet. He swung onto his horse.

“I don't think Guzman's
rurales
will be able to bother Lita or anyone else,” Jessie commented. “Your
ninja
tactics weren't as bad as you thought they'd be, Ki.”

“I'm rusty. I use the
ninja
approach too seldom.”

“You did well this time.”

They rode toward the
hacienda
for a short distance, then Ki suddenly reined in.

“Jessie, there's no real reason for us to go back to the
hacienda
now. Lita and her people there will learn to take care of themselves without our help. We've done our job, as far as stopping the cartel's concerned. Brad Close can take his punchers to the Tres Cerros ranch and drive his cattle home anytime.”

“I was thinking the same thing, Ki. Unless you want to say goodbye to Lita—”

“No. Lita belongs to the past now. We live in the present, and need to be thinking about the future.”

“We'll ride on into San Pedro and take the shortest way back to the Circle Star, then,” Jessie said.

“Do you want to stop at Fort Chaplin?” Ki asked.

Jessie shook her head. “No. That belongs to the past too, Ki. I haven't any reason to go back there, either.”

Ki and Jessie relaxed in the companionable silence that has no need for conversation as they reined their horses toward the road and began the long trip home.

Look for
LONE STAR ON THE TREACHERY TRAIL
and
LONE STAR AND THE OPIUM RUSTLERS
two more novels in the hot new
LONE STAR series from Jove
Also look for
LONE STAR AND THE KANSAS WOLVES
fourth in the hot new
LONE STAR series from Jove
all available now!