The Reinvention Of Rudd Carter. A Western Action Adventure Novel (4 page)

She squeezed his hand. “What are you doing here in Mexicali?”

“Ben is talking to me about putting together a private military force to help him and his partners with a plan they’ve cooked up for next year.”

“What kind of plan?”

He hesitated before answering. “That’s about all I can tell you at this time.”

“I don’t mean to be nosy. You said military. Are you a military man, a soldier or something like that?”

He grimaced. “Well, if we start seeing each other we’re going to have to get around to this sooner or later. It might as well be now.”

“What do you mean?”

His face tensed. “I’m a mercenary, a soldier of fortune,” he said. “People hire me to fight in military actions for them.”

“What kind of military actions? Not big wars, like in Europe?”

“No. Nothing like that. Generally, small actions in local disputes in areas that have little government control. For instance, I led a group of fifty mercenaries in the battle for Ciudad Juarez in nineteen eleven for the rebels, under Francisco Madero.”

“So, do you get paid well for doing that kind of work?” Her voice was somber.

“Yes, I’d say we get paid very well for what we do.”

Kathryn pulled her hand away. “So, what you’re saying is that you get paid a lot of money to kill people.” Her voice rose in pitch and volume. “Doesn’t it bother you that people are dying because of what you do?”

“To be honest with you, no, not at all. Not at the time it’s happening, because my men and I are being shot at by people who are trying their damndest to kill us.” He could see Kathryn’s face flush with anger as he continued. “It does bother me though when the fighting is over and I see that the enemy dead are sixteen and seventeen-year-old farm boys who have been conscripted by the Federales and forced to fight. It was especially bad at the beginning of the revolution. Later, they began to desert and join the rebels.”

Kathryn rose to her feet. “Excuse me, I have to go back and play now.”

“I apologize if I upset you. Are you all right?”

She looked dejected. “Right at the moment, I don’t know how I feel.”

“I’m sorry,” he said as he stood. “I know it’s not a pleasant subject. I’d like to stay and talk with you some more. I promise I won’t talk about war. Would you like me to stay?”

She hesitated and then her eyes brightened. “I would like to get to know you better. But… this information has been a lot for me to take in.” She took a deep breath. “Yes, I want you to stay. It’s just that it is such a shock for me. I’ve… I’ve never met anyone like you,” she stammered—“Please stay. Will you wait until I’m through playing tonight?”

“Of course, I’ll wait for you,” he said.

Her face softened. “Good. I’ll try to understand, I promise.” She turned and left for the stage.

A few people stayed after dinner and danced as the bus boys cleared the tables. As the room began to clear, the man in the necktie, a little drunk by now and emboldened by seeing Kathryn spend the last intermission with Rudd, yelled, “Fiddle player, come have a drink with me. I’ll treat you good.” He stood up and stumbled toward the stage. “Come on, have a drink with me.” He grabbed for her arm, and instantly Rudd was beside him with a grip on his upper arm that made him scream. The two Mexican bodyguards jumped up and started for the stage.

Rudd threw the man to the floor, turned, and caught one of the goons with a toe to the groin, sending him down immediately. He hit the other man with a hard chop to the bridge of his nose, putting him temporarily out of action. The man with the necktie came off the floor with a six-inch switchblade in his hand and made a swipe at Rudd’s face. Rudd stepped back, grabbed the hand holding the knife, and adroitly snapped the man’s wrist as if it were a twig. The man screamed in pain. By this time, the two Mexicans were standing and cautiously coming at him when Ben’s son, Len, hit one of them in the back of the head with a baseball bat. The man went down with a hard thump. Rudd turned to the man left standing.

“Have you had enough, compadre? We can call it a day and you can walk out of here, or we can continue and you can be carried out.”

All the while, the man with the necktie stood in the corner holding his broken wrist, writhing in pain, yelling to the Mexican still standing, “Kill the son-of-a-bitch! Kill the son-of-a-bitch!” The man lunged forward and aimed a haymaker at Rudd’s head. Rudd ducked under it and hit him in the windpipe with his knuckles. The man crashed to the floor.

Rudd blew on his knuckles and smiled at Len. “Nice work. You took that big hombre out at just the right time. Those baseball bats come in handy when you need them.”

Rudd glanced around at the two Mexicans lying on the floor and the man holding his broken wrist. “Len, we could use someone from the police department to take these three in. I’m going to press charges against the guy in the suit for pulling a knife on me. The other two, they can hold overnight and release tomorrow. They were just a good workout.”

Wheeling around, he saw the terrified faces of the members of the orchestra, as well as a greatly relieved Kathryn.

“I apologize if this little fracas frightened any of you,” he said, “but I couldn’t take a chance on it getting out of hand.”

“You were wonderful,” June, the pianist yelled out. “You were so smooth and graceful, it looked as if the fight had been choreographed, yet it was all so quick.”

“Yeah, the whole thing didn’t take a minute, if that,” added the trumpet player, Karl. Kathryn was exuberant. “Rudd, I can’t believe that you, the man I just met, the man I intend to see after work tonight, did that to those three men, right here in front of me. Where did you learn how to fight like that? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“After you pack up your violin and music, join me and I’ll answer your questions, as many as you like.” Then in a lower-pitched voice he added, “But don’t take too long, I’m lonely.”

Fuentes arrived with two deputies and took the three men into custody. Stopping by Rudd’s table, the chief said, “Len told me you took these three down by yourself. You must be damn good.”

“I had a little help from Len,” he answered. “He took one of them out of the fight with a ball bat to the back of the head.”

“Rudd, seeing this makes me glad you’re on our side. Don’t forget to stop by the office tomorrow.”

A short while later, Kathryn joined Rudd. “I feel like such an idiot for acting the way I did earlier. You just showed me who you really are. A demonstration like the one you put on could really get a girl worked up.” She slipped her hand inside his and purred, “I really want to know more about you, and I have all night.”

After the restaurant cleared, Rudd and Kathryn lingered until closing time. Unexpectedly she invited him to her room for a nightcap, adding a provision to her invitation. “I assume you will be the perfect gentleman I know you are.”

When they were upstairs in her room, she poured him a drink, poured a smaller drink for herself, and she sat on the bed gazing at him. “You know, it’s not you I was worried about in bringing you here to my room. I was worried about me. No man has been in here. God only knows they’ve tried in the last two weeks, even Ben. When I said no, he was a gentleman about it. For the fellas who haven’t understood that “no” is a complete sentence, Len and his baseball bat have been good enforcers. By the way, Len is a good guy. They don’t come any better.”

“I know. I’m impressed with him,” Rudd said, nodding in agreement. “He didn’t hesitate for one second to jump in there to help me out this evening, but let’s not change the subject.” He smiled. “We were talking about the dangers of you and me being alone in your room. I’ll be honest, I want you. I’ve wanted you since the minute I first saw you, but I don’t think either of us is ready just yet. We’ll both know when we are. For me, it has to be that way.”

Kathryn’s face softened and her eyes moistened, as the meaning of his words became clear. “Oh, Rudd!” Rising from the bed, she dashed towards him and sat on his lap. She threw her arms around him and put her mouth on his. After they kissed, she ran her lips over his face and eyes and whispered, “I know things are moving fast between us, but I feel good about it. I knew it was right from the moment I met you.”

“I feel the same,” he said, kissing her softly on the nose, cheeks and ears. He passed his hand lightly over her breast. “Soon… it will happen soon.”

He pulled her close and kissed her again. When their lips parted, she asked, “Will you stay with me for a couple of hours? You know, just to hold me. I don’t want you to leave. I haven’t had enough of you yet,
please
.”

“We can try, but you have to remain dressed.” He pulled his boots off.

Kathryn nodded and turned off the light, and they lay down on the bed together. They kissed and touched until almost sunrise when Kathryn fell asleep.

Wide-awake, he tucked her in, picked up his boots, quietly exited, and walked down the hall to his own room. He thought of how this woman made him feel. The last time he felt anything as intense had been with Elizabeth thirty years ago, and he had carried the ache of her for far too long. It was time to move on. Sadly, he knew Elizabeth had.

August 7, The Next Morning, Mexicali

Unable to fall asleep until after daylight, Rudd rose late in the morning to begin working on the equipment and weapons list for Operation Desert Revolt. He finished around one in the afternoon and went downstairs to the bar.

He found Ben in the back of the room at his usual table, enjoying a cigar. Ben waved him over and pointed to a seat. “I hear you put on quite a show last night. Len told me that you mopped the floor with three out-of-line gents.” He took a puff on his cigar. “He said he’d never seen anybody handle himself the way you did, putting all three of them down without anyone laying a finger on you.”

Rudd grinned. “Len helped. I’m sure glad he was there with that baseball bat. He’s a good fellow to have on your side, especially when you’re outnumbered.”

“He’s a good boy, the best,” Ben replied. He took a drag on his cigar and then exhaled. “Well, we know one thing. The orchestra’s going to feel pretty safe while you’re in town, the fiddle player in particular.” He reached over and gave Rudd a polite slap on the back.

Rudd reached in his shirt pocket, pulled out a piece of folded paper, and pushed it across the table toward Ben. “That’s a list of equipment and weapons I think you should look at before I pass it on to Don Hoff for acquisition.”

“You don’t have to show me anything for approval,” Ben said. “We hired you for your expertise. If you say this is what you need to make our plan work, then we’ll get it for you.”

“It would make me feel better if you took a look at that list and get a rough idea of what all this equipment is going to cost you.”

“All right,” Ben said, unfolding the paper. “If it’ll make you happy, I’ll look at it.” He studied the list for a few minutes, the whole time biting down feverishly on his cigar. “See? This is what I mean,” he said, slapping the paper with the back of his fingers. “I have no idea what I’m looking at. What the hell is a Browning automatic rifle? You want ten of them at thirty dollars apiece. If you tell me we need them to accomplish what we want to do out in the desert, then of course, I approve. You want ten Thompson sub-machine guns at two hundred dollars apiece. I don’t know what a Thompson sub-machine gun is, but if you say we need it, we’ll get it. That’s why we’ve contracted you to be the military advisor in this operation. If you say you need mortars, grenades, and thirty-caliber water-cooled machine guns—and all the rest of the things on this list—then you’re going to get them.” He nodded his head approvingly and smiled. “I think we should give this list to Don today and get started.”

At that moment, Hoff and Crawford entered the room and strode to their table. Ben asked them to be seated and addressed Hoff.

“Rudd has drawn up an equipment and weapons acquisition list that I would like you to get started on as soon as possible. You’ll find some pretty fancy stuff on there, so if you get started now, he’ll have everything he needs to go out there next year and put on a proper show for our Mexican friends.”

Rudd turned to Crawford. “I’m glad you’re here, because I need help in finding someone to ride out to the proposed battle site with me. Someone who knows the lay of the land about fifty miles east of town. I want to spend a couple of days scouting out the place where we want to take on the Federales to ensure that we have a complete rout—something to keep them talking about for years to come.”

“Before you put anymore thought to it,” Ben interjected, “let me suggest my son, Len. He’s a good rider and knows the desert better than anyone.”

“I can’t think of anybody more qualified than Len,” offered Crawford. “My vote is with him.”

Rudd nodded in agreement. “Just ask him to bring along that baseball bat. He’s good with it. You never can tell what—or who— we are going to run into out there. There’ll just be the two of us.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Crawford said. “He’ll bring along something a lot more effective than a bat. There isn’t anybody as good as Len with a thirty-ought-six in the whole area.”

“Good. I’d like to leave in the next couple of days. Don, how long will it take you to find out if the weapons on that list are available?”

“About a week, and now is a good time to start putting this all together.”

“Ben, if we leave in two or three days, can you get along without Len behind the bar for the better part of a week?” Rudd asked.

“If you need him,” he answered, “feel free to take him for as long as you like.”

Later on the same day, Rudd left El Coyote and walked down the street to the police chief’s office. It was a typical Mexicali day in August, 115 degrees in the shade. The streets were empty. He walked into the office to find Ernie Fuentes sitting at his desk, reading an American magazine.

Ernie looked up. “Hey compadre, you were unbelievable last night. I didn’t know one man could possibly inflict that much pain on three others. I had a doctor in here this morning to check out the prisoners, and he couldn’t believe it either.”