Chapter 10
Mark and Ben walked through the bandits’ camp. They garnered a great many looks, sneers, and snide remarks. The men were clearly in the mood for a fight. Many were cleaning their guns, stocking up on ammunition. Was some of that the boxes they had bought?
It would be horribly ironic if we were shot with bullets we paid for.
As they reached the edge of the camp, they found their coach standing there. It was banged up and had a lot of new bullet holes in the woodwork, but it was definitely theirs.
The horses looked fresh, fed, and watered. Mark hadn’t spared more than a passing thought for them, and he felt somewhat guilty for that. They were good animals, and he would hate to lose them.
“All right,” El Aguila said, stepping out from behind the last tent. “As you can see, your coach is ready to go. So, you two are going to drive up to the gate and go in.”
Mark frowned. “You’re letting us go?”
El Aguila laughed, as did his men. “Do you hear that, Pedro? He thinks we’re letting him go.”
The man in all black sniggered. “Only a fool would think that.”
“Are you a fool, Mark? Heather spoke so highly of you on the train. I was hoping you would be a little quicker on the uptake, but it seems that’s not your strong suit. I blame the education system, but that’s a topic for another day,” El Aguila said, smiling.
“So, what are we doing?” Mark asked.
“We’re being a kind of Trojan horse,” Ben said quietly.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense. We drive up to the gate with a whole bunch of his men inside the coach.
Of course, whoever is on guard duty will let us in.
Then he’s got men inside who will overpower the guards at the gate.
They’ll open it for the rest of his crew, and they’ll overrun Unity. ”
“Well done, big fellow,” El Aguila said, patting Ben on the arm.
“That is pretty much what the plan entails. Coming at you full force in the open didn’t work.
Sending in a spy to gain control of things didn’t work.
Blowing you up and setting fire to everything …
Nothing worked. But this will. It helped the Greeks to fool the Trojans, and now this same strategy will help me defeat you. ”
“And what makes you think we won’t sound the alarm?” Mark asked.
El Aguila shook his head. “I have your women. Clary and Heather will be shot if you don’t do exactly what I say. If anything goes wrong with this plan, I will shoot them myself.”
Mark swallowed hard. He didn’t like the sound of that. If anything happened to Clary and Heather, he would never be able to live with himself. But were their lives worth the lives of everyone in Unity?
“Why are you so determined to take our town? We’ve never done anything to you.”
“Oh, Mark, you really are so narrow-minded,” El Aguila said, looking disappointed.
“It’s not about you. It’s not about any of you.
This whole plan is far more than your town or your lives.
You’ll just have to trust me that all of this will lead to something great. Now, we’re wasting time. Off you go.”
He gestured to the coach’s driver’s seat.
Pedro and his men pushed Mark and Ben forward until they reached the coach. They climbed up onto the seat, and Ben was given the reins.
“Someone will notice that Clary isn’t driving,” Mark pointed out.
“It won’t matter; Ben often drives,” El Aguila said. “You’ll see. It will be fine.”
The coach rocked from side to side as the bandits climbed inside. The last one was Pedro. He paused before getting in.
“If you deviate at all, I will put a bullet in you from inside the coach. I’ve done it many times before, and I know exactly where to aim to hit you in the heart. You won’t even know what happened,” Pedro said in a menacing tone.
“We understand,” Ben said.
Pedro climbed into the coach, and they set off.
Ben drove down a track that led to the large grass expanse in front of the town.
“Are we really going to do this?” Mark asked. “We’re going to bring down Unity?”
“I don’t think we have a choice,” Ben said. “There are too many guns, too many men, and just the two of us. We can’t do anything. Maybe, when we’re inside, we can let someone know there’s trouble in the coach.”
“How?” Mark asked.
Ben shrugged. “I don’t know. Of all the things we thought could go wrong, this wasn’t one of them.”
Unity wasn’t far away and was coming up quickly when they headed down the ridge. There was no time to come up with a good plan. All Mark could think to do was say a very quick prayer that they would be all right and that somehow they would foil El Aguila’s plan.
And then they were there at the gate.
Whoever was on duty didn’t even make them stop. The gate was opening before they reached it. All they had to do was drive through.
Suddenly, Pedro was climbing onto the driver’s seat and sitting beside them. He smiled. The sun was setting, and he looked even more menacing in the fading light. He stuck his gun into Mark’s ribs.
“Good work, gentlemen. Now stop the coach,” he said.
Ben obeyed, giving Mark a hopeless look. As the coach stopped moving, the door opened and the bandits came flowing out. There were eight of them, and they hurried away in the fading light.
Mark moved reflexively, wanting to jump down and rush to save the men at the gate.
“No, no,” Pedro said, pushing the barrel of his gun hard into Mark’s ribs. They were tender from the accident. He groaned and gritted his teeth. “You sit tight.”
Mark saw that another man had climbed up beside Ben. The big man was also being held at gunpoint.
Muffled sounds of men fighting followed, and then, to Mark’s horror, bandits went running into Unity, guns at the ready. A cry rang out, and the warning horn sounded for the briefest moment before it was cut off.
Dark shadows were moving everywhere now, and Mark wasn’t sure who was who. There were some that he was relatively certain weren’t bandits coming their way. All he had to do was hold out, wait until they came up to him. Perhaps they could even take down Pedro and his friend.
Mark hoped that even the short blast from the alarm horn would be enough to bring the people of Unity out to see what had happened. Had the person who had tried to raise the alarm been knocked out or killed? Mark had no way of knowing, and it weighed on him.
“Are you really expecting us to sit here and let you run amok in our town?” Mark demanded.
Pedro jabbed the gun into his ribs as a reminder of who had all the power. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m expecting. In case you haven’t noticed, you don’t have a gun and I do.”
“Oh, I’m fully aware,” Mark said. “But you see, the citizens of this fine town have guns too.”
“Good,” Pedro said. “I would hate to miss out on shooting some of them.”
As though his words had been a sign, there were the sounds of gunfire behind them. Then to the side of them. And then on and on.
Pedro didn’t seem too happy to be sitting out of all the fun.
He looked around, trying to see what was going on.
That was when Mark took his chance. With a huge burst of energy, he pushed Pedro off the coach’s driver’s seat.
The man was caught unaware and couldn’t grab onto anything as he slid and then fell to the ground.
His finger had been on his gun’s trigger, and he fired as he fell. Luckily, the bullet went wild.
Mark threw himself off the seat and, landing on Pedro, began to pummel him. Pedro, who was winded and gasping, managed somehow to throw Mark off and roll on top of him.
With his hands balled into fists, Mark punched as hard as he could.
He knew that at least some of his blows connected because Pedro made pained noises, but Mark was definitely not in a good position.
Pedro had lost his gun in the fight and was groping for it with one hand.
Mark took advantage of that and punched him in the kidney hard.
Pedro fell off him, groaning and gasping. He tried to crawl away, but he was limp on one side. Mark took advantage, and, regaining his feet, kicked Pedro in the ribs. There was the satisfying crack of ribs breaking.
Mark hurried to where Pedro had dropped his gun, picked it up, and pointed it at his captor. “Right, now, you listen to me.”
He grabbed Pedro roughly and hauled him to his feet. Looking around, Mark saw that Ben had taken care of his own bandit. The man hung limply over Ben’s shoulder.
“Is he alive?” Mark asked.
Ben shrugged. He raised a huge fist and slammed it down on Pedro’s head. Pedro’s eyes rolled up in his head, and he collapsed on the ground. Ben dumped his bandit beside Pedro and cracked his neck from side to side.
“What?” he asked at Mark’s look. “We can’t have them running around, and we need to get the gate closed and the alarm sounded.”
Mark nodded. “I’ll head for the alarm; you get the gate.”
Ben set off at a loping run, and Mark hurried to the nearest section of the wall. There was a ladder leading up to the walkway. He climbed it quickly. At the top, he saw that some of the bandits had clearly come that way. Ethan lay on the walkway, blood dripping from a wound on his head.
Mark quickly checked to see if the smelter was still breathing. He was. That was a relief. There was no time to get him to Diane or Julie, the town’s medical team. That would have to wait for when this attempted takeover was over.
Hurrying on, Mark ran along the wall to where the horn was usually kept. It was in the guardhouse on the wall. Prepared to shoot anyone who so much as looked at him wrong, Mark rushed into the room. It was deserted except for a crumpled form lying on the floor.
It was too small to be a grown man, and too hard to see in the dim light. The sun had set, and shadows and darkness were growing by the second. Outside, someone yelled, and the yell was cut off.
Mark bent down and turned the form over. It was Timothy, Lizzy’s little brother. Mark said a thankful prayer that the boy was just knocked out. Perhaps he had tried to blow the horn, to warn everyone, but someone must have hit him and then taken the horn.
Well, no matter; Mark would alert everyone in another way.
Heading out of the guardhouse, he walked to the edge of the wall and looked over. In the dim light, he could see the shapes of carts and wagons coming down the grassy expanse toward the gate. It was a full-scale invasion. Taking aim, he began to fire Pedro’s weapon at the closest of them.
They returned fire, and as the bullets zipped and zinged through the air, the town of Unity began to wake up and react. Soon, Mark could see folks coming out of their houses, armed and ready for a fight.
He couldn’t help but smile. Until he thought of Heather and Clary.
Oh no, what have I done?
He sagged and leaned against the wall. El Aguila had said that if anything went wrong with his plan, he would kill them both. Had Mark just signed Heather’s death warrant by shooting at the invading bandits?
No. How would El Aguila know it was him? He knew they had people on the wall all the time. All it would have taken was one observant lookout, and their procession would have been fired at. Was he planning to kill Heather and Clary all along, regardless of what Mark and Ben did?
He looked over the wall again and wondered if they were still at the camp, or were Clary and Heather in that jumble of vehicles?
“Mark?”
“Thomas!” Mark rushed over to his friend.
Thomas had a pistol in his hand and was looking confused. “What’s going on? Who are all of those people?”
“They’re bandits,” Mark said. “We don’t have time for explanations now. All I can tell you is that Heather and Clary are in there somewhere.”
“What?” Thomas asked. “What are you talking about?”
People’s voices rose from below them, and the bangs and booms of various guns firing rent the deepening night.
“What is going on?” Thomas demanded.
“We’re being invaded,” Mark said.
Thomas’s eyes widened and he started to speak, then stopped, jaw dropping.
Turning around, Mark stared. A line of bandits was coming up the ladder to the wall. More of them were spreading out into the town, torches in their hands. They were whooping and calling, shooting at will. People screamed and guns fired.
“It’s too late,” Thomas said, placing his gun on the floor and raising his hands. “It’s all too late.”
Mark didn’t want to accept it. He shook his head, but there were too many bandits.
Too many guns and not enough citizens of Unity to fight them off from inside.
All of their defenses had been designed to keep the bandits out.
There was no way to deal with them now that they were running freely through the streets.
It was mayhem. They would kill everyone and burn the place to the ground, and Mark was helpless to stop it.
“Ah, there you are,” Pedro said, pushing his way past his men. “I was hoping to find you.” Raising a gun, he brought the butt down hard on Mark’s head, turning everything black.