Chapter 24
The hoofprints carved a jagged line into the white caliche dust, and Del Cole's chest burned with a cold, dark fury.
The presence of two horses didn't mean two men; it meant a single rider leading a spare mount to carry his boy.
He'd bet his life on it. This wasn't a sloppy, opportunistic snatch by a local drifter.
Abandoning the wagon so smoothly and heading straight into the rocky, blind canyons of the Hill Country took careful planning.
It was the work of a professional, a child-snatcher sent straight from Don Rodrigo across the Rio Grande. Del had no doubt of it.
Del spurred his gelding up a limestone ridge, the sharp scent of crushed cedar rising from the hooves.
His hand rested flat on the worn stock of his Winchester across his saddlebows.
Don Rodrigo wanted the boy alive, which meant Carlos was still breathing, but a man who killed for Mexican silver wouldn't hesitate to put a bullet through a father's heart if he got too close.
Will Fain pulled his reins tight, his face grim. "Isum, keep your rifle unlimbered. Don Rodrigo's bloodhounds don't leave witnesses. If Del corners this bastard alone in the dark, I'm afraid he's a dead man."
"Let's ride," Isum muttered.
Up in the ridges, the shadow of the hills stretched long and purple across the chaparral. Del reached the crest of a rocky ravine and pulled his gelding to a sudden, silent halt. Down in the belly of the canyon, nestled beside a dry creek bed, a thin wisp of gray smoke was beginning to rise.
That thin wisp of gray smoke deepened into a steady, dark thread against the purple twilight.
Del pulled his gelding deep into the shadow of a cedar break, his heart hammering a steady, rhythmic thrum against his ribs.
Minutes later, the muffled thud of unshod hooves signaled the arrival of the other marshals.
They dismounted in total silence, their movements fluid and practiced.
Abram knelt by Del's side, his eyes locked on the faint orange glow beginning to flicker at the bottom of the rocky ravine.
"He thinks he shook us," Abram whispered, his voice barely carrying over the evening breeze.
"Or he thinks the dark is his armor. Don't take any chances.
I'm betting he's expert with that rifle, an assassin just waiting to make his kill. "
"I think you're right, but he doesn't know these hills," Will muttered, lifting his Winchester just enough to check the brass loading gate by touch. "If we ride down there now, that campfire turns us into clay pigeons. He'd pick us out of the dark before we hit the valley floor."
"And if he hears us coming, he uses Carlos as a shield," Isum added, his grip tight on his rifle. "We can't do anything but wait. I'm bettin' that's a Judas fire."
The four men knew every limestone ledge, dry wash, and deer trail in this part of Comal County.
The assassin was trapped in a natural bowl, wrapped in a false sense of security.
Del's chest ached with the urge to rush the camp, to tear his boy out of the snatcher's hands, but the cold logic of his years of training held him back.
A reckless move could get Carlos killed.
Working in absolute silence, the marshals split up to encircle the ravine.
Will Fain took the high eastern ridge, blocking any escape back toward the San Antonio road.
Isum slithered through the brush to the southern mouth of the canyon, while Abram melted into the shadows of the western cliffs.
Del took the northern rim, positioning himself directly above the flickering fire.
Down below, the shooter sat cross-legged a hundred yards away from the flames, his battered straw hat tilted back. His long-barreled Remington rifle lay in his arms, aimed at the fire. His prize, the boy, lay on the ground gagged and tied.
Del lowered himself onto his stomach behind a slab of limestone as he stared down at the flickering fire. The flames licked at a pile of dry cedar branches, throwing broad, dancing shady No horses.
"Isum's right, it's a Judas fire," Del whispered to himself, a cold sweat breaking out on his neck. Where in the bowl below was Carlos?"
Through the gloom, a soft whistle, the low, clipped call of a nightbird, echoed from the eastern ridge.
It was Will Fain, signaling the exact same realization.
The kidnapper wasn't sitting by the warmth.
He had lit the blaze and immediately retreated into the black belly of the canyon, using the fire as a trap.
Anyone stepping into that ring of light would become a perfect, illuminated target for a rifle bullet from the dark.
Worse still, the marshals had no idea where the man was hiding. He was out there in the pitch black, swallowed by the boulders and cedar breaks, holding the high card.
A hundred yards away, hidden in the deep shadow of an overhanging limestone ledge, Guerrero sat perfectly still.
He kept his hand firmly on the heavy leather reins of his two horses.
The boy was tied directly to the saddle of the second horse, his wrists bound tightly to the pommel and his mouth stuffed with a thick calico gag and tied with a bandana.
Carlos's eyes were wide with terror, rolling in the darkness as he strained to see through the night, his small body shivering against the sudden drop in the desert temperature.
Guerrero's calloused hand occasionally reached up, gripping the boy's ankle with a silent, iron warning to keep quiet.
Up on the ridges, the four marshals melted into the landscape. They didn't move an inch. They didn't dare slide a rifle barrel forward or let a spur clink against the limestone. To move was to give away their position to a professional killer who was listening for the slightest breath.
They knew these hills, but Guerrero knew how to hunt men. The trap was set on both sides. The marshals had the canyon surrounded, but they were entirely blind to the assassin's exact location.
There was nothing left to do but grip their cold steel, endure the biting night air, and wait for the first gray cracks of dawn to bleed across the Texas sky, forcing someone to make the first move.
Those first gray cracks of dawn bled across the Comal County sky, turning the black silhouette of the ridges into a pale, ghostly blue. The Judas fire had long since died down to a mound of cold, white ash.
High on the western rim, Abram lay flat as a lizard against the freezing limestone.
He didn't blink. He watched the shadows below slowly detach themselves from the brush.
Then, a single, unnatural movement caught his eye, the quick, nervous flick of a horse's ear against the dawn light, hidden deep beneath a low-hanging canopy of live oak.
Abram raised his hand, pointing a single finger toward the oak grove, catching Del's eye across the ravine.
Del's heart leapt. Through the morning mist, he could just make out the shape of the second horse, and tied to the saddle, the small, slumped form of his son.
It took all his self-control to stay still knowing his son, his own flesh and blood, was suffering.
But Guerrero was a wolf who smelled the trap closing.
The moment the light grew sharp enough to reveal his outline, the assassin didn't hesitate.
He knew the ridges were held. He jammed his boots into his mount's ribs, dug his spurs deep, and launched both horses into a furious, lunging gallop straight down the rocky throat of the canyon.
"He's breaking!" Del roared, throwing caution to the wind as he scrambled down the crumbling slope toward his own tethered gelding.
Guerrero tore out of the trees, a blur of flying gravel and thundering hooves, holding the lead line of Carlos's horse short, assuring the boy's mount would keep pace.
"Hold your fire!" Will Fain's voice boomed across the canyon as he vaulted into his saddle, his horse already at a dead run. "We need to take him alive! We know Vega hired him, but we gotta make him say it in a court of law! Shoot the horses if you have to, or try to wound him, but don't kill him!"
"The boy's in the crossfire!" Isum yelled, swinging his horse around the southern mouth of the canyon to cut off the escape route, his rifle raised but hesitant.
Guerrero leaned low over his horse's neck, using the animal's body as a shield. He drew his long-barreled Remington, firing two blind shots wildly up at the ridge to keep the marshals' heads down. The heavy slugs punched into the dirt near Abram's boots, throwing up puffs of white caliche dust.
Carlos was clinging desperately to the pommel with his bound wrists, his eyes wide with absolute terror as his horse leaped over boulders and dry ruts, completely at the mercy of the assassin's speed.
Del tore down the incline, his Winchester clutched in one hand, his jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached. He had the angle on them, but the rough terrain was a chaotic blur of cedar and stone. He needed a clean shot to disable Guerrero or his mount without putting a bullet through his own son.
Carlos's tongue felt swollen, thick against the coarse cotton rag stuffed into his mouth.
His throat burned with a desperate want of water, and his stomach twisted with a hollow ache.
He had been terrified, shivering in the blind dark while the rail-thin man held his horse's reins like an iron leash.
But the moment the gray morning light broke and the canyon exploded into a violent blur of thundering hooves, Carlos stopped crying.
He knew his Papa was coming. Del Cole always came.
As the wind whipped at his face and his horse lunged over the jagged limestone ruts, Carlos didn't just sit there.
He forced his small, shaking fingers to work.
He strained against the hemp cords binding his wrists to the heavy leather saddle horn, pulling until the rough fibers bit deep into his skin and drew blood.
He couldn't break the knots, but he could change his position.
Leaning forward with every ounce of strength in his aching body, Carlos pressed his chest flat against the horse's coarse mane.
He tucked his head low, wrapping his bound arms around the animal's neck, making himself as small a target as possible.
He knew what a Winchester could do. By lying flat, he cleared the line of sight, hoping against hope it would give his Papa enough room to shoot the assassin right out of the saddle.
Up on the parallel ridge, Del saw the boy drop flat. A fierce wave of pride and desperation surged through his chest. "That's it, son," he thought, his jaw clenching. Stay down.
With Carlos offering a clear shot at the target, Del lined up the sights of his lever-action rifle on Guerrero's riding shoulder, the assassin still leaning low and throwing lead blindly toward the rear.
"Isum! Cut the gap!" Will Fain bellowed, his horse kicking up a massive screen of white caliche dust as they tore down the throat of the canyon. "He's heading for the cedar thicket at the southern draw! Take his mount out!"
Del squeezed the trigger. The Winchester cracked, a sharp, deafening slap that echoed off the limestone canyon walls.
The heavy lead slug found its mark, tearing clean through Guerrero's right shoulder. The impact jerked the assassin violently forward. With a muffled roar of pain, his numbed fingers lost their grip, and the lead reins to Carlos's horse slipped away, whipping wildly through the air.
Free of the assassin's control, Carlos's horse veered slightly, slowing its frantic pace, though the boy stayed pinned flat against the mane, his heart hammering against the animal's ribs.
Down at the mouth of the canyon, Isum Wood hauled on his reins, pivoting his massive mount directly into the narrow opening. He leveled his rifle straight at the oncoming rider. "Hold it right there, hombre!" Isum bellowed.
Bleeding heavily and seeing his path forward entirely blocked by the black man, Guerrero spat a curse.
He didn't stop. With desperate, left-handed strength, he yanked his horse's head to the left, pivoting away from Isum's gun barrel.
He drove his spurs into his mount's flanks to scramble up a steep wash, breaking hard toward the open San Antonio road in a last-ditch effort to outrun the law.
"I've got Carlos!" Del shouted, veering his horse toward Carlos's drifting mount to grab the trailing reins.
"Abram, with me!" Will Fain roared, his silver star flashing in the morning sun as he spurred his horse past the cedar breaks, chasing the shooter's blood-splattered trail. "Don't let him reach the open road!"
Del didn't even look back at the assassin. The moment he saw Guerrero drop the reins, he had already pulled his gelding to a sliding halt near his son. He vaulted from the saddle before the horse had fully stopped, his boots hitting the dusty caliche earth.
Del slid on the loose gravel, dropping his Winchester into the dirt as he reached Carlos's horse.
His hands, usually so steady, were shaking violently.
He drew his bowie knife and sliced through the thick hemp cords binding the boy's wrists to the saddle horn and cut the ropes binding his legs to the saddle fender, then carefully slit the bandana and pulled the calico rag out of Carlos's mouth.
The moment the bonds fell away, Carlos tumbled forward into his father's chest. Del caught him, pulling his small, shivering body tight against him, burying his face in the boy's dusty hair.
Del opened his mouth to speak, to tell him he was safe, to tell him everything was going to be alright, but his throat seized.
Not a single word would come out. He just squeezed his eyes shut against the hot sting of tears, his broad chest heaving as he held his boy in the quiet shadow of the canyon.
Carlos wrapped his raw, bleeding wrists around his father's neck, whimpering softly, finally safe.