Chapter 26
The iron door of the Comal County jail slammed shut with a heavy, final clang, cutting off the mid-morning heat of the New Braunfels streets. Inside, the limestone walls kept the air deceptively cool, smelling faintly of lye soap, damp straw, and the copper tang of fresh blood.
Guerrero sat on a wooden stool in the corner cell, his face slick with sweat, his shirt torn open to expose a jagged, purple bullet wound where Del's Winchester slug had entered his right shoulder.
"Hold still, boy, hold still," grunted Dr. Julius Koebig, New Braunfels' local physician, as he doused a clean rag in carbolic acid.
He'd already injected morphine into Guerrero's shoulder.
He pushed a pair of silver forceps deep into the wound, searching for lead fragments.
Guerrero's jaw tightened a little, but the morphine kept him from feeling much of the pain.
Standing just outside the iron bars, Comal County Sheriff W.H.
Adams leaned against the timber doorframe, his thumbs hooked into his gun belt.
He was a broad-shouldered man with a thick, graying mustache and a reputation for keeping a quiet county.
Beside him, Will and Isum stood like two stone sentinels, their dusters smelling of the trail.
"He ain't talkin' Will," Sheriff Adams said, spitting a dark stream of tobacco juice into a brass spittoon near the wall.
"We don't even know his name. My deputies went through his pockets.
Outside of twenty Mexican silver pesos, a pack of gambling cards, and that Remington, he ain't carrying a stitch of paper. No names. No orders."
"Yeah, we already took the gold he got from Vega," Will said.
He stepped closer to the iron bars, his shadow completely covering the wounded assassin.
"He'll talk. He came from Don Rodrigo. We know it, and he knows it.
We know Vega financed the whole expedition, but a local rancher, even a big rancher like Vega, doesn't command a man who can ride and shoot like this one.
What's your name, and who are you really working for, hombre? "
Guerrero slowly lifted his head. A dark, mocking smile touched his bloodless lips. "Don Rodrigo?" he rasped, his voice thick with pain and contempt. "Vega is an old cow, a wealthy fraud playing at revolution. You think a man of my skill takes orders from a shadow like him?"
"Yeah, I think you do," Will said. "For the right money, I know you do."
Dr. Koebig wrenched a jagged piece of lead from the shoulder with a sickening sucking sound. "Found the bullet core. He's going to bleed a bit more, Sheriff, but it didn't hit the artery." The doctor began packing the wound with lint cloth.
Isum stepped forward, his heavy hand resting on the iron latch. "If it ain't Vega you're scared of, then who? You're a long way from home to be hanging from a Texas oak for a kidnapping charge."
Guerrero's smile vanished. For the first time since they had ridden him into town tied to the saddle, a genuine flicker of cold dread crossed his eyes. He looked past the lawmen, toward the high, barred window where the blue Texas sky was visible.
"I am not afraid of your gallows, Marshal," Guerrero whispered, his left hand tightening into a white-knuckled fist against his knee. "If I hang here, it is quick. A snap of the neck. But I failed. The boy is back with his mother."
He looked directly at Will Fain, his voice dropping into a desperate, hollow tone. "General Porfirio Díaz does not tolerate failure by his top guns. He has already told me. When a man succeeds for him, he eats the bread. When he fails, he gets the stick."
"Yeah, well, we'll take care of the stick," Will said. "Diaz is a smart man, with a will of iron, they say, but he can't help you now. And let me tell you, you'll be thinking a lot different when they slip the noose around your neck."
Sheriff Adams straightened up, his face hardening as the political weight of the snatcher's words hit the room. "Díaz? The President of Mexico? You're telling me the Federales are reaching across the border into Comal County to steal a little boy?"
"The boy should have been Vega's," Guerrero muttered, his eyes growing heavy as the blood loss and the morphine .
"You think you can protect them here? In this little German town?
If I do not return with the boy, Díaz will send a dozen more.
And they will not use any tricks. They will burn the whole valley to the ground. "
Will Fain and Isum exchanged a look, then a sharp bark of laughter from Isum shattered the heavy tension in the small stone office. Will smiled too, shaking his head as he adjusted the brim of his hat.
"Díaz?" Will said, his voice dripping with disbelief.
"You expect us to believe the President of Mexico is losing sleep over a family in Comal County?
Nice try, estúpido. You're a hired gun looking for an excuse to sound important.
Don Rodrigo paid your freight, and everyone from here to the Rio Grande knows it. "
Dr. Koebig tied off the bloody bandage with a sharp jerk, packed his medical bag, and stepped out of the cell. Sheriff Adams locked the heavy iron door behind him with a resonant click. The three lawmen and the doctor walked out into the front office, leaving the assassin to sleep in the dark.
"Well, he's stabilized, Sheriff," Dr. Koebig said, wiping his hands on a clean cloth. "Keep him down, or he'll tear those stitches wide open."
"That's up to him, Doc," Sheriff Adams said. "Frankly, I don't care one way or another."
The doctor shrugged, stepped to the street door and closed it. Sheriff Adams turned to Will and Isum, his expression deadly serious. "So, what happens now, Will? You can't keep a guard on Del's ranch forever."
Will Fain paced the length of the pine floorboards, his hand resting on the butt of his Colt.
"We have two choices, as I see it, and both of 'em are a gamble.
We either take this straight up the ladder, get a report down to Austin, have the Governor send it to Washington, and see if President Arthur will pressure Díaz's government to extradite Vega to stand trial in a U.S.
court for kidnapping an American citizen. "
Isum snorted, leaning against the gun rack.
"By the time a letter makes it to President Arthur's desk, gets translated, and crosses the border to Mexico City, Carlos will be a grown man.
Diplomatic channels move slower than a glacier, Will.
Besides, Vega owns half the local magistrates in Chihuahua.
Díaz won't hand over a wealthy landowner just because Washington asks nice. "
"Then there's the other option," Will said, stopping his pace and looking Isum dead in the eye. "The quiet option. We ride down across the Rio Grande, find Vega at his own hacienda and take care of business."
"That's an act of war, Will," Sheriff Adams warned, pointing a finger at the marshal. "If the Federales catch a bunch of Texas lawmen conducting a raid on Mexican soil, Díaz will care. You'll end up facing a firing squad, or worse, in a dungeon."
"We wouldn't send a bunch, just two maybe," Will said, "but we're not doing that.
I think I know of a quicker way. Let's have Judge Freeman send a letter to the U.S.
Secretary of State and the Attorney General outlining exactly what has happened.
We'll ask the judge to demand that Diaz extradite Vega, which he won't do.
Then we'll leak the story to The New York Times, The Washington Post and others.
We'll also send the completed story, which we'll write, to the Associated Press and United Press International.
That should put some pressure on Diaz and Vega. "
Before they could debate further, the heavy front door rattled and swung open.
Del stepped into the office, the dust of the trail still clinging to his boots.
His face was set in hard, unyielding lines.
He had left his family safe at the homestead, but the look in his eyes told them he hadn't come back to town just to check on the prisoner.
The first words out of his mouth were, "I'm tired of this infernal intrusion of my family life, and I want it to stop permanently."
"Give me a chance to talk it over with Judge Freeman," Will said. "I'd like to see what his thoughts are."
Del gave a disgusted look. "If he can't come up with sump'm, I'm ready to ride down there and shoot Vega."
"I don't blame you a bit," Will said, "but first let me talk to Judge Freeman."