Chapter Nineteen #3
Angel de la Guerra watched them come, riding like a windswept fire up through the wagon trail at the rear that was meant to be used for escape.
They had taken out the guards, picking off some of them quietly before they started in, taking out the others with a well-placed gunshot as they thundered past on their lathered horses.
The women screamed and raced inside their small cabins, hoping to shield their children from harm.
Tomasina Gutierrez stood at her husband’s side, firing a long Sharp’s rifle, while Santiago cocked and fired a Remington army pistol in each of his powerful hands.
Pedro Sanchez, Ruiz Domingo, Ignacio Juarez, and a dozen others fought on horseback, aiming their rifles and firing, then riding to a different position and firing again.
Miranda Aguilar crouched behind the watering trough, shooting the heavy Navy Colt’s .
36-caliber that Ramon had given her and taught her to use.
Her fourth shot took out a beefy man astride a buckskin horse, who hit the dirt and rolled to a bloody stop just inches away from the hem of her red cotton skirt.
Amazingly, they fought back the first wave with the loss of only the rear guards and four of the men, forcing the vigilantes to retreat to the edge of the camp.
“They will not wait long before they return,” Angel said, crouching beside Pedro Sanchez.
“No. And we cannot hold them long once they do.” He turned to Ruiz Domingo.
“Get the women and children into the forest. Tell them to scatter and hide as best they can. It is the men they are after. We will hold them as long as we can, then ride out. We will meet in the cave at Arroyo Aguaje.” A plan they’d made at the start, should the stronghold ever be taken.
They wasted only a moment with silent farewells and looks that said they knew their chances were slim.
Instead each man set to his task and when the vicious Hounds hit again, they were ready.
They held them for longer than they had imagined, two solid hours of beating back wave after wave of riders and an endless hail of flying lead, their forces gradually thinning as men and horses slipped off quietly into the heavy brush and towering granite boulders that lined the canyon.
A moment of silence hung in the air between rounds of rifle fire as Pedro Sanchez, Ignacio Juarez, Carlos Martinez, and three other men, all that was left of the defenders, crouched in the rocks above the rear entrance to the stronghold.
Their circumstances were dire, yet Pedro amazed the others by grinning. “They will be surprised, no? When they finally break through, only to discover most of the men have escaped.”
Ignacio smiled, too. “It is El Dragón they want most of all, and just like the rest, he is not here.”
Pedro pondered that. The others were safe, but if he and his compadres continued to resist, in the next fiery wave they were sure to be killed. If they gave themselves up, there was a chance they might be arrested, taken back to San Juan Bautista—before they were hanged. If that was the case …
“Take off your shirt, amigo,” Pedro said to Ignacio.
“What?”
“I wish to be ready. The minute the men begin to fire, we are going to surrender.”
“Have you gone loco?” Ignacio started to argue, but Pedro quickly explained his thinking and soon the younger man was nodding his agreement.
“It is a chance, at least,” Ignacio said.
“Better than dying here. I will tell the others.” Stripping off his dirty white shirt and handing it to Pedro, he crouched in the tall, thick grasses, carefully picking his way through the dense buck brush and sage to each of the men defending the stronghold.
When the shooting began, they answered fire only for a moment, then Pedro began to wave Ignacio’s torn and bloody white shirt on the barrel of his rifle.
Carlos Martinez fell to a lead ball in the chest before the final shots ended, as did one of the other men.
Pedro, Ignacio, and two other vaqueros were captured by the crowd of angry men, one of which Pedro recognized as Fletcher Austin, another who was the sheriff of San Juan Bautista, Jeremy Layton.
It was the sheriff who approached him, his rifle casually aimed at the middle of Pedro’s chest. “Where is he?”
“Who, Senor Sheriff?”
“You know who we want—that bastard who calls himself the Spanish Dragon.”
Fletcher Austin pushed his way forward. “Let my men have a go at him, Sheriff. We’ll make the greaser talk.” Austin jerked Pedro up by the shirtfront and punched him hard in the stomach, doubling him over, making him gasp for breath.
“Hold it, gentlemen.” That from the man named Harry Love, the leader of the vigilantes. “There is no need for further violence,” he said with his thick Texas drawl. He smiled wolfishly. “The others may have escaped, but not the man we came for. Gentlemen, may I present the infamous El Dragón.”
Pedro’s stomach knotted. He scanned the crowd of angry men, then turned toward the sound of voices and the scuffling of stout leather boots. Powdery dust rose up as a man in black was dragged forward, his hands and feet bound, and tossed into the dirt at Pedro’s feet.
The man was Angel de la Guerra.