The Loner: Inferno

Chapter 22

Mateo had grown up in those rugged Mexican mountains and hills, so he led the way as the five men headed for San Remo. Not surprisingly, the Yaqui knew some shortcuts ... but the Apaches would know those same shortcuts, Kelly warned, so it was possible they would reach the village first.

“There’s something I was wondering about,” The Kid said as they rode. “You said the Mexican government pays a bounty for Apache scalps?”

“That’s right,” Kelly said with a nod.

“But the Rurales work for the Mexican government, and yet Guzman trades with the Apaches, rather than killing them.”

“Guzman works for himself, first and foremost,” Kelly said, “and his men work for him. Technically they draw wages from the government, but the paymaster from Mexico City doesn’t get up this way very often. The politicians established the Rurales so they could claim they were protecting the people, but except for a few officers who take things a hell of a lot more seriously than they should, it’s all a sham. The government doesn’t care what the Rurales do. So Guzman trades with the Apaches because it makes money for him. Also, as long as he’s doing business with them, the savages will be less likely to attack him and his men when they’re out on patrol ... by which I mean, out hunting for slaves.”

The Kid could only shake his head in amazement after that long speech by Kelly. In his former life as a businessman, he had seen firsthand how corrupt the American politicians in Washington could be, but evidently the south of the border version put them to shame when it came to unabashed avarice.

After everything he had experienced over the past few years, he was no longer shocked by how low human beings could sink, but occasionally the depths of their depravity made him wonder just how bad they could get.

Right now, practical matters were all that concerned him. “If the Apaches are already at the Rurales barracks when we get there and have made a deal with Guzman, how will you persuade him to double-cross them?”

“The same way men like Guzman are always persuaded. Money. We’ll offer to split the bounty on the rest of the scalps we take.”

“What’s to stop him from killing the Apaches, taking their scalps, and collecting all the bounty?”

“Like I told you, there’s a truce of sorts between Guzman and the savages. He can’t just kill them openly. That’s where we come in.”

“So he’ll make it look like you killed them and he didn’t have anything to do with it.”

Kelly grinned and nodded. “Now you’re catching on, Kid. Everybody gets something out of the deal that way.”

“What about the prisoners?”

“Well, now, you may be out of luck there,” Kelly said. “You never did say whether or not you’re sweet on one of those women, but if you are, that’s too bad. If Guzman’s already traded with the Apaches for them, he’s not going to give them up. And if he hasn’t, well, we may have to throw them in to sweeten the pot. Sorry, Kid, but one way or another those ladies will be headed to Mexico City.”

The Kid shrugged as if it didn’t mean that much to him, but inside he seethed with rage. Kelly might believe that Jess and the other women were destined for short, degrading lives of slavery in Mexico City brothels, but The Kid wasn’t going to let that happen.

They wound through the foothills for several hours, then climbed to the pass through the mountain range. Mateo dismounted to examine the ground in the pass. When he looked up, he gave Kelly a curt nod.

“They’re ahead of us,” Kelly said. “How long?”

“One hour,” the Yaqui answered.

“That’s long enough,” Kelly said with a sigh. “We can’t get to San Remo ahead of them. We’ll just have to strike a deal with Guzman. That was what I figured to do, whether we got there first or not.”

The Kid tried not to let his spirits flag. He had still been hoping to get the prisoners away from the Apaches before they reached San Remo, but that wasn’t going to happen. He would have to figure out some way of getting them out of Captain Alberto Guzman’s greedy hands. That might be even more of a challenge.

From the pass they could see into the broad valley that stretched before them. The Kid spotted San Remo in the distance. It was still miles away, and the square adobe buildings of the village looked like a child’s building blocks that had been scattered across the floor in a fit of petulant anger.

Mateo leveled his arm and pointed. Kelly leaned forward in the saddle, and squinted into the distance. “Yep, there they are, all right.”

The Kid took out his telescope and extended it. He aimed it in the direction Mateo was pointing, and after a few moments of searching, he found the line of Apaches riding through the valley toward San Remo.

All the Indians were mounted. The ones who had been on foot earlier had been easier targets for the scalphunters, and their scalps were stuffed into Valdez’s bloodstained canvas sacks.

Jess and Leah each rode double with one of the warriors. The Price women still rode together on the same pony. Jess’s shoulders had a dispirited slump to them. She didn’t seem gripped with despair as strongly as Leah Gabbert was, but her failure to escape during the battle apparently had taken some of the wind out of her sails.

“Can you see them?” Kelly asked.

“Yeah.”

“Do a head count. Should be eighteen of the varmints left, if I counted right earlier.”

Those numbers agreed with The Kid’s estimate, but he moved the telescope to the front of the column and counted anyway, just to be sure. “Eighteen,” he announced.

“It’s a damned shame they’re too far ahead for us to catch them before they get to Guzman’s place,” Kelly said. “I think we could handle that many of the bucks.”

Not in a head-on fight, The Kid thought. In a case like that, he and his companions probably would wind up dead. But it was easy for Kelly to say when the Apaches were several miles away, he supposed. Kelly was in the habit of boasting.

“Well, let’s go.” Kelly lifted his reins. “It’s probably going to be dark by the time we get there.”

They rode on, with Mateo still taking the lead. More mountains loomed to the west of the valley, and true to Kelly’s prediction, the sun sank behind those peaks before the five riders reached the village of San Remo.

Mateo was able to find his way in the dark, and after a while the lights of the village came into view.

“The Rurales compound is at the south end of town,” Kelly said. “We’ll head straight there. There’s not much to San Remo, just a few stores and cantinas and a whorehouse.”

“As for myself,” Valdez said, “I would very much enjoy a visit to a cantina and a whorehouse.”

“In which order?” Chess asked dryly.

Valdez had to think about that. Evidently it was a question that required considerable pondering, because it was a long moment before the Mexican said, “The cantina first, I think. To give me added strength for pleasuring the señoritas.”

Kelly chuckled. “Be careful you don’t drink so much you fall asleep before you even get to the señoritas, amigo.”

“That will never happen,” Valdez declared proudly.

The Kid heard their banter but didn’t pay much attention to it. He asked Kelly, “What’s this compound you mentioned?”

“That’s where the Rurales barracks is located,” Kelly explained. “There’s the barracks building itself, plus Guzman’s office, a mess hall, an infirmary, a powder magazine and armory, and some storage buildings. There’s a corral inside the walls, too, but no blacksmith shop. They use the smith in the village when they need new shoes for their horses.”

“How tall are the walls?”

Kelly looked over at him with a frown. “You’re mighty curious about this stuff, Kid.”

“I like to know what I’m getting into.”

“Well, I suppose that’s reasonable. The walls are twelve feet tall and about a foot thick, with a parapet on the inside for riflemen and a couple of guard towers.”

“Sounds like a regular fortress,” The Kid commented.

“Oh, it is,” Kelly agreed. “Guzman’s managed to work up that truce with the Apaches I mentioned, but when the Rurales first came here, they had to fight off quite a few Indian attacks. That was before I was around these parts, but Mateo’s told me all about it. So they built the place to be defended.”

The Kid nodded slowly in the darkness. The information might come in handy. A lot of times places that were built to keep enemies out didn’t do such a good job of keeping people in.

He hoped that turned out to be the case, because sooner or later he was going to have to gather up Jess and the other women and make a break for freedom.

The five riders skirted the village and approached the Rurales compound, despite the yearning looks Valdez cast toward the buildings as he licked his lips thirstily. Torches blazed on top of the walls, casting their garish, flickering glow over the empty ground around the place. No one would be able to approach the walls or the gates without being seen by the Rurales on duty in the guard towers.

The front gates were massive affairs made of thick beams and iron straps. Breaching them would be difficult.

Kelly rode right up to them and called out in Spanish. A challenge came back to him from the parapet on the inside of the wall. When the Kid looked up, he saw torchlight reflecting on the barrels of numerous rifles that were thrust over the wall to point at the newcomers.

“Tell Capitán Guzman that Enrique Kelly is here to see him!” the Irishman called to the guards. “We have a matter of urgent business to discuss.”

“Stay where you are, Señor Kelly!” one of the men on the parapet responded.

“We’re not going anywhere,” Kelly assured him.

The Kid asked, “Are they always this on edge?”

“They’re probably nervous because the Apaches are here. Having them around is sort of like inviting a mountain lion into your parlor. You never know what’s going to happen.”

“You mean the Apaches are inside the compound ?”

Kelly shook his head. “No, they wouldn’t all waltz in there and let the Rurales close those gates behind them. That would be running too great a risk. I figure their war chief, Salvatorio, and some of his trusted lieutenants took the women in to make the trade with Guzman. But the rest of the bunch will be somewhere close by, you can count on that.”

Kelly seemed to know what he was talking about, so The Kid took him at his word. They waited, and after a few minutes, one of the guards called down, “Capitán Guzman wishes to speak with you! We will take you to him!”

The Kid heard bars and bolts being undone on the gates. With a creaking of hinges, the massive portals began to swing open. As soon as the gap between them was large enough, The Kid and the other four men rode into the compound under the watchful eyes—and the rifles—of more than a dozen guards in gray uniforms and steeple-crowned sombreros.

Once they were inside, the gates swung closed ponderously behind them. The Kid looked around. The whole compound was lit up by torchlight, and he was able to pick out the various buildings Kelly had mentioned, including the long barracks, the squat, thick-walled powder magazine that sat against a side wall, and a building that was more imposing than the others because it had a second story with a wrought-iron balcony.

Kelly saw where The Kid was looking and said quietly, “That’s the capitán’s headquarters and residence. That’s where we’ll find Guzman and likely those women you’re so worried about.”

A number of the Rurales surrounded them as they dismounted. The men didn’t seem threatening as they reached for the horses’ reins. Kelly nodded that it was all right to turn the animals over to them.

“These hombres know me,” he said to The Kid. “They know I’ve done business with Guzman before, so they won’t give us any trouble.”

Kelly strode toward the headquarters building, along with The Kid, Valdez, Chess, and Mateo. Several of the Rurales went with them, but their rifles were down and they seemed relaxed. They were escorting, but not necessarily guarding, the visitors.

The headquarters building had a low porch along the front. The Kid and the others stepped up onto it, and a door opened. A slender Rurale who wore spectacles and carried himself like a clerk ushered them in. In English, he said, “Capitán Guzman awaits you and your friends in his quarters, Señor Kelly.”

“Gracias, Luis,” Kelly replied.

They followed as the clerk led them up a curving staircase with a polished wooden banister. From what The Kid could see, the place was fancier inside than he would have expected a military headquarters to be.

Of course, the Rurales weren’t exactly military, he reminded himself. They worked for the government, but the organization was a police force ... at least in theory.

When they reached the second floor, Luis took them along a corridor with a gleaming hardwood floor. Tapestries and portraits hung on the walls. Clearly, Guzman was a man who liked to surround himself with comfort and luxury. That took a lot of money and couldn’t be done on a Rurales’ wages, not even an officer’s. The elegant surroundings were ample testimony to Guzman’s greed and corruption.

A set of carved double doors stood at the end of the hall. Luis knocked on them, and in response to a muffled voice from inside, he said, “Señor Kelly and the others are here, Capitán.”

The voice barked an order. Luis opened the doors and motioned for the visitors to go in.

The Kid wasn’t surprised by what he saw when he stepped inside with the others. They found themselves in a parlor with thick rugs on the floor, heavy furniture, and walls hung with more portraits, along with a number of modern rifles and crossed sabers. It was a man’s room, and the master of it stood on the other side of the room with a drink in his hand and a smile on his face.

Guzman was tall and lean, with a thick shock of salt-and-pepper hair. His pointed beard gave him a satanic look, The Kid thought. He wore an immaculate gray uniform with a crimson sash and a broad leather belt with a holstered revolver strapped to it.

The captain wasn’t alone in the room. With him stood a shorter, stocky figure in leggings, breechcloth, blousy blue shirt, and blue headband. The man’s square, dark face was set in iron-hard lines of hatred as he gazed at the newcomers.

“Señor Kelly,” Guzman said. “So good to see you and your amigos again. Tell me, por favor, why I should not allow our friend Salvatorio here and his men to take you out and see to it that you spend long hours shrieking and dying?”