Part 9 (1/2)
She was glad to be away from the choked confines of Saber Creek, the tavern, and her owly, alcoholic grandfather.She felt a sense of freedom riding into the misty blue distances of southern Sonora toward an outlaw hideout known to the Americans as Junction Rock with the infamous, heart-wrenchingly handsome Jack Considine and his notorious Thunder Riders.
From there, Jack had promised, they would make their way to the coast and set sail for Cuba-just him and Anjanette-where Considine had often dreamed of buying his own sugar plantation.
As they rode, the men of the gang smoked and talked in desultory tones, one man chuckling at a joke. Another was cleaning the rifle resting across his saddlebow. The only other female in the gang, Toots, rode with one leg hooked around her saddle horn. She was tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the nails of her pudgy, curled toes with a pocketknife.
The group crested the mesa and their horses continued through the scrub, pa.s.sing a small adobe shrine along the trail and scaring up an armadillo. The mesa spread before them-a table surrounded by layers of distant blue mountains and high purple clouds between which golden sunlight angled.
A couple of hundred yards beyond, what looked like a modest-sized hacienda sat in the middle of the mesa, sheathed in green high-desert scrub and surrounded by ruined stone buildings and brush corrals. Smoke gushed from the stone chimney on the near end of the house.
Considine turned to Anjanette. ”You will have a soft bed tonight, Chiquita. O'Toole keeps the best roadhouse in Sonora.”
She smiled, her tapered cheeks dimpling. ”We will have a soft bed tonight, my love.” She leaned toward him, wrapped her left hand around his neck, and was about to kiss his cheek when the black mustang, sensing the rider's distraction, suddenly put his head down and kicked his back legs out, snorting like a mule, trying to unseat his rider. will have a soft bed tonight, my love.” She leaned toward him, wrapped her left hand around his neck, and was about to kiss his cheek when the black mustang, sensing the rider's distraction, suddenly put his head down and kicked his back legs out, snorting like a mule, trying to unseat his rider.
”G.o.dd.a.m.n beast!” Considine shouted as the horse leapt suddenly, sunfis.h.i.+ng.
Wolf's hooves. .h.i.t the ground. He half turned and, throwing his head forward, bucked savagely again.
Considine had wrapped one hand around the saddle horn, but he hadn't been prepared for the viciousness of the horse's pitch. His b.u.t.t rose high out of the saddle, and his boots shot out of the stirrups. Flying over the horse's lunging left shoulder, he turned a somersault before hitting the gravelly ground left of the trail on his back.
”Jack!” Anjanette dropped out of her saddle.
”Woo-hooooah, boy!” shouted Considine's partner, Mad Dog McKenna, gigging his own mount up and reaching for the pitching black's reins. boy!” shouted Considine's partner, Mad Dog McKenna, gigging his own mount up and reaching for the pitching black's reins.
Wolf jerked his head away, and the reins slipped out of Mad Dog's reach. McKenna cursed. Wolf bounded off his back hooves and galloped forward and right of the trail, tracing a broad circle to head back the way they'd come.
”Git after him, boys!” McKenna shouted. McKenna shouted.
As a half dozen of the other riders booted their mounts after the fleeing black, trying to cut him off, Anjanette dropped to one knee beside Considine. The desperado winced and lifted his head from the ground, his thick auburn hair in his eyes, mustache caked with sand.
”You okay?” Anjanette asked, one hand on his shoulder. ”Maybe you better lie there a minute.”
Considine shook his head as if to clear it, then sat up, lowering his head and ma.s.saging the back of his neck. ”Somebody catch that d.a.m.n beast!”
Mad Dog McKenna chuckled. ”Hey, Jack, you want me to ride that black from now on? Maybe he's too much horse for you, amigo.”
Considine told his scarred, earring-wearing partner to do something physically impossible to himself.
Toots checked her own mount down closest to Considine and dropped out of her saddle with a grace odd for a woman her size. ”Or maybe me, huh, Jack?” She smiled as she knelt on the other side of the desperado leader from Anjanette, snuggling close and ma.s.saging the inside of his thigh with her hand. ”I can always ride a stud!”
She laughed, locking stares with Anjanette.
Turning to Considine, who was still rubbing his neck as if to work some knots out, Toots softened her voice. ”You okay, good-lookin'?”
Considine was grumbling and cursing as he pushed away from both women and stiffly gained his feet. ”I'll be just fine when I get my hands on that G.o.dd.a.m.n horse!”
Toots picked up Considine's hat, dusted it off, and held it out to him. Considine turned toward the large dust cloud down the trail a good fifty yards, where three desperadoes had their riatas looped around the stallion's neck and were trying to lead him back.
When the men finally got him turned, with English Cooper slapping his quirt against the black's a.s.s, they put their mounts into gallops, heading toward Considine. Wolf galloped reluctantly, head up and snorting, eyes flas.h.i.+ng small lightning bolts of fury.
Considine donned the hat and stepped forward, shucking his pearl-gripped Remy from his holster. ”Only thing for a horse like that's a bullet.”
Anjanette caught up to him, put her hand on the gun, pressing it down. ”Don't shoot the horse, Jack.”
Considine eyed her suspiciously. ”Why not?”
Anjanette hesitated. ”Think of the money you'll make on him at Junction Rock.”
Considine snorted as the three riders reined up before him, swinging sideways while holding their lariats taut. The black stopped a good twenty yards away, hanging its head, its black eyes sharp with fury.
”The girl's got a point, Jack.” Mad Dog McKenna came up beside Anjanette, hitching his threadbare cavalry breeches higher on his hips, the silver hoop rings dangling from his sun-black ears. ”That horse'll bring five, six hundred dollars at Junction Rock. Now, I know we got the gold, but you know how long we all can hold on to a poke.” Considine's partner chuckled and dropped his eyes to Anjanette's prominent bosom. ”Never know when you're gonna have to exchange the horse for a woman.”
”A real real woman,” said Toots, grinning up at Considine. woman,” said Toots, grinning up at Considine.
”He's got a woman,” Anjanette snarled. ”But you can never have too much money-isn't that right, my love?”
Considine walked up to the black, grabbed the dangling reins. ”I'm not gonna kill him. My anger's done pa.s.sed.” Suddenly, he raised his pistol and swung it down hard against the horse's fine black snout, raking the front sight along the side of his nose.
As the horse jerked his head up, then lowered it, Considine raked the gun barrel across the other side of Wolf's snout, carving a thin line from which bright red blood oozed.
”Remember that that next time you decide to throw me, you hammerheaded, snake-eyed son of a next time you decide to throw me, you hammerheaded, snake-eyed son of a b.i.t.c.h b.i.t.c.h!”
Holding tight to the reins, just beneath the bridle and glaring into the horse's dark eyes, Considine holstered the revolver. Wolf's nostrils opened and closed. He chuffed and snorted angrily against the ropes, twitching his ears and rippling his withers.
”Now, then,” Considine said, easing around the horse and reaching for the horn. ”We gonna be pards?”
As Considine swung into the saddle, Anjanette stepped forward, raising a gentle hand to the long cut along the horse's snout.
”Leave him,” Considine ordered. He glanced at the others. ”Let's go. I need a drink.”
When the column was again moving toward the large adobe casa growing above the chaparral before them, Considine turned to Anjanette, showing his perfect white teeth in a grin. ”He's behavin' right fine now.” He patted the black's right shoulder. ”I reckon we're friends!”
Anjanette didn't turn toward him but continued riding stiffly beside him, facing straight ahead.
He frowned. ”You know who owns this hammer-head?”
Anjanette glanced at Wolf, looked away, then pooched out her lips to hide her pensive expression. ”I never saw him before.”
As they rounded a bend, the thatch-roofed adobe barn and log corrals slid back to the left, revealing an ancient windmill with a large stone tank. Water streamed into the tank with a steady metallic murmur. Around the tank stood ten or so rurales, in their customary dove gray uniforms, Springfield rifles hanging down their backs-a dusty, unshaven lot with pinched eyes and evil sneers.
They held the reins of their horses, most of which were drawing water from the tank, though a couple lifted their heads toward the approaching desperadoes, swis.h.i.+ng their tails nervously. A cream Arab with a silver-mounted saddle jerked its head up from the trough and whinnied.
The rurales turned their heads slowly to watch the gang heading toward the roadhouse. One of them spoke quietly to the man standing beside him-a rangy Mex carrying his Colt revolvers in a double rig across his chest.
Considine grinned and threw a hand up. ”Howdy, boys!”
The rurales didn't say anything. Several of the desperadoes behind Considine chuckled. The lone black man in the group, Ben Towers, grumbled, ”The only truck I got with Mexico is all the greasers.”
”Especially those in uniform,” added Mad Dog McKenna, riding directly behind Considine.
”And them with their hands out,” said Latigo Hayes, loosening his Buntline Special in its oiled holster and swinging his sawed-off shotgun around to hang down his chest.