Renegades (9 page)

The four men started up from their chairs. Even Carmen tensed and leaned forward. “The Black Scorpion!” Estancia said.

“I doubt that,” Antonio said. “The Black Scorpion has never bothered us.”

“Raiders sent by Cecil Tolliver!” Don Felipe said. “That is more likely.”

Frank didn't think the ruckus was caused by either of those things. It had sounded to him more like an argument between two groups of men. Almanzar's vaqueros and the captain's Rurale troops, most likely.

Don Felipe and Captain Estancia started to stalk toward the door at the same time. Ever the polite host, Don Felipe stopped and let Estancia precede him. He and Antonio were right behind the officer, though. So was Frank.

When they reached the courtyard in front of the hacienda, they found about what Frank expected. Don Felipe's vaqueros were bunched up on one side, muttering and casting dark, furious glares toward the Rurales on the other side of the courtyard. While the vaqueros all wore six-guns, none of them had drawn a weapon. That was probably because the Rurales had rifles leveled at them. It must have been one of the Rurales who had fired that warning shot a moment earlier, Frank decided.

The subject of the disagreement was in the front ranks of the Mexican police. One of Don Felipe's men was held tightly in the grasp of two of the Rurales. He struggled to get loose, but they hung on. Blood dripped from a cut on the captive's forehead.

“What is going on here?” Almanzar demanded in a loud voice.

Captain Estancia strode forward and barked at his sergeant, “Explain yourself, Cabo!” The Spanish words flew quickly, but Frank understood them.

The sergeant, a swarthy, heavy-mustached man who looked more like a bandit than any of the men Frank had seen in the camp of the Black Scorpion the previous night, gestured toward the prisoner and said in a guttural voice, “This man spoke against El Presidente! He said the people would be better off without his foot on their neck! And then he called us Diaz's dogs!”

An angry murmur went though the ranks of the Rurales at that.

Don Felipe stepped forward and said to the captive, “Is this true?”

The vaquero being held by the Rurales blinked blood out of his eyes and said, “I only spoke what all of us feel, Don Felipe. These men come swaggering in here and eat our food and lust after our women, and when one of them demanded that I give him my tobacco, I told him that I do not share with dogs!”

The sergeant turned and rammed the butt of his rifle into the vaquero's belly The man gasped in pain, then bent over and retched. He would have fallen if not for the cruelly tight grip of the men holding him.

“See?” the sergeant said as he turned back to Estancia. “Sure disrespect cannot be permitted,
mi capitán.
”

Frank glanced over at Antonio and saw that the young man was trembling from the depths of the outrage he felt as he looked at the prisoner. “Father,” he said quietly to Don Felipe, “are we to stand by and watch one of our men being treated this way?”

Don Felipe looked furious, too, but he had his emotions under control. He kept a tight rein on them as he said, “Captain Estancia, I must protest. This is my land, and my men have the right to speak as they please.”

Estancia sighed. “Unfortunately, this is not the case, Don Felipe. You know it is against the law to foment rebellion against the rule of El Presidente.”

“Rebellion!” Don Felipe flung a hand toward the prisoner. “He just didn't want to give up his tobacco to one of your men!”

“The Gendarmeria Fiscal is empowered to commandeer anything we may need to fulfill our mission,” Estancia said.

“But tobacco!”

“It is not for refusing to give up his tobacco that this man must taste the whip,” Estancia said. “It is because his disrespect is an affront to our president.”

Don Felipe drew himself up, and Frank could tell that his self-control was fraying. “The whip?” he said in a disbelieving voice.

“Five lashes.” Estancia shrugged. “It is a serious offense, but since I have such great respect for you, Don Felipe, I will levy only a minor punishment.”

Five lashes with a whip didn't sound like such a minor punishment to Frank. Judging by the angry mutters that came from the crowd of vaqueros, they didn't care for it, either. But if they tried anything, those Rurales would fire the leveled rifles, and the volley would be deadly at this range. In a matter of seconds, the courtyard would turn into the scene of a bloody massacre.

Don Felipe had to know that, too. He drew a deep breath and then said, “Five lashes. It is ... just.” The words sounded like they tasted as bitter as wormwood in his mouth.

Captain Estancia smiled, snapped his fingers, and gestured for the prisoner to be brought over to a hitching post. The rest of the Rurales covered the vaqueros while the sergeant drove the butt of his rifle into the small of the prisoner's back and knocked him to his knees. His hands were jerked above his head and bound with rawhide thongs to the hitching post. The man who tied the knots drew them cruelly tight.

Then the prisoner's shirt was ripped off him, leaving his back bare. Knowing what was to come, he whimpered a little even though he had not yet been struck. The sergeant went to his horse and came back holding a coiled whip. He shook the coils loose, and the whip fell loosely around his feet, slithering in the dust of the courtyard like a snake.

Frank glanced at Don Felipe. The man's face might have been carved out of mahogany for all the emotion it displayed at this moment. The same couldn't be said of Antonio, who stood there horror-stricken with his hands clenching and unclenching into fists at his sides. The vaqueros looked much the same way. They wanted to come to the aid of their comrade, but there was nothing they could do as long as they were menaced by those rifles.

Frank heard soft crying and looked over his shoulder. Carmen Almanzar stood at the entrance to the hacienda, tears running down her face as she watched this display of cruelty, violence, and arrogant power. Frank thought about going to her and trying to convince her to return to the house, but before he could start toward her, she turned and half-ran, half-stumbled back inside.

“Carry out the punishment, Cabo,” Captain Estancia said to his sergeant.

Frank heard the hiss of indrawn breaths in dozens of throats as the burly sergeant raised his arm and drew back the whip. His arm fell and the whip lashed out, striking the prisoner's back diagonally and curling almost lovingly over his shoulder. The prisoner lunged forward against the hitching post but didn't cry out.

When the sergeant pulled the whip back, it left a narrow wound that oozed blood. Taking his time about it, the sergeant got ready and then struck again, this time flicking his wrist so that the lash crossed the prisoner's back in the opposite direction. The wounds formed a large, crimson X on the unlucky vaquero's skin. Blood began to trickle down his back.

Frank had felt rage stirring inside him even before the first blow was struck. This wasn't right, and his sense of justice cried out for him to do something about it. But there was nothing he could do, not without the risk of starting a bloodbath. Like Don Felipe and Antonio and the others, he had to just stand there and watch this atrocity.

But the day would come, he vowed right then and there, when he would settle the score with Estancia and that brutal sergeant.

Again the whip flashed and peeled flesh from the prisoner's back. The man had remained silent on the first two lashes, but the third one brought a choked cry of agony from his throat. He sagged against the post and twisted pitifully, trying futilely to escape the whip as it rose and fell yet again. After four lashes, the vaquero's back was awash with blood, and crimson droplets splattered through the air as the sergeant drew the whip back. The prisoner cried and shuddered and writhed, but he couldn't escape the pain.

The sergeant poised his arm for the fifth and final blow. He took a step forward as he struck, putting all the strength in his muscular body behind the whip. More blood and little gobbets of flesh flew through the air as the stroke landed. The vaquero gave a gurgling scream.

And once more the sergeant pulled his arm back, lifting the whip to strike yet again.

Without thinking about what he was doing, Frank stepped forward. With the same speed that had saved his life in many a showdown, his hand shot out. Not reaching for his gun this time, but for the sergeant's wrist instead. His fingers clamped like iron bands around that wrist before the sixth stroke of the whip could fall.

The sergeant was taken by surprise. To tell the truth, Frank was, too, at least a little bit. He hadn't planned this. He had acted purely on instinct. He jerked down on the sergeant's wrist, and at the same time, his left foot hooked around the man's right ankle and tugged hard. Already off balance, the sergeant fell backward and landed heavily. Frank plucked the bloody whip out of his hand and threw it on his chest. The sergeant recoiled from it as if it really were the snake that it resembled.

“Señor Morgan!” Captain Estancia shouted. “You dare to interfere—”

“You said five lashes,” Frank said coldly as he turned to face Estancia. Now his hand hung near the butt of his Colt, ready to hook and draw if he had to. “That hombre was about to hit him for the sixth time.”

“You miscounted,” Estancia snapped.

A faint smile tugged at the corners of Frank's mouth. “I don't think so,” he said. “I've been able to count up to six for a long time.” His finger tapped the walnut grip of the Peacemaker as he spoke.

For a long, tense moment, the two men stood there, their gazes locked. Then Estancia's shoulders rose and fell in a slight shrug and he said, “I suppose it could have been five.” To the sergeant, he snapped, “On your feet!”

The sergeant climbed to his feet, and the look on his dark Indio face that he gave to Frank was full of murder and hatred. Frank knew that he had made a couple of enemies tonight, but he didn't care. The whole thing had been unjust to start with, and there was only so much of that he could swallow before it stuck in his craw and he had to do something about it.

Antonio started forward, toward the prisoner. Estancia said, “What are you doing?”

“Cutting him loose,” Antonio said. He paused and looked back. “With your permission, Captain.” The scorn in his voice made it clear that he wasn't really asking Estancia's permission at all.

The officer nodded and flicked a hand anyway, and Antonio went to the hitching post. He drew a knife from a sheath at his waist and sawed through the rawhide thongs. When they parted, the prisoner groaned and started to topple over. Antonio caught him and supported him, obviously not caring that he was getting blood on his fine clothes.

Don Felipe signaled to his men, and several of them hurried forward to help Antonio with the whipped man. The Rurales made no move to stop them. The bloodied vaquero was taken off to the bunkhouse to be cared for by his compadres.

Estancia turned to Don Felipe. “I apologize for this unpleasantness. It is necessary, however, to maintain order and respect for the authorities, and for El Presidente.”

“As you say,” Almanzar replied stiffly.

“As for you, Señor Morgan,” Estancia said, “I forgive you for your interruption. This is not your land, and you do not know our ways.”

“I know right from wrong,” Frank said.

Estancia's lips tightened. “You will find that on this side of the border, Señor, the meaning of those words sometimes differs from your American conception of them”

“I don't think so.”

Estancia glared, but he didn't say anything else to Frank. Instead he turned to the sergeant and ordered, “Cabo, have the men withdraw a short distance and pitch their tents. We will remain here tonight.”

Before turning away to carry out the command, the sergeant stared for a long moment at Frank, who had no trouble reading the threat in the man's dark eyes. Then, as his lips drew back in a snarl he could no longer contain, the sergeant turned away. A second later he began to spit orders at the Rurales.

“Once again I apologize for this unpleasantness, Don Felipe,” Estancia said to Almanzar. “Now, if you wish, we can resume our meal. . . .”

“I no longer have much of an appetite,” Don Felipe said. “Dinner is over.”

Even though Frank had known the man only a short time, he realized how uncharacteristic this lack of hospitality was in Don Felipe. That showed just how upset he really was.

“I will have Esteban show you to your quarters,” Don Felipe continued.

“You will tell Señorita Carmen that I said good night?”

Don Felipe just grunted, not promising anything. Estancia's face darkened a little more at this insult, but he didn't press the issue.

The vaqueros had all gone into the bunkhouse, and Antonio had gone with them. Esteban led Captain Estancia into the hacienda to escort him to his room. That left Frank and Don Felipe standing alone in the courtyard, where the dark splatters in the dust bore mute testimony to the violence that had occurred here.

“You must think that we are a barbaric people,” Don Felipe said abruptly.

“There are barbarians among every race,” Frank said, “and some believe that ultimately, they're bound to triumph over the civilized men.”

“And is this what you believe, Señor Morgan?”

Frank looked at the splashes of blood on the ground and said, “I'd like to think otherwise, Don Felipe, but sometimes I don't know. I just don't know.”