The Mission War (23 page)

“They're nervous,” Jessica said, “and I don't blame them. We could darn well be setting them up for a slaughter.”

Ki had been watching the big house on the peak across the dark valley. His thoughts were much the same as Jessie‘s, but it did no good now to reflect on them. He had seen little activity around the house—Once in a while a guard on the stony bluff above the cactus thicket, and once what seemed to be a man in the window of one of the towers. Other than that there was nothing, which meant that Brecht was probably still there. As far as Ki could tell, there was only one way in and one way out of the fortress, and no one had gone up or down it.

Ki turned suddenly. It was time. He glanced at the sun himself, tugged down the sombrero he wore, and nodded. Returning to the canyon trail, he swung aboard a gray horse with a silver mounted saddle and waited while the rest of his soldiers took their positions.

Jessie was beside him in a vaquero's suit that was far too big and showed a blood stain on the front. She looked silently at Ki, waiting. Her mouth was dry; her hand clenched the repeating rifle she held.

Ki's hand lifted and then fell and he started his horse forward. The carts with their human burden creaked into motion. The men of San Ignacio, posing as slaves, trudged forward, with their heads down and their pistols beneath their shirts. Diego Cardero looked skyward once, as if calling to an old Papago war spirit. Maria Sanchez, also in a man's clothing, breathed a word that might have been a prayer—or a curse.

They wound down the canyon trail, rolled onto the shadowy valley, and made their way toward the great house. It stood in sunlight still, although the rest of the knoll, the valley, and the lower surrounding hills were dark. No one spoke. There was no sound but the screeching of wheels, the occasional blowing of a horse, and the creak of saddle leather.

Cardero, who would do the talking, rode in front now, Ki beside him, and Jessie back a way so that her disguise wouldn't be so obvious.

They found the gate that shut off the road to the big house, opened it from on horseback, and rolled on through. The road turned sharply upward and narrowed. Nopal cactus, shoulder high to a horse and impenetrable, clotted the bank above them.

“Here's trouble,” Cardero whispered urgently and Ki, too, saw the men: two guards carrying shotguns standing across the road, blocking their progress.

One of them called out, “Fine time to show up, Rata.”

“What's wrong?” Cardero answered in a hoarse voice. Ki saw one of the guards thumb back the hammers to his shotgun. The bluff wasn't going to work. A smooth, hard
shuriken
filled Ki's hand. The one on the right first if need be, he thought.

“We're pulling out. Everything's gone to hell... Rata?” the guard said questioningly. He came forward, peering at Cardero out of the deep dusk.

“Damn it all—who are you?” the guard demanded. He brought his shotgun up and cut loose a load of buckshot, the roar of it shattering the stillness of the night and ending the masquerade with blood and gunsmoke.

Chapter 20

The load of buckshot belched from the fiery muzzle of the shotgun carried by Don Alejandro's guard. Ki had already been moving as the guard brought the shotgun up, for he had thrown himself from horseback to roll to the side of the road, and from a kneeling position, he flipped a deadly
shuriken
into the throat of the guard. The second man acted too slowly to be of any help. A shot from Jessica's Winchester ripped through his body, slamming him back against the earth to twitch for a moment before dying painfully.

“Diego?” Ki called out.

“I'm all right, Diego Cardero answered. ”You should see the hat I was wearing, though.“

Maria wasn't nearly as calm as the two men. “They'll be coming now. That's done it!”

Ki was to his feet and dragging one of the guards to the side of the road. “Quickly roll them down into the cactus.”

“What good will that—”

“Quickly,” Ki snapped.

Diego took the other man and kicked him over the side. It wasn't a moment too soon. Three guards on foot were running down the trail, rifles at the ready. Ki adopted a casual stance and Diego followed suit, holding his rifle beside his leg. The guards, seeing no apparent trouble, slowed a little, their alertness dropping a notch.

“What's going on?” one of them demanded.

“Damn slave,” Cardero muttered. “Bastard tried to take off—” He lifted a pointing finger and the guards' eyes automatically followed. “Through the damned nopal.”

Something rang in one of the guard's heads. He realized something was wrong, although his reasoning hadn't yet identified it. He turned sharply, bringing his rifle up. Ki slamed the butt of his rifle into the guard's throat, and he collapsed like a sack of potatoes. The other two suddenly found themselves covered by three guns and they dropped their weapons warily, looking from Ki to Jessie to Diego.

“Tie them up and gag them. Tear one of those Indian blankets into strips,” Diego ordered.

Ki stopped him, “Wait a minute. I want to talk to one of them.” He stood near a tall guard with pouched eyes and a very frightened expression. “Where are the slaves?” he asked.

“Go to hell,” the guard answered.

Ki lifted his hand and put it on the man's throat. Searching for and finding a knot of nerve endings he began to apply pressure, and excruciating pain shot through the guard's body. He wasn't brave enough to take that.

“Behind the house,” he panted as Ki's hand continued its probe of the nerve endings. “They've dug a pit.”

“A pit!” Maria gasped.

The guard wasn't aware enough of what was going on to be surprised by a woman's voice. Ki still held his grip, and now anger had tightened his fingers, anger at the guard, Don Alejandro, the cartel.

“What's the pit for?” Ki asked.

“To—to bury them. Don Alejandro is leaving. We can't take them with us...
Madre de Dios, señor!
The pain!”

Ki's hand fell away. “Tie this one, too,” he said savagely. To the men of San Ignacio, he said, “Everyone out. Here—here's a rifle. You take this one.”

“It is time to fight?” one of the peasants asked.

“You heard what they're going to do here,” Ki responded angrily. “What do you think?”

“I think,
señor,”
the man answered, “that it is time to fight.”

“Criminals,” Maria muttered bitterly, “savages!”

“What's the plan, Ki?” Diego asked.

“There may not be time to worry about one,” Ki answered. “There are two objectives—the house and the place of execution. Leave the house until last. We've got to stop them from killing those slaves. Leave the horses. Come on! Silently. Silently and swiftly.”

Men filtered past Ki in the night. He couldn't see their faces, but he could feel their anger. Revulsion at Don Alejandro's savage plan had strengthened the backbones of the men of San Ignacio.

“Ki.” Jessie was beside him.

Ki nodded. “Let's go. It's time our man paid the price.”

They began to jog up the trail. Above them they could make out a single tower against the dark sky. Stars were beginning to blink on; the air was rich with the scent of nopal and sage. Ki's silent army moved through the shadows.

The night was dark and empty and quiet. The quiet lasted to the top of the road. There an iron gate with plenty of firepower protecting it stood in their way.

From behind the gate and adjacent stone wall, rifles opened up spitting flame into the night. A man went down in front of Ki, flinging his rifle away as he writhed in pain. Another crumpled up with a cry of anguish. Ki's army answered the
bandidos'
guns with a barrage of their own. Bullets whined off the stone wall and rang against iron.

Ki saw a
bandido
rise from behind the wall and be cut in half by a blast from a shotgun. Jessica was to Ki's right, and he glanced her way, assuring himself she was all right for the time being.

Ki never slowed as he reached the wall. He hurdled it, delivering a kick to the face of a guard and crushing his skull. Rolling to the ground, Ki swept the feet out from under a second man just as he was ready to fire with his Colt pistol.

Ki chopped at the side of the guard's neck as the man fell. He lay back, his neck broken. Jessie had clambered over the wall as well, and now as the onslaught of peons continued, the
bandidos
fell back, racing for the shelter of the big house and its high walls.

There was sniper fire from the twin towers and from several of the upstairs windows, but by ducking behind its high walls and moving through the hedges and trees behind the house, very few casualties were suffered.

Ki was far in the lead as the army emerged from the trees to find the vast pit that had been dug in the yard: a vast pit with a forlorn legion of Indian slaves standing hopelessly near it and a contingent of well-armed guards.

The men of San Ignacio wasted no time for once. Bursting from the trees and following in Ki's footsteps, they opened up on the guards. Gunfire racked the guards' bodies. They tried futilely to fight back, but they were overmatched.

Ki saw an Indian slave break free of the group he was standing with, snatch up a dead guard's rifle, and fire it into the body. Jessica was kneeling, carefully picking her targets. Her ears were filled with the roar of the guns. Acrid smoke burned her nostrils.

Still, she was steady enough to pick off one fleeing guard, to see him stumble and topple into the pit dug for the slaves. She glanced toward the house, reloading automatically. There was little fire coming from the windows on this side. If they could breach the wall and reach the house, there was a good chance they could finish this.

She rose and trotted to where Ki stood, his face immobile and eyes set, as he stared at the dead, at the grim crater in the ground. Other slaves were arming themselves and gathering around Diego who instructed them.

“Ki,” Jessie said, taking his arm, “if we strike now, we can win.”

“Yes.” Still, Ki had that far away look in his eyes, a grim reflection of the terrible slaughter around them. He blinked away his meditative mood and his eyes came alert again. “Diego, take your Indians and half of our people. Surround the house. Don't let anyone out. I won't take a chance on Brecht escaping now.”

“No one will escape,” Diego promised.

“Jessica, I want you to stay with Diego.”

“Not a chance, Ki,” the blonde said. Ki didn't try to argue with her. He had never had much luck in that department.

“All right. You men, we're going to climb that wall. Watch yourselves. There'll be
bandidos
in the windows once they know what we're up to. Six men. You men, watch the windows and keep their heads down.”

He turned to Jess one last time, “Jessica—”

“Let's go, Ki,” was her terse answer.

“Keep your head down,” he growled. Ki was armed now. There was a place for firearms. This was it. He checked the loads in the Winchester repeater he had collected and nodded to his soldiers.

“One minute. Wait until the house is surrounded.”

Diego had already led his men out, hurrying them back through the trees and around the far side of the house, stringing them out to form a deadly picket line. Ki gave him another two minutes.

“Now,” he said nearly under his breath, and Ki started loping toward the house, graceful and silent, weaving through the shadows as gunfire erupted again from somewhere in front of the house.

As Ki reached the wall, someone opened up from an upstairs window. A man beside him staggered and went down. Ki's sharpshooters laid down a hail of bullets at the window. They heard glass shatter and saw a
bandido
fall from the second story.

Ki turned, cupped his hands, and boosted up his first soldier. A second man followed, and then Ki leaped up, caught the edge of the wall, and rolled over, dropping to the courtyard beyond as the rifles from the house opened up again.

In a crouch Ki ran to the wall of the house and pressed himself against it. Jessica Starbuck was running toward him now, zigzagging to where Ki waited, his chest rising and falling steadily.

Two overeager peons were trying the back door, battering at it with their rifle butts.

“No!” Ki cried out a warning, but it was too late. Bullets from inside tore through the oaken door. One of the peons staggered backward, pawing at his face where a mass of heavy splinters had embedded themselves in his flesh. The other man never moved. His head had been blown away.

Ki looked to the wall where his men were now swarming into the courtyard; then he nodded at the window behind him. “I'm going in, Jessica.”