The Outlaws (15 page)

Tears in her eyes, Susie left Alex. As they gathered the Shield children, the tempo of shooting increased. Bullets thudded into the adobe walls.

“Down,” Tessa ordered the children, dropping to her hands and knees.

They crawled to the front door where Susie stood up and opened it, exposing herself to the unseen Dolan gunmen. Ezra, watching, held his breath.

Susie stepped into the yard, walked quickly through the gate and into the street, followed by her sister and the children. Tessa brought up the rear. Rifles cracked but no bullets came near them as they hurried to Tunstall’s store. When they were safe inside, Ezra let out his breath in relief.

Glass shattered as another window was hit. Ezra sprang back to his post. Sometime later he was startled to see Tessa and Susie back in the house.

“Alex, I’m going to appeal to Colonel Dudley,” Susie said. “If he’s here to protect women and children, he’s certainly not doing so. I can’t believe he won’t listen to me. Why, this is murder, pure and simple! How can he allow such a thing?”

“You can try, Susie,” McSween said. “I don’t have much hope.” Susie left by the front door.

‘‘Why did you come back?” Ezra asked Tessa. “It isn’t safe.

“Susie’s so brave. I couldn’t let her come alone. Besides, you’re here.”

Ezra started to answer, then saw her glance at Mark who was frowning at her. Didn’t Mark understand she’d returned because she wanted to be with him?

“How’s Jules?” Ezra asked.

“He’s fine,” she said. “Colonel Dudley is having soldiers move the Ealy’s and the Shields out of the store to a safer place. Juan Patron’s house, I think. Susan Gates is taking Jules along.”

“You ought to go with them.”

“Maybe it won’t be necessary if the colonel listens to Susie.”

Ezra shook his head. “He’s against us.”

Susie said the same thing a half-hour later when she returned to the burning house.

“He’s a cruel and vindictive man!” she cried. “Heartless. I do believe he hates me as well as Alex.”

The rattle of rifles was all but continuous as bullets thunked into the walls, penetrated through doors and smashed windows. The polished wood of the piano was splintered and gashed. Bullets plinked when they hit the strings.

The fire had eaten through the kitchen, and the parlor was burning before the men shifted their base of operations into the east wing. McSween sat with his head in his hands, seemingly oblivious to bullets zinging past him.

“He’s given up.” Ezra had no idea he’d spoken out loud until Mark answered him.

“More likely worn out.”

Billy raised his voice. “You all heard what Mrs. McSween had to say about the colonel, so we know where we stand. We got to stick it out till dark. If we run fast, we can make it across the yard and down the river bank without getting hit.’’.

“No!”

Everyone turned to look at Ignacio Gonzalez. He’d been wounded in the arm early that morning. “I want to surrender,” he muttered.

“You damn coward!” Billy cried. “I’ll see you in hell before any of us surrender. We’re going to stick here until dark. Brace up, damn you.”

Billy turned to Susie. “Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, “but a dress ain’t very good to make a run in. You and Tessa had best go now.”

“I want to stay with Alex,” Susie protested.

Billy shook his head. “It may cost some of us our lives to look after you when we make a run for the river. I can’t risk that. You’ll go now.”

Susie embraced her husband. Tessa hurried over and hugged Ezra. She looked at Mark, hesitated, then Susie reached for her hand and Tessa went with her.

By sunset the men were crowded into the last two rooms. Smoke choked them.

“Going to be another hour before it’s dark enough to make our move,” Billy said. “Here’s the plan. Me and three or four of the best shots’ll run out and keep firing while we make for the gate in the plank fence to the east. While they’re busy shooting at us, the rest of you run for the gate in the adobe wall to the north.”

He looked from one face to the other, his blue eyes bright in his smoke-begrimed face.

“Is that clear?”

Ezra thought he’d never seen any man with such courage and daring. He made up his mind he’d be with Billy on that first run, whether or not Billy chose him.

He’d be beside Billy, drawing the enemy’s fire, risking his life to save the others. A thrill of fear shot through him he thought of Dolan’s men hiding all around the burning house waiting for them to make a break. Waiting to kill them.

Ezra clenched his jaw. Damn it, he wouldn’t be scared! If anyone could cheat death, that man was Billy Bonney.

Chapter
10

Thirteen men jammed together in the hot and smoky east wing kitchen, the only room of the McSween house left unburned. Outside, the darkness gradually deepened. Ezra figured it must be almost nine o’clock.

Billy pushed through the door and eased it open.

“Trench, O’Folliard, Morris, Nesbitt,” he called out. “Follow me.”

He picked me! Ezra thought, tense with anticipation. His fear had passed. He watched

Billy dart through the open kitchen door. Waited impatiently while French, O’Folliard and Morris followed. Dashed through himself, firing as he ran. Raced across the yard as bullets zipped by him.

Someone ahead of him, Morris, he thought, grunted and fell heavily. Ezra ran on, knowing it was sure death to stop. Rifles cracked. Flashes of flame from the darkness to the east located the marksmen.

Through the east gate, across the field. Ezra plunged into the underbrush along the river bank, heard men running ahead of him across the nearly dry bed of the Rio Bonito. He crossed and climbed the far bank. Ducked behind the shelter of a half-ruined adobe.

The shooting quickened. He heard Billy curse and ran toward him.

O’Folliard was with Billy. Also French.

“Morris got it,” Ezra said.

“If McSween and the others didn’t make their break right on our heels,” Billy said, “then they’re getting it, too. We can’t wait around to see. Vamoose!”

Tessa, sitting on the ground outside the Patron house, held the sobbing Susie to her breast.

“Like a dog!” Susie gasped. “They shot Alex like a dog. Oh, I can’t bear it . . .”

Tessa stroked Susie’s hair and looked toward Tunstall’s store where, despite the darkness, triumphant shouts and the sound of smashing wood left no doubt in her mind that Dolan’s men had broken into the store and were looting it. Nothing was left of the McSween house but part of the adobe walls and glowing rubble.

The firing had stopped less than an hour ago and, shortly after, George Washington had come to Patron’s with word that Alex had been killed. Susie, hysterical, had to be restrained by force from rushing to find her husband’s body.

“Come back inside,” Tessa murmured. “There’s nothing you can do tonight. Come

inside.”

As she persuaded the grief-stricken Susie to her feet and into Patron’s house, Tessa tried not to think that Mark or Ezra might be lying somewhere in the night, dead, like Alex.

In the morning one of the Shield boys came into the bedroom where Tessa sat beside Susie’s bed.

“Aunt Susie, Sheriff Peppin wants to know—” he swallowed and went on—”how you want to bury Uncle Alex. And Mr. Morris. He’s dead, too.”

Susie sat up in bed. “ You tell the sheriff not to lay one finger on either of them!” Her nephew gulped, nodding, and retreated.

“You can’t. It isn’t safe. Lincoln is controlled by Dolan now and Colonel Dudley said

himself that he won’t answer for our safety if we leave this house. Send George Washington. Nobody will bother him.”

Susie lay back. “Maybe you’re right. I mean to stay alive if for no other reason than to avenge Alex’s death.”

Alexander McSween and his law clerk, Harvey Morris, were buried that day beside John Tunstall in the field behind the store. Dr. Ealy said a few words over the grave, then hurried the women back to Patron’s house.

In the evening, Ealy and his family, Susan Gates and Elizabeth Shield and her children went with the soldiers to Fort Stanton when Colonel Dudley withdrew from Lincoln. Susie McSween refused to go and Tessa hadn’t the heart to leave her alone. Jules stayed behind, too, for Tessa couldn’t bear to part with him.

She knew Mark and Ezra had escaped from the burning house since only three other bodies had been found—two McSween men, both Mexicans, and one Dolan man. But when would she see either her brother or Mark again? They were fugitives now; the town belonged to their enemies.

By September the situation was worse than ever. After an unknown assailant shot through a window at Susie one evening, Susie and her sister decided to move, with the children, to Las Vegas for safety.

“You must come with us.” Susie said to Tessa. Tessa shook her head.

“But what will you do?”

“Since the Ealy’s and Susan Gates have returned east,” Tessa said, “no one’s left to teach the town children their lessons. I’ve been thinking I might do that.” “I wish you’d go with me,” Susie said.

“I’ll miss you,” Tessa told her, tears in her eyes. Susie was very dear to her. But she couldn’t leave Lincoln not knowing what had become of Ezra. And of Mark. They’d expect to find her here when it was safe to come looking. And once Susie was gone, Tessa thought she’d be safe enough.

“I’m not abandoning the fight,” Susie said. “I’l1 be back. Those murderers haven’t heard the last of me!”

Rosalita’s widowed sister, Maria Zamora, took Tessa and Jules into her home. Tessa cleaned the vacant one-room adobe that had been used for a school, nailed an announcement on the outside of the building saying she was accepting pupils for a negotiable tuition, and opened its doors.

For the first week she taught only Jules. Then the Ferris family, who’d left town during the fighting, sent their eight-year-old-son and ten-year-old daughter to her, asking for a reduced rate, since there were two. Tessa agreed.

By the end of October she had ten pupils. She made little money since most of the parents paid her with food, but she and Jules managed. Tessa avoided going out alone if possible. Nobody had threatened her, but she didn’t like the way some of the men stared at her when she passed by.

At least Hank Kilgore didn’t seem to be in town.

Mark will come soon, she told herself. He’ll come, bringing Ezra, and we’ll leave this town with its bitter memories. We’ll make a new start somewhere else.

* * *

The Regulators camped together in the mountains south of San Patricio after the siege of McSween’s house. Many had lost their horses, so early in August Billy called twenty of the men together.

“You know there’s a bunch of Tunstall horses down along the Tularosa,” he told them. “Now they don’t belong to those bastards who took them, and that’s a fact. Reckon if we mosey down there quiet-like we can take back what we need.” “Let’s go!” Ezra agreed.

No one argued.

A little past noon they rode out of the timber near the Mescalero reservation, coming on six Indians driving a small herd of ponies.

Ezra riding ahead, saw the Apaches grab their rifles. He wheeled, yelling to Billy. The Regulators yanked their Winchesters from saddle scabbards as the Indians began firing.

“We ain’t after their ponies,” Billy said, “but if they want a fight, damn it, we’ll give ‘em one.” He aimed, pulled the trigger. An Indian dropped from his horse.

Ezra, caught up in loading and firing, didn’t understand at first when he heard Billy’s shout.

“Don’t shoot at that rider! He might be a soldier.”

Glancing around, Ezra saw a horseman coming over the crest of a hill from the direction of reservation headquarters. He also saw that the man next to him, Martinez, was aiming at the rider.

“Don’t shoot!” he cried just as Martinez fired.

The horseman jerked to the side. As he tumbled off his horse, Mark saw he wasn’t in uniform. Not a soldier then.

The body rolled part way down the hill and Martinez spurred toward it.

“That’s going to bring trouble,” Billy said. “I think he was Bernstein, the clerk at the office. Let’s get the hell out of here.” He put his hands to his mouth. “Martinez!” he yelled.

“Come back!”

Martinez waved his hand. “Un minuto.” He dismounted and bent over the body.

Ezra brought his horse up next to Billy and O’Folliard.

“Reckon we may as well take a few of them Indian ponies with us,” O’Folliard said, winking at Ezra.

Billy nodded, smiling again. “Might as well, We’re going to be blamed anyway and we sure can use them.”

When they rode back into camp, Mark approached Ezra as he dismounted.

“Those are Indian ponies,” he said.

“Yeah.” Ezra loosened the saddle. “Didn’t start out to get Indian ponies. It sort of happened.”