... is she ... is she all right?”
“I don’t know,” The Kid replied honestly. “I don’t think she’s hurt too bad, but I’m not sure about that.”
“What the hell happened? I heard a shot outside a little while after you left, but I didn’t think anything about it. Some drunken cowboy or vaquero is always letting off steam around here by firing a gun into the air.”
“It was the sergeant from that cavalry patrol, and he was trying to kill me because of a run-in we had before.”
Sago let out a low whistle. “So you’ve got the cavalry after you now?”
“Maybe ... but I’m on the other side of the border.”
The Kid wasn’t sure what Nicholson would do. If he had managed to get across the line without any trouble, he was confident the lieutenant wouldn’t have pursued him.
But he had fought with Brennan again and broken the sergeant’s jaw. The Kid had no doubt Brennan had claimed he’d suffered the injury trying to prevent The Kid from escaping. That might offend Nicholson’s sense of military protocol so much he would risk crossing the border to apprehend the man who’d assaulted his sergeant.
Even if Nicholson didn’t pursue him, The Kid figured more charges would be levied against him. When he finally did return to the States, he would be a wanted man.
Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time, he reminded himself with a grim smile.
Hoofbeats sounded. The Kid tensed. He caught sight of four men riding south along the street, past the well and into Mexico. They galloped past Greta’s cottage, never slowing down.
The Kid recognized them in the moonlight. Enrique Kelly and his three friends. They were on their way somewhere in a hurry.
The Kid nodded toward the riders dwindling into the distance and asked Sago, “What do you know about those men?”
“Not a blasted thing except their names,” the saloon man replied. “They only rode in today. I’d never seen them before that.” Sago paused. “Tough-looking bunch, though.”
“That they are.” The Kid didn’t know if he would ever run into Kelly and the others again, but thinking about them left him with a slight sense of unease.
A step in the doorway made him swing around sharply. Sago reacted the same way as Consuela emerged from the cottage.
“The bullet just grazed poor Greta in the side,” she said before either The Kid or Sago could ask. “She bled enough to make her sick and weak, but the bleeding is stopped now and I cleaned the wound. I will make a poultice to draw out any poison, and she will be fine.”
The Kid nodded in relief.
“Thank you, Consuela,” Sago said. “Whatever Greta needs, you know I’ll pay for it.”
“She should not need much, only care. You wish to see her?”
“I do,” Sago said with a nod. He hurried inside.
When the saloon man was gone, The Kid said, “He really seems to care about her.”
“He does,” Consuela said. “Why would he not? He is in love with her.”
The Kid frowned. “But she works in his saloon. She, uh ...”
“Goes with men?” Consuela’s shoulders rose and fell in an expressive shrug. “Love is different for everyone, Senor Morgan.”
“I suppose you’re right.” The Kid turned to look toward the center of town as hoofbeats rumbled in the night.
He saw a dark mass of riders in the street. They came to a stop on the other side of the well. One of the horsemen separated himself from the others and rode forward slowly, halting when he came even with the water trough.
“Morgan!” Lt. Nicholson shouted. “Morgan, I see you down there!”
The Kid said to Consuela, “You’d better go back inside. And keep Sago there. Hector, take your kids and go home.”
“Senor—” Consuela began.
“It’ll be all right,” he assured her. “Tell Greta I wish her the best.”
Consuela crossed herself. “And for you as well, Senor.” Then she barked orders at Hector that sent him and the children scurrying back to their own house.
“Morgan!” Nicholson shouted again.
The Kid hooked his thumbs in his belt and walked out a few feet from the house. “What do you want, Lieutenant?”
“You gave me your word!” Nicholson responded, sounding outraged.
“And I kept it,” The Kid replied. “I didn’t use my gun against you or any of your men.”
“You broke Sergeant Brennan’s jaw!”
“Yeah, but I used his rifle to do it,” The Kid drawled.
“And you’ve illegally crossed the border into Mexico!”
“I never promised I wouldn’t do that.”
Nicholson was silent for a moment, then he said, “Morgan, I’m calling on you to come back across the line and surrender. If you don’t, you can consider yourself a fugitive from the United States Army!”
“Sorry, Lieutenant,” The Kid said, even though he actually wasn’t. “I’m going after those Apaches. I’ve got some captives to rescue.”
“You’re insane!”
“This isn’t the first time I’ve been accused of that.”
Nicholson fell silent again. The Kid imagined he was fuming. A few seconds went by before the lieutenant said, “You know I’m prohibited from crossing the border to pursue you.”
The Kid reached for the dun’s reins. “So long, Lieutenant.”
From a block away, Nicholson said, “But I think I can stretch a point and allow my men to
The Kid’s eyes widened in surprise. He lunged for the dun and grabbed the horse’s reins as Nicholson bellowed the order to open fire.
Orange bursts of muzzle flame spouted in the darkness as the troopers started shooting. The Kid got a foot in the stirrup and yelled for the dun to take off running. Holding tightly to the saddle horn, he swung up into the saddle as the horse broke into a gallop. Bullets whipped around them.
The Kid hadn’t expected that. He was pretty sure if it was against army regulations for Nicholson to cross the border, shooting over the line was probably prohibited, too.
Luckily, accurate shooting was almost impossible in the dark. A few of the slugs from the troopers’ rifles came close enough for The Kid to hear them sizzling past his head, but neither he nor the dun were hit. The settlement of Sago rapidly fell behind them, and the shooting faded away.
He was confident Nicholson wouldn’t come after him. That was one less thing he had to worry about.
All he had to figure out was how one man was going to take four prisoners away from a hundred bloodthirsty Apaches, without getting killed in the process.
Chapter 17
The Kid rode for a couple of miles, steering southward by the stars, before he stopped. He didn’t want to go too far in case he had to backtrack to pick up the trail of the Apaches.
Looking back, he could still see the lights of Sago in the distance. He thought about Greta and hoped she would be all right. She seemed to have a good friend in Consuela, and according to the Mexican woman, Edwin Sago loved her and would help care for her, so she probably stood a good chance of pulling through.
Maybe Lt. Nicholson could get Consuela to tend to Sgt. Brennan’s busted jaw, too, The Kid thought with a
