“I’m sorry. He and Horace Dunlap and all the others died fighting.”
Jess closed her eyes and lowered her head for a moment. She shuddered again. But then she looked up again. “You didn’t answer my other question. Why did you come after us, Kid? Why was there never any doubt in your mind that you would? The four of us ... we don’t mean anything to you.”
“Everybody means something to somebody,” The Kid said. “If it had been my ... wife ... I would have wanted somebody to go after her and help her.”
“You say that like you’ve got a wife.”
“I did have.”
She didn’t press him for more details, and he was grateful.
“What are you going to do now? Swing in some other window like a giant bat?”
The Kid had been thinking about that, but before he could answer, a soft knock sounded on the door and took him by surprise. He glanced at Jess, but wide-eyed, she shook her head to indicate that she didn’t know who it could be, either.
“Senor Kelly?” a man’s voice called tentatively through the door. The Kid recognized it as belonging to Luis, Guzman’s aide. “Capitan Guzman sent me to find out if you would like a bottle of brandy or anything else we might provide.”
This was a stroke of luck, The Kid thought. He beckoned Jess closer and whispered, “Let him in.”
“
The Kid bent and pulled Kelly’s still senseless form behind the bed where it wouldn’t be visible from the door.
“Let him in,” he said again. “And let that sheet drop a little. He’s a man.”
Her mouth hardened into a grim line. She let the sheet fall around her midsection so that her breasts were completely bare. “How about this? Enough of a distraction?”
“We’ll find out.” In stocking feet, The Kid moved silently to the door and stood so that he would be behind it when it opened.
For a second he thought Jess was about to laugh, and he took that as a good sign. She hadn’t lost her nerve. She called to Luis, “Just a second,” and went over to the door.
When she opened it, The Kid heard Luis say in a flustered voice, “Senorita, I ... I ...”
“Come on in and bring the brandy,” she told him.
She stepped back, and Luis came into the room. The Kid was ready. Striking like a cat, he brought the butt of his gun down on the back of Luis’s head. He pitched forward, and Jess let go of the sheet completely to grab the bottle of brandy he dropped before it could hit the floor and shatter.
The Kid eased the door closed. “He’s not that much bigger than you. Get his boots and uniform off him and put them on.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to get them fumigated first.”
“I’m afraid not. Your other alternative is to ride away from here naked.”
“I’ll take the uniform.” Jess bent over and started pulling Luis’s boots off, then paused. “Kid, he looks dead.”
The Kid had noticed the clerk’s glassy-eyed stare, too. “I guess I hit him a little too hard.”
“That’s a shame,” Jess muttered. “He didn’t seem quite as bad as the rest.”
“He worked for Guzman,” The Kid pointed out. “That means he helped sell hundreds of helpless prisoners into slavery. Maybe more than that.”
“That’s true. Good riddance.”
While Jess was getting dressed, The Kid went back to the door and eased it open a crack. He put his eye to the gap and looked along the corridor as best he could. A Rurale lounged at the landing, as if standing guard but not being too diligent about it.
Still, the man must have seen Luis go into the room. After a while he might wonder why the clerk didn’t come back out.
“How do I look?” Jess asked.
The Kid glanced around. The uniform was too big on her, but not by much. “It’ll do.” His eyes narrowed in thought. “Blow out that lamp.”
“What are you going to do?”
“It’s a matter of what you’re going to do. You’re about to join the Rurales.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Blow out the lamp so it’s dark in here. The only light in the corridor is down at the far end, so that guard won’t be able to see very well.”
Jess lifted a hand to her blond hair. “I think it’ll still be light enough for him to tell that I’m not Luis, or whatever his name was.”
“If you stepped all the way out, he might. But you’re just going to put an arm out and motion him down here. He’ll see the uniform and think you’re Luis, all right.”
“I don’t know,” Jess said dubiously. “Seems like a long chance to me.”
“That’s the only kind we have these days.”
“I guess you’re right.” She bent over and blew out the lamp. “If I can get him to come down here, what then?”
“Leave that to me,” The Kid said.
Jess went to the door and opened it. She put her right foot just outside.
The Kid heard footsteps clumping along the hall.
“Stay there,” he whispered to Jess. Just enough light penetrated from the corridor for him to see the tense, strained lines in which her face was set.
With a coarse chuckle, the guard asked in Spanish, “What is it? Does the American want an audience to watch?”
“Pull back,” The Kid breathed. “Slow.”
Jess retreated into the room, and a second later the guard’s bulk stood in the doorway. The Kid’s hands shot out, grabbed the lapels of the man’s uniform jacket, and hauled him into the room, swinging him around so that he crashed into the wall.
The guard was too surprised to put up a fight. The Kid grabbed him by the throat, cutting off any sound, and lifted a knee into the man’s groin.
Jess stepped close to the struggling figures and plucked a knife from behind the guard’s belt. She was about to stab him when The Kid saw what she was doing and knocked her away with a shoulder. He kneed the guard a second time and forced him to the floor, still choking the life out of him.
A few minutes later, he felt a shudder go through the man’s body. He checked for a pulse but didn’t find one.
Jess closed the door, then came over and whispered, “Why didn’t you let me stab him?”
“Because that would have gotten blood on his uniform, and we need this uniform, too.”
“What ... Oh.”
The Kid was already pulling the dead man’s boots off. The pearl-gray trousers and jacket came next. He pulled off his own clothes and donned the uniform, including the boots. He buckled the guard’s gunbelt around his hips. When he picked up the steeple-crowned sombrero from the floor where it had fallen and settled it on his head, he asked Jess, “What do you think?”
“You’ll pass for one of them ... from a distance.”
“I’m hoping that’s good enough.”
“What if somebody heard that crash when you threw him against the wall?”
“They’re not likely to think anything about it. They’ll just assume Kelly was getting rough with you.”
“He would have, too, the son of a bitch. Can I kick him? Maybe break his nose?”
“We don’t have time. Guzman will start wondering pretty soon what’s taking Luis so long. We have to get the other women and get out of here.”
He turned toward the door, but Jess stopped him by putting her hand on his arm. “Kid ... I appreciate what you’re doing, and Lord knows I’d rather die fighting than go through what they’ve got in mind for us ... but we’re not
