wore. If Coffin made a break for it, Scott could shoot him down with little or no trouble. A dead lawman might be just as good to El Aguila as a live one.
Stars glittered brightly overhead in the vast sable cloak of night. As usual in this part of the world, the temperature cooled off rapidly once the sun was down, and by the time the group had been riding for a couple of hours after leaving the village, Longarm wished he could get his coat out of his saddlebags. The air had a definite chill in it.
Or maybe it was just the knowledge that he was being taken into the stronghold of a bloodthirsty outlaw gang at gunpoint that made icy fingers play along his spine, he thought. It wasn’t the first time he had been in a spot this tight, but knowing that didn’t help overmuch.
The landscape had grown even more rugged. Some of the hills were small mountains now. The trail wound between them. Longarm tried to keep track of landmarks so that he could find his way back along this path if he got the opportunity, but the darkness made that difficult. Manuel must have a good sense of direction, Longarm mused, or they would have been hopelessly lost by now.
Maybe they were, he thought. Maybe that was exactly what had happened. Manuel might not be thinking or seeing as clearly as he believed he was, and they might be wandering around aimlessly. Longarm hoped that wasn’t the case. The one ray of light in this seemingly hopeless situation was the prospect that he and Coffin were being taken to the same place where Sonia was held prisoner.
As those thoughts were going through Longarm’s head, the trail rounded a bend and ran through a narrow gap between two huge upthrusts of rock. Beyond this natural gateway, Longarm saw, moonlight washed down over a good-sized valley with overhanging cliffs on both sides that came together at the far end to form a blank wall. The valley looked as if it could have been formed by a giant hand molding mountains out of clay, then pressing a thumb down in the center of them. The gap seemed to be the only entrance.
And a few men could hold that gap against an army for a good while, decided Longarm. That was what made this such a good hideout. Lights glittered on the floor of the valley, and he knew there must be buildings down there.
Longarm couldn’t see the sentry, but he was willing to bet that more than one rifle was trained on them at this moment, and if the wrong answer came back, a hail of lead would fall on them.
“It is Manuel,” called the wounded outlaw. “I am hurt, muchachos.
Grady is with me, but the others are dead.”
“Who’re those other three bastards, then?” asked the hidden guard.
“Two of them are gringo lawmen from Texas,” replied Manuel. “The other is a man who wishes to become one of us. He kept the lawmen from capturing Grady and me after they had killed the rest of our compadres.”
Longarm wanted to point out that he wasn’t from Texas at all, but had been born and bred in West-by-God Virginia, but he supposed that didn’t really matter much right then. He kept his mouth shut.
“This ain’t some sort of trick, is it?” the sentry asked suspiciously.
“You have my word it is not,” answered Manuel, his voice thick and a little slurred. “Now, we must pass. My arm is hurting a great deal, and I would have the curandero attend to it.”
So the outlaws had a physician among them, a former doctor maybe, or at least somebody with some medical training who had wound up following the owlhoot trail instead of the healer’s road. That came as no surprise. Bandits got shot up all the time, and they would need someone to take care of their wounds.
“Go ahead,” said the guard. “I reckon it’s all right. Deke ain’t goin’ to be happy about those other boys gettin’ themselves killed. He didn’t want y’all goin’ off to get drunk and play cards in the first place.”
“Deke is not ... the boss,” said Manuel, the words coming now between teeth clenched in pain. That tequila was starting to wear off, Longarm figured.
“Maybe not, but he thinks he’s in charge,” said the hidden sentry.
Manuel heeled his horse into motion, riding through the gap trailed by Grady. The opening was so narrow that Longarm and Coffin had to go through it single file. Scott brought up the rear, as he had ever since they’d left the village.
The trail sloped down to the valley floor at a fairly sharp angle. Once they reached the bottom, Longarm saw in the moonlight that there was lush grass on the ground, along with clumps of trees here and there. This bowl in the mountains would have made a nice ranch, and perhaps that was what it had been at one time. As they neared the lights, Longarm saw that the yellow glow came from the windows of a large adobe house built in the Spanish style. The hacienda of the valley’s former owner? That was likely, thought Longarm. But had the rancher abandoned the place for some reason, or been killed when El Aguila’s gang took it over? Longarm couldn’t answer that one.
They were challenged again as they approached an adobe wall that surrounded the hacienda. Double gates of black wrought iron were closed, blocking off the courtyard inside the wall. Manuel identified himself again, and shadowy figures carrying rifles appeared inside the gates and opened them.
“If I was you, mi amigo,” one of the men said to Manuel, “I would speak to Deke first before seeking out the curandero. Those empty saddles will not please him.”
“The fault was not mine,” protested Manuel. “But you are probably right.”
Scott spoke up for the first time in quite a while. “I want to see this fella Deke myself. Sounds like he’s the second in command around here, and I’ll probably have to go through him to get to El Aguila.”
Manuel laughed humorlessly. “Si. This is true. Come with me.”
He rode through the gates and into the courtyard, followed by the others. Coffin muttered, “Damn,” as the gates clanged shut behind them. Longarm guessed the Ranger didn’t care for the sound. From what he knew of Coffin’s past, the big man had heard such sounds plenty of times before, as jail cells were closed and locked with Coffin on the wrong side of the bars.
Even in the shadows, the house was an impressive U-shaped structure with two stories, the second one with a balcony running along its entire length. A wrought-iron railing bordered the balcony. Lamplight came from several of the windows on both floors. Somewhere, someone was playing a guitar, and a faint hint of wood smoke filled the air along with the melodic notes. Under other circumstances, this would have been a peaceful, beautiful place.
