He got to the door, holding Sarah behind him, and peeked around the edge. He could see into a big room. He motioned with his hand for her to get the gun that lay beside Chulo. He said, “Give me that pistol.”
She said, “Is he dead?”
“Yes, he’s dead. Damn it, hurry up.”
As he looked, Longarm saw a man he didn’t recognize come into the room carrying a shotgun. He was perhaps thirty feet away, too far to risk a pistol shot, and he wasn’t going to burst into the room. Not against a scatter gun.
The Mexican looked uncertain. He looked first to the right and then to the left and then he glanced across at the door. He didn’t seem to have heard the shots, Longarm thought, or he would be coming immediately toward the hall door.
He felt, rather than saw, Sarah handing him the revolver. He took it in his left hand and shoved it into his belt. He had seen, taking a very quick look, that there were only two cartridges left in the pistol he had taken from Miguel and he hoped there were six in Chulo’s revolver.
He said to Sarah, “I’ve got to get that guy in there, the one with the shotgun. He may be the last of the banditos, I don’t know.”
She said, “Stoop down and let me look.”
He was surprised at how calm she sounded. At first, he thought she was going to become hysterical. She was doing well, he thought.
“Yes, that’s Martin. He’s the mean one.”
“Honey, right now, they’re all mean ones. Look, right now, I’ve got to figure out how to get him closer. He’s too far away.”
They were both peering around the edge of the door. Longarm had pushed the door almost shut as he had walked down after he had shot Chulo. He was watching the man she called Martin, who was a heavyset man probably somewhere in his forties. The man had a bushy mustache and he was wearing a traditional sombrero. The room was large and toward the back was a dining area with several windows. Martin looked uncertain. Longarm guessed that he had heard the noise but hadn’t been able to place it. He had glanced toward the hall door several times, but he had made no move in their direction. Now he went to the part of the room where the dining table stood and looked out the windows. For a second, Longarm thought of trying to slip out and get close enough to either have a shot at him or cover him to make him drop the gun. The danger to Longarm was that the man might go outside or disappear into another room. If that happened, Longarm would not only lose track of the man and his shotgun, but he would also lose the very important element of surprise. He drew back from the door a foot or so, pushing Sarah back. He whispered to her, “I want you to scream.”
She said, “What?”
“I want you to scream as loud as you can and yell for help.” He motioned with his hand past the door toward the room where he had been held prisoner. “Go halfway down the hall and yell from there so he will think it’s coming from my room.”
She said, “Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Honey,” he said. “Let me worry about the danger part. Now, go and scream.” As she slipped past him, he slowly rose to his feet, keeping an eye peering just around the door. He was bareheaded, his hat back in the bedroom. He glanced at Sarah. She had walked a few paces past him and stopped in the hallway facing him. He nodded his head. She let out a tentative scream. He raised his hand upward, urgently. She screamed louder, then louder still. He watched the man suddenly whirl around and start back into the main living room. Sarah began yelling for help. The man fixed his eyes on the door and came walking rapidly forward, his shotgun at the ready but not pointed at anything. Longarm let him come on. Let him get to twenty feet away, then fifteen feet. At ten feet, he threw the door open and stepped into the opening. As he did, Martin stopped dead and tried to swing the shotgun up. Longarm extended his arm and, before the shotgun came level, he fired. He saw the slug catch the man below the throat. The man was heavyset and the bullet did not knock him down. He staggered backward, firing one barrel of the double-barrel shotgun into the ceiling. Longarm cocked the revolver and shot him again, this time a little lower in the chest. The man went down, heavily, falling full out, his head thudding against the tile floor. With the echo of his own shots and the shotgun blast still ringing in the air, Longarm whirled. It was time to hurry. By now, surely everyone outside would have been alerted. He could only hope that the guy who worked the vegetable garden or the ones who worked the cattle and the horses didn’t intend to get brave or try anything foolish.
He rushed back down the hall, past Sarah, and ran into the room where he had been kept prisoner. He grabbed his hat and jammed it on his head and then went over to Miguel’s body and looked for any extra cartridges. There were none. He dropped the pistol, now useless, beside the body and went running back down the hall, grabbing Sarah by the hand. He stopped to take a look at Chulo to see if he had been carrying any extra cartridges. His gun belt was bare. With that, still tugging Sarah along behind him, he swept through the door at the end of the hallway and out into the big living area of the hacienda. Sarah gave a little start when she saw the dead man lying on the floor. She said, “Oh my! Oh my!”
Longarm stopped only long enough to scoop up the shotgun in one hand and feel in Martin’s shirt pocket with the other. He found two shells. He jammed them in his pocket and then began running with Sarah toward the back of the house.
They went through the kitchen. A fat Mexican woman was cowering behind a table, looking frightened. Longarm paid her no attention. Holding the shotgun with his left hand, he threw the back door open and dove out to land on the ground beyond the steps. There was no one in sight. He motioned for Sarah to join him. He walked around to the back of the house. Standing there were two horses already saddled. They didn’t look like much. He suspected they were being used by the vaqueros working the cattle. But they were a ticket out of the place.
He turned to Sarah. He said, “Quick! Let’s mount up. We’ve got to get out of here.” He had already untied the horse he was going to ride when he became aware that she was just standing there. “What’s the matter? Hurry, we don’t have much time.” She said, “I can’t ride.”
Chapter 8
For a second he stared at her, dumbfounded. He didn’t believe he had ever heard anyone say that before. He asked, “What do you mean you can’t ride? Are you hurt?”
Looking down at her hands, she said, “No, I’ve just never learned how to ride except one way, and that only a little.”
“What way?”
