You understand?”
She slowly nodded her head.
“All right. That’s settled. And I don’t expect any argument from you when I give the word.” He faced her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Now listen very carefully to me, Rani. Forget all vestiges of civilized behavior. They no longer apply. You cannot afford the luxury of mercy or pity for those two-legged filth coming at us. I do not take prisoners, Rani. And neither do any of my personnel.” Her eyes widened at this, but she said nothing. “I have neither the time, facilities, nor inclination for attempted rehabilitation. For the most part, it didn’t work back when we had a civilization, and could spend millions of taxpayer dollars fucking around with criminals, when the biggest part of them should have been put up against a wall and shot to begin with. If you ever fail to shoot, and that action results in our position being overrun, I will find the time, believe me, to put a bullet in your head.”
Her summer tan paled at his words. “You …” she stammered. “You don’t mean that!”
“The hell I don’t, honey.”
“We’re stuck!” a sergeant said to Captain Nolan.
“It appears that way,” Nolan replied. “And it looks like it’s being done deliberately.”
“Our people on the roofs say we’re pretty well evenly matched, person for person. I don’t think they want to meet us nose on.”
“I get the same impression. But we may have to force the issue. But if we do, we’re going to take some losses. Those people are well placed. I think our best bet is to keep our heads down for a couple more days. See what develops. But we’re no going to set around with our thumb up our ass while we wait. We command the high ground. And that’s going to defeat those assholes out there. Have your mortar people start ranging in the key locations. Make goddamn sure our trucks in the alley behind us are protected at all times. When we decide to go, we’re going to do it fast and hard. Take off.”
Jake Campo was traveling fast, only giving the area he assigned himself a perfunctory once over at best. No, Jake was in a hurry, for he wanted Ben Raines all to himself, and he thought he knew where Raines might be holed up.
West was highballing it south, cursing and hollering for his driver to hurry up. Raines had headed south; he just knew it. And he wanted that son of a bitch all to himself.
Texas Red had studied Raines” movements up to when those other assholes had lost him, and had reached the conclusion Ben had headed due south. That would put him right smack in the Big Bend
National Park. And Texas Red was going to get there first.
Cowboy Vic had said, on the second day out, “Fuck Del Rio!” He had ordered his people to head for the Big Bend. He didn’t want Ben Raines nearly as bad as he wanted Rani and them tight little cunts with her. Gettin’ Raines would just be some icin’ on the cake.
Colonel Gray studied the maps and made up his mind. With the roads as bad as they were, those stupid warlords popping up all over the place, like crazed jackrabbits, it was going to be a hard four to five day push to southwest Texas.
“Dallas to Abilene to Pecos, and then we’ll cut south,” he gave the orders. “Two squads out ranging a full twenty miles ahead of the main column. Clear the way for us. No quarter, no prisoners. Move out.”
Ben ordered every available container of water inside the house. He then began boarding up ground-level windows. He cleared the area around the house of any object that might afford the enemy protection from bullets, leaving the scrub bushes as they were, still giving the place a long-deserted look.
“Now comes the hardest part,” he said.
Rani looked at him.
“Waiting.”
Ben looked around him and had to smile. He had commanded some ragtag troops in his lifetime, but this bunch would have to take the cake. Robert and Kathy, twelve years old. Jane, eleven years old. Jordy and
Paul, ten years old. All armed. All grim-faced. All ready for a fight.
Two adults and five kids against five or six hundred outlaws.
On Ben’s sixth day in the old ghost town, the first band of outlaws hit them.
Chapter 20
“We’re breaking out of this box, Sergeant,” Captain Nolan said. He looked at his watch. 0630. It would be full light in twenty to thirty minutes. “Are the troops ready?”’
“Yes, sir. Chompin” at the bit to go.”
Nolan lowered his binoculars. “Very little movement from the other side. Most of them are probably still sleeping. Tell the mortar teams to start laying down fire.”
“Yes, sir!” the sergeant said with a grin.
The mortar barrage caught the outlaws by surprise. For several days the only reply from the trapped Rebels had been some small-arms fire. The HE and WP rounds from the Rebels caught the outlaws with their pants down- in many cases, literally.
The white phosphorus hit just after the high explosive rounds, searing through leather and steel and flesh and bone. The outlaws did not have time to recover from their initial shock before looking up into the hard faces of the Rebels as the tiger-striped men and women charged the outlaws’ positions. In most cases, that one look was their last look at anything pertaining to this life.
Captain Nolan’s people took no prisoners.
The Rebels suffered two dead and five wounded. Of the wounded, only one was serious, but she was on her booted feet, refusing to be left behind.
Raines’ Rebels broke out of the small town, barreling south. They still had several miles to go before reaching the General.
“A lot of dust coming from the west, Ben!” Jordy shouted from his post on the second floor of the old house.
“How many vehicles, Jordy?” Ben called, then realized the boy still could not count past ten.
“Bunches, Ben.” The boy looked through the binoculars Ben had given him. He laboriously counted to ten, made a mark in the dust of the floor, and started again. “Ten and seven, Ben!” he called.
“Good boy!” Ben shouted. “Now stay down.”
“Yes, sir.”
Turning to Rani, Ben said, “Figuring four to a vehicle, we’re up against sixty-five to seventy outlaws.” He grinned. “That’s good.”
“That’s good?” she asked.
“Yeah. We have them outnumbered.”
She looked at him as if he had gone mad.
Ben called his “troops” around him. “Now listen, kids. Don’t fire until I tell you to fire. All the young people into the room we fixed up for you. Stay down and stay quiet. It’s going to be very noisy, kids. But we’re going to make it. OK? Take off.” He looked at the remaining kids and at Rani. “You all know your positions; get to them.”
“How come you so damn sure Raines is hidin’ out down here?” an outlaw asked West.
“I feel it in my guts, that’s why,” the stump-legged West replied. “All them people we talked to said he was headin’ south. All signs point south. That there Rani cunt was headin’ south. Remember that piece of map Texas Red found? It had Terlingua circled in pencil. They here. I know it.”
The outlaw column halted about a half-mile from the ghost town.
“Why we stoppin’?” West was asked by his driver.
“To rec … recon … look the situation over, you idiot. We ain’t gonna make no rash moves this time around.”
““At makes sense.”
“Course it do. Gimme them field glasses.”
While West was viewing the town through binoculars, he was unaware that Ben was looking at him.
“West,” Ben said to Rani. “He’s trash, just like the others. Maybe even worse than some. I should have killed him when I had the chance.”
“Why didn’t you?” she asked.
