tracking east, heading toward Texas Red’s location.
“That screaming a few moments ago?” Rani asked.
“Someone stepped into one of the old shafts,” Ben told her. “We shortened the odds some the first go- around.”
“We’re going to need more than that,” Rani said glumly.
Ben laughed. “Go tell the kids to stand easy but not to leave their posts. We’re going to have a few hours respite.”
“And then?” she asked.
“Then all hell breaks loose.” He looked toward the east. “Be interesting to know what those crap-heads are talking about,” he muttered.
“Jake’s gonna be plenty pissed about this,” West said.
“Fuck Campo!” Texas Red said. “He don’t spell Jack-shit to me.”
But West thought, and thought correctly, most of that was pure macho bravado. West had yet to meet anyone who wasn’t, at best, leery of Jake Campo-at worst, terrified of the big outlaw.
“We gonna have to approach this usin’ some sense,” Texas Red said. “I guess them Rebs of Raines must have fireballed down here to join him. He’s got them scattered around the ruins of the town. Problem is, I don’t know how many of them they is.”
“I can’t see how that’s possible,” West countered. “Our guys was supposed to find them and box them in, wasn’t they?”
“Findin’ Raines’ Rebs is one thing,” Texas Red said. “Boxin’ them in is something else.”
“So what do we do?”’
“We wait and think this thing out.”
Jake knew what had happened when Red and West were not at the prearranged meeting place. No honor among thieves, he thought.
He looked up at the sound of engines. Cowboy Vic’s column roared into view.
“Where’s the rest of the boys?” Vic asked.
“I would imagine they’ve gone on into that old ghost town just west of the Big Bend,” Campo said. “That’s what you had in mind, too, wasn’t it?”’
“Yep,” Vic said honestly. “I was thinkin’ that whoever got Raines first, could write his own ticket. Wasn’t you thinkin’ the same, Jake?”’
Jake laughed. “Sure was.”
“Thought so. That’s why we all got down here a little early, wasn’t it?”’
“That’s it. Well, maybe this isn’t such a bad thing after all,” Jake mused aloud.
“How you figure that?”
“We’ll just lay back and let West and Texas Red soften up Raines and his bunch. Let them take the heaviest losses. Then we’ll move in and pick up the pieces.”
“And the glory,” Cowboy Vic said, a trickle of slobber leaking out of one corner of his mouth. “Right?”
“You got it.” And then I’ll kill you, Campo thought.
“Good plan,” Cowboy Vic said. And when that’s done, then I’ll kill you, he thought.
The men looked at each other. Vic said, “You got anything to fuck with you? We picked up a few cunts but they give us so much trouble we kilt them.”
“Yeah,” Campo said absently. “We picked up a shit-pot full of women. Help yourself.”
“Here they come, Ben!” Jordy shouted from the second floor. “A whole big bunch of them.”
“Hold your fire!” Ben called. “We have to let them get into town.”
“There ain’t nobody in this damn old place!” Ben heard the voice drift faintly to him. “The goddamned place is deserted.”
“Hull fell in a hole in the ground!” another man shouted. “Hell, there ain’t no Rebs here.”
“Charge the house!” Texas Red’s voice ripped the air. “There ain’t nobody up there “cept Raines and the woman and kids. Go, boys, go!”
A dozen or more outlaws, thinking they had victory in the palm of their hands, came charging from the southeast. Ben waited until the panting, out-of-shape men were just beyond the stone fence before yelling the orders to fire.
The dozen went down under a hail of lead.
“Finish them!” Ben yelled.
The yelling of the wounded was silenced by single shots to the head.
West looked at Texas Red. “Thought you said this was gonna be easy?”
“Shut up, West. If you had any sense, you’d have been counting the rifles that was firing. I did. I figure no more than seven or eight people in there firing. Nine at the most. Shit, man! They’s two hundred and fifty of us.” He waved his hand, signaling the others to gather around him.
“Harrison, you take your bunch to the back of the house. Lee, you and your boys take the near side. Jess, take the far side. Rest of you follow me, we’re takin” the front. We can’t burn them out, so we’re gonna have to shoot them out of there. Just keep up a steady fire. We get enough lead in there bouncin’ around, we’ll drive them out. Move out.”
Ben picked up on their plans before the outlaws had a chance to put it into full operation.
“Don’t let them surround us!” he called. “Stop them now!”
Texas Red’s plan was only half accomplished. Both ends of the house were covered, but the intense fire from the house kept the front and back open, the gunfire driving the outlaws back time after time.
Roaming from top to bottom, one end of the house to the other, Ben counted thirty-five dead lying around the old house on the hill.
He told Rani, “If we can hold on through the night, this bunch will have a lot of quitters in it. These men won’t put up with losses like we’ve given them. They’re not soldiers; they’re trash, undisciplined gutter-slime. We’ve got to hang on.”
Rani stuck out her chin. “My kids will do their best.”
“I’m damn proud of them. Every last one of them,” Ben told her. Then he surprised her by leaning down and kissing her mouth. “And I’m proud of you, Rani. I’ll soldier with you anytime, anyplace.”
She touched her lips with her fingertips. Kneeling there, in the dust of the floor, her face blackened by gunsmoke and dirt, she smiled at him. “We’ll have to continue this later on, Ben.”
“Looking forward to it, Rani.”
“Here they come, Miss Rani!” Robert called.
The lines of men that ran at them were not nearly so full of bravado this time around. Ben could sense that many of the outlaws had already had a gutful of this fighting.
“Adjust your fire!” Ben yelled. “Shoot them in the guts. Aim for the center of the belly!”
The house rocked with gunfire; the air became smoky and hard to breathe; involuntary tears sprang into the eyes of the defenders, young and older alike.
The lines of men wavered, then broke completely and ran back to safety.
“Reload!” Ben called. “Reload all empty clips and stand ready.”
Rani came to him. “Why did you tell us to shoot the men in the stomach, Ben?”
His smile was not pretty. “Listen closely, Rani.”
The soul-wrenching screams of the gut-shot men on the outside were hideous to hear. They lay in pools of their own blood and howled in agony. Some were calling for mother to help them; others called for God to put an end to their suffering; others lay dying and cursed God.
Still others cursed Ben Raines.
“Can you imagine how demoralizing that is to their buddies?” Ben said, grim satisfaction in his voice.
“I never want you for an enemy, Ben,” Rani told him.
“Why, darling,” Ben replied. “I’m just doing what Uncle Sammy taught me to do-years ago.”
Dusk began draping purple curtains over the land. As the first fingers of darkness touched the old ghost town, Ben carefully checked each child’s position. He checked each weapon, making sure every available clip was full. He talked with each young warrior for a few moments, patting them on the shoulder, reassuring them. With several, he stood their post while they went to the bathroom.
