Rio Largo

“Hand over your artillery,” Wheeler insisted.

Hijino uttered that mocking laugh of his. “Si. We will hand over our pistolas so you can shoot us in the back. We are not stupid, gringos.”

“We will not hand them over,” Julio said. “But we will go with you peacefully. I very much want to talk to Kent Tovey.”

“Not wearin’ your pistols, you’re not,” Ray informed him. “For the last time, you’re on the Circle T, and you don’t go a step further unless you hand over your revolvers and rifles.”

“I promise no harm will come to you,” Wheeler said.

“Oh, no,” Hijino scoffed. “Not until they get us to their rancho, patron. You heard them. The Tovey woman is dead, and they blame you. You will not leave their ranch alive.”

“I did not kill Nancy Tovey,” Julio insisted.

“Then why did she write your name right before she had her head bashed in?” Wheeler demanded.

Julio jerked as if pricked with a knife. “She did what?”

“See, patron?” Hijino said. “They make up lies so they can hang you. Gringos are fond of hanging. With your permission, I will dispose of these two, then you can have your revenge on Kent Tovey.”

Fury turned Ray Ornley red. “I’d like to see you try to dispose of us, you stinkin’ greaser.” And with that, he drew.

So did Hijino. Timmy saw it, and marveled. The pearl-handled Colt was out so fast, it was almost like magic. It boomed, and Ray Ornley twisted and went limp and oozed from his saddle.

Jeb Wheeler sat frozen a few seconds. Then, growling deep in his throat, he clawed at his six-gun.

Hijino shot him. Once, through the chest, smack through the heart. Hijino laughed as Wheeler fell. Wheeler’s mount bolted.

“You should not have done that,” Julio Pierce said.

“It was them or us, patron.” Hijino casually began to replace the spent cartridges. “I was only protecting you.”

“What do we do now?” another vaquero asked.

“Do we push on to their rancho?” a third wanted to know.

“I must think.” Julio ran a hand across his brow. He was staring at the bodies, at the spreading pools of blood. “Can it be true? What they said about Nancy Tovey?”

Timmy stared at the bodies, too. Jeb and Ray were friends of his. Part of him boiled with rage, with the desire to draw and start shooting. But another part warned that he was outnumbered six to one, and if he gave in to his rage, he would surely end up like Jeb and Ray.

“Does it matter?” Hijino had asked.

“Of course it matters!” Julio declared. “Don’t you see? Both my mother and Nancy Tovey. I must talk to Steve and Armando. There is more to this than we thought.”

Hijino finished reloading. He gigged his white horse closer to the bodies, then reined around so he faced his companions. Wagging his Colt, he said, “This holds six shots.”

Julio’s eyebrows pinched together. “Most pistolas do. What is your point? We must get back.”

“My point,” Hijino said, “is that there are only five of you.” With blinding speed, he straightened and fired, five shots one after the other. Julio and the other vaqueros were taken completely off guard. Julio’s forehead exploded, and he toppled. The faces of the next two vaqueros erupted in scarlet. Only the last two had split seconds in which to smother their astonishment and stab for their revolvers, but neither cleared leather. All of them were dead and on the ground before the sound of the shots faded.

Timmy was rooted with horror and fear. He had never seen anyone draw and shoot so fast. Not even Jesco.

Hijino reloaded again. He spun the pearl-handled Colt into his holster, then clucked to his white horse. As he went past Julio Pierce, he grinned and said, “They make it too easy.”

Timmy had a clear shot at the killer’s back. He did not draw. His fingers curled and his hand twitched, but he did not move until Hijino was across the Rio Largo and a speck in the haze. Then, and only then, did he swing onto his horse and race like a madman for the Circle T.

Chapter 20

Trella was in her bedroom, facedown on her pillow, when there came a light knock at her door. She sat up stiffly, too devastated by the loss of her mother to care how she looked. “Come in.”

It was Dolores. She came to the bed, but did not sit. Her complexion was ghastly, as pale as the sheets under the bedspread on which Trella lay.

“If it is more bad news, I do not want to hear it.” Trella did not think she could take any more. She wanted to curl into a ball and weep for a week.

“Brace yourself.”

“Dear God. There is more?”

Dolores spoke as one in a daze. “Hijino has just brought word. Julio is dead. Circle T cowboys killed him.”

Numb with horror, Trella nearly fainted. She had loved him most of all her siblings, in part because they were the youngest, in part because they were so much alike. More tears gushed from eyes she would have sworn were cried out, and she choked for breath.

“Steve is waiting for the last of the men to come in from the range,” Dolores continued in her bizarrely calm manner.

Trella sought to blink back the new deluge, and failed.

“Armando is mad at him. Armando wanted to leave sooner with the men already here, but Steve refused. Now Armando blames Steve for Julio’s death.”

“Can it get any worse?” Trella mewed.

“The last of our vaqueros will arrive within the hour,” Dolores said, still in that strange manner. “Then they are heading across the river. There will be more killing. A lot more.” She paused and licked her lips. “I thought you should know.”

“Thank you.”

Dolores turned to go. She took a step, but staggered and had to reach for the wall table for support.

Between sobs, Trella asked, “Do you need help?”

“No,” Dolores replied. But she did not move. She leaned there, her head bowed, her disheveled hair hiding her face.

“Maybe you should sit down,” Trella suggested. She moved back from the edge of the bed to make room.

Nodding, Dolores slowly eased down. She was misery incarnate, broken in spirt and body.

“Are you sure you are all right?” The smell of wine crinkled Trella’s nose. “You have been drinking.” She knew her sister was fond of the juice of the grape, and enjoyed a glass or two every night before retiring. “How much have you had?”

“A bottle or two,” Dolores said without looking up. “I started and couldn’t stop. Now I have none left. Do you have any?”

“I think you have had enough.” Trella gently rested her hand on Dolores’s shoulder. “Lie down and I will have a servant bring coffee to clear your head.”

Dolores’s hair moved from side to side. “I do not want coffee. I do not want a clear head. I want to take a pistola and put it to my temple and squeeze the trigger, that is what I want.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“Hasn’t it sunk in yet? Mother is gone. Forever. She was everything to me. I loved her with all my heart and all my soul.”

“And I did not?” Trella asked defensively.