Tabor Evans - Longarm and the Ambush at Holy Defiance

Longarm said woodenly, “Stretch’s segundo and Tallahassee Smith.”

Leyton chuckled and threw back half his shot. “I was in Tucson at the time and didn’t even know about Big Frank tellin’ the others about the gold from that old stage shipment. Shit, that one-armed bastard is so full of shit he’d float in shallow water. If Santana really did bury that gold where he told Big Frank he did, it’s long gone. Some old desert rat got it, or maybe one of Whip Azrael’s boys, back before Vonda came on board and convinced Stretch he needed more men, and a new segundo an’ such, and suddenly our cutthroats were in Stretch’s bunkhouse and that fool didn’t even know it!”

Leyton threw back the last of his shot and refilled his glass from the bottle on the table between him and Mercado, who sat listening with a sly smile on his mustached face, hands laced on his small paunch.

Longarm said, “So, what’s game, Jack? Might as well tell me, since we was pards once and you’re gonna kill me an’ all.” He gave his ex-friend a cold grin.

Leyton told him between peals of thunder and sips of a second whiskey shot that the Bolivar Company out of St. Louis had a secret gold mine in the hills south of Nogales. The company had been hauling the gold up from Nogales in nondescript freight wagons—two wagons loaded with a quarter-million dollars in gold bars every three months—to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad in Las Cruces. From Las Cruces, the gold was shipped to the government mint in New Orleans.

Leyton had learned about the Bolivar Company mine and about the gold from a former colleague of his who’d gone to work as a freight guard. The former colleague had convinced him to throw in with Javiar Mercado and the Texas outlaw saloon girl known as Vonda, to rob one of the gold shipments and be set up moneywise for the rest of their lives.

Only problem was they’d just finalized plans for their first robbery on information relayed to them by Leyton’s former colleague when the Bolivar Company had unexpectedly changed the route and hadn’t informed the gold guards until they’d been well on their way across the Mexican border and heading north into Arizona Territory. The outlaws had figured it had been too risky for their inside man to get the information out to them. Or that his ploy had been found out.

Possibly, he’d been unofficially done away with. The punishment wasn’t unheard of.

“The former route was across Azrael’s Double D range,” Leyton said. “Unbeknownst, we reckon, to Azrael himself. I reckon when a gold company’s in cahoots with the U.S. government and Mexico, they figure they can do what they want. Anyway, I knew the new route had to be somewhere around here, too, because Azrael’s land is about the only place the route could go because of the mountains on both sides of it. Since they must have taken several bullion shipments along that route recently, we figured we’d cut their sign. Hard to hide the tracks of one heavy wagon and a four-mule hitch as well as a good half dozen or so horseback riders.”

“Since you look so pleased with yourself,” Longarm said, “I take it you did cut it.”

Leyton glanced behind him at the big man with the Big Fifty, who sat sipping a beer and a tequila shot and staring owlishly at Longarm. “Fuentes and the man you killed, Maximillian, stumbled onto it a couple days ago.

“Not only did he discover the new route, my friend, but Fuentes and I spied the wagons crossing the border. Early today. Moving at a snail’s pace. Tomorrow, we ride out, wait for them, and hit them!”

Leyton slapped his hands together sharply, causing several of the Mexicans in the room to jump.

He laughed, pleased with himself, and Longarm thought he must be an imposter. The Jack Leyton he’d known was nothing like this gold-hungry monster before him who saw the killing of five good lawmen as merely a sad misstep. Then, again, a fortune in gold will bring out the worst in just about everyone. Longarm had seen it many times in the past.

Leyton added, “I just sent a rider back to the Double D with the information, including the place where we’re all going to meet and wait. As slow as the gold wagon’s moving, there’s no hurry. The rain might slow them further. Whenever they arrive, we will be there, waiting.”

Longarm hardened his jaws. He looked at Leyton and then at Mercado grinning like the cat that ate the canary beside the ranger. He looked over at the six other men parked at two tables on the room’s right side. Longarm’s trigger finger itched.

The muscles in in his back and legs were bunched, coiled, ready to spring.

He had to fight hard to keep himself from bounding up, blasting away with his .44. Leyton and Mercado’s pistols were holstered. He might be able to shoot both of them. Might . The others were watching him closely, reading his mind, a few quirking their lips as though daring him to attempt what he was on the verge of attempting.

If he did manage to take out both gang leaders sitting across from him, he’d be dead a half second later. On the other hand, he was likely on the verge of death right now.

What did he have to lose?

Leyton and Mercado stared at him, both with similar expressions on their faces, their eyes bright with the whiskey they’d been swilling. Longarm’s heart thudded heavily. His trigger finger kept itching.

“Custis, let it go,” Leyton said. “There’s not a damn thing you can do to stop us. We got us a brand-new Gatling gun we stole from the rurales —the locals—just across the border. We’ve been planning this takedown for over a year. Shit, Vonda even got herself hitched to that stupid Stretch Azrael so she could keep a closer eye on his range and add his money to our takedown. Them Azraels are loaded, don’t ya know, and Vonda’d never let even a single three-cent piece slip between her greedy fingers. Besides, she liked ole Stretch’s company, I reckon. She likes big men, Vonda does. Likes to use ’em and break ’em like a branch over her knee.”

The ranger grinned lustily. “That’s a girl that can’t get enough of it. I wouldn’t doubt it if you found that out for yourself.” He winked.

Longarm’s ears couldn’t burn anymore than they already did. He was trapped. He knew the whole story, and like Leyton said, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

“What happened to Sullivan?” he asked.

Leyton grimaced, glanced over his shoulder at the big man with the Big Fifty lying across his table. Fuentes said, “Maximillian,” and then slid his right index finger across his throat and grinned.

“I gave him the chance to throw in with us, Custis. He wouldn’t take it. Young and brimmin’ with honor, that kid.”

“Too yellow to do it yourself?” Longarm said, wrinkling a nostril at the ex-ranger whom he now wanted to kill as much or more than he’d ever wanted to kill anyone.

“It grieves me; it really does, but he would have thrown a wrench into everything we had going down here.”

“You bastard.”

Leyton shrugged that off. “I got a proposition for you, Custis. Don’t make Matt’s mistake. Throw in with us.”

Longarm laughed, flabbergasted. “You think I’d switch sides now, after all these years. What kind of a man do you think I am, Jack?” He slitted his eyes, felt the fire of fury searing his cheeks. “A man like you ? A gutless turncoat coward ?”

He said to hell with it and started to come out of his chair, sliding his hand toward the walnut grips of his Colt. The Apache girl, replacing a new bottle with an empty one on the table of Mexican cutthroats to Longarm’s right, gasped amidst a shrill tearing sound.

Longarm whipped his head around to see one of the men at that table holding her torn shirt in his hands and grinning lasciviously. She swung around, dropping the empty bottle and cupping her heavy, brown breasts in her hands, her brown eyes firing copper spears of hatred at her aggressor.