The Three Mercenaries Page 7

  “Then he will be there for a while?”

  “Yes,” Francisco said, “likely most of the night. How is Juanito?”

  “Asleep.”

  “Then we are safe.”

  She shrugged and the robe fell to the floor, revealing her to be naked. She was once a slender beauty, but with large breasts. Now in her fifties she had become a voluptuous beauty, with large breasts and wide hips, full buttocks and thighs. Francisco still found her to be the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, just as he had the first day his brother had brought her home thirty years before. They had only begun to sleep together two years earlier. Neither had planned it, but now they had no way of stopping it.

  He took her into his arms and kissed her, his hands roaming over her body, down her back until he was clutching her ass cheeks, pulling her to him. He kissed her hungrily, while her hands snaked between them to undo his trousers. When they dropped to the floor, he stepped out of them, then lifted her and carried her to the bed. By the time he dropped her on it, his cock was fully erect.

  He climbed on the bed with her, positioned himself between her legs, and drove himself into her. Being with each other in the house of Inocencio Montoya meant they didn’t have much time for anything else.

  * * *

  Downstairs Inocencio Montoya poured himself another glass of tequila and sat back in his chair. It was no surprise that Clint Adams had gone out and gotten himself some help. However, it did surprise him that the Gunsmith had hired mercenaries. He knew Mel Harker was a hard man. From everything he knew about the other two, Piper and Autry, they were also hard.

  Montoya knew he and his family could kill them. They would overwhelm them with numbers, but in the doing of it, they might lose more than a few cousins. So perhaps he needed more than just family members for this.

  Perhaps he needed some mercenaries of his own.

  He looked up at the ceiling. He knew what was probably going on upstairs. His brother and his wife thought he didn’t know what was going on, but he did. He just wasn’t ready to make them pay—yet. But they would, both of them, when the time was right.

  He took out a piece of paper, dipped a quill into an inkwell, and began to write. Mexico had its own mercenaries, its own hard men who would match up very well with the hard gringos.

  * * *

  When Sheriff Calderon reached the small house that had come with the badge, he went inside and lit a lamp. He removed his gun, took the badge from his shirt, and dropped it on the table next to the lamp. It was dull, having long since lost its shine. The badge had been handed down from sheriff to sheriff over many years. Many men had died wearing that badge, and he had no desire to be one of them.

  He washed himself and got ready for bed. First, though, he poured himself a glass of tequila and drank it slowly.

  He had no intentions of getting between Inocencio Montoya and Clint Adams. All that would do was get him riddled with bullets. Another dead man with a badge.

  What he would do when it was all over, however, depended on who came out of it alive.

  He was hungry. He had no wife to cook for him, so he had to eat some old tacos he had in his kitchen. After washing them down with more tequila, he then went to his small bedroom. In bed, under the covers, he laced his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. Perhaps his time in this job was ready to end. Maybe another man would hire some deputies and try to stop the coming gun battle, but that idea just did not appeal to him.

  His badge was lying on the table in the living room next to the lamp. Maybe the thing to do come morning was just walk out of the house and ride away, leaving that badge right where it was.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Clint took the last watch.

  Even though he didn’t think it was necessary, he couldn’t very well make Harker sit up all night, so he relieved him after four hours and let the man go to sleep.

  He was still sitting at the table when Carmelita came into the cantina.

  “Señor,” she said, “have you been there all night?”

  “No,” he said, “only half.”

  “You must need coffee.”

  “Yes, thank you,” he said. “A lot of it.”

  “I will bring it right out.”

  Before long the good strong smell of coffee filled the place, and then she carried a pot and a mug to him and set them down on the table.

  “Gracias, Carmelita,” he said.

  “I can make you some breakfast.”

  “I’ll wait for my friends to arrive,” he said. “Just do what you normally do in the morning.”

  “I must ready the kitchen for the day.”

  “Then don’t let me stop you,” he said.

  She smiled at him and went back into the kitchen.

  * * *

  Rodrigo came out about an hour later, bade Clint good morning, and went into the kitchen to help his wife.

  Mel Harker came out next, sat down with Clint, and poured some coffee into a mug Rodrigo had brought out for him.

  “Breakfast?” Rodrigo asked.

  Harker looked at Clint.

  “We’ll wait for our other friends,” Clint said. “They should be here soon.”

  “Sí, señor.”

  When Rodrigo opened the front doors for the business day to start, the first ones through the door were Willie Piper and Jed Autry.

  Rodrigo brought out more coffee, and all four men asked him to bring breakfast.

  “Just bring everything,” Autry said. The big man had a huge appetite.

  “You fellas sleep all right?” Harker asked. He was looking at Autry. “Your eyes are red.”

  “He snores,” Autry said sourly.

  “Why am I not surprised?” Harker asked.

  “Hey, I can’t help it,” Piper said. “Besides, I’m used to living alone.”

  “I think I know why,” Autry said.

  “What’s that mean?” Piper demanded.

  “It means I don’t think you could get a woman to live with you,” Harker said.

  “I wouldn’t want no woman to live with me,” Piper said. “Females is more trouble than they’re worth.”

  “No they ain’t,” Autry said.

  “I’ve got to agree,” Clint said.

  “Women,” Piper grumbled as if it were a dirty word.

  “A woman cooked all this food,” Harker said.

  “And that’s probably all they’re good for,” Piper said.

  “Don’t let a woman who cooks your food hear you say that,” Harker advised.

  Piper looked down at the breakfast burrito in his hand, then said, “Awww,” and bit into it.

  * * *

  After breakfast, Autry asked Clint what his plan was.

  “Well, I was thinking about waiting for Montoya to make his move,” Clint said, “but now I’m thinking, why wait? Why give him the first move?” He looked at Harker. “You said he never moves until he’s looked at all the angles.”

  “I said something like that, yeah.”

  “Well,” Clint said, “maybe we should take that time away from him.”

  “How do you plan to do that?” Piper asked.

  “By going to see him.”

  “You’re gonna ride right into the lion’s den?” Autry asked.

  “We all are,” Clint said.

  “All of us?” Piper asked. “Riding right up to his house?”

  Clint looked at Harker.

  “He won’t be ready for us, right? Won’t have all his family gathered?”

  “Probably not,” Harker said, “but . . .”

  “But what?” Clint asked.

  “Well, you’re the boss of this outfit, but . . .”

  “Go ahead,” Clint said. “I’ll listen to anybody’s comments.”

  “We gotta figure th
at Montoya knows about the three of us by now,” Harker said. “That we’re ridin’ with you.”

  “That’s the way I figure it.”

  “Well, he’s got to know that his family might not fare so well against four pros,” Harker said. “All he’ll have on his side are numbers.”

  “I’d put the four of us up against a bunch of amateurs any day,” Autry said.

  “That’s my point,” Harker said.

  “What?”

  “I get it,” Clint said. “You think since I hired some pros, he’s going to do the same.”

  “That’s what I figure.”

  “Who would he hire?”

  “Mexicans.”

  “Mexican mercenaries?” Clint asked. “Are there a lot around here?”

  “We’re in Mexico, Clint,” Harker said. “There’s plenty.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Inocencio Montoya looked up from the table as Francisco entered the dining room.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “Good morning,” Francisco said. He looked around. “Is Maria coming down for breakfast?”

  “She is with Juanito,” Montoya said. “They are having breakfast together in his room, so it is just you and I, my brother.”

  “Ah . . . bueno,” Francisco said, sitting down.

  The cook, a middle-aged Mexican woman named Conchita, brought out platters of food—eggs, refried beans, ham, tortillas—and the two men began to eat.

  “What are your plans today?” Francisco asked. “Did you think of a plan last night?”

  “Roberto Del Plata.”

  Francisco was in the act of reaching for a tortilla, but stopped when he heard the name.

  “Roberto? But . . . you hate each other.”

  “Right now, not as much as I hate Clint Adams,” Montoya said.

  “But he hates you.”

  “For enough money he will put that aside,” Montoya said.

  “Possibly,” Francisco said.

  Montoya grabbed some eggs and ham—the cook made them especially for him, since he liked them so much—and rolled them up in a tortilla. He took a bite and chewed.

  “What will you have him do?” his brother asked.

  “Hire five other men,” Montoya said. “We need professional guns to combat professional guns.”

  “The Gunsmith will not expect that?”

  “He might,” Montoya said. “Harker certainly will.”

  “That man,” Francisco said. “You should have killed him last time, instead of paying him.”

  “You might be right,” Montoya said. “Lately I find I am not killing the people I should be killing when they deserve to be killed.”

  Once again Francisco stopped himself before biting into his food. What did his brother mean by that?

  “After breakfast I want you and Mejías to find him.” Mejías was the foreman of Montoya’s ranch, his segundo. “Bring him here. I will allow him to choose the men we hire.”

  “As you wish.”

  “What is your problem with this?” Montoya asked.

  “We usually handle family business ourselves.”

  “I know that,” Montoya said. “I am the one who makes sure of that, but in this case we cannot depend on our family to handle these mercenaries. We need professionals.”

  “Yes, of course,” Francisco said.

  “This will save the lives of some of our sons and cousins, Francisco,” Montoya went on, “but will see to it that our family business gets done.”

  “Of course you are right, Inocencio,” Francisco said. His brother’s previous statement still bothered him. Did he know? Did Inocencio know about his brother and his wife? No, he certainly would have said something long before this.

  After breakfast, Montoya rose and said, “I am going to look in on Juanito. You and Mejías get Del Plata here quickly.”

  “I will do that immediately,” Francisco said.

  He left the dining room with his brother, then stood there and watched as Montoya went up the stairs and disappeared down the hall. Reluctantly, Francisco opened the door and went out.

  * * *

  Francisco found Mejías by the corral, watching one of the men work a pony. He told the man what Montoya’s orders were.

  “Roberto Del Plata?” Enrique Mejías asked. “But . . . he hates the boss.”

  “And the boss hates him,” Francisco added, “but my brother feels we need him.”

  Mejías shrugged and said, “Well, better Del Plata than some of our own hands. Our men are vaqueros, not gunmen.”

  “And we have no gunmen in the family either,” Francisco said. “So Inocencio feels we need some professional guns.”

  “Del Plata is possibly the fastest gun in all of Mexico,” Mejías said. “I would like to see him face the Gunsmith.”

  “So would I,” Francisco said, “and that is probably what will happen.”

  Mejías called one of the other men over, gave him some instructions, then said to Francisco, “I will saddle the horses.”

  “I will meet you at the barn,” Francisco said. “I am going to get my rifle from my room.”

  “Bueno.”

  * * *

  As Inocencio Montoya entered his son’s room, Maria Montoya turned her head to look at him, then looked away. These days she could barely stand the sight of her husband.

  For his part, Montoya wondered if he should just kill her now, in front of her son. It might teach him a lesson about loyalty. If he’d had his gun on him at that moment, he might have shot her.

  He knew his brother and wife were rutting behind his back. What he had a hard time deciding was whether to kill one or both of them. And if it was one, which one? Which was the bigger betrayal? And going forward with his ranch and his business, which of them did he need the most?

  Maria was holding her son’s hand, and Montoya knew that if he did not do something soon, the boy would be a hopeless momma’s boy.

  So in the end, that might have been the deciding factor in Montoya’s decision to kill his wife. Now the only question was . . . when?

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Clint finally got the three mercenaries to agree to his plan. He did not want to force any of them to ride with him if they weren’t on board.

  They all saddled their horses and met in front of Carmelita’s Cantina.

  Piper leaned over to Harker while they were waiting for Clint to come out and asked, “What if we’re ridin’ into a hornet’s nest?”

  “Should be fun,” Harker said.

  “You’re a crazy man,” Piper said. “I don’t do this for fun. This is business.”

  “If you really felt that way,” Autry said, “you wouldn’t even be in that saddle unless you got paid up front.”

  “Well,” Piper said grudgingly, “the chance to ride with the Gunsmith . . .”

  “We get it,” Harker said.

  Clint Adams came out of the cantina and the three mercenaries fell silent.

  “Ready?” Clint asked.

  “As ready as we’ll ever be,” Harker said.

  “Now remember,” Clint said, mounting up, “no gunplay unless they initiate it.”

  “Seems to me we’d intimidate them more with some gunplay,” Autry said. “I mean, we are looking to intimidate them, right?”

  “Why don’t we just shoot up the place?” Piper asked.

  Clint turned Eclipse so he could face all three men.

  “This is not fun for me,” he said. “If we can get through this without firing a shot, I’d prefer it.”

  “And if we don’t fire a shot,” Harker said, “if we ride in there and they back down today, we still get paid, right?”

  “That’s right,” Clint said. “This is not blood money. You get paid simply for backing my play—whatever that play
is.”

  “Well, let’s go, then,” Piper said. “Sooner we get this over with, the better for everybody.”

  “Amen,” Clint said. He pointed at Harker. “You’ve been out there before, so you lead the way.”

  “Got it.”

  They left Acuña single file . . .

  * * *

  Inocencio Montoya looked up as his younger son, Pablo, came barreling into the room, looking wild-eyed.

  “What is it?” Montoya asked. “What is wrong?”

  “He is coming, Papa.”

  “Who is coming?”

  “Clint Adams,” Pablo said. “The Gunsmith. He is coming.”

  “Here? Now?”

  “He is almost here!”

  “Is he alone?”

  “No, Papa. He has three riders with him.”

  “All right.” Montoya stood.

  “Should I get the men—”

  “No,” Montoya said. “No men, and no guns. Leave yours here.”

  “B-But Papa—”

  “Leave your gun here, Pablito,” Montoya said. He only called Pablo “Pablito” when he was deadly serious.

  “Yes, Papa.” Pablo removed his weapon and the bandolero he wore.

  “Now we go out,” Montoya said.

  * * *

  As Clint and his mercenaries approached the house, some of the vaqueros stopped their work to look at them.

  “They’re not armed,” Clint pointed out.

  “They never are,” Harker pointed out. “They are vaqueros, not gunmen.”

  As they got closer, the front door opened and Montoya stepped out with his younger son by his side. Neither man was wearing a gun.

  “See anything?” Clint asked.

  “Nothing,” Piper said.

  “Me neither,” Autry said. “Doesn’t look like we’re covered from any direction.”

  “Okay,” Clint said.

  When they reached the house, they reined in their horses, stood four abreast.

  “Señor Montoya,” Clint said.

  “Señor Adams,” Montoya said. “To what do we owe this visit? Have you and your mercenaries come to shoot up my ranchero?”

  “Nobody’s shooting anything up, señor,” Clint said. “I just wanted you to know that whatever you are planning, I will not be alone.”