Within minutes, the four men reached the base of his hill and were peering up the gradually sloping trail. He could start shooting them now, but the question was: Which way would the survivors flee? If they headed downhill, they could return with more men. If they fled uphill, they’d be out of sight for most of the way. They could dog his trail and blindside him whenever they wanted. He sighted in on a narrow curve a hundred yards farther up the incline from them.
Leaning forward in their saddles, peering up the trail, the men slowly worked their way forward. When their mounts entered the downward-sloping turn in the trail, Slater eared back the Sharps’s hammer. Even if he only winged them, it would be with .50 caliber rounds, designed to kill four-thousand-pound bison at eight hundred yards, so he did not need to nail the men between the eyes—not unless he wanted to. And anyway in times like this, it was usually better to wound your pursuers. The sight of a shot-up compadre tended to slow the other men down, and it typically took at least two of them to look after a wounded friend. Pressing his eye against the peep sight, he bracketed the lead rider’s torso.
Your first look is your best look, Slater reflexively repeated to himself.
He let the hammer down, and the rifle bucked against his shoulder. The booming recoil rocked his head.
Without thinking, he automatically pushed the trigger guard forward and extracted a shell casing. Setting the hammer to half cock, he quickly sleeved in another round and pulled back the trigger guard. He also engaged the rear trigger, which lightened the primary trigger’s touch.
Staring into the peep sight, he lined up a second target. The man was mounted and staring uphill, trying to spot the sniper. Suddenly, he was staring straight at Slater. He might have even spotted the whitish cloud of black powder smoke emanating from Slater’s Sharps. Dispersing the smoke-cloud with his left hand, Slater sighted in on the man’s chest and squeezed off a round. The bullet hit his lower sternum, lifting him off his saddle and dropping him behind his horse.
Slater was working fast. He had to kill the two survivors before they could return for reinforcements. Easing back the hammer to half cock, he slammed the trigger guard forward and extracted the shell casing from the chamber. Slipping in another, he pulled the trigger guard all the way back. The hammer was still on half cock, so he set the primary for the lighter touch. One man’s horse was up on its hind legs, circling, insanely spooked at the sight and scent of blood. Slater went for the rider’s chest, but rushing the shot, he hit him instead in the throat, effectively decapitating him. The man’s head went bouncing down the trail.
The fourth man’s horse was now bucking wildly, so much so Slater couldn’t get a shot at the man, who was whipping up and down in the scope.
Fuck it.
He frantically set the hammer at half cock, slammed the trigger guard forward, ripped out the shell, pulled the lever back, and without bothering with the second trigger, sighted in on the crazed, jumping mount. Shooting the horse in the side of his chest and through his heart, Slater knocked the big bay onto his side, pinning the rider’s leg. Bracing his free leg against the saddle’s cantle, the man pushed frantically to free himself from the fallen animal.
Setting the hammer at half cock and levering the trigger guard, Slater removed the spent, smoking shell casing. Now he had all the time in the world. He inserted a fifth round and pulled the hammer back to full cock. Returning to the peep sight, he was staring straight into the howling man’s face.
As he depressed the trigger, the rifle once more hammered his shoulder, the whitish black-powder smoke mushroomed up, and again his ears rung. Waving away the dense, blinding haze, he again studied the scene below.
The pinned-down man lay twisted on his side, the back of his head blown all over the ground and the dead, bloody bay.
Chapter 26
At night, Mateo brooded. His clubbing of Rachel outside the cantina still haunted him. He hadn’t been ready for the ferocity of her assault. In defending her brother, she had attacked him like a demon straight out of hell, and in a moment of anger and perhaps even panic, he’d laid her out with the weighted buttstock of his cuarta-quirt. He’d felt something crack and then realized he’d hit her too hard.
Why had he hit her in the temple? He now secretly feared he’d killed the girl.
He felt bad enough about it that he’d approached General Ortega one night in his office.
* * *
“The important thing,” the general had said to him, “is that her brother didn’t witness it. He doesn’t know how badly you hurt her. According to the man who took the cantina over, the sister and Eléna, the former owner, took a train north, and that’s all anyone knows. And who knows? Maybe the sister made it. Stranger things have happened. We’ve all seen men who were wounded severely in battle survive. Whether she lives or dies is in the lap of the gods and should be of no concern to you. It’s nothing you can affect. In all probability no one down here will ever know, her brother included.”
“She was just a kid, and I really hurt her. I don’t know what came over me.”
“We’re soldados,” the general said with surprising gentleness. “We aren’t trained to pull our punches.”
Mateo stared at him, silent.
“My friend,” the general said, “it can’t be undone.”
“Still . . .”
The general put his hand on Mateo’s shoulder. “You’re a soldier—a professional, and the hard truth is we have a war to fight. You can’t let anything distract you. Look at it this way: In any war there is collateral damage. Maybe Ricardo’s’s sister was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“General Ortega, she was only trying to help her brother.”
“Sí, mi amigo, but that’s the way it happens sometimes.”
* * *
The general was right, of course. Mateo could not rewrite the past. What was done was done. The blow to her head—no matter how bad he felt about it—was on his backtrail. He had to move on. He was also right that at this moment their real problem was defeating Díaz’s and the Señorita’s troops, and the survival of Sonora—of all of them—was at stake. A drunken mistake—no matter how tragic—had happened, but that was over now. It could not be altered or recalled.
It was over.
Still he suffered—as did the woman.
Assuming she was even alive.
However, he could conceivably affect the future. Maybe that was the key. Maybe you redeemed past sins by redeeming the future and helping—even saving—those you cared about.
Maybe he could keep the girl’s brother alive. After all, he’d played a dirty trick on him—dragooning the poor boy into the Sonoran rurales. Furthermore, he was starting to like the kid, something he hadn’t counted on, since he was not a man with muchos amigos. Throughout his hard life he’d found compadres to be an unaffordable extravagance. Still almost against his will he was starting to like, even admire, the young man.
Sorry I got you into all this, Ricardo.
Oh well, the past cannot be undone.
It couldn’t, but Mateo could fight for the future. He could fight for Sonora. The girl’s brother would help him, and, in turn, he would watch the boy’s back. Maybe that would help to make up for what he’d done to the young man’s sister—and to Ricardo.
He hoped in his soul it would.
Chapter