“That’s just what I was thinkin’,” said Coffin as he leaned over to jerk loose the reins from the flowering shrub where he had tied them.
Longarm saw that Coffin had brought the bay mare from the stable. With a grunt of approval, he slung Sonia’s body over the back of the horse, just in front of the saddle. Holding her there awkwardly, he mounted the bay and took hold of its reins.
A group of outlaws came boiling around the corner of the house, while several more ran out the rear door. One of the men yelled orders in Spanish, while another shouted, “There they are! Don’t let ‘em get away!”
Longarm snapped a shot at the group on the patio while Coffin threw lead at the ones near the corner of the house. The gunfire made all of the outlaws duck back into cover. Longarm and Coffin jabbed the heels of their boots into the flanks of their mounts, and the horses leaped forward into a gallop.
Wisely, Coffin had left the rear gate open when he brought the horses from the stable. The fugitives galloped through the opening as guns began to bang behind them. The outlaws had hesitated before opening fire, obviously fearing—and rightly so—that Sonia was with Longarm and Coffin. But they were unwilling to let the two lawmen escape, even if it meant taking a chance on hitting Sonia.
Riding fast in the dark like this was a chancy proposition, but Longarm and Coffin had no choice. They circled the hacienda at breakneck speed, heading for the trail that led to the gap at the end of the valley. Longarm had his hands full keeping Sonia on the horse with one hand while trying to control the galloping animal with the other.
He was also worried about Walt Scott. The man called El Aguila had to have heard the shots from the hacienda. Scott might figure that Longarm and Coffin had already been recaptured or killed. Would he go through with the planned diversion? Even if Scott intended to carry on with the plan, he might run into some of the outlaws before he was able to set off the dynamite.
Longarm figured that he and Coffin would have to outrun the pursuit to the gap and fight their way past the guards. They couldn’t count on any help from Walt Scott.
The big house fell behind them. Longarm glanced over his shoulder and saw a clump of riders coming after them. Orange fire winked from gun muzzles, and Longarm faintly heard the shots over the pounding of hooves. Coffin was a little ahead of him, the Ranger’s big buckskin not being forced to carry double. Neither of the lawmen tried to return the fire from behind them. Their ammunition was limited, and they might need all of it to get through the gap up ahead.
The trail sloped steadily upward, slowing the horses even more. But it would slow down the outlaws’ mounts too, Longarm thought, trying to reassure himself. Another quick look back told him that the pursuit wasn’t much closer. And the gap was only a few hundred yards ahead.
They had a chance. A slim one, but still a chance.
Longarm looked at the opening between the two spires of rock and bit back a groan of dismay. Enough moonlight shone down for him to see the riders who had suddenly blocked the gap. They were coming through from the other side, he realized.
The revolutionaries! The insurrectionists who wanted to overthrow Diaz who had been coming to the hacienda tonight to meet with Barton and Sonia—that had to be who the horsemen in the gap were, Longarm thought. Now the only escape route from the valley was truly blocked.
Shots began to come from up ahead. The guards at the gap must have realized that some of the prisoners were trying to flee. They would enlist the aid of the revolutionaries, and Longarm and Coffin would be mercilessly cut down. With only a handful of bullets between them, there was no way they could fight through such overwhelming odds.
Suddenly, a bright red star seemed to fall among the horsemen blocking the opening. But it wasn’t a star at all, Longarm realized. It was the burning, hissing end of a length of fuse connected to a stick of dynamite. And it hadn’t fallen from the heavens, but from one of the towering cliffs beside the gap. With a blast that shook the earth and lit up the night, the dynamite went off.
As the echo of the explosion rolled away through the valley and the screams of men and horses filled the air, more of the glowing points of light fell like drops of crimson rain. Longarm and Coffin never slowed down as more blasts shattered what had been a still, peaceful night. They galloped on toward the holocaust that the passage through the mountains had become.
It had to be Walt Scott up there throwing down the dynamite, Longarm realized. He must have heard the shots from the house and changed the plan, knowing that Longarm and Coffin would be leaving in a hurry. Somehow, he had gotten up there above the gap in time to use the dynamite to blast a way through for the fugitives.
Maybe Scott had soared up there like the eagle that was his namesake, Longarm thought wildly. Right now he didn’t care how Scott had managed the feat. The important thing was that once again he and Coffin had a chance to get away with Sonia.
The rain of dynamite had stopped. As Longarm and Coffin raced up the last stretch of trail leading to the opening, Longarm heard an ominous rumble. He cast a desperate glance at the twin towers of rock flanking the gap, but it was too dark to see anything. He knew that the blasts could have loosened some of the rock, and an avalanche might be about to drop tons of stone and earth into the gap. “Go! Go!” Longarm shouted at Coffin. They might have only seconds to clear the opening.
No gunfire sounded as they approached the gap. The guards and the revolutionaries were all either dead or unconscious from their wounds. Longarm and Coffin had to weave their horses around gaping holes in the ground that had been blasted out by the dynamite. Bodies were sprawled everywhere.
Longarm tried not to think about the carnage. Some of the revolutionaries probably hadn’t been bad men at all, merely men who’d wanted a fairer shake from their government. But they had allied themselves with a group of bloodthirsty outlaws, and they had paid the price for that folly. Longarm certainly wouldn’t have traded his own life or that of Coffin for those of the revolutionaries.
The rumbling noise grew louder as the two lawmen raced through the gap. Pebbles pelted Longarm’s back, and he knew that at least part of the wall was coming down. He leaned forward, shielding Sonia as much as he could with his own body. A fist-sized chunk of rock slammed into his left shoulder and made that arm go numb. Longarm gritted his teeth against the pain and kept riding. Coffin was right in front of him.
Then, with a roar that dwarfed that of the exploding dynamite earlier, huge sections of the rock wall to the left began to turn loose and slide down into the gap. A massive cloud of dust enveloped Longarm so that he could no longer see where he was going. He knew they had to be almost out of the opening, but would they make it in time?
Fresh air whipped the choking dust away from his face, and Longarm gratefully drew in big breaths of it. He looked up as he rode, and saw stars all around him on both sides. They were out of the gap. Behind them, more rock fell, blocking the opening.
Longarm’s heart thudded heavily in his chest, both from the horror of almost being crushed beneath tons of rock and from relief at the narrowness of their escape. Not only had he and Coffin made it through, but the avalanche would effectively close off the gap for quite some time, maybe forever. Any pursuers would have to either dig through the wall of fallen rock or find some other way out of the valley and take the long way around.
Either way, he and Coffin would have a good-sized lead before anyone could come after them.