the snakes opened their fanged mouths and struck at the still-warm body, sensing food in their presence. The old mine shafts contained thousands of snakes; they slithered and rattled in the darkness ...

"Who the f.u.c.k axed you?" Red snarled at the man.

Hull's body was rapidly turning black from the ma.s.sive amounts of venom being injected into his dead flesh ...

"Jesus!" West whispered. He had banged his still-sore stump getting away from the dead driver.

"What was all that hollerin'?"

The rattlers, some of them eight and ten feet long, wound and coiled around Hull's body. One stuck its head into Hull's open mouth and sank its fangs into the dead man's tongue ...

"Let's back off "bout another half-mile, West," a man suggested. "We'll cut 'cross country and link up with Texas Red that away."

"d.a.m.n good idea," West said.

Hull's body was now completely covered by the rattlesnakes. The swelling carca.s.s seemed to expand with new life.

And the snakes waited for yet more food to fall their way.

"One group is pullin" back, Ben!"

Jordy called.

"Good boy. Keep a sharp lookout, kids,"

Ben called. He turned to Rani. "We won the first round."

"The fight isn't over yet," she reminded him. "Think positive, dear. Think positive."

Chapter 21.

Ben watched the column headed by West pull back. Shortly afterward, he noticed dust from the north, tracking east, heading toward Texas Red's location.

"That screaming a few moments ago?" Rani asked.

"Someone stepped into one of the old shafts," Ben told her. "We shortened the odds some the first go-around."

"We're going to need more than that," Rani said glumly.

Ben laughed. "Go tell the kids to stand easy but not to leave their posts. We're going to have a few hours respite."

"And then?" she asked.

"Then all h.e.l.l breaks loose." He looked toward the east. "Be interesting to know what those c.r.a.p-heads are talking about," he muttered.

"Jake's gonna be plenty p.i.s.sed about this,"

West said.

"f.u.c.k Campo!" Texas Red said. "He don't spell Jack-s.h.i.t to me."

But West thought, and thought correctly, most of that was pure macho bravado. West had yet to meet anyone who wasn't, at best, leery of Jake Campo-at worst, terrified of the big outlaw.

"We gonna have to approach this usin' some sense,"

Texas Red said. "I guess them Rebs of Raines must have fire-balled down here to join him.

He's got them scattered around the ruins of the town.

Problem is, I don't know how many of them they is."

"I can't see how that's possible," West countered. "Our guys was supposed to find them and box them in, wasn't they?"

"Findin' Raines' Rebs is one thing,"

Texas Red said. "Boxin' them in is something else."

"So what do we do?"'

"We wait and think this thing out."

Jake knew what had happened when Red and West were not at the prearranged meeting place. No honor among thieves, he thought.

He looked up at the sound of engines. Cowboy Vic's column roared into view.

"Where's the rest of the boys?" Vic asked.

"I would imagine they've gone on into that old ghost town just west of the Big Bend," Campo said. "That's what you had in mind, too, wasn't it?"'

"Yep," Vic said honestly. "I was thinkin' that whoever got Raines first, could write his own ticket. Wasn't you thinkin' the same, Jake?"'

Jake laughed. "Sure was."

"Thought so. That's why we all got down here a little early, wasn't it?"' "That's it. Well, maybe this isn't such a bad thing after all," Jake mused aloud.

"How you figure that?"

"We'll just lay back and let West and Texas Red soften up Raines and his bunch. Let them take the heaviest losses. Then we'll move in and pick up the pieces."

"And the glory," Cowboy Vic said, a trickle of s...o...b..r leaking out of one corner of his mouth.

"Right?"

"You got it." And then I'll kill you, Campo thought.

"Good plan," Cowboy Vic said. And when that's done, then I'll kill you, he thought.

The men looked at each other. Vic said, "You got anything to f.u.c.k with you? We picked up a few c.u.n.ts but they give us so much trouble we kilt them."

"Yeah," Campo said absently. "We picked up a s.h.i.t-pot full of women. Help yourself."

"Here they come, Ben!" Jordy shouted from the second floor. "A whole big bunch of them."

"Hold your fire!" Ben called. "We have to let them get into town."

"There ain't n.o.body in this d.a.m.n old place!"

Ben heard the voice drift faintly to him. "The G.o.dd.a.m.ned place is deserted."

"Hull fell in a hole in the ground!" another man shouted. "h.e.l.l, there ain't no Rebs here."

"Charge the house!" Texas Red's voice ripped the air. "There ain't n.o.body up there "cept Raines and the woman and kids. Go, boys, go!"

A dozen or more outlaws, thinking they had victory in the palm of their hands, came charging from the southeast. Ben waited until the panting, out-of-shape men were just beyond the stone fence before yelling the orders to fire.

The dozen went down under a hail of lead.

"Finish them!" Ben yelled.

The yelling of the wounded was silenced by single shots to the head.

West looked at Texas Red. "Thought you said this was gonna be easy?"

"Shut up, West. If you had any sense, you'd have been counting the rifles that was firing. I did. I figure no more than seven or eight people in there firing. Nine at the most. s.h.i.t, man! They's two hundred and fifty of us." He waved his hand, signaling the others to gather around him.

"Harrison, you take your bunch to the back of the house. Lee, you and your boys take the near side.

Jess, take the far side. Rest of you follow me, we're takin" the front. We can't burn them out, so we're gonna have to shoot them out of there.

Just keep up a steady fire. We get enough lead in there bouncin' around, we'll drive them out. Move out."

Ben picked up on their plans before the outlaws had a chance to put it into full operation. "Don't let them surround us!" he called.

"Stop them now!"

Texas Red's plan was only half accomplished. Both ends of the house were covered, but the intense fire from the house kept the front and back open, the gunfire driving the outlaws back time after time.

Roaming from top to bottom, one end of the house to the other, Ben counted thirty-five dead lying around the old house on the hill.

He told Rani, "If we can hold on through the night, this bunch will have a lot of quitters in it.

These men won't put up with losses like we've given them. They're not soldiers; they're trash, undisciplined gutter-slime. We've got to hang on."

Rani stuck out her chin. "My kids will do their best."

"I'm d.a.m.n proud of them. Every last one of them,"

Ben told her. Then he surprised her by leaning down and kissing her mouth. "And I'm proud of you, Rani. I'll soldier with you anytime, anyplace."

She touched her lips with her fingertips. Kneeling there, in the dust of the floor, her face blackened by gunsmoke and dirt, she smiled at him.

"We'll have to continue this later on, Ben."

"Looking forward to it, Rani."

"Here they come, Miss Rani!" Robert called.

The lines of men that ran at them were not nearly so full of bravado this time around. Ben could sense that many of the outlaws had already had a gutful of this fighting.

"Adjust your fire!" Ben yelled. "Shoot them in the guts. Aim for the center of the belly!"

The house rocked with gunfire; the air became smoky and hard to breathe; involuntary tears sprang into the eyes of the defenders, young and older alike.

The lines of men wavered, then broke completely and ran back to safety.

"Reload!" Ben called. "Reload all empty clips and stand ready."

Rani came to him. "Why did you tell us to shoot the men in the stomach, Ben?"

His smile was not pretty. "Listen closely, Rani."

The soul-wrenching screams of the gut-shot men on the outside were hideous to hear. They lay in pools of their own blood and howled in agony. Some were calling for mother to help them; others called for G.o.d to put an end to their suffering; others lay dying and cursed G.o.d.

Still others cursed Ben Raines.

"Can you imagine how demoralizing that is to their buddies?" Ben said, grim satisfaction in his voice.

"I never want you for an enemy, Ben," Rani told him.

"Why, darling," Ben replied. "I'm just doing what Uncle Sammy taught me to do-years ago." Dusk began draping purple curtains over the land. As the first fingers of darkness touched the old ghost town, Ben carefully checked each child's position.

He checked each weapon, making sure every available clip was full. He talked with each young warrior for a few moments, patting them on the shoulder, rea.s.suring them. With several, he stood their post while they went to the bathroom.

He told Rani, "You take the upstairs and I'll take it down here. The kids have got to get some sleep. Keep changing positions but do so staying low. I think they'll be sending in commando teams tonight to get inside the house. So if you see anything moving, don't shout the warning. Come to the stairs and tell me. OK?"

For a reply, she kissed him and then was gone in the gloom of the old house.