Ambush at Shadow Valley by Ralph Cotton Page B

gone.’’
    Cecille grabbed the jar of oil and its lid from the tabletop on her way, then ran out of the room, slamming the rear door behind herself. Clarimonde slumped down into a chair and held her head in her cupped hands for a moment, wondering when her nightmare would end. Then she stood up, walked out the door into a stone hallway and followed it to a room where she found stores of cornmeal, dried beans and other food supplies. Without hesitation she took down a stained apron from a peg, tied it around her waist and went to work.
    Outside in the courtyard, Ransdale stared at Soto, still getting used to his freshly shaved head and the strange tattoos that covered the top of it like a decorative skull cap. ‘‘With every day that goes by, I learn something new about you,’’ he said. As he spoke he pitched the bloody hammer to the ground and stuck his hands out under the water from the stone cherub’s mouth, washing them.
    â€˜â€˜Are you complaining, mi amigo ?’’ Soto asked in a firm tone.
    â€˜â€˜No! Not at all,’’ said Ransdale, stunned at hearing the words in Spanish coming from Soto’s lips. ‘‘Just commenting is all.’’ He slung water from his hands and finished drying them on his trousers. ‘‘Uh-oh,’’ he said, his hands slowed to a halt, his right hand poised near his gun as he spotted the old Indian step into sight as if from out of nowhere. ‘‘Look who’s here.’’
    A glistening machete hung from the Indian’s right hand.
    â€˜â€˜I see him,’’ Soto said calmly. ‘‘I figured the old man’s scream would bring him out. These Mayan converts never fly far from the nest.’’ He nodded toward the wounded priest. ‘‘They need someone like this one to lay the whip to their backs.’’ Stepping toward the Mayan, he spoke to him in a language that Ransdale did not recognize. The Indian replied in the same language and went into a crouch as if to defend himself.
    â€˜â€˜Huh?’’ Ransdale looked puzzled. ‘‘What did you say to one another?’’
    â€˜â€˜I asked him what kind of fool stands with a machete before a man with a loaded gun,’’ said Soto. ‘‘He called me a dirty name.’’ He gave a thin, cruel grin, lifting his Colt arm’s length with his left hand, level to the Indian’s naked chest. ‘‘Can you imagine that?’’ He cocked the Colt. ‘‘He called me a dirty name ?’’
    â€˜â€˜ Por favor , let him go, por favor ,’’ the old priest moaned from against the thick wooden door where Ransdale had spread his arms and nailed him into place.
    â€˜â€˜There this one goes again. He’s talking Spanish to you again,’’ Ransdale said quietly, to see what Soto’s reaction would be toward the priest.
    But Soto ignored him. Instead, he raised his right palm toward the Indian and took another step forward.
    â€˜â€˜Yep, every day it’s something new . . . ,’’ Ransdale repeated under his breath, slipping his gun from its holster and holding it ready, even though Soto had the Indian covered.
    Clarimonde had stiffened instinctively at the sound of the single gunshot from the courtyard. But she did not go to the stone window ledge and look out on the courtyard to see what had happened. Instead she kept herself busy kindling a small fire in a corner hearth on which to boil a pot of beans hanging on an iron pothook.
    Had she looked out upon the courtyard she would have seen the Indian fall to the ground, mortally wounded, and she would have seen Suelo Soto walk over and take the machete from his hand. She would have also seen Bess, the shepherd bitch, slink into the mission through the open front gate and work her way around the perimeter, going unnoticed while the two men stood over the dying Indian like vultures, Soto