As for Hector, he had been chastised, in private, for his failure to maintain communications with the column while he made his own reconnaissance of Santa Rosa. There had been no need for public confrontation, with Camacho losing face in front of his subordinates, but if he failed a second time, Rivera would be forced to reinvestigate his options. And, if Hector failed him once again in Santa Rosa, he would not be going home alive.
Rivera called for coffee, studying the slender waitress as she served him, noting how she trembled in his presence. She was young, no more than twenty, probably eighteen, and she excited him, but he resisted the temptation to reach out and slip a hand beneath her skirt. She would not resist him — he could see that fear had sapped her will to fight — but he did not have time for games. Rivera's mind was focused on the task at hand, and a distraction was the last thing he needed. Maybe, when his work was done in Santa Rosa, he would take the waitress with him, keep her for a day or two to celebrate and pass the time. When he was finished with her, she could join the others in oblivion.
The dealer lit another of his cheroots and checked his watch against a large clock on the wall above the door. The townspeople had already wasted half of their allotted time, but he could wait. No one would interrupt them here. His men were on the highway, north and south, and the telephone lines had been cut down on either end of town. There was no local operator, no telegrapher, and as for CB radios, he would have to take his chances. If anyone got on the air, if anyone was listening...
He pushed the thought aside. Less than thirty minutes remained, and he would be long finished with his business in the little town before assistance could arrive. The sheriff's office was in Tucson — more than sixty miles away — and any solitary deputies who might respond, meanwhile, would be destroyed by his rear guard before they reached the town limits. Santa Rosa, for the moment, was entirely his, and he would use its people as he chose, in order to get answers, revenge.
The answers were important — who and why — but after so much wasted time, Rivera knew that he would settle for the gringo's head, a trophy that would prove once more that he was no one to be trifled with. There might be other ways to learn which of his many competitors had tried to put him out of business in a single stroke, and if he never learned the name at all, it might be enough to let the jackals know that they had failed, that their efforts were in vain.
Rivera could survive without the answers, but he could not go home without the stranger's head. Defeat would inevitably lead to other challenges, eventual defeat by someone stronger, quicker, and more cunning than himself. There was no point in leaving Santa Rosa if the stranger was alive, and so Rivera made his mind up that he would not leave, his gunners would not leave, until their job was done. No matter if the county sheriff came, the state police or the National Guard. Better for them all to die in combat than to tuck their tails and run like yellow dogs. Far better for them to find the gringo soon, mop up the witnesses and head for home.
His coffee had gone cold, and he called for more, eyes fastened on the waitress as she moved to serve him. The border crossing might yet have its rewards, he thought, and smiled.
Keeping to the alleys, crossing two blocks down from where his father and the Grundys stretched out side-by-side on Main Street, Rick spent thirteen minutes on his trek to reach the hardware store. Granted he had stopped to vomit twice along the way, but now the rolling of his empty stomach had subsided into steady, throbbing pain, and he was confident that he would not be forced to stop again. The image of his father hung before him like a grim mirage.
From the hardware store, he would be forced to cross the street again, but it would be all right, if he did not delay too long. The bastard with the microphone had promised them an hour, of which twenty-seven minutes remained. The gunners, standing watch beside the caravan, had not molested anyone so far, but Rick had felt compelled to reach the hardware store by a circuitous, deceptive route. He would not draw attention to the Schultzes, would not let himself be seen with them, not with the actions that he had in mind for later. If he failed — an almost certain bet, considering the odds and arms against him — Rick would not bring further wrath upon their heads. If he was not seen entering the store, or leaving it, the bastards might not take it out on Amy, on her parents.
Even as the thought took shape, Rick knew that he was being childishly naive. His father and the Grundys had been murdered in cold blood by men who did not take the time to hide their faces. Clearly they were not expecting any witnesses to walk away and spread the word of what had happened here today. The stage was being set for wholesale slaughter, but the leader of the wolf pack had delayed his final stroke while waiting for some stranger to be found in Santa Rosa. Once he was discovered and in the bag, there would be nothing to restrain the gunners, nothing to protect his neighbors, Amy, any of them.
But he still had time. While the invaders waited for their break, he had an opportunity to move against them, strike a blow for those they had already murdered. It was foolish to believe that he could kill them all before they cut him down, but if he took out a couple, if he did any good at all, it might encourage others to defend themselves. By his example, he might move the others to respond in kind, and if they pulled together, there was still a chance that they might win. A chance, at least, that some of them would walk away.
Rick Stancell did not think in terms of martyrdom or sacrifice. He had not come to terms with the idea that he was, suddenly, an orphan. There was no place in his mind for an examination of some hypothetical tomorrow: where he might wind up; who might be left among the dwindling stock of relatives to take him in; what would become of his ambitions, college, all the rest of it that added up to some uncertain concept called "the future." There could be no future now. If he disgraced himself and tried to run away, the animals would hunt him down and kill him. If he tried to move against them, they would surely drop him in his tracks, but he could salvage something of his pride, his self-respect, along the way.
No point in thinking of his father. His deep, abiding rage was there to keep him warm, and it would never go away, but Rick was focused on Amy. Her softness and her warmth, one final touch, perhaps a kiss goodbye before he set about his final business with the jackals on the street. Just like the movies. "We, who are about to die, salute you," and the credits roll across an image of a fallen warrior as the world goes up in flames.
He was surprised to find the back door of the hardware store half-open, silence warning him away and simultaneously urging him to enter, have a look inside. The open door was nothing, really. In the present circumstances, it was less than nothing, trivia beneath consideration by the conscious mind. But Amy's parents never left the back door open. Never.
Pushing through as quietly as possible, he closed the door behind him, heard the latch engage. The storeroom was as silent as a church when all the members of the congregation have departed for their homes, a hush that somehow was not reassuring in the least. He listened briefly at the open doorway to the store itself, stepped through... and froze.
He spotted Amy's mother first, a crumpled rag-doll figure to his right, her face averted, wispy hair in back all clotted with blood and something that resembled suet. Stancell felt his stomach lurch again, but fought it down, eyes traveling around the store until they came to rest on Amy's father, sprawled behind the register. The whole top of his head was gone, and there was no need for a check on vital signs.