Chapter 5
This was definitely not going to plan, I thought as I watched Ramon and the three others who were with him reining in their horses at Ortega's approach. I had no choice but to assume that the little charade, which I'd been maintaining, was at an end. I glanced around the quarry, mentally noting the locations of the guards I could see. There was a sheer wall at my back that offered me some small amount of cover but simultaneously limited my escape routes if it came down to that.
I tossed the dregs of the coffee on the fire, put down the cup and walked over to where the horses and my pony were tethered with as much nonchalance as I could muster. My pony at a wiry 14hh was not much smaller than the half dozen or so horses of the guards that were tied to the same hitching rail. I could hear raised voices from the newcomers, Ramon's strident tones amongst them, as I idly checked the knots in the horses' reins.
"Roxton! Come out and die like a man!" Ramon's harsh voice echoed through the quarry. Looking between the horses' necks I could see him sat astride his horse, the stock of his rifle resting lightly on his right thigh. His men had their weapons out and ready, as did Ortega. An old army adage unconsciously sprang to mind: no plan survives contact with the enemy; this one certainly hadn't. Ramon shouted again, "Roxton, come out you piece of dung!"
Most of the knots tethering the horses to the rail were loose, easy enough to untie. Ramon's men were starting to approach, but I kept the horses between us giving me cover. The horses began to shift uneasily, picking up on my own tension. I made sure that my own pony was firmly tied, then slipped the automatic out of its holster and fired twice into the air with a wild yell. The horses, already spooked, were off and running within seconds. Their panic spread to the other horses whose riders were suddenly hard pressed to stay in the saddle. Two of the quarry guards were near me and on foot. I took them out with my next three shots.
The rest of the guards got over their brief shock and I had to dive for cover as they started to return fire. Impacting bullets tore up shards of rock and plumes of dust; some barely inches away from me. There were only three shots left in the Colt as I turned to fire at another guard. I pulled the trigger and heard a dull click. Jammed. Damn! I tried pulling the slide a couple of times to clear the blockage, but it didn't work. Some sixth sense made me look up to see Ortega watching my actions, an ugly smirk on his face. He had seen what had happened and stalked arrogantly toward me, clearly intent on savouring the moment. Behind him I could see riders being carried out of the quarry on panic-stricken horses. Ramon was clinging tenaciously onto the shoulder of his own horse, his rifle dropped in the effort to keep his seat.
Ortega came nearer, his sawn-off, pistol-gripped shotgun held loosely at his side, an atavistic smile crawling across his face. My own gun was useless, so I threw it at him, then lunged sideways in the direction of my pony. Ortega easily dodged the thrown handgun, but it gave me the time I'd needed to drag the .470 from its boot. His smile turned sickly as I lined the rifle at him and pulled the front trigger. I'd killed some of the biggest, most dangerous game that Africa had to offer with that rifle, up to and including elephant. Its effect on a human target at close range was horrific, appalling. He was dead before he hit the ground. The heavy bullet continued its flight clipping Ramon's surviving cohort in the side. It was enough to throw him from his already skittish horse. He hit the ground close to where some of the prisoners had been hiding. A group of them broke cover and swarmed all over him; I saw fists rise and fall, striking down with unrepentant savagery. I couldn't find it in myself to condemn them.
From the rim of the quarry I heard the wonderfully familiar bark of a .318, its sharp report more resonant that the lighter crack of the Mausers the guards were using. Another guard fell, and the rest fled as best they could. Ramon finally lost his battle to stay mounted as his horse reared, overbalanced and rolled over on to him. After a few wild kicks, it unsteadily regained its feet and cantered out of the quarry. I walked over to Ramon, covering him with the rifle. The crowd of prisoners moved over towards us, fresh blood staining some of the rags they were dressed in. They formed a loose circle around Ramon and me. The expression on their faces was disturbingly familiar, a hunger for blood and vengeance that was as yet unassuaged, unabated; they wanted someone to pay for what they had suffered. Atrocity in the heat of battle I could understand, if not approve of. During the war I had seen the kind of things that sheer terror could drive a man to do, things repellent to the civilised majority who had never been placed in that position.
A rock flew out from the crowd and struck Ramon on the side of his face, followed by a savage, jeering roar. It didn't take a genius to sense their mood: they wanted to tear him apart. I couldn't be party to that level of cold-blooded murder, and besides, I had my own plans for Ramon. I took a couple of steps forward, shouting out to be heard over the din. "Wait! Listen to me!" They quietened, waiting for me to speak.
Ramon opened his mouth to say something, but one of the prisoners casually backhanded him across the face. "Be silent, Cabron!" He took the hint and shut up.
I gazed around at the gathered crowd as they waited for me to speak. On each of them were the signs of the privations that they had suffered. For how long, I had no way of knowing. I recalled the opulence and excess of the party that Lopez had thrown to celebrate my arrival. The comparison made me angry, both at him as well as with myself. I had freed the people working at the quarry, but I knew they could not be the only ones trapped by Lopez's greed, kidnapped from their homes and forced to work for him as slave labour. My conscience refused to allow me to stand by and just observe that level of injustice, but if I was going to wage war on 'Don' Ernesto Lopez, I was going to do it properly.
A curious sense of formality took me as I spoke to Ramon. "Take this message to Ernesto Lopez and to all who would stand with him. Tell him this: I offer him fair warning that from this day forward I have taken a stand against him and against all who would support him. Every indignity, every outrage that he and his men have visited upon these people, I will return upon you tenfold. I will destroy all that you have built by the blood and sweat of others, and in the end I will beat you into the dust. By your actions you have sinned against the laws of God and Man. Man's law cannot reach you, but I will be the instrument of God's vengeance, and from that there is no escape! Now, go!" I cannot begin to pretend that I knew where the last melodramatic comments had come from, but they seemed to have a reassuringly salutary effect. I had intended more a declaration of war than a quasi-religious oath of vengeance, but my anger had again got the better of me. It was proving to be a bad habit, and might one day get me into trouble - more trouble than I was currently in, that is.
Ramon left as Domingo came down from the rim of the quarry. I left him and his father to their tearful reunion and the sharing of the less welcome news of Salvador's death. I went back over to my pony, replaced the bullet that I'd fired and returned the rifle to its boot. Then I retrieved the Colt automatic and settles down to clear the jam. The former prisoners busied themselves unlocking manacles and scavenging what they could from the things left around the quarry by the guards. I was left notably alone.
Within half an hour we were ready to leave. Everyone knew that the guards who had escaped, to say nothing of Ramon, would be returning with reinforcements as soon as they could muster them. A few Mausers and shotguns with scarcely a handful of ammunition between them in the hands of willing, but untrained hands would not be enough to withstand a concerted attack. From the way that Domingo was looking at me, I knew that the same thought had occurred to him. I beckoned him to one side.
"Can you get them to Chalhuanco Alto?" I asked. He returned my stare with a level, confident gaze and I could not help but think that in the space of less than a day he had grown up and abandoned his previous obduracy. The death of a brother could do that, I thought sadly.
"I will see them safe, Juan, my word on it, and what of you: what will you do now that you have issued this challenge?"
"The first order of business is to get these people safely away from here. We both know Lopez or Ramon will have men on our trail soon. This is rough country. One man with a rifle can hold off any pursuers, give you time to get clear and into the mountains."
"It is possible for one man, but easier with two. I will stay with you."
"No. I need you to go with them. There's no way of knowing if you'll encounter any trouble on the path, and for all their determination, they wouldn't stand much of a chance." Domingo nodded with reluctant acquiescence. I appreciated the offer, though; shooting people down at long range, giving them no chance to fight back, was no more than slaughter when the sniper was as good as I was. The idea made me sick to the stomach: I couldn't, wouldn't ask anyone else to do something like that.
The column of former prisoners left the quarry, making for the rough country that led up to the mountains. We had rounded up what horses we could and the weakest of the refugees rode them. I kept my own pony and gave the pack ponies to Domingo along with the .318. I needed to keep the load as light as possible but couldn't afford the inconvenience of having to look after a pack pony. My gear was pared down to rifle, handgun, knife, and spare ammunition as well as survival basics. This was no longer a jaunt through the mountains; it had become what I had hoped never to experience again - war.
I spent the next couple of hours familiarising myself with the area surrounding the quarry, the hiding places, the fields of fire and the escape routes. One of the prisoners had found a box containing nine sticks of dynamite. He had given it to Domingo who had in turn entrusted it to me. I packed six of the sticks in the pony's saddlebags and kept three on me. The leather hoops sewn onto my belt were all full with the four-inch long cartridges for the .470; the two spare magazines for the Colt were in my pockets, and the dynamite in a satchel slung across my body. By the time the expected reinforcements arrived, I was ready for them. The sun was dipping in the sky by the time I heard the hoof beats marking the approach of horsemen. I had positioned myself across from the entrance to the quarry with the sun at my back. My pony was tethered in a hollow a few hundred yards behind where I was lying for them. There were two, perhaps three hours of daylight left. It would be a long time to have to keep them busy.
The entrance to the quarry was across open ground, a rubble-strewn slope punctuated by a handful of stunted trees and small grassy hummocks. The nearest cover worth the name was more than fifty yards away on each side. My current position was vulnerable to being flanked but it would take time: time that I could use. The first group of four riders came into sight. They moved cautiously, guns at the ready. I didn't recognise any of them. I could see others behind them; more than I had envisaged having to fight at one go. I fired twice in rapid succession; the first two tumbled from their horses. I rolled back into cover as shots were returned, breaking open the rifle and reloading.
The next minutes crawled by like hours. The focus of my reality had shifted back into a grim repetition of fire, reload then move position. Some of those I'd hit I knew I only wounded, but even a wound from that huge rifle was enough to put a man down. The sticks of dynamite had been lit, and then thrown, discouraging any thoughts of a mass frontal attack. I had not got through the skirmish unscathed: a sliver of rock, spalled through a near miss from a boulder I'd been hiding behind, had caught me in the head, cutting a deep gash across my forehead which ran back into the hair. It bled copiously, as head wounds always did, the blood running down my face and getting into my eye, blurring my vision. I was limping badly as well, courtesy of having twisted my ankle during a hurried relocation from a position that had suddenly become very uncomfortable.
Then the fighting lulled. Dead and wounded littered the canyon floor, the all too familiar aftermath of battle. My head was throbbing mercilessly now, as was my abused and overworked ankle. Looking down on them I felt the stirrings of repulsion at the carnage I had wrought. The reasons behind it were so different from the arcane web of political guarantees that had dragged Europe and later the world into war back in 1914, but the dead were still dead, and still at my hand. I was sick of the killing, sick of the pressures of conscience and duty that had driven me to it and then castigated me for it afterwards.
I looked again, seeing not the dead but the quarry and the discarded manacles thrown down by the freed prisoners. Others were suffering and wallowing in self-pity was a luxury I could not afford. Behind me the sun was resting on the peaks of the mountains, casting long dark shadows across the quarry. The still night air carried the sounds of a distant heated discussion mixed in with the moans and cries of the wounded.
Moving gingerly, I levered myself to my feet and started to hobble towards where I'd left the pony. I had to cling onto an outcropping for support as a wave of dizziness and nausea washed over me. My ankle had swollen and the muscles around had stiffened. Getting the boot off would be difficult at best. The bleeding from the gash on my head had slowed to a dribble, but the hair on the left side of my head was matted with dried blood so I carried my hat instead. When I reached the pony, it was an effort to boot the rifle and get into the saddle. The pounding in my head was exacerbated by every step. Whether it was from concussion, shock or reaction I didn't know. I was suddenly thankful to be riding a 14hh pony rather than my 17hh hunter back in the stables at Avebury. I nudged the pony's flanks, "come on, Robbie." Robbie? What was Mister Robinson doing in South America?
My mind drifted with the pony's steady gait, back to the circle of stones at Avebury and the old, tubby pony I had ridden as a child. Some instinct kept me in the saddle as Robbie put some distance between the quarry and us. Sometime later that night I slipped from the saddle. I didn't remember hitting the ground.
Go to next part.