Pritchard pivoted, with his revolvers leveled, and scanned the rest of the cantina. No one else moved. Ditch suddenly appeared from behind the bar. Franchard entered through the half doors, his shotgun at the ready. Ditch watched as the death-shadow once again dwindled from his friend’s features, and his normally placid countenance returned.

“Bar’s closed,” Franchard loudly announced. “¡Vete de aquí! Get lost!”

Everyone inside the cantina, including the bartender and waitresses, rapidly scurried past Franchard through the front door.

Franchard walked over to the wounded Triple B hand, Collins, lying on the floor in a growing pool of his own blood. His face was twisted in pain, his right arm was useless, and his unfired revolver lay on the ground next to him. Franchard lowered the shotgun until its twin barrels rested against his cheek.

“You,” Franchard said, “are going to tell us where Winston Boone and the rest of his boys are hidin’.” He slowly raised the shotgun and poked the barrels under the nose of the Mexican, who stood, with his hands still raised, like a statue. “And you,” he went on, “are going to tell us about the neighborhood they’re hidin’ in. ¿Comprende? ”

Both men nodded.

Chapter 35

Chapter 35

The Triple B hand who’d been shot twice by Pritchard, Jim Collins, died less than ten minutes after the gunfight. The bullet that tore into his shoulder ruptured an artery, and he bled out.

Before he expired, he expressed regret to Pritchard for the death of his fiancée. He further claimed he didn’t know that Winston Boone, his son Wesley, and the other Triple B hands were planning to rape her and kill everyone at the stagecoach station.

Pritchard said nothing in reply. He reloaded his guns without expression and stared silently out into the street.

Franchard, however, called Collins a liar. He said the only way he could prove his dying words as the truth was to tell them where Boone and the remainder of the BB&B hands were hiding out in Mexico.

Collins told them they were holed up at a ranch, a day’s ride south, a couple of miles outside a Mexican town called Zaragosa. Boone had built the place for the specific purpose of storing and transferring American horses and cattle to the Mexican government. Zaragosa had a cantina, which featured a brothel, that serviced the Mexican soldiers who regularly came to take possession of Boone’s stolen stock.

The surviving Mexican, who spoke English, said his name was Alejandro Ruiz. He readily admitted to being an intermediary who brokered the transfer of stolen stock, for a fee, between the Mexican government and Winston Boone’s rustling outfit. He insisted he knew nothing of the Triple B’s attack on Pritchard’s woman, which he considered a cowardly and unforgivable act, and the murder of the stagecoach passengers. He offered, in exchange for his life, to guide Pritchard, Ditch, and Franchard to Boone’s south-of-the-border hideout.