Cody's Army by Jim Case Read Free Book Online Page B

Jeep on the right blossomed into a forward-moving rolling fireball intensified when the Jeep’s gas tank went as it turned
     end-over-end, tossing flaming bodies this way and that.
    “Not bad shooting,” Hawkeye commented, “for a limey.”
    Gallegos could not believe his eyes. A heartbeat earlier the Jeep with Manuel and the four others had been racing along side-by-side
     with his own vehicle, perhaps two yards away, toward the gringo bastards behind those rocks where they held Jesus.
    And then—the explosion out of nowhere, death shrieks swallowed up into the ball of flame and now the earth behind his Jeep
     littered with human and metal debris, aflame and lifeless.
    “To the left, to the left!” he screamed at his driver. “The other side of those rocks!”
    The driver careened the Jeep into a two-wheel turn that nearly tumbled every man out of the Jeep, as the vehicle dashed toward
     the same butte before which the bounty hunters had sought cover, the Jeep heading toward their blind side; the far side of
     the rising butte.
    Gallegos worriedly eyed the horizon behind them but could not as yet discern any sign of the three Jeeps full of men that
     should at this moment be racing here in response to his radio summons.
    The hacienda was no more that ten kilometers from here, so they would be here soon, and then—
    His thoughts were interrupted by another heaving explosion rocking the earth, one of the grenades fired by the gringo detonating
     a shower of earth upon the racing Jeep, a near-miss.
    Then they made it to behind the butte, disappearing from the line of vision of the two who had Ruiz on that high ground of
     boulders.
    “Stop here!” Gallegos ordered.
    The driver obeyed, flooring the brake pedal, swinging the Jeep around in a 180-degree turn.
    Gallegos wondered what he should do. He had never doubted the gringo’s expertise in these matters even before seeing his amigos
     in the next Jeep getting blown to pieces. El Gato’s hacienda was a veritable desert fortress, and yet these bounty hunters
     had somehow penetrated his defense perimeter and gotten away with the boss.
    Then he saw the three Jeeps full of rifle-toting men turn off the highway, coming high speed in this direction. He recognized
     the vehicles and laughed. He hopped from the Jeep.
    “Come, muchachos! The gringos will have their hands and eyes full with those who approach.” He started hurrying up the incline,
     gesturing for them to follow, which they did. “We shall outflank the gringos, kill them, save El Gato and the glory will be
     ours. Let’s go!”
    The eastern sky yielded to the purple of oncoming night, the western horizon’s warm red becoming the bleak gray of dusk.
    Caine lowered the Ml, having viewed the oncoming Jeeps through the scope.
    “Fifteen men,” he informed Hawkeye coolly. “They’ll be in range soon.”
    Hawkins shifted to scan in another direction, into the failing light of an ending day, at the spot where the first Jeep had
     disappeared behind the butte.
    “It’s them other boys got me worried. Maybe we oughta wake up sleeping beauty,” he nodded toward Ruiz. “He might make a better
     bartering chip awake than asleep.”
    “My guess is he’ll just go back to telling us how we’re going to get killed,” Caine muttered, “just before we get killed.
     But yeah, give him a few slaps. It’s about the only chance we’ve got short of standing these blighters off until we run out
     of ammunition.”
    He turned his attention to the nearing vehicles, waiting for them to come into range.
    Hawkeye started over toward Ruiz. Movement caught his peripheral vision among some creosote, higher up behind them. He whirled,
     the Magnum pulling around with him, just as four weapons opened fire from various points along that higher ground.
    He snarled,
“Son of a fucking bitch!”
and then started pulling off rounds from the .44, realizing as he did so that the unseen riflemen from the Jeep were purposely