High and Wild Read Online Free Page B

side—“savages?”
    Haskell had sent a message to the girl via an old peasant man who worked odd jobs around the village and at the hotel, letting the girl know when he’d be coming for her and to be as ready as she could be under the circumstances.
    â€œYou got it, sweetheart.” Haskell reached down and gently but quickly pulled the president’s niece to her feet. “We’d best pull our picket pins.”
    â€œI tried to get ready, to dress, but Villarreal has been keeping a guard on me.” She glanced toward the dead rurale as Haskell led her by both hands around the bed. “He tried to savage me,” she said, with a sob, “but I’d squirreled away a stiletto I’d taken off Villarreal and stuck it in his goddamn neck when he tried to stick his thing in me!”
    She broke loose from Haskell and ran over and buried one of her bare feet in the dead rurale ’s belly.
    â€œYou goatish bastard!” the girl screamed. “I happen to be the niece of the president of the United States of America!” Her voice broke, and she sucked a ragged breath. “I am Madeleine Johnson, and I will not be treated like one of your two- peso putas !”
    â€œHaskell!” Sonoma screamed from the door as several bullets chewed into the frame before her, spraying slivers at her. “Grab that bitch, and let’s break a leg, my sweet!”
    Haskell grabbed the dead rurale ’s Colt Dragoon, unbuckled the man’s cartridge belt, and slung it over his own shoulder. Then he grabbed Miss Johnson’s hand and led her quickly over to the door, where Sonoma triggered several more shots toward the front of the hall.
    He pushed the pretty, scantily clad, bare-legged blonde back against the wall, wedged two of his three pistols behind his rope belt, and quickly reloaded his own LeMat from the dead rurale ’s shell belt. When the LeMat was full, he reloaded the Dragoon. Just as he’d flicked the Dragoon’s loading gate closed and spun the wheel, Sonoma’s Springfield clicked, empty.
    She jerked back against Haskell, saying, “That’s it. I’m out.”
    Haskell pulled Sonoma back behind him, edged a look around the doorframe, and triggered two shots, pinking the hand of one of the two rurales running toward him and blowing out the right eye of the other.
    â€œYou two run down the hall to the left!” Haskell yelled, stepping into the hall and aiming both freshly reloaded pistols to the right, toward the balcony. “Now! Run like hell! I’ll cover you!”
    â€œWhere the hell are we going?” Sonoma shouted, pulling Miss Johnson out of the room and running fast down the hall behind the Pinkerton, with Miss Johnson cupping her free hand to her right ear and screaming at the rocketing gun blasts. “I thought you said there was no way out of the upper stories except for the main stairs!”
    â€œI lied about that!” the Pinkerton shouted, triggering lead toward the balcony, holding the rurales at bay. From the glimpses he’d caught, he figured there were at least twelve gathered on the balcony, trying like hell to avenge their leader. “At the end of the hall, swing left and wait for me!”
    Haskell fired another round, which plunked into the balcony rail. A rurale snaked a rifle around the left front corner of the balcony wall, and Haskell drew a neat round hole in the man’s left temple with a .44 slug hurled from his new Dragoon, which he’d quickly taken a shine to.
    Running backward, he continued firing. At the end of the hall, he turned and ran down the hall on his right, a narrower hall than the others. Sonoma and Miss Johnson stood halfway down the hall, standing about five feet apart. The girl eyed the ruggedly beautiful, high-busted Yaqui woman skeptically.
    Haskell jogged past them, stopped, flipped a rug back, and grunted and yelled as he hoisted a trapdoor out of the floor.
    Cobwebs