Book of Secrets by Chris Roberson Page B

that Cuellar interrupted, cutting him off with a wave of his hand.
      "No, you will sleep in our bed, my wife and mine," he demanded.
      "Now, wait a minute," La Mano answered. "We appreciate your feedin' us and all, but we can't just kick you out of your own…"
      Cuellar, his face set, refused to hear anymore. They had saved his life from Pierce's men, and he would consider it an insult if the two heroes would not allow him to show his gratitude. Not brooking any dissent, Cuellar led the two men to the bedroom, and practically ordered the two men to climb in under the quilts.
      "My wife and I will sleep with the children," Cuellar concluded. "And I will not argue it." 
      With that he turned, and stomped back into the main room.
      La Mano turned to Jin Ti, who shrugged.
      "Well, Heishou," Jin Ti offered. "You heard the man. We are to be forced to sleep on a comfortable mattress, under fine sheets."
  "Yep," La Mano answered.
      "The next time we are to be tortured by some bandit villain, could you arrange it so that this man Cuellar is in control of the proceedings?" "Jin," La Mano replied, "I'll see what I can do."
    3
    L ate that night, as they lay sleeping side by side on the wide bed, La Mano and Jin Ti were startled awake by the sharp crack of gun fire. They leapt to their feet, stepping into their boots before even coming fully awake. They listened, tensed, and when the sound came again risked the time it took to shoot a look between them. 
      "Outside," La Mano barked, pulling his twin Colts from the holster lying draped over a chair back and checking the chambers.
      Jin Ti snatched up his Winchester, and without another word the two bolted from the room and through the small house, coming at last to the front door. Cuellar and his family, huddled in the corner of the room, looked on them with wide eyes from the darkness. Only the youngest child, the boy, made any noise, whimpering slightly as his mother held him close to her breast. 
      "Alright, amigo," La Mano whispered in the dark. "You're with us. Your kin'll be fine if they stay put in here." Cuellar nodded, solemnly, and rose to follow.
      "You got a gun?" La Mano asked. Cuellar nodded, and then walked to the far corner of the room, returning with a battered old double-bore shotgun. "Good enough."
      La Mano glanced at Jin Ti, and then nodded. Without warning, the Chinaman shot his hand forward, and flung wide the door. With a quick look to Cuellar, the two bolted through the door and into the dark night beyond, their guns spitting fire out into the darkness.
      A hasty survey of the grounds told them all they needed to know. The barn was afire, a man standing nearby with a torch in one hand, a revolver in the other. Two other men were horseback, a few yards off, one holding the reins to the torch-bearers mount.
      "Cuellar! Fetch the horses from the barn!" La Mano barked, and the Mexican rushed to comply, pausing only momentarily to glance back to his family inside. He held the shotgun before him in one hand, and made a sign of the cross with the other.
      La Mano and Jin Ti immediately divided up targets, and commenced to firing. The interlopers, startled at first, soon regrouped and returned fire. They had no doubt expected to catch the Cuellar family abed, and not to find two well-traveled gunmen waiting to repel their attack.
      La Mano and his companion split up, running from the door in opposite directions, each sending an unrelenting hail of lead towards the attackers. The dirt at their feet was kicked up in clouds as the shots hit all round them, but not one struck true. La Mano found cover near a roofed well, and emptied his two Colts into the night air, while Jin Ti crouched near a wheel-less wagon, firing and reloading, firing and reloading. One of the attackers, the one afoot, returned fire until he spun on his toes, caught by Jin Ti's shot in his chest. He fell to the ground with a sickening thud, and