“Your friend Ortiz has become Diablo again.”
He peered over the sill. Most of the mestizos had managed to reach the temporary safety of their homes and had barred the doors. Three or four lay in the street. An Apache was standing over one of them, his rifle butt ready to smash down. Dillinger shot him in the back.
Flames flickered over the dry woodwork of the stables opposite. An Apache galloped past and tossed a great bundle of burning brushwood onto the porch of the hotel.
“Oh, no! Please, not our home,” Rose cried.
Flames ran like lightning across the bare boards, flaring up toward the windows so that Dillinger and Rose had to draw back.
More Apaches rode by, firing wildly. Dillinger pushed Rose down to the floor.
Chavasse crawled forward. “We can’t stay here.”
Flames licked in through the window, cracking the remaining glass, and Rose got to her feet. “We’ll be safe on the roof. The rest of the hotel won’t burn. The walls are made of stone.”
She led the way upstairs. As they passed along the corridor, there was a thunderous crash from below as the roof of the porch collapsed.
At the end of the corridor a wooden ladder in a storeroom gave access to the flat roof through a trapdoor. Chavasse went first and turned to help the others. There was another burst of firing from the street outside.
When Rose had gone up, Dillinger moved to follow. There was a sudden splintering crash outside in the corridor. As he ran to the door, the wooden shutters to the window opposite burst open, and an Apache swung a leg over the sill. Dillinger shot the Indian in the face. The man dropped his rifle and disappeared backward, screaming as he fell.
The rifle was an old Winchester carbine, and Dillinger picked it up, ran back into the storeroom, and scrambled up the ladder. As he came out on the roof, Chavasse pulled the ladder up after him and closed the trap.
The roof was surrounded by a three-foot parapet. Dillinger tossed his revolver to Chavasse and moved across to the side that fronted the street. A heavy pall of smoke drifted across the town as the stables and other buildings burned.
The Chevrolet was parked in the alley at the side of the stables opposite. An Indian turned his pony into the alley, crowding in against the automobile. As he pulled an axe from his belt and raised it to smash the windshield, Dillinger raised the carbine and shot the Apache out of the saddle. The now-riderless pony whirled and galloped away.
The Apaches were now attacking several houses at the same time, directed by Ortiz, conspicuous in his scarlet shirt. Three of his men swung a beam of wood against the door of the general store, which stood next to the stables. Dillinger fired once, picking off the man at the back. The Apache screamed, staggering forward into his companions. They dropped the beam and ran for cover, and Dillinger fired after them. He caught a hurried glimpse of Ortiz pointing toward the roof of the hotel and ducked behind the parapet.
Rose and Chavasse crawled beside him.
“Ortiz has gone mad,” Rose said. “He must be stopped.”
Chavasse, who knew the Apache better than anyone, said, “Only another Indian can stop him now.”
“They will not stay for long,” Rose said. “In a little while when the excitement is over, they will realize what they have done and the price that must be paid. They will ride into the sierras as their fathers did before them.”
“I’m not so sure,” Chavasse said. “Ortiz is like Geronimo back from the grave.”
Someone screamed in the street. The Apaches had succeeded in breaking down the door of a house, and one of them was dragging a woman into the street by her hair. Dillinger took careful aim and shot him. He immediately ducked behind the parapet as answering fire thudded into the wall.
Suddenly all the shooting ceased.
In the stillness that followed, the only sound was the screaming of the woman lying in the street. When Dillinger peered cautiously over the parapet, he saw that the Apaches had moved into a group, looking up at the mountains. Dillinger raised his eyes and saw a line of khaki-clad riders come over the ridge and start down the slope in a cloud of dust.