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tanaquiljallTitle: The Professionals
Fandom: Sons of Anarchy
Rating: Teen
Contains: Nothing exceeding canon but does include animal death
Words: 20,500 words
Summary: A Western AU for Sons of Anarchy. Four soldiers of fortune—Jax, Opie, Tig and Kozik—are hired by a rich American businessman (Jacob Hale) to rescue his wife, who has been kidnapped by a Mexican bandit (Alvarez). Having pulled off a daring rescue, the team head back to the border with Alvarez on their tail—but, along the way, discover all is not as it seems.
Author's note: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
journeystory and inspired by the plot of the 1966 movie The Professionals. The beautiful banners and dividers were created by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
laisserais. Thanks to Scribbler (scribblesinink) for the beta, if not the plotbunny.
Disclaimer: This story is a transformative work based on the Fox 21/FX Productions/Linson Entertainment/Sutter Ink television series Sons of Anarchy. It was written for entertainment only; the author does not profit from it.
Part One
A day and a half later, Kozik lay on his stomach peering out over Alvarez’s camp. They had left the horses in the shelter of a remote, tumbledown barn that showed no sign any creature had visited in the past year or more, save perhaps for a few wild goats. From there, they’d hiked the final two miles on foot. Now they were hunkered down on top of a cliff that overlooked the valley containing the hacienda Alvarez had made home.
In the wavering light of several cooking fires, Kozik could see that the place was in poor repair. Holes had been knocked in some of the walls and half the roof was missing from the sprawling main building. Crude shelters, formed of blankets stretched over rickety frames of wood filched from the fallen roof, huddled around the remains of the walls.
Further along from where they lay, almost invisible in the near-darkness that hugged the ground outside the light cast by the fires and a few oil lamps, a guard was keeping a desultory look out, although he seemed more interested in whatever he was whittling from a scrap of wood than his surroundings. Across the valley, his counterpart could just be seen. He was lounging on one elbow, the firelight glinting off a bottle as he raised it to his lips now and then. A third guard paced restlessly at the top of a tower pockmarked with bullet holes that, lifting itself above the low huddle of buildings, had no doubt once provided the hacendado with a private study.
“See the machine gun?” Jax asked quietly, lowering his field glasses and pointing toward the top of the main building. “We’ll need to take out the gunner as well as the lookouts.”
On the other side of Kozik, Tig drew in a sharp breath. Kozik saw the reason himself, even as Tig extended a hand to point down at a man who had emerged from one end of the main building. “Alvarez,” he muttered.
Jax raised his field glasses and followed Alvarez as he crossed the courtyard toward a wide low basin where several of his gang were washing up. The basin was fed by a water tower on stilts just to their left that must, in turn, be fed by a spring further up the hillside from where they lay.
Kozik automatically translated the familiar Spanish phrases as Alvarez called out approving words to his men as he passed them—Good riding, today, eh, Miguel?—until he reached one of the figures bent over the basin. “Ten minutes,” he said, clapping a hand on a bare shoulder.
It was Kozik’s turn to draw in a sharp breath, his heart hammering in his chest, as the figure straightened, the light from a nearby lamp falling on a shapely half-naked form. The woman lifted her arms to push her hair back from her face and tie it back with a cord, unabashedly displaying her firm, full breasts for any who cared to look—and, oh, how Kozik cared to look, drinking in the sight after all these years. “Yes, yes,” she answered, her tone impatient. “I’ll be there.”
“Is that Mrs Hale,” Opie asked from Jax’s far side, his surprise evident in his voice.
“That, my friend,” Kozik informed him, propping his chin on his hands and gazing admiringly down at the woman as she finished washing and pulled her blouse back on over her head, the material clinging to her damp skin, “is a soldier. Alejandra López. One of Alvarez’s lieutenants. His best one, if you want my opinion. Not a woman to cross in battle—or in bed….”
Jax was giving him an amused look. “Old flame?”
Tig snorted quietly. “More like an old brushfire….”
That was true: the two of them had argued as often as they’d made love, and though Kozik had thought of her as his woman—had wanted to make her more than that—she’d kept him dangling. Made sure he knew she was still her own woman and would share her attentions where she pleased. Then the Revolution had fallen apart, and there was no place for Kozik and Tig in Mexico—and no place that Ally wanted on his side of the border. This is my land, she’d said, pointing to the ground below her feet as he’d tried to persuade her to come with him. The land of my father and my mother. Don not ask me to leave it for a land that is not mine….
“She Alvarez’s woman now?” Jax was tracking her through the field glasses as she headed into the main building, following Alvarez.
Kozik shrugged. “Doubt it. Ally could have any man she wanted in camp—and frequently did—and she could turn down any man she didn’t want, too. Anyone with half a brain learned to wait to be asked, or he might find himself at risk of losing more than his pride. But all the years we were here, I never saw her and Alvarez together like that. They were more like brother and sister, I guess.”
Jax had produced a pencil and notebook from an inside pocket. Flattening the notebook open on the ground in front of him with the hand holding the field glasses, he began to make a rough sketch of the layout of the camp below. “Where do you think they’re keeping Mrs Hale?”
“My guess would be on the second floor.” Tig nodded toward the corner of the building, where an upper room with a door leading out onto a roof terrace nestled against the base of the lookout tower. Lamplight was spilling out through the closed fretwork shutters. “Only one way in or out, except if you jump off that roof, and anyone up on the tower’s going to see someone trying to escape that way quick enough.”
“Seems fair.” Jax made a few more marks in his notebook before snapping it shut. “I think we’ve seen enough from here. Let’s take a look from the other side.” He gestured for Kozik to lead the way.
A weary trek later—they made a large circle around the end of the valley in which the hacienda lay, to make sure they weren’t spotted—the four of them were again examining the camp, but this time from the other direction. The change of view didn’t add a great deal to their knowledge, but it did furnish two bits of information that could prove crucial to the success of the mission. The first was that it would be possible to scale the main building and reach the roof terrace near the upper room using a number of casks and barrels stacked to the rear of the building.
The second was a little more evidence that their guess that Mrs Hale was being held in the upper room was likely correct. The double doors out on to the terrace had been flung open by the time they found a new vantage point, perhaps to let in the slight breeze that was freshening the humid night. From where they were crouched, they couldn’t see inside, but they could hear a woman’s voice as well as a man’s. At one point, a shadow cast across the terrace by someone standing in the doorway was unmistakably that of a woman; a man’s sharp tones called her back inside.
Kozik had already picked out Ally elsewhere, lounging with a group of men around one of the fires, laughing and sharing a bottle. While the other three discussed what they could see from this side, Kozik went on watching her, remembering the feel of her skin under his palms as they lay together, the taste of her as they kissed, the heat of her body wrapped around his when they made love—in the dark shadows in a corner of the camp, under the moonlight as it rippled across the open desert, by the flicker of firelight at the mouth of a mountain cave…. Anywhere and everywhere and always unforgettable….
After a while, Ally stood up, beckoning to one of the men around the fire; the two of them disappeared into the shadows together. A flash of anger surged through Kozik and he was halfway to his feet before Tig’s hand on his arm dragged him back down.
“Easy, boy,” Tig growled quietly.
Kozik huffed out a breath, remembering where they were. He nodded at Tig to show he’d come to his senses and Tig let go of his arm.
“Everything okay?” Jax was looking at them, concern on his face.
Tig nodded. “Yeah. Lover boy here’s just a bit over-excited.”
Jax snorted. “There’ll be time enough for that when we’ve collected our ten thousand dollars and are back in California.”
Kozik laughed quietly. Even after three years and all the women he’d been with, and all his efforts to forget, seemed he’d still got Ally under his skin. “But not a woman worth a damn to spend it on,” he commented to no one in particular.
“I’m sure—.” Jax broke off from what he’d been about to say and gestured toward the gateway into the courtyard. A dozen mules, each laden with heavy packs, were being led inside. A man by the fire nearest the gate pushed to his feet and started forward to greet the men leading the mules, while a boy scampered off in the opposite direction, toward the tower. A minute or two later, Alvarez appeared and strode across the courtyard toward the newcomers.
“Francisco,” he called. “How did it go?”
The leader of the mule-drivers turned and grinned at him. “Good,” he called back. Kozik craned forward, trying to catch the rest of what he said, as he gave his report in rapid Spanish. Fortunately, Alvarez’s crew seemed just as keen to hear the news and the men lounging around the courtyard had grown quiet.
“You getting this?” Jax hissed at Kozik. Kozik realized Jax’s Spanish probably wasn’t nearly as fluent as his own, even though his own had grown a little rusty in the past three years. He nodded in reply, before concentrating again on the conversation below.
After another minute, Alvarez slapped Francisco on the back and directed some of the men around the fires to lead the mules away. Those who’d driven the mules in made their way across to the kitchen area, where food was still being doled out.
“Well?” Jax was looking at Kozik, eyebrows raised.
Kozik shrugged. “From what I could make out, they raided a hacienda about fifty miles south east. They handed out nine tenths of what they stole to some campesinos west of here and the rest they brought back. And they only had to kill two men at the hacienda.”
Jax peered past Kozik, seeking confirmation from Tig. Tig shrugged. “Sounds about right to me.”
From Jax’s other side, Opie murmured in his slow way, “Didn’t Hale say Alvarez was lining his own pockets? Massacring peasants?”
“He did.” Jax’s tone was curt.
Below them, the courtyard had settled down again and Alvarez had vanished back inside the main building. Tig shifted restlessly. “Are we done here?”
“We are.” Jax had his notebook back in his coat. “Let’s go.”
Dawn was close, the sky just starting to pale, by the time they made it back to the barn. All seemed quiet, so they quickly settled down to sleep, each of them keeping watch in turn. By mid afternoon, all four of them were awake. With the horses and other camp necessities attended to, Jax called them together inside the shell of the barn.
He had sketched a larger version of his map on the wall in chalk, marking the main points of interest. “What we need to do, gentlemen,” he began, once he had their attention, “is to make it look like the federales are attacking—and from the opposite direction to the one we’ll be coming from.”
Tig, cleaning and checking his weapons, raised his eyebrows. “You want the four of us to look like a Mexican Army battalion?”
Jax smirked. “I do—and we can. Or at least Opie can.” He turned to Opie. “Your job is to rig the water tower so it looks like it’s been hit by a couple of rounds from a mountain gun. Tig, you need to take out the guard on the valley edge on this side and then use that vantage point to deal with the guard on the tower and the man on the machine gun once the water tower’s been blown. After that, you can start sending incendiaries into their ammo stores here, here and here.” Jax rapped his knuckles at various points on the diagram to indicate where he meant. “When that’s done, I’m sure the two of you can keep busy picking off any easy targets you see. Meanwhile, Kozik and I will deal with the guard on the other side of the hacienda and rescue Mrs Hale from this upper room. Any questions?”
“How long will it take to set the charges on the water tower?” Tig was already placing rows of ammunition in front of him, sorting and selecting the cartridges he wanted.
Opie shrugged. “Half an hour maybe. Can lay a fuse that’ll give you up to a half hour of burn once it’s lit.”
Tig nodded, his focus still on the ammunition, but apparently satisfied with the answer.
“Anything else?” Jax asked again.
“When?” Kozik had pulled out his own revolver and begun taking it apart to clean it.
“Tonight. We’ll set off at midnight, take the horses with us. We can leave them on the north side of the ridge. Should be at the hacienda by three, we can blow the place at four and be well clear by the time it’s light.” Jax took another look around the room. “Are we good?” Receiving their nods, he dipped his own head in acknowledgment. “Then, gentlemen, let’s get ready.”
Kozik crouched on the hillside above the hacienda, Jax at his side. His heart was still pounding from disposing of the lookout. He flexed his fingers, trying to rid them of the feeling of the garrote, and turned his head a little so he couldn’t see the body out of the corner of his eye. It was one thing to face a man across a battlefield—or even to lay an ambush that your opponent could reasonably expect—and shoot him at fifty paces, quickly and cleanly. It was quite another to creep up behind a fellow who had no idea his life was likely to end in a few minutes and hear his struggle for breath and feel his body bucking against yours as you choked the life out him. There was a reason, when they’d been with Alvarez, that Kozik had left the infiltration and close work to Tig as much as he could.
Jax silently tapped his watch, signaling that it was three minutes until the water tower was set to blow, and set off down the hillside, crouching low. Kozik followed, still scanning the camp for any sign they or the other two had been spotted.
Reaching the rear of the hacienda, they hunkered down in the shadow of a pile of crates, waiting. Another minute passed, long enough for Kozik to begin wondering about the charges, and then there was a dull boom from the far side of the camp, followed by the sound of timbers falling and alarmed shouts. Kozik ducked low, hands over his head, as a rain of splinters pattered down around them, while an unsteady red light sprang up beyond the building.
In the next instant, Jax was up on the crates and scrambling onto the roof. Kozik followed. The roof was scattered with fragments of wood from the water tower. From the corner of his eye, he saw a body fall from the hacienda’s tower and, among the babble of sounds, he heard a scream cut short: Tig was doing his job with his usual efficiency.
Down in the courtyard, men were tumbling out of the shelters, snatching up weapons, calling out to each other. Another explosion rocked the night as one of the ammo stores went up. Kozik—heart racing at the second, unexpected explosion—was half aware of a skein of squealing horses careering across the courtyard, creating further confusion as they passed.
Jax was already at the entrance to the upper room. Kozik joined him and cautiously pulled open one of the doors, while Jax pointed his pistol at the gap, ready to take on anyone inside. After a moment, he slid through the door, apparently not finding any immediate threat. With another glance over his shoulder to check their rear, Kozik followed.
Inside, a dark-haired woman was sitting up in the bed, the covers half thrown back, the dim light revealing a length of bare leg below the hem of the light robe she wore. “What—?” She stared, wide-eyed, at the two intruders.
“It’s all right, Mrs Hale.” Jax held out his hand to her. “Your husband sent us to rescue you.”
“My—?” She started up on to her knees, one hand drawing the neckline of her robe together. “No….”
“Mrs Hale, we don’t have time to waste. Please.” Jax stepped forward and grabbed her arm, dragging her from the bed, while Kozik crossed to the other door, the one that must lead out into the tower, and leaned close to listen. He couldn’t hear anything from right outside the door, though there were shouts from the floor below, and the sound of another explosion, further away.
Glancing back at Jax and Mrs Hale, he saw she’d tumbled to the floor. Jax was frowning down at her. “You are Mrs Hale?”
The woman glared up at him. “I am,” she confirmed haughtily, tipping up her chin and straightening her back.
“Then we’re here to rescue you.” Jax again tried to pull her to her feet, but she again resisted.
“Come on!” Kozik muttered, turning back to the door and straining his ears for any sound from outside. He still couldn’t hear anyone coming up the stairs, but he wasn’t sure how long that would last.
The sound of flesh smacking against flesh made him swing back. Jax was standing over the slumped body of Mrs Hale, his hand curled into a fist.
“What the—?” Kozik blinked.
“No time to argue.” Jax bent down and hoisted the limp woman over his shoulder. “Let’s go.” He headed for the door that led to the terrace.
Kozik hurried after him, his gaze darting from side to side once he got outside to check if they’d been spotted. The courtyard below was still in chaos, but no one appeared to be pointing in their direction. So far, so good. Scurrying ahead of Jax, he scrambled awkwardly down to the ground the same way they’d climbed up, before turning to allow Jax lower the still-unconscious Mrs Hale down to him.
Taking her weight, Kozik settled her onto his shoulder. The air around them was sharp with the tang of gunpowder and burning wood, but he caught a whiff of… jasmine, was it? It reminded him of the soap Ally had used, of breathing it in as he pulled her close, pressing his face into her neck, the two of them still trembling from the release of making love.
He forced the memory away and concentrated on making his way over the rough ground in front of him, trying to keep as low as possible as he climbed the hillside. Jax followed close behind, gun drawn.
Kozik was breathing hard, his shirt stuck to his skin with sweat, by the time they crested the hill and the hacienda dropped out of sight. Jax touched him on the arm. “I’ll take her for a while.”
Kozik nodded, glad to hand the burden over. Mrs Hale wasn’t the first woman he’d carried off—there’d been a few times when Ally, though clearly willing, had been enjoying teasing him with delaying tactics for longer than he’d been prepared to endure—but he’d usually only had to stagger as far as the next room or across to a pack roll spread a few feet away.
Mrs Hale moaned slightly as he passed her over, apparently coming round. Kozik wondered what kind of fireworks there’d be when she woke up properly. For the moment, the priority was to make their way back to the horses as quickly as possible.
As Jax set off in front, Kozik took up the rear, scanning behind them for any sign of pursuit. They’d gone another half mile when he thought he could hear the sound of someone following. He strained his ears. Yes, there it was again. Opening his mouth to warn Jax, he froze as the other man stopped and held up his hand. From ahead, Kozik could hear horses: a half dozen or more. How the hell did they find us? he wondered.
A moment later, two riders leading a string of animals appeared out of the dark. Kozik let out the breath he’d been holding as he recognized Tig and Opie.
“What happened?” Jax gasped out the question. “Why didn’t you wait—?”
“You’re being followed, partner.” Tig was already off his horse and helping Jax to lower Mrs Hale from his shoulder. “Someone came out on that roof terrace—looking for Mrs Hale, I guess. Yelled down into the courtyard and then took off up the hill after you.”
Jax cursed as he pushed Mrs Hale into Tig’s arms. She was waking up, eyes fluttering and flinching as Jax manhandled her. “Get her on a horse. We need to get moving before they catch up.”
“Too late, my friends.” The words coming out of the dark to one side made them all start and whip their heads round, looking for the source. The speaker took another step forward and Kozik saw in the faint moonlight that it was Alvarez. The light glinted off the pistol he carried.
“Four against one,” Jax pointed out, coolly raising his hands, knowing Opie and Kozik had their guns trained on Alvarez. Tig had his hands full holding on to Mrs Hale.
Alvarez grinned humorlessly. “You think the odds are in your favor?”
Jax shrugged. “I don’t hear anyone else. Let your men show themselves. Or let them shoot us from where they are.”
Alvarez hesitated, clearly at a loss.
Jax tilted his head in Tig’s direction. “Put Mrs Hale on a horse,” he instructed.
“No!” Alvarez lifted the muzzle of his gun a little, re-centering his aim on Jax’s head.
Jax shook his head. “We’re just here to do a job, Alvarez. Killing you isn’t part of the contract—but we’ll do it if we have to.”
“No!” That time the cry came from Mrs Hale. It was almost like the damn woman didn’t want to go back to her husband. Wrenching herself out of Tig’s grasp, she threw herself toward Alvarez.
He staggered back as she clung to him, murmuring a despairing, “Isabel….”
Tig was first to react, leaping forward after Mrs Hale and grasping Alvarez’s arm, wrenching it up and wrestling the gun from his hand. There was a flash and a bang as the gun went off, before it clattered away into the dark. A moment later, Tig had Alvarez on his back, the muzzle of his own gun pressed to Alvarez’s temple.
Jax had caught hold of Mrs Hale. He shoved her at Kozik, who did his best not to put his hands anywhere that would earn him a slap on the face as he grabbed hold of her. “Tie her hands and put her on a horse,” Jax ordered curtly. He turned back to the two men on the ground. “Tig?”
Alvarez was staring up at Tig. “You gonna do it, Trager? After all we’ve been through together? You gonna kill me?”
Mrs Hale turned her head away sharply, a sob escaping her, as Kozik finished tying her hands together with a length of cord Opie had passed down.
Tig didn’t move, his gaze locked with Alvarez’s. Then, with a curse, he reversed his gun in his hand and clubbed Alvarez across the head with it. Alvarez fell back with a grunt.
Mrs Hale turned back to stare at Alvarez as Tig got to his feet, her expression a mixture of relief and fear. Jax took a step forward. “We need to—.”
He broke off as Tig raised his gun and pointed it at him, though Tig’s finger wasn’t on the trigger. “No.”
Jax narrowed his eyes, pressing his lips into a thin line, before he nodded brusquely. “Then let’s get out of here before anyone else finds us.” He turned away toward the horses.
Letting out a relieved breath of his own, Kozik began to drag Mrs Hale toward a horse. As he did so, his eyes met Tig’s.
“Not a word, brother. Not a word,” Tig growled, swinging away to mount his own horse.
Five minutes later, Alvarez lay alone under the lightening sky, the sound of hoofbeats fading into the distance.
The light grew as the line of horses picked their way through the hills, revealing the sparse shrubs, the rocks with their ever-shifting hues, and the salt flats running northward. It could be a cruel and dangerous place for those not used to it, but it had its own severe beauty; in an odd way, it reminded Kozik of Ally—and, like Ally, he’d missed it from time to time in his years in the north.
He glanced over his shoulder at Mrs Hale, who was clinging to the saddle horn with her bound hands as he led her horse along the trail. She glowered at him when he caught her eye; he guessed she couldn’t be very comfortable with nothing but that thin robe under her ass.
Kozik let his gaze drift past Mrs Hale to Opie, who was bringing up the rear. His horse had fallen back a distance and Kozik wondered for a moment if he’d seen something behind to worry them. Then he realized Opie was slumped in the saddle, one arm hanging, his head low.
“Hey!” Kozik faced forward to where, beyond the spare horses, Tig and Jax led the way. “Hold up. Something wrong with Opie.” Dropping the lead line of Mrs Hale’s horse, he rode back past her, heading for Opie.
As he got closer, he caught side of a dark stain on Opie’s jacket. “Goddammit.” Kozik hurried his horse into a longer stride, calling back over his shoulder, “Opie’s been hit.”
He’d barely reached the other man when another rider shot past him, up the trail the way they’d come. He heard an angry shout from Tig. Even so, it took him a second to realize the rider was Mrs Hale. “Oh no, you don’t,” Kozik muttered to himself as he spurred his horse after her.
Luckily for Kozik, Mrs Hale hadn’t gotten far or picked up much speed; he was quickly able to pull alongside and grab the reins, hauling her mount to a halt. She made to slide off the horse but he shook his head. “Don’t even think about it.” Turning their horses, he headed back to where Jax was helping Opie down.
“—gun went off,” Opie was saying, his voice weak. Kozik realized he must have caught the bullet in his arm from when Tig had been wrestling with Alvarez.
“Let’s take a look.” Jax lowered Opie to the ground, propped against a rock. He glanced up at the other two. “It’s a poor place to stop but we need to see to Ope, so might as well be here as later. Tig, you be our eyes and ears. Kozik, get Mrs Hale into those clothes we brought. And keep a close eye on her.”
Kozik nodded, swinging from his horse and dropping the reins to the ground. Pulling out his knife, he cut the cord he’d wrapped round Mrs Hale’s wrists, and then held out his hands to help her dismount. She looked down at him, a haughty expression on her face, as if planning to refuse his assistance. Then, sighing heavily, she leaned forward so he could grasp her around the waist and swing her down.
He’d been too busy when he’d been lifting her on to the horse to notice, but he found now, as she stood close to him with his hands still on her waist, that she was a tall woman—though not as tall as Ally—with curves that filled out her robe in a pleasing fashion. She gave him a disdainful look, making it clear she didn’t think much of the once-over he’d given her. Grinning, he let go of her and stepped past, pulling a bundle from the pack behind her saddle. He held it out to her. “Your husband sent these.”
She went on looking at him, not taking the bundle. He shoved it at her more firmly. “You’ll be a lot more comfortable if you change, ma’am.”
She finally brought her hands up to accept the bundle and began to unroll it. He stepped back, crossing his arms and regarding her. She looked up at him. “Are you going to watch me?” He noticed now that she spoke English with the slight accent of a native Spanish speaker and remembered that her husband had said she had been born in Mexico.
He was filled with a strong urge, for all she was their employer’s wife, to pay her back for being nothing but trouble the whole time she’d been with them. He smirked at her, jerking his head toward where Jax was examining Opie. “Boss there said to keep a close eye on you.”
Mrs Hale went on looking at him, one eyebrow arched. Kozik broke first, his cheeks coloring. “But I guess I could just watch your feet, ma’am,” he mumbled, lowering his head and pulling his hat down over his eyes. “Can’t run away without those.”
He thought he heard her mutter something in Spanish that sounded like, “Little boys and their big ideas and their little—” as she turned around and started to get changed. He suspected she’d get on rather well with Ally, and he was suddenly glad Ally wasn’t there to see what a pig he’d been.
When Mrs Hale had finished dressing, he caught her by the arm and turned to see what had become of Opie. Jax was kneeling beside him, folding cloth into wads to bind in place front and back. Opie’s face was pale and beaded with sweat.
Kozik cast a glance at Tig, still on horseback and watching the trail behind them, with the occasional anxious look in Opie’s direction, and then turned back to Jax. “How bad is it?”
Jax shrugged as he tied off the bandage. “Bullet went clean through, but he’s lost a deal of blood, and the wound could still go bad. We’ll clean it properly at the next stop, the other side of that dry river we crossed.” He gave Opie’s good shoulder a quick squeeze, before helping him haul himself back to his feet. “Kozik, you keep watching Mrs Hale. Tig, you take the rear. We’ll tie the pack horses to Ope’s saddle.”
Turning back to Mrs Hale, Kozik saw she was biting her lip thoughtfully as she watched Jax steer Opie toward his horse. “Time to go,” he told her, expecting more fireworks. But it seemed the fight had gone out of her, or she preferred not to have her hands tied again, because she let him boost her back on to her horse without any fuss. He found the hat her husband had also sent along and handed it to her. “Don’t try any funny business, or I’ll tie you to the saddle,” he warned as he mounted his own animal.
A minute later they were off again, Jax leading the way.
The sun grew higher and the heat unrelenting as they descended into the salt flats. Mrs Hale drooped in the saddle at Kozik’s side almost as listlessly as Opie just in front, while the horses plodded mile by weary mile through the plain. Kozik couldn’t help but wonder whether Alvarez and his crew were behind them and how much faster they were riding. The feeling grew on him and, as time wore on, he glanced behind him, beyond Tig, more and more often. Turning back after the third or fourth time, he saw Mrs Hale was watching him: she’d sloughed off some of her listlessness, her mouth curved up into a small smirk and her eyes bright with malice.
She tilted her head backward. “Marcus will catch us—and then he will kill you.”
Kozik pressed his lips into a thin line. “Maybe.” He faced ahead, determined not to look back again unless Tig drew his attention.
The sun was a couple of hours from noon by the time they crossed the dry river. A low bluff of rocks rose on the other side, worn by wind and water here and there into overhangs that provided a sliver of shade. Jax half carried Opie into one of the patches of shadow. When Kozik lifted Mrs Hale down from her horse, she sank down next to the two of them. The brief spark of energy had gone and she seemed more tired than ever, accepting the canteen Kozik handed to her with a grateful nod.
Taking the canteen back from her, he realized it might be more than the heat and lack of water that was troubling her. Moving away, he searched along the river bank a few feet before he found what he was looking for: a patch of pure salt from which the sand had been scoured. He pressed a little into his own mouth, before collecting enough for the others in his neckerchief.
Returning to Mrs Hale, he knelt down in front of her. “Here, ma’am, this will make you feel better.”
She looked at him dubiously for a moment, before accepting a little of the salt and gingerly tasting it.
Placing the rest of the salt next to Jax and Opie, Kozik got to his feet and went to help Tig with the horses. Glancing back at Mrs Hale as he worked, he saw she was looking between the four of them, a frown on her face. At last, she drew herself up. “You will never reach the border,” she informed them.
Jax, carefully easing the last of the bloodstained rags away from Opie’s shoulder, snorted.
Mrs Hale clasped her hands together. “Marcus will never let you take me back.”
“Wants his ransom, huh?” Jax carefully wet a clean piece of cloth and began dabbing at the wound. Opie winced.
“He wants me!” Mrs Hale declared.
All four of them turned to stare at her. There was silence, except for the whisper of the wind stirring up the sand, before Tig gritted out, “What are you to him?”
Mrs Hale tilted her chin up, her expression proud. “The woman he loves. As he is the man I love.”
Kozik blinked at her. Alvarez had once told him, with a laugh, when Kozik had asked him why he had no woman, that he was married to the revolution. Later, Tig had explained privately to Kozik that there had been a girl, a long time ago, who’d broken Alvarez’s heart; Alvarez had talked about her a few times, when he and Tig had been alone and he’d been in a melancholy mood, half-drunk on tequila. Which likely explained the way Tig was now staring at Mrs Hale with wide-eyed disbelief.
It was Jax who asked the question that hung in the air. “What about your husband?”
Opie groaned as Jax’s hand knocked against his shoulder, and Mrs Hale made an impatient noise and shuffled forward, batting Jax’s hand away and taking the rag from him. She began to carefully sponge Opie’s wound. “Mr Jacob Hale was my father’s friend. When my father was dying, he sold his hacienda to him and asked him to take care of me. I was nineteen.” She spoke softly, her voice colored with sorrow. “After my father died, Mr Hale told me he wished to marry me. I told him I could not. That I was in love with someone else.”
“Alvarez?” Jax was sitting back on his heels, watching her.
Mrs Hale nodded. “He was one of my father’s vaqueros, and it was a secret thing. My father did not know. Mr Hale told me it was my father’s dying wish I should marry him. Such a thing is—.” She looked up at Jax for a moment and Kozik saw there were tears in her eyes. She turned back to Opie. “It is hard for a daughter to go against her father’s wishes. And I was foolish. I met with Marcus, to tell him, and Jacob discovered us. He had Marcus whipped and driven out. Then Mr Hale took me to California and promised me he would be a good husband.”
She gestured for Jax to help Opie lean forward so she could clean the exit wound on his back. As she swabbed at the dried blood she added quietly but fiercely. “He lied. As he lies about everything.”
She went on working while the rest of them watched her in silence, digesting what she’d said.
Kozik had a hundred questions, but one seemed more pressing than the rest. “Why now? Why did Alvarez come for you now?”
Mrs Hale shrugged and sat back. She held out her hand to Jax. “You have clean dressings?” While Jax fumbled for them in the saddlebag resting by his knee, she looked at Kozik. “For many years, I tried to be a good wife. And Marcus, he tried to forget me, because I was married to another man and he thought I was rich and happy. And there was the Revolución to fight.”
She took the dressings from Jax and, covering the wounds front and back, began to bandage them into place. She gave a small, harsh laugh as she worked. “Then there was no more Revolución. And Marcus, who had become a great man in the fighting, learned through another friend of my father’s, who still did business with my husband, that I was not happy. And so we planned for my escape.”
Jax cocked an eyebrow. “And the ransom?”
“Money for the Revolución. To fight the federales and the rich Americans who treat our land the way Mr Hale treated me.” Mrs Hale sat back on her heels and gestured at Opie. “There. He will do.”
Tig peered at her suspiciously. “So why are you helping us? Why do you care if Opie lives or dies?”
“Because the longer he lives, the more he’ll slow us down.” Jax stood and, reaching down, hauled Mrs Hale to her feet and shoved her in Kozik’s direction. “You boys done?” When Kozik and Tig nodded at him, he said tersely, bending to help Opie up, “Then let’s go.”
Mrs Hale took a step back toward Jax, though she didn’t try to pull out of Kozik’s grip. He could feel her trembling. “You will send me back to Mr Jacob Hale, even now you know what kind of man he is?”
Jax, his arm around Opie, paused in guiding him back toward his horse. “With all due respect, Mrs Hale, we only have your word for that. And your husband told us plenty of stories that don’t put Alvarez in any better light. From what I heard, seems he got a taste during the revolution for living off the fruits of murder and plunder, and now he doesn’t care who suffers as long as he can live like a hacendado.”
“That is not true!” Mrs Hale took another step forward, yanking herself out of Kozik’s grip and raising her hand as if she was going to slap Jax. As Kozik caught her arms again and jerked them behind her, dragging her back, she added fiercely, “Marcus fights for the peones and the campesinos, always.”
Jax smirked at her. “Ma’am, we’ve seen the newspapers.”
“Government newspapers,” she spat back. “You believe them?” Jax exchanged a look with Opie and Mrs Hale seemed to take heart from it, because she said more quietly, her tone humble. “Do not take me back to that man. Please.”
Jax regarded her thoughtfully for a moment, before resuming his journey with Opie toward the horses. “Mr Hale is your husband, ma’am. And our employer. There’s nine thousand dollars waiting for each of us when we get back to the border with you.”
“And if Marcus were to pay you the same?” Mrs Hale drew herself straighter.
Jax, his back to her, shook his head as he and Opie reached the horses and Opie put his hand on the saddle horn. “I gave your husband my word, Mrs Hale, that I’d return you safe and sound to your home. We’re going on.”
Part Three
Fandom: Sons of Anarchy
Rating: Teen
Contains: Nothing exceeding canon but does include animal death
Words: 20,500 words
Summary: A Western AU for Sons of Anarchy. Four soldiers of fortune—Jax, Opie, Tig and Kozik—are hired by a rich American businessman (Jacob Hale) to rescue his wife, who has been kidnapped by a Mexican bandit (Alvarez). Having pulled off a daring rescue, the team head back to the border with Alvarez on their tail—but, along the way, discover all is not as it seems.
Author's note: Written for
journeystory and inspired by the plot of the 1966 movie The Professionals. The beautiful banners and dividers were created by laisserais. Thanks to Scribbler (scribblesinink) for the beta, if not the plotbunny.Disclaimer: This story is a transformative work based on the Fox 21/FX Productions/Linson Entertainment/Sutter Ink television series Sons of Anarchy. It was written for entertainment only; the author does not profit from it.
Part One
A day and a half later, Kozik lay on his stomach peering out over Alvarez’s camp. They had left the horses in the shelter of a remote, tumbledown barn that showed no sign any creature had visited in the past year or more, save perhaps for a few wild goats. From there, they’d hiked the final two miles on foot. Now they were hunkered down on top of a cliff that overlooked the valley containing the hacienda Alvarez had made home.
In the wavering light of several cooking fires, Kozik could see that the place was in poor repair. Holes had been knocked in some of the walls and half the roof was missing from the sprawling main building. Crude shelters, formed of blankets stretched over rickety frames of wood filched from the fallen roof, huddled around the remains of the walls.
Further along from where they lay, almost invisible in the near-darkness that hugged the ground outside the light cast by the fires and a few oil lamps, a guard was keeping a desultory look out, although he seemed more interested in whatever he was whittling from a scrap of wood than his surroundings. Across the valley, his counterpart could just be seen. He was lounging on one elbow, the firelight glinting off a bottle as he raised it to his lips now and then. A third guard paced restlessly at the top of a tower pockmarked with bullet holes that, lifting itself above the low huddle of buildings, had no doubt once provided the hacendado with a private study.
“See the machine gun?” Jax asked quietly, lowering his field glasses and pointing toward the top of the main building. “We’ll need to take out the gunner as well as the lookouts.”
On the other side of Kozik, Tig drew in a sharp breath. Kozik saw the reason himself, even as Tig extended a hand to point down at a man who had emerged from one end of the main building. “Alvarez,” he muttered.
Jax raised his field glasses and followed Alvarez as he crossed the courtyard toward a wide low basin where several of his gang were washing up. The basin was fed by a water tower on stilts just to their left that must, in turn, be fed by a spring further up the hillside from where they lay.
Kozik automatically translated the familiar Spanish phrases as Alvarez called out approving words to his men as he passed them—Good riding, today, eh, Miguel?—until he reached one of the figures bent over the basin. “Ten minutes,” he said, clapping a hand on a bare shoulder.
It was Kozik’s turn to draw in a sharp breath, his heart hammering in his chest, as the figure straightened, the light from a nearby lamp falling on a shapely half-naked form. The woman lifted her arms to push her hair back from her face and tie it back with a cord, unabashedly displaying her firm, full breasts for any who cared to look—and, oh, how Kozik cared to look, drinking in the sight after all these years. “Yes, yes,” she answered, her tone impatient. “I’ll be there.”
“Is that Mrs Hale,” Opie asked from Jax’s far side, his surprise evident in his voice.
“That, my friend,” Kozik informed him, propping his chin on his hands and gazing admiringly down at the woman as she finished washing and pulled her blouse back on over her head, the material clinging to her damp skin, “is a soldier. Alejandra López. One of Alvarez’s lieutenants. His best one, if you want my opinion. Not a woman to cross in battle—or in bed….”
Jax was giving him an amused look. “Old flame?”
Tig snorted quietly. “More like an old brushfire….”
That was true: the two of them had argued as often as they’d made love, and though Kozik had thought of her as his woman—had wanted to make her more than that—she’d kept him dangling. Made sure he knew she was still her own woman and would share her attentions where she pleased. Then the Revolution had fallen apart, and there was no place for Kozik and Tig in Mexico—and no place that Ally wanted on his side of the border. This is my land, she’d said, pointing to the ground below her feet as he’d tried to persuade her to come with him. The land of my father and my mother. Don not ask me to leave it for a land that is not mine….
“She Alvarez’s woman now?” Jax was tracking her through the field glasses as she headed into the main building, following Alvarez.
Kozik shrugged. “Doubt it. Ally could have any man she wanted in camp—and frequently did—and she could turn down any man she didn’t want, too. Anyone with half a brain learned to wait to be asked, or he might find himself at risk of losing more than his pride. But all the years we were here, I never saw her and Alvarez together like that. They were more like brother and sister, I guess.”
Jax had produced a pencil and notebook from an inside pocket. Flattening the notebook open on the ground in front of him with the hand holding the field glasses, he began to make a rough sketch of the layout of the camp below. “Where do you think they’re keeping Mrs Hale?”
“My guess would be on the second floor.” Tig nodded toward the corner of the building, where an upper room with a door leading out onto a roof terrace nestled against the base of the lookout tower. Lamplight was spilling out through the closed fretwork shutters. “Only one way in or out, except if you jump off that roof, and anyone up on the tower’s going to see someone trying to escape that way quick enough.”
“Seems fair.” Jax made a few more marks in his notebook before snapping it shut. “I think we’ve seen enough from here. Let’s take a look from the other side.” He gestured for Kozik to lead the way.
A weary trek later—they made a large circle around the end of the valley in which the hacienda lay, to make sure they weren’t spotted—the four of them were again examining the camp, but this time from the other direction. The change of view didn’t add a great deal to their knowledge, but it did furnish two bits of information that could prove crucial to the success of the mission. The first was that it would be possible to scale the main building and reach the roof terrace near the upper room using a number of casks and barrels stacked to the rear of the building.
The second was a little more evidence that their guess that Mrs Hale was being held in the upper room was likely correct. The double doors out on to the terrace had been flung open by the time they found a new vantage point, perhaps to let in the slight breeze that was freshening the humid night. From where they were crouched, they couldn’t see inside, but they could hear a woman’s voice as well as a man’s. At one point, a shadow cast across the terrace by someone standing in the doorway was unmistakably that of a woman; a man’s sharp tones called her back inside.
Kozik had already picked out Ally elsewhere, lounging with a group of men around one of the fires, laughing and sharing a bottle. While the other three discussed what they could see from this side, Kozik went on watching her, remembering the feel of her skin under his palms as they lay together, the taste of her as they kissed, the heat of her body wrapped around his when they made love—in the dark shadows in a corner of the camp, under the moonlight as it rippled across the open desert, by the flicker of firelight at the mouth of a mountain cave…. Anywhere and everywhere and always unforgettable….
After a while, Ally stood up, beckoning to one of the men around the fire; the two of them disappeared into the shadows together. A flash of anger surged through Kozik and he was halfway to his feet before Tig’s hand on his arm dragged him back down.
“Easy, boy,” Tig growled quietly.
Kozik huffed out a breath, remembering where they were. He nodded at Tig to show he’d come to his senses and Tig let go of his arm.
“Everything okay?” Jax was looking at them, concern on his face.
Tig nodded. “Yeah. Lover boy here’s just a bit over-excited.”
Jax snorted. “There’ll be time enough for that when we’ve collected our ten thousand dollars and are back in California.”
Kozik laughed quietly. Even after three years and all the women he’d been with, and all his efforts to forget, seemed he’d still got Ally under his skin. “But not a woman worth a damn to spend it on,” he commented to no one in particular.
“I’m sure—.” Jax broke off from what he’d been about to say and gestured toward the gateway into the courtyard. A dozen mules, each laden with heavy packs, were being led inside. A man by the fire nearest the gate pushed to his feet and started forward to greet the men leading the mules, while a boy scampered off in the opposite direction, toward the tower. A minute or two later, Alvarez appeared and strode across the courtyard toward the newcomers.
“Francisco,” he called. “How did it go?”
The leader of the mule-drivers turned and grinned at him. “Good,” he called back. Kozik craned forward, trying to catch the rest of what he said, as he gave his report in rapid Spanish. Fortunately, Alvarez’s crew seemed just as keen to hear the news and the men lounging around the courtyard had grown quiet.
“You getting this?” Jax hissed at Kozik. Kozik realized Jax’s Spanish probably wasn’t nearly as fluent as his own, even though his own had grown a little rusty in the past three years. He nodded in reply, before concentrating again on the conversation below.
After another minute, Alvarez slapped Francisco on the back and directed some of the men around the fires to lead the mules away. Those who’d driven the mules in made their way across to the kitchen area, where food was still being doled out.
“Well?” Jax was looking at Kozik, eyebrows raised.
Kozik shrugged. “From what I could make out, they raided a hacienda about fifty miles south east. They handed out nine tenths of what they stole to some campesinos west of here and the rest they brought back. And they only had to kill two men at the hacienda.”
Jax peered past Kozik, seeking confirmation from Tig. Tig shrugged. “Sounds about right to me.”
From Jax’s other side, Opie murmured in his slow way, “Didn’t Hale say Alvarez was lining his own pockets? Massacring peasants?”
“He did.” Jax’s tone was curt.
Below them, the courtyard had settled down again and Alvarez had vanished back inside the main building. Tig shifted restlessly. “Are we done here?”
“We are.” Jax had his notebook back in his coat. “Let’s go.”
Dawn was close, the sky just starting to pale, by the time they made it back to the barn. All seemed quiet, so they quickly settled down to sleep, each of them keeping watch in turn. By mid afternoon, all four of them were awake. With the horses and other camp necessities attended to, Jax called them together inside the shell of the barn.
He had sketched a larger version of his map on the wall in chalk, marking the main points of interest. “What we need to do, gentlemen,” he began, once he had their attention, “is to make it look like the federales are attacking—and from the opposite direction to the one we’ll be coming from.”
Tig, cleaning and checking his weapons, raised his eyebrows. “You want the four of us to look like a Mexican Army battalion?”
Jax smirked. “I do—and we can. Or at least Opie can.” He turned to Opie. “Your job is to rig the water tower so it looks like it’s been hit by a couple of rounds from a mountain gun. Tig, you need to take out the guard on the valley edge on this side and then use that vantage point to deal with the guard on the tower and the man on the machine gun once the water tower’s been blown. After that, you can start sending incendiaries into their ammo stores here, here and here.” Jax rapped his knuckles at various points on the diagram to indicate where he meant. “When that’s done, I’m sure the two of you can keep busy picking off any easy targets you see. Meanwhile, Kozik and I will deal with the guard on the other side of the hacienda and rescue Mrs Hale from this upper room. Any questions?”
“How long will it take to set the charges on the water tower?” Tig was already placing rows of ammunition in front of him, sorting and selecting the cartridges he wanted.
Opie shrugged. “Half an hour maybe. Can lay a fuse that’ll give you up to a half hour of burn once it’s lit.”
Tig nodded, his focus still on the ammunition, but apparently satisfied with the answer.
“Anything else?” Jax asked again.
“When?” Kozik had pulled out his own revolver and begun taking it apart to clean it.
“Tonight. We’ll set off at midnight, take the horses with us. We can leave them on the north side of the ridge. Should be at the hacienda by three, we can blow the place at four and be well clear by the time it’s light.” Jax took another look around the room. “Are we good?” Receiving their nods, he dipped his own head in acknowledgment. “Then, gentlemen, let’s get ready.”
Kozik crouched on the hillside above the hacienda, Jax at his side. His heart was still pounding from disposing of the lookout. He flexed his fingers, trying to rid them of the feeling of the garrote, and turned his head a little so he couldn’t see the body out of the corner of his eye. It was one thing to face a man across a battlefield—or even to lay an ambush that your opponent could reasonably expect—and shoot him at fifty paces, quickly and cleanly. It was quite another to creep up behind a fellow who had no idea his life was likely to end in a few minutes and hear his struggle for breath and feel his body bucking against yours as you choked the life out him. There was a reason, when they’d been with Alvarez, that Kozik had left the infiltration and close work to Tig as much as he could.
Jax silently tapped his watch, signaling that it was three minutes until the water tower was set to blow, and set off down the hillside, crouching low. Kozik followed, still scanning the camp for any sign they or the other two had been spotted.
Reaching the rear of the hacienda, they hunkered down in the shadow of a pile of crates, waiting. Another minute passed, long enough for Kozik to begin wondering about the charges, and then there was a dull boom from the far side of the camp, followed by the sound of timbers falling and alarmed shouts. Kozik ducked low, hands over his head, as a rain of splinters pattered down around them, while an unsteady red light sprang up beyond the building.
In the next instant, Jax was up on the crates and scrambling onto the roof. Kozik followed. The roof was scattered with fragments of wood from the water tower. From the corner of his eye, he saw a body fall from the hacienda’s tower and, among the babble of sounds, he heard a scream cut short: Tig was doing his job with his usual efficiency.
Down in the courtyard, men were tumbling out of the shelters, snatching up weapons, calling out to each other. Another explosion rocked the night as one of the ammo stores went up. Kozik—heart racing at the second, unexpected explosion—was half aware of a skein of squealing horses careering across the courtyard, creating further confusion as they passed.
Jax was already at the entrance to the upper room. Kozik joined him and cautiously pulled open one of the doors, while Jax pointed his pistol at the gap, ready to take on anyone inside. After a moment, he slid through the door, apparently not finding any immediate threat. With another glance over his shoulder to check their rear, Kozik followed.
Inside, a dark-haired woman was sitting up in the bed, the covers half thrown back, the dim light revealing a length of bare leg below the hem of the light robe she wore. “What—?” She stared, wide-eyed, at the two intruders.
“It’s all right, Mrs Hale.” Jax held out his hand to her. “Your husband sent us to rescue you.”
“My—?” She started up on to her knees, one hand drawing the neckline of her robe together. “No….”
“Mrs Hale, we don’t have time to waste. Please.” Jax stepped forward and grabbed her arm, dragging her from the bed, while Kozik crossed to the other door, the one that must lead out into the tower, and leaned close to listen. He couldn’t hear anything from right outside the door, though there were shouts from the floor below, and the sound of another explosion, further away.
Glancing back at Jax and Mrs Hale, he saw she’d tumbled to the floor. Jax was frowning down at her. “You are Mrs Hale?”
The woman glared up at him. “I am,” she confirmed haughtily, tipping up her chin and straightening her back.
“Then we’re here to rescue you.” Jax again tried to pull her to her feet, but she again resisted.
“Come on!” Kozik muttered, turning back to the door and straining his ears for any sound from outside. He still couldn’t hear anyone coming up the stairs, but he wasn’t sure how long that would last.
The sound of flesh smacking against flesh made him swing back. Jax was standing over the slumped body of Mrs Hale, his hand curled into a fist.
“What the—?” Kozik blinked.
“No time to argue.” Jax bent down and hoisted the limp woman over his shoulder. “Let’s go.” He headed for the door that led to the terrace.
Kozik hurried after him, his gaze darting from side to side once he got outside to check if they’d been spotted. The courtyard below was still in chaos, but no one appeared to be pointing in their direction. So far, so good. Scurrying ahead of Jax, he scrambled awkwardly down to the ground the same way they’d climbed up, before turning to allow Jax lower the still-unconscious Mrs Hale down to him.
Taking her weight, Kozik settled her onto his shoulder. The air around them was sharp with the tang of gunpowder and burning wood, but he caught a whiff of… jasmine, was it? It reminded him of the soap Ally had used, of breathing it in as he pulled her close, pressing his face into her neck, the two of them still trembling from the release of making love.
He forced the memory away and concentrated on making his way over the rough ground in front of him, trying to keep as low as possible as he climbed the hillside. Jax followed close behind, gun drawn.
Kozik was breathing hard, his shirt stuck to his skin with sweat, by the time they crested the hill and the hacienda dropped out of sight. Jax touched him on the arm. “I’ll take her for a while.”
Kozik nodded, glad to hand the burden over. Mrs Hale wasn’t the first woman he’d carried off—there’d been a few times when Ally, though clearly willing, had been enjoying teasing him with delaying tactics for longer than he’d been prepared to endure—but he’d usually only had to stagger as far as the next room or across to a pack roll spread a few feet away.
Mrs Hale moaned slightly as he passed her over, apparently coming round. Kozik wondered what kind of fireworks there’d be when she woke up properly. For the moment, the priority was to make their way back to the horses as quickly as possible.
As Jax set off in front, Kozik took up the rear, scanning behind them for any sign of pursuit. They’d gone another half mile when he thought he could hear the sound of someone following. He strained his ears. Yes, there it was again. Opening his mouth to warn Jax, he froze as the other man stopped and held up his hand. From ahead, Kozik could hear horses: a half dozen or more. How the hell did they find us? he wondered.
A moment later, two riders leading a string of animals appeared out of the dark. Kozik let out the breath he’d been holding as he recognized Tig and Opie.
“What happened?” Jax gasped out the question. “Why didn’t you wait—?”
“You’re being followed, partner.” Tig was already off his horse and helping Jax to lower Mrs Hale from his shoulder. “Someone came out on that roof terrace—looking for Mrs Hale, I guess. Yelled down into the courtyard and then took off up the hill after you.”
Jax cursed as he pushed Mrs Hale into Tig’s arms. She was waking up, eyes fluttering and flinching as Jax manhandled her. “Get her on a horse. We need to get moving before they catch up.”
“Too late, my friends.” The words coming out of the dark to one side made them all start and whip their heads round, looking for the source. The speaker took another step forward and Kozik saw in the faint moonlight that it was Alvarez. The light glinted off the pistol he carried.
“Four against one,” Jax pointed out, coolly raising his hands, knowing Opie and Kozik had their guns trained on Alvarez. Tig had his hands full holding on to Mrs Hale.
Alvarez grinned humorlessly. “You think the odds are in your favor?”
Jax shrugged. “I don’t hear anyone else. Let your men show themselves. Or let them shoot us from where they are.”
Alvarez hesitated, clearly at a loss.
Jax tilted his head in Tig’s direction. “Put Mrs Hale on a horse,” he instructed.
“No!” Alvarez lifted the muzzle of his gun a little, re-centering his aim on Jax’s head.
Jax shook his head. “We’re just here to do a job, Alvarez. Killing you isn’t part of the contract—but we’ll do it if we have to.”
“No!” That time the cry came from Mrs Hale. It was almost like the damn woman didn’t want to go back to her husband. Wrenching herself out of Tig’s grasp, she threw herself toward Alvarez.
He staggered back as she clung to him, murmuring a despairing, “Isabel….”
Tig was first to react, leaping forward after Mrs Hale and grasping Alvarez’s arm, wrenching it up and wrestling the gun from his hand. There was a flash and a bang as the gun went off, before it clattered away into the dark. A moment later, Tig had Alvarez on his back, the muzzle of his own gun pressed to Alvarez’s temple.
Jax had caught hold of Mrs Hale. He shoved her at Kozik, who did his best not to put his hands anywhere that would earn him a slap on the face as he grabbed hold of her. “Tie her hands and put her on a horse,” Jax ordered curtly. He turned back to the two men on the ground. “Tig?”
Alvarez was staring up at Tig. “You gonna do it, Trager? After all we’ve been through together? You gonna kill me?”
Mrs Hale turned her head away sharply, a sob escaping her, as Kozik finished tying her hands together with a length of cord Opie had passed down.
Tig didn’t move, his gaze locked with Alvarez’s. Then, with a curse, he reversed his gun in his hand and clubbed Alvarez across the head with it. Alvarez fell back with a grunt.
Mrs Hale turned back to stare at Alvarez as Tig got to his feet, her expression a mixture of relief and fear. Jax took a step forward. “We need to—.”
He broke off as Tig raised his gun and pointed it at him, though Tig’s finger wasn’t on the trigger. “No.”
Jax narrowed his eyes, pressing his lips into a thin line, before he nodded brusquely. “Then let’s get out of here before anyone else finds us.” He turned away toward the horses.
Letting out a relieved breath of his own, Kozik began to drag Mrs Hale toward a horse. As he did so, his eyes met Tig’s.
“Not a word, brother. Not a word,” Tig growled, swinging away to mount his own horse.
Five minutes later, Alvarez lay alone under the lightening sky, the sound of hoofbeats fading into the distance.
The light grew as the line of horses picked their way through the hills, revealing the sparse shrubs, the rocks with their ever-shifting hues, and the salt flats running northward. It could be a cruel and dangerous place for those not used to it, but it had its own severe beauty; in an odd way, it reminded Kozik of Ally—and, like Ally, he’d missed it from time to time in his years in the north.
He glanced over his shoulder at Mrs Hale, who was clinging to the saddle horn with her bound hands as he led her horse along the trail. She glowered at him when he caught her eye; he guessed she couldn’t be very comfortable with nothing but that thin robe under her ass.
Kozik let his gaze drift past Mrs Hale to Opie, who was bringing up the rear. His horse had fallen back a distance and Kozik wondered for a moment if he’d seen something behind to worry them. Then he realized Opie was slumped in the saddle, one arm hanging, his head low.
“Hey!” Kozik faced forward to where, beyond the spare horses, Tig and Jax led the way. “Hold up. Something wrong with Opie.” Dropping the lead line of Mrs Hale’s horse, he rode back past her, heading for Opie.
As he got closer, he caught side of a dark stain on Opie’s jacket. “Goddammit.” Kozik hurried his horse into a longer stride, calling back over his shoulder, “Opie’s been hit.”
He’d barely reached the other man when another rider shot past him, up the trail the way they’d come. He heard an angry shout from Tig. Even so, it took him a second to realize the rider was Mrs Hale. “Oh no, you don’t,” Kozik muttered to himself as he spurred his horse after her.
Luckily for Kozik, Mrs Hale hadn’t gotten far or picked up much speed; he was quickly able to pull alongside and grab the reins, hauling her mount to a halt. She made to slide off the horse but he shook his head. “Don’t even think about it.” Turning their horses, he headed back to where Jax was helping Opie down.
“—gun went off,” Opie was saying, his voice weak. Kozik realized he must have caught the bullet in his arm from when Tig had been wrestling with Alvarez.
“Let’s take a look.” Jax lowered Opie to the ground, propped against a rock. He glanced up at the other two. “It’s a poor place to stop but we need to see to Ope, so might as well be here as later. Tig, you be our eyes and ears. Kozik, get Mrs Hale into those clothes we brought. And keep a close eye on her.”
Kozik nodded, swinging from his horse and dropping the reins to the ground. Pulling out his knife, he cut the cord he’d wrapped round Mrs Hale’s wrists, and then held out his hands to help her dismount. She looked down at him, a haughty expression on her face, as if planning to refuse his assistance. Then, sighing heavily, she leaned forward so he could grasp her around the waist and swing her down.
He’d been too busy when he’d been lifting her on to the horse to notice, but he found now, as she stood close to him with his hands still on her waist, that she was a tall woman—though not as tall as Ally—with curves that filled out her robe in a pleasing fashion. She gave him a disdainful look, making it clear she didn’t think much of the once-over he’d given her. Grinning, he let go of her and stepped past, pulling a bundle from the pack behind her saddle. He held it out to her. “Your husband sent these.”
She went on looking at him, not taking the bundle. He shoved it at her more firmly. “You’ll be a lot more comfortable if you change, ma’am.”
She finally brought her hands up to accept the bundle and began to unroll it. He stepped back, crossing his arms and regarding her. She looked up at him. “Are you going to watch me?” He noticed now that she spoke English with the slight accent of a native Spanish speaker and remembered that her husband had said she had been born in Mexico.
He was filled with a strong urge, for all she was their employer’s wife, to pay her back for being nothing but trouble the whole time she’d been with them. He smirked at her, jerking his head toward where Jax was examining Opie. “Boss there said to keep a close eye on you.”
Mrs Hale went on looking at him, one eyebrow arched. Kozik broke first, his cheeks coloring. “But I guess I could just watch your feet, ma’am,” he mumbled, lowering his head and pulling his hat down over his eyes. “Can’t run away without those.”
He thought he heard her mutter something in Spanish that sounded like, “Little boys and their big ideas and their little—” as she turned around and started to get changed. He suspected she’d get on rather well with Ally, and he was suddenly glad Ally wasn’t there to see what a pig he’d been.
When Mrs Hale had finished dressing, he caught her by the arm and turned to see what had become of Opie. Jax was kneeling beside him, folding cloth into wads to bind in place front and back. Opie’s face was pale and beaded with sweat.
Kozik cast a glance at Tig, still on horseback and watching the trail behind them, with the occasional anxious look in Opie’s direction, and then turned back to Jax. “How bad is it?”
Jax shrugged as he tied off the bandage. “Bullet went clean through, but he’s lost a deal of blood, and the wound could still go bad. We’ll clean it properly at the next stop, the other side of that dry river we crossed.” He gave Opie’s good shoulder a quick squeeze, before helping him haul himself back to his feet. “Kozik, you keep watching Mrs Hale. Tig, you take the rear. We’ll tie the pack horses to Ope’s saddle.”
Turning back to Mrs Hale, Kozik saw she was biting her lip thoughtfully as she watched Jax steer Opie toward his horse. “Time to go,” he told her, expecting more fireworks. But it seemed the fight had gone out of her, or she preferred not to have her hands tied again, because she let him boost her back on to her horse without any fuss. He found the hat her husband had also sent along and handed it to her. “Don’t try any funny business, or I’ll tie you to the saddle,” he warned as he mounted his own animal.
A minute later they were off again, Jax leading the way.
The sun grew higher and the heat unrelenting as they descended into the salt flats. Mrs Hale drooped in the saddle at Kozik’s side almost as listlessly as Opie just in front, while the horses plodded mile by weary mile through the plain. Kozik couldn’t help but wonder whether Alvarez and his crew were behind them and how much faster they were riding. The feeling grew on him and, as time wore on, he glanced behind him, beyond Tig, more and more often. Turning back after the third or fourth time, he saw Mrs Hale was watching him: she’d sloughed off some of her listlessness, her mouth curved up into a small smirk and her eyes bright with malice.
She tilted her head backward. “Marcus will catch us—and then he will kill you.”
Kozik pressed his lips into a thin line. “Maybe.” He faced ahead, determined not to look back again unless Tig drew his attention.
The sun was a couple of hours from noon by the time they crossed the dry river. A low bluff of rocks rose on the other side, worn by wind and water here and there into overhangs that provided a sliver of shade. Jax half carried Opie into one of the patches of shadow. When Kozik lifted Mrs Hale down from her horse, she sank down next to the two of them. The brief spark of energy had gone and she seemed more tired than ever, accepting the canteen Kozik handed to her with a grateful nod.
Taking the canteen back from her, he realized it might be more than the heat and lack of water that was troubling her. Moving away, he searched along the river bank a few feet before he found what he was looking for: a patch of pure salt from which the sand had been scoured. He pressed a little into his own mouth, before collecting enough for the others in his neckerchief.
Returning to Mrs Hale, he knelt down in front of her. “Here, ma’am, this will make you feel better.”
She looked at him dubiously for a moment, before accepting a little of the salt and gingerly tasting it.
Placing the rest of the salt next to Jax and Opie, Kozik got to his feet and went to help Tig with the horses. Glancing back at Mrs Hale as he worked, he saw she was looking between the four of them, a frown on her face. At last, she drew herself up. “You will never reach the border,” she informed them.
Jax, carefully easing the last of the bloodstained rags away from Opie’s shoulder, snorted.
Mrs Hale clasped her hands together. “Marcus will never let you take me back.”
“Wants his ransom, huh?” Jax carefully wet a clean piece of cloth and began dabbing at the wound. Opie winced.
“He wants me!” Mrs Hale declared.
All four of them turned to stare at her. There was silence, except for the whisper of the wind stirring up the sand, before Tig gritted out, “What are you to him?”
Mrs Hale tilted her chin up, her expression proud. “The woman he loves. As he is the man I love.”
Kozik blinked at her. Alvarez had once told him, with a laugh, when Kozik had asked him why he had no woman, that he was married to the revolution. Later, Tig had explained privately to Kozik that there had been a girl, a long time ago, who’d broken Alvarez’s heart; Alvarez had talked about her a few times, when he and Tig had been alone and he’d been in a melancholy mood, half-drunk on tequila. Which likely explained the way Tig was now staring at Mrs Hale with wide-eyed disbelief.
It was Jax who asked the question that hung in the air. “What about your husband?”
Opie groaned as Jax’s hand knocked against his shoulder, and Mrs Hale made an impatient noise and shuffled forward, batting Jax’s hand away and taking the rag from him. She began to carefully sponge Opie’s wound. “Mr Jacob Hale was my father’s friend. When my father was dying, he sold his hacienda to him and asked him to take care of me. I was nineteen.” She spoke softly, her voice colored with sorrow. “After my father died, Mr Hale told me he wished to marry me. I told him I could not. That I was in love with someone else.”
“Alvarez?” Jax was sitting back on his heels, watching her.
Mrs Hale nodded. “He was one of my father’s vaqueros, and it was a secret thing. My father did not know. Mr Hale told me it was my father’s dying wish I should marry him. Such a thing is—.” She looked up at Jax for a moment and Kozik saw there were tears in her eyes. She turned back to Opie. “It is hard for a daughter to go against her father’s wishes. And I was foolish. I met with Marcus, to tell him, and Jacob discovered us. He had Marcus whipped and driven out. Then Mr Hale took me to California and promised me he would be a good husband.”
She gestured for Jax to help Opie lean forward so she could clean the exit wound on his back. As she swabbed at the dried blood she added quietly but fiercely. “He lied. As he lies about everything.”
She went on working while the rest of them watched her in silence, digesting what she’d said.
Kozik had a hundred questions, but one seemed more pressing than the rest. “Why now? Why did Alvarez come for you now?”
Mrs Hale shrugged and sat back. She held out her hand to Jax. “You have clean dressings?” While Jax fumbled for them in the saddlebag resting by his knee, she looked at Kozik. “For many years, I tried to be a good wife. And Marcus, he tried to forget me, because I was married to another man and he thought I was rich and happy. And there was the Revolución to fight.”
She took the dressings from Jax and, covering the wounds front and back, began to bandage them into place. She gave a small, harsh laugh as she worked. “Then there was no more Revolución. And Marcus, who had become a great man in the fighting, learned through another friend of my father’s, who still did business with my husband, that I was not happy. And so we planned for my escape.”
Jax cocked an eyebrow. “And the ransom?”
“Money for the Revolución. To fight the federales and the rich Americans who treat our land the way Mr Hale treated me.” Mrs Hale sat back on her heels and gestured at Opie. “There. He will do.”
Tig peered at her suspiciously. “So why are you helping us? Why do you care if Opie lives or dies?”
“Because the longer he lives, the more he’ll slow us down.” Jax stood and, reaching down, hauled Mrs Hale to her feet and shoved her in Kozik’s direction. “You boys done?” When Kozik and Tig nodded at him, he said tersely, bending to help Opie up, “Then let’s go.”
Mrs Hale took a step back toward Jax, though she didn’t try to pull out of Kozik’s grip. He could feel her trembling. “You will send me back to Mr Jacob Hale, even now you know what kind of man he is?”
Jax, his arm around Opie, paused in guiding him back toward his horse. “With all due respect, Mrs Hale, we only have your word for that. And your husband told us plenty of stories that don’t put Alvarez in any better light. From what I heard, seems he got a taste during the revolution for living off the fruits of murder and plunder, and now he doesn’t care who suffers as long as he can live like a hacendado.”
“That is not true!” Mrs Hale took another step forward, yanking herself out of Kozik’s grip and raising her hand as if she was going to slap Jax. As Kozik caught her arms again and jerked them behind her, dragging her back, she added fiercely, “Marcus fights for the peones and the campesinos, always.”
Jax smirked at her. “Ma’am, we’ve seen the newspapers.”
“Government newspapers,” she spat back. “You believe them?” Jax exchanged a look with Opie and Mrs Hale seemed to take heart from it, because she said more quietly, her tone humble. “Do not take me back to that man. Please.”
Jax regarded her thoughtfully for a moment, before resuming his journey with Opie toward the horses. “Mr Hale is your husband, ma’am. And our employer. There’s nine thousand dollars waiting for each of us when we get back to the border with you.”
“And if Marcus were to pay you the same?” Mrs Hale drew herself straighter.
Jax, his back to her, shook his head as he and Opie reached the horses and Opie put his hand on the saddle horn. “I gave your husband my word, Mrs Hale, that I’d return you safe and sound to your home. We’re going on.”
Part Three
