Country of the Bad Wolfes (63 page)

He freezes at the sight of them emerging from the throng at the doors. They had not been seen in the compound since the business with the horse—almost a year now—and he'd had no reason whatever to think they might be here today. They are walking in his direction and for a petrifying moment he thinks they have
already seen him, then realizes they haven't and he averts his face just as one looks his way. They stride past, almost close enough to touch. He feels a tremor in his fingers and stills it with his fists.

And sees the patrón come out of the church, flanked by family.

They are halfway to the casa grande when Blake Cortéz stops and looks back toward the church, where the crowd is just beginning to exit. James Sebastian looks back at him. “What?”

“I don't know. Something.”

James looks toward the church. “Good-looking, huh?”

“Not that. Something else. Just barely saw it. Goddammit, what was it?”

“Harm?”

“Has that feel.”

“See Father?”

“Not in that crowd.”

They head back to the church.

As they surge from the church, people are laughing, speaking in shouts to be heard above the clangor of the bells. Children race off toward the far end of the plaza, toward the music and the tables of food. John Roger begins to descend the steps—John Samuel and his family to one side of him, Bruno Tomás and Felicia Flor to the other—and then, directly before him, two steps below, is Alfredo Espinosa, his expression such that for a second John Roger doesn't recognize him, and then he does, and he smiles and halts, wondering what he might want. Alfredo now smiles too and steps up and places a hand on John Roger's arm in unseemly familiarity—then locks his hand on the arm and brings up the knife and stabs him with terrific force three fast times. In the abdomen, the stomach, the chest.

The others have already descended another three steps before they are aware John Roger has halted behind them, and when they turn to look he is on the seat of his pants and falling onto his side, hat tumbling, face clenched and teeth bared, hand splayed against his chest. The people to either side of him are agape with shock. John Samuel says “Oh God” and backs down another step. A woman shrieks. Bruno sees the bloom of blood on his uncle's white coat and sees Alfredo with knife in hand as he is starting to move away. He lunges and grabs him by the collar and Alfredo twists about and slashes Bruno's arm and face and Bruno lets go as Felicia Flor pulls him to her and gives her back to Alfredo, who slashes again and the blade opens her sleeve without touching flesh. More screams now as others see what's happening, but most of the churchgoers are still oblivious or in confusion, and Alfredo vanishes among them.

The twins come shouldering through the crowd and see their fallen father, his head cradled in Vicki Clara's lap and his coat opened to expose a shirtfront sodden with blood so bright they know he will be dead within the minute. Don't die, Papá, Vicki Clara pleads, don't die! John Roger's eyes are wide and keep moving from one looming twin to the other. He wants to say “Sons” but manages only what sound like gasping exhalations. Then his eyes go still and their light is gone.

James Sebastian takes the shortened Colt from his father's shoulder holster and Blake Cortéz shouts “Pa donde fue?” Hands point and wave in the same direction amid a chorus of strident babblings and the twins charge through the throng, knocking aside men and women and children alike.

In all the turmoil, no one has tried to stop Alfredo before he reaches his mount. He swings up into the saddle, knife still in hand, and heels the horse hard, heading toward the main gate at the other end of the plaza. The twins break through the crowd and spot him. James Sebastian assumes a shooting stance and sights just above the distancing rider to allow for the truncated trajectory of a short-barreled handgun and squeezes off three rounds in measured succession, adjusting his sight after each shot. The first bullet falls short and ricochets up into the horse's thigh but the animal barely flinches and doesn't break stride. The people at the far end of the plaza flee for cover. The next round strikes the horse in the hindquarter and it staggers but keeps its feet and Alfredo heels it hard and presses himself low against its neck. The third bullet hits the horse behind the ear and it plunges headfirst and Alfredo hears its neck break like a tree branch as he sails forward and onto the cobbles and goes tumbling to a stop. Blackie would later praise the shot and James would confess he had been trying to hit the rider.

Alfredo scrabbles to his feet, incredulous that he has broken no bone, his heart ramming against his ribs as though trying to make its own getaway. His knife is gone. The twins are coming at a jog and the crowd trotting behind at a distance. He bolts down a narrow alleyway between worker row houses and turns into a wider alley behind the residences, this one lined with animal enclosures—chicken houses and cattle corrals, goat pens and pig sties. He sees another alleyway junction up ahead and runs toward it and then stops short when the twin with the gun comes sprinting out of its shadowed mouth and sees him and turns toward him at a walk. Alfredo whirls around and sees the other twin advancing on him too, Alfredo's knife in his hand. Onlookers stream out from each of the flanking alleyways but each bunch keeps well back of the twin ahead of it. Alfredo remembers the derringer in his pocket but is too afraid to make a move for it.

It occurs to him that surrender will resolve everything. Surrender, yes! Let them lock him up! What else can they do in the eyes of so many witnesses? He raises his hands high and yells, “Me rendiro! Me rendiro!” He'll have someone send a telegram to his brother. To General Mauricio Espinosa de la Santa Cruz. Who will speed down here. Then let's see how long he stays locked up! Then these two sonsofbitches'll see what's what!

Look! he yells. All of you,
look
! He shakes his raised hands. I am surrendering! You see! He keeps shifting his attention from one twin to the other as they approach him from either side. And then they are near enough for him to see their eyes. I surrender! he yells, voice breaking. I
surrenderrrrr
!

Blake Cortéz stabs him just below the ribs and with a lateral yank slices him open. The pain exceeds any Alfredo could have imagined. He clamps his hands over his exposed viscera and his face contorts but the pain constricts his voice to a rasp. The front of his pants darkens with blood and urine. He falls down, knees drawn up, and moans low. They are next to a pig sty loud with snortings, and a row of little furious eyes peer between the slat rails. The twins look at each other—and then James Sebastian puts his boot against Alfredo's shoulder and pushes him onto his back and shoots him through each elbow to render his arms useless and Alfredo finds his voice and screams. And then screams higher still as the twins pick him up by the wrists and ankles and sling him over the top rail of the pen. He smacks down into the muck—and then everyone hears the clamorous raven of the pigs. The excruciations of his final minutes.

They take the Dragoon from the top right drawer and then from the middle drawer take a handful of the photographs of their mother and two of their father and one of their parents together. They pick the lock of the lower left drawer and take the ledger and the document case and put the ledger into the case with its other contents. They ignore the other drawers. They have already been to see their father where he is laid out. In deference everyone else left the room. When it was just him and the two of them, they touched him for the first time in their lives. His hand, his hair. Touched his face.

As they head for the office door James Sebastian says, “Hold on” and goes over to the big map of Mexico on the wall. Blake Cortéz comes up beside him.

“Where'll it be?” James says. Veracruz was out of the question. It was the first place their seekers would look.

“I don't care as long as it's near the gulf. I'd rather not live anywhere other.”

“Me neither. North or south?”

“Nothing south but Indians who mostly can't even speak Spanish.”

“Well then, that just about leaves only here,” James taps a fingertip on the map.

“Fine by me.”

They are midway down the stairs when John Samuel comes through the tall front doors and across the great room at a quick stride, heading for the staircase. As he nears the foot of it he looks up and sees them and stops short. The twins pause a few steps below the middle landing to regard him. They had not seen his face since the horse accident and see now what Bruno meant about his nose and that Josefina was not exaggerating the scar on his cheek. His eyes move from one of them to the
other. Linger a moment on the gun each has tucked into the front of his pants. One of them puts a hand on his gun and says, “You aint got a rifle hid on you, do you?”

John Samuel reddens. The twin grins and takes his hand off the Colt.

“I want to talk to you,” John Samuel says. His voice has deepened, no doubt because of the nose.

“Make it quick,” says one.

“I mean in private, not out here in—”

“You have something to say, say it,” says the other.

He seems unsure how to proceed. Then gestures in the direction of the plaza and says, “What you did to that man was . . . was. . . .”

“Discourteous?” one offers. “Ill-mannered?”

“Good God! You two are just—”

“He murdered our father,” says the other. “Yours too, I guess.”

“
Yes
! Yes, he did! And he deserved to be punished for it. By the
courts
! Not the way you two—”

“We punished him no more than he deserved.”

“
Punished
, you say? Christ, you
defiled
him. What do you think Mauricio . . . do you fools not know who his brother is?”

“Ah, quit your mewling,” says one. “We know about his brother and we aint about to fight his army. We're leaving. When he gets here you tell him we're gone and you don't know where.”

“He'll know you're at the cove. He'll find out and he'll go there. People talk, especially if they're afraid. Somebody will tell him.”

“No doubt,” says one. “But don't worry about us, big brother, we won't be there for long.”

John Samuel's surprise is more apparent than he knows. “Where are you going?”

“China. The moon. We aint decided.”

John Samuel glares. “Fine. That's fine. I don't care a damn. But don't ever come back here. I mean it. This place is far more important than you two and I won't put it at hazard just to protect you from—”