The Guns of Santa Sangre (11 page)

“Least you left the hair,” Tucker snorted.

“This time.” Fix grinned.

“Let’s go,” grunted the leader.

They moved to their horses.

The Mexican knelt by the bodies, waving her arms. “No,
senors
. We must bury them.”

“What?”
said Fix.

“It is only right,” Pilar said, as if it was plain common sense. She got up and brushed off her knees. “They must have words spoken over them.”

Bodie laughed and spat. “Here’s some words for ’em… See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya.” The cowboys all had a good laugh at that.

“Thought you said we need to get to your town by noon,” said Tucker softly.

Pilar shook her head devoutly, and he knew they had a situation. “Those who fell must be buried or it is a mortal sin. We need God on our side in the hours ahead and this is a test of our faith.” The girl stood with her hands clasped by her stomach facing them patiently as she stood among the bodies, and the three cowboys watched her as they stood with their hands on the saddles of their horses.

“You’re shittin’ me.” Fix’s eyes widened in incredulity.

“I don’t think she is.” Tucker chuckled, shaking his head to himself as he looked down his rangy frame at his boots.

The peasant gestured to battlefield. “It will not take much time, if we all dig.”

Bodie laughed. “Us? Dig?”

The peasant girl nodded with a sweet, hopeful smile.

“I ain’t lifting a finger,” Fix snorted.

“Leave ’em to the buzzards,” agreed Bodie.

“No, no, no…!” Pilar shook with distress.

Tucker lowered his voice to a reasonable tone. “Sister, these bastards tried to kill us. They were bad men. They’d have left us for dead. They can rot.”

“
Senors
, they were Federales.”

“Trust us, those swine wasn’t no kind of law,” Tucker sighed.

Fix bristled with anger and impatience. “Woman, you are getting on the worse side of our better nature.”

Bodie growled restlessly. “We’re riding out of here now, says us.”

The small, pretty girl sighed and stubbornly grabbed a small hand shovel from her saddle with soft resolve. Her shoulders slumped, she walked to the ground near the dead bodies and started to dig. “I understand,
senors
. I will do it. It will not take too long.” Then she began shoveling dirt.
 

Tucker tipped his hat. “Knock yourself out.”
 

As the peasant dug away, the cowboys loitered fifty yards away and passed the time watching the girl toil diligently without complaint. It took her about ten minutes to unearth the first shallow grave about three feet deep out of the mud which was soft and damp from the creek running through the canyons. Already she sweated from the heat and the effort. The three gunfighters watched her with bored and casual disinterest from the shade of a nook in the granite wall where they had tethered the horses. Tucker had a smoke, then rolled another. Pilar grabbed the dead Federale Captain by the feet, the only way she could move his weight, and tugged the body toward the open grave. His uniform was red with blood, ragged holes of cloth and flesh in the torso by the medals. With a grunt of exertion, she kneeled down and rolled his body over into the ditch with a dull wet
thud
of flopping limbs. She said a few hushed words over the deceased and kissed her crucifix. Then Pilar rose, grabbed the shovel and scooped the pile of dirt back in the hole onto his body with a steady
thump
of impact. When she was done five minutes later, she tamped the dirt on the mound of the shallow grave and set directly to work digging the next.
 

Eight more bodies lay sprawled.
 

The day moved on atop the ridge.
 

The sun was higher in the sky.
 

The peasant had two graves dug. Working on the third, she was lathered in sweat. But tired as she was, she did not fail to clasp her crucifix over each buried soldier and quietly whisper a few words. The nearby cowboys saw her lips enunciate but they couldn’t hear her. The three gunfighters lounged impatiently by their horses, cleaning their guns. All of them were antsy. “How many those Federales you boys figure that
senorita
is gonna plant before she tires out?” Fix asked, jaw working a plug of tobacco in annoyance.

“Wench is plumb set to keel over right now.” Bodie waved a big paw dismissively.

“So how many more bodies you figure, Tuck?”

“All of ’em.” Tucker smiled, fondly watching the distant shapely figure forging on. The woman had brass, that she did. “All of ’em.”

Big mile-long cloud shadows moved across the ridge, shadowing the cowboys’ faces under the shaded brims of their hats. In the passing darkness, it became cool as the temperature dropped by degrees. When the clouds passed, the sun was higher yet, hotter and burning down.
 

Four graves. One tired Mexican. Still shoveling.

The cowboys lay on the ground with their hats over their eyes. They exchanged glances, feeling like swine. They regarded the peasant girl. Fix yelled, “Hurry it up there, missy!”

They looked at one another.

Tucker nudged his jaw to the other gunfighters. “Give her some water, boys.”

Bodie grabbed a canteen. “Little lady, drink this so you don’t die on us, ’fore we get that silver.” Pilar gratefully caught the canteen, took a thirsty swig, tossed it back and returned to work on the fourth grave.

Tucker regarded the others evenly. He felt like a no account letting the girl do all that work, not lifting a hand to help her. While he didn’t care about the corpses, she did and that’s what mattered. At least he could show some manners and get off his ass. “Savvy mebbe we should help her,” he muttered.

Fix bunched his shoulders, lowering his head under his bowler hat stubbornly. “Hell, it’s her thing, let her do it.”

Tucker looked to the sky. “We’re burnin’ daylight. Sooner them graves get dug the sooner we get to that silver.”

Bodie scoffed. “Daylight, hell. You’re just feeling sorry for the damn little twist.” The gunfighters watched the exhausted peasant struggling under her labors.

“So shoot me.” The leader got up and grabbed a hand shovel from his saddle, resigned. He joined Pilar digging the grave, using one arm mostly, and the appreciative girl grinned prettily as a desert flower.
 

It went quicker.

The other two cowboys watched from across the gulley. Fix gave in to peer pressure first. “I don’t want to hear it, Bodie.” With a resentful grunt, the small shootist clambered to his dusty boots, got his shovel and joined the impromptu gravediggers.

Bodie yelled across the area at them. “You’re dumb shits, both of you, hear me! I ain’t digging. Nossir, not me! Bury them heathen sumbitches tried to kill us? Screw that! They wouldn’t have done for us, that’s for damn sure. You boys listenin’ to me?” His pals ignored him, putting their backs into shoveling. Bodie turned beet red, embarrassed. “You go right on digging. See if I care! You boys are goin’ soft! Soft. You hear me? I am just going to sit back here on this hot ground and drink whisky and get drunk and laugh at you fools! That’s what I’m gonna do. Ha ha! That’s me laughin’. Want to hear more? Ha ha! I ain’t diggin’ no graves for no sumbitches! I am just gonna sit right here on my ass.” He took a slug of hooch. “Damn your eyes.”

Grumbling, Bodie got up, grabbed his shovel and joined his fellow gunslingers digging the graves.
 

The lovely peasant girl was happy and flashed them her beautiful white teeth. “You are good men,
senors
.”

“Shut up!” The three cowboys shouted at her in unison.

The Mexican was smiling anyway.

The desert was bright under the light of midday and the clouds had moved off, leaving the sky white as bleached bone by the time the four horses disappeared in the distance.

Nine shallow mounds behind them in the dirt.

Chapter Six

The
borracho
’s
name is Hector Vargas but far back as he can remember people called him The Drunk.
 

So be it.
 

Thinking he never liked his name anyway, he sits in the saddle and rides into town on his horse for a place he seeks. The harsh sun is raw and hot overhead, burning down on his face under his sombrero. The old man is armed to the teeth with the guns and ammo stolen from the dead Federales back at the jail, but doesn’t expect trouble. The place looks quiet and is not much of a town to begin with.
 

He trots past the cantina where the gunfighters met up with the peasant girl that very morning, but that means nothing to him for he does not know them.

It has been a month since the werewolf broke him out of his cell and he’d
hit the trail with the arms, silver and horse stolen from the police station. The
borracho
still wears the same shabby raggedy man clothes that are much dustier now, the blood on them from that fateful night long since dried. For weeks he has drifted around Durango, drinking up much of the silver, but he still has plenty left and will need it. A disturbing dream the old man has been having since his escape tells him what he must do and this is why he is here. A full cycle of the moon has passed since he shot the werewolf and tonight the moon will be full again, so he does not have time to waste. The lives of many depend on him.

His horse passes the run-down structures of the tiny town one by one, silent and still in the hazy dust. The quiet
clop
of his
caballo’s
hooves in the dirt are all he hears. The old man’s leathery sunburned face turns side to side as he rides, his squinting eyes searching for the establishment he knows must be here, for every town has one.

At last he finds it. The gunsmith works out of a small barn in back of the stables. The
borracho
tethers his horse in the paddock, takes his confiscated rifles, pistols and bag of silver and enters. It is cooler inside the store, but not by much, and the old man wipes sweat with his handkerchief. Guns, feed and horse oats stack the racks. The emaciated Mexican proprietor looks up at him with suspicion, giving the stink eye to his derelict appearance and the weapons he carries. The drunk sees the owner reach defensively for an unseen gun under the counter and quickly puts the bag of silver in front of him so the man knows he means business, not robbery.

The proprietor eyes the silver in the pouch, then its grizzled owner. “How can I help you?”

“I need you to make me bullets.”

“We sell ammo. Every caliber.”

“I need you to make me bullets of silver.”

Crazy old man, say the storekeeper’s eyes.

“For these weapons,” the
borracho
adds, placing the bolt-action rifle, repeater rifle and two revolvers on the counter.

“You want me to make silver bullets?”

“As many as this amount of silver will produce. Minus your payment, of course.” His crusty, gnarled fingers pour the silver coins out of the pouch and push aside a small fortune, sliding it over. That still leaves many, many coins for the job. For the first time, the proprietor smiles. Shiny metal glints in his eyes in the dusty sunlight drifting through the windows.

“I can do that,” the gunsmith says. Picking up the four weapons the
borracho
provides, he dutifully checks out their calibers one after the other. “.22. .45. .476. Do you have a preference?”

“Make as many bullets as you can manufacture for all of them.”

It will take him an hour. Make yourself comfortable, the owner tells his unusual customer. Have a drink, in fact take the bottle, you are paying me enough, he says. So the old man takes a seat on a barrel keg and rests his tired bones for what he knows will be a long hard ride ahead if he is to make his destination by sundown. The bottle is gladly accepted, its contents drained for fortitude.

He will need all the liquid courage he can muster.

The proprietor melts down the silver on a pan over a pot-bellied stove in back of the store. He is friendly now and curious, and asks questions the old man softly answers.

“You are going to sell these bullets?”

“No, I am going to use them.”

“Pardon me,
senor
, but you don’t look like a
pistolero
.”

“I am a drunk. A
borracho
.”

“Why the silver bullets?”

“You would not believe me.”

“It’s your money.”

“I have something I must make right.”

While the gunsmith makes the bullets the old man goes outside and waters his horse for the journey.
 

And an hour later it is done.
 

The silver is melted down then poured into bullet-head molds, which are hardened in ice water to be inserted into cartridge casings of the required caliber after the gunpowder. One hundred eighty-nine bullets in all.

“What is your name, stranger?”

“I am Hector Vargas.”

And today I will do what must be done.

“Good luck to you, Se
nor Hector
. When I hear of silver bullets, I will know of your deeds.” The drunk takes the shiny ammo and nods thanks.