The Guns of Santa Sangre (6 page)

The village was warm earlier that evening and everyone was on the streets as I ended the lesson and told the children to run home. The little ones are laughing. Small Pablo needs a bath. Tiny Maria is so pretty with the bow in her hair. They gather their books and get up to leave my classroom as I erase the chalkboard. The sky is red. I step out the door onto the dirt and smell the dust and mesquite, straw and dung of the fine evening air. The smell of home. The road passes through the huts and corrals and my farmer neighbors in sombreros and ponchos ride by on burros and horses, their carts full of hay and sheep. I smile at my friends. The church bells ring, and I look up the hill to see the steeple of Santa Tomas watching over us.
 

I am almost home and listen to the coyotes yip in the desert, their familiar high-pitched, keening yelps echoing near and far, front and behind. We must bring the dogs in tonight. The coyotes stop their calling, as if frightened. It was then, one month ago today, when our town first heard the baying howls out in the mesas. How I remember the pale near full moon that hung in the skies, so huge, so white, the color of rotten milk. Out in the fields, I see two farmers my age, Manuel and Roja, tending their meager crops. They whirl at a terrible sound and look far out into the hills, eyes wide in fear. The howling is so loud it shakes the ground, a cry like wolves, but bigger and much, much worse. Roja drops his rake and rushes back to the village. Such commotion in the square. Everyone is rushing to their huts, tying off their horses, grabbing their wives and children, and hurrying inside their homes.
 

Yes, good, the three dangerous gunmen riding with me are listening closely now, leaning in their saddles to hear, eyes glinting with interest, and I have their attention.
 

Mama!

I flee home and as I run past the other huts I look through the open doors and windows being shuttered and bolted and see throughout the village the families huddled fearfully in their hearths. Over there Gabriel and Maria peer nervously out their window into the dark and empty square, and there, the frightened eyes of Jose duck down through the window of the next hut. The dogs in the town bark feverishly until the howls grow too loud and even the strongest dog cowers. When I reach my place I bolt the door and window and stay with Mama. In her eyes was a fear I’d never seen.
 

“Como?” I ask.

“Antiguo unos,” she whispers. “Hombres lobos.”
 

I had seen the pictures in the cave on the hill the ancient ones drew when the moon was young, telling the legend of the men who walked like wolves, but it was a children’s tale, and I did not believe such foolishness, so reckless was I. They had returned. Maybe they had never left.
 

The door and windows we shut with heavy wood and iron bolts, but we could hear, oh could we hear. The roaring outside the town tightening around us like a noose. The plates shake in the kitchen. It sounds as terrible as if they are right outside, but they are still in the hills. At last I can stand sitting still no more and must know what is out there. Over my mother’s pleas, I pry her hands from my dress and rush to the window, pulling back the bolt over the slot that my father had built just large enough to stick the snout of a gun through. I press my eye to the opening and first just see the darkness so dense all is shadow. Why does this nearly full moon, so large and awful, cast no light? I make out the bumps of the other huts. Big, rearing shapes in the stalls where the horses rise on their hind legs in terror, their eyes white in the gloom bulging with terror. The howls from the unseen ones hurt my ears through the door slot, but I can also hear the whinnying and pounding hoofs of the panicked horses pawing ground, and the bleating of the pigs and the sheep although I cannot see their stalls. Yet the streets are empty, as my eye adjusts to the darkness. Our village huddles in fear. The moon hangs like a great silver platter, more omnipresent than before. Out in the mesas, the howling persists, trapping us.
 

The hours pass and men of the village gather their rifles and stand now outside their houses, protecting their wives and young from what is to come. We pray for it to be soon, we want it to be over. The men’s eyes are like saucers as the night moves on. Each are within view of the others, and they make hand signals, pointing, patting their palms down; wait for it, do not move from where you stand is their meaning.

Still they do not come.

The monsters announce themselves in the hills but choose to remain concealed, staking their territory. The snarling is a bloody thunder that shake the ground to let us know they could take any of us anytime they wanted, conjuring awful pictures of what they look like that are nothing compared to the horror of when finally we lay eyes on them.

But it is not to be this night.

We wait, sleeplessly, quivering in terror and the howls never stop, never relent.
 

Remember, Pilar, the fear you knew then, it is in your voice now you tell your gunmen, and that is good, because they know you tell the truth. Look at their eyes now, in the saddles alongside you, exchanging glances with one another, disbelieving and believing and not sure what to believe.
 

Keep talking, the small one with the white-handled guns says.
 

I realize I have stopped speaking, the emotions too great and my throat choked with dust. But I have not cried, not yet. They must hear the whole tale. I continue my story and go on about that first terrible sleepless night, how we stood awake and counted the hours and the seconds with the men holding their guns and the women clutching their children until dawn broke, and by then we were tired and drained with fear and our nerves were raw. This was the werewolves’ plan, do you see, senors? They were tiring us out, grinding us down, robbing us of rest before they descended for the kill, driving fear into us as a picador spears a bull to make him weak for the matador. The howling ended at sunrise, and with daylight somehow we knew we were safe. A bleached-out sun rose over our meek village. Some said they were gone. Some said they would be back.

Two farmers walked into the hills, herding their sheep. I was told they saw a trail of blood and scattered rags leading into the brush. My townsmen followed the blood trail fearfully, and what they encountered caused them to drop to their knees and cross themselves before they buckled over and vomited. They brought him back in a bag. The mutilated remains of Manuel torn limb from limb and eaten by something much more powerful than a coyote.

We knew it was no coyote, senors.

Chapter Four

It was the craziest damn yarn Tucker ever heard.
 

He’d have disbelieved every word if he hadn’t heard it from the peasant’s own lips. The simple Mexican’s terror was real. It made the cowboy wonder what they were going up against. He wasn’t exactly sure, but his gut was they were going to earn whatever money they were going to make.
 

The sun was now forty-five degrees above them, burning down mercilessly in the iron sky. They’d been on the trail for about an hour now and were feeling the heat of the day. Across the plain, the three gunfighters and the peasant kept at a brisk trot as the Mexican paused the story to sip from his canteen, shuddering at the harrowing memories. Tucker exchanged glances with Fix and Bodie and from the uneasy expressions of his cohorts saw they were just as unnerved by what they’d heard.
 

The little man decided the horse had had enough rest, dug his sandals into the flanks of his brown mustang and urged it into canter, and the other riders followed suit.
 

It was as if the devil were snapping at the peasant’s heels as he rode hard for a town three hours somewhere ahead. Hooves pounded the parched rocks and pebbles of the trail, shrouding them in a cloak of dust that made the figures of the horses and riders tall silhouettes. All around them stretched unbroken desert until the far-off distant turquoise and purple ridges of the tan and dun Sola Rosa mountains.

Fifteen minutes later they spotted a gleaming blue thread in a chaparral-strewn arroyo south of them.
 

Tucker yelled ahead over the loud clop of the hooves at the hunched back of the hard-charging peasant. “There’s a river yonder south! Let’s water the horses!” He had to shout it three times at the top of his lungs before the brown man’s startled, haunted face looked back over his shoulder. The Mexican nodded as he tugged on his reins and reared around his horse to ride back next to the slowing mounts of the others.

“Whoa. Whoa,” Bodie said, patting the side of his stallion’s sweat-soaked neck.

“Take a break,” growled Fix, who never smiled.

“This was some bad idea,” complained the Swede, wiping his sopping hair with his filthy Stetson. “It’s crazy hot out here.”

“Stop yer bitchin’. It ain’t even noon. Then you’ll see hot.” Fix spat a loogie of tobacco juice.

“That’s why we ride in the afternoon and evening and always done since we got south of the border,” griped Bodie.

“Mexican wants to make his town by noon, and that’s the deal we made and it’s what we’re gonna do. Suck it up,” Tucker bossed. “Right now, let’s wash these nags down before they keel.”

Tucker rode out in the lead and they negotiated their way over the uneven ground until they came up a small incline leading past the cactus and boulders down into the draw. A creek trickled past over the gleaming dark damp stones.

Hauling off his hat and hunkering down by the edge of the creek, Tucker felt that dull ache in his leg from the bullet he took a year ago in Arizona. They pulled the slug out but the pain was getting worse, a little each month. How long was he going to be able to ride, he wondered, getting an uncomfortable intimation of his own mortality. Cupping both dirty weathered hands, he splashed some water on his face and enjoyed the refreshing, bracing chill of the fresh creek. The drops trickled down his chin and with one hand he spooned a few sipfuls into his parched lips. Then he dunked his canteen, turning the steel mouth toward the flow of the river, and watched the bubbles percolate up into the rapids. With a grunt, he stood and straightened.

Squinting, the big gunfighter peered to where Fix and Bodie stood chatting a few yards away by their horses that were tethered to the tree batting their noses against each other. Bodie had fired up a cigar and was blowing a cloud of acrid smoke. Just then, the Swede’s colt’s dangling member blasted a huge yellow jet of urine explosively onto the ground and splashed his owner’s legs and boots, resulting in a burst of cussing and flailing from Bodie, who punished the horse by punching it square in the jaw with a clenched club fist. The cowboy hurt his hand more than the horse and yowled, shaking his fingers and dancing around hugging his fist. Fix thought this was funny, and buckled over convulsively in laughter, slapping his knee. Bodie tossed his piss-drenched cigar onto the ground and stomped it to pieces, stalking away, while Fix chortled even harder, until he began to cough and spit. Tucker wasn’t laughing.

The Mexican was gone.

Tensing, Tucker saluted his hand over his brow to block the sun and scanned the area this side of the draw. No sign of the peasant. About to take a walk to start looking, he caught a sudden movement in the corner of his eye. The peasant rose from some drab green mesquite bushes, tying the rope belt around his britches. The small figure started walking back toward the arroyo, keeping his head down, and Tucker eyeballed the smooth, graceful movements he made. This was the prettiest man he’d ever seen, the gunfighter remarked to himself. That brown skin was soft and unblemished even for those people, the lips were soft and full, and the peasant’s smell was sweet and appealing for a man even after at least a day’s ride without bathing. The body odor of the peasant reminded him more of the Mexican whores he’d been with over the last few months. If Tucker didn’t know better…
 

The Mexican jumped down the row of small boulders to the rubble near the draw and walked to his horse, untethering its hemp bridle and leading it to the creek, where the unkempt mustang ducked its big head and drank.
 

Tucker kept his eyes fixed on the peasant, watching the way the man tenderly stroked and kissed the horse with an almost feminine gentility to his movements.

Yes, if he didn’t know better…

Damn.

“You believe this Mexican’s story?” Fix whispered.

Tucker didn’t notice that his partners had walked up beside him, grouping close and whispering out of earshot of their new saddle buddy.

“The Mexican’s a fool, either ignorant or crazy,” replied Bodie.
 

“A fool and his money are easily parted,” Tucker stated flatly. Passing a flask of whisky, they took turns taking pulls and watching the peasant in rags sitting on a rock praying desperately to a cross on a string of beads in his hands. “And it’s easy money, boys.”

“Damn easy.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Bodie chuckled and swigged the hooch.

“Go easy on that. It’s got to last us,” Fix scolded.

“I feel sorry for the sad sunufabitch.” The Swede belched with the smell of corn.
 

Not that sorry, Tucker observed, seeing the opportunistic glint in his saddlemate’s blue eyes. Himself, he was having his doubts about the rightness of robbing a sorry wretch like this Mexican. But he and his friends needed the money, and these were tough times. They had fallen hard, he ruminated, things having come to this.