Wraiths of the Broken Land

by S. Craig Zahler

  Behind Juan Bonito’s smiling face, Castillo Elegante and the two pine green guards slid from view.

  “Gracias—eres muy generoso,” Nathaniel said to the mestizo’s half-rubber ear.

  “I like to have friends in America for when I visit there with my childrens.”

  Nathaniel nodded absently.

  “Do you have any childrens?” inquired Juan Bonito.

  “I do not.”

  “You would like childrens?”

  “I would.”

  “They are a great joy, though my third child killed my wife when he was born. And he was sick and did not live for many years.”

  “You have my condolences.” Nathaniel did not want to hear any more personal information about Juan Bonito.

  “His name was Benino. The doctors say—if Benino had growed up—he was going to be very tall.” The little mestizo smiled proudly, and Nathaniel had to look away.

  The western remainder of Nueva Vida disappeared, and the vista expanded. To the southwest stood the ten peaks of Gran Manos, silhouetted before moonlit clouds that were pock-marked and gray like the lunar orb itself. Three stagecoach inhabitants reclined in their seats and placed derbies over their faces.

  “It is not a short travel,” informed Juan Bonito.

  Nathaniel leaned back and stretched his legs.

  “Would you like to see pictures of my childrens?” The mestizo reached into a jacket pocket. “I have one of Benino from the last birthday fiesta—”

  “I am very tired. Perhaps you will show the photographs to me on our return journey home?”

  “Si. You will peruse them later.” Juan Bonito withdrew an empty hand from his jacket.

  After a brusque nod, Nathaniel shut his eyes so that he no longer had to look at the wounded man’s face.

  The horses cantered briskly. Stagecoach wheels sizzled across firm grit and clicked upon occasional roots and stones. The weary gringo would have fallen asleep were he not juggling apprehensions for his own safety, as well as concerns for the captive women, Patch Up (whom he liked), Brent (who was simple, but meant well), John Lawrence Plugford (whom he pitied and feared) and Juan Bonito.

  The lanterns upon the sides of the vehicle were extinguished and the plain became a dark ocean. “¡Alto, muchachos, alto!” Ubaldo shouted at the horses. The animals whinnied and their pace slowed. “¡Alto!”

  Nathaniel and the other passengers looked outside. The landscape stopped moving, and the steeds quietened. Suddenly, the gringo wondered if he were about to be robbed or executed.

  Boots slammed upon the dirt, and a silhouetted figure appeared outside the stagecoach window. The man with the wooden nose told the stagecoach passengers to extinguish their cigars.

  Concerned that Deep Lakes or the Plugford crew had been descried by Ubaldo, Nathaniel asked if something was amiss.

  “He always check for robbers,” stated Juan Bonito. “Some people knows that this stagecoach has rich mens.”

  Ubaldo raised a spyglass to his right eye and scanned the terrain. Nueva Vida, the plains, dark flora and clouds were slowly captured, warped and released by the bulbous glass. The driver paused, and frozen in miniature upon the iridescent lens were the northern mountain peaks, distended into the shape of a clutching hand.

  Nathaniel asked Ubaldo if he had descried anything of concern.

  “No.” The man with the wooden nose screwed and collapsed his spyglass. “I am just cautious.” He climbed the wooden ladder, disappeared onto the roof and said, “Vamos muchachos.” The lanterns had not been relit, and the stagecoach became a rolling shadow.

  Outside the vehicle, black protrusions that were rocks, branches, cacti and yucca glided across the dark gray plain, while opaque mountains gnawed at the horizon. Upon the expanding range appeared onyx daggers, which were huge valleys, and crushed tumbleweeds, which were arid woodlands. The mountains climbed, and Nathaniel felt as if he were shrinking.

  A whip cracked. “Mas rapido,” exhorted the driver.

  The tattoo of the horses’ hooves quickened, and black aberrations sped past, blurry and elongated. Nathaniel wondered at the wisdom of driving horses so quickly across a poorly-lit plain.

  “No have concerns,” the perspicacious mestizo said, “the horses could wear blindfolds and it would be safe. They know the way.”

  Nathaniel nodded, yet remained unconvinced that it was safe to travel at such a speed through the badlands on an unclear night. Even if the animals traversed some previously established route, a significant stone or a sinkhole could tumble a horse and heave its contemporaries and the vehicle into the air. Every anomaly in the road engendered an acute jolt that touched the gringo’s stomach with a cold finger, and he suspected that his retreating hairline would yield a little more ground before he made it back to Leesville.

  The mountains raced toward the front of the stagecoach.

  “There is a throat,” Juan Bonito informed Nathaniel. “A place where we enter.”

  Nathaniel nodded and leaned back in his seat. On either side of the rumbling vehicle, tilted dark flora, elongated and blurry, raced across the gray canvas.

  “¡Hombres, cuidado!” cautioned the driver from above.

  Hombres clasped the leather straps that dangled from the cabin ceiling, and so did the gringo. The stagecoach tilted back. Outside the windows, stone walls shot up and confined the vehicle.

  A whip cracked. “¡Muchachos!”

  Within the defile, gravity tugged at Nathaniel’s guts.

  Chapter V

  Fidelity, Faith and the Black Circle

  The luscious mystery within Marietta’s cleavage deepened as she leaned toward Humberto Calles, and the kiss that she placed upon his bare scalp felt like a benediction.

  As the barmaid stood upright, she complimented the balladeer’s performance, which had ended thirty minutes earlier.

  Seated at his favorite table in the sunken back room, Humberto pointed to his guitarrita and stated that his unique instrument is what gives his songs a special quality.

  Marietta touched a fingertip to his throat, ran it gently to his lips and remarked that the mouth is the most important instrument of all.

  Her digit lingered, suggestively.

  The sounds and lights within the bar dimmed, and the balladeer saw only the face of the woman who stood over him, as if descended from Heaven directly to Nueva Vida, Mexico. His heart thudded, his phallus swelled and warm light filled his blood. The beauteous arrival leaned forward, and her luscious mystery expanded.

  Anxious, the faithfully married, fifty-four-year-old man slid his chair away from the table and rose to his feet.

  Marietta asked him why he had withdrawn.

  Thinking about his wife and daughters, Humberto stammered.

  “¿Crees que soy bonita?”

  The balladeer said that she was pretty—dangerously pretty.

  Marietta pressed her lips to Humberto’s mouth and connected their tender interiors with her tongue. The man was eighteen years old, quick and hale, with long dark hair that ran down to his buttocks in a braided tail; he was a skilled musician who knew everything and was too smart to commit himself to one town or one woman.

  “P-por favor,” Humberto pleaded as he pulled away from the kiss, warmth and youth proffered by Marietta. “Por favor.” He looked at her befuddled eyes, apologized, took his guitarrita case, retreated and plunged through the checkered blanket into the night, where cool air turned the perspiration that covered his face into clammy oil.

  Humberto looked up at the smoldering plaster that hid the heavens and asked the Lord why the barmaid had behaved so aggressively this evening.

  During the silence that followed his inquiry, the balladeer removed a linen kerchief from his blue shirt, wiped his chilled face and felt a soft warm kis
s upon his neck. His heart pounded.

  “Por favor, mi amor.” Marietta pressed her breasts into Humberto’s back, slid her palms across his stomach, interlaced her strong fingers and held him tightly.

  Firmly, the married man pulled away.

  The barmaid stated that she had watched the balladeer perform for nearly twenty years.

  Retreating from temptation, Humberto thanked her for her patronage.

  Marietta confessed that she had longed to share a bed with him throughout the duration of her womanhood.

  From a distance of five yards, Humberto announced that he was a faithful husband.

  “Por favor—hacer una excepción.”

  “No.” The man explained that even one indiscretion would sunder the vow of marriage.

  Defeated, Marietta told Humberto that he was an excellent man in every way imaginable.

  The balladeer tapped an index finger upon his bald scalp and said that he possessed a flaw.

  Marietta laughed. “Por favor, vuelve dentro de la barra.”

  Humberto thanked the woman, but declined her invitation and said that he intended to go home and spend some time with his family before they were all asleep.

  The barmaid kissed the balladeer’s left cheek, presented her round buttocks and walked through the checkered sheet. Pondering wondrous treasures refused, Humberto began his journey home.

  Beneath imposto lunar clouds sat the sturdy and unchanging house that the balladeer had built sixteen years earlier. The tangible memories of Marietta’s embrace and kisses stirred Humberto’s blood like a third cup of coffee, and he rambled around his home in an attempt to diminish the surfeit of energy.

  During his sixth moonlit orbit, the balladeer paused at the wooden swing set that he and his cousins Pablo and Pablito had erected on Anna’s third birthday, one year before it became apparent that she would need to use crutches for the remainder of her life. The fifty-four-year-old man sat upon a dangling wooden seat, withdrew his crushed timepiece, rocked forward and watched the reflection of the moon shatter upon the cracked glass.

  Unrecognized by the device’s dead hands, time passed.

  Humberto secreted the crushed pocket watch, stood up and carried his guitarrita into his quiet home. The delicious specter of pernil and roasted chilies greeted him, and he hungrily proceeded across the woven rugs toward the kitchen.

  “Papa.”

  Humberto looked up the long dark hallway that traversed the entire house. The doors leading off of the passage were shut, excepting the final room—the addition where his younger daughter slept.

  “Papa.” The timbre of Estrellita’s solicitation was odd.

  Humberto felt an uneasy chill, set his instrument down and walked toward the gun rack to retrieve his rifle. His stomach sank when he saw that the weapon was missing.

  Estrellita squealed.

  The balladeer yanked his guitarrita from its case, held it by the neck (as if it were an axe) and sped up the hall into the addition.

  “Stand still or I’ll kill them.”

  Humberto froze.

  A lone candle shone upon the black clothing, gleaming gun barrels, glass eyes and rubber head of the tall narrow man who was seated upon the girl’s bed. At the intruder’s feet and facedown upon the floor were Patricia, Anna and Estrellita. They were blindfolded, hog-tied and had plums, secured by wire, filling their mouths.

  Humberto was horrorstruck.

  The tall shade with the rubber head pointed one gun at Estrellita’s back and the other at Humberto’s left thigh. “Remain calm.”

  The balladeer’s hands tightened upon the neck of his instrument. “I will do whatever you want.” A long fingernail cut through an E string, and it twanged.

  Patricia, Anna and Estrellita wept through runny noses.

  “Set the guitar down.”

  Humberto placed the instrument upon the floor.

  “Come into the room and shut that door behind you.”

  Instantly, the balladeer complied.

  The tall shade pointed the barrel of a pistol toward the far corner. “Sit on that wooden pony.”

  Hands trembling and guts expanding, Humberto strode toward the oaken quadruped, sat down and faced his captor.

  “I have some questions. You will answer them succinctly and honestly. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.” Humberto stared at the lenses that covered over the intruder’s eyes, and in them saw only the glaring white reflections of the candle flame.

  “If you lie to me or make me repeat myself, I will put a bullet into one of these women.”

  Humberto’s vision became blurry.

  “Do you understand?”

  Horrified, the balladeer nodded his head. “I understand.” His voice was a weak whisper.

  “You had a meeting last night with two of my associates. Do you recall this meeting?”

  “Yes.”

  Prone upon the rug, Patricia turned her head toward her husband. A splinter of cartilage jutted from her smashed nose, and her right eye was purple.

  The tall shade asked, “Do any of the women in this room know the identities of my associates?”

  “No.”

  “Have you told any other person the names of my associates?”

  “No,” admitted Humberto.

  “You are lying.”

  The heel of a black boot landed upon Anna’s curved leg. The fourteen-year-old girl screamed into her plum and writhed.

  Humberto vomited wine upon the floor. He shut his eyes, clenched his fists and restrained the violent impulses that he knew would get his entire family killed.

  “Look at me!”

  Humberto opened his eyes, and tears flooded down cheeks.

  The tall shade with the rubber head placed the tip of a revolver into Anna’s right ear.

  “¡No!” The balladeer’s heart stopped. ¡”Por favor! ¡Por f—”

  “To whom have you given the names of my associates?”

  “Nobody! I promise. I swear I have not told anybody.”

  “Are there any papers in your possession—or in a vault or in the mail—that contain the names of my employers?”

  “No.”

  The tall shade pointed a black circle that was the end of a gun barrel at the balladeer’s face.

  On the floor, the women wailed into their plums.

  At that moment, Humberto knew that he was going to die.

  “If I find out that you lied to me,” the tall shade warned, “I will execute your wife and give your daughters over to men who fuck little girls and cripples.” The wraith set the heel of his left boot upon the back of Estrellita’s head. “Did you tell me the truth?”

  It took Humberto a ponderous moment to remember how to speak. “I did. I knew better than to involve any innocent people in this.”

  “I believe you.”

  The black circle flashed twice.

  Humberto flew off of the wooden horse, felt the floor slam into his back and saw gore that was part of his head run down the west wall of Estrellita’s room. He said goodbye to his family, who wept and screamed one hundred thousand miles away, and also to Marietta, whom he realized had been sent by the Lord to save his life.

  Chapter VI

  The Sunken Land

  The stagecoach wheels turned across the defile floor, reducing small rocks into pebbles and grinding the latter into grit. Within the vibrating vehicle, Nathaniel Stromler watched crenulate stone walls scroll past the window.

  “¡Muchachos,” the driver exhorted, “alto!” The whip snapped twice and was a dozen times reiterated by echoes.

  Outside Nathaniel’s window, the rock wall was swallowed by darkness. Two eyes and a blade gleamed within the shadows, and a cold finger of fear p
oked the gringo’s stomach.

  Ubaldo landed in front of the window and said, “Dos Árboles,” which meant Two Trees.

  A craggy-faced old native, wearing a black poncho and carrying a bayonet rifle, stepped from the hiding nook and into the defile.

  Ubaldo raised a covered basket.

  With an oddly accented Spanish, Dos Árboles asked if the vessel contained dried plums and almonds.

  Ubaldo confirmed that indeed prunes and almonds laid therein.

  The old native asked if the basket contained any animal flesh.

  “No carne,” said Ubaldo, shaking his head.

  Dos Árboles took the basket by its handle and carried it into his niche. Nathaniel could not tell how deeply the hiding nook receded from the wall of the defile, but he did glean a cubbyhole that housed several clay jugs, an old book and a statue of a divine being with three heads.

  Ubaldo landed his buttocks upon the driver’s bench and cracked his whip. The vehicle jerked forward, and the dark niche was replaced by crenulate stone. After Nathaniel had fulfilled his obligations to the Plugfords, he would not attempt to escape along this guarded route.

  For ten minutes, the crimson stagecoach rolled along a curved rut that threaded the mountains. The vehicle slowed, and the gringo looked outside. From a dark nook located twelve feet off of the defile floor emerged two dark and knobby hands. Ubaldo gave the bodiless appendages a bundle of comestibles and cracked his whip, and the horses resumed their brisk canter.

  The stagecoach emerged from the defile and traveled upon a road that hugged the skirt of a shale mountain, which was adorned with shaggy weeds and pale boulders. Nathaniel removed his pocket watch, pressed the release, turned the face to the moon and saw that the little hand sat halfway between ten and eleven. It had been more than an hour since they had departed Nueva Vida.

  “¡Hombres,” the driver called out, “cuidado!”