Raul was surprised as the proceedings opened. Here was evidence of a system of law among men considered criminals by normal society. And El Demonio had referred to them as La Gente de la Mesa — The People of the Mesa. It would seem that even the poor devils who had been hung head-down to die were sentenced to their horrible deaths through prosecutorial and defensive procedures.
The corpulent chairman asked, “Does anyone here object?”
“I object,” Gonzales announced. “I am Enrique Gonzales a sub-chief of the Mesa People.”
The chairman sat down and pointed to El Demonio. “State your case and we shall decide.”
El Demonio indicated Raul with a wave of his good hand. “That son of a bitch killed at least three of our people He also has been trying to keep a whore away from us when we wished to sell her back to her proper owners. And this wretched mestizo caused a horse to get killed the other night. All his actions hurt us and even violated the treaty we have between ourselves and Rancho San Andres.”
“Anything else?” the chairman asked.
“Sure!” El Demonio said loudly. “He shot me while I was trying to talk to him. I should not have to put with that, should I?”
The crowd hollered its collective agreement until the chairman again signaled for quiet. He turned To Gonzales. “Let us hear from you now.”
Gonzales stared down at the ground thoughtfully for several moments before speaking. “Well…he is a very nice fellow.”
The crowd booed and catcalled this weak defense. Raul glared in anger at his defender, then stood up. “Can I say something?”
“Go ahead,” the chairman said.
Raul waited for the crowd to quiet down. Despite his weakened condition, he forced himself to the task. “I was minding my own business making a little extra money by taking the girl back to her family. I stole her from her owners. That meant she was mine. La mia! The next thing I knew Demonio and some of his men rode up and made trouble for me. Sure I shot a couple. If they had gone away I would not have done it. Then Demonio chased us and killed my friend Angel. After that the girl was taken away and I was locked up. I only fought to get back what was mine. So, I ask you one and all, what is wrong with that?”
“That was very a very good argument,” Gonzales told him.
Raul frowned at him. “It was a lot better than you did.”
“I never was very good with words,” Gonzales admitted
Once again the chairman took charge of the proceedings. “Does anyone else have anything to say?”
“I still insist that Mackenzie is a nice fellow,” Gonzales announced.
El Demonio waved disgustedly to indicate he had nothing to add.
The chairman studied Raul carefully. “I vote we kill him.”
“Me too,” said the second.
“Let him go,” voted the third.
The fourth glared at Raul. “Kill him.”
Free him,” said the fifth.
“Yes,” the sixth said. “Turn him loose.”
The crowd having tallied up the three-to-three vote was silent now. The seventh jefe scratched his chin thoughtfully and studied Raul through lowered eyelids. Finally he stood up smiling. He held out his hand to Raul. As Raul reached for it, the bandit drew it back. “Burn in hell, you mestizo bastard!”
The crowd screamed in delight and some even fired pistols in the air. Gonzales looked sadly at Raul. “I think they planned the vote in advance,” he said, shrugging. “A dirty trick on me too.”
“Now that is a shame!” Raul sneered
It took ten minutes to restore order. The jefes had to detail several nearby men to wade into the crowd, using their fists to batter a few of the rowdiest spectators until the hearing resumed an orderly state.
Gonzales spoke once again. “So you are going to kill him, eh? I will not get angry about it because that is what the jefes want. But you must admit he was a brave man. He fought us all and he never begged for mercy nor showed weakness. He may be a mestizo but at least half of him is mexicano.”
The crowd was split in its opinion on this final plea. In their barbaric make-up there was an undeniable admiration for a man who displayed a stubborn pride in defense of his honor or life.
The chairman conferred with his fellows, then turned back to the crowd. “He will die on our gallows, hanging head-down for all to see that the vengeance of the People of the Mesa is fast and dreadful.”
Chapter Sixteen
Raul was led back to a location in the camp where the crowd had reassembled. The tall gallows was standing where he and Angel had seen it when they first came to the mesa. As he studied the structure he was to die on, he suddenly and bizarrely wondered if there was really life after death. If so, he might see Angel Moreno again.
El Demonio was waiting with the execution party. “Too bad, Mackenzie. You and I could have been good amigos. Now you are losing your life. And all for a whore. What a shame.”
Raul had withdrawn into himself and didn’t feel like answering. There was no more struggle now. No hope and no conflict. Just acceptance of reaching the end of a road that had been adventurous and filled with fascinating people. His hands were tied behind his back and a rope wrapped tightly around his ankles.
Gonzales was doing the honors. The bandit smiled at him. “I asked to be allowed to hang you. I promise I will make it as painless and dignified as possible.” He took hold of the rope. “Sit down, Mackenzie. If you do not, you will fall when we pull the you up.”
Raul sank to the ground.
The rope was pulled taut and a second or two passed. Then the prisoner was hauled up a half dozen meters and left hanging head down.
Gonzales removed his sombrero, looking up into Raul’s face. “Adios, Mackenzie. You were one hell of an hombre.”
The blood quickly rushed to Raul’s head, and he swung slightly for a moment before settling down. He squinted his eyes and could see the grinning bandits amused by his deadly predicament.
~*~
The blood had pounded into his head for over an hour. Then the pressure gained in intensity as he vacillated from frightening dizzy spells to brief moments of lucid clarity. The crowd of spectators had gone away. They knew there wouldn’t be a lot to see as the prisoner edged toward taking his final breaths.
As the hours drifted by, he sank into a confused state in which the passage of time no longer existed, but hallucinations certainly did. On the first occasion he came out of it his mind was clear, but his vision was not. The blood, concentrated as it was, made his damaged eye swell that much more. For all purposes he was blind. The camp, now completely dark except for cookfires, was a sight he could not focus upon.
Then his mind wandered again.
He was five years old. One pudgy little hand held the rattlesnake’s neck while the other wrestled with the writhing reptile as he carried it into the kitchen. His mother screamed and fainted while the servant girls fled in terror. The vaqueros who came to investigate the disturbance were at a loss about what to do. Little Raul had a grip on something he didn’t dare turn loose. The problem was finally resolved in the ranch yard where he was instructed to raise the snake overhead and toss it as far as he was able. The effort sent the serpent only a couple of meters away, but the guns of the vaqueros finished off the rattler before it could strike its tiny tormentor.
~*~
Again, under the gallows, he returned to consciousness. He hadn’t thought of that snake in years. He wondered if he should pray, then thought better of it. He had avoided church for so long now he must be truly abandoned by God. The Creator would undoubtedly consider any pleas as hypocritical and cowardly. Raul winced as the hammering of blood made his eye and ear hurt.
His mind drifted again; this time to the girl Sofia. Her parents had wandered onto Rancho San Andres from some small village many miles to the south. The father had been given a job caring for the barn and other outbuildings. Raul had been fourteen and the girl sixteen. She flirted outrageously with him and he
fell madly in love, longing for her seductive attention. Sofia sense his feelings and drove him insane with jealousy as she purposely played a game of first encouraging him, then rebuffing his clumsy advances.
At the ranch dances she would allow the young men to put their arms around her and carry on as if she had found her true love. At those moments, when Raul was the most miserable, she would appear at his side and teasingly hint at taking a walk with him into the dark night. Then she would disappear only to pop up again swinging to the guitar music as one of the dashing vaqueros whirled her around in giddy happiness. Raul hated and loved, loved and hated, until his older brothers sensed the problem.
One night they took him to a whorehouse in the town of Tebula and saw that he was properly introduced to the mysteries of womanhood. They told him that what he perceived when he looked at a naked whore was the same way Sofia would appear without her clothing. His older brother Roberto said, “Women are all the same between their legs, hermanito.”
After that Raul assumed superior airs that began troubling Sofia. When given the chance he would dance with all the other girls and carry on his own flirtations as she fumed and fussed from afar. He gloated with cruel happiness at her dismay at being ignored as he rejected her flirtatious advances. He even got a crush on a couple of the other girls around the ranch.
Several years passed and Raul lost all interest in Sofia. He eventually wandered off Rancho San Andres to begin his search for adventure and excitement. During a trip home after a lengthy absence, he saw that Sofia had married one of the foremen and was busy keeping house and birthing a baby at least once a year. All the animosity and anger he had felt toward the young woman faded away when he saw she was content in her new life as a wife and mother.
~*~
Now, under the gallows, he was unaware that at his present rate of deterioration he would be dead in another eight hours. His mind was no longer that of a normal man; Raul Mackenzie had declined to a piece of meat with a malfunctioning brain. Episodes of the past swam in and out of his consciousness.
His wild hallucinations brought back the time he killed a man for the first time. It was in Tucson, Arizona when the classic encounter of an experienced bully and a green kid occurred. The man, a sometime gunhand and lawman, had picked on Raul in a bar. What started as a little ribbing, evolved into teasing and finally broke down into outright bullying.
Raul was only twenty, hot tempered and without enough sense to know he should be afraid. The man had enough experience to know when things were going too far, but his judgment was fuzzed by bad whiskey and an attentive crowd.
Shoving went to punching; punching went to a drawn knife which was quickly followed by pistols. A total of five shots were fired. One went into a hanging lamp, the second into the bar, but numbers three through five found Raul’s opponent. The fatal bullet had hit a shoulder bone and come out the right buttock. Internal damage was extensive and the man bled to death before he could be carried to medical help.
Raul was found innocent by reason of self defense, but was required to replace the damaged lantern.
~*~
The girl’s face, while not pretty was pleasant. The moonlight accentuated her femininity in a charming way. The combination of dark eyes and light olive complexion reminded Raul of his mother.
“Señor? Are you dead? You have been laying there for such a long time. Did I let you down too hard? You were so heavy.”
Raul licked his lips and a canteen filled with coffee was pressed to them.
“I could not get here sooner,” the girl continued. “For many hours there was always somebody watching.”
Raul cleared his throat. “What?”
“Do you not remember me, señor?”
“No…no. I do not know you,” Raul replied, feeling his head clear.
“You bought my freedom when you first came here. I asked for your help. You gave old Norma some silver pesos and told her to care for me until your return. I was left in peace for a long time.”
Raul now realized he was sitting on the ground instead of hanging from the gallows. His mind continued to recover from the ordeal of the hanging as he looked around and could see the false dawn showing in the east. “How long have I been here?”
“I got you down nearly an hour ago, but you would not wake up. I was afraid I was too late.”
He struggled to his feet, and a wave of dizziness swept over him. He almost toppled over, but regained his balance. “I cannot do much. I am too shaky.”
“Here,” the girl said. This will help.” She handed him a carbine and bandoleer of ammunition. “I took these from the old woman and her man. Now I must go. I have said prayers for you all evening.”
“Wait! Is the girl who came with me still here?”
“Yes,” she answered. “But some men have come to get her. They even brought her over here so she could see you suffering.”
“Do you realize I cannot help either one of you?” Raul asked his rescuer.
“Yes, but if you must die, I know you would prefer to do so fighting,” the girl said. “I owe you that much for the kindness you showed me. Do not forget the canteen of coffee. I think you need it badly.”
“Thank you,” Raul said. “I hope that someday — “
She turned and hurried off before he could finished the statement. Raul swung the ammunition belt over one shoulder and the canteen over the other. He was still stiff and disoriented but a plan had begun to form in his mind. It was a brutally primitive one. He could never get out of the bandit camp alive. The next most satisfying thing he could do would be to take as many of El Demonio’s men with him as possible. With a tight grip on the carbine, he walked rapidly toward the area he had chosen as his destination.
It was near where the bandits had stopped his last escape bid. But this time he planned to climb higher up in the rocks. Raul slowed down and traveled with intense vigilance as he drew nearer his destination. When he arrived at the base of the hill, he took a few moments to stop and listen. Once he was sure he was still undetected, he began the ascent.
Fifteen minutes later he was situated. After methodically loading the carbine and arranging the belt in a convenient location, he began his wait.
~*~
Loud shouting awoke Raul from a fitful doze. He smiled bitterly. Someone had discovered he was gone. Raul raised his head over the rocks and saw a crowd gathering at the gallows. A small group of new arrivals forced themselves into the throng. This was El Demonio and his chief henchmen the jefes.
Raul’s plan was to cause as much confusion as possible before he could be located. He chose his first target. It was a tall bandit, his sombrero hanging around his neck by a rawhide thong. The man stood to the side of the crowd smoking a cigar. Raul could remember him from the chase out on the desert. He took careful aim with the carbine and squeezed the trigger.
The shot echoed around the mesa as his victim jumped straight up, then collapsed. The men near him drew their pistols and looked in all directions. It was obvious that after a few more shots the bandits would figure out his location. Raul wanted to delay that as much as possible.
After ten minutes Raul picked another target. The bullet found hit the human target’s leg jerking the limb back as he fell to the ground howling. This time there were a few scattered answering shots. Raul grinned. They were shooting the wrong way.
A quarter of an hour later, his next choice collapsed as the crowd scattered to whatever cover was available. Raul tried to spot El Demonio, but the chief was taking particular care not to expose himself. He obviously did not relish having Raul fire another bullet into him.
The people of the mesa finally figured out where he was after his tenth shot. A furious spattering of bullets followed and he ducked down behind the boulders. Luckily there was more than one field of fire available to him Moving from one spot of cover to another, made it easy to return the fusillades with a greater degree of safety.
An uncoordinated assault was launched
by the infuriated bandits. But Raul was able to effective pin down one or more areas without exposing himself. The sporadic rushes finally broke off after the attackers suffered several more casualties.
“Mackenzie!”
“Demonio!” Raul shouted back.
“You win, you bastard. You can go! And with the girl!”
“You are a liar!” Raul yelled. He pumped off two more rounds in the general direction of the bandit chief’s voice.
“I swear to you!” El Demonio promised. “The Sala de Jefes has decided!”
Raul’s wild laughter was enough to send chills down the backs of many of the people. He crawled to another point in the rocks and once again fired some quick shots.
“It is true!” El Demonio yelled in a voice that was breaking under the strain. “The jefes have ruled so!”
“The jefes can piss up their lariats!” Raul replied, knowing well that none of the bandits would permit him to escape now. Their pride and reputations were at stake and to let him go free from the camp would be considered disgraceful by their code. Even the trail guards had come in and joined the fighting. For one wild instant, Raul considered making a break for the unguarded exit, but quickly realized he wouldn’t be able to go five or six paces before being shot to pieces.
What Raul faced on that mesa was known as the Moment of Truth in bullfighting. That final reckoning when death for either the bull or toreador was imminent. Except in this case the bull was represented by a gang of crazed bandits. And this toreador Raul Mackenzie-Mendoza was down to his last five rounds.
The choices open were simple. Wait up in the rocks until overwhelmed, then get strung up on the gallows again. Or die like an ancient Viking with his weapons in his hand. Raul wondered if it were true what his father had once told him. He had said Saint Andrew personally welcomed the souls of the dead who had died with Scottish blood in their veins.
He loaded the five bullets methodically and smoothly, then cocked the lever and the first round was chambered. Raul knew he would never make it to the bottom of the rocky fortress.
Pistolero Justice (A Piccadilly Publishing Western Page 14
