by Jack Higgins
‘A die-hard republican, I see.’ He hefted the Enfield in his hand and said, ‘Not that I know about such things, but it doesn’t feel very comfortable.’
‘It wouldn’t,’ I told him. ‘I’m left-handed. The grip has been altered to fit.’
He examined the gun further, obviously intrigued by the absence of a sight at the end of the blue-black barrel, the way most of the trigger guard had been cut away. I concentrated on the jack lever and as the axle started to clear, he dropped the shoulder holster inside the Mercedes, hitched up his cassock and got to his knees beside me.
‘What do you think?’
‘Put your shoulder to the boot and we’ll find out.’
It took the two of us, and some considerable effort. There was a moment when I thought it wasn’t going to go and then the jack tilted forward and the Mercedes rolled free, scraping the rear bumper on the rock in the process. He lost his balance and fell on his hands and knees and I ran around and got the handbrake on before the Mercedes got clear away from us. When I turned, he was getting to his feet, rubbing dust from his beard and grinning like a schoolboy.
‘A hell of a way to spend an afternoon.’
‘I could think of pleasanter things to do,’ I admitted. ‘In more comfortable places.’ I stretched my aching back and looked out across the wilderness. ‘The last place God made.’
He was about to light another of his cigarillos and paused, the match flaring in his right hand, his face grave and somehow expectant. ‘At least you give him some credence, even for this.’
‘In a place like this it’s difficult to say God doesn’t exist, father.’ I shrugged. ‘Try and he’ll more than likely remind you of his presence rather forcibly.’
‘Something of an Old Testament view of things, I would have thought,’ he said. ‘A God of wrath, not of love.’
‘A view of the Almighty my own experience would tend to support,’ I said flatly.
He nodded, his face grave, ‘Yes, life can be very hard. It’s difficult to live each day as an act of faith. I know, I’ve been trying for forty-nine years, but it’s the only way.’
I picked up the jack, went round to the front of the Mercedes and set to work. He was carrying two spare wheels, a wise precaution in such country and the change over took me no more than five minutes. He didn’t offer to help, didn’t try to carry our conversation any further, but walked some little distance away to a slight rise where he stood looking out at the mountains.
When I called, he didn’t seem to hear me and I went towards him, cleaning my hands on an old rag. As I got closer, he turned and said harshly, ‘Yes, my friend, you’re right. In a place like this it must be difficult to believe in anything.’
But I was no longer interested in that kind of conversation. ‘I think everything’s all right now,’ I said. ‘Drive her back to the road and we’ll see.’
The Mercedes had a self-starter and the engine turned with no trouble at all, a change from most of the vehicles I’d had experience with. I jumped on the running-board and he took her in a wide circle, joining the road a few yards behind the Ford.
I got my shoulder holster and the Enfield from the rear seat and buckled them on. ‘You see, father, everything comes out in the wash if only you live right.’
He laughed harshly, switched off the engine and held out his hand. ‘Young man, I like you, damn me if I don’t. My name is van Horne. Father Oliver van Horne of Altoona, Vermont.’
‘Keogh,’ I said. ‘Emmet Keogh. Catholic priests who’ve been shot in the head must be rather thin on the ground in Vermont.’
His hand went to the scar on his temple instinctively. ‘True enough, but then I was the only one, to my knowledge, who served as chaplain to an infantry brigade on the Western Front.’
‘Aren’t you rather far from home?’
‘I’m on a general fact-finding trip on behalf of my diocesan authorities. We understood that in the back country in Mexico the Church has been in great difficulties since the Revolution. I’m here to see what help is needed.’
‘Look, father,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t joking this morning in Bonito when I told you there were people in these parts who thought it was still open season on priests. I know places where they haven’t seen one in years and don’t want to. Last month in Hermosa a young French priest tried to reopen the church after eight years. They hung him from the veranda of the local hotel. I saw him swinging.’
‘And did nothing?’
‘I’ve seen priests who stood by and did nothing in my own country,’ I said. ‘It’s easy to take the last walk with a prayer book in your hand when someone else is going to do the dying. Damned hard to stand up and fight for what you believe in against odds.’
For some reason I was angry, which was illogical in the circumstances and I think I knew it. In any event, I went round to the front of the Ford and turned the starting handle. As the engine jumped into life, van Horne joined me.
‘I seem to have annoyed you,’ he said. ‘And for that I’m sorry. A shocking tendency to preach on each and every occasion is my besetting sin. I’m hoping to make my way through the Sierras to a place called Guayamas on the west coast. What about you?’
‘Delivering a load of bootleg whisky to a man in Huila,’ I said. ‘You’ll find petrol there if you’re short.’
‘Do you hope to get there tonight?’
I shook my head. ‘There’s a little place called Huerta about twenty miles farther on. Old stage-line way-station.’
‘Perhaps I’ll see you there.’
I smiled and climbed into the cab of the Ford. ‘If you do, for God’s sake keep religion out of it, father.’
‘Almost impossible,’ he said. ‘But I’ll do what I can. God bless you.’
But sentiments like those had long since ceased to have any effect on me and I drove away quickly.
Suddenly, it seemed to be late evening, the sun dropping behind the Sierras taking the heat of the day with it, the great peaks black against gold as the fire died. There was no sign of the Mercedes coming up behind and I wondered what he was doing. A strange one certainly although priests, like anyone else, were entitled to their idiosyncrasies.
I came over the brow of a small hill just before dark and saw the way-station at Huerta lying below me, lights winking palely at the windows. It was a small, flat-roofed building which must have been a hundred and fifty years old at least and was enclosed by an adobe wall, most of which had crumbled away where the place faced the road.
The sky beyond was like molten gold, the great black fingers of the organ cactus like cut-outs pasted in place against a stage set as I coasted down the hill. When I turned in across the courtyard and switched off the engine, I heard laughter and singing and there were half a dozen horses tied to the hitching post. The door opened as I got out and a man appeared, bare-headed, a couple of bandoleers criss-crossing his ornate jacket, a rifle in his hands.
‘Stand and declare yourself,’ he called, and his speech was slurred with the drink.
I could have shot him, been back behind the wheel of the Ford and away before his friends inside knew what was happening, but there was no need for I had already noticed the large silver badge so conspicuously displayed on his right breast, worn only by the rurales, the country police, as fine a body of men who ever cut a throat or raped a woman and got away with it.
‘I’m taking supplies to Gomez in Huila,’ I said. ‘I have a permit from Captain Ortiz, the jefe in Bonito.’
‘Inside,’ he said, ‘where we can see you.’
The place was lit by a single oil lamp hanging from one of the beams in the low ceiling. There were four of them sitting at a long wooden table, two holding pistols at the ready as I went in. They wore the same ornate braided jackets and crossed bandoleers as the man behind me and if it had not been for the silver badges of office, one might well have been pardoned for confusing them with those on the wrong side of the law.
There was a strange uniformity in t
heir general appearance. Heavy moustaches, unshaven chins, brooding suspicious eyes. The only one not wearing his sombrero seemed to be in charge. ‘What have we here?’
‘I’m delivering supplies by truck to Gomez of Huila.’ I produced the jefe’s travel permit and offered it to him. ‘My papers.’
He examined it, then passed it back. ‘Luis Delgado, at your orders, señor.’
‘At yours,’ I gave him politely.
‘You intend to stay here tonight?’
‘If it can be arranged.’
‘No difficulty, eh, Tacho.’ He looked over his shoulder at the old, white-haired man standing behind the small bar. ‘The señor desires accommodation. You will see to it?’
The old man, who was looking distinctly worried, nodded eagerly and Delgado chuckled. ‘They jump these back-country pigs, when I crack the whip. You will drink with me, señor?’
It seemed a reasonably politic thing to do. I downed the glass of tequila he offered, gave him his health and moved to the bar. The old man, Tacho, was frightened – really frightened. There was a mute appeal in his eyes that I was unable to answer because I didn’t know what it was all about, not realizing then that these visits by Delgado and his men were an old story.
Delgado slapped his hand hard down on the table. ‘The food, you miserable worm. You turd, what about our food?’
Tacho moved to the other end of the bar and the door opened and a young woman came out of the kitchen. As I later discovered, she was barely past her seventeenth birthday, but looked a little older as women of mixed blood tend to do. She wore the usual ankle-length skirt, an Indian-work blouse and black hair hung down her back in a single braid.
She was small for I would say I had at least three inches on her and I can barely touch five and a half feet. Dark, dark eyes, high cheekbones, a wide mouth and a skin of palest olive that reminded me of my own mother, God rest her soul. She was not beautiful yet after turning away I felt a compulsion to look at her again. Now why should that be?
Her face showed no emotion of any kind. She put the tray down on the table, turned to go and Delgado caught her wrist. ‘Heh, not so fast, little flower. An appetizer before the main course is the sensible man’s way of eating.’
He grabbed at the neck of the loose blouse, pulled it down and was put out to discover she was wearing a bodice underneath.
He roared with laughter, ‘Playing the lady, eh? We’ll soon fix that.’
She put her nails down his cheek, drawing blood and he slapped her solidly across the face as he might have slapped a man, forced her back across his knee as he put a hand up her skirt.
His friends were roaring with delight and when old Tacho ran round the end of the bar and tried to intervene, someone sent him staggering back against the wall so forcibly that he fell to the ground.
The girl struggled desperately and two of the others got a wrist each and pinned her back across the table. She didn’t scream, didn’t show any fear at all, simply fought with all her strength, would struggle for her soul’s sake to the final, bitter end, expecting nothing, not even from me, for when our eyes met, she looked through me as if I did not exist.
It was happening all over the country seven days a week, but that didn’t make it any easier to swallow. No business of mine, so I pulled out the Enfield and blew the tequila bottle on the table into several score pieces.
The effect was considerable and I have seldom seen a group of men scatter so rapidly. Delgado was the only one who didn’t move. He glanced back at me, still clutching the girl, his eyes wary, watchful, no fear there at all.
‘Be easy, señor,’ he said softly. ‘Your turn will come.’
‘The next one is through the back of the skull,’ I told him. ‘Now move to the bar, hands high, all of you.’
They obeyed reluctantly, warily, going backwards slowly, waiting their opportunity. The girl’s reaction was interesting. She moved to my side and stood very close, holding on to my jacket tightly like a child recognizing a loved one in a crowd after being lost.
Tacho had picked himself up from the floor and stood staring at me, shaken and dazed. I said, ‘Get their guns, old man, one by one. No need to fear. If anyone moves I’ll shoot Delgado through the belly.’
He didn’t seem to hear me. Simply stood there swaying from side to side. I spoke to the girl without looking at her. ‘What’s your name?’
There was no reply, but her grip tightened on my jacket. Delgado laughed harshly. ‘No help there, my friend. Little flower hasn’t had a word to say for herself in years.’
I reached down for the hand that clutched at my jacket and brought her round to the front where I could see her face which was calm and watchful.
‘You understand me?’ She nodded. ‘Right, get their guns and don’t be afraid. I will kill any man who tries to harm you.’
Something stirred deep down in those dark eyes, something happened to her face, although it was difficult to say what exactly. In any event, she turned and moved towards the men at the bar.
A spur jangled in the stillness behind me. I started to turn, remembering too late that there had been six horses at the hitching rail which meant another rurale not present in the room and was struck a heavy blow somewhere behind the right ear which put me down on my hands and knees before I knew where I was.
The Enfield fired when it hit the floor, for as I have said elsewhere, all that delicate trigger mechanism needed was a touch. There was noise, confusion, a dull pain in the chest where a boot landed. I didn’t really lose consciousness and finally surfaced to find myself on my knees, hands tied behind my back.
Delgado was busy fashioning a noose at the end of a length of saddle rope. He patted my face gently, then slipped the noose over my head and tossed the other end across a beam.
Two of his men held the struggling girl, the other three got on the rope behind me. Delgado smiled. ‘At first we hang you only a trifle. Then we have some fun with little flower. You should enjoy that. Afterwards – we’ll see. I’ll try to think of something special. A fine gentleman like you deserves it.’
The rope tightened under my chin, jerking back my head, pulling me upright to sway on tip-toes before him. Old Tacho crouched in a chair by the wall, a hand to his mouth, eyes round, even the girl stopped struggling and her captors slackened their grip, watching me. Waiting.
The door opened and Father van Horne stepped into the room, lowering his head to get through. ‘Good evening,’ he said harshly.
He was holding a Gladstone bag in his right hand and presented a strangely menacing picture in his shabby, dust-covered cassock, the shovel hat shading the great, bearded face, another of those cigarillos jutting from his teeth.
‘You would appear to have got yourself into a little trouble, Mr Keogh,’ he observed.
The men holding the other end of the rope had slackened their grip in astonishment and I managed to breathe again.
‘Let’s say I got bored with standing by doing nothing, father,’ I told him.
Delgado had his pistol out in a second, reached for the girl and pulled her out of the way.
‘Who are you?’ he demanded. ‘We weren’t expecting any priest in these parts. I would have known.’
‘So I observe,’ van Horne said. ‘Would there be any point in asking you to release this man?’
Delgado smiled nastily. ‘You could always try, but that might make me angry. I might remember that I haven’t hung a priest lately and the temptation to string you up beside this other gringo might well prove irresistible.’
‘That would be most unfortunate,’ van Horne said.
‘For you, not for me. Now let’s see your papers and quick about it.’
‘Happy to accommodate you, señor.’ Van Horne put the Gladstone bag down on the table and produced a key. ‘Humiliation, Mr Keogh, is a specific for many ailments. It does a man good to get down on his belly occasionally and repent, if you follow me.’
I didn’t. Not until he opened the Glad
stone bag, took out a Thompson sub-machine-gun and blew the top of Delgado’s head off.
3
It was all over very quickly. The men who had been waiting to haul me over the beam let go the rope and reached for their pistols. They were too late. As I flung myself forward, my shoulder catching the girl behind the knees, bringing her down with me, van Horne took care of all three, the stream of heavy bullets knocking them back against the wall.
He certainly knew his business. There was a round drum magazine on the Thompson and he kept on firing, swinging in a wide arc which shattered the mirror behind the bar and ripped up the floor behind the two remaining rurales who were running for the kitchen door.
The first one made it, mainly because his companion acted as a shield, the bullets driving him headfirst through the door, shredding the brocade jacket across his back.
The rear door banged as the lone survivor ran into the darkness and van Horne went after him.
The girl rolled over and sat up. I got to my knees with some difficulty because of my bound hands. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked her.
She nodded, turned Delgado over, pulled a knife from his belt and sliced through my bonds. When I got the noose from around my neck the skin was raw and broken on one side. The girl examined it, her face still quite expressionless, then got to her feet and ran into the kitchen.
Outside, a horse broke into a sudden gallop, there was a wild cry followed by the sound of another burst from the Tommy gun. I got to my feet and looked around me. There was blood everywhere, the stench of cordite and burning flesh, a butcher’s shop in hell. Tacho was behind the bar pouring tequila into a tumbler, his hand shaking.
I reached for the bottle and a glass and helped myself. It was the nearest thing to pure alcohol I have ever drunk, but it pulled the pieces together again which was what I needed.
‘Not so good is it?’ I said.
Tacho’s face had sagged into complete despair. ‘To kill the police, even the rurales, is a very bad thing and there’s a lot of Federal cavalry out between here and Huila. There has been much trouble in this area lately.’
