Wrath of God
Page 18
The square was heavy with smoke, the cries of the dying, the animals, and for a while it was impossible to see clearly. There was a sudden rush, I got the Winchester to my shoulder and lowered it as a bunch of riderless horses thundered out of the murk, crowding towards the alley.
Too late, I saw the leg hooked over one in the centre, recognized the fluttering cape of the cavalry greatcoat. I caught one quick glimpse of Tomas de la Plata glaring up at me, blood on his face, and then he and the horses were into the alley and away.
A shot chipped the jamb of the door beside my head, fired by someone still active down there. I fired back at the flash and was rewarded by a scream. There was a momentary silence, the roll of the Thompson, then silence again.
After a while, van Horne called, ‘Are you there, Keogh? It’s all over.’
I reloaded the Winchester on the way down and went to meet him, pausing to put a bullet in the head of a horse that rolled on its side with the stomach showing.
Van Horne emerged from the smoke and mist, the Thompson ready, still wearing his robes and that magnificent gold cope. ‘Janos is dead,’ he said. ‘And I can’t see de la Plata.’
‘He got away,’ I told him. ‘Several of them made it past me into a rear alley which I can only presume would bring them out at the bottom of the village near the main gate. The other Thompson gun would have done better work here.’
‘No sense in crying over spilt milk,’ he said. ‘I thought we had him, but it was only his horse. His sister was something I didn’t foresee.’
His voice was quite hoarse and he seemed to find difficulty in speaking for he suddenly pushed the Thompson into my hands, turned and walked away. I followed in time to see him take off the gold cope and spread it over the woman’s body, then he went into the church.
I retrieved the other Thompson which Janos had dropped from the tower, checked that it still worked, then started down the main street, a Thompson in each hand. I found Moreno and a handful of others outside the hotel, as frightened a bunch of men as I have ever seen.
He hurried towards me. ‘Father van Horne, he is all right?’
I nodded. ‘How many rode out through the gate? Did you see?’
‘Six, señor, and Don Tomas was one of them, riding like a madman, blood on his face.’
‘His sister tried to stop it happening,’ I said. ‘And got killed instead.’
‘Mother of God.’ He crossed himself as did several of those with him. ‘You put Jesus in my mouth, señor. We will all die for this day’s work.’
‘Not if you have any guts left. Guns and ammunition a plenty on the ground outside the church if you rob the dead. In the meantime, I’d put a couple of men on the wall by the main gate if I were you. They can have the machine guns, not that I think they’ll be needed, but it pays to take care. There’s a Lieutenant Cordona with a cavalry detachment at the old rancheria at Huanca. He’ll come galloping to the rescue if you get a message off to him.’
He took a deep breath and nodded. ‘You are right, señor, panic is of no assistance in such a situation. At least two dozen people ran out into the open country in blind terror when the shooting started. You must understand we have seen some terrible things in these parts over the years. Whole villages slaughtered – women, children. One would think God had turned his back on Mexico.’
I managed to cut him off at that point, showed the two men he selected how to pull the trigger on the machine-guns and left them all to it.
I had the bar to myself, found a bottle of Scotch and poured a large one. God, what a mess. All that killing, the girl dead and Tomas de la Plata still ran free. I was suddenly sick of the whole business, sick and angry at the world, but most of all with van Horne.
I went back up the street to the square where Moreno and his men already moved among the dead and entered the church. Van Horne was sitting on a bench at the front near the altar still wearing his alb. He didn’t even turn his head as I went up the aisle.
I stopped beside him and he said, ‘Don’t say it, Keogh, I know.’
Standing there looking down at him, all the anger and frustration evaporated. The truth at last and facing up to it carried its own release.
‘No, you don’t,’ I said. ‘My fault as well as yours. Everything that’s happened and we can always include the good Colonel Bonilla and Tomas de la Plata.’
‘Collective responsibility?’ he said gravely. ‘Not really good enough. In the final analysis, a man must accept personal responsibility for his own actions.’
‘Which sounds as if it could have come straight out of the middle section of some theology lecture at that seminary of yours,’ I said.
‘Very possibly.’
He was unable to take the conversation any further for Moreno called from the doorway. ‘Come quickly, father.’
When we went out of the porch, I found Nachita on the ground against the wall. He looked half stunned, blood oozing from a contusion on the right of his forehead.
I dropped to one knee and he grabbed my coat. ‘He sent me, señor. The Evil One himself sent me.’
I knew instantly what had happened, saw it all in one terrible moment of truth, yet things had to have their logical sequence.
‘He has Victoria?’
He nodded. ‘And twenty-one other people, señor. Villagers from this place. Some only children.’
The ones who had run into the open country in panic.
‘What does he want?’ van Horne demanded harshly.
‘You, father,’ Nachita said. ‘He just wants you. No one else. He gives you two hours.’
14
Inside the church away from the others, Nachita filled in the unpleasant facts. Tomas de la Plata had only five men left, it was true, but they were ample for his purpose. On the other side of the stream there was an abandoned casa, only the walls still standing and he had his hostages penned in there. The slightest sign of an attack and they died instantly.
The effect of all this on van Horne was considerable. The flesh seemed to have withered on his bones if such a thing was possible, the face itself to have sunk in so that he looked old and tired and past everything there ever was.
He turned without a word and went down to the vestry. I left Nachita and followed him. He had a whisky bottle in one hand, a glass in the other. His hand shook quite distinctly as he poured. He tossed the whisky back in one mouthful and had another.
‘God dammit, Keogh, what are we going to do?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It needs thinking about.’
He brightened suddenly, probably the first quick effects of the alcohol. ‘We could have a go. You, me and the Indian. He’d come with us. We could take them, Keogh, between us. He’s only got five to back him up now, remember.’
‘We wouldn’t even get close,’ I said. ‘One shot, that’s all it would take and he’d kill the lot of them.’
He turned on me angrily. ‘How in the hell can you be certain? You haven’t even been to take a look at the situation. Perfect cover in this mist and rain.’
He was talking into the wind, we both knew that. I said, ‘Let’s go down to the gate and look things over.’
He pulled off his alb, found his shovel hat and we went out through the church. The surprise came when I opened the door to the porch.
Bad news spreads faster than the plague. I should think that virtually every living soul in the village stood there waiting in the heavy rain. Dark, anxious faces, not a sound, no open mourning. A despairing acceptance of the whole terrible business as a fact of life.
For a moment, they confronted each other, as it were, van Horne and the crowd and then a strange thing happened, infinitely beautiful, yet terrible in its way.
An old woman and a young girl stood together at the front, the girl clutching a bundle wrapped in a cloth, her thin blouse saturated, clinging to her breasts, outlining them perfectly. I remember this clearly and the great sorrow in her eyes as the old woman gave her a push forward.
She went down on her knees in front of him and most of the crowd followed suit. There was a kind of tableau there, the kneeling people, the heavy rain rushing into the ground, van Horne looking down at the girl, the bundle in one hand.
He raised her up and when he spoke, his voice was calm, gentle, the most wonderful smile on his face. ‘Come inside, child, out of the rain. All of you, come inside.’
It was as if I had ceased to exist for him for he turned and went back into the church without a word for me. I got out of the way and Nachita who had been standing against the wall, joined me. Most of those present had probably not been inside a church for years and yet they were calm and orderly about it as they went in, the women covering their heads.
Nachita said, ‘What do they intend to do in there, señor, pray for a miracle?’
‘I suppose so.’
He shook his head. ‘I have no faith in such things. Neither does Tomas de la Plata.’
My own sentiments exactly and I turned and we went down through the village together to the main gate.
Visibility was not much more than fifty or sixty yards, so heavy was the rain. They had closed the gates, barring them securely, so I went up on the wall to see what I could see, which was precisely nothing.
Nachita came up a little later with an old blanket poncho he had picked up from somewhere and a palm-woven sombrero. I put them on though I was wet enough already and stared out into an alien land.
I said, ‘Is there anything we can do?’
He shook his head. ‘The first sign of a move against him and they die.’
I tried to think of Victoria and the rest of them out there beyond the stream in the old casa and found it an impossibility, even when I tried to concentrate on her alone. I was cold, chilled through to the centre of things, soaking wet under the old poncho, the straps of my shoulder holster rubbing painfully.
There was a curiously dreamlike flavour to it all. It was as if it could not really be happening. As if I might wake up at any moment, but to what, that was the thing.
‘There is nothing to be done, then?’ I said. ‘Is that what you are saying?’
‘There is the priest, señor.’
I moved away from the man who guarded this side of the gate with one of the Thompsons and Nachita followed me. I said, ‘He is not a priest. Not a real priest. You know this.’
‘It does not matter, señor. He is what de la Plata wants and I will not stand by and see my lady die.’
‘He might kill them all, anyway,’ I said. ‘Have you thought of that?’
A shot sounded through the rain, out there in the mist somewhere and the guard on our side fired a burst in panic. Nachita grabbed his arm to stay him and we listened in the silence.
‘Hello, the wall!’ a voice called. ‘No shooting.’
We waited and a man emerged from the mist, one of the villagers, his hands tied before him, a halter around his neck. The horseman on the other end was Raul Jurado.
‘Señor Keogh,’ he called. ‘Don Tomas presents his compliments to the priest. He has till twelve-thirty. This is to show him we mean business.’
He released the rope, the wretched man on the other end broke into a shambling run. Jurado shot him twice in the back and was into the cover of the mist in an instant.
I passed people coming down the street as I went up to the church. When I went inside, there were still a few sitting quietly on the benches. I paused uncertainly and Moreno came out of the side-chapel clutching his sombrero in both hands.
I said, ‘Where is Father van Horne?’
‘In the chapel, señor, hearing confessions. For most people here it has been a very long time.’
I brushed past him and went down towards the altar, pausing in the entrance of the tiny side-chapel. The image of St Martin de Porres stood in a niche in the wall. Van Horne sat on a bench below and the woman before him was just getting on to her knees.
He’d said something to her quickly, got up and came towards me. He was wearing the alb again over his cassock, a violet stole round his shoulders and his calm was remarkable when one considered the state he’d been in earlier.
He said in a low voice, ‘Is it urgent, Keogh? I’m rather busy.’
I took him by the arm, drew him along to the other end of the church and told him what had just happened. He listened gravely, then took out his watch. ‘That gives us an hour and a quarter.’
‘And no time to be wasted in this sort of bloody charade.’
‘They’ve had a lot to put up with, poor devils. A little comfort won’t come amiss at this stage.’
‘A little comfort is it?’ I pulled the purple stole from around his neck. ‘Don’t you know what this stands for? Don’t you realize what you are doing?’
‘Whatever wrong in this business is mine, not theirs.’ He smiled sombrely. ‘I must say that for a man who does not believe in God, the fact of sin seems to weigh heavily on you.’
‘You go to hell,’ I said and tossed the stole in his face.
‘I very probably will, Keogh.’ He laughed harshly, his old self again for a brief moment. ‘Does that thought give you any kind of satisfaction?’
‘This kind of thing wasn’t in the contract,’ I said. ‘It goes entirely too far. All right, in other circumstances it might just be acceptable. A priest, after all, is still a priest, whatever he has done. Whatever he has become.’
‘Exactly,’ he said gravely.
I stared at him, the full implication of what he was saying taking its own time to sink in. And yet it was as if I had always known from the first and at every point that followed. Sensed that he was not even the two people I had thought him, that he had alternated between. He was someone else. A different man altogether.
He put a hand on my shoulder as if to speak, but I recoiled in horror, turned and rushed out into the rain.
When I went into the bar at the hotel, Moreno was behind the bar polishing glasses in a mechanical way, his eyes staring into space. He pulled himself together quickly and produced a bottle of whisky and a glass.
‘You saw the good father, señor?’ he asked as he filled the glass. ‘A wonderful man. There can be few like him.’
‘True enough,’ I replied, and drank my whisky.
‘A man who can work miracles. It is no exaggeration to claim this, señor.’
‘A point of view,’ I said. ‘And what do you think he’ll manage to pull out of his hat for the hostages?’
‘Señor?’ He stared at me, a puzzled frown on his face.
‘Will he let them die?’ I demanded. ‘Or will he make the final sacrifice? It’s an interesting thought, you must agree.’
His eyes widened in horror. ‘Oh no, señor, never that. It would be inconceivable.’
He turned as if I were the Devil himself and rushed out. In the silence following, van Horne said from behind me: ‘You would seem to have upset him.’
‘He believes you to be Christ walking the earth again,’ I said.
For a moment, the old anger rumbled in his voice. ‘Dammit, Keogh, but it’s easy to see that the Jesuits schooled you.’
I raised a hand. ‘All right, point taken.’
‘Good, then will you listen for a while? I haven’t got long and for some reason I find it important to come to some understanding with you.’
He produced one of his cigarillos, lit it and sat at the nearest table. ‘To start with, my name isn’t van Horne. What it is, no longer matters either to me or anyone else. I told you I spent four years in a seminary and walked out.’
‘Another lie?’
‘The story of my life.’ The old humour again. ‘Five years, Keogh. Five years and ordination at the end of it.’
I stared down into my glass, the significance of what he had said taking its own time to get through to me. ‘It’s funny,’ he said. ‘But looking back on it
all now, I realize that I never really wanted it, that was the trouble. And when I walked out, the girl I thought I was in love with was only an excuse. A convenient peg to hang the blame on ever since.’
I took the bottle and my glass and slumped down at the table opposite him. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what to say except that it occurs to me that I am the last person in the world to have the right to throw stones at you.’
‘Have you ever thought of going home?’ he asked.
‘To Ireland?’ I shrugged. ‘They’d shoot me on sight.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. This civil war of yours is bound to finish sooner or later. They’ll offer some sort of amnesty. They usually do. You could go back to the university. Finish that final year of medical training.’
‘A pipe-dream,’ I said. ‘It could never be now.’
‘You mean the girl?’ He nodded. ‘You could have a point. You’d be asking a lot to expect her to find roots in such an alien culture.’
‘In the right clothes, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between her and half the girls in Kerry,’ I said. ‘No, I mean more than that. You once told me I had death in the soul and you were right. I’ve walked in dark places for too long to change.’
‘I don’t agree,’ he said. ‘A man is personally responsible for what he is, Keogh. He’s what he wants to be and change is always possible and entirely in his own hands. If you never remember anything else I ever said to you, remember that.’
He reached for the bottle and my glass. ‘One for the road,’ he said, filling the glass and took the whisky back in one quick swallow.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Once a priest, always a priest, Keogh. You know that, whatever kind of Catholic you are and so do I. I’ve done everything wrong that’s possible, but that doesn’t matter. There’s no escape. Never has been.’
He got to his feet and moved to the door. ‘You mean you’re going out there?’
‘I’ve no choice,’ he said calmly. ‘I never had and not because I’ve suddenly turned holy at the end of things.’