Wrath of God

by Jack Higgins

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘Pride, Keogh, foolish pride. I’ve played my part too well. These people believe in me. More than that – trust in me. I can’t break the image now.’

  I caught him by the sleeve as he opened the door. ‘Not a single person has asked you to go – right?’

  ‘The final nail in my coffin, boy.’

  He pulled himself free, went outside and stood at the top of the steps. The street was full of people again, a repetition of that earlier scene outside the church. The people were waiting and the people knew, could sense what was to happen. It showed on their faces.

  As he went down the steps, they started to drop to their knees and he blessed them as he walked towards the gate. I followed at his heels. Moreno stood with his back to the gate, his hat in his hands.

  Van Horne said, ‘Open it, my friend.’

  Moreno dropped to his knees, weeping bitterly.

  Van Horne turned quietly to me and for the first and only time called me by my Christian name. ‘It takes two hands if you’ve got them, Emmet.’

  It was as if it had all happened before and perhaps this explains the strange inevitability I felt. I walked to the gates, lifted the bar without opening them and felt his hand on my shoulder.

  ‘I once said I’d pray for you, back there in my play-acting days. I would ask you to do the same for me now, and mean it. You more than anyone else.’

  I was past speech, turned, clenching my teeth hard to hold back what was inside me and opened the gates. He moved a yard outside and peered into the rain. Nothing seemed to live out there. He turned and looked at me again.

  ‘If I never did anything else for you, accept this now. You did not kill your brother, Keogh. It was life itself and people and that bloody little war you were having just like everyone else. Believe that and start living again. Don’t waste your time on de la Plata. He’s already damned. Now get that gate closed and God bless you.’

  He turned and walked away into the rain and mist and I did as I was told.

  The hostages knocked on the gate within twenty minutes and streamed inside, many of them in considerable distress. Victoria was not amongst them. At first I could not believe it and ran through the crowd, pulling people apart as they embraced, searching everywhere.

  I finally came face to face with Nachita and the fire in his eyes confirmed my worst fears. ‘She is not here, señor. He has not kept his word.’

  I turned and found a peon standing at my side, clutching his sombrero nervously. ‘Señor Keogh, I have a message from Don Tomas. He was most insistent …’

  ‘Go on, damn you!’ I shouted.

  ‘He said that he was keeping what you value most to remember you by. He told me to say he hopes you rest content at night thinking of them.’

  I stood there, staring at him in the rain, caught by the enormity of it, and from somewhere beyond the wall, Jurado’s voice floated out of the mist.

  ‘Señor Keogh!’

  I ran to the gate, Nachita at my back and peered outside.

  ‘Don Tomas sends you your friend. He wanted to play the Christian. It seemed reasonable, therefore, to allow him to die like one.’

  There was a single shot and a horse galloped out of the rain, plunging in fright, circling in confusion before the gate.

  Van Horne had been strapped upright in the saddle against a crude wooden cross, arms outstretched, blood soaking through the front of the old cassock.

  I grabbed for the reins to steady the horse and looked up at him. I suddenly realized that he was still alive. He tried to speak to me and no one else. Tried with everything he had and failed. The eyes rolled upwards, the head turned to one side.

  As the sound of Jurado’s horse faded into the distance, Nachita came out through the gate like a whirlwind, mounted on the first horse that had come to hand and went after him.

  Not that it mattered. Not that anything seemed to have any reality any longer as the crowd surged out through the gate, strangely silent. They watched quietly as Moreno took a knife to the ropes binding van Horne and willing hands caught the body as it tumbled from the saddle.

  Moreno turned to me, his eyes sad, no longer weaping. ‘He could have lived, señor, but chose to die instead. For us – for the people. Is not this a most remarkable thing? A saint walked among us and we did not recognize him.’

  15

  All I could do now was wait for Nachita for there was certainly nothing to be gained by riding out into the rain myself. I went up to my room, stripped and rubbed myself down, then changed into my dry clothes. I put a box of .455 cartridges into each pocket, went downstairs to the bar and helped myself to some more of Moreno’s whisky while I stripped and cleaned the Enfield.

  After a while Moreno himself appeared, removing his hat in a very respectful manner. ‘Señor, there are things at the church which belonged to him. We are not sure what to do. You were his friend …’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll come up to the church with you.’

  I put the poncho and sombrero back on for the rain was still falling heavily and we left the hotel and started up the street. A couple of carts, pulled by mules, passed us on the way down carrying the bodies of de la Plata’s men.

  ‘They lived without God, we shall bury them without God,’ Moreno explained. ‘The same hole does for all.’

  ‘And Señorita de la Plata also?’

  ‘Señor, please.’ He looked genuinely shocked. ‘Her, we will bury with all due ceremony. There is her father to consider, though God alone knows what the news of her death will do to that poor old man.’

  When we went into the square they were harnessing mules to the dead horses, getting ready to drag them off. Most of the blood had already been washed away by the heavy rain. Life continued.

  Inside the church, there was a remarkable change. The benches had been moved to the sides, but a crude wooden coffin with the lid on had been laid across two of them near the entrance.

  ‘Doña Chela, señor,’ Moreno murmured. ‘It was thought desirable to cover her now. She had been shot in the face. You understand?’

  I did, all too well, and moved to the other end of the church which was a blaze of candles.

  When I first landed in Mexico I saw a procession of the Virgin through the streets of Vera Cruz. It was one of the most beautiful images I had ever seen except that it had a knife in the heart which seemed to sum up Mexico admirably and the general preoccupation with death.

  Van Horne lay on a table in full regalia, the gold cape over all, his hands folded around a crucifix, candles at his head and feet. He looked as if he might open his eyes at any moment.

  ‘There was no coffin big enough to hold him, señor,’ Moreno whispered. ‘The village carpenter is already at work.’

  The stench of the candles was overpowering and there was nothing here for me. I had already said goodbye. I went into the vestry and Moreno followed me. The things he had spoken of were not really van Horne’s. They were from the trunk that had belonged to the priest who had died at Huerta and yet I could not say so.

  I said, ‘Keep these in a safe place. The new priest may have a use for them.’

  ‘The new priest, señor?’

  ‘They’ll send somebody, especially now that things have changed.’

  ‘And Don Tomas?’

  ‘Is finished.’

  I couldn’t face the church again and left the vestry by the other door, going straight down to the gates. Just as we reached the hotel, one of the guards fired a warning shot and called that a rider was coming.

  I moved out through the gates with Moreno, a few more backing him up with rifles from the square. Nachita rode out of the mist, Jurado stumbling along behind, hands tied, a halter round his neck, just like the poor devil he had killed earlier.

  ‘He couldn’t run fast enough,’ Nachita said.

  ‘What about the others?’

  ‘Already gone, leaving this one to deliver the priest. The rain makes tracking diff
icult.’

  Jurado’s face was still badly bruised, one eye half closed, but there was nothing but hate showing. ‘All right, Keogh, you’ve got me, but Don Tomas has your girlfriend and by the time he and the boys have had their way with her …’

  I gave him my hand across the jaw. ‘You can cut that out for a start. Where are they making for?’

  He spat in my face. I wiped it away with the edge of my poncho and knocked him flat on his back.

  Nachita said, ‘I could make him talk, señor.’

  ‘How long?’ I said.

  ‘No longer than it takes to light a fire.’

  ‘Then roast it out of the bastard. The sooner, the better.’

  And it worked, for there had never been much to Raul Jurado except brute strength and ignorance. He had broken in my two hands once before. He broke now.

  Nachita put heels to his horse, the halter tightening, dragging Jurado over the rough ground and he cried out, fear in his voice. ‘No, not the Indian.’

  Remembering some of the things Janos had told me about the Yaqui I was not particularly surprised. I said, ‘I’ll only ask you once. How many men has de la Plata got with him?’

  ‘Five.’

  ‘Where have they gone?’

  ‘Poneta.’

  I glanced at Nachita who nodded. ‘I know this place. Perhaps twenty-five miles from here on the other side of the Valley of the Angels. No one has lived there for many years now.’

  I nudged Jurado in the ribs with my boot. ‘Is he right?’

  He nodded sullenly. ‘Don Tomas has used the place often in the past. From there, he can send into the mountains for men.’

  It had the ring of truth, so I dragged him to his feet and shoved him in the general direction of Moreno and his friends. ‘Keep him for the federates,’ I said. ‘Let them do it the legal way.’

  He turned, cursing me, but Moreno slapped his face. A couple of them grabbed hold of the end of the halter and they all moved back into the village, dragging him along behind.

  Nachita dismounted and we followed them. ‘This place, Poneta,’ I said. ‘What’s it like?’

  ‘A ruined church on the edge of a ravine, three or four streets. It was a government strongpoint in the early days of the Revolution. The scene of much heavy fighting. Most of the inhabitants were killed. The few that survived went elsewhere.’

  We turned into the courtyard at the rear of the hotel where I had parked the Mercedes. I found the map Bonilla had given us and unfolded it across the driver’s seat out of the rain, for the canvas hood was up.

  ‘How long would it take us to get there?’

  ‘Five or six hours, señor. A little more, a little less, depending on the horses. The Valley of the Angels is twenty miles wide. All desert, no water, A place in which to take care.’

  ‘What start would you say they have on us?’

  ‘An hour – an hour and a half.’

  ‘Could we catch them before they reach Poneta?’

  ‘Perhaps, if we took spare horses, but he would kill her the moment we appeared.’

  I looked at the map again, particularly the wide desert area of the Valley of the Angels and the solution seemed plain. ‘What if we got there first? What if we were waiting for them?’

  ‘Señor?’ He frowned. ‘But how could such a thing be?’

  I tapped the driving wheel of the Mercedes. ‘In this,’ I said, ‘All things are possible.’

  It was the first time I had seen him smile.

  It was something of an emotional leave-taking. Moreno was reluctant to let us go, having dispatched a rider to Cordona at Huanca and inclining to the opinion that I should await the lieutenant’s arrival.

  Before I got into the Mercedes, he gave me the abrazo, the formal hug, patting me on the back, tears in his eyes, convinced, I suppose, that he would never see me alive again. Even so, it was interesting to note that not a single individual offered to accompany us, which all made Moreno’s parting Go with God sound a little hollow as we drove away.

  I was glad to put Mojada behind me for many reasons and I think I knew then that I would never see the place again, nor did I want to.

  At the final end of things, whatever else he had been, Oliver van Horne had died for people who weren’t even prepared to help themselves. One could find excuses in plenty for them. The wretchedness of their lives, the years of suffering which, in the end, had come to seem the natural order of things. But the end result was still that they would not help themselves. Would not move a finger to help anyone else.

  I was filled with a feeling of indescribable bitterness. I was sick of them and I was sick of this festering land they called a country. The anger in me took control so that I went over the crown of the pass at a speed that was excessive under the conditions.

  As we went down, the rain slackened and the mist thinned considerably and then the track petered out into a shallow slope running into the bottom of the great valley, dotted with mesquite and cactus trees. We went down past a tangle of catclaw and brush over tilted slabs and emerged to a flat plain of hard-baked sand.

  I braked to a halt and Nachita got out and scouted around in wide circles. It didn’t take long and he returned quickly. ‘They have passed this way, as I expected. The tracks are plain.’

  The old trail was clearly marked on the military map. Straight across, which was naturally the shortest route, and there was Poneta half-way up a mountain. Twenty miles, perhaps a little less.

  My own strategy was obvious. Nachita got back into the Mercedes and I drove eastward for about five miles, hugging the edge of the desert, then turned north and drove across the hard, sun-baked earth at what to Nachita must have seemed the considerable speed of twenty-five miles an hour.

  We crossed without incident, reaching the foothills of the mountains on the other side of the valley in just on the hour. I turned west and followed the rim of the desert for several miles until we came to the beginning of the track on that side, starting up through a narrow pass between two mountains exactly as indicated on the map.

  I dropped into a low gear for it lifted steeply through slopes covered with mesquite and greasewood and as we climbed higher, a few scattered pinons. The trail started to hug the side of the mountain, the slope dropping away steeply and then we crawled round a massive outcrop of rock and found Poneta perched on the edge of a ravine.

  It was larger than I had supposed, must have once been reasonably important, which was to be judged mainly from the size of the church, a large, flat-roofed building in stone with a badly damaged bell tower, the result of shell fire from the look of it.

  The rest of the buildings were crumbling adobe casas, most of them without a roof and everywhere the signs of the battle which had raged over the place.

  I drove up the main street, Nachita ready with his old Winchester, but it was ours alone except for the lizards and the ravens perched on top of the crumbling bell tower, watching as I braked to a halt in the centre of the plaza by an empty fountain.

  I found one of the canteens, washed the dust from my throat and passed it to Nachita. Two or three ravens lifted into the air calling hoarsely to each other. The sun died. I shivered, the Celt in me again.

  ‘A bad place. Too many men have died here,’ Nachita said.

  I nodded. ‘We’ll wait for them back along the trail where we can see what’s coming.’

  We found a casa on the edge of the village with one wall missing which made it an excellent hiding-place for the Mercedes as I was able to drive it right inside. We left it there and walked back down the trail to the point where it disappeared round the outcrop and climbed up to the top.

  The view of the desert was excellent. Nachita beat among the bushes for snakes and we settled down to wait. I had one of the Thompson guns and he his Winchester, but it was going to be difficult to attack them without harming Victoria, and her safety, after all, was what mattered. Too much was going to have to be left to chance and I had never cared for that in this k
ind of business.

  I lay back, head pillowed on my sombrero, smoked a cigarette and narrowed my eyes into infinity, wondering in a detached sort of way how Victoria was and what she was thinking. Yet she must know that we would follow. Had no choice.

  And Tomas de la Plata? Impossible to judge which way he would jump. He was a man who had endured much and had been moulded by a hundred different things. The years in prison, the degradation, the humiliations endured for the cause he believed in. The long struggle. So much killing.

  Yet others had been through as much and had survived. There was something deeper here. This man had been touched in the darkest depths of him and a man like that was to be feared.

  I must have drifted into sleep and Nachita had obviously decided to let me be. When he brought me awake with a quick shake, it was late evening, the valley purple with shadow, the sun an orange ball.

  The clatter of hooves was quite distinct on the quiet air and I peered cautiously through the brush and saw them coming up the trail below, coated with dust from the desert, weariness in every line of them, men and beasts.

  And at the end we were still out of luck for Victoria and Tomas de la Plata shared the same horse, his arms around her as he held the reins. To start anything with the girl in such a position would be madness. We lay there quietly and watched them enter the village and start up the main street to the plaza.

  I said, ‘If I can draw them off, it’s unlikely he’d leave more than one man in charge of Victoria and you could handle that.’

  ‘And how would you accomplish this thing, señor?’

  I told him briefly. He said, ‘You go to your death, you know this?’

  ‘Maybe it’s about time.’ I shrugged. ‘Just get Victoria out of harm’s way when the time comes and I mean that. She’s your only consideration. Forget about me, no matter what happens.’

  I went down through the brush in a strangely resigned mood. I would do what had to be done and if it meant the end of me, let it be so. A long time coming, surely.