by Steve Lee
Father Francesco leaned forward in his chair, bowing his head over clasped hands. He looked suddenly older, greyer.
'The boy that you saw — El Muerte did this terrible thing to him only yesterday. At the same time he killed the boy's father — Pascual the coffin-maker.' The priest sighed wearily. 'Now we have no coffin in which to bury the coffin-maker decently.'
'How long's this been goin' on?' Sloane asked.
'For too long,' said Father Josef sharply. 'Far too long.'
Father Francesco gave the younger priest a look of gentle rebuff before answering Sloane's question. 'For nearly two years now,' he said, 'El Muerte has plagued Lascara. There is not a family in the village who does not mourn a father or a son killed by the bandit. Or a daughter ravished by him and his band of killers.'
'He is a terrible man,' said Father Josef. 'A demon.'
'Terrible, yes,' agreed the older priest, 'but no demon. He is a man like other men except in his cruelty which is like that of the jaguar. I knew him when he was younger. Then he went by the name of Arrabal and he was an honest man. He went away to sea — they say he journeyed to many distant lands. Only when he returned did he call himself El Muerte and begin his ways of cruelty and blood.'
'Why hasn't the government helped your village?' Billy asked. 'They could have sent in troops to wipe out El Muerte.'
Father Josef uttered a sharp scornful laugh. 'There are many in Mexico who consider El Muerte to be a hero because he kills gringos — perdóneme, señores,' he added apologetically. 'So the politicos do nothing. What does it matter to them if El Muerte kills a few peasants when it pleases him — as long as he boasts that he will take California from the Americanos and give it back to Mexico.'
'If I was livin' in a place where El Muerte was massacreein' everybody in sight, I reckon I'd be hightailin' it outta there pretty snappy,' said Joe.
'So it would be in most villages, señor,' Father Josef agreed, nodding vigorously. 'But in Lascara the people accept these deaths, these tortures as a punishment from Heaven — the will of God. They think it is part of the curse…'
The priest saw that he held the attention of the three visitors.
'Yes, señores, there is a curse on the village of Lascara. It was not always a place of death and fear. Once it was a happy village, a place of pilgrimage famous throughout all Mexico for the piety of its people. Pilgrims came from all over to this very mission in which we are sitting. They came to kneel and do penance for their sins before the Holy Skull…'
As he spoke of the skull, the young priest's eyes gleamed still more brightly and his whole face was lit up with pious ecstasy — as if he himself were kneeling before the sacred object.
'I have never seen this skull, señores,' he said, 'but I have heard speak of its beauty many times. It is not the skull from the head of a man but was carved from crystal by the hands of great artists. It is faultless in its perfection — exquisite! And the colour of the skull is red — for in its crystal veins are a few precious drops of the sangre del Cristo — the blood of Christ torn from his brow by the crown of thorns!'
There was silence in the room for a moment as Father Josef paused to let the significance of his words sink in. Joe's gaze crept up the wall and met the fierce eyes of the Christ hanging there. He stared at the picture.
'Yes,' said Father Josef, his dark eyes sparkling, 'the blood of the Son of God… Our books tell us the skull was found in the Holy Land by monks of our order. They took it to Spain. From there it was brought to Mexico by the monks who founded this mission.'
'What happened to the skull?' Billy asked.
The face of the young priest lost its ecstasy. His expression grew bitter. 'One Sunday as the pilgrims were arriving for Mass, armed men attacked the mission. They killed the pilgrims — women, children, everybody! They spared no one, not even the priests. The name of him who led those killers is Don Luis Fernando de Silviera. He took the skull… Since that day there has been nothing but misfortune and sadness in the village of Lascara. And so it will be until the skull is returned to the mission.'
His tale completed, Father Josef sat back in his chair and looked at the three Americans.
'Quite a story,' Sloane remarked.
'Imagine that,' Joe marvelled, 'blood from the veins of our Lord — right here in this little place!' His expression was one of awe.
'Not all men are convinced that the blood is that of our Christ. Or that the skull is an object of good,' said Father Francesco quietly. 'I regret that Father Josef and I have our differences of opinion on this matter.'
Father Josef looked heatedly at the older priest. For a moment it appeared that he might speak to him in anger. But then he caught the rebellious impulse and repressed it. Instead, he turned back to the Americans.
'You have come a long way?' he asked.
Sloane told him how far they'd come. The priest grew thoughtful.
'Men would not travel so far without a good reason,' he observed.
'I got a good reason,' said Sloane.
'May I inquire what is the nature of your reason?'
'I'm gonna kill El Muerte,' said Sloane, matter-of-factly.
Father Francesco looked despairingly at the hard-faced American with the cold eyes. Suddenly he realised Sloane looked familiar to him. There was a bleakness in his eyes the priest had seen before. He'd seen it in the eyes of El Muerte. It was the look of a hardened killer.
'I should never have brought you in here,' he said dejectedly to the three men. 'I must insist that you leave when you have finished your wine — and that you do not return.'
Father Josef led Sloane and his companions back to their horses.
'Father Francesco would not approve of what I say,' he told them with the unease of a conspirator, 'but I wish you luck in your mission. To kill a devil such as El Muerte must be God's work I am sure… In the wine cellars beneath the mission are many barrels of gunpowder. I have often thought that with the help of some good men I could take the gunpowder and rid our people of this evil. With only one barrel — ' He broke off abruptly, screwing up his face. He shrugged. 'Perhaps Father Francesco is right,' he continued, 'what kind of talk is this for a priest of God?'
'Tell me more about that gunpowder,' said Sloane as they emerged into the sunlight outside the church.
'For a few months the mission was occupied as a garrison by the French. When they retreated the powder was left behind and they never returned. We have never spoken of it to anyone for fear that El Muerte might get to hear about it. Can you imagine what devilry that bandit could commit with so much gunpowder? Quien sabe? It is too terrible even to think of!'
The small priest watched the Americans mount their horses. They looked tall and confident in the saddle. The sight gave him hope. If El Muerte could be destroyed these men might be able to do it.
'I think perhaps you can rid us of this evil one, señores,' he said. 'Yes, I am sure of it. I feel that God smiles on you.'
Sloane seemed amused but said nothing.
'Don't you worry none, padre,' said Joe. 'When we get through with him, El Muerte's gonna wish he really was dead!'
'I hope it will be so,' said the priest.
'Is there a cantina in the village?' Sloane asked.
'Only one,' said Father Francesco. 'El Goto Negro… a place of bad repute but I am told their food is good.'
'Obliged,' said Sloane. He touched his hat and put heels to the Morgan.
The priest watched the three men raising dust as they headed for the village. 'Good fortune in your hunting, señores!' he cried, waving. 'Vayan con Dios!'
* * *
The three men rode amongst the shanties of the village pursued by lean, barking dogs. The smell of the place led them to El Goto Negro. They reined in alongside the cantina.
The small saloon was bursting with laughter and eager conversation. When the three Americans entered, the place became silent as the grave. Dark-faced peons looked up from the pulque, staring at the intruders
with eyes of beaten dogs. The cantina was well-known for the excellence of its tamales. There wasn't an empty seat in the room and none of the silent hostile men looked like they were going to break a leg to make room for the intruding gringos.
'Anybody here know where we can find El Muerte?' Joe called out suddenly, rupturing the silence.
There was a scuffling rush for the door. Within a minute the three Americans had the whole place to themselves.
They fed their hunger on tacos and tamales.
Later, they rode out of the small village, their faces set hard and determined. They'd come a long way after El Muerte and now they were about to meet up with him, face to face. Even Joe was silent, his thoughts on the fight ahead. His fingers curled tight round Old Henry.
Soon the village had faded behind them like a mirage. The sun was waiting for them, hot and blinding as ever — and so were their old friends the buzzards. This time the buzzards were in luck. Joe had a cigar clamped between his teeth but it could have been a stick of dynamite the way his head blew apart when the bullet struck.
Chapter Eight
'Down!' Sloane yelled.
He touched dust before Joe's body. He'd leapt from the Morgan's back the instant the crisp thunderclap of the rifleshot burst on his ears. He took cover behind his nerve-rattled horse, wrapping his hand in the reins. Billy joined him, crouching.
'Here, hold this,' Sloane snapped, tossing the reins to Billy. Stooping, he dragged the Henry rifle from Joe's twitching fingers. Kung Fu wasn't much help when you were getting shot at by someone you couldn't even see.
He raised the rifle to his shoulder and veered the barrel over the distant sand. The white emptiness of the dunes was unbroken. He spun round at the sound of approaching horses. Galloping straight for them, horses splashing through the sand, was a pack of twelve Mexicans.
'Can you use a gun?' Sloane asked.
'Sure,' said Billy.
'Here…' Sloane drew his Colt Dragoon and pressed the butt into the Chinaman's free hand.
One of the Mexicans was big and broad under a sombrero wide as a wagon wheel. He made a nice fat target. Sloane took aim.
'Hola, Amigos!' the lead rider called out, rearing his horse. He threw up one arm in a friendly gesture. "Do not shoot — we are your friends!'
The rest of the riders reined in behind their leader. So far none of them had drawn their pistols. Sloane lowered the rifle but kept it pointed, finger tight on trigger. He swerved the barrel briefly in the direction of Joe's body.
'This a taste of your friendship?' he called.
The leader of the Mexicans danced closer on a frisky blood-bay pony. His affable grin was in contrast to the unsmiling faces of his men behind him.
'We were out chasing stray horses, señores, when we heard the sound of a gun… Your friend — he is hurt bad, señor?'
'He's dead,' said Sloane.
'I am sorry to hear that, señor. That is a big pity…'
The Mexican swung round and shouted an order to his men in rapid Spanish. Eight men detached themselves from the group of horsemen and rode off in the direction from which the gunshot had come. They were led by the big man in the wide sombrero. The Mexican on the bay wheeled back to face Sloane and Billy.
'It is sure to have been the men of El Muerte,' he said, 'or perhaps that negrito loco that hunts the heads of men…'
Sloane lowered his stare to Joe's body, the first chance he'd had to take a long close look. Joe's head was smashed open like a broken egg.
'It wasn't the bone-devil,' said Sloane. 'He wouldn't have thrown away two dollars and fifty cents that easy.'
The leader of the Mexicans reined in beside the two Americans. 'Permit me — I am Manuel Aguilar. And you must be that gringo I have heard so much about. The one who made angels of Pancho Gonzalez and his cousins.'
Aguilar bared his teeth in a grin that proclaimed his admiration. His was an arrogantly handsome face, lighter in shade than most Mexicans for he was a paisano, with hardly any Indian blood in his veins. He wore neatly-trimmed moustachios curling down around easy-smiling, sensuous lips. His dark, laughing eyes and assured manner suggested a shrewd intelligence.
'If you say so,' said Sloane.
Aguilar laughed. 'You are modest, señor. That is good in a man.' Aguilar's eyes switched to Billy. 'And this is your compadre — a great fighter also… señores, I know it would make my patron very much happy if you would accompany me to his hacienda.'
"That's fine,' said Sloane. 'But we're not looking for your patron — we're looking for El Muerte.'
'I know that, señores. Who has not heard of the gringos who look for El Muerte? It is about this very matter that my patron wishes to speak with you…'
'Who is this patron of your's?'
Aguilar beamed broadly. 'A very important man around here, señor. Perhaps you have heard of him — Don Luis Fernando de Silviera y Castilia!'
Billy Wang looked quickly over at Sloane. But Sloane's face betrayed no surprise at the name.
'If he's that important, I guess we'll just have to go and see what he wants,' he said dryly.
As he spoke, the men Aguilar had sent after Joe's killer returned in a boil of dust.
'What news, Toro?' Aguilar demanded of the big man in the sombrero. 'Did you find the one that did this thing?' He motioned with his head towards Joe's body.
'We saw a man riding away,' said Toro, his voice coarse and harsh. 'We chased him but the sonovabitch was too far ahead and lost us.'
Toro had a massive brigandish face, swarthy as an Indian's. From beneath his jutting nose, fierce black moustachios dangled down to his chin.
'Where was he heading, this one you could not catch?'
'Towards the camp of El Muerte,' the big man answered.
Aguilar nodded thoughtfully, his suspicions confirmed. 'As I thought,' he said. 'El Muerte again. Always El Muerte!'
Sloane had joined Billy beside Joe's body. He looked down at the dead Irishman, his face becoming hard as gun-metal. All his life Joe had been robbed of the things he'd wanted and now he'd been robbed of the chance to die like a man. He'd wanted to make a final stand, to go out with a last grand, defiant gesture. Instead, he'd been slapped down by a bushwhacker's bullet — fired by a man whose face he'd never seen. One more good reason to catch up with El Muerte.
Sloane knelt beside the body and emptied Joe's pockets. He found some dollar bills, a few letters from a girl, yellowed with age, and a fistful of cigars.
'No sense in wasting good cigars,' he said and transferred the stogies to his own pocket.
He gave Joe's rifle to Billy. He already had something in his rifle-case — though it wasn't a rifle.
They buried Joe where he'd fallen. There was no marker to put over the grave like he'd wanted so they just laid his hat on top and weighed it down with a rock. Sloane told himself that some day he'd return and mark the spot with something more permanent. But he knew he never would.
* * *
The hacienda of Don Luis Fernando de Silviera y Castilia was an oasis of fertility. Date palms swayed and figs grew plump and ripe. Trees were bright with every kind of fruit. Cattle grazed on pasture so green it hurt eyes grown used to the colourless glare of the desert lands. At the heart of this lush empire was the residence of Don Luis — an imposing two-storey block of stucco-covered adobe with a gallery running all the way round it. Adjoining the main building was a second smaller adobe dwelling. In addition there were several wooden outbuildings where the vaqueros and other ranch-hands lived.
On a strip of bare ground running between the casa and an exotically flowered garden, a dark cannon crouched like a massively alert iron watch-dog warning off intruders from its master's home. The cannon appeared clean, well-oiled and ready for use. A pyramid of sleek black cannon-balls was stacked handily alongside the gaping sentinel.
'That's quite a pea-shooter Don Luis' got himself,' Sloane observed as they rode towards the hacienda in the red glow of the setting sun. 'Does it wo
rk?'
'Of course, señor Sloane,' Aguilar confirmed. 'Is this not Mexico? In the Republic, guns are silent only when they are being reloaded.'
Aguilar had sent a rider ahead to alert Don Luis of their arrival. The grandee was waiting for them.
Everything about Don Luis from the silver hair brushed back from the high brow of his sensitive face to the exquisite cut and gold facings of his black velvet suit reflected the nobility of his birth. He could trace his descent from a long line of Spanish aristocrats that stretched unbroken to the Conquistadores and beyond — and he delighted in doing so at length for the benefit of those he considered worthy enough to share this privileged knowledge. He was not a large man but there was pride enough in his upright manner and in the sharp angles of his hawkish face to make do for the largest of men. He stepped forward to meet the white man and the yellow man when they dismounted.
'Welcome, señor Sloane — and you too, señor Wang. I am honoured that you have consented to visit my home.'
As he spoke, Don Luis' eyes roamed over the ragged, trail-dusted and otherwise filthy appearance of his guests. The keen dark eyes in his patrician face betrayed something other than honour. Don Luis dismissed Aguilar and his men and led Sloane and Billy inside into a white hallway lined with portraits of long-dead men all wearing the same expression of challenging hautiness as Don Luis himself.
'I wish to speak with you on a matter of great importance,' he told Sloane. 'But I see you have had a long and no doubt tiring journey. We dine in one hour. In the meantime, hot baths and a change of clothes will be made available if you wish… Manolo!'
As he shouted the name, Don Luis clapped his hands sharply together, once. Within seconds, a dark-faced servant in a white jacket was hurrying towards them, trying hard to give the impression that he wasn't running.
'Manolo, show these gentlemen to their rooms and see to their requirements.'
