“There are just the two of you?” a voice said from another direction, cutting across the sniveling of the old man.
“How many you expecting?” Edge called back.
“We have a bullet for every bandit in the area,” the disembodied voice answered flatly, and then became part of a whole as a match flared and a face leapt out of the darkness.
It was a young, handsome face with dark eyes and full lips, finely chiseled and high cheekbones. In the flame as it touched the end of a long, thin cigar, it was a face topped by a cap with a shiny peak. Below, on the edge of the area of flickering light, could be seen the uniformed collar and shoulders bearing the insignia of a captain in the Mexican Federal army. It was a face with an insolent smile that almost invited Edge to loose off a shot at it. But then other lights flared, and were touched to torches, blazing into life all around the wide plaza that was spread just inside the town gate. Each torch was held high by a Mexican soldier and each of these soldiers was joined by another who aimed a rifle. Edge allowed his Henry to clatter to the ground as his eyes completed a hundred and eighty degree turn and estimated a detachment of about fifty men.
“Señor,” said Luis with a tremor. “I think we are caught like the mice in the trap.”
“Yeah,” Edge answered, “And the cat that’s got us looks real hungry.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE cell stank of the fear of every man who had been thrown into it. This smell was released from every piece of straw that was moved beneath the feet, burst out of the rancid blankets on the wooden bunk like some evil perfume and seemed to ooze out of the thick adobe walls like condensation on a cold day. It appeared to be intensified by the darkness of the tiny room and as Edge rose from where he had been thrown by the two soldiers who had marched him from the plaza, he drew consolation from the fact that the stench covered the vile odor which emanated from Luis Aviles. The Mexican lay in the far comer, stunned or perhaps too petrified to move after he had been flung bodily into the cell. The stout wooden door slammed shut and four pairs of booted feet marched away down the corridor outside. Some sharp commands were rattled off, sounding far in the distance, and then silence descended once more on Hoyos.
Edge sat on the bunk and breathed deeply for several long moments, regaining the wind which had been knocked out of him. It had been quick and efficient, them officer not having to utter a word as four soldiers had moved forward from the ring of light. Two had disarmed Edge of his revolver and knife while the others searched Luis without result. Then the march across the plaza, speed encouraged by rifle muzzles jabbed painfully into the kidneys. An open doorway in a large, solid structure that might once have been a church. Along a corridor. Luis picked up and hurled into the cell, the larger Edge sent stumbling inside with a boot in the small of his back.
“Señor?” A rustling of straw, a groan as a bruised muscle was brought into action. Edge grunted.
“It is so quiet.”
“Let’s keep it that way.”
But Luis had counted as many soldiers as Edge, and his fear of the tall American was diminished in relation to the menace of the uniformed men. Edge’s steel-plated words were no longer sufficient to terrorize the old, man into silence. “What are they waiting for?”
Edge sighed, knowing the only way to discourage Luis was to ignore him. He thought he knew why the Captain was maintaining silence. He did not trust the fact of two men alone. The detachment had obviously been deployed in expectation of the arrival of many men. The way Edge had chosen to announce his arrival at the town indicated, perhaps, that he was a scout for a large group. Such a group, by the nature of the trail up the slope, would have to be waiting below, would not have seen the light of the torches. But they would have heard the single shot. The Captain was prepared to waste some time in awaiting a reaction. Then, when his, patience was exhausted, he would show some further interest in Edge and Luis Aviles.
“You think they will kill us señor?” Luis was persistent.
“After,” Edge answered shortly.
“After what?”
“The cat has played with the mice,” Edge replied and removed his hat. He squashed it up to form a pillow so that he would not have to rest his head on the stinking blanket, then stretched out on the bunk.
Luis, he eyes accustomed to the gloom now, looked on in amazement from his position crouched on the straw-littered floor.
“You can sleep at a time like this, señor?”
Long, even breathing and then a low snore was all the reply he received and after that, all he could do, was sit and tremble in fear, listening to the silence and trying to estimate the passage of time when a second took a minute and a minute an hour. Eventually, he began to sob softly, recalling the old days when he had ridden with groups of bandits large enough to storm a fortress like Hoyos and wipe out every soldier there. Recalling, too, the ten thousand dollars, American. Money that he was certain he would now never see. Or would he? He brought his fear under control and tried to force his dull brain to think constructively. The tall American had asked him what value he placed upon his life, even though he did not believe the story of the ten thousand. Could he make the federal army captain believe him? Would the captain spare his life if he showed him where the money was hidden? A ray of hope stabbed through Luis’ despair and he began to twist the crude ring around his finger, mind grinding out a plan of action that would save his life. Edge, sleeping and yet not fully asleep, could hear the sounds made by Luis and was able to ignore them knowing they were not part of any threat. But when a series of sharp commands were voiced outside on the plaza and a door was thrown open, boots rapped on a hard floor, he came instantly awake.
“Señor,” Luis said in terror. “They are coming for us.”
“And I’m going to ask the captain to cut out your tongue before he goes ahead with his own kind of tortures,” Edge replied evenly, just as the cell door burst open and light from a flaming torch showed four soldiers outside, perhaps the quartet that had escorted the prisoners there in the first place.
“You are to be interrogated,” one of them snapped. “You will come with us. If you try to escape you will be killed. But you will wish you were. On your feet.”
Luis leapt to his feet, while Edge took his time getting up from the bunk.
“Can I know the captain’s name?” he asked, his voice as unhurried as his movements.
“Captain Jose Alfaro,” he was told. “Why?”
Edge grinned coldly. “I’ve an idea he ain’t going to treat me nice. I want to know who to report to Abe Lincoln when I get back home.”
The soldier laughed shortly. “You have been away too long, señor. Your president was shot dead at the theater.”
Edge shrugged. “Perils of politics,” he said and went to the door.
“I am a poor, honest Mexican,” Luis babbled as he followed. “The Americano forced me to ride with him. Please tell Captain Alfaro of this.”
The short laugh again. “The Captain has poor honest, Mexicans for breakfast,” the soldier said.
“He save Americans for lunch?” Edge asked as he was urged forward by two rifle muzzles.
“No, señor,” the talkative soldier answered. “Americans he puts through a grinder and sprinkles over the food for the dogs.” They all laughed then, including the ingratiating Luis, who, received a rifle butt against the back of his neck for his trouble. When they emerged into the plaza, Edge had to squint against the brightness of the light after the ink black of the cell. The torches were no longer held aloft by soldiers, but had been fixed into brackets jutting from building walls. And there were more torches than before, blazing bright enough to turn night into a close imitation of day. The soldiers now guarded the town of Hoyos from the top of the walls and the big wooden gates had been drawn closed. But Edge and, Luis did not lack an audience as they were marched across the plaza towards a building hung with a sign: GOLDEN SUN CANTINA. For a large proportion of the civilian population of Hoyos had be
en encouraged from their homes by curiosity and had formed an expectant group across the junction where the town’s main street led off the plaza. Neither of the prisoners paid attention to the many watching eyes, instead looked at a spot a few yards in front of the cantina door, where two soldiers had just completed digging a pair of holes, six feet apart, and were now hoisting poles into them.
“Señor,” Luis said nervously. “Do you think what I think?”
Edge eyed the poles with dispassionate Interest and clicked his tongue, against his teeth.
The talkative soldier, laughed harshly. “I think the Americano knows we do not propose to fly flags of welcome,” he put in.
Luis began to pray, his voice low, the words tumbling from his lips at great speed. But the insistent prodding of rifle muzzles urged the prisoners between the poles and Luis curtailed his plea as he was thrust into the cantina. It was not a big room, was probably one of many such bars in Hoyos. It had a long counter running down one side with a dozen or so chair-flanked tables in the open area. Lighting was provided by evil-smelling oil lamps hung from the ceiling, their odor mingling with that of stale tequila, cooking fat, sawdust, vomit and rotting wood.
Captain Alfaro lounged behind a table at the rear of the room, drinking without enjoyment. On the table was a bottle of tequila from which he refilled his glass, and a heap of salt from which he took a pinch to place on the back of his hand before each sip. A thin column of smoke rose from the long cigar which rested on the edge of the table, the ash almost up to the wood. Edge and Luis were marched to within a yard of the table and ordered to halt. The soldiers backed off leveling rifles. Alfaro, his dark, cruel eyes flicking from the face of Luis to that of Edge and back again, touched his tongue delicately to the salt, sipped the tequila. He did this three times before speaking.
“You are bandits.” It was not a question. Neither the voice nor the expression invited either agreement or disagreement. But Luis, his dull brain seething in a turmoil of fear, was unaware of such subtleties. He clasped his hands in front of his chest and his wizened face took on an ingratiating expression again, as the captain became suddenly more powerful than the Almighty.
“Oh no, my lord,” he said quickly, his voice a whine. “I am a poor Mexican peasant escaping from the bandits. They attacked my village and killed all the people there. I am running from them.”
Alfaro licked and sipped, then pulled on his left ear lobe. Edge heard a movement behind and flicked a glance at Luis, saw the rifle butt slam into the Mexican’s kidneys, saw his legs fold so that he went to his knees, heard the whoosh of escaping air.
“You will speak when ordered to do so,” Alfaro said coldly. “I will give that order. You, too, gringo.”
The captain’s eyes locked with those of Edge, who gazed back steadily, so that it was the other who broke, choosing to transfer his scorn to the more rewarding Luis. Luis, on his knees and therefore at a height disadvantage in relation to the seated captain, looked across the table like an apologetic dog.
“You are bandits,” Alfaro began again. “You ride with the villain they call El Matador. I have excellent information that he and his band of cowardly dogs have been active north of Hoyos and now I await them. You were sent by El Matador to ensure that Hoyos would provide safe refuge. Speak.”
The salt and tequila ritual began again as the dark eyes looked with disinterest at the prisoners. Luis’ mouth began to work, but he had trouble giving sound to the words.
“You’re right,” Edge said evenly. “El Matador and me are like that.” He crossed his second finger over his first and held up his hand, bringing it right back to his shoulder. Nobody made a move to stop him and he could easily have drawn the razor which still nestled undetected in its pouch. And he knew he could have slit the throat of the complacent captain. But in the next instant four bullets would have ripped into his back.
Edge dropped his hand. “Down at the foot of the trail there is a group of one hundred men. I figure you haven’t got long to live, Captain.”
“He lies, he lies!” Luis screamed, finding his voice at last, having listened to Edge in open-mouth amazement.
Alfaro ignored Luis, watching Edge. “I believe some of what you say,” he said. “That you ride with El Matador. Perhaps that he and his men are waiting below. But not one hundred Americano. I told you my information is reliable and I know there are not more than twenty-five of the pigs in the band.”
“It is right,” Luis agreed, nodding his head violently. “That is how many rode into my village of San Murias and killed all the people.”
Alfaro nodded and sighed, turned to Luis with a show of patient reluctance. Then his eyes shot fire at the kneeling man. “If you are a poor, honest peasant as you claim, señor,” he said with deadly calm, “why were you not killed with the rest? Why did El Matador spare your miserable carcass?”
“Captain, I hid …”
“Silence!” thundered Alfaro, and then turned to glower at the unblinking Edge. “Why did you confess so easily, Americano?”
Edge grinned icily. “Figure we’re two of a kind, captain. When we ask questions we like to get the answers we want to hear. We don’t get them, we get mad. When I get mad, captain, somebody gets hurt. You got mad a while back and Luis here got hurt. So far, only my dignity has suffered.”
Captain Alfaro pasted a smile on to his handsome face. Then he grimaced as the smell of burning wood reached his nostrils. He picked up his cigar and drew against it, smiled again. “It is even more undignified to be shot, gringo.”
“So shoot us,” Edge invited. “I’ve told you what we are. It’s your duty to execute us.”
“No!” Luis screamed. “If he is a bandit, I am not, captain. I am a poor, honest …”
Alfaro had touched his earlobe again and this time the rifle butt cracked against Luis’ skull, and the old man pitched sideways with a whimper, unconscious.
The captain merely glanced at him, as if he were a sack of potatoes that had been knocked over. Then he returned his attention to Edge, eyes showing genuine interest in the man.
“Somebody who wants to die,” he muttered pensively, and drew deeply against the cigar, “You are a new experience for me, señor.”
“I doubt it,” Edge answered.
“Señor?”
“You don’t get to be an officer in the Mexican army without learning the techniques of torture,” Edge explained softly. “You must have heard a hundred men plead with you to kill them.”
Alfaro smiled his understanding. “Ah, I see. You think I will kill you anyway and so by telling me what you feel I wish to hear, you hope for an easy death?”
“Bright, as well as brutal,” Edge said with unconcealed sarcasm, his lips tightening into a fleeting line of satisfaction when he saw the anger leap into Alfaro’s eyes.
“I am sorry to disappoint you, señor,” he snapped, lifted his glass to his lips, drank and then sent the glass flying across the cantina. It crashed into the wall and exploded splinters on to a nearby table. “If you insult me, you insult my uniform, and my uniform represents El Presidente. Pick him up and prepare him for execution.”
This last was addressed to the soldiers as the captain stabbed a finger at the inert form of Luis. Two of them stepped forward, stooped and hauled the old man up by the armpits, dragged him towards the door. Alfaro jabbed his cigar into the heap of salt and it sizzled softly as the man rose to his feet.
“You,” he said, his eyes boring into Edge’s face, “will witness the death of your compadre before you discover just how much I have learned about the infliction of pain. So you will know to the full extent how tragically your plan has misfired.”
Edge did not flinch under the words and their accompanying stare, turned at the insistence of rifle muzzles and followed in the wake of the captain.
“Captain Alfaro,” he called softly.
The Mexican officer halted in the doorway and turned to look quizzically at Edge. “Señor?”
“Doesn’t Luis get a last request?”
Alfaro smiled. “He could ask for nothing better than to be shot.”
Edge believed him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THEY tied the limp body of Luis Aviles to the right-hand pole, with a rope at the ankles, waist and chest, fastening his hands behind his back. His unconscious head sagged forward so that his chin rested on his chest. The soldiers were brought down from the wall surrounding the town and while a firing squad of six was being selected Luis’ two guards amused themselves by attempting to scale the old man’s hat on to the top of the pole to which the condemned prisoner was bound. Those soldiers, not actively engaged in the execution formed into a group on one side of the plaza, opposite the crowd of civilians who continued to watch in quiet acceptance of anything the captain decreed.
Edge stood between and slightly in front of his two guards, watching through narrowed lids as Alfaro strutted among his men, directing operations with little regard for formality. The spluttering torches were visibly losing their power as the pale grey of dawn streaked the sky.
The sombrero finally hitched on to the top of the pole and spun around several times to a huge cheer from the watching soldiers, and one of the two participants in the game tossed some coins to the other in settlement of a bet. The sudden burst of noise brought Luis back to consciousness and he shook his head several times to clear it, raised his eyes to look about him. Then his face contorted into a mask of fear as he realized his predicament.
“I am innocent!” he yelled, looking about wildly, his eyes stopping for a moment on the disinterested captain, then moving on to fasten on the impassive face of Edge. “He lied. I am not a bandit. You will suffer the flames of hell for eternity if you kill an innocent man.”
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