Ten Grand

by George G. Gilman

  Alfaro had lined up the firing squad, went through a parody of an inspection of the six men, halting to flick a speck of dust from the shoulder of one, to fasten the button on the uniform of another. Then he stepped back, set fire to another cigar and spun on his heels to march over to where Edge stood.

  “You are silent, señor,” he said. “It will not be long before you are screaming like the old one. But you will be demanding death, not pleading for life.”

  “In America,” Edge replied, “we have a saying. Where there’s life, there’s hope. I have a little more hope than Luis.”

  “Attention!” Captain Alfaro ordered and the firing squad dragged their feet together, straightened their shoulders.

  “Captain!” Luis screamed as tears began to overflow his eyes. “I have money. Much money. I can buy my life.”

  “You are poor and honest,” Alfaro flung at the condemned man. “Such people never have money.”

  Luis shook his head in desperation. “I am honest,” he screamed. “Poor only because the money is not on me. But I can take you to it, captain. Ten thousand, American.”

  The captain allowed a burst of laughter to rip from his lips and several of the soldiers shared his humor. On the other side of the plaza the watching townspeople did not join in, the amusement. They looked on in sadness, neither knowing nor caring whether Luis was guilty of the crime for which he was being punished. But they felt a sympathy for the old man because he was one of them, a man at the mercy of a corrupt army, commanded in Hoyos by a brutal captain whose whim might just as easily have caused him to select anyone of them in place of Luis. They, too, each of them knew, would have made wild claims in an effort to delay the crack of the rifles. So whether it be amusement or sympathy that was turned against Luis Aviles, it was based upon a common disbelief of the words he spoke.

  In the whole plaza, only one man examined Luis with an expression which might indicate serious consideration of his words. That man was Edge, who until this point regarded the ten thousand dollars as a figment of a deranged imagination: a fantastic idea dreamed up by Luis to help him face his intolerable life as the poorest man among the destitute citizens of San Murias. But now Luis was pleading for his life, knew that even if he were believed, he would have to fulfill the promise in order to avert his fate.

  Captain Alfaro, still smiling his amusement, drew deeply against the cigar and raised his hand. Six rifles were raised in unison, leveled at the man tied to the pole, with its ridiculous adornment of the sombrero.

  “The ring!” Luis screamed through his tears. “My ring will lead you to my money,”

  The fusillade came almost as a single sound which lashed across the plaza like a whip crack. Luis’ head fell forward and his eyes grew enormously wide as he realized he could see the toes of his boots, that his poncho showed no blood-soaked holes and that he felt no pain. He raised his head in time to see the six man firing squad pitch forward, was filled with a tremendous surge of joy as he saw it was their blood which spouted to soak into the dust of the plaza, With roars of panic the watching soldiers scattered, struggling to bring up their rifles, some loosing off wild shots at unseen targets as others fell and rolled, twisted and writhed as bullets ripped into vulnerable flesh, As one of the men guarding Edge collapsed into a heap with a bullet in his heart the other fought to recover from his shock, wasted too much time in the attempt. Edge moved with the speed of a desperate animal, the skill of a man who has learned his trade under the unrelenting eye of death itself.

  His left arm snaked out and encircled the throat of the captain and he dragged him backwards as he turned to direct a kick at the guard, his boot crashing into a kneecap. The guard screamed and dropped his rifle as he went down, screamed again as Edge’s right hand came clear of the back of his neck and flashed in an arc, the point of the razor slashing through the flesh of his throat, As the guard died Edge put his lips close to Captain Alfaro’s ear.

  “No gun,” he whispered as the captain fumbled with his buttoned holster flap, trying to get at his pistol. Struggling violently, the captain did not curtail his attempt, gasped as the razor sliced a great flap of flesh from the back of his hand. “I said no gun,” Edge reminded. “Adios, amigo. I figure you’ll get a warm reception where you’re goin.”

  He drew back his right hand and then drove it forward. Alfaro gave a gentle sigh as the razor stabbed neatly between his ribs and punctured a lung. Edge released his grip on the man’s throat, let him fall and looked up to see who his benefactors were, as the shooting was halted abruptly by a sharp word of command. Edge saw Luis Aviles still tied to the pole, his body convulsed by the laughter of relief; the uniformed bodies of the soldiers spread across the plaza in many attitudes of sudden death; the frightened faces of the unharmed civilians as they got to their feet. And above all this, seeming to grow out of the hard adobe on top of the wall, the figures of a score of rifle-toting men, outlined starkly against the rapidly brightening sky. One of the men was almost comically shorter than the rest, and his weapon was not a rifle.

  “I thought I killed you, gringo,” he called from his perch just to the right of the gate.

  “I was lucky, I guess,” Edge replied, glancing down at a rifle dropped by one of the dead guards, estimating his chances.

  El Matador laughed, the sound ringing out across the plaza. “Not so lucky, I think, if we did not arrive. That Alfaro, he almost know as many ways to kill a man as me,”

  Edge shrugged. “Sometimes it’s better to know how to live than how to kill.”

  “Right,” El Matador agreed. “Why they try to shoot him?” He gestured with his blunderbuss towards Luis, who had now recovered from his initial burst of joy, was listening to the exchange with fearful interest, suspecting that one threat had merely been replaced by another.

  “Alfaro thought he was one of your men, scouting for you.”

  Matador laughed once more. “That quivering heap of skin and bone?” he snorted. “I think I will carry out the execution so that all here may know that El Matador does not have such a shaking jellyfish in his band of brave men.”

  “No, El Matador!” Luis pleaded. “Please do not kill a poor, innocent peasant. I once was a …”

  “Shut your stupid mouth,” Edge hissed at him as he moved over to the pole,

  “What you doing, gringo?” El Matador demanded when he saw the, movement, failed to hear the words spoken between unmoving lips.

  “Alfaro wasn’t smart,” Edge called back. “He wouldn’t listen to Luis. Luis has a secret.”

  “What is the secret?” The voice of the bandit was heavy with puzzled anger.

  Edge looked around the plaza, at the bandits on the wall and the townspeople grouped at the head of the street. The examination was heavy with meaning.

  “If we shout like this, it won’t be a secret no more,” Edge said.

  A low mumbling of discontent spread along the top of the wall. “Silence,” El Matador commanded and launched himself forward, landed lightly on his feet. “Cut the old man loose. We will talk.” He glanced up at his men. “In private.”

  Edge hurriedly slid the blood-stained razor back into its pouch, then stooped to take a knife from the body of a nearby soldier who no longer had a face, used its sharp blade to slice through the ropes binding Luis.

  “I talk and you only open your mouth when you’re spoken to,” he whispered close to Luis’ ear. “You’re on borrowed time already, and death pays all debts.”

  “Señor, anything you demand of me,” Luis said, coming away from the pole, staggering under the weight of his relief, as the bandits limbed down from the wall.

  “You!” El Matador shouted at the citizens of Hoyos. “My men need food, drink and rest. They have released you from the terror of the army. Make them welcome or you will wish that Captain Alfaro were still in command.”

  The people broke into hurried movement to do the bandit chiefs bidding, beckoning the bandits off the plaza and on to the street, into the house
s and cantinas, Matador himself headed for the Golden Sun, just as the heavenly body for which it was named tipped the first rays of a new day over the horizon. He beckoned for a fat, heavy-breasted woman of thirty or so to follow him, then waved his heavy gun at Edge and Luis to do likewise.

  “I pray for your success, señor,” Luis said in a hushed whisper as he fell in behind the swaying rump of the fat woman. “El Matador, he is a very mean man.”

  “Who spoke to you?” Edge demanded.

  “Nobody Señor,” the old man apologized hurriedly. “A thousand pardons.”

  “You’ll need more than that to save your rotten hide.”

  Luis did not speak for fear of Edge’s anger, instead turned to give him a bewildered look.

  “It’ll cost you ten thousand, American,” Edge explained shortly.

  The old man swallowed hard and entered the cantina as Matador began to berate the woman for her slowness, demanding she go to the kitchen and cook him a meal. He swaggered across to the table where Alfaro had carried out the interrogation, fell into the chair and grasped the almost empty bottle of tequila, tilted it to his lips without need of a glass or desire for salt. Edge folded his long body into a chair at an adjacent table while Luis stood uncomfortably between the two.

  “More tequila, cow,” the bandit chief shouted, tossing aside the empty bottle and bringing the blunderbuss down with a crash on to the edge of the table. Its gaping muzzle pointed at Luis, who inched out of the line of fire.

  Matador saw the movement and let out a burst of laughter as the woman padded out of the kitchen door, went behind the bar for a bottle and carried it over to the table. Edge thought she might have been pretty had her features not been enveloped in rolls of fat.

  “I do not shoot a rich man until I know where his money is,” Matador said with a grin, snatching the bottle from the woman’s pudgy hands, then releasing his gun to reach up and squeeze a large nipple dearly outlined under the black material of her dress. She winced with pain but made no sound, ambled back to the kitchen as the bandit thumped her hard on the rump, screaming: “Food, cow.”

  “She is much woman,” Luis tendered, with a sidelong look at Edge.

  Matador grinned. “You like her old man? Maybe if I like what you going to say, I give you her as well as your life.”

  “Reckon that’s worth ten thousand dollars, American,” Edge said softly.

  The grin fell from Matador’s face like a dropped veil and he snatched up the blunderbuss, pointed it at Edge. “You no joke with me, señor,” he hissed. “I got your life in my trigger finger. I squeeze and you dead. No mistake this time.”

  “I never joke about money,” Edge answered.

  Matador seemed to hold his breath for several moments, Then he nodded towards Luis. “He has that much money?”

  “He knows where it is,” Edge replied.

  “I know where is ten thousand,” Matador said softly still menacing the gun. “A hundred thousand in a bank at Mexico City.”

  “This ain’t in no bank,” Edge said; wondering idly if he was telling. “This is someplace we can get our hands on it. Easy.”

  “Where is this place?”

  Luis started to open his mouth, raise his right hand with the ring on the third finger. But then his lips clamped tight as Edge shot out a foot, kicking the old man hard on the shin. Edge, grinned at Matador as Luis bent to massage his aching leg.

  “That ain’t no kind of a deal,” he said. “Soon as you know, that, Hoyos ain’t a healthy place for us no more. I got holes in my head to see out of, hear with and breathe through. I don’t want any more.”

  Matador’s eyes glinted dangerously. “Captain Alfaro was keeping you alive to maybe make you suffer a little, señor?” he asked softly.

  “And I thought he just liked me,” Edge answered.

  “I know more ways to make men suffer than he ever heard of.”

  “Torture ain’t reliable,” Edge said easily. “Some men break early. Others take longer. Some men just die of plain fright. Better you let us take you where the money is.”

  Matador eyed Luis. “I think he break easy.”

  Edge shook his head. “No good, He knows the place. I know exactly where in that place.”

  The kitchen door swung open and the woman padded out, carrying a plate piled high with tortillas. She slapped the plate down hard on the table before Matador, her eyes spitting hate at the top of his head.

  “You live ‘til we get to the place and you show me where,” the bandit said with finality, snatching up a tortilla and biting into it, his expression showing that the food met with his approval. “Then I decide what to do with you. Hey, cow.”

  The woman had begun, to go back to the kitchen, turned with resignation to await another order from Matador. The bandit swung the blunderbuss, leveled it and squeezed the trigger. The vicious load peppered the woman’s large breasts and she screamed, her hands going to the injured parts, blood oozing from between the clutching fingers. Then Matador drew one of his Colts and took careful aim as the woman’s horror-filled eyes stared at him. The bullet drilled a neat hole in the center of her forehead and she fell backwards, the skirts of her, dress riding high up her naked thighs the flesh quivering with the death convulsion.

  “It is a kind man who would put an injured cow out of her agony,” Matador said evenly, holstering his smoking revolver and picking up another tortilla.

  “Why?” Luis gasped, unable to rip his eyes away from the thick exposed flesh of the dead woman’s legs.

  “She would have been no good for you, amigo,” The bandit said. “Those legs, they would have broke your back at the height of your passion. But it was not for that reason. This place, it is quiet. The cow may have heard our voices. As the Americano said, a secret is not a secret when others know of it.” He took a long drink with the new bottle, smacked his lips. “Now I eat, then I sleep. After that we go and get the money.”

  Edge rose to his feet, content with the situation as it stood. He jabbed a stiff finger into the ribs of Luis, dragging his fascinated gaze from the body of the dead woman.

  “Come on, amigo,” he said wryly. “Let’s go find us some live ones.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  EDGE had too many other things on his mind to concern himself with the multitude of pleasures which the town of Hoyos had to offer a man. Primarily he wanted what he had come into Mexico for the return of the money the bandits had stolen from him, and revenge against El Matador. But it did not take him long to decide that both these objectives would have to wait. For not all the bandits had accepted their leader’s invitation to relax. Obviously following a standing order, two men lounged outside the cantina, their attitudes of ease made fraudulent by the watchful glints of their eyes. They were the fat Miguel and the pock-marked Torres and as Edge and Luis moved out of the doorway, Torres broke away from the other and started down the side of the cantina, obviously intent upon taking up sentry duty at the rear of the building.

  “We going to find some girls?” Luis asked, eyes alight with excited anticipation as he headed towards the street entrance, from which came the sound of laughter and shouting, an occasional feminine scream which could have been of pain or delight.

  Edge shook his head. “I hope you find one that’s got everything,” he said.

  “Señor?” The wizened face was puckered with bewilderment.

  “They ain’t invented a pill for it yet.”

  Luis grinned his understanding. “A man’s got to take chances, señor.”

  Then he was gone, hurrying towards the sounds of gaiety. Edge nodded to Miguel and got no response, began to pick his way between the dead bodies of the soldiers, towards the center of the plaza where their weapons had been heaped in an untidy pile. But he still had six feet to go when a rifle cracked and dust spurted up just ahead of him. He turned slowly to look back over his shoulder, saw Miguel with his repeater still raised to shoulder level, eye behind the backsight.

  “Just l
ooking,” Edge said.

  “You are not a cat, señor,” the fat man said evenly. “But curiosity, it can make you just as dead.”

  Edge spat. “And I ain’t got but just the one life,” he said reflectively, spun and angled away from the heap of guns, going towards the building in which he and Luis had been held the night before. It was, in fact, a church, but it had been many years since it was used for religious purposes. It still had an altar with a crucifix fixed to the wall above and there were still two rows of pews with a central aisle dividing them. But the scarring of the wall above the altar told of shooting practice with the ornament as the target and a scattering of straw and filthy blankets on the pews and the floor between them indicated that the place served as a dormitory in times when Hoyos was overcrowded.

  Edge took this all in with disinterest as he moved quickly down the aisle, went through a door to the right of the altar, found himself in what had been the priest’s robing room. A door on the other side was locked, but the wooden hinges had rotted and fell away within moments as Edge prized at them with the dead soldier’s knife. Outside he stood in a narrow space between the rear of the church and the wall of the town. The sun was well clear of the horizon now, but the area in which Edge stood—no wider than four feet—was in deep shadow. The wall was ten feet high at this point, sheer and smooth, offering no footholds. There was only one way up and Edge took it. He gritted his teeth, pressed his back against the rear of the church, swung one foot up against the town wall and began to push himself aloft.

  As Edge was making his bid for escape, Luis Aviles was savoring a forthcoming delight, the like of which he had not experienced for more than forty years. He was leaning against a dresser in a room on the second floor of a bordello, watching with avid eyes as a girl of no more than fourteen began to unbutton a blouse which promised in its drape an upper body developed beyond her years. At first the girl had been terrified as Luis demanded her favors, his drooling mouth spitting words of terrible vengeance from El Matador if she did not go to a room with him.