by John Horst
Dick made it into the center of the square, near the dungeon’s entrance and found many dead children. They were killed by small arms fire, six shooters, and soon it became apparent to Dick that the bandits were executing witnesses. He heard muffled shooting and cries inside a building and dismounted. He ran inside as three bandits had just finished executing some nursemaids, old women who’d died shielding the bodies of their little charges.
The bandits were now preparing to dispatch the occupants of the nursery. Dick would have none of this, and he began firing his Winchester as fast as he could work the lever. In short order the savages were all dead. He called to one of his Texans who’d been wounded but still strong enough to post sentry. He got him to sit with the babies, “Kill any sonofabitch who tries this again.”
The man nodded and filled his Winchester’s magazine. He’d never seen his boss like this, wild, angry, terrifying. Like Arvel, Dick was in his own manic trance now. His blood was up worse than at any time during his years fighting the rebels. It was up higher than it had been at the height of the Gettysburg battle, when he’d lost more than three quarters of his men repelling a charge on the little round top.
He could not comprehend how another human being could bring himself to shoot a little baby. These were the wickedest animals he’d ever known. He went about, calmly, as if he were delivering a summons or collecting taxes, carefully taking aim and killing every bandit in his path. He did not run or duck for cover or try to avoid being shot. He stood upright and fired and fired until his Winchester was empty and the cartridges all gone from his gun belt. He careful put his rifle aside and began to pull his six shooter when he saw the Maxim that had recently been put out of commission by Will Panks and Raphael. He went for it and saw his British soldier off to the right, shooting bandits from a rubble wall.
“James!” The man dutifully reported. “Can you work this thing?” The Englishman could. He showed Dick how it operated and picked up the long belt still full of the hellish Dum Dums. The device was heavy, too heavy to be carried about and fired in such a way, but Dick was too full of the adrenalin charge to know any better and he managed it without issue. He soon had it humming away, the Englishman in tow, feeding the deadly machine. They fired with horrific effect. One bandit was literally cut in two and Dick looked over at the Englishman, incredulity in his eyes. “I guess that was a bit too much.”
They continued on until the water cooling the barrel evaporated and the gun burned up. They went back to using their own shooting irons and soon, there were more Rurales and Americans and vaqueros inside the fort than bandits.
Further on, toward the center of the fort, Chica was giving her new shotguns a thorough workout, firing as fast as she could as Arvel worked more deliberately with his Greener.
Chica was saying something to him in her matter-of-fact tone. Arvel called out to her, “What are you saying? Can’t hear you!”
“I said I like this a new shotgun, Pendejo.” She held the Winchester up to show him. “It is very fast.”
He turned to shoot a bandit and when he looked back, Chica had slowed, ducked her head down and entered the portal to the dungeon. He started to follow with Tammy, then thought better of it, stayed at the entrance to guard her rear.
Alanza picked her way down the old stone steps, here and there a bandit cowered in a corner or tried to take up a shooting position until cut down by the señora. She cleared the place and saw several cells locked securely. She dismounted and found a dead guard, one of her victims, keys still stuck in his belt, and she began opening one hellish nightmare after the next. Slowly, as if she’d awakened the dead, living corpses began to emerge from their captivity. Even Chica had never seen such things.
She eventually came back up to earth and found Arvel. The fighting was beginning to slow. She looked at him and saw the shotgun in his hands. “Pendejo, wha’ did you do to my Greener?”
He looked down at the fine English shotgun that he’d had cut down, both from the muzzle and the stock. “Oh, I’m sorry, Chica, it’s the only shotgun we have with ejectors and I had a hard time handling a shooting iron at first.” He grinned and showed her the strength in his right hand. “I’m much better now.”
“You are such a Pendejo. I waited two years for that shotgun to be made and paid a lotta money for that wood and now you ruined it.” A bullet zipped between them and Chica shot the man who’d delivered it, she went back to lambasting Arvel for ruining her gun.
“Is this really the best time to be discussing how I ruined your shotgun, Chica?” He looked about wildly for any other assassins. She ignored him and too became distracted, looked off in the distance in searching of more bad men to kill.
She turned a corner around a substantial pile of rubble, what used to be the top of the mountain where three strange looking bandits stared her down menacingly. They were remarkable in their likeness to Sombrero del Oro. They were images of the man, younger, but with breasts. They fired on Chica ineffectively. Alanza was too quick and Chica rode around them in an arc, shooting the nearest one, then the next and finally the last.
Arvel came up alongside her.
“I guess I can no longer say that I do not shoot women, Pendejo.” She loaded the Winchester’s magazine and let it hang from the sling on her shoulder. She took the other one from its scabbard and loaded it as well.
Arvel looked down on the slain banditas. He snorted. “Can’t really count them as women, darling. Can’t really count them as human beings. More like shootin’ vermin, to my mind.”
“So I can tell Marta that I do not shoot women, still?”
He was confused by the question and was ready to ask what she meant when she rode off again, after more bandits to kill.
Kosterlitzky stopped the French guns and the shooting began to slow. It was strangely quiet, just sporadic shooting here and there now. The cacophony of explosions had temporarily deafened the avengers, and now the silence put them into a strange state of mind, the buzzing in their ears mixed with their coming down from the battle high, the adrenalin rush, everyone felt a little drunk, disoriented, unreal.
The less aggressive bad men began to surrender and Dick started to come down from his mania as well. He only killed three of the men trying to surrender and suddenly laughed out loud. The Englishman looked on at him, confused. He did not know the joke that had Dick so amused. The old Ranger Captain was thinking of Arvel.
He made it back to the nursery. The tough Texas Ranger was sitting among his little charges. He’d found them milk and was moving from one to the next. He burped them in turn. He looked very strange, blood and dust covering his face and clothes, with a little blanket over his shoulder to protect the babies from his outfit.
Dick smiled broadly at him. “All okay?”
The Texan smiled, “All okay, boss. All perfectly okay.”
Dick and his British companion now turned their attention to the inner recesses of the fort and began searching the buildings, one by one kicking in doors, looking for any holdouts or further acts of barbarity. They came upon a group of captives, women and children cowering under tables in a room. They were coated in dust and all crying, terrified. They looked on at Dick and James, waiting for the worst.
James called out to them in his perfect Castilian dialect. He assured them that they were all safe now and the women believed him. No one with such queer Spanish was part of the bandit gang. They recognized the two men as their rescuers.
Chica rode on, up another staircase to Sombrero del Oro’s hacienda. Arvel followed on Tammy and soon they were in the old bandit’s home. They dismounted and Chica finally approached her lover. She grabbed him and hugged him. “Rebecca is good, Pendejo, you know this?” She kissed him hard on the mouth. “Your face is all crooked.” She grabbed his jaw and moved it about. She grabbed his right arm, moved her hand down over it and picked up his hand. “You are a mess, Pendejo.”
“I’m getting better.” He grabbed her around her tiny waist with his le
ft hand, pulled her tightly against his chest. He breathed deeply, breathed in the scent he’d missed and thought he’d never know again and gloried in having his love back in one piece. “I’ve missed you, Chica, I’ve really missed you.”
She pulled back and examined him further, checked him for any other debility. She slid her hand down and grabbed him firmly, “is the most importante thing working, still, Pendejo?”
She looked him in the eye bearing an impish grin. “Oh, sí, it is good, it is very good.” She led him into Sombrero del Oro’s bed chamber. Two bandits were hiding on the floor, on either side of the frilly bed. Chica chose not to shoot them. She looked at them and told them to get out. They slunk away like a couple of scolded dogs. The Rurales would deal with them.
She threw Arvel off balance and onto the bed, turned and latched the door, was on top of him instantly. “I like you this away. You are easier to pin down.” Straddling him, she kissed him hard on the mouth and made love to him with a recklessness, a desperation he’d never before known from his wild wife.
In short order, Dick Welles was calling for them. Arvel didn’t want to answer, yet didn’t want to worry his old partner. He finally called out. “I’m okay, in here, Dick…” Dick was soon on the other side of the door, he’d begun to work the handle, “with Chica, Dick.”
“Oh…oh!” Arvel could nearly feel the man blushing through door. He looked at his wife and they laughed for the first time together since the beginning of the nightmare. He hugged her tightly and felt something queer, something wet on his face, something he’d not seen in all the time he’d known her. She was crying.
He pulled her face up by the chin, looked her in the eye. She was smiling and crying all at once and his tears started flowing again. No words were necessary, they held each other and cried and rejoiced in what they and their little girl had survived.
When the smoke had cleared, and the bodies were all removed, the extent of the fortress of horrors could be fully comprehended. Alice Walsh walked amongst the victims of the bandits’ brutality. It was heartbreaking. Many of the residents of the dungeon were children, born into the squalor, never had they even seen the light of day. Their eyes were not accustomed to the daylight and many wore rags over their faces to block out the sun. Some were in quarters so small that they had never stood upright. Their little backs were permanently bent over. It was doubtful they would survive, or if they should survive, ever live a normal life. Some had been blinded completely due to a poor diet, not because there was no food, but simply because of the diseased mind of the man who’d made this hell on earth for so many decades.
Alice Walsh looked up at Kosterlitzky as he rode about. The colonel was pleased. He’d run a good campaign with the aid of his friends to the north, and suffered only minor casualties. They’d killed three hundred bandits and two hundred surrendered. These would later be hanged in San Sebastian.
“You should not be so proud, I think, Colonel.” Alice was overwhelmed with grief. She could not believe the inhumanity. Kosterlitzky was a little surprised at the woman’s stern words.
“I am sorry, Mrs. Walsh, I don’t understand.”
“All these years, this has been allowed to go on, and all these years, you’ve been an official of the government, and you’ve let it go on right under your nose.”
“My dear madam,” the colonel was patient with his guest. “I understand completely.” He dismounted and took her by the hand, led her to the remnants of a wagon and handed her a flask. She drank and suddenly was sorry for her terse comments.
“With due respect, madam, I have two things to say to you. One, Guggenheim and two, U.S. Smelting.”
“I don’t understand, Colonel.”
“The vast majority of this country’s wealth is in its natural resources, and ninety percent of the mining is owned by US interests, Mrs. Walsh. That means that persons such as you, the stock holders of these companies, are receiving great riches on the backs of the poor people of Mexico.” He removed a cigarette from a gold case and placed it in an ivory holder. He lit it and drew deeply. “That leaves little for our government, and little for my Rurales, and little for the protection of this great land.” He looked on at Alice Walsh and continued. “As you know, I am not from this land, but I fell in love with it a long time ago. I knew the limitations, I know the leaders of the government are far from perfect, but I do what I can do, and…”
Alice looked him in the eye, “I apologize, Colonel.” She looked at her hands. My husband bought stock in both of those companies, I’ve benefited from them since his death, and I’ve lived comfortably, while all this,” she looked on while a Rurale helped a young blind girl to some water, “has gone on.” She started to cry and caught herself. She straightened her back.
“You are a good man, Colonel, and I aim to do something about this. This is a good land with good people, and they deserve better. You know my country is not perfect. We’ve had human trade for longer than any other civilized country in the world but we are getting better every day. There is no reason to believe that this land cannot become better. Would you accept my help, if I could offer it to you?”
“Of course, madam, of course.” They sat together for a while and Alice Walsh even had a cigarette, just to calm her nerves. She’d been through more strife these past few days than she’d been through her entire life. She suddenly felt alive, energized, as if she could jump up and run a marathon. She looked up at her surroundings, at a little commotion and saw her boy emerge, his lovely wife in tow. They’d survived without a scratch and Chica, Arvel, both looked radiant.
She gave them a little smile and nearly snuffed out the cigarette before they’d had a chance to see her engage in such scandalous behavior. She stopped herself, and looked both of them in the eye and took a long, deep drag. Arvel smiled at her, Chica didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. She looked on, indifferently. She was proud of the old woman.
“Abuelita,” she walked up on the old lady and the colonel sitting together, “I think we all needa little trip to Maryland, what you say?”
“I think that’s an excellent idea, Chica.”
His Rurales were now delivering a great prize in the form of the commander of the fort. The man was yet another image of Sombrero del Oro, yet younger, uglier, inbred, as if he was a kind of strangely manufactured being, a clay statue of a man that had not spent enough time in the kiln. His left ear was gone, sliced off by a Rurale’s sword and he was covered, down the front in his own blood.
The Rurale captain pushed him forward. His hands were manacled and he had a malicious sneer on his face. The captain knocked his hat from his head and pushed him to his knees. Dick Welles spoke up first.
“Did you order those little children and babies killed, you bastard?”
The man would not look up. He was evil and defiant, but not so stupid as to incur their wrath any further.
Alice Walsh looked Dick in the eye. “Children? Babies? What are you talking about Captain Welles?”
“We saw ‘em.” He pointed with his head to his English companion. “Killed little children, over there, a little pile of little children. And babies. I got to ‘em first, but they were fixin’ to kill babies in the cradle.” He smiled proudly, “but they didn’t get a one of ‘em.”
Even this was too much for Kosterlitzky, who’d been too far off directing the attack to see the details of the barbarity. He stood up and removed his pistol from its holster, pressed it to the man’s temple and fired. The bandit leader pitched forward, dead.
Arvel breathed smoke through his teeth. “A good riddance of bad rubbish.”
Kosterlitzky smiled, returning his gun to its holster. He was calm, as calm as if he were delivering letters to the men, killing had no apparent effect on him. “Ah, you are fond of the writings of Mr. Tobias Smollett, Captain Walsh?”
Dick Welles interjected, breathing his answer through a plume of cigarette smoke. “Even though he was just a minor poet.”
Mo
st of the Rurales were gone, off to escort the prisoners to San Sebastian. The Americans and Alejandro del Toro and his vaqueros made camp at the ruined fort. Dick Welles approached Arvel sitting on a pile of rubble, he was all alone.
“Where’s Chica?”
“Off, looking for her head. What's with that girl and heads?” He shivered, thinking about Chica cutting away.
Dick smiled and watched Arvel message his right hand. “She had another tied to that Indian horse she rode in on. Saw it bouncing around in a feed bag, definitely a head.”
“How was Dan when you checked on him, Dick?”
“Billy’s got him in good shape, bleedings stopped, he’ll be okay.”
Arvel ran his left hand through his hair and Dick could see it trembling. He smiled and lit a couple of cigarettes, handing one to his partner. He lay back on a pile of rubble next to Arvel, “I think this is the end of my adventuring, Arvel. Think I’m…we are too old for this shit.”
“I will not disagree with you, Dick, I will not disagree one bit.” He looked on at a little group of former captives. They’d been washing and Chica had found them clean clothes. They did not know they had an audience, and for the first time, likely for many of them, they chatted and even laughed a little, freely, without repercussions. Dick watched them and Arvel could just make out a little smile.
The smile turned sullen and Dick looked at the end of his cigarette, “Lost Rosco.”
Arvel looked his old partner in the eye, “No!” He thought of Dick’s favorite mount, “goddamn, Dick, I am mighty sorry, he was a good lad, a damned good horse.” He fought back the tears again, cleared his throat hard. “Got to admit, Dick,” he nodded at the group, “we did good, again, didn’t we?”
