Salomon 4

by David Xavier

  “If these Americans are not hanged, the villagers will tear apart the court walls brick by brick,” Salomon told Marisela.

  “Where are they taking them?”

  “Further north to stand trial,” Salomon said. “To El Soldado. The coastal village where the first girl went missing.”

  A day later Salomon looked out over the presidio walls to see the mob approaching. It had grown in size as additional men joined from villages along the way. Over thirty men with blistered feet stood outside the presidio. They did not shout nor beat their fists against the gates, but they were restless and arguments broke out among them.

  A second transport patrol sent from San Rosalia would take the prisoners the rest of the way. In the meantime, the officials from Rodado rested and ate huge meals in the presidio kitchen. The stableboy gave their horses oats and straw, and set them loose to roam the yard.

  “It would be a shame if the prisoners escaped,” one of the officials said to Salomon. Salomon looked at him and the official grinned. They stood together on the presidio walls overlooking the gathered villagers sitting in the shade, waiting to follow the next transfer. “If we could not hold back this violent uprising, and we had no choice but to set the Americans loose to these clawing hands.”

  Salomon looked out on the crowd.

  “It would be justice, would it not?” the official said. He walked with his hands behind his back, speaking over one of Salomon’s shoulders and then the other. “I have no desire to go to El Soldado. These men don’t deserve a trial. They spoiled the innocence of young women and children, some of whom have not yet had their first communion. They will live with this fear in their hearts. These criminals don’t deserve another breath of air for what they had planned. Those men down there, the fathers, the husbands, should be able to sort it out themselves. Here and now.”

  Both men stood in silence, then the official spoke. “Do you have a wife?”

  “Yes.” His outward stare did not flinch.

  “And what would you do to a man who put his hands on her? So that the days after she would startle at every door that opens, every noise in the dark. She would look over her shoulder at passing shadows and break down and cry. They took more than their innocence, their feelings of security. They took their lives.”

  Salomon’s breaths became harsh blows through his nose.

  The official asked, “What would you do to an American who took your wife’s life?”

  Salomon turned his shrewd eyes to the official. He did not speak.

  It was late when Fabian de Avila knocked at Salomon’s door.

  “It is Colonel Castro,” Fabian said. “He is not in his room.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He is not on presidio grounds. The stableboy saw him leave through the south utility door.”

  Dressed in civilian clothes and sticking to the shadows, José Castro had pushed off the wall to cross the open area and stand at the door. The stableboy could not sleep and sat at his window counting the stars when the shadow passed. He crossed the yard on bare feet and peeked around the corner. José Castro was fumbling with keys at the utility door. He looked up and saw the stableboy, and he put his finger to his lips.

  “He was sweating so much I thought he had put his head in a bucket,” the stableboy told Fabian when asked. “But it rained again tonight. It is not warm.”

  Salomon and Fabian left through the same utility door on the presidio’s south side. It was a double door for security, forming a small room between. They moved like burglars through the camp outside the walls so as not to raise the villagers’ heads. They had left their uniforms on the hooks and instead wore clothing that would not cause a second look. Under his serape, Salomon carried a pistola.

  The villagers lounged about in the roadside grass, gray bumps in the dark, snoring. Some of them sat around small campfires and kept a sleepyeyed vigil, walking through the dark to other campfires for a cup of coffee and a conversation.

  Salomon led the way through the snoring men, ignored as one of them, and disappeared into the dark of the road to Loreto. They ran the short distance and found José Castro sitting at a card table in the cantina, a bottle of tequila at his elbow.

  “What do you expect me to do, when you hide every bottle from me?”

  “Get yourself up and let’s go,” Salomon said.

  “I would rather stay and finish this drink and finish this game.”

  The cantina was busy with the new population of travelers, and every lantern burned high. A few of the men at another table wore the fishing shirts and brimmed caps that men wore in the coastal villages. They had solemn faces and skin cracked by the saltwinds that blew high waves across the gulf. They drank from short glasses and stayed silent.

  Against the wall stood three teenage boys who wore ranch clothing and sour looks. They kept their sullen eyes on the cardplaying drunk.

  “Besides,” Castro said, “tonight I am getting the best cards I’ve ever gotten in my life.”

  Salomon looked to the other card players. They held straight faces. A man leaned across from another table. “He hasn’t won a hand yet.”

  “Shut up,” Castro said. Then he smiled. “Best cards of my life.”

  Another hand was dealt and Salomon stepped forward and put his hand flat on the cards before Castro could pick them up. “Say goodnight.”

  “Goodnight to you.”

  He grabbed Salomon’s arm, but Salomon did not budge. Castro pounded his fist on Salomon’s fingers, and when Salomon still did not flinch, he stood, his chair falling over behind him. Fabian de Avila straightened up as if at attention. The villagers at the other table elbowed each other and pointed. They gave their full attention now to the staggering man who drew salutes even when drunk.

  Across the cantina, the tallest of the teenage boys pushed off the wall into a run. He was the hog rancher’s oldest son, and he was there the day Castro negotiated a bad price for his father’s hogs. Earlier in the night, one of the brothers was walking the street past his curfew and saw the Colonel in the cantina window.

  “If I see the Colonel again,” the oldest brother had said before, “I will kill him for making father poor.”

  The brothers came together, followed by a younger brother who had overheard the whispers; that the Colonel was sitting with his back to the door and lifting the bottle so often that he probably couldn’t see straight. All night the brothers stood against the wall, waiting for the Colonel to stand and turn the hard armor of his shoulder bones and back so that his heart was an open target.

  As the footsteps pounded across the cantina floor, Castro put his attention past Salomon’s shoulder to the sprinting boy. His eyes softened and he formed a drunken smile, recognizing the boy from the hog ranch. Fabian called out. Salomon turned and saw the charging boy raise a flashing blade. He stepped in front of Castro and grabbed the boy’s wrist as the knife came forward. He put a hand under the boy’s arm and swung him onto the card table. Before the cards settled to the floor and the coins stopped quivering, Salomon had the boy pinned to the tabletop with his pistola pressed to the boy’s temple.

  The other cardplayers pushed back their chairs and backed away. Salomon pulled his pistola away and eased the hammer down.

  “You’re just a boy.”

  “I am a man.”

  “Killing a man doesn’t make another.”

  “It does when the Colonel cheats your father.”

  “Cheat your father?” Castro said. “I did not cheat your father. I kept him from cheating me.”

  “You are not paying him what he asked.”

  The boy twisted his knife as much as he could. Salomon shook the boy’s wrist against the table and the knife fell. He yanked him to his feet and the boy spun and gained his balance.

  Castro kicked the knife away and stepped at the boy. “And doing so, I am able to pay your father for a longer period of time. The presidio will always be here, and so will its soldiers. Your father will have a
buyer and food for his children for a long time. That is the way business works, boy. You should thank me instead of shoving a knife in my belly.”

  The boy had tears in his eyes. Castro shoved him toward the door and kicked after him, but missed and fell. The younger brothers ran out ahead of their older brother. The villagers glanced at each other and spoke a low word – presidio.

  With José Castro hanging between them like a crucified man, Salomon and Fabian shuffled back along the palm-lined road. They stopped once, where Salomon dropped his side of Castro and backtracked a dozen yards. Fabian stood holding one of Castro’s arms, who was now deadweight, looking through the darkness at their trail when Salomon returned.

  “We’re being followed.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I am the presidio scout. I am supposed to know these things.”

  They heaved Castro back upon their shoulders and walked as fast as they could, to where the light from the campfires bounced off the presidio walls and gave them no hiding. Villager eyes came up as they shuffled through, each with a hand on Castro’s wrists at their necks and another on his belt behind him, carrying him through like a battle-injured man. People woke as they passed, sitting up in the dark as if it was a holy relic passing before them, instead of a drunk.

  A shout sounded behind them. Salomon put them in a run to the utility door. He dropped Castro while he worked the key in the black shadow at the base of the presidio wall. Fabian stood at his shoulder, trading glances between the door and the figures behind them, rising from the ground like undead.

  “They are coming. Open the door.”

  “You’re in my light.”

  The door slammed open and the figures began to run. Castro was facedown in the dirt. They dragged him in, his lifeless fingers bouncing along the ground. As soon as Salomon slammed and locked the door, a thump sounded from the other side. Another thump and a gathering of shouts.

  Fabian stood wide-eyed in a sweat. Salomon tucked the key in his pocket and nodded to Castro.

  “Grab his legs.”

  By morning the villagers had provoked themselves into a protest, calling for the blood of the prisoners, swinging clubs against the presidio gates and searching the ground for stones. From the wall, soldiers aimed rifles and shouted ignored commands. They retreated under a hailstorm of stones.

  Soldiers gathered in the presidio yard with weapons ready. Their horses stamped. The law officials from Rodado paced back and forth, wiping sweat from their brows. José Castro came from the officer’s quarters on steady legs, squinting against the sunrise. The walls glittered with minerals like a million tiny mirrors. He carried an officer’s hat at his side by the brim.

  “Where is that transfer?”

  Major Ortivez stepped forward. “Sir, no word yet. We expected them last night but the rain the night before might have held them up.”

  Castro’s eyes wandered to the gates. “How are the Rodadeños?”

  “Not happy, sir, as you can hear. We step foot outside those walls with the prisoners and they will tear them apart.”

  “Salomon.”

  Salomon stood from his crouch. “Sir.”

  Castro took him a few paces away by the elbow. “I should thank you for last night. If you had not acted, I would have been fileted by a boy with a pig knife. And by the sounds outside those gates, you might have saved my life a second time by getting me back inside.”

  “I doubt that, sir.”

  “Ortivez is right. The village men are in a dangerous mood. Men in protest do not stop until they have what they want in their hands. In this case they want blood, and would not hold back from anyone standing in their way.”

  “They deserve to get their hands wet.”

  “You are speaking as a man. Men forget there is always a higher power. Without humility, without loyalty to it, men are senseless.” He stepped close. “I don’t care what those prisoners did. It is our job to uphold the law. To deliver them to the transfer. Alive.”

  He reached out and took the sombrero off Salomon’s head and threw it back. With his other hand he raised the officer’s hat he held by the crown, a dark blue hat with the insignia of the Mexican Army on the front, and placed it on Salomon.

  “You are now the Capitán of the Guard.”

  “Sir?”

  “Keep this presidio safe.”

  The transfer from El Soldado arrived that night, a patrol of six horsemen, the lead with a lantern in his hands, assembled beyond the villager shouts. Behind the horsemen the dull iron bars of a prisoner wagon caught the faint torchlight.

  The villagers had agitated themselves to a frenzy. They ran from the darkness of roadside groves with cut vines over their shoulders, and threw them over the presidio walls and climbed until either the vines gave way or the guards threw them back. They jammed knives in the presidio gates and tore off chunks. They huddled at the base of the wooden doors and ran from set fires. Guards stood on the other side with water jugs, dousing the flames before they grew large.

  One of the villagers came forward waving a pistola. Had it been loaded, he might have fired it, however, he did not even aim it. Guards watched as the owner brandished the pistola about and stuck it behind his belt cord to be pulled again a moment later.

  Salomon stood at the jail cell, looking in at the four slumped prisoners. He stood for a long while putting hard eyes over these criminals with downcast faces, the villager shouts in the distance. Major Ortivez appeared at his elbow with orders.

  “Get them ready to go.”

  Salomon turned and retrieved shackles from the wall. He brought the chains swinging against the bars. The prisoners gave a jump in their posture and looked up.

  “One at a time.”

  One by one the prisoners came forward and turned with their hands crossed at their backs. Salomon shackled them together wrists and ankles on a chain and sent them shuffling with the chain trailing across the tiles.

  A slight breeze sent the torches outside to flickering. The presidio’s forty horsemen stood at the ready. Salomon crossed the yard, leading the four shackled men under torchlight like dead men walking.

  “Where is the transfer?”

  “Out past the noise,” Ortivez walked by. “They’re not coming through that.”

  Salomon looked to a guard on the wall. “Motion them forward.”

  A voice called back. “I have several times.”

  “Do it again.”

  The guard took up a torch and waved it widelegged from left to right. The guard paused and watched. He looked down to Salomon.

  “Well.”

  The guard turned and made the same signal again, and waited. In the distance, the transfer made a small motion with the lantern.

  “They’re not coming forward.”

  Salomon looked to the gates. “Mount.”

  One of the officials from Rodado stood next to Salomon.

  “You turn these men loose, and you quiet those shouts for good,” he said in a low voice. “You hand these men over, and you’re on the right side of justice, I don’t care what the law says about it.”

  Salomon shifted his eyes to the official and took his torch. “Get on your horse.”

  The presidio gates opened to the outside yells, and the horsemen charged out in two columns, villagers scrambling away on both sides. Down the road, the transfer from El Soldado stood cast in lantern glow. With the road cleared, Salomon walked the prisoners through. Villagers reached at saddlestraps and were pistolwhipped away. They waved crude torches at the horses’ black eyes. The horsemen began to move forward in a rolling escort as the prisoners made their way afoot.

  The prisoners shuffled with glances to the shouts left and right and fell out of sync. A stone came hurling past the horsemen from the dark. One of the prisoners dropped to a rise in shouts, and Salomon hauled him back up by the collar.

  One of the horsemen called out and Salomon turned. A villager had broken through. A blade reflected in his hands. He ran
low. Salomon stepped around and swung with the torch, and the man’s head disappeared in a firestorm of sparks, scattering like disturbed flies. The villager ran blindly into the dark with his hands at his face.

  More villagers tried to break the escort walls, their reaching hands, their hysterical shouts. The horses whinnied with wide eyes. The soldiers beat at the reaching hands with whips. A shot fired and sent men to ducking. Another shot sounded and faces looked about. Salomon stood with his pistola in the air.

  “Your wives and daughters deserve justice,” he said. “I know that.”

  A voice called out to hand the prisoners over.

  “Would you stand these men before your daughter’s eyes and commit bloodshed in their names?”

  One villager stepped forward, speaking for all. “They deserve death.”

  Salomon yanked the chain and the prisoners lurched forward. “These men will stand before a judge and receive their penalties on earth by official word of law.”

  “Nothing the law can do will punish these men accordingly.”

  “They will be punished accordingly, believe me.” Salomon stepped close. “Nothing you do here will match what they have coming. Death is just the beginning for these men. Don’t put that on your soul. Hell will handle their afterlife, don’t let it handle yours.”

  The villager stood silent and the shouts had vanished from the night. Salomon sent the prisoners tottering past him, keeping his eyes on the man. The trailing chain moved away and the escort moved with it. Salomon stood alone in the road and the silent villagers fell away one by one to gather their things. The man who had done the speaking looked after the shuffling prisoners and shifted his eyes back to Salomon. He nodded, his head downcast, and he mouthed in agreement. He nodded again and turned away.