Cascabel dismissed us and returned to his tent. His orderly led Malachi and me to the palisade and showed us where to put our blankets. After retrieving our war bags, bedrolls, and saddles, we tossed our gear on the designated spot. Malachi kept his clothes on and lay on his blanket. Hat over his face, he rested his head against his saddle. I was spreading my blanket on the ground when the orderly returned.
“Señor Gomez,” he said, “Doña Luz wants to see you.”
Since the only woman I had seen at the camp was the telepath, I assumed “Doña Luz” was her. I rose to my feet, mindful that despite the colonel’s show of hospitality, the rurales might be separating Malachi and me for a double cross. A glance at my friend confirmed that he was thinking the same thing as I caught him sliding an unholstered Schofield under his saddle.
Two soldiers tending the coffee pot watched me as I followed the orderly to the other side of the camp. The campfire had died down, and the glow from the coals in the pit dappled their faces with orange light. Rurales snored, burrito-wrapped in blankets along the periphery of the cul-de-sac, their naked feet pointed toward the campfire. Horses nickered softly in the remuda. Above on the canyon walls, sentries stood silhouetted against the Milky Way.
The orderly halted at a semi-circle of small rocks arranged around a canvas lean-to pinned to the rock wall. The rocks must’ve marked a perimeter he wasn’t allowed to cross. I smelled a faint trace of burning sage, tobacco, and hashish.
“Siga,” the orderly whispered, pointing at the lean-to.
“What does la doña want?”
“She’ll tell you.” He turned back toward the campfire.
This late at night, I hoped the reason for my visit was a booty call. The telepath wasn’t my type, but if getting between her big legs helped keep the peace between Malachi and me and the rurales, then I’d do my duty.
Just in case I tripped some kind of trap by crossing over the rocks, I primed my gun hand and my talons. Stepping to the nearest end of the lean-to, I crouched and whispered, “Doña Luz?”
“Oh Felix,” she answered, “since when are you so formal? Get your ass in here.”
Crap, yet someone else in this crazy place and time who’s got me confused with the other Felix. Goddamn him, wherever he was.
I lifted the lean-to’s flap and fragrant smoke rolled around me. Though plenty dark inside, I saw Doña Luz sitting cross-legged on a buffalo robe. Her telepath’s crown glinted in the meager light. Her braids were undone and her hair fell loose over her shoulders. She had stripped out of her uniform and her large breasts sagged against the white tunic draping her torso. Gear and weapons lay piled around her. Scooting close I smelled fresh human blood. She clamped one hand over her other wrist, which was bound in a cloth bandage.
“I thought you might be hungry.” A native accent added a musical cadence to her Spanish. She lifted a cup fashioned from a tin can.
My kundalini noir quivered in alarm. She knew I was a vampire. Then I remembered that Gladys and her assistant Louisa knew I was a vampire. I suspected that O’Laughlin—Wu Fei’s telepath—did as well. Maybe their access to the supernatural realm clued them about my true identity. But why keep the secret? Perhaps they shared a vow of silence about us vampires, a condition for their access to mystical knowledge.
“Gracias,” I said, taking the cup. The metal was warm, the aroma appetizing.
Luz reached for a thumb-thick blunt smoldering in a small dish by her knee. She filled the enclosure with a blast of smoke.
The strangeness of the situation made my kundalini noir bristle. Sipping the blood, Coyote’s implanted memories told me I tasted notes of dog meat and gopher, plus sage, wild onion, and dandelion. The blood flowed like nectar down my gullet. A comforting sensation ebbed out from my belly to my limbs.
Now for business. “Why did you ask me here?”
“To tell you about the Dowager Engel.” The telepath stared, her eyes reflecting the red ember of her blunt. “She is dangerous, a devil, vampiro mio, a devil dressed in silk and satin.”
“Can you be more specific? Most of the devils I know are fond of silk and satin. And lace.”
Luz chuckled and pointed a finger. “Always with the jokes, Felix.” She reached under her tunic and from beneath one of her heavy breasts, fished a scrap of paper. “You’ll need this.” She pressed the paper into my fingers.
I held the note to a crack of starlight and read los zorros.
“The foxes?” I asked.
“Actually, only one fox. Alicia Zorro. When you get to Guaymas she’ll help you.”
“Who is she?”
“The port harbormaster.”
I hadn’t expected assistance from such an official. “What does she have to do with the Dowager Engels and Ling Zhu Han?”
“It would be better that Zorro explain that to you.” Luz tapped her blunt into the dish. “However, I can tell you why Ling Zhu Han went to Isla Tiburón.” She took another hit of tobacco and hashish. “The Papago who helped her flee from Tucson told her they had sisters on the island.”
“Doing what?”
“Working for the Dowager Engels.”
“What kind of work?”
“What uneducated young women end up doing. Sadly.”
“Prostitution?”
“More like sex slaves. And worse. Ling Zhu Han said she’d help them escape.”
The more I learned about Ling, the more her character began to take shape. Anyone except for her would’ve considered themselves lucky for escaping the robbery and kidnapping, and laid low for a while. But she didn’t falter in her calling to help other women. And it was especially interesting that she was directed to Isla Tiburón.
I asked, “How do you know all this?”
“The Papago told me. What I can add is that you, chupa sangre, and your güero friend Malachi are on the right trail.”
Her reply was mildly reassuring. Without thinking, I blurted, “You sound like Coyote.”
“Coyote?” She sat up. “Where is he?”
“I don’t think we’re talking about the same Coyote.”
“If he’s a friend of yours, then it’s the same scoundrel.” Luz scrambled for a leather possibles bag and upended it over the buffalo robe. She sorted through the spilled contents and gathered small wooden chits. “IOU’s from that son-of-a-bitch. He owes me.” She tossed the chits and they clattered around my boots.
I picked at the chits, small flat pieces of wood, each scratched with a number. “What am I supposed to do with these?”
“Give them to Coyote the next time you see him.”
“That might be a while.”
“Not my problem. In the meantime, you owe me.”
Damn. Even across the supernatural void, Coyote managed to drain my wallet. But more importantly, Coyote had been in this realm. “When did you last see him?”
Luz wrinkled her brow, causing her crown to slide down her forehead. “Months?”
In that case, he might be close.
“Years?” she amended and straightened her crown.
“What was he doing?”
“Don’t change the subject. I want my money.”
I considered the telepath. Evidentially she could pull strings to help or hinder me. “How much?”
“Quite a lot.”
Even with my share of Wu Fei’s reward, by the time I was done with this case, I’d be lucky to end up broke.
“Forty-six Sols,” she said.
That’s it? I didn’t like it, but I could part with that sum. “I’ll have to get the money from my saddlebags.”
“How much do you have on you?”
“Eleven dollars,” I lied.
“That will do. As long as it’s gold or silver. Paper money isn’t good enough to wipe your ass.”
Grimacing as if each coin was ripped from my pockets, I collected a ten-dollar gold piece and two silver half-dollars. “Here you go. Are we square?”
Luz cupped her fingers, and I dropped the coins into her hand. She bit them each in turn and let them fall into her possibles bag. Leaning back, she stretched her legs and pushed the soles of her calloused feet against my knee. “Enough talking. Time for sleeping. Mañana entonces.”
I turned to leave when she said, “One more thing. When you see Coyote, tell him that I miss him.”
Holding back a chuckle, I crawled out of the lean-to. For some reason, women had a soft spot for ugly dogs and Coyote.
When I reached my blanket I sat and hissed at Malachi to get his attention. I wanted to share the note, but his snores told me to wait until tomorrow. So much for his vigilance.
Lying on my blanket, I watched the constellations tilt across the sky and tried to fathom the mysteries of this perplexing world and my place in it. Seemed in my quest for Ling Zhu Han, for every question answered, another two piled in its place.
When the sky was at its darkest, and the air chilled sharp as broken ice, the rurales sergeant made his rounds to roust his sleeping men. They crawled from under their blankets, grumbling and cursing, and shambled against the palisade to piss on its rock walls.
Malachi stirred and threw aside his blanket. He staggered away to take care of his morning business. Upon returning, he rummaged in his war bag for a can of tooth powder, which we shared. I used my toothbrush to give my fangs a good polishing. When done I shared with him what the telepath had told me.
He spit and wiped foam from his mustache. “The harbormaster is going to help us? That’s welcome news.” He rinsed his mouth with a pull from his canteen. “What exactly did Doña Luz say about the Dowager Engel?”
“That she was dangerous.”
Malachi corked the canteen, stared at me, and smirked. “That’s why I like hanging out with you. Between the two of us, I’m never mistaken for the dumb one.”
I knelt to fold my blanket and ground tarp. “You should be as good with a pistol as you are with that smart mouth.” As I explained why Ling Zhu Han had gone to Isla Tiburón, Malachi nodded and said things like, “That’s good to know … interesting detail … a right peculiar wrinkle.”
A detail of rurales dropped logs on the fire and when its flames licked high, they heated coffee pots, kettles filled with meat, and a comal to heat tortillas. The colonel’s tent was struck. The spears with the Apache heads were yanked from the ground and taken away. The soldiers filed past the campfire for breakfast, and the orderly brought us hot stew slopped over tortillas. Still satiated with Doña Luz’s blood, I gave my meal to Malachi.
By the time the dawn limned the top of the stony cul-de-sac, everyone had their bedrolls and saddles cinched on their mounts. The sergeant shouted a command, and the rurales climbed on their horses.
Colonel Cascabel guided his horse close to Malachi and me. His khaki uniform was brushed clean, his boots and brass polished. “My detachment will meet La Poderosa. Corporal Ruiz and his squad will escort you to Guaymas.”
Corporal Ruiz watched from his roan, looking impatient. He resembled the stern-faced leathery sergeant and might have been a younger cousin.
Cascabel waved to the sergeant, who in turn shouted, “En fila india. Adelante.”
Two men of the vanguard rode for the narrow gap between the canyon walls. The colonel started after them. Without acknowledging me, the telepath trotted her horse behind his. The color guard followed, flags furled. The Apache heads dangled from saddle horns. The detachment emptied the remuda single file. The clomp of hooves, the creak and jangle of tack, the bouncing step of donkeys laden with baggage made the scene appropriate for a Hollywood western, minus the rousing Beef-it’s-what-for-dinner soundtrack.
Malachi and I let the dust settle, then saddled up. Ruiz led our party from the canyon, out of the shadows, and into sunlight that was already punishingly bright. The rurales’ umbrella-wide sombreros dropped big circular shadows over their torsos. We proceeded along a path weaving through a line of hills. To the east, a dusty haze marked the colonel’s progress across the rolling desert.
One of the corporal’s men rode ahead as point, and another lagged behind as the rear guard. We entered a trough between the rising scrabble. Mesquite and chaparral gave way to willows and cottonwoods. A damp smell lifted from the ground. Our horses’ hooves began carving Us in moist sand. Water seeping from the earth grew into a trickle. Soon our horses splashed through a stream that grew wider and deeper, and we left the flowing water for a parallel trail. Frogs plopped into the cattails, and rabbits scurried into grass. We ambled through pockets of refreshing air beneath the canopies of leafy trees.
While the atmosphere seemed bucolic and peaceful, the rurales carried their Springfield rifles perched on their pommels. Malachi and I flipped our coats back over our revolvers. For mile after mile, we traveled in silence, stopping only to water our horses in the stream.
Malachi rode behind me, and I turned to watch him and consider why I was partnered to him. In the other world, since I’d been turned, I’d grown more calloused to humans. I’d come to regard them as feedbags at best, enemies at worst, and nuisances the rest of the time.
But Malachi—and Hermosa—were different. I depended on them, and they depended on me. Rather, on the other Felix. Then Coyote sent me here with some great task in mind, and as usual, his reason was garbled in transmission.
Malachi caught my gaze, and he spurred his horse into a canter until we rode side-by-side. “What’s on your mind?” he asked in a low rasp.
“Nothing in particular. Simply wondering how you’re doing.”
“Lousy. And unless you’ve got a spot of tobacco to help ease this monotony, then don’t bother asking.”
“With an attitude like that, I might not be so forthcoming the next time you need help.”
“Ha,” he snorted. “I’m the one holding your hand.” He dug into his vest pocket and flipped a gold coin that flashed in the sun before it landed back in his palm. “Seems that in our contest, I’m ahead. You want to keep financing my whiskey habit, let’s make another wager.”
“All right. I’ll find Alicia Zorro before you do.”
His mustache twitched. “Ten dollars this time.” He tugged his reins. His horse slowed and fell in trail.
The silence returned and it seemed to swallow every sound we made. The quiet became an oppressive weight. Along the way I remembered my geography. No one to date had mentioned Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora, which straddled the north-south, east-west corridors through the region. The city should’ve been the next resting stop.
After another hour of our march, we reached a basin surrounded by dusty slopes, random conical hills, and distant rocky spines. We passed the eroded remains of one adobe cabin, then another, then a tumbled-down barricade, and more and more of the same, all pockmarked with bullet holes and starbursts of artillery shrapnel. Rusted cannon and wrecked caissons lay everywhere like a giant’s broken toys.
The trail widened into an abandoned road. Blackened traces of wooden structures alternated with brick and adobe ruins, now arranged to form a city grid.
Hermosillo. What was left of it.
Wooden poles jutted in interrupted rows across block after block of bleak wasteland. The wizened bullet-riddled carcasses of men and horses—mummified by years of dry heat—littered the streets, their corpses more or less intact. Scavengers should’ve scattered the remains, but apparently the savagery of the battle lingered years after, spooking even the vultures, coyotes, and rats.
The stream meandered through the city, turning brackish and giving way to foul-smelling mud flats. At any moment I expected a flock of ravens or buzzards to rise from the ruins in a burst of flapping wings. Aside from us, nothing living stirred, not a mouse, nor a snake, a lizard, a grasshopper. A breeze kicked up dust and from deep within the desolated city, a hollow clacking—like a string of skulls—echoed up the streets. Each of us gripped our weapons, ready to start shooting and bolt away.
Our horses whinnied and tried to bunch up. Even I as a vampire got the heebie-jeebies. One of the soldiers drew a crucifix from inside his shirt and kissed it. Malachi slowed his horse and leaned forward in his saddle to study the devastation. He halted, then plucked a pad and a pencil from inside his coat and scribbled.
I broke ranks and rode to him. “You putting this in your memoirs?”
“Have to. My wife is from these parts.”
My gaze ranged over the destruction. “Some legacy.”
“Remember that battlefield we passed through while on La Poderosa? That was mere practice for what was done here. The only blessing is that we missed it.”
The corporal and his men waited. He yelled to us. “Apurense, güeyes.”
Malachi put his things away and we trotted to regain our place.
I glanced back to what was left of Hermosillo. “Do you believe in omens?”
Malachi kept his eyes on the trail ahead. “I believe in staying ready.”