Ambush at Shadow Valley

From his room high above the ancient stone courtyard, the old priest heard the sound of horses’ hooves and angry voices. Hurrying to the balcony, he looked down in time to hear a short scream from the young French nun who had run from her garden at the sight of the old nun being knocked aside by the two galloping horses.

‘‘Oh no, they are inside the wall!’’ the priest gasped, seeing one American down from his saddle in the middle of the courtyard while the other sat atop his horse, looking up toward his chambers as if he knew where to find him.

‘‘Good day to you,’’ Soto called out, his wrists crossed on his saddle horn. ‘‘I hope we didn’t arrive at a bad time.’’ He spread his hand toward Ransdale.

The old priest’s eyes followed Soto’s gesture to where Ransdale stood, knife in hand. Having knocked the young nun’s straw sun hat from her head, Ransdale held her by her short-cropped hair. His horse, the paint horse and the other spare horse ran in wild circles about the courtyard. ‘‘Turn her loose this instant! She is an innocent, a novice! Who are you? What do you want here?’’ the priest demanded in a scorching tone.

Soto raised a gloved hand and motioned him down with his finger. ‘‘Get your pious ass down here before me, and we’ll talk about it,’’ he said in a grim tone.

‘‘I am not coming down there so that you will have all of us under your power. These doors have withstood worse than you.’’ The priest jutted his chin defiantly. ‘‘I have a gun up here!’’

Soto said, ‘‘Then you had better get ready to use it. He’s going to cleave her head to the bone.’’

‘‘You would not dare!’’ the shaken priest gasped in disbelief. ‘‘She is not yet a monja, but she is still a hermana de la fe!’’ he said instinctively.

‘‘Say another word to me in Spanish,’’ Soto replied casually, ‘‘I’ll have my pard climb up there and cut out your tongue.’’

The priest bit his lip to keep from shouting what went through his mind. Hastily composing himself he said, ‘‘Even though she has not taken her vows, she is still a sister of the faith—’’

‘‘I heard you the first time,’’ said Soto, cutting him off. ‘‘I hate the Spanish language. It offends me.’’ He gave a cruel grin. ‘‘Are you coming down, or do you want him to scalp her and slit her throat?’’

The priest looked over at the cruel, eager expression on Ransdale’s face for only a moment, then relented and said, ‘‘I’m—I’m coming down. Do not hurt her, por fav—’’ He caught himself and corrected his words quickly, ‘‘I mean, please, do not hurt her.’’

‘‘You learn fast, old man,’’ Soto said, deliberately refusing to acknowledge him by his title, Padre. ‘‘On your way, how about bringing that gun you talked about. Hold it out with two fingers and drop it on the ground. Call it sort of a goodwill offering.’’ As the priest disappeared back into his room, Soto looked at Ransdale and winked. Grinning, Ransdale held the terrified woman at arm’s length, bobbing her up and down helplessly by her short hair.

‘‘Am I going to get to eat this little French sweet cookie when we’re through?’’ he asked. ‘‘It’s all right by her, ain’t it, cookie?’’ He bobbed her head quickly, then said to Soto, ‘‘See? She wants me too.’’

Lying on the ground a few yards away where Ransdale’s horse had knocked her, the old nun, struggling in Clarimonde’s arms, called out, ‘‘Turn her loose, you pagano, you animal!’’

‘‘Uh-oh,’’ said Ransdale. ‘‘Didn’t you hear how bad my friend hates Spanish?’’

‘‘Please, please be quiet,’’ Clarimonde whispered into the old nun’s ear, holding her against her side, half in her lap, trying to comfort her.

But the old nun would have none of it. She struggled against Clarimonde. ‘‘No! Turn me loose! You are no better than they. You are all paganos!’’

Soto’s Colt roared in his hand. Blood stung the side of Clarimonde’s face as the impact of the bullet punched the old nun’s forehead and sent her head snapping back. The gunshot resounded out like ripples on a still lake. Surrounding the fortlike walls of the mission, startled birds, screeching loudly, rose up from the treetops. Batting wings filled the air as if in dark applause.

‘‘Are we all clear how I hate Spanish?’’ Soto asked flatly, the barrel of his Colt smoking in his gloved hand.

The old priest stepped out the front door of the stone building. He stood aghast, seeing the old nun lying dead in Clarimonde’s bloody arms, his hands spread wide in disbelief. Even Ransdale looked surprised for a moment. But he recovered quickly. ‘‘Hot dang, that’s what I call ‘sudden.’ ’’

From her bowed position, the young nun, seeing what had happened, screamed and tried to jerk herself away from Ransdale’s powerful grip. Shaking her roughly by the hair, he growled, ‘‘All right, don’t make nothing of it, sweet cookie! The old crow’s dead. Don’t get yourself killed too.’’ He looked over at Clarimonde as he shook the young woman again. ‘‘Right, whore?’’

Clarimonde looked down in submission. Soto shook his head. ‘‘What a waste of time,’’ he said. ‘‘All this just to get a meal and water our horses.’’ He looked back at the priest. ‘‘Step away from the door, old man. Where’s the gun? I told you to bring it.’’

‘‘I—I was only bluffing about having a gun,’’ the priest said, staring at the dead woman still cradled in Clarimonde’s arms. ‘‘I have no weapons here. This is a—’’ He caught himself in time to keep from saying the words in Spanish, un lugar santo. ‘‘It is a holy place,’’ he said instead.

‘‘No,’’ said the priest, ‘‘it is not holy because of me, but because of God, and because of the ancient ones who have come before—’’

‘‘You lied,’’ Soto said in a stronger tone. ‘‘So now, it turns out that I lied in return.’’

Understanding what Soto meant, the priest said in a humble tone, ‘‘No, please, I beg you in the name of—’’

‘‘You beg me in the name of nothing,’’ Soto snapped. His eyes darkened, as if the evil in his spirit had swelled up and taken him over. ‘‘You lied! Now I lied. This is why we all go to hell in the end. Who can stop the sin once it’s made its start?’’ He turned a quick nod toward Ransdale.

‘‘At your service,’’ Ransdale said eagerly. He made a quick slash with the knife and kicked the young nun away from him. She flew to the dirt with a scream as he stood holding a ragged circle of short-cropped scalp dripping in his hand. Clarimonde dropped the dead woman and scrambled through the dirt to grab the young novice and hold her screaming against her bosom.

The priest stood helpless, Soto’s Colt cocked and aimed at his chest, and called out through the young nun’s screams, ‘‘Cecille, be strong. Pray to God for strength! Pray to God for strength!’’

‘‘I pray, Father, I pray!’’ the young novice managed to sob through her screams, her face buried against Clarimonde, her fingers clawlike and trembling above her bloody, glistening head.

‘‘She gets done praying, get her cleaned up some to where she’s not stinking,’’ Ransdale said to Clarimonde as he held the short-haired scalp for a closer inspection, fingering the dark, two-inch-long hair. ‘‘I want us to get acquainted before we leave.’’ He grinned and slung the gore from the underside of the dripping scalp. ‘‘This is ‘holy hair,’ the way I see it.’’

Soto watched Ransdale closely for a second, always judging just how much he could depend on the man. Finally he said flatly, ‘‘Put the ‘holy hair’ away. We came here for something to eat, for ourselves and the horses.’’ He looked at Clarimonde as she comforted the maimed woman. ‘‘Is she able to rustle us up a meal?’’

‘‘I’ll do it,’’ Clarimonde said, standing and pulling the young nun up beside her. ‘‘Please let me dress her wound. She’s in terrible pain.’’

‘‘Wound?’’ said Ransdale, inspecting the bloody patch of scalp before hanging it to dry on his saddle horn. ‘‘This thing isn’t three inches around.’’

Hearing the young woman whine shrilly and pitifully under her breath, Soto said to Clarimonde, ‘‘Go ahead. Get her settled down.’’ He turned his eyes to the priest, who stood watching, still stunned by all that had befallen the ancient mission. ‘‘You, old man,’’ Soto said to him, ‘‘call the Indian out here. I need to see him.’’

‘‘The old Mayan I saw standing atop the wall when we rode up,’’ said Soto. ‘‘Don’t play dumb with me. I know he and his woman both live here.’’

‘‘Oh, the Mayans,’’ said the priest. He looked all around as if the Indians might be among them. ‘‘If he saw you coming, he and his wife slipped away into the forest. Mayans are a shy, retiring people. They run away at the sound of gunfire.’’

‘‘Right, shy, retiring,’’ Soto said dubiously. ‘‘Now call him out here, old man. I know he’s coming. Let’s get it over with.’’

‘‘What do you mean? Why do you want him? He is an old man. He’s harmless. He is no threat to you,’’ the priest pleaded.

But as he spoke, Soto shifted his gun to his other hand, took off his glove and held his right palm out for the priest to see. ‘‘Do you recognize this?’’ he asked, showing a tattoo that circled his palm.

The priest almost gasped aloud. He shook his head and quickly made the sign of the cross. ‘‘You—you are one of them?’’ the priest asked, nodding at the tattoo, his face growing even more troubled and ashen than before. ‘‘One of el diablo’s—’’ He caught himself about to speak in Spanish and stopped short. ‘‘One of the devil’s own!’’

‘‘I am one of the devil’s own,’’ said Soto flatly. ‘‘Now, call the Mayan out here. We both know what I have to do to him.’’

The priest’s eyes seemed to go blank for a moment. He glanced quickly toward the young nun as Clarimonde led her away toward the living quarters. Then he shouted loudly, cupping his hands to his mouth, ‘‘Run, Fiji, run! Do not stop! Do not look back! He is one of the cursed! Do not stop running—’’

A bullet from Soto’s Colt punched the priest in his right shoulder, silencing him. He staggered back against the closed door. Another bullet punched his left shoulder. He slid to the ground.

Ransdale raised his gun and aimed it, but Soto stopped him. ‘‘Don’t kill him. Not yet.’’

Ransdale stopped short of pulling the trigger. He grinned. ‘‘Whatever you say. What the hell is he jabbering about anyway, you being one of the cursed? ‘The devil’s own’?’’

‘‘Forget it?’’ Ransdale chuckled and shrugged. ‘‘All right, if you say so. But I have to say it’s piquing my curiosity something awful.’’

The priest lay struggling to rise to his feet in spite of having lost the use of both arms. ‘‘He does not want to tell you . . . that he and his kind are devils . . . demonios de los intestinos del infierno!’’

‘‘What did I tell you about Spanish?’’ Soto said with an angry, disgusted expression. He shoved his Colt back into its holster and said to Ransdale, ‘‘Keep watch for an ax to come flying through the air, or a dart to nail you in the neck.’’

‘‘Yeah? An ax?’’ Ransdale spun back and forth with his gun pointed and cocked. ‘‘You mean that old Indian we saw is dangerous?’’

‘‘He’s a Mayan,’’ said Soto. ‘‘It’s his religious duty to try and kill me and anybody with me.’’ He swung down from his saddle, stepped back to his saddlebags and flipped them open.

‘‘What the hell is this all about?’’ Ransdale asked, looking back and forth, suddenly very serious. ‘‘Am I standing in the middle of some kind of religious rigmarole?’’

‘‘Just stay on your toes, and watch my back,’’ Soto said, taking a straight razor from his saddlebags and opening it.

‘‘Whoa!’’ said Ransdale, eyeing the razor. ‘‘It looks like somebody is about to lose something awfully important to them?’’

Ignoring Ransdale’s words, Soto said, ‘‘The Indian will be back, in spite of what the old man says about Mayans being timid.’’

Ransdale swallowed a dry knot in his throat, looking all around the courtyard. ‘‘I was kind of wanting to spend some time with that French sweet cookie, soon as she gets her head fixed up some. Suppose that Indian might have turned tail and run off, like the priest said?’’

‘‘Don’t call this old fool a priest,’’ Soto said sternly. ‘‘And trust what I tell you—the Indian will show up any time. A Mayan must do what he is sworn to do.’’ He held his bare hand toward the priest and made the sign of the devil with his fingers. ‘‘Then I’ll do what I’m sworn to do.’’

The wounded priest, unable to raise either hand and make the sign of the cross, murmured under his breath, ‘‘Dios me ayude.’’

Giving him a look of raw hatred, Soto stepped forward with the razor in hand and said, ‘‘It’s good that you’re praying for help, old man. You’re going to need all the help you can get.’’

Ransdale watched and listened intently, noting that Soto’s voice had begun to take on a trace of an accent since they’d arrived here. ‘‘Are you getting ready to cut him like a steer?’’ he asked, watching Soto walk toward the priest.

Soto didn’t answer. Instead, he walked past the priest, toward a fountain where water rose from beneath the earth and ran in a thin stream from the mouth of a laughing stone cherub. ‘‘Find a hammer and some nails,’’ he said to Ransdale as he kneeled down at the short fountain wall and laid the razor on it.

‘‘Sure thing . . . ,’’ said Ransdale, staring bemused, watching Soto take off his hat, raise a knife from his boot well and begin slicing handfuls of thick, dark hair from atop his head and let them fall to the ground.