NO ONE IN THE low room moved. There were half a dozen of Zapata’s men with rifles which pointed at the three remaining gringos. It only needed a single word of command, a sign even, for all three to be put to death.
Execution.
Onslow did not think that would be the case. He could not be certain, but from the way the Mexican’s mind seemed to be working, such an end did not seem likely. No, there was something more purposeful going on inside Zapata’s brain. Something that was connected with the strange play with the Colt .45; with the way he had almost drawn Jonas Strong into making a move.
Revealing himself.
Zapata looked at the Kid, at McCloud, at Onslow.
‘Now ... there is the matter of weapons. Weapons which I need and which you agreed to supply.’
‘I ...’ Onslow began to speak, but Zapata stilled him with a movement of his right hand.
‘There were rifles?’
‘Yes. Winchester ’95s.’
‘The box-action carbines?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. And more?’
‘Colts. Automatics. The .45. Lightning .38s also.’
Zapata thought for a moment. ‘Nothing ... extra? Nothing ... special?’
‘A couple of Hawkins machine-guns.’
A smile came onto the Mexican rebel’s face and he nodded to himself.
‘So. That is what I expect.’
Onslow cursed himself for being slow, realized what Zapata was now asking, what he expected. ‘You want us to arrange another shipment?’
‘Exactly.’
And, of course, thought Onslow, without any extra money on top of what we’ve already spent.
Zapata read his mind. ‘You will provide your own funds. Or find other means than payment. All the details are your concern, not mine.’
Zapata shrugged and pushed his chair away from the table. He had said almost all there was to say.
‘Today you will rest here. We will feed you, you can share our peon food with us. Tomorrow you can take fresh horses in exchange for your own if you wish. When you return ...’
He stopped in mid-sentence, as if distracted by a fresh thought. Onslow half turned towards the door, then looked back again.
‘And the man you have taken prisoner?’ He pointed towards the open doorway.
Zapata smiled. ‘An insurance. If you do not return within a time that seems ... reasonable, I shall order him killed.’
‘But with one man less ...’
‘Would you rather it were yourself?’
Cade Onslow looked away for an instant, and then, to be certain, asked. ‘Why Strong?’
‘Because he showed himself the closest to you. And you spoke of honor. I believe you will come back to save the life of a man who risked his own for yours. For his sake, I hope that is so.’
‘It will be.’
‘Good.’
The three gringos stepped out into the daylight, blinking as they became accustomed to it after the shaded room. They were walking towards where their horses were held, to fetch their saddlebags, where Zapata spoke again.
‘It may have seemed a good idea to you to try and free your friend during the night. I shall keep your weapons until you leave and …’ His eyes took in the armed men who stood in an arc around the gringos. ‘ … my men will take care that you do not do anything that would be foolish.’
‘We gonna do what he says?’ asked Jamie Durham, sitting cross-legged in the corner of the barn in which they had been placed.
‘You think of anything better?’ replied Onslow.
The Kid shrugged, McCloud began to say something, then thought better of it, pushing his fork down into the plate of chilies and corn that had been brought into them by one of the guards.
‘You, McCloud?’
‘I know what I’d like to do to that fool out there, but ...’
‘Zapata? He ain’t no fool.’
‘He’s Mex, ain’t he?’
‘For Christ’s sake, are you so damned bigoted that you think anyone who ain’t the same race as you is stupider than you are?’
Jamie laughed. ‘Ain’t only different colors. It’s anyone from north of the Mason-Dixon line. In’t that so, Yates?’
‘Shut it!’
McCloud jumped to his feet and started to pace around the floor, while Onslow and the Kid went back to their food.
Eventually, McCloud calmed down and bent to pick up his tin plate, pushing the food into his mouth without enjoying or really tasting it, not even the hot chilies. He had other things on his mind. Like getting out of the rebels’ camp and breaking free. He wasn’t going to risk his life on a delivery of arms just so that Onslow could square his account with himself and the world. And he sure wasn’t going to take chances on account of some uppity black man!
‘Thinkin’ a lot?’ Onslow asked, his plate empty now and his stomach halfway full.
‘That's my own affair,’ snapped McCloud and kicked at the loose straw around his boots.
Jamie laughed and spun the plate on its rim. ‘Likely he’s hankerin’ after one of them dollar whores of his!’
‘You shut your fool mouth!’
Jamie simply looked at McCloud for a moment, then went back to spinning the plate, watching it till it fell and stopped moving; then lifted it up and spun it again.
Spin and fall: spin and fall.
On and on until the clang of metal sang in their ears and they reckoned it would never stop.
The rebels had given them petates on which to sleep. The three gringos had finally stretched out, pulling blankets over their bodies and resting their limbs. It had been a long journey across country, from the north east of the country, down towards the south.
And at dawn they would have to make the journey again. Dangerous as it was, with federales liable to give chase at all times. Not to mention bands of Mexican bandits for whom they would seem easy pickings.
All to go back across the border ... unless there was another way. Onslow lay huddled inside the blanket, his legs pulled up in front of him, trying to think, to concentrate.
But the same thoughts, the same memories, prodded at his mind again and again. Refused to let him go. Until, finally, sleep came. And even then ...
In his dream Linda was wearing a cream colored dress that swept the ground about her as she walked. It was held tight to her waist by a belt and flared out generously over her hips. The bodice was cut square across the top of her bosom, revealing a suggestion of the cleavage between her breasts. Her dark hair glowed under the lace mantilla. The eyes with which she looked at Cade Onslow were deep, dark blue and the mouth with which she smiled at him was full and wide.
Immediately, he was in love with the vision just as he had been the reality.
Just as he had fallen in love with her at first sight.
And she with him.
She wore a butterfly brooch by her left breast: the only other adornment was the gold ring on her wedding finger.
A wife: his wife.
Now, over the landscape of his dream, they were walking, her hand warm and never quite still inside his own. He stopped and turned towards her, bending his head low to kiss her. Soft touch of her lips against his own. Suggestion of tongue tip. Onslow’s eyes were closed as he moved his face over hers. Her mouth fluttering on his cheek, his ear, neck, lids of his eyes.
Then smiling and walking again along a path that seemed to lead between fruit trees in flower and rose bushes that blossomed.
Onslow stopped and reached out for a rose: bright red. Crimson. He held the stem between his fingers and bent it, snapping the blossom away.
He handed the rose to Linda, enjoying her smile as he did so. She set the soft petals against her cheek; jumped back, alarmed. Her face smeared with blood. The fingers with which she had held the rose were bleeding also, prickled by thorns she had failed to notice.
Onslow pulled her to him, sheltering her and comforting her. When he kissed her his mouth tasted blood; her tongue between her lips was wet and dark with it.
On the now stony ground the rose was black. Black. Petals fallen apart and crushed.
Black rose.
He held her face in his hands and it crumpled beneath their strength. Skin flaked away like powder, like pollen; bones snapped like brittle twigs, the legs of small birds.
No!
Onslow picked her up in his arms and ran with her towards the mist at the edges of his dream. Breath tumbling roughly from his open mouth, legs struggling with the wraiths of mist that wrapped themselves around them as he moved, he suddenly realized he was holding nothing but a cream-colored dress.
Turned and saw:
No! I can’t!
And saw:
Can’t!
Saw:
The dogs straining and tearing at lengths of flesh and Wrenching them apart. Jaws slavering over bone and pieces of bone. Faces troughing amidst blood. Her blood.
That mess of sinew and blooded body that stained the ground on which it lay—that was Linda.
And he could not move. Knew it without even trying. He was held fast, a prisoner who could only watch as the starved animals fed and howled and fed and did not stop until they were sated.
It was impossible to recognize what was on the earth in front of him. But even as he stared he saw, glittering for a second in some strange light, the gold of a ring amongst the slaughterhouse that had been Linda’s body.
Onslow woke cold. A film of sweat covered him like a second skin. His nerve ends tingled and without wanting to he knew that he could remember his dream. The lie of it—the truth. That last, the dogs, most horrible of all, was most true.
He sat up and reached for the vest that lay on top of his bundle of clothes and wiped it over his face and down his arms and round his shoulders.
As yet no glimmer of light showed under the door of the barn.
His hair was soaking wet and stuck to his scalp so he rubbed that also.
In one corner of the room McCloud snored softly, lying on his back. In another, Jamie mumbled something that might have been a name, stirred, then relapsed into sleep once again.
Onslow pushed the blanket away and stood up, rubbing at the rest of his body. Desperate to clear the sweat off himself as if that would rid him of the dream.
This and other dreams.
All the same: all Linda.
He had emptied his gun into the body of Colonel Montoya; fired until the fat, spreading belly of the gross little man had bucked under his onslaught and the blood had splattered over the ground about him.
He had thought it would be enough. That it would let the hate out of his system like blood-letting.
It did not.
Even as he was firing the last shots, Onslow had known that it was not enough. It could never make up for his sense of loss or his knowledge that the only woman he had ever or could ever love was lost to him forever.
Except to his imagination.
And he knew that in killing Montoya he was only killing the man who gave the orders for the hacienda in which she had been hiding to be bombarded. But there was still the man who ordered him, and behind that ...
Behind that what ...?
Unknown enemies drifted through Onslow’s mind, out of reach of his guns. An image of a long, black car driving along a dusty road, the silhouette of the man in the back no more than a shape with which to conjure.
Onslow sat back down on his petate and waited for the dawn.
It was slow in coming. A full, red sun that was fringed with cloud and seemed to balance on the tips of the mountains as though it were to stay there forever.
It was cold.
Onslow asked to be permitted to see Strong before they left. The Negro grinned as his former officer greeted him, the mark of Zapata’s gun barrel still evident on his head.
‘How you feeling?’
‘Okay, Major. I guess you’re leavin’, huh?’
‘You got it worked out, then?’
‘Reckon so. Only way I see it, he keeps me here as some kind of hostage while you get some guns. That about right?’
Onslow nodded. ‘About.’
Strong held out his hand. ‘You take care, now.’
‘Yeah.’
The grip was firm and warm.
‘I’ll be seein’ you.’
‘That’s right,’ Onslow replied emphatically. ‘You hold onto that. You believe it.’
‘Don’t worry, Major. I do.’
With a further nod of his head and a brief wave of the hand, Onslow was gone. He stepped over to where their horses were waiting, the other two gringos already in the saddle. One of the Mexicans handed him his weapons. Of Zapata himself he saw nothing.
Onslow looked at McCloud, then at Jamie. Settled his body into the saddle and adjusted his boots in the stirrups.
‘Let’s ride,’ he said.
The three men moved off along the track, taking its sloping path gradually up towards the line of hills that seemed to surround them.
Towards the ball of dark fire that was the sun.
Cold fire.