THEY RODE SLOWLY, careful not to drive their mounts too hard, ever watchful for signs of danger, knowing full well that they had a long journey ahead of them. Onslow knew that his best chance of getting the arms that Zapata wanted was by returning north to the US border. Despite the official embargo on the sale of arms, there would always be men who were willing to make a deal if the price was right.
Men, also, who were only too willing to accept payment and then betray the unsuspecting buyer to the authorities. Onslow had almost been caught once and would be more careful this time.
Whatever the dangers, Onslow knew that the mission must be carried out successfully. A great deal depended on it. Not least of all there was Strong’s life. More important still, their own lives were at stake.
The price of arms was high: the price of failure was higher.
The gringos rode on, grateful that the sun, in this early part of the year, carried but little heat compared to the coming months when to travel in the hours around noon would be next to impossible.
A line of three men, saying little, concentrating on the terrain through which they rode, now and again their minds drifting away into thoughts of other places and times. Onslow could see the Kid becoming increasingly withdrawn, riding almost hunched up in the saddle. His face seemed to age with every successive day, the unscarred half of it taking on lines, his cheek hollowing out, eyes fading back into their sockets.
Neither Jamie nor Onslow himself spoke of what was happening, but the symptoms of withdrawal were clear enough. If Jamie did not get a fix for his habit before too long, then he would be a liability rather than an asset.
Which would mean just two men—and Onslow could not bring himself to trust McCloud. Not fully. As a man to fight alongside he was the equal of most others, but he resented Onslow already. Resented Jonas Strong even more.
Onslow could see trouble coming from that direction before the journey north was over.
They passed through field after field that would yield a rich sugar crop, travelling across country and avoiding the haciendas, having no way of knowing whether they were still in the control of the jefe politico or men who were sympathetic to Zapata.
Onslow guessed that there would be a third category to avoid. Those who rode under the banner of the revolution, who shouted the slogan, Tierra y Libertad, from their lips, yet were little more than bandits. The bands of cut-throats who had always lived in the hills, robbing and looting without thought or feeling. Now it was easy to ride as a rebel, to give yourself the title of general and to talk of blood being shed for the sake of the campesinos.
All the time, these men wanted nothing other than to line their own pockets; to steal whatever food they needed and leave the peones with nothing; to take the women by force and enjoy shooting down anyone who had the courage to try to stop them.
Scum who lived off Zapata’s reputation like parasites.
Evil.
And yet they could not stay away from villages forever. Their supplies of food would run out and they would have to replenish it. At that point a risk would be necessary. Essential.
Onslow flicked at his horse with the end of the reins, moving it ahead of McCloud in the line, taking the point. The dust from the trail rose up and threatened to clog his eyes and ears. He turned his head and spat down onto the soil and his saliva was rough and seemed to scrape his throat.
A sudden movement in the stubbly grass to his left brought Onslow’s hand close to the butt of his Mauser. A large bird, russet stripes along the wings, rose up and flew obviously across his path, calling with agitation. Drawing attention away from a nest she wanted no one to find.
Risking her own life.
For a moment, Onslow wondered how Strong was faring back at Zapata’s headquarters.
Then the bird settled out of sight and the thought faded with it.
A mile on Onslow stopped and raised his hand. There were tracks on the ground. Men walking barefoot, maybe a dozen of them. Workers returning from the fields or going to them. He took his field-glasses from the saddlebag to his right and scanned the land.
On the first sweep he missed it, but on the second ... It was a small group of buildings, huddled in the shelter of a hill. No more than a handful that he could see.
Onslow lowered the glasses and called McCloud and Jamie up to him.
‘Trouble?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘What then?’
Onslow gave over his field-glasses and the others looked down upon the roofs of the village.
‘What you thinkin’?’ asked McCloud.
‘Well, we’ve got to get some more food some time. Don’t want to go anywhere big and draw more attention to ourselves than’s necessary.’
‘But d’you reckon they’ll have anythin’ down there?’
‘We can see.’
McCloud shrugged noncommittally and handed the field-glasses back to Onslow.
‘You’re the boss,’ he finally said, his tone just managing to suggest that he didn’t mean it.
Onslow ignored the implication and put the glasses back in their case.
‘Okay. We’ll move in a little further, then one of us can go on ahead and take a closer look. If it looks safe, we’ll ride in and make a trade.’
McCloud looked over at Onslow. ‘Do I need to ask who’s goin’ scoutin’?’
‘No. No, I guess you don’t.’
Yates McCloud eased his way between the twisted bark of a pair of trees and dropped down onto the dirt track that seemed to wind its way back up into the hill slopes behind the village. He ducked low and waited for a moment, listening. From there the village seemed quiet, almost unnaturally so.
McCloud made his way to the north, skirting the buildings, while all the time getting closer. He shadowed from tree to bush, from outcrop to hollow.
Finally, he lay on the hillside, looking down. He reached for Onslow’s field-glasses, the case strapped to his belt, and focused on the village.
There were more buildings than had at first been evident, snug against one another, as if for shelter and support. Indeed, many of them looked as if a strong wind would take their roofs off and split the walls apart. They were built partly from dried mud and stone, partly from wooden boards and lengths of unseasoned timber. Here and there rectangles of iron sheeting rusted in the damp sunlight.
Now he could hear the sound of voices, high-pitched and Mexican. A woman stepped out into the street and threw the contents of a wooden bucket across it. A couple of scrawny chickens whooped and crawked and hopped away, flapping ragged wings. A few minutes later, an old man appeared, walking slowly from the low building to the right of the village.
He was wearing the traditional white cotton trousers of the Mexican peones, a striped blanket, died in strips of green and brown about his shoulders. He wore a sombrero on his head which was pushed through a hole cut in the center of the blanket.
Through the glasses, McCloud could see the rheumy eyes, the snails of mucus that crawled unhindered from his nose, the loose skin of his scrawny neck that wobbled as he moved like that of a turkey cock too old to be allowed to live.
McCloud’s hand found the butt of his Colt Lightning. Old men like that disgusted him. Dying was almost too good for them. The man’s features made him want to vomit.
McCloud moved the glasses through an arc. The only two-story building in the village was the church. Made from earth and stone that they had somehow quarried from the surrounding hills, it seemed to McCloud to mock the people who lived in its shadow. From the double wooden doorway with its arched top and the cross set against it to the tiny bell tower and its bell of corroding metal.
When he had been a child, his mother had insisted on taking him to church each week. Dressed in his best suit, a clean shirt, clean handkerchief, freshly polished shoes, he had ridden in her carriage with Amos sitting up ahead clucking to the horses and occasionally singing to them in that way he had.
Even now he could remember the way the pews smelt of lavender from the polish that they used on them. How the people smelt of starch and sometimes of perfume. Women that his mother would stop and talk to, fussing with him, playing with his hair or rubbing their manicured hands over his fresh cheeks. Sometimes, they would press him to them, his hands for an instant against their thighs, a sensation of living flesh that had a strength and a wonder to it that made his imagination race.
The swell of breasts behind pure white lace.
While his mother had prayed—or had she, too, merely pretended?—the young McCloud had let his mind become lost in a maze of dreams and desires that he scarce understood.
He jerked back to the present as the church doors opened. A man stepped out, young, wearing the brown habit of his order. A rosary hung from the cord belt tied about his waist. He was not alone.
The girl with him was not yet twenty. She had the flush and color of youth, and her body, even as she stood there, her head meekly bowed as the priest spoke to her, was charged with a vitality that refused to be denied.
McCloud felt his desire for her begin to rise.
Then she bowed her head in parting and turned from the church, her step quickening. McCloud and the priest both watched her, both unwilling to release her from their gaze.
As she came to the fountain in the center of the village, she stopped and leaned to one side, cupping water in one hand and lifting it to her mouth. Sparkle and shine of it. Bubble of it. Her lips fresh and wet.
She looked up and stared straight at the hillside where McCloud lay. As though knowing exactly where he was. McCloud’s reaction was to move back, but he realized that she was not looking at him at all. That she could hardly have picked him out from where she was. Whatever the girl was seeing, it was not him.
He waited for a further ten minutes after she had disappeared from sight. He did not see her again. Instead there were other women, mostly older, none as lovely as she. A few old men. The priest. The others must be out in the fields.
McCloud slowly made his way back to where Onslow and the Kid waited. Made his report.
‘No danger, then?’ said Onslow after he had listened.
‘Not that I could see. I don’t reckon we’ll be needin’ no trade much either.’
‘Meaning?’
‘With just women and a couple of old men, we can take what we want with our guns.’
Onslow stood up. ‘While we’ve money left, we’ll pay.’
Why waste it? Later, we might have to use it.’
‘He’s right, ain’t he?’ put in Jamie, who was looking worse than ever. ‘What do we want to throw it around for?’
Onslow pulled on his coat. ‘We’ll see,’ he said. ‘We’ll see.’ Jamie and McCloud looked at one another. There were times when the Army never seemed to have cleared itself from Cade Onslow’s blood. Forever doing things by some invisible book.
Onslow climbed up into the saddle and looked down. ‘We ridin’ or ain’t we?’
They were.
They went down into the village slowly, riding three abreast, McCloud with his Winchester ’95 resting on his saddle and across his thighs. Jamie with his rifle at the ready also, the mask on his face smeared with dust and dirt. At their center, Onslow kept his weapons holstered and looked ahead, eyes flicking from one side to the other as they came to the first building.
Past the church, its three curving steps down to the ground, along towards the place where the street bowed out about the fountain. As they went, more and more people came into the daylight. All of them staring, pointing, hardly speaking. Women, mostly wearing shawls, mostly mothers of the children who either ran bravely in front of the horses or hung back, wide-eyed and frightened.
At the fountain, Onslow raised his hand towards the sky and the three riders stopped. Onslow’s horse pawed the ground as if there were something in the air that unsettled him. But all that Onslow could see was faces, darkened by the sun, forever gazing at him, taking in his weapons, his color, waiting to know what he wanted.
‘Food. We want food.’
A hub-bub of voices, lowered and busy. No direct answer.
‘We will pay.’
Onslow reached toward his pocket to show them that he had money, but the women at the front of the group backed away, uncertain as to what the gesture might mean.
The reaction of a person who anticipates only the angry blow, the harsh word.
‘Food. You understand. We will pay for food.’
‘Señor.’
The priest stepped through the crowd, which parted around him. He looked up at Onslow and he seemed even younger than McCloud had reckoned.
He reached up and pulled back the hood of his habit; his hair was cut extremely short about his head, making his face seem even more fragile and exposed. The eyes that looked at Onslow were the eyes of a boy, not a man. Onslow had seen youngsters like him trying to enlist in the army and being turned away.
Yet there was something that gave this particular young man a strength of purpose; whatever emotions showed in his face, fear was not one of them.
‘They are simple people. Unused to strangers. Especially from outside their own country. Yanquis. Their menfolk are working in the fields and will not return till the sun has gone down.’
‘What about you?’ asked McCloud with scorn. ‘Ain’t you no man?’
The young priest returned the gringo’s stare calmly and spread his hands. ‘My work is here.’
‘Huh!’ McCloud snorted and looked away. On the edge of the crowd he saw the girl he had looked at through the glasses. And this time she was staring at him for certain. When he caught her gaze, she blushed and moved away.
‘We are travelling through,’ Onslow explained. ‘We would buy whatever food your people can spare.’
The priest gestured with an open hand. ‘There is very little. The hacendada demands a share of however much they grow. The crops are not ...’
‘The revolution ain’t reached here yet, then?’
‘The way of the gun is not the Lord’s way, señor. We must accept our lot. It is the path to heaven.’
Jamie’s finger moved to the trigger of his Winchester. ‘Damn him!’ he hissed to Onslow. ‘I’ll show him the blasted way to heaven right enough if’n he don’t stop talkin’ shit like that!’
‘Easy, Kid.’
Instinctively, the priest fingered the cross on his rosary.
Onslow pointed at him. ‘You speak with ’em. Tell ’em we won’t take too much. Enough to keep us going. Flour. Beans. That’s all. An’ we’ll pay. Yankee Gold.’
‘All right,’ he spoke resignedly, still touching the small, carved crucifix.
‘We’ll water and rest our horses while you get things organized. Maybe half an hour. It’s up to you.’
The priest turned away. Onslow swung down from his horse and began to loosen its girth. The other gringos did likewise. McCloud looked around for the girl, but could see no sign of her.
She was frightened like the rest. Like dumb animals, he thought, dumb animals.
Ten minutes later the priest came over to where Onslow was sitting in the shade of the fountain. ‘It is being done. They will bring their produce here to you. It is being collected from all the people of the village, a little from each one. They were pleased ...’
‘They’ll be pleased to see the back of us,’ Onslow interrupted.
The priest wanted to disagree but could not; he simply nodded.
‘Don’t let it take longer than necessary.’
‘No, señor.’
Jamie was stretched out on the low wall of the fountain, one hand trailing in the water. His eyes were closed and he moved his lips from time to time, without ever making a sound. To Onslow, used to his appearance, it only then became clear to him how strange and awful he must look to the villagers. His mask even more terrifying than his gun.
The fingers in the water opened and closed, opened and closed. Onslow looked away.
McCloud was at the far end of the village, wandering at will, not admitting fully to himself that he was searching for the girl. Not until he found her. She came out of a low building arms crossed over a sack of flour. Seeing him she stopped short, cheeks immediately beginning to fire.
‘It’s okay. You don’t have to be afraid.’
McCloud made a move towards her and she turned and started back towards the door.
‘Wait!’
He hurried and she ran; her hand fumbled with the handle while she kept the sack tight to her chest with one arm.
‘Wait!’
He stepped inside after her. It was darker than he would have anticipated, the hum of insects trapped away from the light. Shapes that made no immediate sense. The girl’s hand stretching back in a warning, her head turning, turning. The shapes becoming suddenly more than meaningless shadows.
A voice. ‘Do not move, señor, or you die!’