THE FIVE MEN gathered in the stable, and Luis explained the situation to them. Hawk took no part in the discussion that followed, other than to explain again how he had found Guerrama and what the man had said to him.
Guerrama himself stretched back against the straw with his eyes half-closed, not speaking.
After a while, Luis turned to face the stall. ‘Get up on your feet.’
Wearily, Guerrama climbed upright. He was bare-headed, the silvery stubble on his skull matching the sprouting of whiskers on his jaw. His back was straight, but his shoulders sagged, and where Hawk had hit him, there was a livid purple bruise. He looked old and tired and defeated, but still, somehow, proud.
‘Why did you do it?’ asked Luis, looking as forlorn as his former friend. ‘Who gave you the money?’
Antonio Guerrama just shook his head and shrugged.
‘If you won’t speak,’ said Luis, ‘we must decide what to do with you. Won’t you defend yourself?’
Guerrama smiled a slow, tired refusal.
‘Don Bavispe wanted us to take the bull through.’ Luis’s voice was low; as weary as the expression on the other man’s face. ‘And you worked for him. Was it the girl? Doña Victoria? She would have that kind of money.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Guerrama. ‘I was trying to kill the bull. I took money to do that. I betrayed el jefe, and I am responsible for the death of Carlos.’
‘The one called Yaqui did that,’ said Luis. ‘He pulled the trigger.’
‘You condemn yourself.’ Luis shook his head. ‘Don’t force us to kill a friend.’
‘I don’t think we are friends anymore,’ said Guerrama. ‘I think that ended when we chose our different paths.’
‘He is guilty,’ said Honcho. ‘Hang him.’
Julio nodded agreement.
‘We must examine all the facts,’ said Luis. ‘I do not want to be a judge, nor a jury.’
‘We have a duty to Don Bavispe,’ said Tonito. ‘He trusted us to deliver Joselito to Mexico City. He hired Jared to guard the bull. What does he say?’
Six faces turned towards Hawk, each one asking an unspoken question.
‘It’s not my decision,’ he said. ‘Killing a man with a gun is one thing. That’s fast an’ clean. Hanging’s something else.’
Something he remembered all too well ...
Tularosa ...
One hot afternoon ...
The rope chafing against his neck ...
It had been bad then. As bad as death had ever seemed. And every bit as inevitable.
He had spent time in the jailhouse waiting for a trumped-up charge to condemn him to the gallows, and then been taken out on that last, long walk.
The only reason he survived was the entrance of John T. McLain, with a sawed-down scattergun in one hand and a pardon in the other. Hawk had never been sure which made the difference: the paper, or the heavy-gauge shot in the barrel of the Meteor. The two things seemed linked. The shotgun had produced the paper and the paper backed up the shotgun; made it legal.
Whatever, he had felt the rope scrape clear of his neck and felt the hood lifted from his face.
That had been like a resurrection. Looking up at the sun on that hot, July afternoon and seeing life burning out of the sky. Feeling death taken away so that he could grin at the waiting, watching crowd, and spit his fear out as he paced down the steps from the platform and turned to look back at the bags of sand filled up to stretch his spine and guarantee the breaking of his neck.
In Tularosa ...
One hot afternoon ...
‘I’ll not decide,’ he said. ‘I was hired to get that goddam bull through to Mexico City. And that’s what I’ll do. I’ll kill anyone who shoots at me … at us … but don’t ask me to make decisions about hanging men.’
Luis said, 'I think we should talk about this.’
And he took his men off into an empty stall.
‘I wish you had killed me, gringo,’ said Guerrama. ‘I think it would be easier that way.’
Hawk shrugged. ‘Hanging ain’t much fun, but I reckoned I owed Luis that choice.’
‘And me?’ Guerrama stared at Hawk. ‘Is there no choice there? I asked you to shoot me.’
‘Maybe,’ said Hawk. ‘Maybe.’
The Mexicans came out from the stall and Luis faced the gunfighter.
‘You agreed to guard Joselito through to Mexico City, no es?’
Hawk nodded. ‘Sure. Claro.’
‘Which means,’ said Luis, ‘that you are responsible for the protection of the bull and the men needed to tend him.’
‘I guess,’ said Hawk. ‘And I done that, so far.’
‘If you had a choice,’ asked the Mexican, ‘what would you have done with Antonio?’
Hawk saw the trap coming and shrugged. ‘I’d have killed him,’ he said. ‘But you were so goddam weepy about old friends that I didn’t. I brought him back alive.’
‘So now,’ said Luis, ‘you must make the decision.’
Manuel tossed the rope over a crossbeam as the boss vaquero spoke.
It landed with the precision of expert handling; neatly over the beam. Manuel looped the loose end around an upright and checked the knot was tight. The further end dangled in the air. There was a noose and a thick winding of the backwards knotting hanging where a man’s head would be if he was seated on a horse.
Tonito and Honcho went inside the stall to bring Guerrama out.
The old man made no resistance as they lifted him astride the buckskin stallion and fastened the noose around his neck.
‘We have talked about this thing,’ said Luis. ‘And we have agreed that you must decide.’
‘Not this way,’ said Hawk. ‘I never said I’d judge a man.’
‘You kill men,’ said Luis. ‘Don’t you?’
‘That’s different.’ Hawk shrugged. ‘That’s face to face. This is your decision.’
‘No.’ Luis shook his head. ‘We have been too close to this man to choose clearly, Jared. You agreed to do a job, so you are best suited to decide. Listen to what we say and then make your choice.’
‘I think we should kill him,’ said Honcho. ‘He betrayed us. I vote for death.’
‘He killed Carlos,’ said Julio. ‘Not himself, but because he planned it that way.’
‘He betrayed Don Bavispe,’ said Manuel. ‘The man who gave him everything. I do not think a vaquero should ever forget el jefe.’
‘He is old,’ said Tonito. ‘And he loves Victoria. I think we should let him live.’
Hawk looked at Luis, who said: ‘I do not like what he has done. That was evil. It resulted in the death of Carlos. But I think he did it because he loved someone. I think that we might leave him alive. He cannot return to the hacienda, and we can take his money.’
‘That makes three in favor,’ said Hawk, ‘and two against.’
‘No,’ said Antonio Guerrama. ‘It is balanced on the side of death.’
And he dug his heels against the flanks of the buckskin stallion and sent the big horse out in front on a squealing run that left him swinging in the air.
The rope dragged tight about his neck, the plaited cords digging hard against his throat, cutting a gouge that burst blood from its cutting over the skin of his neck. His windpipe got constricted as the noose severed the air entering his lungs from the residue that might reach his brain. The rope failed to break his neck and kill him cleanly. Instead, the throttling pressure blocked off the air contained in his lungs so that his tongue thrust out from between his lips like a swollen, black rag as his face turned purple and his eyes bulged from his skull.
His penis erected, spraying a jet of urine out through his pants, as his bowels emptied a stinking swill of feces through the back passage, spreading ordure over the floor of the stable.
Hawk reacted without thinking.
He simply drew his Colt and fired the pistol three times into Antonio Guerrama’s body.
The bullets killed the man before he had time to feel the pain of his hanging. All three landed in his heart, devastating the organ and cutting off any feeling.
They shoved him back against the swing of the panicked horse so that he dangled, swinging, in the air. Hawk ejected the spent cartridges and reloaded as the Mexicans gathered round him, staring up at the blood that fountained from Guerrama’s chest and back.
‘Why?’ asked Manuel.
‘I just felt like it,’ said Hawk. ‘Why the hell not?’
‘Thank you,’ said Luis.
Hawk shrugged and said, ‘Let’s go.’
‘Now?’ Luis was shocked.
‘The sooner the better,’ said Hawk. ‘I don’t like to leave things hanging.’