‘GODDAMMIT! I’M TELLING you the truth.’
Hawk was unpleasantly conscious of the two pistols pointed at his back, and at the same time near angry enough with the frog-like man leaning back in the overstuffed chair that he was tempted to risk a draw. But that cold, calm part of his mind that governed his hotter instincts took hold: he knew he wouldn’t stand a chance. Not against two cocked guns with his body still feeling the bruises and the strains.
And he still had his word to keep. Which now meant taking back the money the fat man paid the thieves to Matanza.
‘Who should I believe?’ Carranza shrugged expansively. ‘A yanqui with a broken face and too many guns? Or the Mexicans who brought the bull with all the relevant papers?’
‘They stole it,’ Hawk repeated. Seeing it was useless even as he said it. ‘I was hired to guard it, an’ there’s three men died gettin’ it here.’
‘Then … if you are telling the truth … you did not do a very good job,’ said Carranza. ‘Besides, I have the bull I wanted. I have signed the documents of sale and the notes necessary to the bank. I have acted in good faith and the bull is mine. Whether or not your story is true, I am within the law.’
‘All right.’ Hawk shrugged; and felt twinges of pain run through his shoulders. ‘But tell me one thing. Which bank will they go to?’
‘The only one,’ said Carranza. ‘The Bank of Mexico. Now…’
He gestured at the gunfighter and Hawk felt the two Colts dig into his back. Hard, over the bruising. A hand grabbed his shoulder and swung him round. He turned and let the vaqueros take him out to his horse, watching the pistols level on his chest as he mounted.
‘Don’t come back, gringo,’ said one.
‘He won’t,’ grinned the other. ‘He’s got his tail down between his legs now he lost his gamble.’
‘No tail,’ muttered Hawk, too low for them to hear as he watched Joselito driven out to the pasture land east of the hacienda. ‘I’m more interested in horns.’
It was a day’s ride into Mexico City, and by the time Hawk got there the bank was closed. It was located on the north side of a wide plaza that lay two sections over from the cathedral and the big prison. There were several smaller banks spaced around the square, and loan-shops in between. They were all shut, the windows covered with blinds or wooden slats, and two federales with Mannlicher carbines patrolled the area. It was dead: there were no trees in the plaza and the high bank buildings cut off the moon’s light so that the entire area was bathed in shadow, only the upper faces of the buildings showing a pale gray radiance where the light struck them. Like empty-socketed skulls.
Hawk turned away before the federales reached him and rode through to the center of the city. Here it was all life. The concentric streets diverged through a series of lesser plazas to the enormous space at the center. Cantinas and hotels stood side-by-side with stores that were still open. Roads and avenues and alleyways bled into the plaza, but the middle was given over to pedestrian traffic, and there were canvas-topped cafes serving the people seated on the hard wooden chairs that surrounded the little wooden tables. It was unlike any town Hawk had seen in the United States or northern Mexico. There was a feeling of age and indolence to it; an almost palpable sense of enjoyment. As though both the people parading … stately … around the plaza and those seated watching them, derived the same enjoyment from seeing and being seen.
Tall palm trees danced patterns of light and shade over the worn flagstones and the faces of the men and women beneath, and between them there were huge clusters of exotic plants Hawk didn’t recognize; all crimson and lily-white and purple under the radiance of the moon and the lights strung between the cafes. Bats swooped nervously through the shadows, and parakeets fluttered brilliantly towards crumbs of discarded food. The air was hot and heavy and loud with the odors of cooking and the smell of alcohol and coffee and people.
Hawk reined in outside a hotel that looked small, but comfortable.
He booked a room and a bath and a bottle of whiskey.
The room was small: a bed on the second floor, with a wash-stand beside it and hooks in the wall alongside a window that looked over the stables.
The bath was in a separate room, but it had faucets that produced hot water on demand. And the whiskey was American, with a Mexican label on the bottle.
He lay back in the tub and let the hot water soak his pain away. His head had stopped aching, but all through the ride into Mexico City his body had hurt. Now the flow of hot water eased the discomfort, and the soap made him feel clean again. The whiskey helped, too.
He poured three buckets of cold water over his body and then shaved and went down to find food.
He ate a steak, with chili beans on the side and two tortillas. Then drank a lot of coffee and went back to bed.
It was soft and clean and wide. The sheets were crisp and cold in the warm air of the room: like fresh bandages.
In the morning he ate a good breakfast and surprised the hotel by asking for another bath. It eased the last achings from his limbs and left him convinced that he could handle his guns as fast as ever.
He went to the Bank of Mexico and slipped ten dollars … the last of his money … through the grille to find out that Don Carranza’s notes had been honored the day before.
They had amounted to exactly two thousand, seven hundred and fifty dollars American. And the man who had collected the money was tall and slim. Clean shaven. A Mexican. His name was Jaime Agusto. And no, the clerk didn’t know where he was staying. He had seemed in a hurry. But any notes exchanged between Don Carranza and Don Bavispe were fine: no questions asked.
Hawk came out of the bank with a nasty feeling that he had been taken.
Taken bad.
All the way down.
His own promissory note had been paid out … no questions asked … just like he had wanted it. And the bull, the horses, and the wagon were gone.
Gone into nowhere.
At least, nowhere he could find the men who had taken them.
Unless ...
Unless he tried the same tactics.
Luis and Tonito and Julio would be waiting in Malvado. Or coming down to Mexico City to find that everything was gone: the bull and the horses and the wagon and the money. And if they went back to Matanza with that news, they would get as welcome a greeting as Hawk expected.
So: there was just one way to recoup the disaster.
Hawk got up on his horse and rode back to the Carranza spread determined to take back Joselito and force the issue.
‘This is crazy,’ said Pedro Amado. ‘No one fights a bull like this.’
‘Callarse la boca,’ snapped Jaime Agusto. ‘Shut your mouth. I promised Felipe, and I’m going to do it.’
‘Why not?’ said Miguel Campos.
‘We’ve all got guns,’ said Angelo Zorro.
‘I still say it is madness,’ argued Amado. ‘Shoot the bastard and have done with it.’
‘You don’t understand,’ said Agusto. ‘There are some things a man has to do. Things he can’t ride around.’
‘That locomotive will ride over you,’ said Pedro. ‘Not around.’
‘We’ll see,’ grunted Agusto. ‘Wait here.’
He walked forwards through the orange grove where the horses of the cuadrilla were hidden from sight. The smell was sweet and sharp in his nostrils as the sun came up and began to open the buds. A cow that had been sleeping close to the trees rose to her feet and began lowing for her calf. Both animals ran away as Jaime Agusto stalked out on to the grass, resplendent in his traje de luces.
The bull called Joselito was already awake, cropping grass fifty yards from the grove. He snorted and lifted his head as he noticed the cow that he now regarded as his running away.
Then he saw the man.
And dim memories awakened in his bovine mind ...
There had been pain from the two-footed beasts in the bright shining hides. More than he had ever felt when he fought other creatures who were black and four-footed, like him. And there had been noises he didn’t like: they scared him and made him charge at the other four-footed beasts because they carried the two-foots on their backs and did what the two-foots told them.
They were good to kill. They were soft and easy. Not like the little darting two-foots who jumped out of the way of the horns too quickly for him to plant one in where it would make them scream and feel frightened.
The four-footed things were all right on their own: it was only when they joined with the others that they became enemies. And then it was good to try putting the horns through them to reach for the two-foots above.
But now there was a two-foot in a bright suit coming out with the same piece of cloth that had been used before, when the pain began.
Joselito turned to face the man.
The bull didn’t know that the cloth Jaime Agusto was holding was the lighter capa, but he charged it just the same.
There was no ring here. No barria. Only the early morning grass, and just the stand of orange trees for the matador to take shelter behind.
And the guns of his cuadrilla.
Jaime Agusto passed Joselito in a series of perfect naturales that defied the bull’s knowledge of Felipe Angelos’s moves. He knew it was crazy. Knew he was coming close to committing suicide. And knew at the same time that he could do nothing else.
He had been jealous of Felipe when the matador took a fancy to that black-eyed bitch in Matanza. That Victoria Bavispe. Cow! With her hair and her ugly breasts, like some heifer.
But Felipe had dedicated the bull to her. And what was worse, had said he was going to marry her. Because she would bring him money.
All right. Claro! Now it was Jaime Agusto who was going to kill the bull that had left his lover bleeding his guts out through his belly. And take the money the bull had brought; and kill it, too.
Joselito plucked spangles from the front of his traje on the next pass, and Jaime moved into a series of veronicas. He kept well to the left, counting on the bull still relying on his favorite horn … the right … and turned Joselito with a fluttering series of chicuelinas that left him close to his cuadrilla in the trees.
‘For God’s sweet sake!’ Pedro Amado said. ‘Give it up. Let’s go and spend our money.’
‘Give me the sword,’ said Jaime. ‘He’s weak as a kitten from that journey. His neck still hurts and his head is down. For the love of Christ! Give me the sword!’
Angelo Zorro passed it to him, along with the heavy muleta.
Jaime draped the cloth over his left arm and approached the bull again.
Joselito looked up and vaguely remembered the first time he had seen a two-foot approach him that way. The memory brought back the pain. The way the flies clustered over his eyes afterwards. The way the little birds had settled on him. Not picking lice anymore, but tugging at the wounds the two-legs had made. He remembered all that; as best he could. And lowered his head.
And charged.
Jaime Agusto swung the muleta in a perfect pase de la muerta.
The air was still and the cape hung stiff on his left arm. His right hand was fastened tight around the hilt of the sword. He was confident: fulfilling his promise to Felipe.
And then the horns lifted up. Knocking the sword out of line as the muleta got tangled just like when Felipe was killed.
And something plunged into his belly.
For a moment he saw the bright-shining arc the sword described across the sky. Lifting up like it had done before. Sharp and sweet, curving light across the entrance to death’s gloomy hallways. And then there was only pain.
And a cessation of feeling.
He felt himself lifted up on the point of the bull’s horn at the same time he felt it sink through his belly. He reached down as Felipe had done, trying to lift himself away. But the bull had learned too much.
It knew better now than to try to shake the two-foots loose when they were in the air.
It was better to lower them down the spike of the horn. To the ground.
Where the other horn could go in.
Jaime Agusto screamed as he saw his guts run redly out as the bull slammed him against the morning grass.
Then screamed again as the other horn twisted round and down to pierce his ribs and cut into his left side so that he was tossed into the air, tumbling over and over with his entrails slapping his face until he landed and the bull bent its knees and rammed its head against his chest.
He went on screaming until the weight crushed the air from his lungs and Joselito got up from his knees and lurched both horns, one after the other, into the body.
By then Jaime Agusto was just a pulpy rag of broken flesh.
The bull stood up. He felt proud of himself: he had killed a second two-foot, and now he would go back to living easily with the fat cows in the green pastures. He shook his head to shake away the last remains of the man from his horns, and began to trot back to where the cows were.
‘Kill it,’ said Angelo Zorro. ‘Kill it, now.’
He was the only one with a rifle of his own, apart from Jaime.
‘Miguel, take Jaime’s Winchester. Pedro, you watch the horses.’
‘You need to watch more than that,’ said a flat, cold voice. ‘You need to watch your backtrail. Only now it’s too late.’
Zorro started to turn round. He was already cocking his Winchester in preparation of slaughtering the bull, so he just spun the rifle and closed his forefinger on the trigger.
It was a foolish move.
Had he stayed still, he might have lived. Instead, his Winchester ploughed a useless slug upwards into the sky as Hawk’s shotgun slammed a thick hole through his chest.
The force slammed him backwards against the nearest tree, splintering the trunk so that sap bled in tandem with the pulsing crimson that spurted from his chest, mingling with the secondary outpourings of his back. He leant against the trunk like a tired old man too weary to move, his legs spread in a vee-shape in front, and his arms hanging by his sides as his head lolled down on to his chest.
Hawk dropped the scattergun as Miguel Campos stamped an insane dance over the ground. He drew his Colt and watched the Mexican try to stamp the fire of the outspread shot from his feet.
Then he lifted the Colt and ended the dance.
He planted one slug into the man’s head.
It went in under the jaw. On the left side, where Hawk had been clubbed. It angled up through the soft flesh of the underjaw into the roof of the mouth, splintering the soft tissue of the roof and ploughing onwards through the membranes of the nose to implant deep inside the pulpy matter of the brain.
Miguel Campos lurched back with pieces of brain matter spraying from the top of his skull. He fell down like a severed pine tree, though the sap came from the ruptured top, rather than the trunk.
And Pedro Amado got up on his feet and lifted both hands in the air.
‘Please,’ he said, his face getting pale as he stared at Hawk’s gun. ‘Please don’t kill me.’
‘Why not?’ Hawk levelled the Colt on the man’s belly. ‘You left me to die.’
‘No!’ Amado shook his head, tongue licking over his dry lips. ‘We just tied you up. We could have killed you, but we didn’t.’
‘Be better if you had,’ rasped Hawk. ‘For you.’
‘For God’s sake!’ Amado backed away, his eyes huge in his now pallid face. ‘All we did was string you up.’
‘I don’t like ropes,’ grunted Hawk. ‘Not on me. They get me all knotted up.’
And he squeezed the trigger so the slug blasted out the muzzle and tore through Pedro’s stomach, blowing him backwards as his belly ruptured and his shirt blew out in a thick, dark stain that carried him down into eternal darkness that matched the blankness in his dead, staring eyes.
‘I guess that settles it,’ murmured Hawk as he collected the money and the papers. ‘Between you and me, at least.’