All I could do now was wait for Nachita for there was certainly nothing to be gained by riding out into the rain myself. I went up to my room, stripped and rubbed myself down, then changed into my dry clothes. I put a box of .455 cartridges into each pocket, went downstairs to the bar and helped myself to some more of Moreno’s whisky while I stripped and cleaned the Enfield.
After a while Moreno himself appeared, removing his hat in a very respectful manner. ‘Señor, there are things at the church which belonged to him. We are not sure what to do. You were his friend …’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll come up to the church with you.’
I put the poncho and sombrero back on for the rain was still falling heavily and we left the hotel and started up the street. A couple of carts, pulled by mules, passed us on the way down carrying the bodies of de la Plata’s men.
‘They lived without God, we shall bury them without God,’ Moreno explained. ‘The same hole does for all.’
‘And Señorita de la Plata also?’
‘Señor, please.’ He looked genuinely shocked. ‘Her, we will bury with all due ceremony. There is her father to consider, though God alone knows what the news of her death will do to that poor old man.’
When we went into the square they were harnessing mules to the dead horses, getting ready to drag them off. Most of the blood had already been washed away by the heavy rain. Life continued.
Inside the church, there was a remarkable change. The benches had been moved to the sides, but a crude wooden coffin with the lid on had been laid across two of them near the entrance.
‘Doña Chela, señor,’ Moreno murmured. ‘It was thought desirable to cover her now. She had been shot in the face. You understand?’
I did, all too well, and moved to the other end of the church which was a blaze of candles.
When I first landed in Mexico I saw a procession of the Virgin through the streets of Vera Cruz. It was one of the most beautiful images I had ever seen except that it had a knife in the heart which seemed to sum up Mexico admirably and the general preoccupation with death.
Van Horne lay on a table in full regalia, the gold cape over all, his hands folded around a crucifix, candles at his head and feet. He looked as if he might open his eyes at any moment.
‘There was no coffin big enough to hold him, señor,’ Moreno whispered. ‘The village carpenter is already at work.’
The stench of the candles was overpowering and there was nothing here for me. I had already said goodbye. I went into the vestry and Moreno followed me. The things he had spoken of were not really van Horne’s. They were from the trunk that had belonged to the priest who had died at Huerta and yet I could not say so.
I said, ‘Keep these in a safe place. The new priest may have a use for them.’
‘The new priest, señor?’
‘They’ll send somebody, especially now that things have changed.’
‘And Don Tomas?’
‘Is finished.’
I couldn’t face the church again and left the vestry by the other door, going straight down to the gates. Just as we reached the hotel, one of the guards fired a warning shot and called that a rider was coming.
I moved out through the gates with Moreno, a few more backing him up with rifles from the square. Nachita rode out of the mist, Jurado stumbling along behind, hands tied, a halter round his neck, just like the poor devil he had killed earlier.
‘He couldn’t run fast enough,’ Nachita said.
‘What about the others?’
‘Already gone, leaving this one to deliver the priest. The rain makes tracking difficult.’
Jurado’s face was still badly bruised, one eye half closed, but there was nothing but hate showing. ‘All right, Keogh, you’ve got me, but Don Tomas has your girlfriend and by the time he and the boys have had their way with her …’
I gave him my hand across the jaw. ‘You can cut that out for a start. Where are they making for?’
He spat in my face. I wiped it away with the edge of my poncho and knocked him flat on his back.
Nachita said, ‘I could make him talk, señor.’
‘How long?’ I said.
‘No longer than it takes to light a fire.’
‘Then roast it out of the bastard. The sooner, the better.’
And it worked, for there had never been much to Raul Jurado except brute strength and ignorance. He had broken in my two hands once before. He broke now.
Nachita put heels to his horse, the halter tightening, dragging Jurado over the rough ground and he cried out, fear in his voice. ‘No, not the Indian.’
Remembering some of the things Janos had told me about the Yaqui I was not particularly surprised. I said, ‘I’ll only ask you once. How many men has de la Plata got with him?’
‘Five.’
‘Where have they gone?’
‘Poneta.’
I glanced at Nachita who nodded. ‘I know this place. Perhaps twenty-five miles from here on the other side of the Valley of the Angels. No one has lived there for many years now.’
I nudged Jurado in the ribs with my boot. ‘Is he right?’
He nodded sullenly. ‘Don Tomas has used the place often in the past. From there, he can send into the mountains for men.’
It had the ring of truth, so I dragged him to his feet and shoved him in the general direction of Moreno and his friends. ‘Keep him for the federates,’ I said. ‘Let them do it the legal way.’
He turned, cursing me, but Moreno slapped his face. A couple of them grabbed hold of the end of the halter and they all moved back into the village, dragging him along behind.
Nachita dismounted and we followed them. ‘This place, Poneta,’ I said. ‘What’s it like?’
‘A ruined church on the edge of a ravine, three or four streets. It was a government strongpoint in the early days of the Revolution. The scene of much heavy fighting. Most of the inhabitants were killed. The few that survived went elsewhere.’
We turned into the courtyard at the rear of the hotel where I had parked the Mercedes. I found the map Bonilla had given us and unfolded it across the driver’s seat out of the rain, for the canvas hood was up.
‘How long would it take us to get there?’
‘Five or six hours, señor. A little more, a little less, depending on the horses. The Valley of the Angels is twenty miles wide. All desert, no water, A place in which to take care.’
‘What start would you say they have on us?’
‘An hour – an hour and a half.’
‘Could we catch them before they reach Poneta?’
‘Perhaps, if we took spare horses, but he would kill her the moment we appeared.’
I looked at the map again, particularly the wide desert area of the Valley of the Angels and the solution seemed plain. ‘What if we got there first? What if we were waiting for them?’
‘Señor?’ He frowned. ‘But how could such a thing be?’
I tapped the driving wheel of the Mercedes. ‘In this,’ I said, ‘All things are possible.’
It was the first time I had seen him smile.
It was something of an emotional leave-taking. Moreno was reluctant to let us go, having dispatched a rider to Cordona at Huanca and inclining to the opinion that I should await the lieutenant’s arrival.
Before I got into the Mercedes, he gave me the abrazo, the formal hug, patting me on the back, tears in his eyes, convinced, I suppose, that he would never see me alive again. Even so, it was interesting to note that not a single individual offered to accompany us, which all made Moreno’s parting Go with God sound a little hollow as we drove away.
I was glad to put Mojada behind me for many reasons and I think I knew then that I would never see the place again, nor did I want to.
At the final end of things, whatever else he had been, Oliver van Horne had died for people who weren’t even prepared to help themselves. One could find excuses in plenty for them. The wretchedness of their lives, the years of suffering which, in the end, had come to seem the natural order of things. But the end result was still that they would not help themselves. Would not move a finger to help anyone else.
I was filled with a feeling of indescribable bitterness. I was sick of them and I was sick of this festering land they called a country. The anger in me took control so that I went over the crown of the pass at a speed that was excessive under the conditions.
As we went down, the rain slackened and the mist thinned considerably and then the track petered out into a shallow slope running into the bottom of the great valley, dotted with mesquite and cactus trees. We went down past a tangle of catclaw and brush over tilted slabs and emerged to a flat plain of hard-baked sand.
I braked to a halt and Nachita got out and scouted around in wide circles. It didn’t take long and he returned quickly. ‘They have passed this way, as I expected. The tracks are plain.’
The old trail was clearly marked on the military map. Straight across, which was naturally the shortest route, and there was Poneta half-way up a mountain. Twenty miles, perhaps a little less.
My own strategy was obvious. Nachita got back into the Mercedes and I drove eastward for about five miles, hugging the edge of the desert, then turned north and drove across the hard, sun-baked earth at what to Nachita must have seemed the considerable speed of twenty-five miles an hour.
We crossed without incident, reaching the foothills of the mountains on the other side of the valley in just on the hour. I turned west and followed the rim of the desert for several miles until we came to the beginning of the track on that side, starting up through a narrow pass between two mountains exactly as indicated on the map.
I dropped into a low gear for it lifted steeply through slopes covered with mesquite and greasewood and as we climbed higher, a few scattered pinons. The trail started to hug the side of the mountain, the slope dropping away steeply and then we crawled round a massive outcrop of rock and found Poneta perched on the edge of a ravine.
It was larger than I had supposed, must have once been reasonably important, which was to be judged mainly from the size of the church, a large, flat-roofed building in stone with a badly damaged bell tower, the result of shell fire from the look of it.
The rest of the buildings were crumbling adobe casas, most of them without a roof and everywhere the signs of the battle which had raged over the place.
I drove up the main street, Nachita ready with his old Winchester, but it was ours alone except for the lizards and the ravens perched on top of the crumbling bell tower, watching as I braked to a halt in the centre of the plaza by an empty fountain.
I found one of the canteens, washed the dust from my throat and passed it to Nachita. Two or three ravens lifted into the air calling hoarsely to each other. The sun died. I shivered, the Celt in me again.
‘A bad place. Too many men have died here,’ Nachita said.
I nodded. ‘We’ll wait for them back along the trail where we can see what’s coming.’
We found a casa on the edge of the village with one wall missing which made it an excellent hiding-place for the Mercedes as I was able to drive it right inside. We left it there and walked back down the trail to the point where it disappeared round the outcrop and climbed up to the top.
The view of the desert was excellent. Nachita beat among the bushes for snakes and we settled down to wait. I had one of the Thompson guns and he his Winchester, but it was going to be difficult to attack them without harming Victoria, and her safety, after all, was what mattered. Too much was going to have to be left to chance and I had never cared for that in this kind of business.
I lay back, head pillowed on my sombrero, smoked a cigarette and narrowed my eyes into infinity, wondering in a detached sort of way how Victoria was and what she was thinking. Yet she must know that we would follow. Had no choice.
And Tomas de la Plata? Impossible to judge which way he would jump. He was a man who had endured much and had been moulded by a hundred different things. The years in prison, the degradation, the humiliations endured for the cause he believed in. The long struggle. So much killing.
Yet others had been through as much and had survived. There was something deeper here. This man had been touched in the darkest depths of him and a man like that was to be feared.
I must have drifted into sleep and Nachita had obviously decided to let me be. When he brought me awake with a quick shake, it was late evening, the valley purple with shadow, the sun an orange ball.
The clatter of hooves was quite distinct on the quiet air and I peered cautiously through the brush and saw them coming up the trail below, coated with dust from the desert, weariness in every line of them, men and beasts.
And at the end we were still out of luck for Victoria and Tomas de la Plata shared the same horse, his arms around her as he held the reins. To start anything with the girl in such a position would be madness. We lay there quietly and watched them enter the village and start up the main street to the plaza.
I said, ‘If I can draw them off, it’s unlikely he’d leave more than one man in charge of Victoria and you could handle that.’
‘And how would you accomplish this thing, señor?’
I told him briefly. He said, ‘You go to your death, you know this?’
‘Maybe it’s about time.’ I shrugged. ‘Just get Victoria out of harm’s way when the time comes and I mean that. She’s your only consideration. Forget about me, no matter what happens.’
I went down through the brush in a strangely resigned mood. I would do what had to be done and if it meant the end of me, let it be so. A long time coming, surely.
Nachita helped me roll the Mercedes silently backwards out of the ruined casa where we had left it, then I climbed behind the wheel, the Thompson ready on the passenger seat beside me. The roar of that magnificent engine nearly tore the place apart as I put my foot down hard and took her up the narrow street to the plaza.
Tomas de la Plata, a hand on Victoria’s arm, was crossing towards the church, his men walking behind, leading the horses. I braked to a halt, stayed that way long enough to see the shock of recognition in his face, then reversed. They had already started shooting as I took the Mercedes back into the narrow street. The windscreen shattered and I ducked instinctively, swerving enough to demolish one end of an adobe wall.
It slowed me a little which was what I wanted anyway. The hounds were in full cry now and I kept on going, head down, bullets thudding into the bodywork of the Mercedes and then I was out of the village and into the open again.
I swung the wheel from side to side to make her swerve, then drove the Mercedes clear over the edge of the trail.
She went down the slope like a thunderbolt, tearing a path through the mesquite and brushwood and I grabbed the Thompson and got out while the going was good. The Mercedes bounced, turned over twice and tore into a clump of pinon, finally coming to rest upside down.
I lay in the brush hugging the ground and the Thompson and waited. A few moments later they appeared on the trail above, Tomas de la Plata and his men, one of them holding on to Victoria. They paused on the edge looking at the Mercedes, then de la Plata said something and started down with four of them, leaving Victoria and the man who was holding her.
Nachita appeared behind them as if out of thin air. Whatever was done, was done silently for the man went down without a cry and Nachita pulled Victoria back out of sight.
Which was all I had been waiting for. There was a crashing in the brushwood as de la Plata and his men approached and it was now or never for they were almost on me.
They emerged into a clear patch in a long straggling line and I stood up and started to fire, intending to take the five of them in one clean sweep. The first two went over like skittles and then the round drum magazine jammed.
It was de la Plata who fired in return, drawing from that shoulder holster of his with incredible speed like a snake striking, the bullet catching me just above the right breast, knocking me back into the brush.
As I hit the ground, I drew the Enfield, fired twice very fast to keep the heads down and allowed myself to slide down through the brush as fast as possible.
I fetched up in a thicket and paused long enough to examine my wound. The force of the shot had been considerable owing to the short range and the bullet had passed straight through, exiting under the right shoulder blade. The exit hole was smaller than I had anticipated which meant, in all probability, that his revolver was of .38 calibre.
I spat into my hand and produced no blood which was encouraging, but the sounds of movement in the brush above were not. I got out of the thicket quickly and started to work my way up the slope again, following a diagonal course to the right which would bring me back to the trail.
Someone caught sight of me soon enough, there was a cry and then another, three or four shots. A last mad scramble and I went over the edge of the trail, lungs bursting, to find one of them bearing down on me from the left like a steam engine.
I fired wildly twice without taking aim for I had no choice in the matter, tripped and went headlong, crying out as the pain surged through me. The man running in did not fire, preferring to get close. It was the death of him for I shot him in the heart, the heavy bullet lifting him off his feet and back over the edge of the trail.
There was one round left in the Enfield and no time to reload. As de la Plata and his surviving companions appeared from the brush, I turned and ran for my life into the village.
They fired continuously, but thanks to that mad chase through the brush, the scramble up the slope, nobody’s aim was anything to boast about. I put my head down and kept running, hoping to make it to the church, hoping that Nachita might take a hand in the game in spite of what I had said.
I had almost reached the fountain when I was hit again. The right leg this time, only a crease, but enough to bring me down.
When I rolled over, de la Plata’s companion was some distance in front of him, a young man, full of his strength and running well. There was no time for fancy shooting. I simply aimed at his middle and pulled the trigger, was on my feet and scrambling for the church door as he went down.
He was like some creature in a nightmare that is impossible to shake off. I made it to the door, a bullet chipping the wall. When I glanced over my shoulder he was already past the fountain and running very fast, a pistol in each hand.
I staggered through the cool darkness inside, not daring to stop, fumbling for spare cartridges in my pocket. I managed to get two into the chamber awkwardly, dropping a few in the process because my right shoulder and arm were burning like all the fires of hell now and the fingers weren’t working very well.
He was inside and shooting, uncertain in the light. Like a fool I fired back, giving myself away, turned and stumbled into the shadows as he replied.
I fell across a flight of stone steps and scrambled up them desperately. They turned a corner, the inner wall of the bell tower and light flooded down through a great jagged hole. I emerged on the roof and paused briefly to get my bearings. A bullet whined into the air through the opening. I fired down into the darkness twice in reply and the second time, the hammer clicked on nothing.
I was finished and I knew it. Little Emmet Keogh at the end of things at last for he came up the steps without hesitation. I turned and went staggering along the roof to nowhere and when I reached the ultimate edge, there was no parapet, only a long fall down to the ravine below or the plaza on the other side.
When I turned, he was standing perhaps ten yards away, chest heaving, face very pale, a pistol in one hand only now. And in the end, he made the worst kind of mistake. Instead of shooting me out of hand, he had to talk.
‘Who sent you, Keogh?’
His reply was a single shot that echoed across the roof tops sending the ravens wheeling up in dark, frightened circles. De la Plata cried out and spun round, the pistol jumping from his hand into the plaza.
Nachita was standing by the fountain, the Winchester at his shoulder, Victoria crouched beside him. She cried my name suddenly and the echo mingled with the hoarse calling of the ravens.
As I swung round, de la Plata flung himself at me blindly, blood on his mouth, hands reaching out to destroy. I simply moved to one side and he blundered over the edge into the plaza.
He was lying face-down on the cobbles when I looked, Nachita kneeling beside him. Nachita rose, glanced up at me, then turned and followed Victoria who was running for the church door.
The ravens descended to the tower again, black against a sky the colour of brass and the sun died behind the peaks. I was tired and the Enfield empty in my left hand was still a weight to carry. A fine dramatic gesture to toss it away once and for all, far out into space over the ravine, but that would not have been the sensible way. Not little Emmet Keogh of the left hand’s way. This was a bad place to be and night falling.
I sat down, spilled the handful of cartridges on the ground beside me and slowly and with great difficulty because of my wounded shoulder, started to reload.