by James Lewis
“Where are you going,” the lieutenant asked.
“To visit some sick people.”
“Their names?”
“Fermin Hernandez, at Chizco. Adelita Aguilar, at Parral …” The officer was writing as Villega spoke.
“Isn’t there a doctor at Parral?” he asked. His face was hard.
Villega glared at him. “There was,” he said, annoyed. “He’s been shot.”
The officer studied him silently. Villega held his breath. “All right, you may proceed.”
An hour later Villega’s carriage was tied in a dense wood atop a mountain plateau. The entire valley stretched out lush and green below. Just beneath, a wooden bridge thrust thinly across a narrow river.
Villega stood with Mallory and Juan looking out across the valley. His thin face was lined and there were dark rings under his eyes that hadn’t been there before. Farther back in the trees a dozen peons stood by loaded burros. Juan’s own people milled about listlessly.
“Gutierrez is less than twenty miles from here, on the road to the San Jorge Bridge,” Villega said wearily, pointing to the bridge. “They’ll comb the area bush by bush. That’s why the order is to split up and try to save yourselves individually.”
A thin breeze stirred the leaves overhead. “What a brilliant order,” Mallory said bitterly. “We’re up to our asses in mud back in the marshes and the rest of you are in a warm basement.”
Villega looked wounded. “Not everybody can fight,” he said, frowning. “There are those who must organize, coordinate—”
“Yes, sure. Don’t pay any attention to me, it’s personal.”
Mallory walked away. He headed for two rebels busy unloading a dismantled machine gun from a burro. Saying nothing, he waved the men aside and swung his arm around the gun’s barrel. With his free hand he caught the tripod.
He carried the gun back to Juan and Villega. “Sorry about the orders,” he said, “but I’m staying.”
The two Mexicans gaped at him. Mallory squatted and began assembling the gun. A fly spun past his head and he swatted it away. He said slowly, not looking up, his voice tight with anger, “I don’t give a bloody fuck about your revolution. I’m not even sure I care about my own any more. It’s just that at a certain point, a man gets tired of tramping around the mountains, so he stops.”
He tightened a screw on the gun. “Well, I’m stopping here. At the San Jorge Bridge. Why? Maybe because my feet are sore.”
Finished, he stood up. He gazed coolly at the two Mexicans. To his surprise Juan announced, “If he stays, I stay, too.” There was a calculating gleam in his eye.
“What? What the hell for?” Villega demanded.
Juan shrugged. “My feet hurt, too.”
He wheeled and marched quickly toward the rebels. Since Mesa Verde, to Mallory’s great amusement, they had regarded Juan as second only to Villega.
“Hey,” Juan called. “Listen to me.”
The men looked up.
“Me and Irish we’ve decided to catch us a few of them locusts. The rest of you get behind that hill over there and wait for us. And if you see things getting bad up here, beat it. Every man for himself.”
He paused. There were no complaints, only admiring stares. “Okay,” he barked. “Now move your asses.”
Grim-faced, Juan approached his sons. They looked at him icily. Mallory regarded them with interest. Whatever Juan was selling, they clearly weren’t buying. They knew their father too well: The unselfish hero mantle didn’t fit him.
“My sons,” Juan said grandly. “You go too. And if your father doesn’t come back …” His voice choked.
The boys remained expressionless. There was a moment’s silence, then the niños turned and, heads down, obediently moved away. Nino, Fefe, and Amando trotted after them. They retreated deeper into the woods, not following the rebels around the slope of the hill.
Mallory hadn’t been able to see Juan’s face when he spoke to his sons, but he would have bet all the money in Dublin that Juan had been winking furiously at them. The whole thing stank like a penny whore’s breath. Those boys so docile in the face of that comedy? Not likely. Mallory shook his head and glanced at Villega. The whole act had clearly been meant for him and his rebels. The doctor seemed genuinely moved. Well, it had worked on someone.
Villega untied his carriage and climbed in. He threw a good luck gesture to Juan, another to Mallory, then drove off. His carriage wound down the path and disappeared among the trees.
Mallory moved the machine gun forward to the edge of the plateau. He braced it against a flat stone, in a spot shielded by thick trees, and trained the barrel down on the bridge. He was pleased with the angle and the cover. It would be a good fight.
He rose and took out his flask. The retreating figures of Juan’s men could be seen moving quickly toward the next hill.
Juan smiled at him.
“As soon as they get over the hill. Okay?” he said.
Mallory cocked his eyebrows quizzically.
“That’s when we run for it. Okay?”
The Irishman pulled silently on his flask.
“No?”
Mallory didn’t answer.
“You mean you’re serious about staying here?”
Mallory nodded. He took a last swallow and slid the flask back under his overcoat.
“Motherofjesus! All those explosions must have destroyed your brain,” Juan hissed. He ran his hand through thick, oily hair and sighed. “I was sure it was a trick so we could get the hell out of here.”
Mallory shrugged and turned away.
“Goddamnit, why the hell you think I stayed here with you except to get rid of Villega and those idiot revolutionaries who keep following me around? Did you think I wanted to fight the locusts? Are you crazy? The two of us against all of them?”
Far down the valley something black was snaking slowly along the road to the bridge. Mallory studied it intently.
“Listen, Firecracker. Let’s get out of here. We can still get rich on the banks in America. Think of all those millions.”
The black object began to take shape. Trucks and massed troops.
“Listen,” Mallory said slowly. “If you go you’d be doing me a great favor. If I have to choose between being a thief or a revolutionary, even in someone else’s revolution, I’ll take the job I know best. You can still get out of here in time.”
Juan spat on the ground. “Your mother was a donkey and your father was a horse,” he snapped. He began pacing furiously back and forth, scowling at the bridge below. Finally, he stopped. “I’m staying,” he shouted. “You tight-assed know-it-all Irish piece of shit, you ain’t the only man alive with two balls.”
Radiating anger, he stomped over to Mallory’s suitcase, laying half opened under a tree, and took out a pair of binoculars clearly visible in a corner of the case. Mallory eyed him curiously. Juan marched directly to the machine gun, sat down before it and stared stonily down at the bridge.
“They’ll be coming off it almost facing you,” Mallory said. “Cover their front. I’ll get them from behind.”
He walked lightly toward the burros, feeling exactly nothing about the coming fight except a detached awareness of its necessity. Either they got Gutierrez or he would get them. To continue running and hiding was stupid. You had to fight sometime in a war.
He unstrung another machine gun, shouldered it and returned to grab up his suitcase. With the gun and the case, he carefully slid down the hill to the bridge.
Why hadn’t he fled with Juan, he wondered? Why hadn’t he taken a dozen opportunities to quit the rebels? He shifted the gun on his shoulder. His heels bit into the dirt. Probably for no better reason than he had said; what else did he know? Now that there was no job for him in Mexico, what else was he to do? Who could he feel comfortable among except the rebels? Besides, he was a wanted man. So he really had no choice. Since he hadn’t any, he might as well do a proper job of being a revolutionary.
He was
still thinking about it as he prepared for Gutierrez.
Chapter Three
Somewhere nearby a wasp droned steadily. A swarm of gnats swam in front of Juan and he brushed them away. He raised the glasses and looked across the valley. The armored car was clearly visible, churning up a low cloud of dust as it came. A man was riding in the turret. He supposed it was the colonel.
He swung the glasses down to the long, narrow bridge. He could see every splinter in the wood. The water beneath it looked cool and blue. Weeds grew along the river bank.
He looked for Mallory. The Irishman was beneath him and to the left, just now positioning himself behind a rock at the bottom of the hill. At that spot, he was actually below the bridge. From there, unseen, he could sweep the approaches.
Juan wiped his sweating palms on his pants. The sun had swung behind him. Free of the treeline, it was searing his back.
“What the hell am I doing here?” he mumbled to himself. “What do I care about the revolution?”
He should get out. He wanted to. But the thought of abandoning Mallory, of abandoning any hope of taking a big bank, kept him frozen. Who could tell what opportunities fate would bring?
He studied Mallory through the glasses. A ridiculous figure, sitting down there in that black coat and bowler with a machine gun propped in front of him. In Ireland … maybe. In Mexico … well. In Mexico revolutions weren’t fought that way.
He watched as Mallory drank deeply from his flask and put it away. The Irishman lay back and flipped his bowler over his eyes. He was going to sleep. To sleep?
“I’m getting out of here,” Juan muttered, but he didn’t move. It must be the heat, he thought.
On the ground nearby a large black ant was struggling with a red insect twice its size. The ant had the squirming insect locked in its jaws and was carrying it back toward its nest. It staggered forward and was spun around by a violent thrust from the insect. The ant stumbled, regained its balance and plodded another few steps before it was thrown back again. The pattern continued.
Juan observed the drama dazedly. Hot air swung around his head and his eyes glazed over. He felt his body sag, and he shook his head to clear it. His mouth was dry.
Another violent kick sent the ant onto its back. It lay there with the bigger, heavier insect still squirming in its jaws, unable to right itself against the weight but unwilling to let go. Long minutes plodded by. Juan watched until it appeared both insects would die in their futile struggle, then he reached out and crushed them.
His head drooped. Sweat collected at his neck and ran down his back. The air seemed to shimmer before him and his mind spun off to another place.
When he looked up the troops were gone.
The road clear down the valley was empty. He looked at the bridge. Nothing. He gazed out at the road again. Only one part of it was blocked to his view and that was very near. A low, flat hill obscured the road there. But Gutierrez couldn’t have come that close. Not enough time had passed.
He stared at the point of the road curving out from the hill. His ears primed for the sound of motors. He heard a bird flutter nearby and caught the soft surge of the stream below. And then, faintly, something else.
The head of the armored car loomed blackly at the curve of the road and rolled slowly, relentlessly toward him. Behind it, a seemingly endless column of forces emerged from the back side of the hill. Like a great train, the column swept toward him.
“Motherofjesus,” Juan gasped. “The locusts!”
In awe, he raised the glasses and peered down at the troops. In the turret of the armored car was the unmistakable face of Gutierrez. He was surveying the terrain ahead with his one, expert eye. Sweat glistened on his hard face.
The column crawled on toward the bridge as Juan stared in mute fascination through the glasses. Near the entrance, so close now that he felt he could reach down and touch it, the armored car pulled to the side of the road. Gutierrez waved one truck to the head of the column and positioned the other two on the bridge approach. A shouted order sent men scrambling to man the guns on the trucks.
Juan watched in dismay. The man was uncanny to suspect something. He must be in touch with the saints. He looked frantically down at Mallory. Incredibly, the Irishman was still asleep. Still asleep? He glanced anxiously back up at the troops. The lead truck was edging its way onto the bridge, with the cavalrymen following warily behind. The truck was coming directly toward him.
Enraged, he grabbed a rock and flung it down the hill at Mallory. It fell short. He reached for another and arched it even higher. It too fell short.
Cursing and hissing, his hands tightened on the machine gun. Screw Irish. He would fight them himself. He glared at the oncoming truck. It was halfway across the bridge. He swung the gun toward it.
At the bottom of his vision he glimpsed Mallory stir. Juan checked the desire to call out. Get up you bastard, he screamed silently. Get up!
A hand came up and raised the bowler. Juan heard the truck change gears. He caught his breath. Hurry up, you Irish whore, he thought. The truck came closer.
Mallory rose to a sitting position. He looked up to Juan and waved to him coolly: Everything’s okay.
Juan’s face convulsed in anger. For a moment he considered shooting the Irishman. He kept the gun trained on the lead truck.
The truck was near the end of the bridge. Mallory’s arm went up suddenly and swept sharply downward in a signal to fire. Juan squeezed the trigger, bracing himself for the rattle of the gun.
Nothing happened. His hand tightened again and he feverishly shook the weapon. Still nothing. His mind raced. Why had it jammed? What would he do now?
The truck was at the end of the bridge. The sun reflected off the windshield, shooting darts of colored light back up to him. He stared blindly into the light; it was all he could see. His eyes widened and he tried to shoot the light away.
The gun went off with a clatter, pounding his elbows into his body. He took the shock with pleasure and felt the gun hammering in his hands.
The truck’s windshield shattered and the darts of light disappeared. Juan saw glass fragments fly away and glimpsed for a second the terrified, bloody face of the driver. Then the truck swerved sharply to the right and stopped with a jolt against the stone abutment at the edge of the bridge. It was now obstructing the end of the span.
Trapped on the bridge behind the truck, the cavalrymen looked up helplessly in the direction of the chattering gun. Their horses kicked and bounced against each other. Frantically, the soldiers tried to turn the animals. Their cries drifted up to Juan.
The troops at the rear managed to come about and head back toward the armored car. Mallory caught them a moment into their desperate retreat, firing his gun into the lead horses as they bolted from the bridge. The horses crumpled and fell into pools of their own blood. Their riders staggered up and lurched toward the shelter of the armored car. Mallory cut them down.
Juan heard Gutierrez screaming unintelligibly as he turned his gun on the head of the column. Mercilessly, he let the weapon chew at the troops at his end of the bridge while Mallory swept the far end. Slowly and inexorably, as if they were burning a string at both ends, they were destroying the column.
Bleating fearfully, the horses bucked and reared, kicking and stomping men thrown to the ground. Blood spurted everywhere, splashing vivid red stains along the planking. The troops in the middle of the bridge panicked.
In terror, trapped amid frenzied horses and the relentless machine-gun fire, they began shooting their own animals. The survivors crawled under the arches of the bridge, seeking some shelter.
A piece of bark flew from a tree near Juan’s head. Dust and pebbles sprayed upward from the ground beside him. He looked toward the armored car. A machine gun was firing blindly at him, raking the trees.
In the turret Gutierrez was still shouting orders. “Fire! Fire! Fire!” he screamed to his gunners. He turned to the cavalrymen. “Get under the bridge! Under the bridg
e. Hurry, under the bridge.” His voice held a thin edge of hysteria.
Juan’s hands burned. The gun, now almost stove-hot, jumped madly in his hands. He loosened his grip. His arms ached and his eyes burned and his head swam fiercely as hot blood pounded into it. No more than fifteen seconds had passed since he had begun firing.
Down below now troops were jumping from the parapets into the water or onto the river banks. The truck guns were spewing bullets at an incredible rate, eating away the foliage in a huge swath around Juan. He saw the armored car rumble toward the bridge for a better angle, Gutierrez still yelling commands from atop.
Juan hunched down and fired wildly. They would have to get the trucks soon. They were being outgunned. Any moment, someone might get lucky.
He looked for Mallory. The Irishman had stopped shooting. What? Why? What was he doing?
Mallory reached behind a rock on his left. A detonating box came out in his hand. Juan braced even as Mallory casually pushed down the handle.
The explosion was monstrous. It hurled the bridge’s midsection forty feet in the air, where it burst apart like a bomb. A black cloud mushroomed up beneath the debris even before it hit the ground.
Stunned, Juan stopped shooting. Wave after wave of burning air beat against his face. Dust swirled into his nose and eyes. Armies clashed in his head.
The smoke turned milky gray. It rose slowly from between the river banks. Blackened rubble and jagged heaps of wood and metal now stretched the full width of the shallow stream, blocking it. Only an occasional arm or leg protruded lifelessly from the debris. The other soldiers who had been on the bridge couldn’t be seen at all.
On the far bank one of the trucks burned fiercely. The other stood twisted and useless, its guns silent. Next to it lay the armored truck. It had overturned.
A few dazed survivors staggered helplessly about through the dense smoke. Everything else was still. Juan heard only the faint lapping of the water against the ruins of the bridge. He sighed. He wondered if Gutierrez was among the survivors.