The old man sighed, glanced at Medina, shrugged. “Take food,” he said. “It will be a long day whatever comes.”
Once across the lake, they waited beside the dock while a peon saddled horses. Constraint about the presence of people walking on the trail above them held them in silence. They stared across the lake at the hacienda: a splash of tan and orange against the deep green of the swamp.
Abruptly, Anita Luac picked up a piece of wood from beside the dock—an axe chip about four inches long, three inches wide.
“Choco! Show me!” she shouted. It sounded like the ritual of a child’s game. She hurled the chip into the air above the lake.
Medina’s right hand blurred to his hip, came up with the revolver. There was a single shot. The chip bounced in the air. Another shot. Again the chip bounced. Five times he hit it.
The splintered chip fell to the lake. Something nudged it from beneath, then it was still.
Medina opened his gun, replaced the spent cartridges.
“The horses are ready,” said Anita Luac.
“Now I understand why Raul was so hesitant,” said Garson.
Medina grinned, flicked a finger along his mustache.
They rode out through a narrow trail in jungle growth that thinned as they climbed, opened onto a meadow. Smoky blue haze filled the air, hid the detail of the distant hills.
Anita Luac reined up in the center of the meadow, patted the neck of her brown gelding.
Garson stopped the sorrel mare they had given him, shifted uncomfortably in the saddle. It had been a long time since his last experience on horseback.
“The smoke,” said Anita Luac. “The Indians are burning their milpas. They’ll never learn!”
Medina galloped past them on a big bay, stopped, whirled, returned at a walk.
“Milpas?” asked Garson.
“Their cornfields. It’s the way they clear them.”
“This is a good place to talk,” said Medina. “But keep your voice low.”
Garson nodded.
“The idea is this,” said Medina. “We are out on an inspection tour that will take most of the day. At noon we will stop for lunch”—he gestured to the bundle tied behind his saddle—“at a point about four miles from the Torleon-Ciudad Brockman highway. After lunch we will ride in that direction. Two men will be mending fences along the highway.”
“This is the Pánfil and Roberto that Luac mentioned?”
“Yes. They are men we can trust. They will be in a light pickup truck.”
“And we take the truck?”
“You and the Señorita.”
“What if we’re followed?”
Medina patted his revolver. “The story is that you two are eloping. You will go to Ciudad Brockman where the colonel of police—who is another friend—will provide you with a car and driver to take you to the airport at Guadalajara.”
Garson looked up at the smoke-dimmed hills, a feeling of premonition in his stomach. “Somehow, I don’t like it.”
Anita Luac’s horse snorted, backed away.
“I don’t either,” she said. “But we’ll give it a try.”
Medina reached into his shirt pocket, brought out the papers from Luac’s notebook. “Here. You’ll want these.”
Garson put the papers inside his own shirt.
Medina touched his reins. The big bay reared, turned, and they were off, racing across the meadow.
At noon they stopped where a narrow stream tumbled from rocks in a tree-marked watercourse. The air was cool with spray from the waterfall.
Medina tethered the horses while Garson and Anita Luac clambered down a clay bank to a sandbar beside the stream. Anita Luac waded across. Garson sat down on a log in the shade of the clay bank.
From the other side of the stream, Anita Luac called back: “Choco! Bring firewood. We can have tea.”
Medina answered from above Garson. “Sí, Señorita.”
There came the sound of limbs breaking. A shower of dirt rained onto Garson. He looked up, saw part of the clay bank give way under Medina. The big Mexican fell on his side, began pulling himself upright with the aid of a vine. More earth caved from beneath his feet.
As Garson watched, the revolver slipped out of Medina’s upended holster, slid down the clay bank. Garson picked it up, glanced across the stream at Anita Luac. She held a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide. He looked up at Medina on the clay bank. The Mexican had regained his feet. His pockmarked face carried a strange, set look, and he was staring across the stream to the bank above Anita Luac.
A horse whinnied behind Garson. He turned, still holding the revolver.
Raul Separdo sat astride a giant black stallion, outlined against the sky above Anita Luac. He held a rifle carelessly across the pommel, its muzzle pointing at Medina. Behind Separdo ranged three other riders, all carrying rifles.
They looked like nothing more than a raiding party of bandits. Separdo wore a black sombrero.
Separdo grinned. “What a pleasant surprise!”
Garson nodded.
Separdo looked at Medina. “Buenas tardes, Choco. I see that you have loaned your gun to Mr. Garson. What a pity! I would so enjoy another demonstration such as the one you gave at the lake this morning.”
My God! He means to kill Choco!
Garson cocked the revolver. The sound broke loudly on the tense quiet.
“Ah!” said Separdo. “Perhaps Mr. Garson would like to give us a demonstration with the revolver?” He spoke over his shoulder to one of the riders. “Pánfil! Un pedazo de madera, por favor!”
A piece of wood! Then the name “Pánfil” registered. Have we been betrayed?
One of the riders dismounted, searched the ground, came up with a piece of wood.
“Show us how you can hit the piece of wood, Mr. Garson,” said Separdo. “Pánfil!”
The man on the ground threw the wood into the air.
In that split second, knowing he could not hit the wood, Garson took a desperate gamble. He snapped a shot at Separdo. The Mexican’s hat jerked from his head. His horse reared. He lost his grip on the rifle, which tipped forward, fell over the bank to Anita Luac’s feet.
She snatched it up.
Garson stared at the confusion of milling horses on the streambank. My God! I hit his hat!
Separdo regained control of his mount, reined it up at the edge of the bank. His face was livid with fury.
Anita Luac stood beneath him, the rifle held at the ready. Separdo surveyed the scene.
“You do not like the small target?”
“I choose my own targets, Raul.”
Separdo’s hands tightened on the reins. “But Choco hit his target five times.”
“I thought I might need the other four shots.”
Separdo nodded. His lips trembled. “Did you hit what you aimed at, Mr. Garson?”
“Do you want to see another shot two inches lower?”
Separdo tensed, eyes wide, a wild light in them.
Behind Garson, Medina laughed. “Try him, Raul!”
Slowly, Separdo stilled his trembling. A smile like a nervous grimace touched his mouth and then vanished. “Perhaps we should continue on our separate ways.”
“Perhaps that would be best,” said Garson.
Separdo looked down at Anita Luac. “I will trouble you for the return of my rifle, Nita.”
“I think I’ll borrow it for the rest of the day,” she said. “Maybe I’ll find a target to my liking.”
He stared at her, turned to the man standing behind him on the ground, then looked to another of the riders. “Jorge! Give Pánfil another drink.”
Then Garson realized that the Mexican who had thrown the piece of wood was drunk, swaying, eyes glassy. One of the riders handed a bottle of tequila to the standing man.
“Tómelo!” snapped Separdo.
The man on the ground stared up at Separdo, lifted the bottle to his lips, drained it, threw the bottle to the creekbank.
“Pánfil w
as mending fences,” said Separdo. “But we have other work for him today.” He motioned for the man to remount his horse.
Pánfil staggered across to his horse, climbed aboard.
Separdo turned to Garson. “Adiosito, Mr. Garson.”
Garson motioned with the revolver.
The four riders wheeled their horses, galloped away.
Medina slid down the clay bank to Garson’s side, took back the revolver. Anita Luac splashed back across the stream, holding the rifle high.
“You were wise not to kill him,” said Medina. He bent over the revolver, replacing the spent cartridge. “His men would’ve slaughtered us.”
“What about your friend, Pánfil?”
“I suspect that his rifle was empty.”
Anita Luac said, “You are a man of many surprises, Hal.”
Medina holstered his revolver, looked at Anita Luac. “Has Pánfil betrayed us?”
“Never!”
“Then I …”
In the distance came the sound of a ragged volley of rifle shots, then the cold clear snap of the Luger.
“That bastard!” gritted Medina. “I’m sorry now you didn’t aim two inches lower!”
“What was that?” asked Garson. But he felt that he knew.
“Pánfil,” said Anita Luac.
“Did they kill him?”
She turned on Garson, her face suffused with rage. “Of course they killed him! The same way they killed poor Eduardo! The same way—” She broke off. Tears filled her eyes.
Garson turned, looked appraisingly at Medina. “Choco, did you know that Maria Gomez calls Raul ‘La Yegua’?”
Medina stared into the distance. “I have suspected the connection for several days. How did you find out?”
Garson explained about the vent.
“Thank you, Mr. Garson,” said Medina.
“For what?”
“For saving my life today … and for saving Raul for me. He’s mine!”
“We’d better go straight back to the hacienda,” said Anita Luac.
When they returned to the hacienda, Anita Luac stepped out of the boat, ran down the dock and across the terrace. Garson climbed to the dock, heard her calling for her father in the house.
Medina chained the boat to the dock, weighed the snap lock in his hand, hurled it into the lake, turned to Garson. “When I was with Villa, my brother loaned me for a time to be a batboy for an observer who came to us from Germany.”
“Oh?”
“The observer’s name was Rommel. He later became a famous general under Hitler.”
Garson studied Medina’s ugly face, wondering at the motive for this conversation. “Rommel of North Africa? The Desert Fox?”
“The same. Rommel was a colonel when I knew him. One day he said to me, he said, ‘Chocito, to win a war is a very simple thing: You must be on the right side, and you must always be ready to surprise the enemy.’”
“To do the unexpected?”
Medina smiled, touched his mustache. “Sí!”
“What brought this up, Choco?”
“Today, you surprised the enemy twice.”
“And he surprised us once.”
Medina shook his head. “No. Nothing that swine does should surprise us! Nothing!”
“Am I also on the right side, Choco?”
Medina grinned. “That is for the Good Lord to decide, my friend. But I think you are.”
Anita Luac and Garson ate dinner alone that night. The crone served them silently, avoiding Garson’s eyes.
“Where are your father and Choco?” asked Garson.
“They are talking in his study.”
“Has Raul returned?”
“No.”
At the mention of Separdo’s name, Maria Gomez looked at Garson. An evil smile touched the old woman’s lips. She nodded once.
Would she poison him? wondered Garson. Then: How much time have we? Has Raul contacted the mysterious Olaf yet?
Garson finished eating, turned, stared out at the garden. He felt tense, uneasy.
Anita Luac put down her fork, got to her feet. “I would like to show you something.”
Garson stood up, looked down at her. “What?”
She held out her hand, took Garson’s. “Come.”
They went out the front, around the house and along a sanded trail that sloped up to a low ridge looking down on the swamp and lake. Garson paused on the ridge, listening. He heard a truck motor laboring, looked down the lake to the mysterious building. It reminded him that he still did not know the basic secret of the hacienda: The role of Luac’s occupation.
The afternoon sun cast long shadows across the lake, and the shadows hid the edges of the mysterious building.
What do they do there?
“This way,” said Anita Luac. She tugged at Garson’s hand. Her palm felt warm and trusting against his.
They went down the opposite side of the ridge into a garden grove of eucalyptus trees. Two rock-bordered graves with stone crosses occupied the far side of the grove.
My day for visiting graves!
“I have a feeling I will never see this place again,” said Anita Luac. She stopped beside the graves. “My mother and my brother. He died when I was very small. Fever.” She disengaged her hand, sat down on the grass beside the grave, spread her skirt. “I used to play here when I was little. This was a separate pretend world all my own.”
Garson had a sudden mental picture of a doe-eyed girl—like an enchanted naiad—playing in the grove by the lake. The thought filled him with sadness.
Bats began swooping about them in the warm evening air.
“Why did you bring me here?” he asked.
She looked up at him, shrugged. “It was a whim.”
“You must have been a lonely child.”
She got to her feet, brushed her skirt. “Yes. But I didn’t realize it at the time.” She smiled. “I had the ghosts here. Do you believe in ghosts?”
“I don’t know what to believe about ghosts.”
“I’ve never made any big decision of my life without consulting these ghosts.”
“Did you come here this time to make a decision?”
Again she shrugged, kept her face averted.
Garson moved closer. She drew away. He followed, touched her shoulder. She turned, stared up at him, a look of total absorption in her large eyes, as though she drew into them everything that she saw.
With a fierce possessiveness, Garson pulled her to him, bent his mouth to hers. She seemed passive at first, then a fluttery response awakened her. The kiss became something explosive, demanding. He was totally aware of every place where their bodies touched. Her left hand went behind his neck. She moved her head softly from side to side, never breaking the kiss.
He dropped his right hand to her waist, bent her back. She yielded, then stiffened. Slowly, she pushed him away, stood before him, breathing rapidly, one hand at her throat.
Garson regained self-control as though it seeped upward from his toes. His breathing slowed, and he became conscious of the look in her eyes, the light of mockery.
“No man ever kissed me like that before,” she said.
He swallowed. “How did it make you feel?”
She drew in a deep breath, shook her head without removing her attention from his face. “It filled me with … with a sense of power!”
She’s making a fool of me! he thought. They’re using me! And she’s the bait!
“Power over me?”
“No. Power over life.”
God help me! I don’t care if I’m being used!
He reached for her, but she pulled away.
And he thought: How would a man like Luac train his daughter? To take and never to give!
Swift tropic darkness settled across the grove.
“Shall we be getting back?” she asked.
The moon sent a faint, ghostly light through the trees. Garson tried to see her face by the glowing, failed. She was a shadow against
shadows.
“We should have thought of that earlier,” he said.
“Sorry you came?” She sounded lightly unconcerned.
“Always glad to further my education,” he said.
Garson left her at the rear door of the house, sat down on the rough wood bench beside the door. His leg and thigh muscles were beginning to complain after the day on horseback. There was a dull ache behind his eyes that the soggy warmth of the night did nothing to ease.
For the first time, he began to review the day. It left him with a sense of shaking horror. And the mysterious Olaf loomed over it all like the sinister embodiment of everything evil that could be seen in Raul Separdo.
What are Luac and Medina planning? Why don’t they draw me into their conference?
My God! Why did I have to let myself fall for that woman?
The door beside him opened, closed. Choco Medina joined him on the bench.
“Why is the Señorita crying?” he asked.
Crying?
“I don’t know, Choco. Maybe she’s afraid. The Lord knows I certainly am.”
“Where did you go on your walk?”
“A grove of trees over there. The graves of her mother and brother.”
“Ahh. Perhaps that is it.” Medina nodded. “I came out to tell you how the situation stands.”
“Black?”
“Very black, but perhaps not hopeless.”
“I knew it when Separdo rode up on us that way.”
“There are some things in our favor. For one, Olaf is in Guatemala. He will not return for several days. For another, Raul sent word to Maria Gomez that she should dope our food tonight to make us sleep.”
“What’s he planning?”
“I think he is planning to come across the lake by night and take over control of the hacienda with his men, but thanks to you we are warned.”
“Thanks to me?”
“Maria came to us as soon as she received the message. She wants revenge on Raul.”
“I don’t understand that, Choco. All I had to do was tell her it was Raul who killed her son—and she believed me.”
“She has been with the Luacs for sixteen years, my friend. She needed only to have someone tell her what her instincts already knew.”
“Why didn’t he just take us today, Choco?”
“Raul? I’ve been trying to answer that question. I think it was because the Señorita had the rifle. He knew he’d have to kill her to take it, and he does not want to do that.”
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