by RW Krpoun
“I’m tempted to hunt down the rest of the Indios,” I eyed the hills. “They have worn out their welcome.”
“Jungle runners in grassy hills,” Captain grinned at the prospect. “Should be just hard enough to be interesting. But we ought to get back to our main job.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “The Presidio San Felipe is twenty miles on the other side Sinaloa with two companies of infantry and some artillery, and that’s about our best chance to get help. After them we check with the rebels and the gun-dealers each in turn. Maybe we can check a couple places where they dug stuff up along the way, then head back here.”
“Just in time for the massacre,” Mac observed dourly.
“You’re free, white, and of age,” I pointed out. “You want to head north, I’ll send my report with you. Could be your mama raised a boy with some sense.”
“Nah, she didn’t. I just wish we could get a better position to make a stand. That place just looks tough.”
“Walls don’t mean that much, it’s who is defending them that matters. The Boxers had all sorts of walls, but they couldn’t keep us out.”
“”Four of us ain’t exactly a massive force.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of unnerving.” I watched Pork Chop’s ears for a bit. “But what the hell, I’m not leaving many who would weep for me.”
“My folks are all gone,” the big man nodded somberly.
“That’s kind of a comfort. In any case, it’ll do your folks proud in the next world, their lad standing between a bunch of orphans and a howling mob. That’s the sort of thing they write dime novels about.”
Mac barked a laugh. “Dime novels. You ever read any?”
“A couple. Hard to get through-the fella that wrote ‘em hadn’t seen much.”
“Yeah.” He was silent for a while. “What if we don’t stop them?”
I rubbed my scar. “Hadn’t really thought about that.”
“Dying don’t rest heavy on me-we risk that every job. But not seeing the thing through, now, that makes my skin crawl. You get a look at those kids?”
I shrugged. “They’re kids.”
“They’re orphans. They’re kids nobody wanted, kids who outlived their families early on. There’s some hard stories amongst ‘em. Real hard, like you and I only think we’re hard. They don’t deserve this.”
“Well, nobody does.”
“Yeah, but these kids-you know why they work so hard? It ain’t the fear of a strap that does it, its because those monks and nuns are the only family they got. A run-down old fort in the middle of damn Mexico is the best place they ever seen, it’s everything to them. And all they got between them and bloody murder is three Pinkertons, one little girl in trousers, and a dipshit rebel-lover.”
“Hey!” Billy started to spur alongside the big man but subsided, muttering, when I waved him back.
“Well, the dice aren’t cast yet, Mac; we may get more guns before the attack begins. Even if we don’t, it ain’t going to be a walk in the park with a pretty girl for those jaspers. It’s still a horse race no matter how this trip plays out.”
“I hope so.”
It was unsettling to think about losing; I can’t say I was excited about risking death, but on the other hand it wasn’t anything new. Thinking on the children, whom I had mostly ignored when in the presidio, I saw what Mac meant: they were the stake in this game, not the balance of my misspent life. The little girl with her doll, the girl who loved her pigeons, Red Hawk, Tobias, and all of the noisy, cheerful crew that populated the place. I hadn’t really paid attention to most of them, but that was just my way-children were always someone’s else’s business.
“He is a man of deep thought,” Nhi said softly a while later, inclining her turban towards Mac, who was riding a little ahead and arguing with Captain about goats.
“Yeah, still waters run deep. Other’n arguing about animals with Captain he won’t say ten words in a given day.
“The three of you are like brothers.”
“I pity the mother who had three like us,” I grinned. “Yeah, we do well together. Green Coat’s going to regret not coming for us when he had the chance. However this plays out, they’ll know they were in a fight.”
“Men,” she sighed. “The good ones will die for pride, no matter where they were born.”
“So what’s your story?”
She shrugged. “I learned the skills, then I put them to use. There is more in money guarding a gunrunner than a merchant, more money guarding a man who travels than who stays in the colony. Thus I arrive in Mexico.”
“What was the money for?”
“For a younger sister and brother; a dowry and education. We were raised by the Church in a place not unlike that presidio.”
“So did you earn the dowry and the education?”
“Yes,” she said with satisfaction.
“So why did you end up this deep in Mexico?”
She smiled. “Perhaps I was looking for a good man with good sense. There must be one somewhere.”
“Can’t help you there.” We rode in companionable silence for a bit. “Where will you go if we survive this mess?”
“I do not know. I had a purpose and now it is done, so I must drift like a leaf until another purpose appears. These orphans, they are a purpose, but that will not last long.”
“That’s what you do? Wait for a purpose to appear?”
“It works,” she shrugged. “I gathered my sum, saw to my family. My master dies, and now there are orphans. The Lord sets my feet to a path, and I follow.”
“Interesting.”
“Do you not see your feet on such a path?”
“Me? I doubt the Lord selected my path. I doubt He would approve of what the Army had me doing.”
“No? You know that when the centurion sent for his slave to be healed he was praised for his faith, not condemned for his position.”
“True.”
“You chose to be an American soldier, yes?”
“Yes, we volunteer.”
“Why did you volunteer?”
“I dunno. Just because, I suppose.”
“So perhaps that is your path: to be a soldier, to learn to fight well, to learn you can be wounded and still live. So that when your path crosses this madman you have the skills to act against him.”
I rubbed my scar. “You’re saying that everything I’ve done was to prepare me for this?”
She adjusted her turban. “Perhaps. Brother Andrew pointed out the Lord does not send angels, just men. Who is to say He does not arrange for a right sort of men to be where they are needed?”
“That is a long time in the planning.”
“The New Testament says a thousand years and a day are the same thing to the Lord.”
“So you think your path was arranged so you ended up here?”
She shrugged. “I can fight as well as most, better than some. My obligations are met, which was a blessing, and then I find myself here.”
“Interesting.”
“After all, the darkness has been working towards this for a long time-the sunstone has been sleeping in hiding for centuries waiting for the right man with the right plan at the right time. This madman has been laboring for much of his life to bring himself to this point.”
“You know, women have been telling me what to do and think since I took my first breath.”
“There is a saying in my land, it means…men create glory, war, and wealth. Women create civilization.”
“Uh-huh.”
Nhi grinned. “Men make that sound in all nations.”
Killing the Chuj had gotten us off to a slower start than I had planned but we made up some time cutting across country and since our mounts were pretty rested so we pushed hard. Even so, the horizon was slicing into the sun when we reached the presidio, which was an unwalled modern facility.
“That doesn’t look good,” Captain reined in. A half mile away the military installation squatted atop a low rise, with a sma
ll cluster of houses and a cantina at the base of the rise. Even at this distance we could see that there were no lights, no smoke, and no movement. Advancing alertly through the ruddy light of the sunset we closed the distance at a trot, slowing as we covered the last hundred yards to the little village.
“Doors left open,” Captain observed.
“Yeah, they went for the presidio,” I gestured with the Krag’s muzzle. “There’s bodies on the slope.”
“Not many,” Nhi frowned, her Luger carbine ready.
“Let’s go see why.”
The corpses on the slope were headshot, and from a cursory glance as we passed I guessed that they had been infected before they had been put down.
What was waiting on the rise was a lot worse than dead crazies. Billy threw up, and to be honest I had to struggle to keep from following his example. Whoever had been in charge of the crazies had caught the garrison off-guard, or maybe they hadn’t gotten the word about aiming for the head. Just like the cavalry post there were a few head-shot bodies and a couple of suicides but otherwise no adults: they were soldiering under a new banner now.
What there was here, were children. They were strung up in a row by the heels from a covered walkway in front of the officers’ quarters. What had been done to them before they died didn’t bear thinking about.
The worst bit, for me at least, was the piece of butcher paper tied to the youngest one’s ankle with a length of twine. Someone had swiped a triangle and a crude eye onto the paper with blood.
“Green Coat?” Captain asked as I stared at the paper.
“Likely,” I had trouble speaking levelly. “They know we’re Pinkertons. I would really like to know how they learned that.”
“Yeah.”
“But I’ll settle for seeing him dead.”
“That’s something you can take to the bank. We’re going to put him down like a rabid dog.”
“The sooner the better.”
We buried the children by lantern light, a crude burial but the best we could manage under the circumstances. Standing over the mounded mass grave with my hat in my hand and the weight of the world pressing down upon on me, I wondered what the blazes I was supposed to do. Green Coat or his boss had just taken out two companies of infantry, and now most of those same soldiers lurched along in his ranks. Failure had never seemed so sure before.
Then Nhi slipped her hand into mine, and I’m not ashamed to say I hung on for dear life. The gesture cracked my mood, and the longer I stared at the turned earth the angrier I got, not a blind rage but the cold sort of killing mood that keeps a man fighting long after good sense told him to quit.
“Where did they go from here?” I asked Captain, who was staring at the grave with a distant look on his face.
“Huh? Oh, south.”
“South?”
“Yeah.”
“The orphans are east.”
“I know that; I expect Green Coat knows it, too.”
I sighed. “You see the armory?”
“Yeah, looks like they piled up everything and burned it, including two little howitzers we really could have used.”
“Better they didn’t try to use them against us. Still, they’re changing things up.”
“That means we’re having an effect, the note, too.”
“I wonder how they’re communicating between groups?” Mac said with his usual abruptness.
“The scouts said riders.”
“Yeah. They must be doing a round-robin, sharing messages with all detachments,” the big man said thoughtfully.
“You think they write in Spanish or Chuj?” I caught where he was going.
“More importantly, a dispatch rider has to know where to go,” Captain rubbed his hands. “If we could lay hands on one, we could have a chat about that.”
“Not if he’s Chuj.”
“I bet Chuj don’t write-the doc said nobody could read the old writing. These are back hills boys; I doubt there’s a scholar amongst ‘em. They may be true believers, but in the end they’re just the help.”
“The scouts said two riders a day,” I rubbed my scar. “Morning and night-you suppose they have a garrison in Sinaloa?”
“Yesterday we killed more Chuj than was needed to move one wagon, and they had no real camp gear along.”
“I wonder why they bother with the town?”
Mac was studying the map Brother Paul had given us. “Because its at the center-everything we’ve done, and that we know they have done, is in an area centered on the town.”
I took a look. “Sumbitch. How did we miss that?”
“I dunno about you, but dead people walking around tends to throw me off my stride, hoss,” Captain confessed. “It’s always been a weakness of mine.”
“That’s the message center.” I tapped the paper. “Everything this bastard has done has been planned down to the last bullet and bean. They even had a spare guy to do their checking for them.” I tapped the map again. “They’re coordinating everything like a good watch. Brother Andrew threw them off by fortifying his orphanage, but they adapted. They’re neutralizing every source of resistance and building an army to storm the orphanage or to hold off anyone who tries to interfere.”
“It ain’t that fortified,” Captain objected. “Sure, it looks good, but half the locals have cut and ran since we’ve been in the area.”
“Solid enough,” Mac rubbed his mustaches. “Those kids are young but game, and with the grenades and other tricks Brother Andrew has up his sleeve they will wreak havoc. Then we showed up and got them a Chinese mechanic and more guns.”
“A setback, but not a crippling one,” I put my hat back on. “When he comes for the kids he’ll come with everything he’s got. Until then he just needs to ensure that the kids stay put.”
“When will he make his move?” Captain asked.
“It’s a military campaign: before he begins a siege he’ll secure his flanks and mass a sufficient force. He’ll move on the local rebels and knock out the train station so the government can’t react quickly. Are there any other forces in the area? All right, tomorrow Billy and I will go meet the rebels, and meet the arms dealer at the train station; the rest of you pick up a dispatch-rider and check the sites Brother Paul put on the map. We’ll meet back at the Alamo.”
Captain and Mac chuckled at that, but Nhi looked uncertain. “I’ll explain later,” I assured her.
Our night camp was in a small but comfortably-furnished house some distance from the cantina, chosen because we felt that any watchers would have expected us to stay at the presidio. We stood watches, and prepared to move before dawn, moving quickly. The children and the scope of the necromancer’s plan were weighing on everyone’s spirits-even Tobias was subdued. Myself, I had been troubled by a dream in which hordes of Mexican dead shambled north into the southern USA. I had awakened chilled to the bone.
Nhi was bent at the waist brushing her hair forward when I returned to the house after saddling Pork Chop. Her hair was waist-length and glossy; she twisted it and swept it into a sort of flat bun with a few graceful moves and then skewered it into place with a couple of wood clips. Noticing me, she smiled as she took the cloth tossed over her shoulder and swiftly tied it into a turban, which up to now I had assumed was a formed head piece, not just a scarf.
“We’re about ready to go,” I said uncomfortably.
“Can you trust him?” She kept her voice down.
“Him, yeah. His rebel friends, I don’t know. That’s why you three are going to be elsewhere: in case I need rescuing.”
“Has anyone ever rescued you before?”
“No, but I’ve gotten some very timely help in the past.”
She grinned at that. “You are a strange man, Seth Peak.”
“No good sense, though.”
She shrugged. “Perhaps good sense is just a woman’s dream. The mother superior of my orphanage was often heard to say that boys grow older without growing wiser.”
It
was my turn to shrug. “It’s too late in the game for me.” I paused, uneasy. “Whatever happens, Nhi, I’m glad I met you.”
She smiled, a smaller, softer one, and quickly stood on her toes to kiss me as Captain approached from behind me.
“We’re set,” he slapped me on the shoulder. “Can you trust the rebels?”
“Maybe. Be flexible in your thinking-I might need saving before this day is done.”
“Might roll the other way,” he grinned.
Billy was quiet as we rode west, the rising sun hidden by the low-hanging clouds. “You know where we are going?” I asked after a couple miles.
“Somewhat. I can find outposts, scouting points. They’re laying low, regrouping.”
“What am I heading into?”
He sighed. “People who are tired of being peons. They are tired of a century having passed since the colonial rule was thrown off and still being under an iron heel.”
“Mexico didn’t kick out the Spanish until about eighty years ago.”
“Eighty years, then.”
“Then the French carved out an Empire here while we were busy with the Civil War…”
“All right, so half a century! What difference does it make?”
“Could be a lot of difference. When people, especially Mexicans, get worked up they don’t always make the best decisions. And why is it always an iron heel? Somebody stands on your head, what difference does the footgear make? And how would the heel stay attach to the sole? It would be really heavy…”
“Seth,” Billy was struggling with his temper. “Don’t do this.”
“My point is you’re getting caught up in a lot of flowery talk. When you get down to the base wood, what are they really fighting about?”
“Land reform. Nearly all the land belongs to rich absentee landowners.”
“So this is more of a robbery than a revolution.”
“No, it is a way to uplift the common people.”
“From what I’m seeing the common people are catching it in the neck. You really think they’ll give ninety acres and a mule to every peon if they win? Or will the rebel generals just become rich landowners and the boys who did the fighting and bleeding will get the official thanks and be told to head home?”