The trio disappeared through another servant entrance, one that took them deep into the house. Zhan Fu crept along behind them on the balls of his feet, matching their footfalls to mask the sound of his passing. He needn’t have bothered. The Russians were complaining loudly at the quality of the food, the lack of sleep, and a hundred other concerns. The general placated them as best as he could, but his tone suggested he was weary of them, as well.
Finally they emerged out of a side entrance to an enclosed porch. Zhan Fu stopped at the door and watched. This was a service entrance to the house and parked alongside the porch was a large truck with a canvas-covered bed. The general began barking orders, while the Cossacks lit cigars and smoked. Red Brigade troops appeared and clambered into the back of the truck. The general called out to the Russians and they stepped off of the porch and got into the cab. The general took the keys from a driver and got into the truck and started it up.
Zhan Fu had seconds to act. He darted from his hiding place and sprinted for the truck. His run was blocked by the canvas sides and the cover of darkness. The truck found first gear and the general popped the clutch. Zhan Fu slid under the truck and grabbed the metal frame and hoisted himself up as the vehicle lurched forward. While the truck was slowly navigating the driveway, Zhan Fu adjusted his grip and forced himself to slow his breathing. One of the cross struts had a small lip that allowed him to wedge his feet in place. He wrapped his arms around the beam and held on for dear life.
* * *
By the time the truck stopped, Zhan Fu’s greatcoat was in tatters, and his arms had lost their circulation completely. The ride had been a nightmare of ruts, sprayed gravel, rocks, the occasional dead animal carcass, and enough jolts and bounces to kill an ordinary man. Zhan Fu let go as the truck slowed, fell heavily to the ground, and tumbled into the drainage ditch beside the dirt road and lay still as his body slowly recovered from the ride.
The Red Brigade members jumped out of the truck. Zhan Fu listened carefully and counted ten men. Then a box scraped and hit the ground with a loud crack. The Cossacks appeared and angrily yelled at the soldiers in Russian. Then the general joined in, swearing in Spanish, and four men picked up the box and lifted it onto their shoulders. The rest of the men grabbed torches and other supplies and set off into the desert with the box bearers and the Cossacks and the general bringing up the rear.
Zhan Fu waited until they were well away before he attempted to stand. The numbness in his legs subsided and his arms gradually got their feeling back. He flexed his hands, grateful for the movement. He pulled the paper packet out of his jacket pocket and then shed the remnants of the greatcoat, dropping it into the ditch. He also took off his jacket, and underneath was a leather harness on his back, held in place under each arm. He stuffed the paper packet down into his left boot and reached behind his back with both hands. In a flash, he was holding twin Chinese fighting axes, their edges gleaming in the moonlight. He spun them in wide arcs, grateful for their weight.
Satisfied they’d made the trip intact, he replaced the axes on his back. He dropped his hands to the pearl handled Colts tied down on his thighs and drew them, sighting along each barrel. They were both fully loaded. He spun the pistols once and holstered them. As he set out to follow the soldiers into the desert, he pulled out the leather thong keeping his long straight black hair in check. He rolled up his sleeves, over his elbows, as he caught up to the procession. He crouched down low, guided by their incessant noise, and trailed along behind the men as they trudged through the desert.
A half an hour later, the Red Brigade descended into a valley bordered by a series of low hills. Zhan Fu broke off from his pursuit and climbed one of the hills that dropped off into a steep embankment. He kept low and crawled forward as the men sat down, swearing and smoking.
One of the Cossacks turned to the general and said, “Reyes, we must hurry while the moon is high in the sky. Tell these men to get to work!”
General Reyes turned and fired off a list of commands in Spanish. As his men hastened to their tasks, he turned back to the Cossacks. “Please remember you are guests in my country and address me with the proper respect in front of my men.”
The other Cossack snorted. “We are only here because of the gold you paid, Comrade. We are mercenaries, not revolutionaries. Do not let our formal titles lull you into thinking we are on the same side.”
“All the more reason to treat me with a modicum of respect,” said Reyes. “I’m your employer.” The soldiers had opened up the crate and were now recoiling in horror and crossing themselves. Reyes snarled and turned back to them and shouted insults in Spanish until they began to work again. They walked the crate over to the Cossacks and backed away, muttering. The Cossacks ignored them, bent over, and began fiddling with the crate’s contents.
The rest of the Red Brigade brought out the torches and lit them and formed a rough circle around the General and the Cossacks. The general was anxious; he paced back and forth and spoke in low tones to his men. At long last, the Cossacks stood up and backed away from the crate. Zhan Fu leaned closer, straining to see the contents by the torchlight.
A skeletal hand appeared and grasped the side of the crate. The Red Brigade soldiers gasped and backed up as the thing came out of the box, wobbling on unsteady legs powered by atrophied muscles. The corpse was thin, rotted flesh stretched tight over a skeleton, and dressed in a purple robe and cloak. The face was paper parchment skin and yellowed bone, but the black, unkempt beard that blew in the wind and the red, piercing eyes were unmistakable: It was Rasputin, the mad monk. Not dead, as was widely reported, but not alive, either.
“Behold!” Reyes screamed. “The Unkillable Spirit of a Great Nation! Now, here, to help us in our darkest hour!”
The men looked ready to run, but Reyes’ words kept them in place.
“How long, my brothers, have we fought the corrupt and decadent aristocracy for scraps of food, to farm the land we live on, for control of our own future? And how many lives has it cost us?”
Despite the unnatural horror standing behind their general, the men were starting to rally.
“How many brothers and friends have we lost to gunfire? To ineptitude? How many lives were taken over the years? Our women, our children? Our land!” The general was pacing, his arms high, his eyes wild in the torch light. “Here, on this very ground! My bloodiest battle was fought here—a massacre that cost me the lives of all my men. Over a thousand brothers, slaughtered like dogs, cut down in their prime! And for what?”
Reyes clenched his fist and shook it at the sky. His madness had fully overtaken him.
“Tonight, those fallen friends and brothers will be our answer! They will rise again to show that our fight for an equal share will never die! Tonight, we march with our dead to Fort Bliss! And we will kill the Americans and make Texas acknowledge our sovereign rights, and we will take El Paso for our own as payment for the tens of thousands of Mexicans who shed their blood while they did nothing to help us!”
The Red Brigade cheered, and brandished their pistols in the torch light. Reyes turned to the mummified Rasputin and backed up. The lich came forward into the center of the makeshift circle and opened its mouth wide and tilted its head back and shrieked into the night, an unearthly howl of doom that echoed through the hills. The noise silenced the soldiers’ revelry and they began looking around, visibly uneasy.
Zhan Fu had seen enough. He drew his axes and slid down the embankment, bursting through the soldiers who were already spooked to begin with, and ran straight for the undead Rasputin. Reyes saw him and drew his pistol, but the Cossacks beat him to it and leapt in front of the lich with curved sabers drawn.
Zhan Fu continued his headlong gait and as the first Cossack stepped forward, his saber in motion, Zhan Fu dropped and slid underneath the larger man’s legs, dragging his axes overhead to bite deep into the man’s groin. He dropped to the ground in a pool of his own entrails as Zhan Fu rolled to his feet and caught the other
Cossack’s saber with one of his axes, stopping the downward killing stroke aimed at his neck. He kicked backward, aiming for the Cossack’s leg and it gave a loud pop as it snapped at the knee. The Russian bellowed and fell forward, swinging wildly. Zhan Fu easily avoided the flashing blade and threw an axe into the man’s head. He pitched backward in a spray of blood and thrashed on the ground.
Reyes had recovered by now and leveled his pistol at Zhan Fu. He flicked his other axe out, and it stuck in Reyes’ shoulder. He shrieked and dropped the pistol and screamed, “Get him, you fools!”
Zhan Fu drew his Colts and whirled in a circle, shooting the soldiers as they stood with their mouths open. The flickering torches and the screaming general and Rasputin made aiming difficult, but he managed to drop five of the troops before they could draw a bead on him. As return gunfire filled the valley floor, Zhan Fu leapt forward and grabbed his axe from the Cossack’s corpse and cut the hand of the nearest Red Brigade soldier off at the wrist.
The valley was a nightmare landscape of blood and fire, screams and confusion. Zhan Fu was surrounded by soldiers, firing wildly and dodging their own gunfire. Reyes was crouched in the darkness, trying to pick up his pistol with his left hand. Zhan Fu spared a glance over his shoulder and a soldier’s rapier nearly skewered him. Rasputin was nowhere to be seen. He cursed and flipped backward, away from the soldiers and kicked Reyes to the ground. He pulled his axe out of Reyes’s shoulder and turned to the four men remaining as they backed him up against one of the steeper hill slopes. Their torches rendered their faces into ghastly shapes. Weapons glinted in the flickering light.
“Surrender, and you’ll walk out of here alive,” Zhan Fu said.
“Kill him!” moaned Reyes.
The soldiers hesitated. Zhan Fu appeared less a man and more a primal shape in the gloom. His axes were red to the grips with gore and he stood, legs braced, eyes dark and cruel. He met the frightened stare of each man. No one moved. Zhan Fu smiled. “Who’s first?”
One of the soldiers in the middle found what was left of his courage and lifted his sword. It was all the movement Zhan Fu needed. He threw both axes in opposite directions and the two soldiers on either end of the group went down, gasping and twitching. The soldier who lifted his sword changed actions and thrust his blade at Zhan Fu, but he was no longer there. Zhan Fu leapt up, scissoring his legs and rotating his waist for added velocity and took out the third soldier who still hadn’t moved. Zhan Fu picked up his sword and exchanged passes with the remaining soldier, who was now hacking away madly in a blind panic. He screaming and charged Zhan Fu, who dodged the man and cracked him on the back of the skull with the pommel of his sword. He dropped the sword, retrieved one of his axes and turned to Reyes, intending to finish the job. Instead he stopped and stared.
The Cossacks were both standing, their eyes empty and void. Rasputin was between them, his face frozen into a post mortem grin of malice. Reyes had struggled to his feet and was now behind the two reanimated Russians, cackling wildly. “You see? You see!” He pointed to Zhan Fu and said, “Kill him!”
The two Cossacks didn’t hesitate. They charged forward, guided by supernatural instinct. Zhan Fu got one look at the ruinous axe wound in the lead Cossack’s face and decided he needed both axes after all. He dodged left and backed up until he found it stuck in the chest of a soldier and pulled it free. He was just about to engage the monsters when the dead soldier grabbed his leg and he hit the dirt. Zhan Fu kicked backward and the soldier’s head snapped backward like it was on a spring hinge. He stood up, free, and looked on in horror as one by one, the men he’d just killed staggered back to life and began shuffling his way.
Zhan Fu backed away, looking for a place to launch an attack that wouldn’t leave him vulnerable to one himself. He was watching Reyes out of the corner of his eyes, and noticed the general had stopped ranting. Something told Zhan Fu to turn around and he spun around, bringing an axe with him.
There were hundreds of them, maybe more. An army of fallen soldiers, brought back to life by the lich’s terrible song. They carried ruined rifles, dirt clogged pistols, broken spears—whatever they held as they died. They were close, and clawing their way out of the ground as quickly as they could. Zhan Fu’s axe head struck one of the undead in the chest, caving it in with a splinter of bone. It fell, but continued to move forward, pulling itself along with one good arm.
“Use his blood to coat your weapons in vengeance and glory!” Reyes screamed.
They were everywhere, closing in on all sides. This was the army they promised to raise, and they would not be killed with farm tools and sticks. Zhan Fu couldn’t fight them all. There was no way. But the one thing he could do was hinder their progress.
“General Reyes,” he said. “Will you not face me in one-on-one combat?”
“I think not,” said Reyes. He raised his pistol. “I am terrible with my left hand, but I think I don’t have to be a good shot right now.”
“No,” Zhan Fu said, “but you should know better than to talk when action is called for.” Zhan Fu hurled his axe and caught Reyes in the neck, just above the breastbone. The axe turned his laugh into a gurgle and he fell to the ground again. It was all the opening Zhan Fu needed. He wheeled and ran, jumping over the writhing general, and made for the hills and the truck. As Zhan Fu ran through the desert, he could hear the clatter and crunch of the bones of the resurrected army as they began their march to Juarez.
* * *
Back at the truck, Zhan Fu slid to a gasping halt and took out the paper package from his boot and unwrapped it. It was a selection of fireworks, small rockets mounted on sticks. He chose one, jammed the stick into the ground, pointing north east, and lit it with a match from a small tinder box. Within seconds, the firework shot into the night sky and exploded in a great flash of green. It hung in the air for several seconds before dissipating. Zhan Fu watched until he couldn’t see it anymore, and then he stuffed the remaining fireworks back in his boot. He jumped into the truck, started it, and sped off down the dirt road toward the city.
The ride was chaotic and harrowing. Coming back down the road in the driver’s seat was only slightly less uncomfortable than riding in the truck’s undercarriage. The headlights were poor, and illuminated very little. Several times, Zhan Fu thought he caught a glimpse of the skeletal army in his rear view mirror or out the side window, kicking up dust as they made a direct line toward the city, its lights glowing yellow in the distance. But each time it was only a passing shadow. Still, Zhan Fu was a nervous wreck by the time the truck finally pulled onto the cobbled streets. He jumped out, scanning the empty square, looking for citizens or soldiers.
Across the pavilion, Red Brigade members lounged against the buildings, lulled by the late hour. One of them noticed the truck, but couldn’t see Zhan Fu in the gloom and raised no alarm. He grabbed his axes and started across the square, but before he could take a dozen steps, he was knocked to the ground by a massive tremor. Muffled explosions were heard, and the soldiers fired wildly in a blind panic. Now Zhan Fu could see smoke and fire and dust billowing out of four buildings scattered across the city. They got his message after all. The Benevolent Celestial Brotherhood had blown four of the five tunnels, collapsing them so that the army couldn’t use them to cross into El Paso. Only one tunnel remained intentionally open: the Water Tunnel, so named because it actually made a deep descent and ran under the Red River before coming up to ground level in the heart of Chinatown. The tunnel entrance was located on the outskirts of town. Zhan Fu let the soldiers run around in a confused state. He got back into the truck and tried to start it. The engine coughed, rattled, and wouldn’t turn over. He peered at the instrument panel. No gas. He’d run the truck into the ground. Zhan Fu paused to get his bearings, and then took off at a dead run for the Water Tunnel and his one chance to get out of Juarez alive.
* * *
The entrance to the Water Tunnel on the Juarez side was a small fishing cabin, located on an incline ove
rlooking the river. The cabin’s door had a turtle carved into it; a sign that was matched on the El Paso side of the tunnel. The cabin was twenty yards off of the bank of the river, and between the cabin and the road into Juarez was a field of tall grass. Zhan Fu crouched in the grass, searching for movement in the cabin. He waited until he caught his breath fully before making his way up to the front door.
Once inside, he bolted the door and strode quickly to the trap door just off of the back wall and knocked three times. The door flung open, and several members of the Benevolent Celestial Brotherhood climbed out, carrying boxes of supplies.
The leader pressed a small wooden crate into Zhan Fu’s hands and said, “From Dou Shu.” Inside the crate was a box of bullets for his Colts, a sandwich, and a note. He read the note while he ate. The men busied themselves with boxes and wire and weapons.
“Okay,” Zhan Fu said, in Cantonese, “do you understand the plan?”
They all nodded. Just then, they all heard the sounds of distant screams. It was General Reyes. Zhan Fu couldn’t make out the words, but he was clearly angry. “That’s who we fight,” Zhan Fu said. “Not for long. Just long enough.”
They nodded again. “Take your places, then.” Zhan Fu covered the doorway, which faced east and the river. Another brotherhood member joined him on the other side, bearing a long rifle. Two men each crouched down beside the north and south windows, and the last two men hung back to monitor the trap door and finish their elaborate preparations.
Seconds later, gunfire crashed and bullets thudded into the walls of the cabin. “Stay low,” Zhan Fu said. “Don’t return fire until I say!”
The men said nothing and readied their weapons.
“I know you’re in there!” shrieked General Reyes. “We are coming in and we’ll rip you apart!”
Zhan Fu listened as the sounds of the army drew closer and closer. They were right outside the door. Alongside the windows. Closer… closer… “NOW!”
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