by Jack Higgins
The girl appeared with a stone jar containing some kind of grease. She rubbed a little into the raw places on my neck, frowning in concentration, her fingers delicate and birdlike, then tore a strip of muslin off her petticoat and wound it round my neck a couple of times.
I patted her face. ‘That’s a lot better. I’m very grateful.’
She smiled for the first time, glanced uncertainly at Tacho then went back into the kitchen. ‘Your daughter?’
He shook his head. ‘Her name is Balbuena, señor. Victoria Balbuena. Her father owned a hacienda near here. I used to work for him. Five years ago it was burned to the ground during the fighting and the patron and his wife perished. Victoria saw it all. She was twelve at the time, only a child. Something happened to her, something most strange.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, up here in the head, señor.’ He tapped his skull. ‘She has been unable to speak from that day to this.’
There was a step in the doorway and van Horne stepped inside, the cigarillo still clamped between his teeth, the machine-gun under his arm.
‘What happened?’ I demanded.
‘He got away, that’s what damn well happened.’
It was as if a cloak had slipped away revealing another kind of man entirely underneath. Everything had changed, the way he moved and walked and his voice had become harsher, the speech clipped, incisive. There was a powerful, elemental force to the man which he had kept hidden before for obvious reasons.
He slammed the machine-gun down on the bar and snapped his fingers at Tacho. ‘Give me a bottle quick. Anything. I’ve got to think this out.’
My Enfield was stuck in Delgado’s belt. I pulled it free, checked the loading mechanically and shoved it into its holster. I stirred Delgado’s body with my toe. ‘Something else you picked up on the Western Front, father?’
‘Son,’ he said solemnly, placing a hand on my shoulder. ‘I’ve got a confession to make. All is not what it seems.’
‘It very seldom is.’
He laughed, that strange, harsh laugh of his. ‘Explanations can wait till a more suitable time. Right now, I’ve got other fish to fry. This is a mess. How long before the guy who got away reaches friends?’
‘Tacho says there are federales all over the place between here and Huila. There’s been a lot of trouble in the area lately. Did you mean it when you said you were hoping to get through the sierras to Guyamas?’
‘Yes, a friend of mine tells me they get trading schooners in there all the time from the Pacific islands with cargoes of copra. It seemed to me like a nice quiet way to leave.’
‘And you need that kind of passage out?’
‘I think you could say that. I’ll go and get a map.’
He went out to the Mercedes and while he was gone, the girl, Victoria, came in from the kitchen with a pot of coffee on a tray and several cups. When she filled them, she served me first which was, for some reason, curiously disturbing. She stood at the end of the bar watching me gravely, not even responding when I smiled at her, like some good dog waiting for its master’s command. Van Horne came in briskly with a large-scale map of northern Mexico which he spread out across the bar counter.
‘North, south or east seem out of the question to me,’ he said. ‘They’ll be telegraphing ahead of us within a few hours.’
‘Which only leaves the sierras.’ I ran my finger along the road to Huila. ‘That way would be by far the best. The road through the mountains branches off about forty miles this side of Huila.’
‘We’d never get that far, not without running into trouble.’
‘You’re including me in this business?’
‘Have you any choice? You’ll swing, anyway, if they ever lay hands on you, and two could make out better than one if things get a little rough.’
In other words he needed me. The true reason for his suggestion as I realized a moment later when he slammed a hand down hard on the map.
‘God, what a mess. Why the hell couldn’t I mind my own business?’
Which had already occurred to me, but I said nothing. It was Tacho who spoke then, leaning over the map, squinting at it short-sightedly. ‘There is another way through the mountains by way of the Nonava Pass. A very bad road and seldom used but during the Revolution some Yankee gringos brought arms through from the coast that way in two trucks. It has never been done since to my knowledge.’
‘He could be on to something,’ van Horne said. ‘They’d never look for us going through that way if what he says is true.’
‘What about petrol?’
‘There’s still about twenty-five gallons in the tank including the reserve and I’m carrying another fifty in the boot in five-gallon cans. Enough to get us all the way to the coast.’
I looked at the map again. We had to stay with the road to Huila for about fifteen miles, indeed had no choice in the matter. Then we cut off across the foothills through rough country, following what was obviously going to be little more than an old pack trail.
‘We could run into trouble out there in the dark,’ I said. ‘Lights or no lights.’
‘So what do we do? Sit on our backsides till sunrise and the federales get here? Be your age, Keogh. Sure, we might end up nose down in a hole or even drive straight over the edge of some arroyo, but we don’t exactly have a choice, do we, so let’s get moving.’
He folded his map, grabbed an unopened bottle of tequila and went out. I said to Tacho, ‘He’s got a point. No sense in hanging about.’
The girl caught me by the arm as I turned away. Her eyes tried to speak for her, the mouth opened and shut, the whole face working.
‘What is it?’ I demanded.
‘I think she wishes to go with you, señor,’ Tacho said.
She nodded eagerly as I turned to her and I took her by the shoulders and gave her a shake. ‘Don’t be a damn fool. What could I do with you? Where would you go? I’m running for my life.’
She gripped my hands convulsively, the eyes still pleading and I shook my head. ‘No, it just isn’t on.’
Something went out of her, I don’t know quite what. Hope perhaps, or something even more important to her. Some vital essence that is in all of us. She turned away, her shoulders sagging.
Tacho said, ‘In a way, she is running too, señor. For such a young one, she has known much sadness, many bad things. The Balbuenas were a name in these parts, and her father was a great aristocrat, but he committed the unforgivable sin for one of the high blood. He married an Indian. More than that – a Yaqui. A woman from the Wind River country on the other side of the mountain. His family never forgave him.’
‘So the girl has no one?’
‘Not here, señor, but on the other side of the mountains where her mother was born it would be a different story.’
‘All right,’ I said to the girl, bowing to the inevitable. ‘I’ll give you two minutes to get your things together.’
She gave me one startled glance over her shoulder, then disappeared into the kitchen. ‘Sometimes God looks down through the clouds, señor,’ Tacho said.
‘Not very often in my experience. What about you? How will the federales treat you?’
‘An innocent bystander and roughly treated, señor.’ He shrugged. ‘Besides, where would I go, an old man like me?’
The Mercedes horn sounded impatiently and a moment later, Victoria came in from the kitchen, clutching a small bundle, a heavy woollen shawl about her shoulders.
‘You will look after her, señor,’ Tacho called as I pushed her towards the door. ‘She is in your care from now on.’
A disturbing thought to know that one had some sort of responsibility towards another human being again, but too late to draw back now.
As we approached the Mercedes I took the girl’s bundle and threw it into the back. Van Horne said, ‘What in the hell do you think you’re playing at?’
‘The girl goes with us,’ I said. ‘No arguments.’
‘Over my d
ead body.’
‘That could be arranged,’ I told him flatly.
I didn’t know what would happen next, already had a hand to the butt of the Enfield in the darkness, when surprisingly he capitulated.
‘Oh, get her inside for God’s sake and let’s get out of here. I can always crack your skull later.’
I put her into the rear seat, climbed in next to him and he drove away.
The fifteen miles for which we stayed with the Huila road were no problem and took us about thirty minutes to cover, a remarkable performance considering the darkness and the state of the road.
It was when we reached the place where we were to turn off that we ran into difficulties. For one thing it took a good half-hour to find the start of the trail, so faintly was it marked. When we turned on to it, I knew we were in trouble.
It was almost impossible to see, even with the head-lamps full on and we seemed to be threading our way through a ghostly maze of thorn bushes and organ cactus. We kept this up for a while, crawling at five or ten miles an hour for most of the time and on two occasions it was only van Horne’s quick reflexes that prevented us from plunging into a dry arroyo.
In the end he braked to a halt, and switched off the engine and lights. ‘So you were right and I was wrong. I don’t even know if we’re on the trail any more. We’ll move on at first light.’
I turned and looked back at the girl. ‘Are you all right?’
She reached for my hand, pressed it gently. Van Horne said, ‘Now may I ask why in hell you had to bring her along? Can’t you do without it or something?’
‘The federales would have passed her from hand to hand.’
‘If it doesn’t happen to her here, it happens somewhere else,’ he said. ‘So what’s the point?’
‘Her mother’s people live on the other side of the mountains. They’ll take her in. Look after her properly. Yaquis have a strong kinship system. They wouldn’t turn her away.’
He was in the act of lighting one of his cigarillos and turned to look at me in surprise, the match flaring in his cupped hands. ‘Are you saying she’s Yaqui?’
‘Her mother was. Her father was straight out of the top drawer. One of the big landowning families.’
‘Son, that doesn’t mean a damn thing. She’s branded clean to the bone. Why the Yaquis are worse than the Apache and that’s going some, believe me. First night she doesn’t like you in bed, she’ll take a knife to your privates.’
‘My affair, not yours.’
‘It touches both of us while we’re together. You get rid of her the moment we break through to the other side, understand?’
‘We’ll see about that.’
‘We certainly will.’ And then, with one of those puzzling about-turns that I was to find so typical of the man, added, ‘It’s going to get a damn sight colder than this before morning. If she cares to lift up the back seat she’ll find some car rugs.’
He turned, as if suddenly exasperated and repeated the information in Spanish. The girl stood up and fumbled about in the darkness. After a while, she passed a heavy car rug over to me.
‘No, for you,’ I said.
Van Horne laughed uneasily. ‘She’s going to hang on to you like a leech, Keogh. You mark my words.’ He grabbed an end of the rug, unfolded it and spread it across our knees. ‘She should be snug enough back there. There are two more. On the other hand I don’t mind if you want to get under the covers with her.’
I think he was deliberately trying to bait me. I refused to be drawn, but turned and said to the girl, ‘Wrap up well and go to sleep. We’ll move on at first light.’
Van Horne switched on the dashboard light, found the bottle of tequila he had taken from the bar and uncorked it.
He took a long pull and sighed. ‘Heaven alone knows what this stuff does to the liver, but it’s all that’s going to get me through this night. You’d better have some.’
I took a mouthful, fought for breath as it burned its way down and handed the bottle back hurriedly. ‘I think old Tacho must have made that himself in the back room.’
‘I can believe that all right. I can believe anything of this damned country.’ He shivered. ‘God, if I had my time over again.’
‘Would anything be any different?’
The neck of the bottle chinked on his teeth, there was a gurgle, a long gurgle and then he sighed. ‘No, it’s a long dark night at the mouth of nowhere, Keogh, and we’re both far from home, so the truth for once.’
‘Which is …?’
‘The old, old question.’ He laughed shortly. ‘Would you believe me, Keogh, if I told you I spent four years in a seminary? That I actually trained for the priesthood?’
‘You certainly made a convincing enough job of it at Huerta this morning when they were executing those men.’
It was as if I had touched an open wound and he turned on me sharply. ‘They were dying, Keogh, they’d only minutes to live. They went easier thinking they’d had a priest. Whether they did or not doesn’t matter a damn where they are now.’
‘So you think they’ve gone to a happier place, do you?’
It was a stupid and ill-judged remark in the circumstances and received the reply it merited. ‘Don’t get clever with me, boy.’
‘All right, I’m sorry.’ He took another pull at the bottle and passed it to me. ‘What do you do when you’re not wearing a cassock?’
‘You might say I’m in the banking business.’ He laughed loudly and without the slightest sign of having taken drink in spite of the quantity he’d already put away. ‘Yes, I like that. You know I was once in a little town in Arkansas where the local police insisted on a permit if you owned a hand-gun and you had to state your reason for needing one.’
‘What did you put?’
‘I told them I often carried large sums of money. I didn’t say it was usually other people’s.’
‘I see – so you’re a thief.’
‘I rob banks, if that’s what you mean, and believe me you’ve got to be good to get away with it.’
‘Which is why you’re running round Mexico playing the earnest priest?’
‘That’s it exactly. I knocked over the National Bank at a little place called Brownsville in Texas two days ago all on my own. It’s a funny thing, but priests and nuns – everybody trusts them. I knocked on that door a half-hour before time and the guard opened it without a qualm.’
‘How many dead men did you leave behind you?’
‘Dead men.’ He seemed surprised. ‘I told you it was a nice, clean job. Four guys lying on their faces with their hands tied and an empty vault was all I left behind that day.’ He leaned forward as if trying to see my face. ‘Anyway, how many men have you killed, Keogh, that’s the question.’
He was right, but if I’d told him, I’d have given him the shock of his life. ‘One too many.’
‘It always is, even when you think you’ve got an excuse for it like you and your politics. We’re a lot alike, you and me, Keogh, in our different ways, and I’ll tell you why. We’ve both got death in the soul, it’s as simple as that.’
Which was probably the most terrible thing anyone had ever said to me, mainly because it was the kind of remark that brings out into the open a truth one has always attempted to avoid.
‘What was it you called it?’ van Horne said. ‘The last place God made. That about sums it up. My old lady would say I’d ended up with what I deserved. She and my father were Dutch. Moved to Vermont when he opened a little printing shop in Altoona. Her religion was everything to her. Believe me, boy, nobody takes it more seriously than Dutch Catholics. When I walked out of that seminary on account of a stupid little bitch, who left me six months later, my mother laid it straight on the line. The Wrath of God and the Day of Judgement rolled into one. That’s what I’m going to get and any time now the way things are going.’
He rambled on in this way for quite some time, not drunk and yet it was the drink talking. Finally, it started to rain in gre
at, heavy cold drops that hurt where they made contact. We got out quickly and put the top up and only just in time for the rain soon increased into a persistent downpour.
‘My God, this is all we needed,’ van Horne said.
I wondered if he appreciated the seriousness of this new turn of events. That by morning, half the ground we had to traverse would be quagmire and a hundred dry arroyos rushing torrents and quite impassable.
There seemed little point in going into that now and it certainly wouldn’t change anything so I pulled an end of the car rug around my legs against the cold and turned up my collar.
How many men have you killed, Keogh? It was a hell of a thought to go to sleep on.
The morning dawned grey and bleak, heavy rain still falling. We had stopped close to the edge of what had once been a dry stream bed. Water was rushing through it now in full spate like a moor-land burn on a November morning back home. The mountains were closer than I had expected and we got out the map and finally managed to place ourselves.
We had about ten or twelve miles of open country to traverse before reaching the trail we were seeking, the one which would take us up through the Nonava Pass. It was marked quite clearly on the map between two mountains, one a sugar-loaf and the other with three distinctively jagged peaks. We could see them both in the distance quite clearly in spite of the rain.
That magnificent engine fired without difficulty when van Horne pressed the self-starter and he took the Mercedes away slowly, working out his route as he went, for any remaining trace of the track we had been following had been washed out by the heavy rain.
It was still bitterly cold and the girl, Victoria, stayed muffled in the two car rugs she had used during the night and peered out into the morning, her face as serious and grave as ever. I asked her if she was all right and she nodded and actually smiled which was something.
Van Horne said, ‘How come you speak Spanish as well as you do?’
‘My mother was born in Seville.’
‘Is that so? Your old man must have got around. I picked mine up in Juarez one year, working as manager in a small casino there. I had to stay out of circulation for a while on account of the fact that I’d broken out of Leavenworth – that’s the Texas State Penitentiary.’