Wrath of God

by Jack Higgins

  ‘I told you there was a silver mine on the de la Plata land. For some time now the old man has been trying to interest one mining company after the other in the idea of working the mine again on a partnership basis. He is very short of money.’

  ‘Doesn’t Tomas help out?’

  ‘He and his father have never been reconciled although he visits the hacienda frequently to see his sister, Chela. They have always been very close.’

  ‘So what about this mining thing?’ van Horne demanded.

  ‘No one will play because of the unsettled nature of the country. I know this because as all mail for the area passes through Huila, I have been privileged to read the various letters. I decided to take a hand in the game myself the day before yesterday and forwarded a letter to old de la Plata in your name, Señor Janos.’

  ‘Did you, by God,’ Janos exclaimed.

  ‘You will be interested to know that you represent the Herrara Mining Company of Mexico City and will be arriving at Mojada to inspect the property within the next few days, together with your assistant. Your previous experience should prove useful, Mr Keogh.’

  ‘You think of everything,’ I said.

  ‘I need to, my friend. I have been a soldier a long time. Survival has become something of a habit.’

  Van Horne leaned across the desk, helped himself to a cigar from the box at Bonilla’s elbow. ‘You’ve left me to the last, colonel, so it must be good.’

  Cordona took a quick, impatient step forward, but Bonilla waved him back, struck a match and gave van Horne a light. ‘They need a priest in Mojada very badly, father. I think you would suit them admirably.’

  Van Horne’s face was extraordinarily calm. ‘Two priests dead and one mad, isn’t that the record up there?’

  ‘True, but it does give you an excellent reason for being there, which is highly important. Strangers are usually taken to be government spies and are treated accordingly. A priest and two mining experts visiting Don Angel at his own request stand some chance of survival, especially when all three are gringos. As some sort of support in case of need, I am sending Lieutenant Cordona with twenty men to Huanca which is some fifteen miles from Mojada in the foothills of the mountains. We frequently use the abandoned rancheria there as a base for patrol activity in the area so his presence will excite no particular comment.’

  I said, ‘What about Tomas? When is he supposed to show up?’

  ‘He will know you are in the area within a matter of hours just as he will know the nature of your business with his father. I think we may take it for granted that he will put in an appearance at the hacienda without too much delay to find out for himself what exactly is going on. After all, the possibility of the mine being put to work again is certain to be of more than passing interest to him.’

  ‘Why not just send us back out to the stake and have done with it, colonel?’ I said. ‘Mojada is just as certain.’

  ‘Is it hell,’ van Horne cut in. ‘This way depends on us and no one else. Jesus, boy, didn’t you take on the whole bloody British Army and beat them at their own game? Well, no bunch of greasy peons with their backsides hanging out is going to put me under the sod. I’ll go to Mojada for you, colonel. I’ll even play priest for you again, but anyone who tries to blow my head off will get the hardest sermon of his life. Understand?’

  ‘Perfectly.’ Bonilla stood up. ‘I would prefer Tomas de la Plata alive, but will accept him dead as long as you provide me with his corpse. A necessary encouragement for the local population.’ He turned to Janos. ‘You may use the Mercedes. It should go well with your new role and a lift to an impoverished priest with the same destination would be an act of kindness no one could quarrel with.’

  ‘A real nice thought, colonel,’ van Horne said with some irony. ‘Anyone can see your heart is in the right place.’

  ‘Lieutenant Cordona will conduct you to more comfortable quarters elsewhere. He will also take care of all your requirements. I wish you luck, gentlemen.’ Which was a reasonably polite way of dismissing us and as he also sat down and busied himself with some papers, he made his point pretty thoroughly.

  Cordona led the way out through the french windows into the garden. He dismissed the sergeant and his men, then carried on without even checking to see whether we were following him.

  On the far side of the garden a door opened into a small, quieter courtyard with a covered terrace on three sides and another fountain splashing across blue and white tiles in the centre. It was cool and pleasant and remote and the sounds of life from the town beyond the wall might have been from another world which may have been something of an exaggeration, but the contrast between this and what I had been exposed to for the past few days could not have been greater.

  As I discovered later, the rooms which surrounded the little courtyard were officers’ quarters and Cordona didn’t approve. In fact I would say it was all he could do to contain his rage, especially where van Horne was concerned.

  He and I had to share and Janos was in the next room on his own. They were both identical. Two beds in each together with the bare essentials of bedroom furniture, whitewashed walls, the complete absence of any kind of religious images, an indication of the anti-clerical line events were taking at that time.

  ‘There is a bath at the end of the row,’ Cordona said. ‘With an orderly in charge. When you are ready, he will see that hot water is brought, also anything else you may require.’

  ‘Well now, I’d like a woman myself,’ van Horne told him. ‘Not too young. Around thirty, black hair, someone who knows what it’s all about.’

  A deliberate attempt to upset Cordona and nothing more for in all the time I knew van Horne, one noticeable thing about him was his lack of interest in the opposite sex. It almost worked. Cordona’s face went very, very white and his hand dropped to the butt of his revolver and for some stray, perverse reason that made no sense to me, I felt sorry for him.

  The moment passed. He took a deep breath. ‘Clothing and various personal belongings that you may need have been provided and for you, señor,’ he said to van Horne, ‘something extra.’

  The cassock which van Horne had been wearing until our capture lay on the bed, washed and ironed from the look of it, the shovel hat on top. The Gladstone bag was there, too, although it contained, as it turned out, only the Thompson gun and its spare ammunition clips, the money being elsewhere. On the floor was a black steamer trunk which Cordona nudged with his toe.

  ‘We haven’t had a priest here for several months. The last one died of blackwater fever. This trunk contains his belongings, particularly the vestments and other things you will need to sustain your role.’

  ‘Of which you don’t approve, I take it?’

  ‘Señor,’ Cordona said calmly. ‘If I had my way, I would see you burn in hell before I even allowed you to open this trunk which belonged to a good and kind man. A man of God who died serving his people.’

  He turned and walked out abruptly and van Horne stayed where he was, staring out of the door, a strange, set expression on his face, and then he laughed and slapped his thigh.

  ‘You know, I expected to be dead by now. Isn’t life the strangest damn game you ever did play, Keogh?’

  A thought, certainly and I moved to my bed and discovered not only the Enfield in its shoulder holster, but the two suitcases I had last seen in my room at the Hotel Blanca in Bonita.

  Janos said: ‘Only one thing interests me at the moment, gentlemen. The bath and the copious quantities of hot water mentioned.’

  ‘Don’t you think we should discuss things first?’ I said.

  ‘What in the hell is there to discuss?’ van Horne put in. ‘Anything could happen and probably will when we get to Mojada. They might even shoot us on sight. This kind of game is a lot like poker, Keogh. You play it according to the way the cards fall.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Janos said. ‘I should have thought this morning an admirable object lesson on the follies of think
ing on the possibilities of tomorrow. But the pleasures of the bath call, gentlemen. I shall see you later.’

  ‘You could certainly do with it, fat man,’ van Horne observed.

  The Hungarian produced two feet of steel from inside the black ivory walking stick and had the point nudging van Horne under the chin before he knew what was happening.’

  ‘You were jesting, of course, sir,’ Janos smiled good-humouredly.

  Van Horne raised a hand. ‘That’s all I wanted to know, Count whatever-your-name-is.’

  Janos rammed the sword back into place and chuckled. ‘By God, sir, but you’re a character. I can see we’re going to get along.’

  Someone else he was going to deal famously with. He left, his great frame shaking and van Horne said, ‘Now there’s a man I very definitely would prefer to have for me rather than against me.’

  He got down on his knees and opened the steamer trunk. The first thing he took out was a cope in faded green that looked as if it had seen many years of service. That was for ordinary use, of course. There was also one in tarnished gold for important feast days and a third in regulation sombre black for requiem mass.

  There was a silver chalice carefully wrapped in a piece of old blanket. A ciborium containing the Host, a silver pyx on a chain, holy oils in small silver vials, a thurible, incense. Finally, he discovered a religious image of some sort, very carefully wrapped in several layers of woollen cloth. It was perhaps two feet high and was obviously very old being carved from wood and hand-painted. It was a remarkable piece of work by any standard and van Horne looked at it for quite some time in silence.

  ‘Who is it?’ I said.

  ‘At a guess, I’d say St Martin de Porres, mainly because he’s the only coloured saint I can think of right now. He was illegitimate. The son of an Indian woman and a conquistador. If ever there was a saint for the poor and the downtrodden, I’d say it was he.’

  Strange how it all came back to me, my boyhood at Knockbree and the scarlet cassock and white cotta of the acolyte that I had hated so much to wear, the horror I felt as my turn approached to serve week-day mass. I was never particularly religious by persuasion and had not been helped by the fact that my grandfather in his old age, and to the great scandal of the county, had forsworn his religion and joined the Plymouth Brethren which made life, as he constantly told me, considerably more comfortable.

  But I had long since ceased to believe in any kind of a God of comfort. The only God I had ever known was a God of wrath who brought violence and anger, rage in heaven, not love, and I could manage very well without him.

  Van Horne replaced the statue in the trunk, closed the lid slowly and looked up. ‘It looks as if I’m in business, doesn’t it, Keogh?’ he said, but he was not smiling.

  I had half an hour in the tub after Janos, wallowing in the water so hot that it almost took the skin off me, then I made way for van Horne, returned to our room with a towel round my waist and dressed in clean clothes, thanks to the suitcases Bonilla had thoughtfully provided.

  I found Janos seated at a large, round table on the shaded terrace on the other side of the courtyard. An Indian orderly danced attendance and the table was loaded with good things. Tortillas, frijoles, a great plate of anchovies, green olives – never a favourite of mine – and sweet corn cooked in butter. There was also fresh fruit and several bottles of red wine.

  Janos ate surprisingly little but drank a great deal and seemed disposed to talk. I had little doubt about my ability to pose as a mining surveyor or engineer and told him so which appeared to satisfy him. We decided between us that his own role would be that of the non-specialist financier interested merely in the economics of the thing. In other words, a good, solid businessman.

  By this time, he was into his second bottle of wine and had grown considerably more loquacious. ‘A dangerous enterprise, sir. A dangerous enterprise, but we shall come through, never fear. Your friend, van Horne, is obviously a man of parts and you, sir … why, you remind me of myself when young. Quicksilver.’

  God knows how I kept myself from laughing out loud as he leaned across, as serious as you please and said, ‘Glands, sir, glands. Nature’s curse since I was thirty-one years of age. Until then I was as normal as the next man, a cavalry officer of distinction, bearer of an ancient name and now – all gone. All gone.’ He snorted like an old bull and to my amazement there were tears in his eyes and then his chin dropped to his chest and he started to snore.

  I left him to it, lit a cigarette and went for a walk. The garden outside Bonilla’s quarters was deserted and so was the main courtyard where the morning executions, fake or otherwise, had taken place.

  I wandered across to the stake to which I had been strapped, examined the bullet-scarred wall behind and wondered, and not for the first time, what life was all about. Certainly an affair over which few human beings had any kind of control.

  I turned and sauntered towards the main gates which were great, iron-barred affairs, now closed, through which I could see into the street beyond. It was only as I got close that I realized a soldier leaned negligently on his rifle in the sentry post which had been hollowed out of the thickness of the wall in the archway. He opened half-closed eyes, blinked as I approached and straightened warily. I nodded, bade him good evening and peered out through the bars casually.

  The street was deserted except for two Indians sitting against the wall of an adobe house opposite. The man wore rawhide leggings and a red flannel shirt, his shoulder-length hair bound with a band of the same material. He cradled an old Winchester repeating rifle in his lap.

  The woman had hair as black as any raven’s wing, a dark curtain to her shoulders, a scarlet band around her head. Her shirt, heavily embroidered with Indian-work was also of scarlet and the belt at her waist was of hand-beaten silver. A black skirt fell to just below her knee and as she stood up, I saw that she wore boots of untanned leather underneath.

  She ran across the street, reached in through the bars and grabbed for my hands. It took me several seconds to realize that this proud, barbaric little beauty was Victoria Balbuena.

  I held on tight, aware of emotions I couldn’t explain even to myself as I looked down into her face, the eyes that tried to speak for the voice that could not.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’m fine. There’s nothing to worry about.’

  The sentry had me out of the way with a quick, unexpected shove and drove the butt of his rifle at those small, brown hands in a blow of such savagery that any kind of contact would have crippled her.

  She got her hands out through the bars just in time and as the rifle butt rang against the iron, I had him by the throat and started to squeeze, a black rage in me so strong I was close to ending him.

  There was a certain amount of confused shouting. I was aware of the Indian with the white hair at her shoulder, the lever of the Winchester clicking as he put a round into the breech and then van Horne was somehow between me and the sentry forcing us apart.

  The sentry ended up back against the wall on one knee and started to raise his rifle and Cordona arrived on the run to kick it from his grasp. The unfortunate sentry tried to stand and went down again, the lieutenant’s fist in his mouth.

  I helped the poor devil to his feet, propping him up against the wall, but when I turned Victoria and her companion had disappeared.

  ‘Where did she go?’ I grabbed at the bars. ‘Did you see who it was?’

  Van Horne nodded. ‘I told you about Yaquis, boy. She’s reverted to type. Gone back to her own kind.’

  Cordona nodded. ‘The man she was with, Nachita, he is an elder of the Wind River Yaqui, her mother’s tribe. Twice a year he comes to Huila, leading a pack-train over the mountain. Only the Yaqui dare do such work these days.’

  ‘But what was she doing with him? Why was she dressed like that?’

  ‘He noticed her sitting outside the gate here the other day, recognized the Yaqui blood and questioned her. To these people, family
ties are all important and he and the girl are of the same blood. Her mother was his cousin. I questioned him closely on this yesterday.’

  So she had found her own people after all, in spite of events. I said slowly. ‘Will she be all right?’

  ‘Descent is through the mother so the girl is considered wholly Yaqui and her mother’s father was clan chief which makes her a person of much status. Very important in every way. They will be honoured to have her back among them. Believe me I know these people. This man Nachita and his men would have the eyes of any man who even looked at her in the wrong way.’

  ‘Like I told you, Keogh,’ van Horne said. ‘Yaqui are worse than Apache.’

  But I turned and walked quickly away, aware of the strange, illogical hurt in me. It made no kind of sense – none at all. When I stretched out on my bed and closed my eyes, her face rose to haunt me. Not beautiful, yet more beautiful than any I had known in my life before.

  I slept for three or four hours, waking just before ten o’clock according to an old tin alarm clock at the side of the bed.

  There was no sign of van Horne, but when I opened the door and looked out into the courtyard, I saw that he and Janos were sitting at the table on the other side playing cards in the diffused lemon glow of an oil lamp.

  I felt restless and slightly depressed and certainly not at all in the mood for company, so I skirted the edge of the courtyard, keeping to the shadows and went into the garden.

  Bonilla’s quarters were in darkness so I had the place to myself. The air was fresh after the heat of the day, a slight wind blowing the fountain into a silver spray and a nearly full moon was hooked into a cypress tree, black against a curtain of stars.

  It was very peaceful and beyond the wall in the town, a guitar played and someone sang softly. Picture-book Mexico, just the stuff for the tourists. The breeze ruffled the cypress tree again and something moved with it, a dark wraith that had an arm around my throat like magic, a knife blade gleaming dully before my eyes.