by Steve Lee
Sloane coolly contemplated the madman that stood before him. "That talkin' skull must be good comp'ny for you. You'll sure miss it when it's gone.'
Alarm fractured the bandit's blazing eyes. 'What do you mean — when it is gone?'
'I'm taking the skull,' said Sloane. 'I'm taking it back to the mission.'
El Muerte stared at Sloane, his alarm softening into amusement.
'Just like that,' he laughed. 'You do not even offer something in exchange!'
'I'm lettin' you have somethin' in exchange,' Sloane told him.
El Muerte waited.
'Your life,' said Sloane. 'I came to kill you. Give me the skull and I'll let you live.'
El Muerte shook his head incredulously. 'You dare threaten me — in my own camp!'
'You're gonna have to give me the skull or kill me,' said Sloane. 'If you set your dogs on me, they'll know you're scared. You want me dead — you're gonna have to do it yourself.'
The bandit thought about it. He lowered his eyes to the skull looking for an answer. He found one and suddenly his grin matched that of the skull.
'You and me, Sloane,' he decided. 'We will dance the Dance of the Scorpions… The one who dances best gets the skull. And the other — the coffin!'
* * *
Inside the circle of silently watching bandits, Sloane and El Muerte faced each other. The only sound was the rattle and jangle of El Muerte's razor-sharp spurs as the bandit confidently closed the distance between him and Sloane.
El Muerte opened his attack with a kick at Sloane's groin, the spurs slashing at his manhood. Sloane blocked the kick with his arm in a swift whipping-branch action. At the exact same time, since this was a Scorpion Dance and Sloane was eager to show he was no wall-flower, he backfisted the bandit's face with a scorpion blow.
It was a long time since anyone had knocked El Muerte to the ground. It was almost a new experience for him. But in the next few minutes, it became a regular habit. The bandit wiped sweat from his face onto his sleeve. He looked at the sleeve. His sweat was red. Already he was covered in gashes and bruises. And his lovingly sharpened spurs had yet to sink their teeth into Sloane.
El Muerte attacked again. This time he leapt high into the air as he had seen the yellow men do in distant lands. His spurs flashed towards Sloane's face. This was how El Muerte had blinded Juan and many others before him. The technique had never failed him.
Until now.
Stepping nimbly back, Sloane caught the booted foot at the limit of its kick and pulled — slamming its owner to the ground with bone-rattling impact. Arms folded, he impassively watched the shaken bandit struggle to his feet.
That had been a mistake, El Muerte groggily decided. A mistake that could happen only once. Again he leapt up, a spurred foot slicing through the air at the American's face.
Sloane leapt higher. His flying kick slammed into the bandit's jaw, a head-snapping blow that sent El Muerte spinning backwards through the air a couple of times before he rammed the hard-baked earth with his head. Sloane landed on his feet, neat as a ballet dancer, and watched the stunned killer with satisfaction.
Staggering upright, El Muerte shook his brains back into place. There was fear in his face now — a fear he did not want his shocked silent men to see. His famous spurs had failed him. The situation called for desperate measures. There was a cutlass swinging from El Muerte's studded belt. He tugged it free of its sheath. Swinging it above his head, pirate-fashion, he charged.
A ram's-head fist greeted him. Closely followed by a snap-kick equally eager to make his acquaintance. El Muerte sprawled on the ground, still clutching his cutlass. Sloane was vaguely aware there was something strange about the cutlass but he didn't have time to dwell on its strangeness because pretty soon the bandit was back on his feet, a terrible look on his face as he launched himself with renewed ferocity at the infuriating American.
He hacked and he slashed. The sun-flashing cutlass carved the air. That was all it carved. Wherever the cutlass was, Sloane wasn't. He danced from the sweep of its blade, a smile on his face which El Muerte found more painful than the kicks that battered his body. The bandit gave up the chase. He stood his ground, a defeated expression on his face as he levelled the cutlass in Sloane's direction.
Then Sloane knew what was strange about that cutlass. From behind the blade, a black hole stared at him: the muzzle of a pistol. The Elgin Cutlass gun barked shatteringly when El Muerte pulled the trigger. Sloane spun back, hit the dirt and lay completely still, blood spilling from his head.
* * *
Their eyes restless for pursuit, Billy, Rosalia and the Chinese girl they had just helped escape, moved hurriedly towards the ready-saddled horses. Billy pushed Su Fan forward before him like a reluctant prisoner. She flinched at his touch.
'I thought she was your woman,' said Rosalia.
'She is,' Billy snapped from between bared teeth. 'She just doesn't know it yet.'
They reached the horses and thanked their various gods that they had not been seen.
Their gratitude was premature. A group of men ran out from inside the stable and surrounded them, rifles and pistols pointing inwards. Billy snapped out a kick and suddenly there was one less man surrounding them. A vaquero lay on the ground with his head at a new angle. It wasn't much of an improvement because he was dead.
His rigid hands tensed hard as knives, Billy took up a defensive position.
'Do not be foolish,' Aguilar warned, aiming a gun. 'Or all three of you die now, the girls first…'
Billy looked around. There wasn't much to see but guns. He shrugged defeatedly and lowered his arms. Instantly Toro sprang forward and slubbed him to the ground with the butt of his rifle. He stood over the Chinaman with the rifle raised for further blows, looking to Don Luis for his orders.
'Tomorrow is the Day of the Dead,' said Don Luis. 'His death will liven up the fiesta.'
'It should be interesting to see the colour of a Chinaman's blood,' said Aguilar with enthusiasm.
'Kiss my yellow ass!' said Billy.
Toro struck downwards with the rifle-butt and knocked him unconscious.
Don Luis stepped delicately over the Chinaman towards Rosalia. She cowered before him. He reached out and took hold of her dress by the collar. With a savage jerk, he ripped the dress open, baring her breasts.
'Really, Papa,' said Rosalia, disgust giving her strength.
Don Luis' smouldering anger flared. He cuffed her face and breasts many times. She refused to cry.
'Aguilar, she is yours,' said Don Luis. 'When every man on the ranch has finished with her — burn her!'
'Muchas gracias, patron.'
Aguilar whitely smiled his thanks.
'Sounds like a damn waste a' good woman flesh to me,' boomed a wide-shouldered black-bearded American, one of several gringos in the group.
'She must be punished, Señor Sullivan,' said Don Luis in a voice that suggested further discussion of the matter would be unwelcome. 'But you may have this one as I promised.'
He gestured towards Su Fan. The Chinese girl fearfully returned his stare.
Sullivan looked her over, nodding his approval. 'She'll fetch a good price in 'Frisco,' he predicted. 'There's rich chinkees there desperate for women a' their kind.'
They push-pulled Su Fan over towards a big conestoga wagon. A dozen dark barefoot girls were already cramped inside the wagon, their expressions blank or frightened.
'What beauties!' Aguilar exclaimed, his enthusiasm forced. 'And all pure — all virgins!'
'In a pig's eye!' Sullivan cussed. 'You could run a railroad through some a' them virgins a' yours.'
They heaved Su Fan into the wagon. She sunk down inside, her head bowed, hopelessness overwhelming her. Sloane had never seemed so remote as at that moment.
* * *
Sloane lay still as death on the ground, blood flowing from his temple. He hadn't been lying there longer than two blinks when there was a bandit astride him, pressing a stiletto to
his throat. The bandit felt for a heartbeat and found one.
'He's alive,' the bandit yelled to El Muerte who was blowing smoke from the shooting-end of the Elgin gun and striking a heroic pose like he was a sharpshooter in a Buffalo Bill Wild West Show.
'Shall I…?'
The tip of the knife pricked deeper into Sloane's throat. Returning the cutlass gun to its sheath, El Muerte strode over to where the eager bandit was squatting atop Sloane's chest. He booted him off the American then looked with respect at the motionless figure in the dust.
'This was a man,' he told the bandit whose name was Miguel. 'A worm does not kill a man.'
Many more bandits were now clustered around Sloane, straining their necks to get a better look at the gringo who had come close to making a dead man out of El Muerte. They nudged the unconscious American with their boots.
'But worms can eat a man!' El Muerte announced with sudden inspiration. He pointed towards the buckboard which had delivered Father Josef to his lingering death.
'Put him in the coffin… Miguel, take him to the graveyard and bury him with honour. Rico can go with you. Bury him deep so the worms will not have far to look for their dinner!'
Within a short time the coffin intended for Pascual had an unexpected tenant — Sloane. The coffin bounced in the back of the buckboard as Miguel and Rico followed the rutted trail into Lascara. The two bandits talked of profound things. Like Maria the village whore.
'A very deep woman,' said Rico.
'Very,' Miguel agreed.
'Deep as a well,' said Rico.
'But which of us will dip his bucket into this deep well — you or me?'
'Maria has enough love in her heart for both of us,' said Rico. 'She has a big heart.'
'It is not her big heart which interests me,' said Miguel.
Presently, the buckboard rumbled into the graveyard. Around them wooden crosses grew thick as grass. The graveyard at Lascara was the most densely populated area of Baja. The reason for its popularity was El Muerte.
Miguel brought the wagon to a halt beside a likely-looking spot for a grave. The two bandits jumped down and turned to unload the wagon. They stopped in their tracks, astonished. From inside the coffin a plume of dark smoke drifted upwards. Miguel and Rico exchanged glances of amazement then stepped curiously closer to the coffin, one on either side of it.
Rico slid back the lid and both men peered hesitantly inside.
Sloane was no longer unconscious. He was smoking a cigar. He looked at the bandits who were looking at him and he winked. Then his scissors kick hit them, a boot smashing into each man's face. They staggered back and disappeared from his sight. Sloane climbed out of the coffin and jumped down off the wagon after Rico. He felt weak from loss of blood and his head hurt like blazes and he had no time for pleasantries. He caught Rico's arm as the knife swung to meet him and snapped it like a twig across his rising knee just as his elbow hooked back for a monkey blow that left a dent in the bandit's neck. Rico fell like he'd been shot between the eyes.
Brisk thunderclapping gunfire disturbed the sleep of the dead as Sloane rounded on the remaining bandit. Miguel was the other side of the wagon waving a Colt and firing blind. He was firing blind because the corner of Sloane's heel had caught him in the right eye. One hand was clamped across his face trying to fit the mess crawling down his cheek back into the socket where his eye had been whilst the hand with the gun blasted bullets at the world that gave him pain.
One of the wagon horses screamed and tried to rear up, its flank suddenly wet and red from a stray bullet. The other horse spooked and bolted, dragging the wagon with it. A wheel of the wagon ran up against a tomb-stone and parted company with the chassis. A second later wagon and horses spilled over in a rolling heap of thrusting legs and disintegrating wood.
Miguel had run out of bullets. He threw the empty Colt from him with a snarling cry that was part anger and mostly pain. He never saw Sloane coming at him, never heard him above the ruckus of the screaming horses — but he felt the impact of the flying kick that exploded the air from his lungs and sent him flying backwards, arms grabbing at air. He went on flying back until his head met a headstone. The headstone was harder.
Sloane had landed badly. His wound was bleeding again and he felt dazed as a spinning top. He struggled up, took a few drunken steps, then pitched forward onto his face and lay still.
Chapter Eleven
It was crowded in the small dark room where Sloane awoke. It was crowded but it was silent as the grave. Sloane looked into the dark faces of his companions. The faces were shrivelled as ancient oranges and as dry-looking as a handful of ashes. The owners of the faces didn't seem very excited to see that Sloane was alive. They didn't make any fuss at all. They lay there with their backs to the wall, still as death. Which wasn't surprising because they'd all been dead for a very long time.
Wrinkling his nose, Sloane tore his eyes from the blankly smiling corpses and took a look around the mummy cave. Further along, the rough uneven stone wall was splashed with light, suggesting an opening that he could not see. When he looked back at his crumbling companions the dark face of one of them had split into a broad gleaming grin.
'If you're Saint Peter, I'm in the wrong place,' said Sloane.
'How you feelin', Missuh Sloane?' Dred Jefferson inquired.
'On top of the world,' said Sloane, then groaned as he tried to sit up straight and a sharp pain axed through his skull.
'Guess I just fell off again,' he added.
Raising a hand he touched his aching forehead. He found his head was bandaged.
'It's just a graze — reckon you'll live,' the bone-devil told him.
'When I seen you lyin' there wi' your head all bloodied up, I reckoned you was stone-dead. Thought I was gonna have me that purty three-dollar head a' your'n f'sure. Then I seen you was still breathin'…'
'Real inconsiderate of me,' said Sloane.
'Sure is… Holding out like that on a man tryin' to make hisself a decent livin'. Reckon you're owin' me a head, Missuh Sloane.'
'I'll see you get one,' Sloane promised. He nicked his eyes towards the mummies. 'Why'd you bring me here?' he asked.
'Safest place there is. El Muerte'll be riding into Lascara tomorrow for the Day of the Dead — an' he's goin' be madder'n a bee-stung mule when he sees what you done to his men.'
Sloane was silent for a moment, head lowered in thought. When he looked up at the negro, there was a grim determined smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
'That priest, Father Francesco… can you fetch him here?'
'You goin' die?' the bone-devil asked, quick and hopeful.
'Now don't go raisin' your expectations like that,' Sloane told him. 'The padre and me's got some talkin' to do… There's some mighty strong stuff down in his wine cellar — stuff as'll make the party go with a bang.'
Dred frowned. ''Party? What party you talkin' 'bout?'
'The party I'm throwing for El Muerte,' said Sloane, a savage glint of humour in his eyes. 'His birthday party!'
* * *
The white globe of heat above had reached its highest point and was beginning its leisurely climb down the sky when El Muerte rode into Lascara to celebrate the Day of the Dead. Behind him rode his men, forty of them in a tight dense herd. Trailed by barking dogs, the bandits thundered down the narrow calles of mud huts and small adobes. They were in loud good spirits, their mood already warmed by tequila and by thoughts of the pleasures the rest of the day — and night — would bring. El Muerte led them clattering into the small plaza at the heart of the village. On market days and fiestas the plaza was always thronged with people having a good noisy time and by vendors displaying fruits and vegetables in brightly coloured heaps.
Today there wasn't a soul in the plaza. The bandits circled and wheeled inside the empty square, eyes searching for signs of life. They grew silent, their boisterous mood chased away by uneasy suspicions.
Usually on feast-days many stalls were s
et up inside the plaza — stalls for tequila and pulque and wine and candies and goods of many kinds. But today there was only one stall. It was loaded with crisp white candy skulls in all sizes and with little wooden coffins, the kind small boys love to fill with firecrackers. El Muerte peered down at the sugar skulls then swung his black horse round and angrily scanned the deserted streets and lifeless houses.
'Hey, you sons of pigs,' he yelled. 'Where is the tequila? Where are the girls?… Where are the gifts to honour El Muerte on this very fine Day of the Dead?… Come on out quick — or we will come in and drag you from your filthy holes!'
El Muerte waited for results. A couple of stringy dogs barked at him. Otherwise there was silence.
'Mira!'
One of his men was pointing. El Muerte followed the direction of the shakily outstretched hand. Propped against a wall were Miguel and Rico, both looking very dead. Between them, also leaning against the wall was a coffin. A thin spiral of smoke drifted skywards from the coffin.
El Muerte glared at the bodies of his two men, and at the smoking coffin. He tugged a heavy calibre pistol from its holster, aimed it at the coffin and squeezed off a rapid succession of shots.
Lascara blew up in his face. The impact of the deafening explosion hurled men and horses into the air, slamming them against each other and against the remaining walls of the plaza. The explosion ripped a chunk out of the square. The house against which the coffin had been leaning was suddenly gone. Only a small pile of rubble showed it had ever existed.
El Muerte raised himself painfully from the ground where he'd been thrown. He felt like someone had landed a terrific punch against his head. He touched his face with his hands and they came away bloody. His face was skinned and peppered with chips of stone. He didn't know Sloane was throwing him a surprise party — but he sure felt surprised.
He crawled to his feet. A dark fog-like curtain of smoke and choking dust boiled around the plaza. Pieces of the coffin were burning on the ground. El Muerte heard the screams of men and horses he could not see. And sporadic blasts of gunfire. His own pistol was gone, torn from his hand by the force of the explosion. He slid a machete from his belt and, with the blade held before him, advanced unsteadily through the smoke and dust, searching for his horse.