Country of the Bad Wolfes

by James Blake

  However. They stabbed him and shot him and fed him to the pigs—while, it was said, he was still alive. But even if true that he was still alive, that they added to his final suffering, that they prolonged it, well, that was not the point, either. He himself has ordered men burned alive, buried alive.

  But in feeding him to the pigs what they were truly doing was making him into pig shit. They had made pig shit of his brother.

  That was the fucking point.

  The new patrón must’ve thought he could protect his brothers by keeping those details from him. Well, hell, that’s what a big brother’s supposed to do, isn’t it? Can’t really blame the man for that. If he’s ever met John Samuel Wolfe, Mauricio has no recollection of it.

  He had mulled whether to send for the body and decided against it. Let them bury him. Except in cases when you really had no choice but to make some public display of honor or respect or suffering or some such thing, the dead were the dead and it didn’t make a bean’s worth of difference who buried them or where or even whether they were buried at all. If a lifetime of soldiering had taught him anything, it was the unsurpassable indifference of the dead. Dust to dust was absolutely right. The only truth ever to come from the mouth of a priest.

  He is told they are sixteen years old. Christ. He had seen them only twice on his rare visits to Buenaventura, had first met when they were around eight and seen them again the last time he had been to the hacienda, when they must have been eleven or so. He remembers them as the only truly identical twins he has ever set eyes on. Polite but close-mouthed. With a way of looking at you as if they were studying a picture on a wall. His own father had liked them very much, though he said they could at times be devils. Good. They would feel at home when he sent them to hell.

  For many years General Mauricio Espinosa has maintained close at hand a small corps of civilian hirelings for employment in missions outside of official sanction. He now sends for the most reliable of them. Esmeraldo Lopez, a man of wide experience in various forms of warfare, with particular skill in the jungle. He arrives within the hour, saying, Yes, my general.

  Mauricio briefs him about the events at Buenaventura and then acquaints him with a rough map he has drawn of the hacienda and instructs him in his mission. He answers Lopez’s few questions, then provides him with money and dispatches him to Veracruz via private train.

  Alfredo Espinosa has been dead for eleven hours.

  THE HARROWING

  Esmeraldo Lopez took with him a party of twenty men, all of them former soldiers, all of whom had worked for him before. The train carried their mounts as well. They arrived in Veracruz early the following evening. As instructed by the general, Lopez rented a room in the Hotel de las Palmas, which had a telegraph office through which the general could contact him. He posted a man there to serve as a message runner if necessary and he and the others then rode north in the light of the moon through most of the remaining night. The Veracruz road on which they arrived at the boundary to Buenaventura—marked by an arched gateway of lime rock—was one of the two roads into and out of the hacienda. The other, the road to Jalapa, was fifteen miles farther inland. Two miles west of the Veracruz road ran the hacienda rail track.

  Lopez divided his force into two groups and sent one bunch to encamp within sight of the Jalapa road entrance and himself stayed with the group near the hacienda’s Veracruz gateway. He unpacked his tailored black suit and sprinkled it with water and hung it with care on a tree to smooth out the wrinkles. He slept for an hour and woke at daybreak. Then bathed in a creek and gave his nails a quick cleaning, then shaved his neck, then put on the suit. He had recently been to a Durango barber and his hair and beard were close-cropped and neat. Then he mounted up and rode to the hacienda compound to call on its new patrón.

  By Sunday evening John Samuel was berating himself for having omitted the graphic details from his cable to Mauricio. It was now very important that Mauricio know the particulars of what the twins did to Alfredo. So he went again to the telegrapher’s office, intending to send Mauricio a wire explaining his oversight and his view that it would be dishonest to keep the full facts from him, repugnant as they were. When the young telegrapher read the message, he told John Samuel that several other persons had already provided the particulars to General Espinosa. I see, said John Samuel. Very well then. He thanked the telegrapher for saving him the needless transmission and returned to the casa grande.

  Sipping a glass of brandy before bed, he regarded the wastebasket holding the ashes of the unregistered deed. After its burning he’d had the alarming thought that there might be some other record of it somewhere, some mention of it in his father’s papers, maybe, or in a letter he sent to someone. Maybe more than a mention. Maybe a specific statement of his bequeathal. They had taken a document case with them and what looked like a ledger. What information did those contain? The possibility was unbearable. This place was his. All of it. His by right. He was the eldest, goddammit! It was unjust—unjust!—that his father should have wanted to give a share of it to those two, who had never given him anything but trouble. Those insolent, arrogant, reckless killers of his mother! Of his child!

  Unjust, yes! A fact plain and simple. It could not be permitted any chance to happen.

  John Samuel did not know Mauricio Espinosa personally. He was eight years old when Mauricio left for the army, and he had been away at the Rancho Isabela on each of the rare occasions when Mauricio came to visit his family at the compound. But he had all his life heard much about him. The man had supped with Father in the casa grande and Father had thought highly of him. Mauricio was by all accounts a man of principles and honor, and was said to be very fond of his little brother. He would doubtless be enraged by the twins’ degradation of him. Sufficiently enraged, it was John Samuel’s hope, to seek retribution. A retribution that would incidentally remove all possibility of the twins ever returning to Buenaventura with some legal paper in hand to claim a portion of the estate. His estate.

  His hope was well-founded, John Samuel believed, but in order for the hope to be realized, Mauricio’s response would have to be swift. The man was hundreds of miles away and the twins had said they would not be at the cove for long. What did that mean? A few days? A week? Surely no longer than that. If they were to leave the cove before Mauricio got there it would most likely be on that boat they so often prattled about at the dinner table. And once they were out on the open sea, who was going to find them?

  John Roger was interred at sunrise. The rest of Monday passed without word from Mauricio. And then early Tuesday morning Lopez arrived.

  He presented himself at the compound gate as a courier from Durango with an important and confidential message for the patrón, John Samuel Wolfe. When John Samuel was told of him, he was certain that he was from Mauricio. He had the man brought to his office.

  Lopez settled into a chair across the desk from John Samuel, his smile warm. The only incongruities with his grooming and good manners were a white jag of scar that bisected an eyebrow, and the absent little finger of his left hand, severed just below the top joint. On the ring finger of the same hand he wore a thin band of gold. Despite the man’s articulate and polite demeanor John Samuel had no difficulty envisioning him in an army uniform or the rough clothes of a guerrilla.

  Because John Samuel had introduced himself by his American name, Lopez addressed him as Don John and seemed somewhat amused by the intonation of the title. He said he was in the employ of General Mauricio Espinosa, who had directed him to present his deepest sympathies to Don John on the death of his father, a man the general had greatly respected.

  I thank the general, John Samuel said. Please convey my appreciation to him.

  Lopez said he certainly would. Then said the general wanted to meet with Don John’s brothers, who by all accounts were the ones most familiar with the facts pertaining to the deaths of their father and his brother. He has engaged me, Lopez said, to escort your brothers to him. And then of cou
rse to escort them back.

  Lopez’s manner was pleasant, his smile unchanged. But it was clear enough to John Samuel that Mauricio’s desire to have the twins brought to him was less request than directive. He had to restrain himself from smiling. He could not have arranged the whole thing better himself.

  Well, John Samuel said, I quite understand the general’s wish to hear from my brothers whatever they can tell him about the, ah, tragic occurrence. I regret to inform you, however, that they are not here. I mean, not here at the compound. They left immediately after the, ah, the terrible event. They went to the coast. The hacienda extends to the coast, you see. There is a little cove there. And a house. It’s where they live.

  Perhaps, Lopez said, you can send a man to retrieve them.

  John Samuel cleared his throat. To be quite frank, Mr Lopez, if I send for them, I do not think they will come. You see, my brothers and I are not, ah, very close. That is one of the reasons they live at the coast house rather than here at the casa grande. In fact, now that my father has, ah, passed away, they really have nothing to keep them on the hacienda. They told me they would not be staying at the cove for very long. They have a boat there, you see.

  Oh? Lopez said. He studied John Samuel’s eyes. And did they say where they would be going when they left this cove?

  No. I asked but they wouldn’t tell me. I don’t believe they have told anybody.

  I see. Tell me, how far is this cove?

  Fifteen miles or so, I would guess.

  And the terrain is jungle, is it not?

  That’s correct. But there’s a trail, you see. A little rough, I’m told, but still, a trail.

  Let me see if I have a proper understanding of the situation, Don John. Your brothers confided to you that they were going to a residence at the seaside. Yet they pay you no heed and so they will not come at your summons. Therefore I myself must collect them from a place more than fifteen miles away and on the other side of the jungle. A trip that I estimate will consume most of a day. And I must leave for that place at once, because, as they also confided to you, they may soon be gone from there. Gone for good. And if they are gone, nobody knows where to. Is that an accurate assessment? Tell me. Lopez smiled as if he had just told John Samuel a quirky anecdote.

  Yes, John Samuel said. And began to sense how the man might be interpreting things.

  I wonder, Don John. Is it possible your brothers told you that they were going somewhere other than this cove, but for the moment it has slipped your mind?

  No, that’s not possible.

  But Don John, you lost your father just two days ago. Your fortitude is admirable, but it is only natural that such a terrible loss should be distracting. That it might interfere with an accurate recollection of other details. It can happen to any man.

  No, that’s not . . . no.

  Perhaps you need a little time to think about it. To make a careful mental review of events and conversations. Maybe they did mention where they would go when they left the hacienda, and maybe it will come to you.

  John Samuel was now convinced that Lopez thought he was trying to mislead him in order to protect his brothers. That he was misdirecting him to the cove to give the twins a chance to escape from wherever they were really hiding. That the business about them soon sailing off was meant to make him go there at once and then later to explain why he did not find them.

  Are you unwell, Don John?

  John Samuel shook a hand dismissively. I’m fine. A moment’s vertigo.

  You see? It is as I say. Grief is very hard on both body and mind.

  Listen, Mr Lopez. Between you and me, I don’t care at all about my brothers, I truly do not. To be blunt, I detest them. Believe me, I hope they’re still at the cove when you get there.

  Lopez smiled. My big brother used to say he hated me too, he said. He was always beating the hell out of me. But let somebody else pick on me and, oh man, my brother would beat hell out of him. My brother could beat me, you see, but he would not stand for anyone else harming me. One time a man kicked me and my brother chopped off half his foot, and then later the same day beat the hell out of me again. That is how it is with many big brothers.

  That’s not how it is with me.

  Lopez smiled and said, I see. He consulted his pocket watch. I suppose I should leave for the seaside at once in the hope I get there before they depart to . . . well, wherever they may be departing to. I thank you for your time, Don John. And I apologize for taking up so much of it when you are under such distress.

  Lopez took a small card from his coat and placed it on the desk. It bore the name of the Hotel de las Palmas and a telegraphic address. He said he had a messenger service there if Don John should want to contact him. In case you remember something that might be of help in locating your brothers, he said. Something that had slipped your mind during this conversation.

  As soon as the man was out the door John Samuel went upstairs and to a window facing the plaza. He spotted him talking to a group of men seated along the verandah of the hacienda store. Lopez then went to the marketplace to converse with some of its vendors and buyers. In every clutch of men he spoke with, some among them pointed eastward toward the sea. Toward Ensenada de Isabel. John Samuel smiled. If others told him of the place, who could say it had been their older brother who revealed where to find them?

  Lopez went to his horse and mounted and started for the main gate at a trot. And John Samuel thought, Go, damn you. Move.

  At mid-morning Bruno showed up at John Samuel’s office. The bandage covering his cheek was stained a rusty red where blood had seeped from the stitches. His engauzed arm was in a sling. He asked John Samuel if he knew about the man named Lopez who had been telling everyone that Mauricio Espinosa sent him to fetch the twins so he could talk with them about what happened. Asking where the boys might be. Everybody was talking about him. The general opinion was that the twins should stay in hiding, wherever they were.

  He was here and asked if I knew where they were, John Samuel said. I said I didn’t know, but somebody told him about the cove, because he asked me if I thought they might be there. I said maybe. What else could I say?

  Are they there? Bruno said.

  I don’t know. Maybe.

  He saw Bruno looking at the hotel card on the desktop and told him Lopez said he could be contacted there.

  “Maybe they sailed off already,” Bruno said, turning the card for a better look. “But if they’re not there he won’t know if they’re gone or hiding on the hacienda. He could make things hard till he knows for sure one way or the other.”

  “He made no secret of working for Mauricio.”

  “Why should he? Lets everybody know who they’re dealing with. Mauricio probably told him to collect the twins and kill them on the road. Shoot them and claim that they were killed in a bandit ambush or something. Who could prove different?”

  From John Roger’s office Bruno headed for the telegraph station. He was hoping the line had not yet been cut, as it no doubt soon would be. On Sunday he had wired his mother and sister the news of Uncle John’s murder by Alfredo Espinosa, the mayordomo’s younger son, and that the twins had then killed Alfredo. Not wanting to add worry to the pain of this news, he omitted all other detail, including that of his own wounds. The next afternoon he’d got a wire from Sófi conveying her and María Palomina’s great sympathy for all of the family at Buenaventura and expressing their great grief at the loss of John Roger, whom they had known for much too short a time.

  Now Bruno sent another wire to Sófi, telling her that Alfredo’s brother Mauricio was an army general and had sent a man named Esmeraldo Lopez to find the twins, who had fled. Nobody knew if the boys were still on the hacienda, but there was fear for them, and fear of the harm Lopez might do to Buenaventura in his effort to find them. He told Sófi he did not mean to alarm her but it was important for somebody outside the hacienda to know these details in case some disaster should occur. He remembered the card of the H
otel de las Palmas in Veracruz and told her it was where Lopez was staying.

  The telegrapher read the message with evident interest. Bruno told him that if he knew what was good for him he would be true to his sworn oath to preserve the confidence of all information that went through him. If I find out you’ve told anyone about this, I’ll cut off your fingers and your tongue. The telegrapher had never before heard him in any humor but pleasant. Yes, Don Bruno, he said, yes, of course.

  Ten minutes later the hacienda’s line was inoperative. A repair team was sent out, and two miles down the road they found where it had been severed. But even after they fixed the break the line was still dead. Another mile farther along they spied another cut. They were heading toward it when rifleshots came from the shadows of the trees. Warning rounds that struck no closer than a few yards from the wagon. The crew turned around and sped back to the compound.

  The incident confirmed John Samuel’s suspicion that Lopez had not come alone. John Samuel had never before given a thought to the hacienda’s lack of hired protectors, but how he now wished his father had kept a party of pistoleros on the payroll. He believed that the men of the compound, armed with muskets and pistols from the armory, could defend the walls, should things come to a fight. But they were not trained combatants, and even if they outnumbered Lopez’s men they would stand no chance against professional gunmen in a fight outside the walls. If Lopez so chose, he could hold the compound under siege while he destroyed everything outside of it. Never had John Samuel been more aware of the hacienda’s isolation and of his lack of friends to whom he might send for help.

  Two hours before Wednesday’s dawn a faint orange glow was reflecting off the low hang of clouds to the distant east. Those who saw it first woke others to look at it. What could it be but the cove house on fire? They wondered if the twins had been there when Lopez arrived. If they had been killed. If they were at that moment burning in the flames casting that distant glimmer.