Her lips parted, and she expelled air from her lungs, saying a single word. “No.”
Pulling her in closer, I smiled as best I could and croaked, “You . . . You’re going to be all right.” I sounded like a mote of dust released from an ancient book.
Her hand came up, brushing my arm. “No.”
“I promise, you’ll be okay.”
“No.” She looked away, and I was afraid I was losing her, so I started to scoop another hand under her legs in an attempt to lift her. “No, they . . .”
I’d just gotten her in my arms and had begun to lift her when something struck me in the head from directly behind.
I fell forward and lay across her, now trying to get my arms under me to push off from the caked red sand that stuck to my face. I heard her crying, but then another blow landed on my head and I flopped forward and lay there because that was all I could do.
15
It was a slow process, like a log dislodged from the depths, rolling, tumbling, and finally surfacing, bobbing along in the current. Up from the blind depths, I felt myself rising through the levels of awareness until I was alive again.
There was a hand on my face, and the fingers were cool.
My eyelids fluttered, and I became aware of amethyst eyes looking down at me; I just lay there gazing into them. “Seven Spanish angels . . .”
The eyes smiled. “What?”
“An old song.”
“Well, there’s only one of me.”
I tried to sit up but collapsed back onto her lap. “Cady.”
“She is alive.”
I closed my eyes and just lay there breathing, grateful for small successes. “Your brother?” She said nothing, and I opened my eyes again to see if she had heard me, the streaks of tears telling me that she had.
She looked away. “Four men it took, four armed men, and he fought them to a standstill, but they beat him senseless. He is up at the house with the women and children.”
I glanced around in the mild darkness, taking in the collapsed stone wall and the rickety hayloft and even the manger where I’d found the AKs. “The Orfanato?”
“Sí.”
“Is there anyone else alive?”
“I don’t know where the Seer is—all but the orphans, your daughter, Adan, the housekeeper, and myself are dead.”
Finally summoning enough energy to rise up and support myself with one arm, I craned my neck in an attempt to exorcise some of the pain. “Have you seen Isidro?”
“Who?”
“The sniper.”
She studied me with a strange look on her face.
“Oh, right—you never saw him.” I tried to stand but decided that could wait. “What happened?”
“Alonzo’s ridiculous car wouldn’t start, so we took another that had the keys in it and almost made it to Torero before it ran out of petrol and they caught us. They got a message that you were going by way of the canyon, and Bidarte’s men were waiting when they came out ahead of you.”
“How did they get there so fast?”
“A private plane.”
Rubbing the back of my head, I grunted. “Was Culpepper the one who brained me?”
“Yes.”
“How the hell did he get out of there?”
“Just lucky, I guess.” We both turned to look at the cocky man who was on the other side of the broken wall, half his face bandaged and my hat back on his head. He sauntered around the low end with my .45 Colt, Henry’s knife, an old kerosene lantern, and a plastic grocery bag. “I gotta tell ya, you are one tough son of a bitch.”
“Praise from Caesar.”
“Right, whatever that means.” He nodded, sat on the rail of the manger, and hung the hissing lamp on a bridle hook, the grocery bag at his boots. He pulled out his fixings from his shirt pocket where I could see the top of the sat phone. With a bandaged hand he made a show of nonchalantly rolling a cigarette, licking and sealing the edge. “We thought you were dead about four times, but you just kept right on going like the Energizer Bunny.”
“You were watching me?”
“Periodically.” Pulling a lighter from his pocket that I recognized as Adan’s, he flipped it open and lit his acrid-smelling smoke. “I mean, we had to leave a trail for you.”
I let that one pass—for now. “How did you get out?”
He touched the bandages that entirely covered one side of his face. “Well now, it wasn’t unscathed, if you know what I mean.” He took another toke and held the cigarette out, blowing on the embers and watching it glow in the twilight. “That was a hot time in the old town. . . .” He glanced at me. “I told you. You should’ve killed me.”
“Boy howdy.”
He smiled. “Climbed up about a hundred yards down the wall and then you threw that grenade and it touched off the sulfur along with the methane.” He gestured toward his face. “Caught some of the flash, and it burned off all the hair on one side of my head, but I got over and was able to run away before the whole damn mountain came crashing down.” He pointed the cigarette at me. “You did a number on the place, cost a lot of money and product, and really pissed some people off.”
“Glad to hear it.”
He smiled. “Yeah, well we’ll see about that.”
“Where’s my daughter?”
“She’s safe.” He nodded his head toward Bianca. “We had to borrow her clothes just to stop you, you know?” He puffed on the cigarette. “I’ll make you a deal, you tell me where that Injun sniper is, and I’ll show you your daughter.”
“I don’t know where he is.”
Some of the swagger left him as he glanced out into the darkness.
“But he’s out there I’m betting. Somewhere.”
Culpepper pulled the .30-06 shells from his pocket. “Where did these come from?”
“I couldn’t say, but then I guess you can’t either.”
He considered me for a long while. “Okey-dokey, then I guess we got no deal.” He shrugged, dropping them back in his pocket. “Now, let’s get back to business—need to know how you are feelin’.”
“Let me see my daughter.”
“You’ll see her tomorrow.” He waved my request away. “Now, I repeat, how are you?”
“What do you care, you’re just going to kill us all anyway.”
“Not my choice. El Jefe has plans for you come daybreak, and I need to assess if you’re up to snuff.” Carefully dragging a leg underneath me, I ponderously stood, towering over him as he slowly aimed my gun at me. “Easy there, cowboy.”
I felt like I was going to fall over or throw up, neither of which would likely intimidate the challenger, so I did as he said and just stood there. “So you two are back together?”
“Like two peas in a pod.” He gestured with the barrel toward the grocery bag. “There’s food and water in there for the both of you, and there’ll be more in the morning, but in the meantime, I suggest you get some rest, you’re going to need it.”
He stood and walked out, his voice trailing behind him. “I’ve got some boys of my own here guarding you and out there circling the perimeter, and they’ll be looking for that little Apache prick so if you hear some shooting tonight that’s probably them sending the little fucker off to the happy hunting ground.” He began whistling Patsy Cline as he strolled off. “Sweet dreams.”
I limped toward the crumbling wall where he’d disappeared and could see two men standing by the corral. Beyond them, the moonlight was gleaming off the aluminum skin of a twin-engine Beechcraft. I was coming around to the thought that having my old Doolittle Raider boss, Lucian Connally, on this trip might’ve not been such a bad idea.
After a moment, I felt Bianca standing beside me. “I’m assuming you have a plan?”
* * *
—
The food was good, but the
water was better. We sat under the unforgiving light of the thirties kerosene lantern I’d just repumped, a less than romantic mood having settled in with the hiss, as we took stock of what our options were. “What do you think Bidarte has planned?”
“Something dramatic—it’s what he does.” I finished munching on the tortillas and swallowed some more water, feeling a little better. “I’m wondering where they’ve got everyone. There aren’t that many places where they could have them. There’s only the main house and this place, so unless they’re on the plane out there . . .”
“Do you fly?”
I entertained the thought for a nanosecond. “I think we’d all be safer facing overarmed, psychotic drug dealers than climbing into a plane with me at the controls.”
“Then what?”
I walked back to the manger where Culpepper had been sitting and flipped open the hidden drawer where I’d found the AKs I’d taken with us to the mountain. The space lay empty, the ZAPATA ESTABA AQUÍ! message in chalk mocking me. “Well, whatever we’re going to do we’re going to have to do it unarmed.”
“What about your friend, the Indian with the rifle?”
I shook my head. “I honestly don’t know where he is or if he’s even out there.” I limped back over to the wall. “It’s you and me.” I turned to look at her. “How many men does he have with him?”
She came over, joining me in watching the two men at the corral as they smoked and watched us back. “Maybe a half dozen.”
“That’s not very many. With one or two out checking the area and with someone with the old woman and kids and Adan and Cady in the ranch house, it’s possible that they’ll leave only one man to guard us through the night.” I glanced down at her. “What vehicles are there?”
“There is the SUV they took us in at Torero and then an old school bus that belongs to the Orfanato.”
“Yep, well, I don’t think that thing has run anytime since Truman was a tyke.” I sighed and then thought about it, remembering what Adan had said. “Your brother, he said they drove it every day into Torero, but I’ll check the Escalade first—I doubt they left the keys in it, so unless I can get them off of someone . . .”
“Then we will take the bus, and I’ll disable the Cadillac. If they were to chase us with the Beechcraft what are they going to do, bump us with the tires? You can’t exactly break the windows out of those things and shoot at us, and if I have my way I’ll have something to shoot at them; in my experience civilian aircraft don’t respond well to incoming fire. Besides, you’re worrying about disaster one hundred and forty-seven before we even get to number one.”
I glanced at the two men, and her eyes followed mine as her fingers twined around my arm. “You’re going out there?”
Adjusting the lamp, I glanced at her. “I think I just might.”
* * *
—
It was later, much later, and we’d turned the lantern way down in hopes of indicating to the guards that we were going to sleep and to let our eyes adjust to the dark.
Crouched by the lowest end of the wall, I watched and decided that these two jaybirds obviously had more cigarettes to smoke and things to discuss than any other two men in Mexico.
Bianca lay out of the way, gently breathing as she slept, and I was about to give up the ghost and get some sleep myself when one of the men said something about cigarrillos before walking off toward the main house.
Evidently, they had finally run out of cigarettes.
There was a small area under the manger where the rocks had given way, and it was possible I could get out that way, but just as I started to move, the one guard who remained stepped to the side to look at us and I feigned sleep.
After a moment, I heard him crunching back across the roadway and turned to find Bianca looking at me and whispering, “Now?”
I crawled toward the opening, pausing only once to look back at her. “Remember, fifteen minutes.” She glanced down at the pocket watch I’d given her and nodded, and I was off.
Elbowing my way through the dirt and cobwebs, I came out in what would’ve been the old compost heap, which added an odiferous quality to my already sartorial splendor. Dragging myself up near a rickety fence, I glanced around but could only see one light on somewhere in the ranch house. If I were to make a bet, I would be willing to wager that Bidarte, Culpepper, and maybe one or two of the others would be availing themselves of the comforts on the plane rather than the run-down cottage.
The barn blocked the one guard from observing me, but I was now in plain view of the ranch house and could only hope anyone there was otherwise occupied.
The first thing to do was see if we had any way of escape—I thought I’d check the SUV before the run-down bus, on the offhand chance someone had left the keys in it.
Staying low, I moved across the road toward the far end of the corral, away from the guard and where the Cadillac sat. Moving around the hood of the black Escalade, I crept up the side to look in the window for the key and then realized the thing had keyless entry and start. There really wasn’t any way to see if the keys were in the thing without opening the door and alerting the entire ranch.
I couldn’t even tell if it was locked without pulling one of the handles.
Hell.
Shaking my head, I moved toward the lawn ornament of a bus manufactured by Mercury in 1959 and found the bifold doors hanging loose, and the key with a bottle opener chain hanging in the switch. How many pumps and cranks would it take to get this piece of crap running, and then how long would it run?
Double hell.
I was going to have to commit, because there wasn’t going to be any time to play musical vehicles when we were trying to get out of here. As much as I detested the thought, the safe move was to disable the Escalade and hope the old bus would start.
Pulling the key from the vehicle, I moved back over and used the pointed end of the opener to try and stab one of the Escalade’s tires, but it would only go in so far. Giving up, I took off the cap and used the point to gently push in the valve, slowly letting the air out until the tire was pretty well flat. I wanted to flatten another, but I knew I was running out of time, that at any moment Bianca was about to start our planned distraction, and then all hell was likely to break loose.
I moved toward the house and circled behind, taking up a post beside the steps that led from the back screen door.
The kerosene or maybe propane light was on in the kitchen, and I could see a couple of men drinking cans of beer at a table with their feet up, the crushed remains of the evening celebration scattered across the floor.
There was a door to the right, and I assumed that was where the women and children and Adan and Cady were. Slipping past it, I worked my way across the back of the house to another window where Alicia, the solemn little girl whom I’d met here when we’d gotten the mules, was looking at me.
I froze and slowly raised a finger to my lips. I looked at her and then the window sash. It was about then that she simply raised the thing up and leaned out to look at me.
Alexia’s broad face appeared beside the child’s, and I held the finger to my lips again. “Is Cady here?”
She shook her head. “No, she is on the plane with the bad men.”
I sighed, staring at them as more tiny, grubby faces joined us in the window. “What about Adan?”
She glanced behind her. “He is on the floor; he is badly hurt.”
“Let’s try and get him to the window, and I’ll carry him.”
She shrank away from my outstretched hands. “The children.”
I glanced past the faces, searching the room behind them. “Where’s the old woman?”
“They killed her. On the porch, with the children watching.”
I stood there shocked for a moment and then lowered my forehead on the sill. “Lord have mercy.”
&nbs
p; Alexia’s voice was solid. “Yes, with all the saints of heaven, He watches over us. We take the children with us, yes?”
Breathing the dust away from the sill, I suddenly felt tiny hands patting the back of my head and raised my face to look into Alicia’s dark eyes. Feeling like the world had been pulled out from under my feet and sturdily placed on my shoulders, I raised my arms, picked her up, and lifted the first of many through the window.
* * *
—
The kids were actually better than the two of us at keeping quiet. Playing as if it were a game, they began scurrying across the open ground like church mice and carefully climbed aboard the old bus. I helped Alexia get the unconscious Adan up the vehicle’s stairs and was about to turn when I heard someone yelling and looked over to see flames licking the rafters of the half-collapsed barn.
“Fuego! Fuego!”
Evidently Bianca and the kerosene lantern had done the trick, and the entire barn was doing a pretty good job of lighting up the place for a hundred yards around.
I had two more passengers to pick up, so I told Alexia and the children to stay in the bus and to keep down away from the windows; then I circled around the back where the first guard was running past toward the ranch house.
Realizing an opportunity when I saw one, I threw a leaping body block into the much smaller man, crushing him into the sand and dirt, my weight squeezing every bit of air out of him as I grabbed what turned out to be the M16 carbine I’d been carrying.
I swung the butt of the weapon and knocked his head sideways like the return carriage on a typewriter—if he wasn’t out cold, he was at least down for the count. I swung the M16, checked the magazine, and flipped it to auto—things were starting to even up.
Limping across the road, I saw Bianca racing for the vehicles and presumed she’d figure out it was the bus or nothing when she got there. Logic dictated that most of the men would head for the fire, but I knew Bidarte would leave at least one to guard Cady, and I knew which one I hoped it would be.
Depth of Winter Page 23