Miguel shrugged. "Let them be, boy. It is the same God. And believe me, you have bigger problems today."
Without further preamble he smacked the lad's horse sharply on the rear, and it whinnied in distress before bolting away.
"Hey!" the lad yelped, but whatever protest he might have wanted to make was cut short by the snapping thud of the rope. His body added its fresh rhythm to the dying swing of his comrades.
Aronson splashed more canteen water, this time on Adam's head, and repeated the prayer. "Adam Coupland, having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you, for and in behalf of this man, we know only as Billy, who is just now dead, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, amen."
The last of the road agents, the boss of the crew, drew in a deep breath as Miguel rode over, but he seemed composed enough now that his time had come.
"Will you tell them your name so that they might baptize you properly?" Miguel asked of the man.
The agent seemed to ponder the matter for a few moments. He took a deep breath of cold Texas air through his nose and held it for a few seconds before slowly letting it out. Then he looked Miguel straight in the eye.
"No," he replied, allowing his gaze to drift away from Miguel to the peaceful vista they enjoyed from the gentle rise overlooking the forested hills to the southwest. "No, I really do not think I will give you or anyone else the satisfaction."
"Satisfaction be damned," Miguel said, letting his anger show through. "You have your orders from Fort Hood, do you not? You have your orders, your mission, your blood money, everything from Blackstone."
The agent smiled.
"Maybe yes, maybe no, maybe neither. You've got my life, puta. You can't have my name. And you can't have my country, neither. But rest assured, I will be sure to give your regards to the devil."
And with that, he spurred his own horse out from beneath him and dropped into eternity. "I would not advise staying here long," Miguel said as they walked away from the freshly mounded graves.
"You think there will be more road agents?" D'Age asked.
"Possibly not. From what I hear, they have their own territories. But there are TDF patrols about, and if they were in contact with these men, they will soon notice that they have gone."
The morning was cool despite the late hour. It would be time for lunch soon, but Miguel wondered whether the Mormons would have any appetite after the foul passage of the day so far. At first light they had buried the dead from the gunfight with the help of the three survivors, laying them down in soft ground near a small water hole not far from the football field. Then they had buried the other three in the same place after hanging them. Three of the camp whores had survived their wounds, and Miguel understood that an intense debate was under way within the Mormon ranks over what to do with them. The smart thing would be to silence them, too, but he had no stomach for that, and the Mormons would not hear of the suggestion. Taking them or leaving them seemed to be the only options, and both were beset with problems.
He wiped his sweating brow. A few wispy strands of white cloud stretched across otherwise hard blue skies, and the sounds of cattle mustering drifted over the tree line.
They had buried Peter Atchison, their horse wrangler, who had been killed by an agent's bullet, under a chestnut tree some distance away. The tenor of the small party was subdued, and their leaders were of a mind to move both cattle and people to the far side of town for a few days' rest before breaking trail again.
Sofia, who had been walking a few yards ahead with Adam and Orin and a fully recovered Sally Gray, dropped out of the group of youngsters and stood waiting until Miguel, Aronson, and D'Age caught up with her.
"I need a moment with my daughter," Miguel said.
Aronson and D'Age nodded. "Of course."
Sofia still seemed stiff, cold, constantly searching her surroundings. Miguel remembered a better time when his little princess had taken an intense interest in anything new, always curious. He placed a hand on her shoulder and guided her off to the side. She came along willingly enough, something Miguel did not take for granted these days.
"Are you all right, Sofia?" he asked in Spanish. He did not want anyone to overhear this discussion.
After clearing her initial surprise at the change in language, Sofia responded in kind. "Suppose so."
This morning was not the first time she had seen death, of course, but it was the first time she had seen men killed in a detached and calculated fashion, if one could call the messy execution that.
"I am sorry about what I did last night," Miguel said. "I lost control of myself."
"I understand," she said in a tone that lacked any warmth or emotion.
"Do you?" he asked. "Do you really understand? You are all that is left to me. You are the future to me. But also my past. Every one of us who has ever lived lives on in you. All of our family. You are everything. For that reason, in small measure, but mostly, almost entirely, because I love you more than anyone or anything in the world. How could it be otherwise? Do you understand how important it is to me that you reach safety?"
She cocked her head to the left, another new tic she had picked up. "Where is it truly safe, Papa? Can you answer me that?"
"Kansas City, of course," he said.
"Are you sure, Papa?" Sofia asked. "Are you really sure about that?"
"The federales are there…"
"And what of the Wave, Papa?" Sofia asked. "The Americanos, for all of their power, were wiped off the face of God's earth by the Wave. Where is safe?"
"The Wave will not come again," he said.
"Are you sure of that?" Sofia asked. "How can you be sure of anything, Papa? I am certain of only one thing now-that feeling safe is an illusion. Can you tell me otherwise?"
Miguel shook his head. He had never had this sort of trouble with Sofia before. She had never questioned his authority like this. He felt rage flickering at the edge of his temper again and quickly did his best to defuse it.
"Papa." She reached out and grabbed his arm. Her grip was firm, solid around his bicep. "We must protect each other. We are all that we have left. And whether you like it or not, I will do my best to protect you. Your belt does not frighten me anymore, not now."
He looked Sofia in the eye. He saw that in some respects he had lost her as well. The laughing, happy daughter, la princesa, had passed away just as surely as the rest of his family. In her place was this changeling, this cold, hard…
Woman, he realized.
"Papa." Her voice sounded much as it had years ago when he used to hold her high over his head. "I love you very much, and I could not bear to lose you."
He took her into his arms and held her close, as if it might be the last time. He remembered bringing her those silly little toys out of a McDonald's Happy Meal, how much she had enjoyed them. More so because her papa had brought them for her. He remembered taking the family down to the beach on one of his rare vacations away from the trail, watching the children play in the surf.
Miguel remembered teaching Sofia not to blink when she pulled the trigger, to squeeze the trigger, not yank it, when the ten-point buck came into view. Headstrong even then, Sofia had taken the buck at nearly three hundred yards, which startled everyone to this very day.
"I love you, too," he said.
Later in the day, Miguel gave her back her Remington. "You should not feel bad about what we had to do this morning or last night," Aronson said as they resumed their trek back to the rest of the Mormon host. "Those men were killers and rapists and thieves. Both Texas and Seattle law allows for summary execution under those circumstances. God will judge them as he judges us all."
Sofia regarded the Mormon leader with some confusion. "I don't feel bad," she said. "I don't feel anything for them. They got what they deserved. That's all that happened this morning."
"But you do not look very happy," he said.
She waited a moment before answering.
"I thought it
would help," she said. "I thought it would make me feel better." She shrugged again and then trailed off.
"The only thing that will make you feel better is the thing you can't have," said Miguel. "Everything the way it was. That is what we all want. And that is impossible. But it is possible to have some justice from the sort of men who killed Mama and your brother and sister and the others. And while it may not make us feel better, I can promise you it does make the world a better place every time one of them leaves it."
Miguel turned to Aronson. "I can understand that you might wish some time to recover from all this, and I will abide by your choice, but if you are caught here by Blackstone's men, by the TDF, so close to the evidence of the agents' destruction, it will go badly for you."
"But we were defending ourselves and our women and reclaiming our stock," Aronson protested. "We cannot be punished for doing that, not justly."
"Out here, justice is a bullet," Miguel replied. "You have the most bullets, you get the most justice."
His daughter, he noticed, nodded in agreement with that. Both of the Mormons looked troubled.
"But Fort Hood condemns the road agents," Aronson said. "They send patrols against them and have made membership in the gangs a hanging offense. We hanged those men on that authority."
"They are the first agents I know of being hanged," said Miguel. "None have been caught or punished by the TDF."
He looked up at the sound of a whip crack to see Adam and Orin mustering the herd toward the field on the far side of the road that ran by the football stadium. Martin Luther King Drive or Boulevard, he thought it was called.
"It is not true to say that the TDF does not suppress the gangs," Aronson said. "You know they hanged a dozen bandits in Fort Hood just last week according to Texas Public Radio. And I have read reports of summary executions on the range."
"They are said to be quite common," D'Age added.
Miguel stopped at a fence post where they had left their jackets and water bottles. He took a long pull from his flask, which was insulated by a neoprene sleeve. The water inside was deliciously cold on his dry throat. He offered it to Sofia, but she produced a small pink hip flask of her own. Miguel had never seen it before and wondered where she had picked it up. It seemed to have a picture of a cat on it and the words "Hello Kitty."
"Hangings are said to be quite common," he said to D'Age. "I wouldn't trust a word that comes from Texas Public Radio. It is a Blackstone… how would you say? Piece of mouth? And nobody ever sees them, because they are said to take place beyond the boundaries of the settlement. And yes, twelve banditos were hanged last week. And more the week before that. But banditos are not road agents. They are all from well below the Rio Grande. There was a reason those men would not give you their names this morning. It had nothing to do with matters of faith. Agents give up their names and with them their affiliations to Fort Hood on pain of death, or worse."
Aronson took a drink before bending forward and pouring most of his bottle over his head and neck, grunting with pleasure at the cool thrill. When he stood up, he shook off the beaded droplets like a dog.
"That is speculation, Miguel. They didn't give us their real names because they have their gang names. They're like the old Hells Angels or the gangstas in the cities before the Wave. They take a gang name when they join. It is their new identity, like being born again, except into sin. These men are no different."
Miguel gave him a searching look. "How would you know?"
Aronson smiled. "I was a doctor of sociology before the Wave. Urban subcultures were my specialty."
The cattle were moving en masse now to fresh pasture a short distance away, lowing and trumpeting as Miguel's cattle dogs barked and yapped with great excitement to herd them through the gates on the far side of the field. The beasts' earthy scent mingled with the growing cloud of dust as the herd got on the road. Flankers guided the cattle off the ball field with a rudimentary skill that impressed Miguel. The Mormons were fast learners.
"Get around!" he yelled at Red Dog before she was distracted by a blood patch where he had killed the two guards with his knife.
Miguel faced Aronson and turned his palms up to the sky, a "whatever" gesture as his daughter called it.
"Well, I am no doctor, Mister Aronson. But I know what I know, and you will come to regret it if you take the word of Fort Hood on this matter. The road agents are their men, no matter what they say. And if I were you, I would be clear of this place as soon as I could be."
Aronson did not dismiss him out of hand, for which Miguel was thankful. He had often found with educated people that they thought his advice not worthy of listening to because he had not bothered with books and learning beyond what was necessary for his work. He could read, and he could write English quite well-he would not have made it through settler selection otherwise-but he did not have the luxury of doing so for pleasure.
"We shall confer with the women and see what they say," Cooper Aronson conceded. "But even if we are to leave here as soon as possible, we should gather what supplies we can from this town."
Miguel nodded at that. "Fair enough," he said before smiling at an old memory.
"Fair enough" was what Miss Julianne used to say when she got as much of her way as she was ever going to, just before she started plotting to get the rest of it as well. He was right about lunch. Although Miguel had a raging appetite, nobody else seemed to need much beyond hardtack and water. Some of the women had gathered fruit, and the storm cellar of the Hy Top had given up a carton of strawberry jam tins. But only Miguel and, oddly enough, young Adam seemed to have any hunger. Sofia nibbled at the fruit and drank plenty of water, but to her father's eye she appeared tired and worn down. Everyone had gathered in the shade under a tree near the football field on which the herd was now grazing. At some point the camp whores had been accepted into the Mormon host, but from what Miguel could see, the graft was not taking well. They sat apart, sullen and suspicious.
The women they had so recently treated as less than human distinguished themselves by the care and consideration with which they attended to the needs of the whores, who had been cleaned up and dressed in more respectable attire. Perhaps that was behind their surly disposition, Miguel thought, smiling to himself. Once they had been prized out of their leather miniskirts and tight T's and draped in long, shapeless floral frocks, all of their intimidating sexual power had vanished. The livid bruising and splints and bandages for their wounds did not help much in that regard, either. Miguel kept his eye on them for a few minutes, but they were being guarded by Trudi Jessup, the woman he had rescued last night, who was neither camp whore nor captive Mormon. He had not spoken to her at length beyond quietly accepting her thanks after the executions. She had spent all her time with the other women, but something about her marked her as being separate and somehow different.
He supposed it was simply because she was not of their church.
After a short while observing her, it was obvious the whores would be given no opportunity to cause trouble, and he relaxed a little. It was not such a wise thing accepting the enemy into camp like this, he thought. Taking a few apples from a plastic bowl, and supplementing them with a slab of biscuit and a small piece of hard cheese, he walked over to where the leadership group was still discussing what they might do. He had always assumed Mormons to be a little backward in their treatment of women-although no more so than many traditional Catholics, he had to admit-but here the women seemed to be equals with their men.
"Come over, Miguel, please," Aronson said when he saw the vaquero watching them idly.
He had met all the women already, of course, but he was never especially good with names, and despite making an effort to commit them all to memory, he could not be certain who was who. Jenny, the betrothed of Willem D'Age, he remembered without a problem. And Aronson's wife, Maive, he recognized, of course. She had been very good to Sofia and the only one who did not appear to judge his daughter for her behavior on the n
ight of the rescue, although Tori, the betrothed of Ben Randall, had taken Sofia aside to thank her for shooting down the murderous harpy who had intended him murder.
Of the others, besides Sally Gray, who was younger and thus no part of this conference, he had no idea, but he was comfortable enough addressing all as ma'am.
A pall still hung over the small band, with all of them speaking as though they were in church, not quite whispering but not speaking as loudly or gaily as one might expect of people who had just escaped death. Miguel supposed the close nature of that escape would naturally suppress their spirits. The wound of losing one of their own, the violence to which they had been a party, and, most serious of all, the outrages committed upon the women would take some time to heal.
"Miguel," said Aronson, "my wife agrees with you that we should not delay long in our departure from this place." Maive surprised him by placing a cool hand on his forearm and squeezing lightly.
She looked over at the camp whores, and Miguel was certain he detected just a flash of ill feeling directed toward them, but Maive Aronson immediately softened her gaze and went on.
"It would be best to get the women away from here. We have enough supplies from the stop at Leona. We should be gone from here as quickly as possible."
"That is probably wise," Miguel said. "I do not know that there would be much worth salvaging here, anyway. The center of the city is badly burned out and looted already."
"That was the agents," Jenny said, with much more obvious bitterness than Maive. "One of them told me they had been using this town as a base for six months and had destroyed a good deal of the town center for the fun of it."
She sounded as appalled by the suggestion that anyone would do such a thing as she was by having been captured and mistreated by the same men.
"Then we should move on as soon as we can," said Miguel. "Where do you next plan to make camp?"
"Palestine," Aronson said.
33
New York No, thought Milosz, you do not obtain military-specification P90s from stroking pussycats. You steal them or buy them on the black market, or, given the way this country was, you loot them from a deserted gun store. But what the hell. He could not care less where the strange hippopotamus man in the very odd Viking helmet and his English lady friend got the weapons that had saved his ass. All Milosz cared about was that his scrawny ass remained in one piece, while back at Madison and 29th the asses of many nig nogs and crazy ragheaded asswits were scattered about the street in many, many pieces.
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