by J P S Brown
They rode across the stream and dismounted at his side. He stood, but did not offer his hand, and when Kane reached out to embrace him, he stepped back. "No," he said. "I have a hole in my shoulder."
Martinillo pointed to a brown tear above the right breast pocket of his shirt. The shirt had been washed, but a brown bloodstain surrounded the tear.
Kane and Vogel placed both hands gently on his shoulders in token embraces.
"What happened, Adan?" Kane asked. "Where are you hurt?"
Martinillo sat again, filled a slim, long-necked, pint amphora with water to drink, and began the story of his adventure in the high Sierra. The three partners tried to figure how much time had elapsed since they were last together and decided it had been four to six weeks. Martinillo admitted that he was the least qualified to know the time. He had lain delirious at Canela for many lost days. He did not think he would have survived, except that an Indian happened along and helped him through his fever and delirium. He had been so sick that he only saw the man’s dark form, never his face. Martinillo had spoken to him, but he seldom replied, except when he heard the names of Kane and Vogel. Martinillo awoke one morning much improved and called to him, but he was gone.
"Who is this Indian?" Vogel asked. "I know every tegueco in the country."
"He knows you, compadre, and he knows my compadre Jim,"
Martinillo said. "He referred to you both as his compadres, as though you had baptized or confirmed his children. He seldom spoke. He only nodded when I asked him to go find you. I thought he went to look for you when he left me."
"No," Vogel said.
"How strange. He had the touch of a saint. From the minute he arrived, I began to improve. He could take away my pain by touching me."
The partners made Martinillo take off his shirt and show the wound. The purple scar on his back resembled an imploded star and the place where the bullet had erupted from his upper breast was the shape and size of an exploded silver peso.
The partners stood away and looked at the scars.
"You’re almost healed," Kane said. "You know? Maybe your guardian angel came to you in the form of that Indian."
"The Indian," Vogel said. "Who could he have been? Was he a complete stranger, or did his face seem familiar?"
"His movements were familiar. I only saw parts of his face in the light from time to time. He always stood between me and the light, but the way he moved reminded me of someone I knew well. I have been near him and touched by him before. I remember him as I do my grandfather who died when I was only three or four. I would have known him if he had ever given me a good look at his face, or if he would have told me who he was."
"Your guardian angel," Kane said. "That was him."
"You ought to know, compadre," Vogel said. "If anybody’s seen his guardian angel, it’s you. Nobody's come back from the dead more times than you."
"Believe it, compadre," Kane said.
"I’ll believe it when I come back from the dead as you have from plane wrecks, pneumonia, horse wrecks, stabbings, shootings, and car wrecks. My guardian angel hasn’t shown himself to me yet, but I’ll know him when I see him."
Kane changed the subject. "Compadre Adan, we have to give you bad news," he said, then looked to Vogel for help.
"What is it?" Martinillo said. "Tell me."
Vogel put his hand on his shoulder. "Marco Antonio and Memin are dead."
"No! How?" Martinillo said.
"Los Lobos shot them down as they ate supper at El Retiro after the race."
"How can that be?" Martinillo asked. He turned away and lifted a hand to his brow. Vogel started to give him details, but Martinillo told him not to say any more for a while. The compadres unsaddled their horses to cool their backs and led them to the pool to drink. Kane gave Martinillo a drink from his amphora of mezcal.
"You know that Los Lobos did it?" Martinillo asked.
"No mistake," Vogel said. "Several people saw the shooters, among them your son Adancito and Beto and Manuelito Montenegro. A carload of Lobos with Uzis drove by and sprayed their table in El Retiro with gunfire."
"What’s been done to them?"
"They haven't been caught."
Martinillo thought awhile. His face had turned pale, his eyes hard.
"It’s the Lupinos," he said. "The Lupinos train them to kill at La Culebra. La Culebra, the snake. Cut down the Lupinos and behead the snake."
"We know that Rafa Lupino is behind the killing," Kane said.
"The dirty sons of their fornicating, whoring mothers are all to blame, Lobos and Lupinos alike," Martinillo said. "For my mother and father, from this day, I am going to hunt them down one by one and kill them all."
Kane and Vogel remained silent. Kane regretted that he had not voiced his anger the same way He wanted too much to return to the peace that his old bones enjoyed before he and Vogel went to La Golondrina to receive the Lupino cattle. Now, as he looked into the diamond glitter of anger in the eyes of his compadre he felt shame. He should have run Rafa down and cut out his gizzards while his trail was hot. What did he think a seventy-five-year-old Kane carcass was worth, anyway? It certainly was not worth saving for a peaceful Old Geezer retirement. After a while, Martinillo said, "Vámonos. I better get home." He mounted Lagarto behind Kane.
On the way to El Trigo, Kane and Vogel gave him the details of the killings of his grandson and son and the kidnapping of the girls. With no emotion at all, he told them what he had seen and endured in the high Sierra.
"How well does your arm work, compadre?" Kane asked. "We have a lot more to do."
"I have soreness and numbness, but it is better than it was. The numbness recedes as I use it."
"When will you be fit again?"
"Someday if I use the shoulder and give it rest."
After a while, he said, "Who won the horse race?"
The compadres stopped at El Trigo to saddle a mule for Martinillo and went on. They reached Las Animas two hours after dark. Martinillo’s dogs barked, came out to meet them on the trail, and accompanied them into the yard. Lucrecia come around the corner of the house and climbed the steps into the lamplight of the veranda. Her movement showed her sixty years. Kane looked at Vogel and Martinillo ahead of him in the dark and saw how old they were too. Any time that sixty-five and seventy-five-year-old men rode into camp three hours after sundown, they felt their age, and so did the people who waited for them. He felt stronger than he had when he returned to the Sierra, but the miles and hours of anxiety that he and his compadres had recently endured bore down on their old bones that evening.
Kane did not feel tired in his purpose. He could do the work that must be done, but he would not be able wait another hour to rest. When he had been young, he liked to say that he had never been drunk, sick, or tired. Well, now he knew the tired and sick parts. He had found out about the drunk part a long time ago.
Kane and Vogel had served as godfathers for Marco Antonio and Memin Martinillo and were close to them in their upbringing. They felt it their responsibility to hold a new wake for them when they sat down for supper at Lucrecia’s table. They happily recalled good times they had enjoyed with the young men. They told the stories of the horse race between Gato and Auda, the recovery of the girls, and the money they had won. Without having consulted Kane, Vogel promised to give the Martinillos a third of his race winnings. Kane followed his example and did the same.
Even though the compadres were now convinced that the Lupinos had always been their enemy, they did not feel required to immediately go to war with them. They could return to their cattle business tomorrow, or they could do something about the Lupinos, and not feel guilty about either decision. The Lupinos would be at La Golondrina like a wide, untouched, bull’s-eye target for as long as the compadres allowed it. Of one fact they were certain: they had the courage and the purpose to attack that target and leave it in tatters any time they saw fit. They could live with the Lupinos as before and everybody could mind their own busine
ss and be allowed to do as they pleased, or they could finally make the Lupinos pay for the ruin of their community.
Kane proposed that the compadres castigate the Lupinos without starting a war. He wanted to hurt them as he and his compadres had been hurt, but secretly. He believed that if the compadres hit the secret place at La Culebra, the Lupinos would keep it a secret.
Kane told Vogel and Martinillo that he would not blame them if they did not join the brawl he planned. They patiently and firmly stated that they would join him in anything he wanted to do. They could not allow a rabid dog to prowl their yard, and they could not allow two-legged predators to take their young. Every wolf in the pack might not have tasted the blood of Dolly Ann and Luci, but that did not mean the pack was not to blame.
What good were three old compadres unless they used their principles and experience to rid their country of predators? They could at least wipe out the foreign pack of Lobos at La Culebra. If they sat on their geezerhood and did nothing, they would only prove to their neighbors that the three old codgers of El Trigo begged to live out their old age in peace. Instead, they would hit the Lupinos with every weapon they could muster and a purpose that was neither young nor old, but as effective as their old talents could make it. It remained for them to decide on the method.
"This time we have to agree on a plan," Kane said. "My leadership in the recovery of the girls almost got us put in jail. We only got away with it because Rafa and Güero are afraid of what we might do to them next and did not bring charges. Nesib, Ibrahim, and Jacobo are not like them."
"Compadre," Vogel addressed Martinillo. "Can you describe the weapons they have at La Culebra?"
Martinillo brought out his drawings of the weapons the pelones had unpacked and studied in front of the bunkhouse at La Culebra.
"You think Abdullah was the one who shot you?"
"I’m almost sure, although I didn’t see him do it. I’m sure our eyes locked over the top of that horse, so he must have been the first to come after me."
"Do you think he recognized you?"
"I don’t think he knows me, and no one who came near my hiding place during the search said my name."
The compadres agreed that Rafa was not their main adversary among the Lupinos. Fools were not in charge of Lupino business. Rafa was only a minion. The Lupinos let him do as he pleased on the fringe of their projects, but he acted only as an unruly court jester. The other Lupinos, the hard workers, the polite professionals, were the dangerous ones.
These conclusions alarmed Kane. He had botched the recovery of the girls, made his partners look like criminals, and had come away without his revenge. Every Lupino except Rafa had emerged from the fracas as law-abiding, just-minded, even-tempered, gentlemanly heroes.
"This time, we have to use our weapons better," Kane said. "The Lupinos are smart as the devil. We caught them about to rape and murder our girls, but came away with our tails between our legs. Their holdings include a high-dollar war machine with new weapons and equipment, a battalion of Mexican cavalry and gang members, and a lot of money. We can’t start an open war against them, so how can we hurt them?"
"They can’t hurt us unless they know us as their adversary," Vogel said. "If we can wipe out everything at La Culebra, we’ll stunt their growth and shrink their bank account. They’re dedicated to the accumulation of goods and money. We don’t care whether the purpose of their paramilitary camp at La Culebra is for protection against rivals, war against political and religious enemies, or to make a profit out of the training of criminal manpower. La Golondrina is the headquarters for billions of pesos worth of goods and property. If we can destroy everything at La Culebra now, while they harvest their opium gum, we might break their eggs. While we wipe out their men and machines, we’ll destroy their billion-peso crop. If we succeed, they’ll know that an enemy as mean as they are has found them out, can hurt them bad, and will probably keep doing it. That will be our best blow of all.
"Pancho Villa and Zapata hit their enemies hardest where they were fattest and then ran, often without even being seen. Their enemies were never sure who had hit them. A broadcast would report that Villa's army had been seen at Parral one day and the next day in Durango. Only a fleet of airplanes could have hit and run with that much range. Before he made a name for himself and invited news reporters and film crews on his raids, Villa was a phantom who not only leveled his enemies when he attacked, but demoralized them, because they could not find him.
"We need to use the same stealth and deceit that Villa and Zapata used before they became generals. We’re horse and mule men and know the horseshoe trails of this region better than anyone. With my compadre Jim’s airplane, we’re also airmen. If we maintain secrecy and equip ourselves properly we might not destroy the entire Lupino barony, but we can cut off one leg and cripple the other. Then we take aim at the head and heart."
"Am I the only one who wants to kill every Lobo pelon, but not any Lupino except Rafa?" Kane asked.
"I don’t want to kill the Lupinos, either," Vogel said. "I leave Rafa to you. The girls came away from the ordeal without a serious bruise or a cut. They didn’t even get dirty. I think Jacobo and Ibrahim were responsible for that. Maybe we should thank Nesib and Fatima for the way they raised those two."
"Yes, and maybe we ought to cut out their livers for the way they raised Rafa," Kane said.
"As wolves go, every single pack has a good mother and grandfather."
"Do you say that we should spare the Lupinos, compadre Juan?"
Martinillo asked Vogel. "How will that help us?"
"Don’t spare any of them. Blow them all up," Lucrecia said.
Kane and Vogel laughed.
"Let’s realize our limitations," Kane said. "We can’t blow up their warehouses, resort hotel, airplanes, and fishing boats in town because we might hurt a customer, or a child, a cook, or a neighbor. We can blow up their heroin factory and warehouse at La Culebra, and burn their opium crop and the airships we catch at the camp. We can kill that bunkhouse full of Arabs and pelones, and probably get away without being identified.
"I don’t want to kill the Lupinos, Abdullah, or their horses, but I sure want to kill all their help. Anyway, what’s the use of burning their goods if we kill the Lupinos? Who would wail over their losses? You know they’ll raise a great lament, because no one has ever done them any hurt. I may not want to kill them, but I want to hear them howl. I bet nobody ever beat them out of even a spoilt tortilla. However, if one Lupino shoots at me, I’ll shoot out all their gizzards."
"What about old Nesib and Fatima? Will you shoot them too?" Lucrecia asked.
"No matter what happens, they’ll be hurt," Kane said. "Nesib is the one who profits most from all the businesses. The family would not have that camp at La Culebra without his full consent. That ravine stores the deepest well of his conceit. If he’ll allow enemies of his country to have a guerilla war school on his place, he’ll do anything."
"What about Fatima?"
"She’s always enjoyed don Nesib’s confidence," Vogel said. "She keeps the family books and writes all the checks and collects all the cash, at least for La Golondrina. Nesib can’t go to the bathroom without her knowledge and consent. As far as I know, neither can her sons. She’s probably the smartest of them all. She has to know the extent of the family’s criminal business."
The compadres agreed that old man Lupino and Fatima must be the bosses, because somebody made sure that Ibrahim, Jacobo, and Ali kept their savoir faire, minded their good manners, and knew what to say and how to act among decent people. That was what grandfathers and mothers did. The dangerous Lupinos did not brandish weapons, curse, or shout obscenities. Abdullah was their mentor and had instilled his principles in them. They seemed to be as chivalrous as the Arab opponents of the Crusaders had been. They might even be called honorable, but they certainly must have criteria for evil that was a whole lot different from their Christian one.
The compadres agreed that t
he Lupinos would not break their word, if they gave it, but they would not give their word to an enemy. They deceived people into thinking they were good, because they made a show of being honorable and kept their real business secret. The compadres then agreed that they should destroy everything in Culebra Canyon, except the horses. They laughed about that. They would not destroy the horses, because they were indebted to their kind. Kane and Vogel proposed that they spare none of the Lupino pelones or the Arabs, except Abdullah. Abdullah was also their own kind. They understood his loyalty to Lupino, and he had been a friend to Kane and Vogel.
"You want to spare Abdullah too?" Lucrecia asked.
"I won’t spare him," Martinillo said. "If he’s at La Culebra, I'll kill him. Wherever I see him, if I meet him on the trail, I'll kill him, because I know he won’t spare me. You, my compadres, know him better than I do, but I know he’ll ask no quarter and give none, no matter who you are, and he’ll be hard to kill. If anybody gets away from La Culebra, it will be him. If we spare him, he’ll be the one who gets back at us for his masters, and he is the most efficient killer of them all."
The faraway moan of a wolf interrupted the conversation for a long moment.
’Ay, malhaya. Meanness," Vogel said.
"Sweet mother of God," Kane said as a chill swept over his skin. Martinillo laughed.
"That’s the she-wolf we spared when we sent her pack to hell. I wonder if her loneliness will make her as mean and smart as the old, lone black wolves that used to terrorize everybody in the Sierra. They say that loneliness in wolves makes them more savage and bold."
"That reminds me of a thought that nags me," Kane said. "Do you know the word lupino means wolflike in English? Wolfish. That has to be the reason the thugs who work for the Lupinos call themselves Los Lobos, the Wolves. That’s why we’re surrounded by wolves that howl in our mountains at night, that prey on our border on two legs, that train as terrorists and shoot us. The Lupinos turned them loose on us."
"You, Lucrecia, do you think that we should give the pelones and the Arabs at La Culebra a fair trial before we blow them up?" Vogel asked. "Should we capture them, march them to town, and turn them over to the government?"