by John Horst
She shrugged and ignored his long diatribe. She looked him in the eye. She began to speak and he cut her off.
“Enough, you little bitch!” He smoked and shook. “I’ve a plan for you.”
“Oh, come on now, Adulio, share it with me, let me know what is to be my fate. You at least owe that to me.”
He looked on at her, angry that she was not afraid, angry that she was not on her knees. She should be groveling at his feet, instead she was humiliating him, as she’d done all the time he’d known her. He would enjoy killing her, he was convinced of this. He thought and regarded the tip of his cigarette.
“Perhaps it is just as well to tell you.” He looked at her and grinned a demented grin. “I will. I will tell you. You will not see the morning, princesa, but you will not receive a bullet. No, you will be hacked to pieces with the machete, the tool of your hero, Zapata and all the worthless bastards who follow him. The newspapers in el Norte will have a field-day, a rich American, murdered by Zapata’s army. Something will need to be done. Within six weeks, the American army will occupy the entire land, and this ranch, all of it will be mine. This ranch will finally be in the hands of a worthy hacendado, and I will run it accordingly.”
“What if I don’t let you hack me to pieces, Adulio?”
He pointed the gun at her head. “I don’t think you have much choice, princesa.”
She sat up a little straighter and calculated the distance between them. He was shorter than her, yet stronger. He was a tough old bird and it would be touch and go.
Just as she transferred her weight, like a panther, ready to spring the sound of a shot tore through her eardrums and she looked down at herself for a wound. She looked up at Adulio staring stupidly, a chunk of face gone, and now torrents of blood running down. He dropped to his knees, waited, looked up at the princesa with vacant eyes.
“I guess you didn’t understand Zapata’s words, Adulio.” She stood over him and looked down on him in her best, most superior attitude. “He said it was better to die on your feet, Adulio, not on your knees.” With that, she pushed him on the forehead and he fell over, dead.
Esmeralda looked on with her impish grin. She stood resolute in the doorway, the smoking revolver in her hand. “My God he was an annoying bastard.”
Marta smiled at her servant. “Esmeralda, you’ve been tricky.”
“Sí, Señorita, I can hear okay, and I can talk. And this excremento has been planning to do this for a long time, but I could not tell you so well. I could only tell you with my little notes, I am sorry, Señorita, please forgive me.”
“So, you are Z?” Marta lit another of Adulio’s cigarettes. Handed one to Z and they smoked over the dead man.
Esmeralda regarded the corpse at her feet. “I always hated him, you know. He used to walk around our room ranting about you and the ranch. Of course he didn’t know I could hear. He would look at me,” she grinned, “it was hard to pretend I couldn’t hear him. And he used to abuse me.”
Marta looked up at her, pain in her eyes at the thought of the old woman being mistreated. Esmeralda waved her off. “Ah, Señorita, he had a little pencil, pequeño.” She held up her fingers a couple of inches apart, “and that was when it was happy.” She grinned and looked at the dead man at her feet. “And then, he could never get it to work. I’d have to lie back and wait and wait and wait until he was finished. Most of the time he just had to give up. It was very boring, Señorita, and I could feel nothing. He could never even give me a child.” She drew a deep breath in and spit on Adulio’s back, then remembered where she was. “Oh, lo siento mucho, Señorita.”
“Nada.”
“He was a bad man, a coward, he tried to kill you four times, but he was too estupido to make it work.”
“Four times?”
“Sí. He hired that man on the ship, the stowaway, but Rebecca got him. Then the Federales with the boys, that was his little scheme, but again, Rebecca foiled that as well, and the Federales lost their nerve. Then when you went hunting and he cut poor little Pumpkin’s leg, to make her lame. Oh, Señorita, he was so angry when you would not let him go along. He was going to escort you into the desert and kill you, but you would not let him go, he was angry, he had to bounce up and down on me for that one.” She smiled cynically. “Then the next day, he went out after you. He was going to stalk and kill you, but he lost his nerve when you discovered him.” She looked down at her hands. “I was going to try to stop him that time, but he beat me and I could not wake up the next day.” She looked at Marta as if her mistress were a priest in a confessional. “I’m very sorry, Señorita, very sorry for that.” She worked on her cigarette.
“You must have been in much danger all these years.” Marta looked on at her servant with a sorrowful look, imagining spending a lifetime with a monster.
“Ah, sí, he did beat me many times, he abused me often, and, I must admit, I was a little afraid.” She looked up from her cigarette. “It is a strange thing, Señorita,” she looked down at the corpse, “he does not seem so powerful now, but he, he had a hold on me. He, I don’t know why, but it is why I could not tell you outright, why I could only send you little clues. I don’t know what came over me, I guess, it was just he had some power over me for so long. All his scheming, I guess I thought he was much bigger than he was.” She blew smoke at him and shrugged.
“One things for sure, he was a tricky bastard.” Marta looked down at the dead man. “He had a little fit out there, crying like a child. I felt sorry for him.”
“Ah, he was crying, that is true, and the tears were real, but he was crying at his own cowardice. He was so terrified of you, Señorita, and he cried at his own lacking of cojones. He had little balls.”
“Old bastard.” She grinned a little at Esmeralda’s insult.
“Sí, and then the night he shot through your window.”
“He?”
“Oh, sí. He did that. He was so terrified that he could not shoot straight. He missed you. The ass could never shoot well. He could shoot standing inside a mine and miss the wall, I think.”
“But he was beaten, bloody.”
“Oh, sí. He was so scared that he ran right into a column on the veranda, then fell off the porch onto his face. He threw his gun away and had a good alibi.”
“I see.” She smiled at her servant. All these years, she loved her, but she never thought much of Esmeralda, thought of her more like she would a loyal, dim-witted dog. “Z.” Marta lit another cigarette and blew smoke at the ceiling. “All these years, you never talked? Was that not difficult, Esmeralda?”
“Bah,” she waved her hand, “too much talking goes on in this world, not enough listening, Señorita. I like to listen much more, but no one knows I’m listening.” She worked on her cigarette and continued. “When I was a little girl I got very sick and it made my hearing go away, but little by little, it came back.” She looked on at Marta and smiled. “I guess I liked being deaf. I liked that everyone thought I could not hear, I used to hear a lot of things because of that, and…” She hesitated a moment. “No one expects much of you when you cannot hear. They think you are stupid.”
Marta smiled at her. “Z.”
“Sí, my little sister, she could not say my name, she always called me Z. No one knows that but you now, they are all dead, my sisters and brothers and parents. All dead.” She crossed herself and kissed her fingers.
“Esmeralda, how did you get the telegrams to me?” This was particularly confounding to Marta, as Esmeralda was essentially a captive on the ranch.
“Oh, that is not so hard, Señorita. I have a cousin in Tampico, he works at Western Union. He’s part of the network.”
“Network?”
“Sí. We have a network all over Mexico, boys, women, men, children, we are Zapatistas and Villaistas, we can get news and messages out better than can the mail system.”
“I see.” She was amused. Esmeralda was a sophisticated revolutionary and all along, right under Marta’s no
se. It was fascinating.
“Sí. So, I can get a telegram to anyone, anywhere, in one day or even less, if the boys are running fast.” She finished the cigarette and looked on at Marta. “Señorita, we have much to do. I know that Rebecca has found Dan George and Robert Curtin.” She watched Marta’s face. “Sí, they are good, Curtin is a good man, not bad, and not a Jew. He is as Catholic as us.” She regarded her comment and looked up at Marta. “Not that a Jew is bad, I don’t even know a Jew. But this Robert Curtin is not one.” She began pulling out Marta’s hunting clothes. “Here is what we must do.”
XII Vengeance
By morning Rebecca was with the love of her life and her old friend Dan George. They approached the ranch from the northwest. High on a hill, they watched as a troop of Federales moved up the main road from the south. Here they waited and watched.
There were at least three hundred of them, led by the general with the round glasses and Tolkenhorn riding nearby. The lawyer looked miserable. He hated horses, hated to ride a horse and he hated any kind of danger. The ambassador rode up next to him, smirked and looked down at the hapless man.
“Now we’re going to show you how to take the candy from the child.” He sneered and rode on.
They could see Marta del Toro sitting a horse on the little plaza at the entrance to her hacienda. She wore the outfit of her land, a straw sombrero and fancy vaquero clothes, two silver six shooters and her favorite shotgun in her hands.
She was an arrogant little bitch, the general thought as he rode up on her, his men now fanning out, preparing torches as Marta’s eyes widened.
“If you are going to take my ranch, why ruin it, general?”
He smirked. “Oh, we are just clearing the pigsties,” he regarded her fine, albeit plain home, “so that a proper palace can be made.”
“Oh?” She pulled out a couple of big Cuban cigars, her favorite Romeo y Julietas and handed him one. She clipped the end of her own and began to hand him her cutter. She looked on in disgust as he, like an uncouth and wild animal, savagely bit the end of her expensive gift, spitting the tip onto the ground. He next began licking it all over like a ravenous dog, spittle freely running off it as he stuffed it into his fetid mouth.
“Putz”, she muttered, and stared at him through a great cloud of smoke. “It seems that it would be more fitting then, for you to dig a big hole.”
“How’s that?” She was an appealing Indian, well put together and he thought he might rape her before finishing her off.
“Yes,” Marta continued, “A big hole in the ground, then you can have all your men gather ‘round the hole. Then they could drop their trousers and shit in it. That would be a more fitting home for you I think.” She puffed on her cigar and looked him in the eye. She continued. “My mother, she always taught me, before you kill a man, she would say, always offer him a way out. Always offer him his life. That’s the Christian way. That’s what Jesus would do. Well, general, I’m offering you and your men your lives. Go ahead out of here now, just ride away and you may live.” She regarded him and smiled. “No. I see it on your arrogant, stupid face, you aren’t going to ride. You choose to die, here and now.”
He smiled and then lost the smile and looked at her, stared through his bookish round glasses. “Before this day is done, I will make you cry like an infant, and you will wish that you’d been properly prostrated before me when I rode up here today. I will make a tobacco pouch of your womb and decorate the entrance to my new home with your head.”
“I’m sorry, general, but I disagree.” She reached down with her free hand and patted below her belly. “My little box will be staying put, safe and sound, right here.” She leveled the shotgun and fired, hitting Tolkenhorn through the head, spraying brain and blood on the men behind him. The lawyer pitched over, onto the ground as the others looked on. She glared at the general. “I’ll kill you last, pig. I want you to see what Emiliano Zapata does to your army before I send you on to hell.”
With that she galloped off to the side as, at her cue, hundreds of White Cigars appeared on the rooftops, behind walls, through windows. And then, El Tigre himself emerged in his lovely dark suit, replete with oversized beaver sombrero, crossed bandoliers and sword. He looked magnificent on his white charger. He gave the command and the great scythe of bullets cut through the unsuspecting men.
Everywhere, they dropped, shrieked, cried out in pain and fear, the torches now tumbling onto the backs of their mounts, men and horses running like animated, giant flames, screaming, shouting, the confusion intense, incomprehensible.
Marta now, off to the side, out of the direct barrage replaced her fired load of buckshot, tucked her reins and rode down among the surviving would-be assassins. She rode up on each of her victims, oblivious to the danger. She was in her kill mode now, like her mother, like her ancestors. She was a warrior and she practiced her craft with great skill and precision. She shot man after man, working her shotgun as her mother had taught her, worked it and thought about her wonderful, fearless mother and now fully comprehended, appreciated the value of Chica’s advice and training all those years when they’d returned from school, summer after summer.
She was a splendid rider and galloped amongst them, full tilt, too fast, too furious and she went about, unscathed, able to carry out the maximum carnage possible.
This was her land and she was defending it. Like a mother bear, like a mother whose children were all the good people who worked the ranch and even more so, she was like the mother defending all the poor victims of all the ages, of all the peons and dispossessed and beaten and downtrodden. She was shooting the bad men, shooting them and punishing them and exacting revenge for all the victims of all the ages and she was doing it oh so well.
She felt more alive now than she had since the day she first met her mother all those many years ago. She suddenly realized, in the span of a heartbeat that she was her mother, she was Chica and she was proud, so very proud.
She slowed, stopped momentarily to take stock of the battle. Zapata’s men were ruling the day. It all would be over soon she thought when suddenly the staccato of a machinegun could be heard, off in a distance. A potato digger, just like the one she fired in Vera Cruz with top sergeant Alonzo. It was hundreds of yards away, raining lead and death upon her beloved band. She considered the terrain and her options. If they weren’t silenced soon, many of Zapata’s little army would lose its most precious commodity, warriors. She galloped over to her General, her hero, and gave him a friendly salute.
“General, dynamite, if you please.”
He handed her three sticks, fused and ready to go. She puffed her cigar energetically, the tip now glowing red. She rode off, thundering toward the terrible machine.
The little shooting team were locked on, the trajectory right for maximum destruction. They did not see the solitary rider coming for them and now she lit the fuse, watched it hiss, waited until it burned down, mere fractions of an inch from the explosive and threw it high into the air, watched it tumble end over end like the relay baton she used back at Stonefields School every autumn. It struck the loader in the leg, bounced once and landed in the shooter’s lap. It exploded and they all flew apart, mingling gun and steel and lead with bone and blood and offal and now she rode up on them, firing her shotgun at the last man, he too full of fear and too disoriented to defend himself. He stood there, waited quietly, like an animal gone to slaughter for the coup de grâce and Marta willingly obliged.
The general with the round glasses and rotten breath was a good rat. He kicked his mount with his ill-fitting boots, scurrying away, abandoning his men. He learned early on how to save his own hide and this is how he’d become a general.
Rebecca saw him, watched him ride toward them, back down the dusty road. It would eventually take him south, toward Mexico City. She reined her mount, touching its sides and before Robert Curtin could protest or call out, she was off, galloping down the trail toward the big fleeing rodent of a man.
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nbsp; She was on him in short order and uncased her Winchester, guided her mount with her knees as her mother had taught her. She found the front sight, put it on the man’s back and squeezed the trigger. Her shot went wide, she’d pulled it, she always pulled a little to the right when shooting on the run and the bullet now tore a trench along his uniform coat, lodging itself into the back of his mount’s head. The creature crumpled and the man tumbled over and onto the desert floor.
Curtin was after them. He had a poor mount, an old tired horse and was himself not a good rider. He worked the creature as best he could, seemingly in slow motion, as if in a nightmare, he could not move quickly enough and now Rebecca was standing over the general. The miscreant sat, looking about, reorienting himself, his round owl-eyed glasses dusty and crooked on his face. He smiled broadly at his captor. “You’ll never get away with this, my dear. No matter what you do, you’ll never get away with it.”
She smiled coyly. “What is that old saying general, dead men tell no tales?” she held up the Winchester to her cheek, even at close range, she always used her sights.
“You are no killer, young lady, no executioner; I can see it in your eyes.” He grinned, his eyes two slits through the dusty lenses. He looked evil, like an evil genie and she suddenly remembered her tormentor from years ago. He was the clown man, come back to haunt her, torture her.
She became furious. He was right, of course. She lowered the rifle and looked back as Curtin called out.
“Rebecca, stop!”
It was just enough time for the general to make his move. He pulled his pistol and Rebecca was down, she lay on the desert floor with a hole through her breast, bleeding, blood pouring freely from her body. Color fading from her porcelain complexion, she would not last long.