Dillinger (1983)

by Jack Higgins

  Half an hour later leaving Hermosa they topped a rise and saw a bearded scarecrow riding toward them on an Indian pony. When Fallon caught sight of the uniforms he slid to the ground with a hoarse cry and waited for them.

  He was still terribly shaken by his ordeal and Cordonna dismounted and held a canteen to his lips. When he had drunk his fill the old man stammered out his story in a few graphic sentences.

  Cordonna turned to Bonilla. 'Four in the ambush at the canyon and perhaps twelve or fifteen have joined them from the town.' He grinned. 'Fair odds.'

  Cordonna mounted quickly and galloped away, followed by his men. Within a few moments they were only a cloud of dust travelling fast across the desert. Fallon shook his head, climbed back on his pony and rode off toward Hermosa.

  At the entrance to the canyon Cordonna halted and sent Bonilla and a trooper forward. The two men rode through into the great bowl and reined in their horses sharply at the scene which met their eyes.

  The fire still smouldered, the heat of it making things lose definition, and the charred body of Felipe, with its unrecognizable face, sprawled across the embers.

  Bonilla rode on through to the other side where a broad trail of pony tracks turned into the desert. He dismounted for a moment to examine them and then rode back to his companion.

  'Tell the lieutenant to come on in. They've cleared off.'

  He dismounted and lit a cigarette while he waited, gazing up at the steeply sloping sides of the bowl, at the rocks above, imagining the poor devils trapped in here with no hope of retreat.

  He shuddered and turned to meet Cordonna as he rode in with the rest of the men. The young officer dismounted and walked forward. He examined the bodies, Dona Clara's, Maria's, Felipe's and Father Tomas's, then turned his face expressionless.

  'One grave for all of them, then let's get out of here. We must keep after them now they're on the run.'

  As part of his. equipment, each trooper carried a small military trenching shovel. The men unstrapped them from behind their saddles, stacked their carbines and got to work.

  Cordonna and Bonilla stood watching them without speaking. When the wide grave was about three feet deep the lieutenant nodded and they carried the four bodies across and laid them side by side. The men turned expectantly, grouping round the grave, and Cordonna removed his cap and started to pray.

  From the rocks above, Ortiz brought the sights of his rifle to bear on the base of the lieutenant's skull and squeezed the trigger. It was the signal to begin. As Cordonna pitched forward into the grave, the Apaches fired at each of the men below.

  Within a few moments it was all over. Here and there an unfortunate trooper still moved or tried to shelter behind the bodies of his friends, but there was no escape. The shots continued until no limb moved. Finally, Ortiz held up his hand and scrambled to his feet.

  As he stood gazing down at the carnage, one of his men ran between the boulders and tugged at his sleeve excitedly. Ortiz followed him across the hillside to a point where he could look out across the desert. Two riders were galloping along the trail from the direction of the hacienda.

  He ran between the boulders, motioning his men to silence, and they crouched in their original positions. Several minutes later Rivera and Rojas rode into the bowl below.

  They dismounted quickly and stood, gazing about them, horror on their faces. Suddenly Rivera caught sight of his wife and stumbled into the grave, pulling away the bodies that half covered her. He fell to his knees. Then, like a man demented, he looked everywhere for the body of his child, but could not find it.

  Beside Ortiz Kata raised his rifle and turned inquiringly. Ortiz shook his head.

  'He is the one we want,' Kata said. 'Then it is over.'

  'He must suffer first,' Ortiz said, 'that is why we took the child.'

  12

  Rojas and a work party of Mestizos brought the bodies back to the hacienda in a large wagon.

  For Rose the saddest sight was watching her uncle pulling himself up onto the wagon and looking at the corpses again.

  'Has Juanita been found?' Rivera asked frantically.

  'No, patron, she is not there,' Rojas replied.

  Rivera looked past the bodies of Dona Clara, Maria and Felipe, and fixed on Cordonna as if it was in the troopers that his hopes had lain. But suddenly Rivera was crying, something Rose had never seen in her life, nor imagined he could do. And so, when Rivera jumped off the wagon, Rose, out of the kindness of her heart, put her arm around her uncle's heaving shoulders.

  'I am not grieving for the dead,' he said. 'It is for my carissima, Juanita.'

  'We will get her back,' Rose said.

  'Who?' Rivera said. 'The troopers are dead. I can send someone to the next telegraph station and they will send twice as many Federalistas to avenge Cordonna's death, but by that time who knows what that Ortiz will have done to the child.'

  'We will get her back now.' It was Dillinger, standing at Rose's side. 'Provided you do not send for the troops.'

  Rivera looked at them, Rose and the American, and he could see what had passed between them.

  'Rose,' Rivera said, 'in this moment of my greatest sorrow, I must tell you who this man is.'

  'I know he is not Harry Jordan. His name is Johnny.'

  'He is a wanted man.'

  Rose said, 'He is wanted by me.'

  'He is wanted by the police in North America. He is a gangster, a robber of banks!'

  Dillinger looked at Rose as if to try to read what was going on in her mind.

  She said, 'Uncle, I have known for some time what kind of man he is. That he takes money from banks that take money from people may be an act of justice which is against the law. Johnny,' she turned to him, 'have you ever taken a life?'

  'No, except in self-defence.'

  Rose whirled on Rivera. 'Yet just yesterday, uncle, you took twenty lives that he wanted to save. Who killed the priest? And how many lives have you taken over the years in order to pry gold out of the mountain. If there is a gangster here, it is you!'

  Rivera, his eyes like dark steel, looked at her and at Fallon and Dillinger, all stepping back from him as if he was a pariah.

  'I want my daughter back,' he said.

  Dillinger said, 'Rivera, you are a businessman. I want to make a business proposition to you.'

  Slowly, Rivera turned to fix his gaze on the man he had just reviled. 'Yes, Senor Dillinger.'

  So, it is senor again, Dillinger thought. Out loud, he said, 'I'll take a small group into the mountains. Fallon, Rojas, Villa, Nachita as a guide. You can come, too, if you want to, but get this straight. I'm in charge.'

  'Continue,' said Rivera.

  'Rojas has got to obey my orders like everybody else.'

  Rojas started to object but was immediately silenced by Rivera.

  'Continue,' Rivera said.

  'We'll need guns from your storehouse. Including my Thompson sub-machine gun. I'll need gas from your cache for my car, and horses. We'll get done what the stupid cavalry couldn't do.'

  'And what is the other side of your proposition?' Rivera asked.

  'If I get your kid back alive, I want twenty thousand dollars of your stored gold and safe conduct to a place on the border where I can cross safely back into the United States. Fallon gets another five thousand dollars of your gold and stays with you only until he gets a pre-arranged message from me that I am safely over the border.'

  Rivera thought for a moment.

  'I warn you,' Dillinger said, 'don't bargain with me about the price.'

  'It is agreed. You can trust me, Senor Dillinger.'

  'I'm not a fool, Rivera. The kid and Rose come with me to the border. They go back if I cross safely over.'

  'What if Rose decides to go with you?'

  Dillinger looked at Rose.

  'Nachita can come with us. He can bring the kid back.'

  'I accept your proposition,' Rivera said, approaching Dillinger, extending his hand.

  Dil
linger ignored the offered hand. 'Come on, Rojas,' he ordered. 'Let's get the guns.'

  The child Juanita sat in the sand and listlessly played with an old doll, pretending not to be frightened by the Apaches sprawled around her. They were as uncomfortable with the Spanish child in their midst as she was with these strangers with painted faces. Behind them the foothills dropped steeply to merge with the desert. To the west, a great canyon sliced into the heart of the mountains.

  Ortiz went up the slope above them, a vivid splash of colour as he moved through the brush. He climbed onto a pillar of rock and looked east. In the far distance he looked for the tracer of dust that he was expecting.

  Below, away from the others, Chato and Cochin were whispering. Chato said, 'I know how much Ortiz hates Rivera, but now that we have killed Federal troops, it will be like war. We will be killed if we fail, and even if we win for a while, there are thousands of them and they will drive us into the mountains.'

  'You speak the truth, brother,' Cochin said. 'I had hoped that with the coming of better times, to go north into New Mexico, to find some kind of work, to send my own son to school. Now all that is fleeing on the wind because of Ortiz's lust for revenge.'

  'If we leave, brother,' Chato said, 'we will be deserters.'

  'If we stay,' Cochin said, 'I may become an assassin.'

  'Of whom?' said Chato in alarm.

  Together they turned, because Ortiz had come down from the mountain.

  Rose said to Rivera, 'I wanted to see you privately, uncle, to tell you that despite the angers that have crossed us with each other over the years, I am pleased that you are letting my friend try to find Juanita for you.'

  'Sometimes a tragedy brings people together,' Rivera said. 'After this is over, do you plan to go north with your friend?'

  'Nothing has been decided, uncle.'

  'Thank you, my dear, for coming to talk to me after all these bitter years,' Rivera said.

  As she turned to go away, Rivera thought, once Juanita is back in my hands, there will be no one for Rose to go north with. Dillinger will be dead and no one will miss him. Not even Rose after a time.

  Rivera led Dillinger, Rose, Chavasse, Villa and Fallon to the company office, fifty yards up the street from the hotel. The sign over the door said 'Hermosa Mining Company'. He unlocked the door. The main room was furnished as an office with a desk and filing cabinets. In one corner was a metal cabinet, which when unlocked by Rivera, revealed an assortment of arms.

  Dillinger pointed to an all-steel door toward the back. 'What's that?'

  Fallon, who knew damn well what was behind the door, flicked Dillinger a look that said maybe he shouldn't have asked the question.

  'Oh,' Rivera said, 'the gold from the mine, after it has been processed, is stored there before being shipped to Chihuahua. There will be enough in there for your fee, and Fallon's, when the time comes.'

  The very way he put it made Dillinger uneasy. But he had no time for such thoughts now. On the top shelf of the metal cabinet he found his favourite weapon, the Thompson sub-machine gun. He picked it up, as if shaking hands with an old friend, and loaded it with one of the hundred-round circular magazines.

  'Nice to get this back,' he said. 'I can recommend that shotgun if anybody wants something reliable for close-quarters work.'

  Chavasse picked it up. 'Just the thing for me, the worst shot in the world.' He also selected a revolver and pushed it into his waistband.

  Dillinger felt funny about Rose taking a revolver and an ammunition belt and strapping it around her slim waist. He handed her a rifle. 'Better take this, too. Don't know if we'll get close enough for a handgun.' What he was really hoping was that she would stay as far back as possible. 'I've always had to take care of women,' he said. 'I never thought there'd be one watching out for me.'

  At the hotel a couple of Mestizos were using Rose's horses to clear the debris of the burnt-out porch.

  'Careful,' Rose was saying. 'Don't damage the main part of the building.'

  Just then she saw what she had been waiting for, a single rider coming fast. Within seconds, Nachita was pulling up alongside her, his breathless pony stomping and whinnying.

  'What did you find out?' she asked.

  Dillinger and Fallon both came over to hear, Chavasse and Villa joining them.

  'Ortiz is clever. From where he is, he can see you coming at a great distance. The closer you get to his camp, the harder it will be for you to retreat rapidly. It is a natural fortress of stone, high ground that overlooks the path up.'

  'Will he harm Juanita?' Rose asked.

  'Not until he gets want he wants.'

  'And that is ... ?'

  Nachita nodded toward Rojas, who was approaching with his patron.

  'Would he harm her after he got what he wanted?' Rose asked.

  'To a man like Ortiz, the wife of an enemy is a piece of the enemy. That is why he killed Dona Clara. The child of an enemy is the same. He has not killed her because she is the meat, the goat tied to the stake that makes the mountain lion come within range of his gunshot.'

  Dillinger, who had been silent, now spoke. 'I hope to hell you've got a good plan.'

  'In my many moons,' Nachita replied, 'I have learned a plan that succeeds is a good one, and a plan that fails is a bad one. This one seems to depend on whether we can trick Ortiz, or whether, as he plans, he can trick us.'

  13

  They were making last-minute plans to leave Hermosa. Nachita was to be on the lead horse, Villa, who also knew the territory, immediately behind him. Then Rivera and Rojas, Fallon and Chavasse, all of them armed. Rose offered Dillinger one of her horses, a gentle mare, for the ride into the desert.

  'I don't care how gentle the goddam horse is,' Dillinger said, 'I can't ride.'

  Rose said, 'I can't believe there is something you can't do, Johnny.'

  'I never said I was perfect. How about joining me for the ride in the Chevvy.'

  For Rose, who had learned to ride when she was very young, sitting a horse was second nature. 'I don't know,' she said.

  'The car smells better than a horse,' he said.

  'Not to me. I hate the smell of gasoline.'

  'Don't you drive?'

  'No,' she said.

  'You've never driven?' he repeated unbelievingly.

  'Never.'

  'Then we're even. Come on, I promise not to try to talk you into the back seat, so help me, Hannah.' He held up his right hand as if taking an oath.

  Up ahead, she could see that the others were getting restless.

  'All right,' she said, tying up her horse and sliding into the passenger side. 'I don't know how far you will get with this up the mountain.'

  'Far enough.' He'd checked everything that was checkable on the car to make sure it was in as good running condition as it could be. He'd cleaned the air filter. He'd vented the gas cans in the trunk so there'd be less danger of an explosion. He'd put in a jerrycan of spare water, remembering when he hadn't had any. Though he loved to ride with the top down, he prudently raised it because of the heat and because they might be observed from above and he didn't want Ortiz to know how many people were in the automobile.

  'Let them get a head start,' Dillinger said. 'We'll catch up easily.'

  'Are you afraid?' Rose asked.

  'Afraid of what?'

  'I guess that answers my question.'

  'Sure, I'm afraid of getting bullet holes in this beauty. I haven't seen a body shop since arriving in Mexico.'

  'Shouldn't you be more concerned about a bullet in one of those cans you're carrying back there?'

  'A bullet hits one of those, and you and I don't have to worry one bit. Would you rather take your horse?'

  'I'll stay where I am.'

  'Even in this dangerous, gas-carrying heap?'

  Rose laughed. 'You have such an expression on your face. What are you thinking? What are you wishing?'

  'I wish we were setting out to rob a bank,' he said.

 
; The night sky was clear, and the moon bathed the desert in a hard white light, making it easy for Nachita to follow the tracks Ortiz's band had made in the dust and sand of the valley floor.

  They pressed on without a halt, pushing their mounts hard. Just after midnight the trail turned into the foothills of the mountains. Nachita halted them for a rest and Dillinger got out of the Chevrolet and walked across to a slight rise.

  The view was spectacular. The desert stretched to the horizon, and its hollows and canyons were dark and forbidding, thrown into relief by the white moonlight which picked out the higher stretches of ground.

  'Beautiful, isn't it?' Rose sat on a boulder beside him, taking off her hat and shaking loose a switch of long hair.

  'It is now.'

  She smiled momentarily and then gazed out over the desert. 'In a way, I feel that you came because of me. Juanita, my uncle, Ortiz, what do any of them mean to you?'

  'Ever since Fallon showed me the picture postcard, I've headed here like I was pulled by a magnet. Your worries are my worries, Rose.'

  She turned, her face grave. 'You could still turn back.'

  He smiled slowly. 'I never go back to anything. An old superstition.'

  'You'll go back to the States, won't you?'

  'That's different. That's home.'

  'Why are they looking for your car? It sounds like they really don't want you at home.'

  'Oh, I'm wanted all right,' Dillinger said, laughing. 'By my friends and by my enemies.'

  He put a cigarette in his mouth and Chavasse called out softly, 'No lights. That's one thing we can't afford.'

  Dillinger put the cigarettes back in his pocket. 'I wonder just how close we are? We must have come better than twenty miles.'

  'Nachita thinks they may have sent scouts down to the foothills,' she said. 'From now on progress will be slower. An hour, perhaps two? Who knows?'