The Guns of Santa Sangre, page 10
When the food ran out, one brave but foolish man, Pablo, had offered his life for his daughter and walked up the long hill through the front doors of the church and was never seen again.
You have their attention, Pilar. These gunslingers’ eyes are wide as saucers as they hear my story. The day is hot as we ride our tired horses through the noon sun burning down, but I swear I see them shiver as if chilled. My town is close now. I recognize the hills. Do these hard men believe me? I think they are at least respectful of what they have come to fight, and they will see with their own eyes soon enough, soon enough. There, I see the distant steeple of the church, a gleam of metal off the bell. We are almost there. I must finish my tale.
When my hut was quiet in the still of the night, I lay awake and wept and listened to the sobbing of my people from the chapel below the shadowed steeple of Santa Sangre. The moon grew fuller night by night. I knew that it would be a full moon once again in two, maybe three days, and The Men Who Walk Like Wolves would eat the last of us. I knew what I had to do.
I sat by my mirror, took a set of scissors and began shearing my long black hair. It was my pride, and I watch sadly as the locks fall to the floor. I make faces in the glass, practicing to look like a man, not a girl, because vaqueros dangerous enough to kill the things that came to our town would not listen to a woman. Well, would you have, Senors? I thought not. I dressed in a poncho and pants I took from my neighbor’s house who was dead and would not need them. The worst part was when I had to steal a horse because it meant climbing the hill to the church and getting close to the sleeping bandits, but luck was with me because the moon was clouded and it was very dark and none of the bandits stirred when I untied the horse from the post behind the cathedral without a sound.
Today I left to find a few brave gunfighters who would help us rout this scourge. I had already named them.
They would be The Guns of Santa Sangre.
Chapter Seven
They reached Santa Sangre by noon, the four riding onto the ridge overlooking the village.
The sun beat down directly overhead.
Tucker eyeballed the peasant. “Stay put.”
The cowboys drew their irons, dropped from their saddles onto the dirt into a low crouch and moved swiftly to the edge of the embankment to survey the scene and get the lay of the land. Peering over the edge, the gunfighters scoped out the town down in the valley below.
It was just as the girl described it. The village consisted of twenty or so wooden huts with straw and plank roofs situated in a dusty basin about five hundred yards wide between three hills leading out to the desert. There was a large fountain with a cement pinnacle rising out of the brackish water in the center of the square. A few corrals and stables, now empty, sat amidst the jumble of huts. Several outhouse shacks were visible on the edge of the village.
The church itself sat atop the tallest of the hills to the west, three hundred yards opposite them. It was constructed of white pueblo, granite stones rimming the arch of the two twenty-foot-high wooden doors. A whitewashed steeple jutted toward the sky, the cast iron mission bell visible in the opening below the large cross at its pinnacle. The chapel led back fifty yards, with two broken stained-glass windows of green and red and purple glass visible on the side facing them. From where the gunfighters crouched, around the other side of the church they could see the shadows of a dozen or more horses on the dirt and rubble of the ridge, tails swishing, tethered to an unseen post.
The large oaken doors of the church were wide open.
There was no wind. The rank air reeked of death and decay.
Tucker took the measure of what he figured would become the battlefield for the fight ahead.
Down on the desolate streets of the town, a few figures on horseback trotted and milled amidst a bunch in scraggly chickens. The cowboys squinted in the sun to make the interlopers out. The bandits were clearly men, not wolves, although they were hairy and feral enough, with beards and long hair. Their clothes were baggy and loose fitting, and they carried many guns with rifles slung over their shoulders and pistols hanging out of holsters on leather belts. Some wore sombreros, some didn't. All were barefoot in their stirrups. No villagers were in plain sight.
Up on the ridge, Tucker looked at his fellow gunmen, scratching his beard. “Those look like ordinary men to me.”
Bodie surveyed the area, fingering his Sharps rifle.
“I make out about twenty horses tied to the back of that church,” Fix tautly observed. “The rest of them sons of bitches must be in the mission. We're gonna need to get past them to get the silver out of there.”
“What our move?” Bodie asked.
Fix looked to Tucker as they usually did.
“Let’s ride down and take out the bandits in the town. Their friends will have to come through the church door to get us, n’ if we dig in we can pick ’em off as they come out.”
“We have the high ground right here,” Fix said. “We could pick off them sumbitches below and still be in good position to get the rest when they come out of the church.”
“We only get clean shots at a few in the village from here, and there may be more we can’t spot. Plus the church is too far. We’re a little out of range to make our shots count.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Best ride down and get ’em in our killing field.”
The easygoing Swede shrugged. “Sounds as good a plan as any.”
Tucker smiled at his friends. “Just think, a few hours ago this morning we were dead broke wondering what to do with ourselves, and now we’re all a few bullets shy from being rich men.”
“You’re forgettin’ two things.” Fix chewed his plug and spat.
“Which are?”
“First we may all get our asses shot off.”
“What’s the other?”
“Bitch may be lying and there may be no silver.”
“One way to find out.”
Fix grinned. The gunfighters moved away from the embankment in a crouch, keeping their heads down so they wouldn’t be spotted. They rose when they reached their horses tethered out of sight a safe distance away, grabbed their saddle horns and swung back up in their mounts. Tucker drew his repeater rifle out of his saddle holster and checked it. “Everybody loaded and locked down?”
“Check,” said Fix, cocking the Winchester Model 12 pump shotgun in his wiry hands.
“I’m good.” Bodie smiled, pinwheeling the two Remington pistols around his forefingers, spinning the guns back into his sideholsters.
“Let’s go amongst ’em.” Tucker nodded, reining his horse around and starting for the trail leading down the hill into the village. “We got some killin’ to do.”
Pilar rode up, blocking their way. “No. Wait,” she said. “I have something I must show you first. Ride this way.” Tucker, Fix and Bodie regarded one another and shrugged, then trotted off after the departing Mexican. The peasant rode with them a short distance down an arroyo on the near side of the ridge. The path wound through granite boulders and green verdant patches of mesquite. Tucker smelled water and saw sunlight glint off a nearby creek through the breaks in the rocks.
The trail spilled out at a small brick building of the local blacksmith’s shop. It was deserted. Wooden beams and planks formed a roof over the square bunker of a structure that was covered with char. A large blacked steel chimney rose from the center, but there was no smoke. Inside the large opening on the wall they could see the shadows of metal-making equipment. Cords of firewood were piled behind the rear wall.
The cowboys sat in their saddles as the peasant girl went inside. She gestured for them to follow, so they dismounted. Tucker was antsy, ready for action, and he resented the delay. Right now, the bandits were in the church and only a few were in the town, and the time was right to strike. In a few minutes, many more might be outside and the odds might no longer be stacked in their favor. One glance at his fellow gunfighters’ expressions showed him they felt the same. “It’s her dime,” he grumbled sideways to the other two. They stepped under the straw awning and stood amid the sledgehammers, anvils, kilns and chains littering the dirt floor of the shed. Pilar was gesturing at the implements. “When you get the silver, senors, you must bring it here and we will melt it down to make the bullets.” The beautiful girl showed them a bullet-making press beside the big cast iron pot placed on a rack for heating over a wooden fire.
“Yeah, sure, right,” Fix said.
The gunslingers skulked under the overhang and threw one another bemused glances, humoring the peasant, because none of the three cowboys believed the story about wolfmen or the silver bullets required to kill them. They just wanted to shoot their way past the bandits, grab the silver, get in and get out. But the girl had something else in mind. “You are wounded, senor, in the arm. I have medical supplies.“
Tucker accepted the bandages, needle and thread that Pilar handed him. “It ain’t serious,” he mumbled, but went to work treating the wound.
The girl was not through. “You must all be very hungry. Comida. We have many hours until sundown and you should have something to eat before your great battle ahead.”
Tucker’s stomach grumbled. The female made sense. He had not eaten that day and neither had the rest and they could get pinned down for hours trading fire with the bandits if things went south, and that was activity not best engaged on an empty stomach. A little food, then to work directly.
“Wouldn’t say no to no grub,” Bodie said.
“A man fights better on a full stomach,” agreed Fix.
“Thanks, ma’am,” Tucker nodded. “Bein’ as how many of them sumbitches is out there this meal could be our last.”
“Rest your caballos. I will cook for you.”
The cowboys went outside and tied their horses to the hitching post. They stretched their legs and came back inside the blacksmith’s shop, getting out of the brutally beating sun. They passed a bottle of whisky. Pilar built a fire under the kettle. She went to a wooden storage box and brought out cut pieces of a freshly slaughtered chicken, potatoes and carrots, already chopped, and put some ingredients in the pot. Then she poured it full of water from a bucket, adding a fistful of spices from canisters in the box. While the stew heated, she brought the men a loaf of bread and a jug of water out of a closet. The gunfighters dug in as she cooked.
“Lucky for us you had some chow handy,” Tucker offered, covering his mouth politely as he talked and ate.
The girl smiled knowingly. “I had gathered provisions for you last night before I rode out. I knew the men I found, I prayed to find, would be hungry when they got to the village and would need their strength.”
“It’s good to be prepared.”
“Si.” As Pilar kneeled by the pot, all of them were watching her ass.
“Senors, now you have seen the church. How will you get the silver out of there?”
“Shoot our way out if we have to,” Tucker replied.
“Your bullets will not kill them. Remember this.”
“If we put them in the right place they will,” Fix mused dryly. Tucker and Fix chuckled with him.
That made the girl whirl around in alarm. “You must heed me! The Men Who Walk Like Wolves are not harmed by regular bullets, only silver! I have seen this with my own eyes! This is why you must get the silver and bring it here! Only then when we melt it down—”
“-into silver bullets we can shoot into the heart of the werewolf,” Tucker interrupted her. “Yeah, yeah I know, ma’am. You told us about twenty times on the ride. We’ll get the silver. You best believe that. Don’t worry your pretty head.”
“I trust you.” She smiled and the simple hope and belief in her eyes made Tucker feel bad.
“I know you do,” he replied regretfully.
The blacksmith’s shop filled with smoke. The shootists ate their plates of chow quietly, weapons beside them.
By the time they looked up, the girl had left.
The little girl woke.
She had been sleeping with her mother’s arms cradled around her. While those aged arms tried to be gentle, they held her like a vise. The child’s name was Bonita and she was eight. Her shiny black hair, so much like her sister’s, tumbled down her brown angelic face, bleary from sleep. She had hoped when she awoke she would be back in her bed in the hut and none of this had happened, but Bonita saw all the haggard, starving, terrified faces of the villagers and knew that her nightmare was real.
They were in the back room of the church, stockaded like animals.
Where was her sister Pilar, Bonita wondered, why had she not come?
She will, the child repeatedly assured herself.
Pilar had told her she would.
On that terrifying first night when the monsters came, her big sister had grabbed her and carried her to safety in the church as everywhere the monsters were tearing apart the people from the town. Thankfully, Bonita saw nothing. Pilar had clamped her hands over her tiny eyes saying don’t look child but the little girl could hear and that frightened her badly. The hideous sounds of the man wolves’ terrible roars and people screaming and the wet ripping created pictures in her mind that were bad enough. She felt herself gripped tightly against her big sister’s large soft bosom and they were moving swiftly and then there was the slam of a door and things quieted and Pilar whispered she could open her eyes. They were in a room and it was very dark but in the moonlight her sister’s face hovered above her own, wet with tears of fear and trying to be brave as she stroked her sibling’s hair tenderly.
“You must hide here and not come out, comprende?”
Bonita, who always did what Pilar said, had nodded.
“Do not make a sound, not matter what.”
“I won’t.”
“I must go.”
“No!”
Bonita had wept and begged and hugged Pilar but her older sister sobbed and gently pried her small fingers from their desperate grip on her shoulders.
“Listen to me, nina. I promise I will come back for you. I will never leave you but must go and get help, then come back for you. I need you to be brave. Can you do that?”
Her big sister was everything to the child. Always, the little girl looked up to her, tried to dress like her, behave like her, be good like her and Bonita would always do what Pilar said to do. She promised to be brave and to hide until Pilar returned. Then her older sibling gave her a loving, urgent hug and closed the closet door.
She had not seen her since.
When the fear came, as it did more and more lately, Bonita told herself that Pilar always kept her promises. She would return. And everything would be well.
The child had not been able to hide for long. The next day the monsters were gone but there were horrible men in their place. They threw the villagers into the back room of the church and used it as a place to hold them. Bonita was discovered in the closet immediately. It was not my fault she would tell her sister when she came, because she would never want Pilar to think she had broken a promise.
Her stomach ached with hunger.
Against the walls, the other villagers sat, knees drawn up, heads down. Their faces were emaciated and haggard and their eyes were black holes from the diet of fear they lived on. Nobody spoke, not anymore. Their number grew less every few days as the hairy men would come in and grab one at random; dragged out kicking, begging, weeping, that villager would not be seen again. Bonita would pray it was not her turn and cover her ears against the screaming she would hear behind the door—but thankfully the cries did not last long.
Pilar would come.
She never lied.
The room stank with the odor of people who had not bathed in a month. The closet she had hid in weeks before had been turned into a latrine with a slop bucket inside where they would go to relieve themselves. This became less frequent because the bad men barely fed them. Crusts of bread and water and a few pieces of slaughtered pigs from the village were tossed in once in awhile. Swarms of flies buzzed around the smelly closed door.
Bonita huddled in her mother’s arms but those arms had grown steadily weaker over the passing days. When she looked in her parent’s face she saw a pale tight mask lined with pain and terror. For the first weeks, her mother had prayed softly and brushed the little girl’s hair over and over, but lately those prayers had stopped and Bonita’s hair grew tangled and unkempt. It fell to the child who was holding onto her mother to comfort her parent, not the other way around.
My sister will come, don’t cry, Mama.
She promised.
And promises are to be kept.
A child’s faith sustained her because for her it was a simple fact.
The bolt on the outside of the storeroom door rattled and slammed aside.
Bonita’s guts clenched.
The door swung open and one of the hairy men stood there, sniffing and glowering like an animal. He had come for one of them. The people cringed as his black eyes swung over them, back and forth.
Settling on Bonita.
It was her turn, she knew.
He would take her from the room never to return.
Hurry, Pilar.
The bandit’s boots creaked on the old floorboards as he walked over and towered above her. Bonita felt her mother’s arms tighten but they were parchment thin and had no strength.
The little boy Raul who sat beside her looked at her face so she said goodbye to him with her eyes.
The hairy one suddenly reached down with a filthy hand, grabbing hair. The boy’s, not hers. Raul shrieked as he was lifted up by the head off the ground and carried like a chicken out the door with the bandit.
The door slammed closed and the bolt was thrown and Bonita covered her ears to the terrible high-pitched screaming, but as usual it did not last long.
Pilar had never felt so filthy. She had ridden for ten hours in the hot sun and dust and was coated with disgusting layers of sweat and caked with the grime and the mud she had smeared all over herself for a disguise. She stank. The girl felt like a rotten vegetable and not even like a woman. She was strong of heart, had braved much the last day, but she was also female and her dirtiness buried her self-esteem. She could bear it no longer.
