The Guns of Santa Sangre, page 9
The sun came up before the little boy ventured forth from his hiding place. All that remained of his beloved grandfather was a few bloody rags and an empty liquor bottle. The child was alone in the vast empty desert and he wanted his mother.
It was on a Sunday when he started back. He knew this because the sound of the church bells led him back to his village.
Now those bells haunt his dreams.
Listen, there they are again.
A faint ringing.
Pulling up the reins of his horse, the old man stops to listen, an hour out of the town he had the silver ammunition made. Sitting in his saddle, surrounded by barren expanse of Durango desertscape on all sides, the borracho feels alone in the universe. He hears no bells now, just the whisper of wind in his ears, and knows the bells are a memory from his troubled sleep.
It was a dreadful dream the old man had been having the last month that made him embark on his fateful journey, set him on this path with his silver weapons. An unseen hand is at work and the borracho feels a part of some greater plan. For as long as he could remember, the old man had drifted from town to town, flophouse to flophouse, in a drunken blur of alcoholic stupor. He’d begged for money, worked cheap jobs, robbed and stole, paid for his whisky when he could. The borracho had waited for death in a ditch somewhere, fully expected it. He wanted to die. That fate became a certainty when the crooked Federales had locked the old man up, before fate and fortune had put him back on the trail re-armed with the dead policia’s rifles and pistols and silver. Then came the dream. He has it over and over again, night after night. The vision is so clear and vivid it has to be more than a dream. It is his destiny; a destiny to be fulfilled. It is why, old as he is, broken down as he is, he rides on this horse today alone through the hot badlands, saddlebags laden to overflow with guns and bullets of silver, toward a destination unknown yet always certain.
The old man hears the bells in his sleep.
Sees the church.
And always, the dream is the same.
The church bells ring faint and distant at first, then louder and more insistent until they become deafening, a distorted clanging gong like a sledgehammer on an anvil. All is blackness until the silhouette of the mission steeple appears, impossibly large, against a huge full moon hovering like a yellow and putrid watchful eye. The white adobe walls of the mission are somehow familiar, the bell tower tall and stark against a moon that is always full. Then the church begins to bleed and once it starts bleeding it does not stop. Dark drops of shiny black seep and drip out of the weathered cracks in the façade of the church like tears, until soon the pouring droplets become a flowing gush of bright red blood, hemorrhaging out the pores of the mission, until the walls are white no more, but red wet as fresh paint.
Inside, the screams of infants.
The blood of the innocents.
They are in the church.
As are the werewolves.
The trickster moon lording over them.
The sangre flows like a river, an endless surge of blood bursting in a tidal wave through the church doors and splashing in a great overflowing sea of gore down the hill and this is when he always wakes.
To dream the same dream the next night, and the next, calling him to action.
The old man knows the church. Remembers it as a boy from a place he ages ago abandoned. Understands when he reaches his destination he will find the church and knows what he will find in it.
That is why he has the silver.
Now by instinct he spurs the horse and gallops due northwest, drawing ever closer. The borracho needs no map or compass to guide him, for the dream pulls him like a magnet.
Taking him home.
It was high noon, and the village was nowhere in sight.
The bullet hole in Tucker’s arm was beginning to hurt something fierce and gave him another reason to be impatient to reach their destination. He needed to wash and bind it before it got infected. They’d lost time engaging with the Federales and dallying back at the stagecoach junction massacre but it couldn’t be helped, though luckily it was hours until sunset. They still had time.
The four riders crossed a plain, flat and unmarred but for the ghost of a mountain range shimmering wetly in the melting waves of heat rising off the desert floor. The three gunfighters and the peasant hadn’t said much for the last hour, and none of them had much to discuss. There was the crunch of the hooves in the sand and the clink of stirrups and squeak of leather and not much else. Tucker noticed that Pilar had been preoccupied since the skirmish and refused to meet his eyes now. He wouldn’t care but this girl was the key to the silver, and they could ill afford to have her get any second thoughts about taking them to her town. She may have become worried about her people now she’d seen the kind of killers they were. Women, he cursed privately, never just come out and tell you what’s on their mind.
“Spit it out,” he said.
The peasant girl finally spoke. “Those Federales were after you. Why? Did you rob a bank?”
“No,” stated Bodie flatly.
Fix grunted. “We don’t do that.”
Pilar looked at her hands clutching her reins. “What crime did you commit that they would offer such a reward?”
Tucker lit a cigarette, his jaw muscles working under the stubble. “Them Federales was dirty.”
“I see.”
“No. You don’t. You ever heard of The Cowboys?”
“Si. Vaqueros. Like you.”
“No, The Cowboys. A gang.”
A blank look.
Fix peered over at her from the saddle, and made a finger twirl above his head. “Red sashes?”
Pilar looked down, shrugging in ignorance. “Sorry.”
Tucker went on. “Well, we rode with a gang for a few years went by that name. We came regular over the border from Arizona, stole cattle here, drove ’em back into the States. Rustling cattle out of Mexico across into New Mexico and Arizona is big business. Steal it here, sell it there at a discount. Cheap beef.”
Pilar nodded, staring straight ahead, trying to understand. “You are rustlers and this is why the Federales wanted you.”
Fix sent a projectile of chewing tobacco saliva against a rock where it exploded in a splatter of brown crud. “Wrong, your damn Federales are in on it. They get paid off. Hell, they protected our runs and covered our asses.”
Bodie went on. “Last year we did a run, rustled a herd in from Durango, crossed the Rio Grande and got met up by some U.S. Marshals. Our compadres and us was caught red handed and it was a standoff. Guns loaded and drawn. The Cowboys wanted to shoot the Marshals.”
Fix snorted. “We shot our compadres instead.”
Tucker picked up the tale. “Wasn’t going to be part of no lawmen killing. We turned ourselves in, got tried, did a stretch in Yuma, time off for saving the Marshals. But like I said, cattle rustling is big business both sides of the border, and The Cowboys put a price on our head for shooting some of their number. It’s mebbe a thousand of them, just three of us, so we hightailed it to Mexico. Been down here ever since.”
“Figured we’d hide out,” Bodie said.
“Thought we’d be safe,” said Fix.
“But The Cowboys got that reward out, and the Federales here are in league with ’em, and that’s who those boys were.”
Pilar smiled brightly. “So you are not really bad?”
Fix glowered and spoke softly. “Bad enough.”
Tucker searched her face, curious. “It don’t bother you hiring men like us?”
Pilar held his gaze. “You are dangerous men. My village needs dangerous men to drive away the evil.”
That settled, they rode on.
“You was telling us about what happened in your town and what we’re riding up against.” Tucker adjusted his reins. “Finish your story.”
The peasant girl sat in her saddle, and her eyes darkened as she told them the rest. “The second night, The Men Who Walk Like Wolves came…”
I remember back to my village that night, and feel the fresh terror in my bones.
Full moon high.
A moon so big like I have never seen. It is like a horrid yellow eye, so huge, a terrible deity watching us, unblinking, full of murder. There is no getting away from it. I see the moon outside when I lock the door and then see it hover in the window when I bolt the wooden shutters and still the bright, horrid light cuts through the slats like fingers feeling through the cracks to seize us. My mother is crying and she prays quietly, clutching her cross. I put my arms around her, and we huddle in our home, but it offers no shelter or protection. We avoid the moonlight and stay in the shadows, as if that would help. The moon casts a light that exposes my people to those who would destroy us, flushes us out of the shadows and gives us nowhere to hide. We pray for sun in vain, for mother moon rules the heavens now, and her terrible children are coming out to play. Those who wait lurking in the hills were born of her, the trickster moon, and the stories of The Men Who Walk Like Wolves have been passed down from fathers to sons in our village long past remembering. You told me they were children’s tales, Mama, but how wrong you were. We were fools to think they were legend. Because now they are here.
The terrifying wolflike baying is echoing from out in the hills. But louder and closer than yesterday. It is deafening and hurts my ears, high howling and deep growling, and there are so many. I cover Mama’s ears, but know she hears. Please God, strike me deaf so at least I will not have to hear these horrible sounds.
A pounding on the door.
They are here.
No, not them. Rodrigo calling for us to come out. Go back to your hut I cry, but he persists. I go to the door and crack it open and see his sweating face and behind him the town square is full of frightened people. My townsmen have all left their homes and are gathered by the fountain, carrying guns, pitchforks, machetes and torches. The old priest gestures with his arms toward the pueblo church on the hill. He makes a prayer gesture with his hands. We listen to the minister. We will hide in our church where God would surely protect us.
I am among the crowd, the long black tresses of my hair tumbling over my shawled bosom, walking with my mother. Led by the parson, my townspeople march up the hill, eyes fearfully looking out into the darkened hills as we hear the wolf howls. The priest prolongs our lives by bringing the entire village into the church, leading our people in a long procession up the hill through the open wooden doors. But the reverend makes all of the men leave their guns and machetes outside the chapel. There is fear and reluctance in the men’s faces, but my people are simple and do as their minister bids. Giving up our guns quickened many of our deaths, but those weapons would not have saved us in the end.
The full moon rears its ugly head.
The priest gathers his flock and against the protests of the more macho farmers, he cajoles and begs and leads his congregation into the chapel.
Now, he bolts the doors with a heavy wood beam.
My people gather in the pews and he takes to the altar and leads our town in prayer. “Oh Heavenly Father we pray…”
From outside the stone and wood church, the roars of the wolves shake the night.
We light candles that flicker and gleam on the rows of silver candlesticks and silver plates and silver statues of the Blessed Virgin that adorn the nave. We are a devout congregation, and all extra money of the town has gone into manufacturing these offerings to our Lord.
Look, Pilar, see the eyes of the three gunfighters you have enlisted, how they glint with greed as I tell them of the silver. Soon it will be theirs. Have I done the right thing bringing them to it? I believe they are good men, but that silver is such temptation. I am suddenly full of doubt but Tucker tells me to go on with my story so I continue.
The village kneels and prays, huddling together for safety as we hear the muffled howls outside the walls growing ever louder until the stained-glass windows rattle.
Then all at once the windows explode inward and surging wind from the outside snuffs out the candles.
In the sudden darkness come the man-sized, hairy shapes leaping through the shattering glass, moonlight gleaming on their furry talons, rows of white fangs and red eyes.
The werewolves are too many to count as they fall on us praying villagers, ripping us limb from limb.
The priest is the first to die, his head shorn from his shoulders, rolling over and over down the aisle, spraying blood on the pews. A wolfman sinks its powerful jaws into the pastor's decapitated but still thrashing body, digging into his rib cage and chewing out his beating heart.
Where is Mama? I can’t see her.
I scramble through the pews, searching for my mother, ducking the blood and limbs flying through the air and bodies rushing to and fro, many of them already torn and dying. It is pandemonium. Through the broken windows the ghastly glow from the full moon pours onto the nightmare tableau like stage lighting of a play by Satan.
Fangs snap strung with blood and meat.
Red eyes glint in the darkness.
Huge muscled and tailed hairy figures drag my people to the ground and feed.
The women are stripped of their clothes by claws that rake over their nakedness as the werewolves violently ravish the females before eating them.
The massive canine haunches of the beasts pound themselves between the girls’ thighs and pulverize their womanhood even as they tear out their throats.
Children are swallowed whole.
The church is bathed in blood and guts during the unspeakable savagery. Screams and roars and rending flesh and bone become a deafening symphony of death echoing in the recesses of our rural church.
I search for Mama, screaming her name, but do not see her.
A handful of peasant men, cowarded by the carnage, abandon their dying wives and children and pry loose the wooden beam that blocks the door, fleeing into the night. They shame me.
The unlucky few who grabbed their rifles and machetes rush back into the church to shoot or hack the werewolves, but soon discover the uselessness of such weaponry against creatures such as these. Those unfortunates swiftly join the dead, dying and devoured.
The others spill through the open doors and run for their lives away from the church and back to the village for their horses. They do not look back but can hear the awful roars and the screams and the ripping of meat and that is enough.
I am among them.
God help me, I am so scared I have abandoned my mother to the mercy of those monsters.
When we reach the stables we find our horses disemboweled, the dead animals submerged in a lake of blackish blood filling the corral. The werewolves knew we would only be able to flee them on foot now, and could not get far.
But when we few look back up the hill to the defiled church, we see the big four-legged shapes up on their haunches watching us, red eyes warning us to stay put.
We stayed put.
This night of blood passed as all nights finally must.
The stables were lit by the rosy threatening glow of the pre-dawn sky.
Just before sunrise the werewolves retreated into Santa Sangre and the church doors were closed. Such was our fear, the surviving townsmen and I remained frozen in place in the stables, some soiling themselves, too afraid to budge.
It was the longest night of our lives. We were afraid to abandon the town and our families and afraid to go back so we just waited, wept and prayed.
The full moon waned. A pale sun rose.
As it did, we heard strange and frightening new sounds come from inside Santa Sangre. Howls of wolves became tortured cries of men, as flesh and bones tore and cracked amidst violent thrashing and thumping noises.
Those of us huddling in the corral had wondered with desperate hope if the werewolves were dying or dead.
By now the sun was full up, and all sounds within Santa Sangre ceased as we stood below in the village watching the too quiet church. Then there was a creak as the doors opened.
The bandits stepped out into broad daylight.
The big men were bearded, long haired, swarthy, scarred and filthy. Their faces and hands were smeared with dried blood and all were naked.
The werewolves had returned to human form. Banditos. They commanded two of the village men to walk one mile southwest and bring them the horses with their clothes they had left there. Two cowering farmers hurried down the hill after receiving the bandits’ instructions.
In the corral, I listened on as the fearful men talked amongst themselves. We debated whether to find more rifles and shoot these fiends who now were of human shape. Naked, unarmed and perhaps vulnerable.
As if in reply to the question, we heard the anguished sobs of women that my fellow villagers grimly recognized as the cries of their daughters.
The bandits dragged out five naked young women through the doors of Santa Sangre, their bosoms and buttocks nude and bleeding from scratches, blood streaming down to their feet from between their legs, the result of unimaginable violations. The wolves who now were men clenched the women in front of themselves as body shields, the animalistic fiends grinning sadistically in the hot daylight. The bandits rubbed themselves obscenely against the hindquarters of the girls, and become aroused lapping their tongues in their victims’ ears.
The girls’ eyes begged their fathers to save and not abandon them, tears flowing down their bloody cheeks, and my townsmen below fell to their knees.
We knew then because they had our wives and daughters and families that we would do the werewolves’ bidding now and forever. Whatever that may be.
So as the day moved on, I stood alone in my hut, watching a group of browbeaten villagers carrying supplies up the hill under the baking sun toward the bandits waiting by the church.
For the next four weeks after the bandits had taken and occupied the church they now called Santa Sangre, they enslaved my people.
We brought the bandits food, clothes and drink.
