The Arrow Keeper’s Song (29 page)

“They're gaining on us!” Enos shouted in Tom's ear. The whole left side of his head was washed with crimson, but the man seemed totally in control of his faculties. For all the loss of blood, the wound was evidently superficial. “Can't you get this nag to run?”

“Maybe you ought to get off and push!” Tom replied through clenched teeth.

Enos tightened his grip on Tom's waist just in case Sandcrane had a change of heart. The wounded man returned fire as best he could with his revolver while Tom continued to rake the sorrel with his heels, coaxing every last ounce of speed from the horse. But the poor beast was carrying double and could not maintain its pace for long. All that saved them was the fact that the Spanish mounts had been ridden all night and were themselves exhausted. And the Spanish marksmen were firing into the sun.

Tom saw the wagon and riders disappear beneath the arched entrance to the church, and he took some comfort in knowing that Joanna and the others at least had a chance. The hard-packed earth of the plaza was underfoot now. The well flashed past, then the jacals and the casitas. Drumming hooves upon the trampled ground echoed through the narrow pathways of the village. Gunfire reverberated from every wall, volley after ragged volley, as the Spanish brigade tried to cut off their quarry from safety.

For a few brief moments it was touch and go, and Tom thought all was lost. Then the church rose before him. Gunsmoke blossomed from the walls as Willem and Tully opened fire on Tom's pursuers. Twenty feet … ten … the sorrel lunged through the entrance and out of harm's way. The battlements varied in height from a low gap of six feet to about nine. Rubble, timber, and discarded crates provided the defendants a variety of perches from which to direct their gunfire.

Enos leaped from horseback and joined Philo at the freight wagon to help back it across the entrance. Then they unhitched the horses and allowed them to join the other mounts in the center of the makeshift compound. Tom dismounted and made a quick survey, and, to his relief, everyone was accounted for. He saw Joanna rush forward to lead Enos off to the side. Ignoring his protests, she began patching his head wound. Celestial, carrying a lever-action Winchester '76, hobbled over to the wagon and took up position behind one of the rear wheels, opening fire on the Spaniards charging the blocked entrance. Philo grabbed a rifle and joined Tully on the walls. Tom hurried toward the front of the church, hesitating by Joanna to see if she needed anything.

“He has a hard head,” she said, looking up from her bloodied patient.

“That's a trait with us Cheyenne,” Tom replied, and continued toward the wall, struggling his way up a pile of crumbling bricks until he could peer over the pockmarked wall. Willem Tangle Hair ducked down as bullets spattered the battlement and showered him with fragments of hardened clay. He stood about seven feet away from Tom, balanced on bricks and a couple of hurriedly stacked logs.

“Well, at least we don't need to worry about running into a Spanish patrol,” he shouted.

“I feel much better now,” Tom said with a nod. Then both men rose up and rejoined the fray, their rifles blazing. Sight and squeeze off a round, work the bolt and chamber a fresh cartridge, fire again. No hesitation now for Tom Sandcrane. War made the choices simple—it was kill or die; remorse must come later, like spoils to the victor. The Krag's recoil shoved against Tom's shoulder, and in his sights the bullet dusted a cavalryman's tunic. The Spaniard tossed his arms wide, flung his rifle into the air, and rolled backward over his horse's rump. Tom shifted his aim, chose a new target, and fired again.

Had the Lion Brigade attacked en masse, they might have breached the walls, overwhelmed the American defenders, and carried the day. But due to the condition of their weary mounts, Zuloaga's patrol was spread out between the church and the village plaza. The headlong charge had taken its toll on the exhausted mounts, and many of the soldiers had fallen behind. Some of the Spaniards, including Captain Zuloaga himself, arrived on foot in time to watch in horror as no more than a dozen of his command, led by Lieutenant Emilio Garza, began an attack on the fortified church. Garza and the others surged forward across a clear field of fire.

The Spaniards were accustomed to fighting frightened farmers, merchants turned rebels, men poorly equipped and unaccustomed to firearms. They had never faced the likes of the American soldiers. The Spaniards rode straight for the wagon-blocked entrance, firing their Mausers and loosing cries of triumph. Suddenly men began pitching from horseback. Horses went down, tossing their riders onto the ground. The attack broke before the unremitting gunfire, men scattered to right and left. But that didn't stop the killing. Zuloaga hastily shouted orders to the men around him to open fire in hopes of pinning down the defenders on the walls. The attackers broke and fled back the way they had come, but the Americans continued to kill them. Five men lay sprawled in the morning sunlight, blasted from their saddles as they charged the walls. Another three pitched from horseback while fleeing for their lives. Only Lieutenant Garza and three other men survived the rout. Blond, handsome Emilio Garza, his eyes wide with fear and excitement, his confidence shaken. The aristocrat from Castile had lost his hat, and blood seeped from a crease along his right forearm as he slid his saber into his saddle scabbard and drew his revolver.

“More men—I need more men and I will breach the walls,” he cried in a shrill voice.

“Idiot!” Diego Zuloaga exclaimed. “Will you destroy my entire command?” The captain grabbed Garza by the front of his tunic and dragged the brash young lieutenant from the saddle, shoving him against the side of the mud-brick shack. The casita, with its caved-in roof, stood on the periphery of the village about midway between the plaza and the church. Behind the two officers lay the comparative safety of Rosarita; before them, certain death to any man who made a target of himself by approaching the church. The Americans had already found the range of the building, and lead slugs began to spatter against the casita. The activity around the humble little dwelling had attracted the attention of the cornered marksmen in the church.

Zuloaga immediately began barking orders to the twenty troopers under his command. A couple of men remained behind in the shack while the rest of the brigade retreated farther into the village with orders to keep the Americans at bay until Zuloaga devised a plan to destroy them and the rebel leader he suspected was among their number.

Then, keeping a line of cover between himself and the American riflemen, Zuloaga strode briskly toward the center of the village where Alfonso Ramirez, the cook, had already begun to build a fire in the very same quarters that had recently housed Antonio Celestial. Once out of any accurate range of the Krag rifles, Diego Zuloaga strode to the well and splashed his dirt-grimed features with water. He straightened and glanced at Lieutenant Garza, who continued to tag along like a scolded pup, his shoulders hunched forward and his eyes downcast. The shame at being manhandled and scolded in front of the common soldiers was almost more than he could bear, and he longed for the opportunity to redeem himself. He was certain that if only Zuloaga would give him the entire command, another frontal assault would succeed. The aristocratic lieutenant was smart enough, however, not to make the suggestion.

A couple of stragglers entered the plaza, one of them a burly trooper named Chenez. At his side rode the thirteen-year-old prisoner who had brought them into the valley. Mateo sagged in the saddle, and when the soldier leading his mount halted near the captain, the lad slid from the saddle and stood dejectedly, his blinded eye covered with a strip of dirty cloth wrapped around his head. Mateo turned aside and stared balefully at the man who had recaptured him, a lantern-jawed trooper with bushy sideburns, who took him by his shackled wrists and brought him over to the officers.

“Where shall I put this one, Captain? He tried to escape, but I caught him before he reached the trees,” Chenez cheerily reported.

“Ah. You no longer desire our company?” Zuloaga asked of the youth. “Perhaps you wish to join the doomed ones we have trapped in the church.”

“Yes,” Mateo replied, a note of hope in his voice. Better to die with his
compadres
than survive another moment as Zuloaga's prisoner.

“Do you think Celestial would have you with him when he learns how you betrayed him to us?”

Mateo's lips curled back in a defiant sneer. “You do not know him. I am already forgiven. Antonio understands what animals you Spaniards are.” The thirteen-year-old spat on the ground in front of his captors; defiance was the only weapon left to him.

Garza's hand shot out and slapped the youth across the face with enough force to knock him to his knees. The lieutenant drew his leg back to deliver a brutal kick to Mateo's head, but Zuloaga once again halted the lieutenant.

“This insolent little fool is worth more to us alive,” Zuloaga said as he shifted his stance to afford himself a clear view of the church. Judging by the way the American soldiers were keeping up a sporadic exchange of gunfire with the besieging force, ammunition was evidently not a problem for them. No matter. The captain estimated that his command outnumbered the defenders by more than three to one. And he had them trapped. But before he closed the jaws on his prey, he wanted to be sure Celestial was indeed within those walls. Without the Cuban leader all Zuloaga's efforts would be for naught.

“What if Celestial isn't even in there?” Garza asked as if reading the captains mind. He was staring past his commander at the mission walls, his features unable to conceal his barely suppressed fury. Garza had been disgraced this morning, and as far as he was concerned, the men holed up in the mission were to blame.

“That is what we must find out.”

“How?” the lieutenant asked.

“Simple,” Zuloaga replied in a voice cold as a tombstone. “We ask.”

The captain glanced at Mateo, who was still on his knees. The youth could feel the officer's scrutiny and looked up to search that face of cruelty for any semblance of mercy, a futile effort indeed, for Zuloaga was a man obsessed with only one thing now—the capture and execution of Antonio Celestial.

“I will do nothing else to help you,” Mateo said, pink spittle oozing from his battered mouth.

Zuloaga smiled and lifted his gaze to the church once more. The sun washed his features in its golden light and made him seem radiant, almost angelic were it not for the cruel set to his mouth and the murder in his eyes. “We'll see.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

I
AM
C
ORPORAL
E
NRICO
M
EDINA AND
I
WILL LIVE
.

The Spaniard lay on his belly among the corpses of his
compadres
. Motionless, he passed for dead. Not once did Medina cry out, though the pain in his side was sharp and almost unbearable at first. His head had struck a rock as he fell, and an ugly lump had already formed on his forehead. Later an unnerving numbness settled over the injured man, but at least he was able to catch his breath without groaning. Medina was not a young man; he had been a soldier for almost twenty years. A wife, assorted mistresses, and children—at least six of whom he claimed—awaited his return to Madrid. In his thirty-one years the Corporal had drunk too much and sinned at every opportunity, yet he harbored no regrets save one—that here and now it might all be coming to an end. The shadow of a vulture passed across his fallen form like a portent of things to come.

Feed on the others
, the Spaniard warned, repeating his warning. I
am Corporal Enrico Medina. And I will live
. The corporal was a hard, methodical soldier who felt confident he could handle a little loss of blood while he waited out the daylight hours. Clouds drifting across the face of the sun provided a measure of relief from the heat.
Wait for night
, Medina told himself.
Then you can crawl to safety
. He was tempted to reach for the Mauser lying just inches from his fingertips. But he resisted the urge. One of the American soldiers might notice the motion and put another bullet in him. The bastards could shoot … not like the damn rebel trash who ranged these mountains. Pig farmers, goatherds, it had been a demeaning task to fight them.
Of course, if they had been manning the walls of the church instead of the bluecoats
, Medina thought,
I would not be lying here now
. The wounded corporal closed his eyes and forced himself to relax, and in a few minutes he lost consciousness without realizing what had happened.

Tom remained on the wall throughout the morning. He kept watch while the other men climbed down into the church, reloaded their weapons, and raided the ammunition boxes. Joanna collected all the canteens to pool their supply of water and allowed each man half a cup of water. Despite the scudding clouds, the temperature continued to rise as noon approached. Tom unbuttoned his shirt and dabbed his brow on his shirtsleeve. There were no visions now, only the stark reality of death and the skimming shadows of the king vultures circling overhead. How had he sensed the approaching Spaniards? Seth would have attributed everything to the Maiyun and not given it a second thought. Tom had to struggle with such a notion. If he accepted the supernatural presence of the Ones Who Have Gone Before, then he must also accept that the power of the Sacred Arrows had touched his life. Perhaps they were even hounding him, propelling him headfirst from one unpleasant situation to the next as some kind of punishment for denying their power and refusing to become the Arrow Keeper and sing the Sacred Songs. He had tried not to listen, but the Maiyun were calling him by name.

A shot rang out, derailing his train of thought, and a bullet thudded against the side of the church about a yard below Tom's vantage point. He didn't bother to duck. He located the marksman in the casita farthest from the village and briefly considered a reply in kind, but the gruesome display of eight lifeless bodies sprawled before the church walls gave him a change of heart, and he took his finger off the trigger. The vultures had enough to feed on.