The Guns of Santa Sangre (19 page)

“Thanks, amigo, maybe next time,” he said to the bandit leader.

Mosca just watched him.

Then he shrugged with a tinge of atavistic melancholy and regret in his gravelly voice. “Suit yourself.”

Tucker kept his voice even. “Just take ’er real easy, pardners.” He looked at his companions. “Grab the silver. We're gettin’ out of here.”
 

Mosca stood aside to give them wide berth, displaying to them his gold grin the whole time. As the gunfighters walked out the front doors of Santa Sangre with their saddlebags laden with untold riches, the bandit leader said four final words in parting. “You will be back.”
 

And the three gunfighters fled the church of The Men Who Walk Like Wolves without looking back, shaken to their spurs as they tied their saddlebags to their horses, swinging into their stirrups and riding out of the hellish place. Their three horses left trails of dust in their wake as they galloped down the hill through the town away from Santa Sangre, hard charging up the ravine and hurtling out into the desert wastes of Durango. Even over their thundering hooves they could hear the ringing laughter of the bandits on the wind after they were miles away.

Tucker didn’t feel better until he and his gang had covered ten miles and even then he didn’t look back.
 

Mosca stood in the doorway of the church, his black eyes glinting, chewing a toothpick, considering the three receding dust trails of the gunfighters in the distance.
 

The vulpine Calderon walked up to him, watching the cowboys go, displeased.

Mosca’s eyes and voice were blank. “They will come back.”

Calderon shook his head grimly. “I think not, Jefe.”

Mosca’s eyes looked up, boiling with blood. “They will because you will bring them back, slung over their saddles.”

The second in command bandito turned to his leader and his chapped lips pulled wide over cracked, jagged teeth. “I have been waiting for your word, Jefe.”

“I know,
pendejo
, I know.”
 

“Which pieces of them do you wish for me to bring you?”

“The meaty parts. And get our fucking silver!”

With a leathery chuckle, the hulking and hairy Calderon tugged himself into his saddle with one fist. He grabbed and loaded four bolt action Henry rifles in his saddle bags, stuffing in several more ammo belts. Mosca tossed him two Colt Dragoon pistols which the bandit crammed in his belt, beside the two guns in his sideholsters. The bandit was armed to the teeth, and in a killing mood. “
Gracias
,
Jefe. Me gusta muerto los hombres.”

“They are all yours, amigo.”

With a wild whoop, Calderon stabbed his spurred heels into his horse’s flanks and charged down the hill, off into the distance in pursuit of the fading trails of dust of his prey.

Chapter Nine

“You will be back.”
 

Tucker banished Mosca’s farewell words from his mind, urging his horse faster. The gunfighter never again wanted to set eyes on that unholy church and what lay within. Like Lot’s wife, the cowboy feared if he looked back, saw but a tiny glimpse of the distant steeple, he would turn to naught. The three gunfighters galloped across the hot griddle of the desert, the baking wind smashing against them, and they leaned into their horses and heard the galloping hooves and the
rattleclank
of their treasure-laden leather saddlebags, making fast their souls and good their escape. Open badland wastes beckoned and embraced, and soon they were far from that accursed village.

Tucker thought of the silver. He thought of how he would spend it. But try as he might, the cowboy couldn’t get out of his mind the little figure of the peasant girl standing on the ridge as they charged past on their horses with their stolen silver, watching them go. Even at the great distance, just from the brief glance he gave her, he saw the slump of her shoulders.
 

He had been many things in his time. Son. Cowboy. Husband. Widower. Soldier. Outlaw. Thief. Killer.

Now liar.

Samuel Llewellyn Tucker wondered when it was exactly he had gotten too mean to pray.

It had been an hour since she saw those sons of bitches ride out with the silver and all hope was lost.
 

This is why when Pilar heard the horse’s hooves below the ridge heading into town, her heart leapt in her bosom. Had the gunfighters had a change of heart and returned to fulfill their promise? Her stomach quickly fell as she rushed to the edge of the incline and peered down to see only a lone rider on a horse trotting into the village. It wasn’t them. It was as the girl feared; the cowboys had abandoned her and stolen the silver that would have saved her people. But as she squinted through the shimmery dust, she recognized the rider.

It was Vargas, the old town drunk who had fled the village on a whisky binge years before.

What was he doing back?

The
borracho
rode into town armed to the teeth with silver bullets.

He was betting that The Men Who Walked Like Wolves didn’t know that.

His old tired bones ached in his saddle from the long ride, but his heart was strong. The sight of his abandoned, derelict village shocked and dismayed him. It was a graveyard for vultures and flies. As he led his horse through the deserted corrals and stalls and saw the bones and rotting meat he knew they belonged to his friends. How many still survived he did not know.

But some must have.

For the bandits still occupied the area.

Up on the hill, by the church they now blasphemously called Santa Sangre, he could already see a few distant stick figures of the cutthroats patrolling the perimeter of the stark white mission. The whole place stank of death. His horse feared the area and sensed the unnatural evil present. It tossed its head in its bridle and wanted to go no further, but the old man held firmly on the bit with an iron grip and urged the
caballo
forward. Just a few more yards, then he would dismount and cut it loose, and his own feet would carry him the rest of the way.

He had a lifetime of dishonor to make up for.

The village, or what was left of it, was depending on him.

He would not let them down.

Perhaps the old man should have considered his age, his eyesight. Perhaps he should have been mindful of the bandits’ sheer numbers compared to the amount of bullets he had. But this was not on his mind.

At the edge of town, the
borracho
dismounted and unstrapped his saddlebags and firearms that were already loaded with the bullets that would kill the werewolves. He thanked his horse for the good service it provided and before he could smack it on the rump, the stallion took off out of the village at a heated gallop, wanting to be gone from the evil place. The old man stuffed the Navy and SAA pistols in his belt, slung a Mexican bolt action rifle over his right shoulder and a Winchester repeater rifle over his left. He stuffed handfuls of silver bullets he had already separated by caliber into different pockets. They were heavy and the guns and ammo weighed him down, but he bore up under the greater burden of responsibility.
 

Walking to the base of the hill, the
borracho
faced the church like a gunfighter. A rifle he held on one hand, a pistol in the other. The old timer stuck out his chest. Raised his chin. He was not afraid. It was a good day to die.
 

“WEREWOLVES, SHOW YOURSELVES SO I MAY SEND YOU TO HELL!” he shouted boldly.

The bandits looked down, taken aback at the sight of the decrepit stranger down the hill. Vargas bellowed at them as they noticed him for the first time. “TODAY YOU DIE! ALL OF YOU! I, HECTOR VARGAS, HAVE COME TO KILL YOU AND FREE MY PEOPLE!”

The fat, bearded leader of the brigands stepped out of the open wooden doors. He blinked in the sunshine but also in incredulity at the one old man in the village outskirts below yelling up at him in challenge. Mosca cracked a big gold-toothed grin. The four bandits flanking him by the church also grinned. They laughed mockingly, arms crossed, for this was very funny to them.

The
borracho
blushed in humiliation and his legs shook at the ridicule, but he stood his ground, unshouldering his rifle. “I AM HERE TO RELEASE MY PEOPLE! I AM HERE TO KILL YOU COWARDS!” His frail voice barely reached the animals on the hill above, but they heard enough to laugh even harder, busting a gut.

Shaking his head, the amused bandit leader cupped his hands over his mouth. “Who are you, old fool?” he shouted.

“I AM HECTOR VARGAS AND I WAS BORN IN THIS VILLAGE! AS MY FATHER WAS BORN HERE AND HIS FATHER BEFORE HIM! THIS IS MY HOME!”

“But why have you come back?” Mosca’s voice sounded astonished at the audacity of the old timer.

“THIS IS MY HOME AND THESE ARE MY PEOPLE WHOSE BLOOD YOU HAVE SPILT AND I HAVE COME TO KILL YOU AND SEND EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU STRAIGHT TO HELL! YOU HEAR ME, WEREWOLVES? I, HECTOR VARGAS, HAVE COME TO KILL YOU!”

Mosca spread his arms generously, displaying his chest. “Get on with it then!” he chortled.

Fired up with purpose, the old man shouldered the repeater, took aim and fired right at the chest of the bandit leader. His arms were frail, his eyesight poor and his aim was a little off. The bullet struck Mosca in the right shoulder instead and made a blossoming red bloom. But while the bullet missed the heart by a foot, it wiped the grin right off the bandit’s face and the sudden raw fear and agony the
borracho
saw in the brigand’s eyes emboldened him.

“SILVER!” screamed Mosca in utter surprise and unbearable anguish as he pawed the big wound in his shoulder, the impacted slug burning like a red-hot poker buried in his flesh. He fell back against the wall, howling in pain like a wild animal. Tugging his knife from his belt, he jabbed it into the ragged hole, trying to dig the slug out. “AAAGGG-GGGGGGGGGHHHH!” The bandit leader fell to his knees, buckled over in panic, desperately prying the round out of his flesh with the knife. “HE HAS SILVER BULLETS!”

For one brief moment of glory, the old man had them. He opened fire on the other bandits, cocking his Winchester with one hand and firing his Colt in his other fist, unleashing a fusillade of silver bullets on the top of the hill. Spat out cartridge casings glinted gloriously in the sunlight as they flew twirling from the breech of his repeater. He rotated the rifle, cocking the lever action around his fingers, and fired from the hip, again and again. The slugs exploded and caromed off the white adobe walls of the church as the alarmed bandits ducked for cover. They scrambled for their weapons under the onslaught. One of them was hit in the kneecap and went down screaming in pathetic agony, a yelping sound more canine than human, pressing his own fingers into the bullet hole to pinch out the molten-hot silver slug.
 

It was the best moment of the old man’s long life.

The three other bandits had snapped to attention and unholstered their pistols and rifles and began shooting back. Their aim was good for wolves have sharp vision.

The first round in the old man’s side broke three of his ribs. He watched a foot-long jet of blood fountain from his shirt.
 

Still he laid down fire.

Bullets buzzed
past his ears like a swarms of angry bees. The
borracho
’s SAA pistol was empty so he tossed it aside and drew his Navy revolver and kept firing. His arms ached from the recoil but his adrenaline was pumping. Slugs exploded geysers of dirt at his feet. He could see the muzzleflashes of the bandits shooting down on him from the hill through the chalky haze of plaster dust his own bullets had kicked up when they ricocheted off the walls of the church.

Mosca damn near sawed his shoulder off but he got the bullet out.

The red flattened slug clattered on the ground.

He kicked it in blind rage, roaring in fury, the pain in his shoulder subsiding now the silver was gone.

Instantly, the bandit leader was up on his feet, smoothly quickdrawing one of the revolvers from his cross holsters and squeezing off a single shot that blew the
borracho
clean off the ground. The Jefe spat in the dust in vile contempt, raised his hand and his men stopped shooting. The ringing reverbs of the gunfire faded to silence as the brigands on the hill stared down at the sprawled figure of the old man down in the village below them.

He was moving.

The
borracho
lay on his back in the settling dust, his life bleeding out of him. He’d lost his guns. The weapons had flown from his grip when the shot that felled him blew a rat hole out of his thigh. He had taken two rounds, the other in his side. The old man coughed blood and grit his teeth, turning his head to see the pistol ten yards from him. There was still feeling in his arms and legs and he wasn’t dead yet.

Get the gun.

With a grunt of pain, he rolled over onto his stomach and began to crawl for his weapon.

Quick, get the gun.

Mosca’s eyes were vacant as he started walking down the hill, in no hurry. The smoking Colt was in his fist, carried loosely at his side. Step by step, he descended the gravel incline toward the pathetic figure on the ground below who crawled on his belly like a snail toward one of his guns with the silver bullets. The bandit leader took his time in his approach, face slack, grimy hair falling down his back. Mosca stuck a cigar in his mouth and fired it up with a stick match he struck with the thumb on his free hand. He blew clouds of smoke like a chimney, stogie clamped in his teeth as he spoke.