The Mission War (6 page)

“Remember what I promised you,” he said in a low voice to Jessie. “No harm will come to you.”

“And just how,” she asked while glancing at Mono, “can you promise that?”

“Remember,” was all he said. Then Diego walked to where the horses were being saddled.

“What have you done to him?” Ki asked.

Jessica only shook her head. “I'm not sure. Have I done something to him, or has he done something to me? For some reason, Ki, I trust this man, this Diego Cardero.”

“Feminine instinct?” Ki asked with a slight smile.

“Perhaps,” she answered soberly.

Arturo was there with their horses. “Get on. No one's in any mood for talk.”

Jessica swung aboard the horse and had her boots tied to the stirrups. Ki was again hitched to the saddlehorn. Then, with Arturo slashing at their horses' flanks, they started forward with a jerk and followed the line of bandits out of the white canyon, leaving the Yaquis and Carlos behind.

The sun rose fully an hour later, fiery red and already shooting fingers of light and heat. By ten, the heat was insufferable. Ki rode limply, trying to marshal his forces and at the same time give the impression that he was a beaten and exhausted man. Ki was an incredible physical specimen with ropy, lean muscles and with reactions far exceeding those of these bandits who were for the most part going to fat, soaked in liquor, dull, and sluggish.

There would be a time when Ki would have the chance, that single chance to strike, and he meant to be ready. In the meanwhile he did his best to look exhausted and dazed.

Jessica glanced at Ki, who now rode next to her, and she smiled inwardly, knowing what was going on in his cunning mind.

Sometime after noon Ki looked up and saw through the thin haze of heat and blowing sand a monument dark and wavering. He blinked twice and then recognized it for what it was, the tower of a mission church.

“Jessica,” he said quietly.

She blinked and looked at him.

“Ahead. There's a town ahead. San Ignacio, I suppose.”

She peered forward, her eyes narrowing. Then she, too, could make out the tower, the surrounding adobe buildings, and the dull color of the village trees.

“And what is Mono bringing to them?” she asked.

Ki looked at the bandit leader whose red eyes were shining with dark pleasure. He looked like the devil about to deliver hell to San Ignacio.

Maybe that was just what he was.

Chapter 5

San Ignacio was an ancient town founded in the seventeenth century by Franciscan friars who chose the site because of the water supply and because of the large Indian population who offered many souls for the friars' tending.

The church itself was vast compared to other local structures. A bell tower rose to a hundred feet or more. Seven bronze bells of varying sizes hung inertly there. There was a wall around the mission, but the huge wooden gates stood open, and inside the walls was a garden with much cactus, some climbing, deep purple bougainvillea, and a patch of tall, green corn.

The village was dusty and low and made of adobe bricks. As the bandits rode through the streets, windows were slammed shut. Children ran toward the willows along the edge of the town; the street was empty before they reached the village square where a trickle of a fountain filled an octagonal tile basin.

Jessica saw movement from the comer of her eye, and she looked around in time to see two peons, both men, running from a building to a nearby alley.

Mono drew his pistol and fired at their heels. Four puffs of dust sprang up. One of the men fell and had to drag himself into an alley.

“Sheep!” Mono roared with laughter, ejecting the spent cartridges and reloading. He swung down, shouldered two of his men aside, and ducked his head into the fountain. He turned, wiped back his stringy black hair, and replaced his sombrero.

“Where are you, sheep? Where is everyone today, eh? Aren't you happy to see Mono has come back? Lock up your daughters, sheep!”

He laughed again, perched on the rim of the fountain, and stared at the empty streets.

“Leave Miguel here with the horses,” he said. “Everyone else to the cantina!”

The bandits cheered and fired their pistols into the air. Diego Cardero stood aside with arms folded. “What about the prisoners, Mono?”

“Bring them along. We'll find a place to lock them up,” the bandit leader said impatiently.

They tramped up the empty street. Rough hands shoved Ki along. Once he was tripped and yanked to his feet. The bandits' laughter was loud and approving; they were ready to let loose, to have some fun. Violent fun.

The cantina door was locked, but it didn't do the little proprietor any good. Mono's boot smashed at the door and it sprang open.

“Sanchez, Sanchez! Don't hide from me. It's your old friend Mono!”

The owner of the cantina appeared, small, subservient, and scared to death, his protuberant eyes goggling at Mono and his men.

Already Arturo and Miguel were behind the bar, grabbing tequila bottles from the shelves, tossing them to the other bandits.

Mono missed the first one they threw him, laughed as it crashed against the earth floor, and caught a second, raising it high in a mock toast.

The proprietor hadn't moved. He stood wringing his hands, watching in unhappy anticipation.

“You remember us, Sanchez?” Mono grabbed the little man by his shirt front and yanked him to him. “Eh? You remember Mono and Arturo? Halcón?”

“I remember you,” Sanchez barely squeaked.

“Good. Then you know what we want: music, much to drink, food. Where is that fat wife of yours? Have her serve up food for us.”

“Yes, Mono.”

Mono lifted the little man to his toes, made a sound of disgust, and then pushed him away hard. Sanchez was hurled back into a heavy table, catching his spine on the comer of it.

“What's the Chinaman doing here still? I told you to lock him up somewhere.”

“Yes, Mono. Sanchez,” Arturo said, “give me the key to your storeroom; we have a use for it.” He nodded at Ki.

“And the woman,” Diego Cardero said. Mono turned to look at him, bottle to his lips.

Arturo started to take Jessie by the shoulder, but Mono said, “Let the woman stay. Maybe she will talk to Mono, eh? Maybe she will see that Mono is not such a bad fellow after all.”

“Your order, Mono, was—” Diego began.

“My order was my order, Cardero! Now I change it. Leave the woman. Put her in a chair. Sanchez! Where are those lazy musicians of yours? Bring on the mariachi! We need music.”

Jessie and Ki exchanged a helpless glance. Ki didn't like this much. The bandits were going to get drunk and they were going to get violent. He wanted Jessie out of their reach.

But no one had asked Ki what he wanted. Arturo shoved him forward across the packed dirt floor of the dark cantina and toward a narrow corridor behind the bar to the right. A harried Sanchez stood watching them, his mouth working without making a sound. As Arturo passed, he said, “And find that daughter of yours, Sanchez.”

“She's out of town. Visiting her aunt in Dos Caballos.”

“Find her. You're lying.”

Sanchez could just stand there bewildered and deathly afraid. His head bobbed in a motion that was neither affirmative nor negative; it was just a helpless response to a command he was afraid to follow and terrified to reject.

Arturo rattled the keys he held, selected a heavy iron key, and moved on, still pushing Ki ahead of him. They stopped at a narrow door, which Ki inspected quickly, meticulously: Iron hinges on the outside were bolted through three inches of solid oak; the door was window-less, fitted well, and exceptionally solid.

Arturo opened the door and nodded. “Get in there.”

Ki's eyes met those of the bandit. He stepped forward into the storeroom, and Arturo kicked him on the base of the spine, driving him into the room.

“Get in, I said. I haven't got time to fool with you Chinaman.”

Ki lay sprawled on the floor, his back arched with pain and his mouth open in silent anguish. The door banged shut and was locked, and Ki came slowly to his feet, his eyes flashing angrily in the darkness.

He moved slowly around the storeroom, finding nothing of any use. There were no windows, no other door. There were no tools that might have been useful in working on the heavy iron hinges of the door. The ceiling was low and appeared solid.

Ki sat on his haunches near the door, hearing the savage laughter of the bandits, the crashing of glass, the flow of Spanish curses.

He sat there and he brooded and watched the darkness. They had Jessica. They had her and Ki could not allow that. They would get drunk and then they would get crazy. They were a pack of savage dogs and deserved to be treated in the same way. Ki made his vow then: They would be killed. He would wait no longer. The war would begin.

Jessica Starbuck sat with her wrists tied in front of her, watching the bandits drink and grow wilder. How far would Mono let them go? As far as he had allowed them in Sonoita where a town had been destroyed, its women raped, its men murdered?

Mono had other objectives just now—getting Ki and Jessie to Don Alejandro, to the great hacienda where Kurt Brecht seemingly lived as a Mexican nobleman while he directed the cartel's slaving business.

But perhaps Mono wouldn't care much after a few bottles of tequila. Maybe a day or two wouldn't matter that much. So long as they had liquor and entertainment.

“Drink,” Arturo said. He had slipped up beside Jessica Starbuck. Now he drew a chair next to hers and poured half a tumbler of tequila for her. His voice was a command, “Drink this, Senorita Starbuck.”

“No,” Jessie said calmly, though her heart was beginning to hammer. After Carlos, who was dead, and Mono himself, Arturo was the one she feared the most. There was something unstable in his eyes, as if lurking devils lived there.

“No, thank you.”

“Drink when I tell you,
gringa,”
Arturo said, gripping Jessie's shoulder. Arturo's eyes had gotten darker, the devils seemed nearer to the surface. In his world, in Mono's world, a prisoner, especially a woman, did what she was told to do. “You heard me.”

“Leave her alone, Arturo.”

Arturo's head snapped around. Diego Cardero stood behind him, smiling. His thumbs were hooked into his black, cartridge-studded gunbelt—very casually his hands rested there, very close to his guns.

“Go away, Diego, this isn't your damned business.”

“It sure is,” Diego said as casually as before. “Mono said to watch her; I'm watching her.”

“Watch her. What do I care? Why can't she take a drink?” Arturo asked.

“She doesn't want to,” Diego said reasonably.

“I don't give a damn what she wants.” Arturo flung his half-empty bottle of tequila against the adobe wall of the cantina; it shattered, showering a comer table with glass and liquor. No one so much as looked around.

“She doesn't want to drink,” Diego repeated.

“It won't hurt her. I can't do anything to her that will lessen her worth. Don Alejandro will still pay if she's a little bit drunk, a little bit screwed, eh?”

“Go on,” was all Diego Cardero said, tilting his head no more than an inch. There was menace in those two words. Arturo understood very well. Diego Cardero's own devils revealed themselves briefly in his liquid eyes. “Leave her alone now.”

Arturo rose and for a minute Jessie thought there was going to be trouble as the lanky bandit stood poised before Diego Cardero, his hand near his own holstered Colt. After a long, taut minute, however, Arturo merely slunk away, glancing back like a dog, beaten and resentful.

Jessica Starbuck let out a breath of relief. “Thank you,” she said to Diego.

The bandit just nodded, reversed a wooden chair, and sat down, arms folded on its back. “I told you nothing would happen to you.”

“This time. What happens when they all get drunk? What happens if it's Mono who takes a notion? He wasn't talking about keeping me around for polite conversation, you know.”

“I know.” Diego Cardero lifted his eyes to where Mono stood, one arm around Halcón, the other hand holding a bottle of tequila. The level in that bottle, in all the bottles, was rapidly lowering. They were unpredictable, these men. They had killed, all of them; few of them seemed to have a fear of death themselves. Perhaps because their lives were so empty except for the violence and blood, they had no real love of life.

Mono led them because he was the most savage of all. He had protected Jessica so far, but that was merely a whim, or perhaps some echo of an admonition to be kind to women.