He folded his map, grabbed an unopened bottle of tequila and went out. I said to Tacho, Hes got a point. No sense in hanging about.
The girl caught me by the arm as I turned away. Her eyes tried to speak for her, the mouth opened and shut, the whole face working.
What is it? I demanded.
I think she wishes to go with you, señor, Tacho said.
She nodded eagerly as I turned to her and I took her by the shoulders and gave her a shake. Dont be a damn fool. What could I do with you? Where would you go? Im running for my life.
She gripped my hands convulsively, the eyes still pleading and I shook my head. No, it just isnt on.
Something went out of her, I dont know quite what. Hope perhaps, or something even more important to her. Some vital essence that is in all of us. She turned away, her shoulders sagging.
Tacho said, In a way, she is running too, señor. For such a young one, she has known much sadness, many bad things. The Balbuenas were a name in these parts, and her father was a great aristocrat, but he committed the unforgivable sin for one of the high blood. He married an Indian. More than that a Yaqui. A woman from the Wind River country on the other side of the mountain. His family never forgave him.
So the girl has no one?
Not here, señor, but on the other side of the mountains where her mother was born it would be a different story.
All right, I said to the girl, bowing to the inevitable. Ill give you two minutes to get your things together.
She gave me one startled glance over her shoulder, then disappeared into the kitchen. Sometimes God looks down through the clouds, señor, Tacho said.
Not very often in my experience. What about you? How will the federales treat you?
An innocent bystander and roughly treated, señor. He shrugged. Besides, where would I go, an old man like me?
The Mercedes horn sounded impatiently and a moment later, Victoria came in from the kitchen, clutching a small bundle, a heavy woollen shawl about her shoulders.
You will look after her, señor, Tacho called as I pushed her towards the door. She is in your care from now on.
A disturbing thought to know that one had some sort of responsibility towards another human being again, but too late to draw back now.
As we approached the Mercedes I took the girls bundle and threw it into the back. Van Horne said, What in the hell do you think youre playing at?
The girl goes with us, I said. No arguments.
Over my dead body.
That could be arranged, I told him flatly.
I didnt know what would happen next, already had a hand to the butt of the Enfield in the darkness, when surprisingly he capitulated.
Oh, get her inside for Gods sake and lets get out of here. I can always crack your skull later.
I put her into the rear seat, climbed in next to him and he drove away.
The fifteen miles for which we stayed with the Huila road were no problem and took us about thirty minutes to cover, a remarkable performance considering the darkness and the state of the road.
It was when we reached the place where we were to turn off that we ran into difficulties. For one thing it took a good half-hour to find the start of the trail, so faintly was it marked. When we turned on to it, I knew we were in trouble.
It was almost impossible to see, even with the head-lamps full on and we seemed to be threading our way through a ghostly maze of thorn bushes and organ cactus. We kept this up for a while, crawling at five or ten miles an hour for most of the time and on two occasions it was only van Hornes quick reflexes that prevented us from plunging into a dry arroyo.
In the end he braked to a halt, and switched off the engine and lights. So you were right and I was wrong. I dont even know if were on the trail any more. Well move on at first light.
I turned and looked back at the girl. Are you all right?
She reached for my hand, pressed it gently. Van Horne said, Now may I ask why in hell you had to bring her along? Cant you do without it or something?
The federales would have passed her from hand to hand.
If it doesnt happen to her here, it happens somewhere else, he said. So whats the point?
Her mothers people live on the other side of the mountains. Theyll take her in. Look after her properly. Yaquis have a strong kinship system. They wouldnt turn her away.
He was in the act of lighting one of his cigarillos and turned to look at me in surprise, the match flaring in his cupped hands. Are you saying shes Yaqui?
Her mother was. Her father was straight out of the top drawer. One of the big landowning families.
Son, that doesnt mean a damn thing. Shes branded clean to the bone. Why the Yaquis are worse than the Apache and thats going some, believe me. First night she doesnt like you in bed, shell take a knife to your privates.
My affair, not yours.
It touches both of us while were together. You get rid of her the moment we break through to the other side, understand?
Well see about that.
We certainly will. And then, with one of those puzzling about-turns that I was to find so typical of the man, added, Its going to get a damn sight colder than this before morning. If she cares to lift up the back seat shell find some car rugs.
He turned, as if suddenly exasperated and repeated the information in Spanish. The girl stood up and fumbled about in the darkness. After a while, she passed a heavy car rug over to me.
No, for you, I said.
Van Horne laughed uneasily. Shes going to hang on to you like a leech, Keogh. You mark my words. He grabbed an end of the rug, unfolded it and spread it across our knees. She should be snug enough back there. There are two more. On the other hand I dont mind if you want to get under the covers with her.
I think he was deliberately trying to bait me. I refused to be drawn, but turned and said to the girl, Wrap up well and go to sleep. Well move on at first light.
Van Horne switched on the dashboard light, found the bottle of tequila he had taken from the bar and uncorked it.
He took a long pull and sighed. Heaven alone knows what this stuff does to the liver, but its all thats going to get me through this night. Youd better have some.
I took a mouthful, fought for breath as it burned its way down and handed the bottle back hurriedly. I think old Tacho must have made that himself in the back room.
I can believe that all right. I can believe anything of this damned country. He shivered. God, if I had my time over again.
Would anything be any different?
The neck of the bottle chinked on his teeth, there was a gurgle, a long gurgle and then he sighed. No, its a long dark night at the mouth of nowhere, Keogh, and were both far from home, so the truth for once.
Which is ?
The old, old question. He laughed shortly. Would you believe me, Keogh, if I told you I spent four years in a seminary? That I actually trained for the priesthood?
You certainly made a convincing enough job of it at Huerta this morning when they were executing those men.
It was as if I had touched an open wound and he turned on me sharply. They were dying, Keogh, theyd only minutes to live. They went easier thinking theyd had a priest. Whether they did or not doesnt matter a damn where they are now.
It was as if I had touched an open wound and he turned on me sharply. They were dying, Keogh, theyd only minutes to live. They went easier thinking theyd had a priest. Whether they did or not doesnt matter a damn where they are now.
So you think theyve gone to a happier place, do you?
It was a stupid and ill-judged remark in the circumstances and received the reply it merited. Dont get clever with me, boy.
All right, Im sorry. He took another pull at the bottle and passed it to me. What do you do when youre not wearing a cassock?
You might say Im in the banking business. He laughed loudly and without the slightest sign of having taken drink in spite of the quantity hed already put away. Yes, I like that. You know I was once in a little town in Arkansas where the local police insisted on a permit if you owned a hand-gun and you had to state your reason for needing one.
What did you put?
I told them I often carried large sums of money. I didnt say it was usually other peoples.
I see so youre a thief.
I rob banks, if thats what you mean, and believe me youve got to be good to get away with it.
Which is why youre running round Mexico playing the earnest priest?
Thats it exactly. I knocked over the National Bank at a little place called Brownsville in Texas two days ago all on my own. Its a funny thing, but priests and nuns everybody trusts them. I knocked on that door a half-hour before time and the guard opened it without a qualm.
How many dead men did you leave behind you?
Dead men. He seemed surprised. I told you it was a nice, clean job. Four guys lying on their faces with their hands tied and an empty vault was all I left behind that day. He leaned forward as if trying to see my face. Anyway, how many men have you killed, Keogh, thats the question.
He was right, but if Id told him, Id have given him the shock of his life. One too many.
It always is, even when you think youve got an excuse for it like you and your politics. Were a lot alike, you and me, Keogh, in our different ways, and Ill tell you why. Weve both got death in the soul, its as simple as that.
Which was probably the most terrible thing anyone had ever said to me, mainly because it was the kind of remark that brings out into the open a truth one has always attempted to avoid.
What was it you called it? van Horne said. The last place God made. That about sums it up. My old lady would say Id ended up with what I deserved. She and my father were Dutch. Moved to Vermont when he opened a little printing shop in Altoona. Her religion was everything to her. Believe me, boy, nobody takes it more seriously than Dutch Catholics. When I walked out of that seminary on account of a stupid little bitch, who left me six months later, my mother laid it straight on the line. The Wrath of God and the Day of Judgement rolled into one. Thats what Im going to get and any time now the way things are going.
He rambled on in this way for quite some time, not drunk and yet it was the drink talking. Finally, it started to rain in great, heavy cold drops that hurt where they made contact. We got out quickly and put the top up and only just in time for the rain soon increased into a persistent downpour.
My God, this is all we needed, van Horne said.
I wondered if he appreciated the seriousness of this new turn of events. That by morning, half the ground we had to traverse would be quagmire and a hundred dry arroyos rushing torrents and quite impassable.
There seemed little point in going into that now and it certainly wouldnt change anything so I pulled an end of the car rug around my legs against the cold and turned up my collar.
How many men have you killed, Keogh? It was a hell of a thought to go to sleep on.
The morning dawned grey and bleak, heavy rain still falling. We had stopped close to the edge of what had once been a dry stream bed. Water was rushing through it now in full spate like a moor-land burn on a November morning back home. The mountains were closer than I had expected and we got out the map and finally managed to place ourselves.
We had about ten or twelve miles of open country to traverse before reaching the trail we were seeking, the one which would take us up through the Nonava Pass. It was marked quite clearly on the map between two mountains, one a sugar-loaf and the other with three distinctively jagged peaks. We could see them both in the distance quite clearly in spite of the rain.
That magnificent engine fired without difficulty when van Horne pressed the self-starter and he took the Mercedes away slowly, working out his route as he went, for any remaining trace of the track we had been following had been washed out by the heavy rain.
It was still bitterly cold and the girl, Victoria, stayed muffled in the two car rugs she had used during the night and peered out into the morning, her face as serious and grave as ever. I asked her if she was all right and she nodded and actually smiled which was something.
Van Horne said, How come you speak Spanish as well as you do?
My mother was born in Seville.
Is that so? Your old man must have got around. I picked mine up in Juarez one year, working as manager in a small casino there. I had to stay out of circulation for a while on account of the fact that Id broken out of Leavenworth thats the Texas State Penitentiary.
What were you in there for?
Shooting a guy who was trying to shoot me, only he had friends at court and I didnt.
Strange, the change in him. The brash, confident manner, the excessive toughness in the voice as if he was trying to prove something, though whether to me or himself was debatable. I was thinking about that for want of something better to do when we went over a slight rise a couple of minutes later and saw Federal cavalry in the hollow below.
They were saddled up and grouped in a rough circle as if waiting to receive their orders after breaking camp. The surprise was mutual and the whisper of the engine at the slow speed at which we were moving combined with the heavy rain, explained why they had not heard our approach.
There was a single, excited cry as we were seen and as van Horne swung the wheel and slammed his foot hard down, a couple of shots whistled through the air. We went down the slope in a great sliding loop that took us through a patch of water a foot deep and out into the final stretch of open plain rising into the mountains.
By now, the hunt was up with a vengeance and the result was by no means a foregone conclusion for the federales, as usual, were superbly mounted and try as he could, there were stretches where van Horne had no option but to slow down considerably.
We were perhaps two hundred yards in the lead when he cursed and braked sharply as we went over a small ridge and found the way blocked by a flooded arroyo. By the time we had extricated ourselves, the gap had narrowed to no more than fifty yards. We started to climb steeply, cutting across a broad shoulder at the foot of the sugar-loaf mountain, the wheels spinning in the loose shale.
Once over the top there were certain to hit that trail, he shouted. They dont stand a cat in hells chance of keeping up with us. The Thompsons under your feet. Give them a little discouragement.
I pulled out the celebrated Gladstone bag and found the sub-machine-gun inside resting on top of dozens of packets of crisp bank-notes. An interesting discovery, but I had more important things on my mind. I leaned out and loosed off a long, rolling burst well above the heads of our pursuers. It certainly started them reining in, but when I attempted to repeat the performance, the drum magazine jammed, a common fault with them at that time.