Wrath of God

He was about to light another of his cigarillos and paused, the match flaring in his right hand, his face grave and somehow expectant. ‘At least you give him some credence, even for this.’

‘In a place like this it’s difficult to say God doesn’t exist, father.’ I shrugged. ‘Try and he’ll more than likely remind you of his presence rather forcibly.’

‘Something of an Old Testament view of things, I would have thought,’ he said. ‘A God of wrath, not of love.’

‘A view of the Almighty my own experience would tend to support,’ I said flatly.

He nodded, his face grave, ‘Yes, life can be very hard. It’s difficult to live each day as an act of faith. I know, I’ve been trying for forty-nine years, but it’s the only way.’

I picked up the jack, went round to the front of the Mercedes and set to work. He was carrying two spare wheels, a wise precaution in such country and the change over took me no more than five minutes. He didn’t offer to help, didn’t try to carry our conversation any further, but walked some little distance away to a slight rise where he stood looking out at the mountains.

When I called, he didn’t seem to hear me and I went towards him, cleaning my hands on an old rag. As I got closer, he turned and said harshly, ‘Yes, my friend, you’re right. In a place like this it must be difficult to believe in anything.’

But I was no longer interested in that kind of conversation. ‘I think everything’s all right now,’ I said. ‘Drive her back to the road and we’ll see.’

The Mercedes had a self-starter and the engine turned with no trouble at all, a change from most of the vehicles I’d had experience with. I jumped on the running-board and he took her in a wide circle, joining the road a few yards behind the Ford.

I got my shoulder holster and the Enfield from the rear seat and buckled them on. ‘You see, father, everything comes out in the wash if only you live right.’

He laughed harshly, switched off the engine and held out his hand. ‘Young man, I like you, damn me if I don’t. My name is van Horne. Father Oliver van Horne of Altoona, Vermont.’

‘Keogh,’ I said. ‘Emmet Keogh. Catholic priests who’ve been shot in the head must be rather thin on the ground in Vermont.’

His hand went to the scar on his temple instinctively. ‘True enough, but then I was the only one, to my knowledge, who served as chaplain to an infantry brigade on the Western Front.’

‘Aren’t you rather far from home?’

‘I’m on a general fact-finding trip on behalf of my diocesan authorities. We understood that in the back country in Mexico the Church has been in great difficulties since the Revolution. I’m here to see what help is needed.’

‘Look, father,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t joking this morning in Bonito when I told you there were people in these parts who thought it was still open season on priests. I know places where they haven’t seen one in years and don’t want to. Last month in Hermosa a young French priest tried to reopen the church after eight years. They hung him from the veranda of the local hotel. I saw him swinging.’

‘And did nothing?’

‘I’ve seen priests who stood by and did nothing in my own country,’ I said. ‘It’s easy to take the last walk with a prayer book in your hand when someone else is going to do the dying. Damned hard to stand up and fight for what you believe in against odds.’

For some reason I was angry, which was illogical in the circumstances and I think I knew it. In any event, I went round to the front of the Ford and turned the starting handle. As the engine jumped into life, van Horne joined me.

‘I seem to have annoyed you,’ he said. ‘And for that I’m sorry. A shocking tendency to preach on each and every occasion is my besetting sin. I’m hoping to make my way through the Sierras to a place called Guayamas on the west coast. What about you?’

‘Delivering a load of bootleg whisky to a man in Huila,’ I said. ‘You’ll find petrol there if you’re short.’

‘Do you hope to get there tonight?’

I shook my head. ‘There’s a little place called Huerta about twenty miles farther on. Old stage-line way-station.’

‘Perhaps I’ll see you there.’

I smiled and climbed into the cab of the Ford. ‘If you do, for God’s sake keep religion out of it, father.’

‘Almost impossible,’ he said. ‘But I’ll do what I can. God bless you.’

But sentiments like those had long since ceased to have any effect on me and I drove away quickly.

Suddenly, it seemed to be late evening, the sun dropping behind the Sierras taking the heat of the day with it, the great peaks black against gold as the fire died. There was no sign of the Mercedes coming up behind and I wondered what he was doing. A strange one certainly although priests, like anyone else, were entitled to their idiosyncrasies.

I came over the brow of a small hill just before dark and saw the way-station at Huerta lying below me, lights winking palely at the windows. It was a small, flat-roofed building which must have been a hundred and fifty years old at least and was enclosed by an adobe wall, most of which had crumbled away where the place faced the road.

The sky beyond was like molten gold, the great black fingers of the organ cactus like cut-outs pasted in place against a stage set as I coasted down the hill. When I turned in across the courtyard and switched off the engine, I heard laughter and singing and there were half a dozen horses tied to the hitching post. The door opened as I got out and a man appeared, bare-headed, a couple of bandoleers criss-crossing his ornate jacket, a rifle in his hands.

‘Stand and declare yourself,’ he called, and his speech was slurred with the drink.

I could have shot him, been back behind the wheel of the Ford and away before his friends inside knew what was happening, but there was no need for I had already noticed the large silver badge so conspicuously displayed on his right breast, worn only by the rurales, the country police, as fine a body of men who ever cut a throat or raped a woman and got away with it.

‘I’m taking supplies to Gomez in Huila,’ I said. ‘I have a permit from Captain Ortiz, the jefe in Bonito.’

‘Inside,’ he said, ‘where we can see you.’

The place was lit by a single oil lamp hanging from one of the beams in the low ceiling. There were four of them sitting at a long wooden table, two holding pistols at the ready as I went in. They wore the same ornate braided jackets and crossed bandoleers as the man behind me and if it had not been for the silver badges of office, one might well have been pardoned for confusing them with those on the wrong side of the law.

There was a strange uniformity in their general appearance. Heavy moustaches, unshaven chins, brooding suspicious eyes. The only one not wearing his sombrero seemed to be in charge. ‘What have we here?’

‘I’m delivering supplies by truck to Gomez of Huila.’ I produced the jefe’s travel permit and offered it to him. ‘My papers.’

He examined it, then passed it back. ‘Luis Delgado, at your orders, señor.’

‘At yours,’ I gave him politely.

‘You intend to stay here tonight?’

‘If it can be arranged.’

‘No difficulty, eh, Tacho.’ He looked over his shoulder at the old, white-haired man standing behind the small bar. ‘The señor desires accommodation. You will see to it?’

The old man, who was looking distinctly worried, nodded eagerly and Delgado chuckled. ‘They jump these back-country pigs, when I crack the whip. You will drink with me, señor?’

It seemed a reasonably politic thing to do. I downed the glass of tequila he offered, gave him his health and moved to the bar. The old man, Tacho, was frightened – really frightened. There was a mute appeal in his eyes that I was unable to answer because I didn’t know what it was all about, not realizing then that these visits by Delgado and his men were an old story.

Delgado slapped his hand hard down on the table. ‘The food, you miserable worm. You turd, what about our food?’

Tacho moved to the other end of the bar and the door opened and a young woman came out of the kitchen. As I later discovered, she was barely past her seventeenth birthday, but looked a little older as women of mixed blood tend to do. She wore the usual ankle-length skirt, an Indian-work blouse and black hair hung down her back in a single braid.

She was small for I would say I had at least three inches on her and I can barely touch five and a half feet. Dark, dark eyes, high cheekbones, a wide mouth and a skin of palest olive that reminded me of my own mother, God rest her soul. She was not beautiful yet after turning away I felt a compulsion to look at her again. Now why should that be?

Her face showed no emotion of any kind. She put the tray down on the table, turned to go and Delgado caught her wrist. ‘Heh, not so fast, little flower. An appetizer before the main course is the sensible man’s way of eating.’

He grabbed at the neck of the loose blouse, pulled it down and was put out to discover she was wearing a bodice underneath.

He roared with laughter, ‘Playing the lady, eh? We’ll soon fix that.’