Wrath of God

She put her nails down his cheek, drawing blood and he slapped her solidly across the face as he might have slapped a man, forced her back across his knee as he put a hand up her skirt.

His friends were roaring with delight and when old Tacho ran round the end of the bar and tried to intervene, someone sent him staggering back against the wall so forcibly that he fell to the ground.

The girl struggled desperately and two of the others got a wrist each and pinned her back across the table. She didn’t scream, didn’t show any fear at all, simply fought with all her strength, would struggle for her soul’s sake to the final, bitter end, expecting nothing, not even from me, for when our eyes met, she looked through me as if I did not exist.

It was happening all over the country seven days a week, but that didn’t make it any easier to swallow. No business of mine, so I pulled out the Enfield and blew the tequila bottle on the table into several score pieces.

The effect was considerable and I have seldom seen a group of men scatter so rapidly. Delgado was the only one who didn’t move. He glanced back at me, still clutching the girl, his eyes wary, watchful, no fear there at all.

‘Be easy, señor,’ he said softly. ‘Your turn will come.’

‘The next one is through the back of the skull,’ I told him. ‘Now move to the bar, hands high, all of you.’

They obeyed reluctantly, warily, going backwards slowly, waiting their opportunity. The girl’s reaction was interesting. She moved to my side and stood very close, holding on to my jacket tightly like a child recognizing a loved one in a crowd after being lost.

Tacho had picked himself up from the floor and stood staring at me, shaken and dazed. I said, ‘Get their guns, old man, one by one. No need to fear. If anyone moves I’ll shoot Delgado through the belly.’

He didn’t seem to hear me. Simply stood there swaying from side to side. I spoke to the girl without looking at her. ‘What’s your name?’

There was no reply, but her grip tightened on my jacket. Delgado laughed harshly. ‘No help there, my friend. Little flower hasn’t had a word to say for herself in years.’

I reached down for the hand that clutched at my jacket and brought her round to the front where I could see her face which was calm and watchful.

‘You understand me?’ She nodded. ‘Right, get their guns and don’t be afraid. I will kill any man who tries to harm you.’

Something stirred deep down in those dark eyes, something happened to her face, although it was difficult to say what exactly. In any event, she turned and moved towards the men at the bar.

A spur jangled in the stillness behind me. I started to turn, remembering too late that there had been six horses at the hitching rail which meant another rurale not present in the room and was struck a heavy blow somewhere behind the right ear which put me down on my hands and knees before I knew where I was.

The Enfield fired when it hit the floor, for as I have said elsewhere, all that delicate trigger mechanism needed was a touch. There was noise, confusion, a dull pain in the chest where a boot landed. I didn’t really lose consciousness and finally surfaced to find myself on my knees, hands tied behind my back.

Delgado was busy fashioning a noose at the end of a length of saddle rope. He patted my face gently, then slipped the noose over my head and tossed the other end across a beam.

Two of his men held the struggling girl, the other three got on the rope behind me. Delgado smiled. ‘At first we hang you only a trifle. Then we have some fun with little flower. You should enjoy that. Afterwards – we’ll see. I’ll try to think of something special. A fine gentleman like you deserves it.’

The rope tightened under my chin, jerking back my head, pulling me upright to sway on tip-toes before him. Old Tacho crouched in a chair by the wall, a hand to his mouth, eyes round, even the girl stopped struggling and her captors slackened their grip, watching me. Waiting.

The door opened and Father van Horne stepped into the room, lowering his head to get through. ‘Good evening,’ he said harshly.

He was holding a Gladstone bag in his right hand and presented a strangely menacing picture in his shabby, dust-covered cassock, the shovel hat shading the great, bearded face, another of those cigarillos jutting from his teeth.

‘You would appear to have got yourself into a little trouble, Mr Keogh,’ he observed.

The men holding the other end of the rope had slackened their grip in astonishment and I managed to breathe again.

‘Let’s say I got bored with standing by doing nothing, father,’ I told him.

Delgado had his pistol out in a second, reached for the girl and pulled her out of the way.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded. ‘We weren’t expecting any priest in these parts. I would have known.’

‘So I observe,’ van Horne said. ‘Would there be any point in asking you to release this man?’

Delgado smiled nastily. ‘You could always try, but that might make me angry. I might remember that I haven’t hung a priest lately and the temptation to string you up beside this other gringo might well prove irresistible.’

‘That would be most unfortunate,’ van Horne said.

‘For you, not for me. Now let’s see your papers and quick about it.’

‘Happy to accommodate you, señor.’ Van Horne put the Gladstone bag down on the table and produced a key. ‘Humiliation, Mr Keogh, is a specific for many ailments. It does a man good to get down on his belly occasionally and repent, if you follow me.’

I didn’t. Not until he opened the Gladstone bag, took out a Thompson sub-machine-gun and blew the top of Delgado’s head off.

3

It was all over very quickly. The men who had been waiting to haul me over the beam let go the rope and reached for their pistols. They were too late. As I flung myself forward, my shoulder catching the girl behind the knees, bringing her down with me, van Horne took care of all three, the stream of heavy bullets knocking them back against the wall.

He certainly knew his business. There was a round drum magazine on the Thompson and he kept on firing, swinging in a wide arc which shattered the mirror behind the bar and ripped up the floor behind the two remaining rurales who were running for the kitchen door.

The first one made it, mainly because his companion acted as a shield, the bullets driving him headfirst through the door, shredding the brocade jacket across his back.

The rear door banged as the lone survivor ran into the darkness and van Horne went after him.

The girl rolled over and sat up. I got to my knees with some difficulty because of my bound hands. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked her.

She nodded, turned Delgado over, pulled a knife from his belt and sliced through my bonds. When I got the noose from around my neck the skin was raw and broken on one side. The girl examined it, her face still quite expressionless, then got to her feet and ran into the kitchen.

Outside, a horse broke into a sudden gallop, there was a wild cry followed by the sound of another burst from the Tommy gun. I got to my feet and looked around me. There was blood everywhere, the stench of cordite and burning flesh, a butcher’s shop in hell. Tacho was behind the bar pouring tequila into a tumbler, his hand shaking.

I reached for the bottle and a glass and helped myself. It was the nearest thing to pure alcohol I have ever drunk, but it pulled the pieces together again which was what I needed.

‘Not so good is it?’ I said.

Tacho’s face had sagged into complete despair. ‘To kill the police, even the rurales, is a very bad thing and there’s a lot of Federal cavalry out between here and Huila. There has been much trouble in this area lately.’

The girl appeared with a stone jar containing some kind of grease. She rubbed a little into the raw places on my neck, frowning in concentration, her fingers delicate and birdlike, then tore a strip of muslin off her petticoat and wound it round my neck a couple of times.

I patted her face. ‘That’s a lot better. I’m very grateful.’

She smiled for the first time, glanced uncertainly at Tacho then went back into the kitchen. ‘Your daughter?’

He shook his head. ‘Her name is Balbuena, señor. Victoria Balbuena. Her father owned a hacienda near here. I used to work for him. Five years ago it was burned to the ground during the fighting and the patron and his wife perished. Victoria saw it all. She was twelve at the time, only a child. Something happened to her, something most strange.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, up here in the head, señor.’ He tapped his skull. ‘She has been unable to speak from that day to this.’

There was a step in the doorway and van Horne stepped inside, the cigarillo still clamped between his teeth, the machine-gun under his arm.