Authors: Jack Higgins
There was a short silence as they all considered his words. It was finally broken by Villa. 'It pains me to admit it, but it would seem that a grand gesture from Don Jose would appease Ortiz only for a moment.'
'I'll test the water one more time,' Dillinger said.
He picked up a canteen, filled it from the well and went back outside. As he crossed the clearing, Ortiz stepped from the thicket.
Dillinger stopped a few feet away. 'Nachita says you have no honour.'
No anger showed on Ortiz's face. He shrugged and said calmly, 'So be it. What happens now is on your own head.'
Dillinger held out the canteen. 'For the child.'
'You would trust a man without honour?' Ortiz said. 'How do you know I will not drink this myself?'
'Only you can prove that you are still a man.'
'Then follow me,' Ortiz commanded.
Once again he led the way into the thicket to where Juanita sat on her blanket. She seemed happy to see Dillinger so soon again. Ortiz knelt and held the canteen for her as she drank. When she finished, the canteen was still more than half full.
'You can have the rest,' Dillinger said.
Ortiz turned the canteen over and spilled the rest of the water to the ground. 'I will drink,' Ortiz said, 'when Rivera is exchanged for the child.'
He handed the canteen back to Dillinger and said, 'Go now! You have fifteen minutes left.'
Dillinger returned to the chapel. The others gathered around him to hear what had happened. He was telling them when he stopped because, he, like they, had heard the muted throbbing of a drum.
'It is their way of trying to frighten you,' Nachita said.
Then came the sound of an Apache chant, voices rising and falling like waves coming in across a beach.
'It is the courage chant,' Nachita said.
'If they attack,' Chavasse said, 'they will drug themselves with mescalin first. They will think they are invulnerable.'
Villa nodded. 'You could empty your gun into one of them and he'll still keep coming.'
'Bullshit,' Dillinger said. 'I've made up my mind. Rivera will be exchanged for the girl.'
'No,' Rivera said from the comer. 'I will not do it!'
Nachita stood facing all of them. To Dillinger he said, 'You believe Ortiz because he spilled the rest of the water.'
Dillinger nodded.
'You think he will act with honour?'
'It's a chance worth taking.'
'You Yankees,' Nachita said, 'are naive. You believe what you want to believe.'
Dillinger turned to Villa. 'You bring Rivera out. I'll come with you to take the kid. She's just seen me twice, she'll be less frightened if I pick her up.'
Villa twisted Rivera's arms behind his back and pushed him out of the door.
Outside the chapel Dillinger made himself fully visible so that Ortiz could see he wasn't armed. The chanting stopped. There was a rustling in the thicket across the clearing and Ortiz appeared. Near him, the thicket opened and a young Apache was visible, carrying Juanita in a blanket.
'Put her down!' Dillinger barked.
The young Apache didn't understand him, but Ortiz said something and the Apache put Juanita at Ortiz's feet. It was at that moment that the child recognized Rivera, who was held and being pushed by Villa from behind. She got up to run to her father, but Ortiz grabbed her hand.
'Sit!' he commanded. 'Not yet.'
Then Ortiz advanced to the centre of the clearing. 'At last, Rivera,' he said. Then to Villa, 'I will take him.'
No man in the history of the world could have looked more frightened than Rivera did at that moment, or more pathetic.
Ortiz said, 'Rivera, you died when you shot Father Tomas. You died when you let twenty Apaches die in the mine. Today I merely carry out the sentence.'
Dillinger said, 'Let's cut the palaver. Have the kid brought forward.'
Ortiz motioned to the young Apache, he picked up Juanita in her blanket and again moved her to where Ortiz now stood.
'We will now exchange justice for justice,' Ortiz said, 'life for life.'
'No, you won't,' Rivera said, suddenly lunging for the child, trying to take her up in his arms. Villa, taken by surprise, made a try at holding Rivera back.
In one swift movement Ortiz reached into his clothing and pulled out a long-barrelled Smith and Wesson and, his eyes like a madman's, aimed at Rivera, pulling the trigger again and again. Rivera dropped the wriggling, screaming, frightened child. As Rivera crumpled, Ortiz raised the Smith and Wesson and emptied it at Villa's chest. Then he swooped up the screaming Juanita and ran with her back into the thicket, leaving her blanket behind.
Dillinger could see that the young Apache had been taken completely by surprise at Ortiz's perfidy for he stood like a statue for a second before dashing after Ortiz into the bushes.
Dillinger, betrayed, waited for bullets to thud into him from either direction, the thicket or the chapel. He glanced down at the bodies. Rivera was clearly dead. Villa was still breathing, so Dillinger knelt beside the man, whose breath came in bubbles and whose eyes said it is the luck of the game, and he died.
Chavasse, Rose, Nachita were all coming across the clearing from the chapel, armed with rifles but not firing into the thicket after Ortiz for fear of hitting the child.
Dillinger tried to say something to Rose, but she averted her face.
Nachita said, 'You all go back to the chapel. I will be back soon,' and he went off in the direction in which Ortiz had vanished.
They buried Rivera and Villa in a shallow grave in the pine trees. When they had finished, Dillinger returned to the chapel.
He stood at the window and looked out across the desert at the mountain. Strangely enough, he didn't feel tired, but as if he had just awakened from a long sleep.
A small wind blew in through the door, setting the lantern creaking on its chain above the altar, carrying with it the scent of pine, and he could almost hear the stillness.
Chavasse slept peacefully, all strain washed from his face, and Rose lay on a blanket beside the grey ashes of the fire, her head pillowed on one arm. He stood for a long time looking down at her, then filled two canteens at the well, picked up his sub-machine gun and went outside.
Nachita was just emerging from the thicket across the clearing, sweat on his brow.
Dillinger crossed quickly to meet him. 'You are breathing hard,' he said.
'My horse is breathing harder,' Nachita said, 'and he is far younger than I am.' He sat down on a rock.
'Are you angry because I believed Ortiz might be a man?'
'Anger is like rust in the heart. It destroys not the enemy but he who is angry. If I come north to your country, I will trust your judgement about the people. Here, you must trust mine. I bring good news.'
Dillinger offered him one of the canteens. Nachita unscrewed the cap, then drank his fill. 'The news,' he said, 'is that the others have deserted Ortiz. In his dishonour, he dishonoured them.'
'Where have they gone?' Dillinger asked.
'Where has the wind gone? The Federalistas, if they come, will never find them. It doesn't matter. Ortiz is now alone with the child, on his horse, heading into that part of the desert that is near the great rocks in the direction away from Hermosa. He has no reason to keep Juanita now except as a shield from bullets. Where are you going?'
Dillinger checked his Colt in its underarm holster, swung the Thompson over his shoulder by its strap. 'It is my fault he got away. This time he won't.'
'Come back,' Nachita shouted after him. 'You don't know your way about this countryside. Two wrong decisions do not make a right one!'
But it was too late. The American had rushed downhill too fast to hear his words.
Inside the chapel, Nachita knelt beside Rose and shook her gently. Her eyelids fluttered, then opened slowly and she gazed at him. In that brief moment of waking she knew at once that something was wrong.
'What is it?'
'He has gone into the desert.'
Her eyes widened. 'Alone?'
Nachita smiled. 'Men will do foolish things.'
Her nostrils flared, the face becoming hard and full of purpose.
'We'll go after him.'
'Good. We'll take the spare horses. We can move faster if we can change mounts along the way.' He looked down at Chavasse. 'Shall we wake him?'
Chavasse opened his eyes, blinked. 'What is it?'
'Dillinger has gone after Ortiz on his own.'
Chavasse struggled on to one elbow. 'The bloody fool. They'll spread him on an anthill and watch him die by inches.'
Nachita said, 'They do not exist. The young Apaches have abandoned Ortiz because he lost his honour. Ortiz is alone.
'And Juanita?' Chavasse asked, getting up. 'Jesus, we'd best move fast.'
Dillinger threw the brush and branches off the camouflaged car like a madman. He was sure he could catch up with Ortiz if only he could get going, but it took twenty minutes before the car was clear enough to be backed out of the cavelike crevice carefully, for if it shot back in reverse he'd have gone over the side.
He couldn't wait till he got it back down on the desert so he could pick up speed.
The desert smouldered in the sun, heat rising from the ground to enfold him, and the bushes seemed to shimmer with fire. He wondered how far ahead his quarry was. If he did not know now that he was being followed he soon would. The noise of the convertible's engine echoed back at him from the hills.
He realized how much Ortiz must hate Nachita. The old man possessed the same qualities of strength, courage and intelligence. He could be cruel, that was true, but only in the way that life itself was cruel. He had fought for his nation and seen it defeated. Still, he had retained his honour, and Ortiz had not.
The sun beat down mercilessly, but Dillinger obstinately refused to put the top up. He drove down into a shallow depression and up the other side, pausing to reach for his canteen. He tilted his head, the cool liquid spilling across his face. As he straightened, the desert seemed to move and the mountain to float before him.
There was no sound. Only a great silence. For a moment he was part of it, fused into a single whole. He sat at the wheel as if turned to stone, hardly daring to breathe, and then there was a slight rattle, the faintest of sounds as a lizard passed between two rocks, life in a barren wilderness, the second time such a thing had happened to him. If Rose had been there she would have taken it as an omen.
He didn't realize that Ortiz could observe him. But in fact Ortiz was only six hundred yards from the car, about a hundred and fifty feet higher among the rocks that bordered the desert. He had been giving his horse a rest. The child was asleep on the ground, exhausted. But he had his energy still, and his pride, and now, in his sight, the white convertible, standing still.
Ortiz leaned his left elbow on the rock to steady his arm as he sighted along the top of the rifle. It was too far for accurate fire, but if he hit the car at least, the stupid American would drive closer, close enough perhaps for Ortiz to put a final bullet between his eyes.
Carefully, Ortiz squeezed the trigger.
Dillinger jumped in his seat instinctively when the bullet hit the hood ornament and ricocheted into the right side of the windshield, spidering the glass. In an instant, he turned the ignition, accelerated like a demon, and became a fast-moving target. But no further shots came.
His hatred for Ortiz doubled because of the damage to the car. It was as if the car's virginity had been taken. It would need a new hood ornament. It would need a new windshield. And where in all of Mexico would he find someone who could make it new without asking too many questions? Damn.
Ortiz saw the car moving fast in his direction and kept his finger ready on the trigger. Suddenly, the car disappeared from his view. He frowned, then seeing that the child was still asleep and his horse safely tethered, he moved quickly towards a new position. And sure enough, within minutes, looking between two large rocks, he saw the Chevrolet, not racing as before, but parked, its engine still running, the sound of it now echoing. But of Dillinger there was no sign.
It had been a momentary flash of scarlet from the rocks that had warned Dillinger of Ortiz's new position. He'd parked the car, left the engine running, and got out carrying his Thompson. He figured he'd have to climb two hundred feet to get well above Ortiz, so the hunter could become the hunted.
Rose, Chavasse, and Nachita had been able to make faster time down the mountain than Dillinger, aided by the old Apache's unerring eye for the trail. Once on the plain, they had ridden hard, changing mounts when the horses tired.
It was Rose who spotted the stopped Chevrolet. Nachita had motioned them to slow down, then stop also. It was then that they heard the shot, and even from that distance could see that the car had been hit.
Rose didn't know whether Dillinger had been hit or not, but when that shot rang out, she was certain she loved this man who led an impossible life.
Nachita also decided on the advantage of the higher ground, and so they tethered their horses and started to climb. Soon they reached a flat outcrop and Nachita motioned Chavasse and Rose to lie flat. He crawled forward, then motioned them to crawl forward, too.
He pointed. They saw Ortiz's tethered horse and something very small just waking up. 'Juanita!' Rose's heart sang.
'Careful,' Nachita cautioned, pointing to a position in the rocks almost directly below them. Ortiz was in a sniper's position, waiting. They could not see Dillinger anywhere.
'You and Chavasse go for the child now. When you are almost there, I will get Ortiz.'
Dillinger, recovering his breath, now moved into position where he would be able to see Ortiz. There he was! If he only had a rifle. He had to get closer so that the Thompson would be sure to get Ortiz with the first burst.
He climbed down as quietly as he could. Suddenly, there was a noise off to the right. It was Ortiz's horse whinnying. Rose was clearly visible, running ahead of Chavasse, and in a moment had put down her rifle and scooped up Juanita into her arms.
Ortiz saw this also, and cried out like a madman whose property was being stolen. Dillinger pulled himself up on the rock in front of him, ready to fire his Thompson, but Ortiz, screaming indecipherable words in Apache, was running toward Rose and Juanita. Dillinger saw Chavasse fall to one knee to take better aim at the zig-zagging Apache. The Frenchman fired once, the bullet skimming off a rock, and then a second and third time in quick succession. If he'd hit Ortiz it hadn't slowed the Apache down a second. Dillinger was scampering breathlessly down the rocks, hating the Thompson for the first time in his life because it was too inaccurate to use with Rose and Juanita now just beyond Ortiz in the line of fire.
Why didn't the kneeling Frenchman fire again, Dillinger thought as he moved quickly over the sharp rocks, trying not to trip. Chavasse was looking at his rifle as if it had jammed when Ortiz came close enough to kick the rifle clear out of Chavasse's hands. Out of the corner of his vision, Dillinger saw that Rose had put Juanita down to pick up her rifle. She should never have let go of the kid. She should have run with Juanita in the opposite direction.
Ortiz saw his chance. Instead of stomping on Chavasse as he had planned to do, he ran toward the child, and Dillinger knew the danger. Once the Apache had the kid in his arms, the Thompson would be useless. Dillinger ran as he'd done the hundred-yard dash in high school, at the last moment flinging the Thompson away as he risked everything in one flying tackle, hitting Ortiz just at the back of the knees, crumpling him to the ground.
Ortiz, in his rage, summoned up the energy of a giant, and with a mighty heave rolled over and pinned Dillinger to the ground.
'Get the kid!' Dillinger yelled at Rose, then felt the Apache's fingers tighten on his throat.
Rose, standing ten feet away, rifle in hand, didn't know how to shoot Ortiz without hitting Dillinger.
'Get the kid and run like -' Ortiz's hands, the strongest Dillinger had ever felt, tightened on his windpipe, cutting off his yell to Rose and his air. At least the kid was safe, he thought, but what a way to go.
And then, staring up at Ortiz's face whirling against the sun, Dillinger suddenly felt the handgrip on his throat loosen.
'Scum!' he heard Nachita saying, as he twisted Ortiz's head in an armlock. 'Geronimo wouldn't even have let you hold the horses.'
Dillinger saw Nachita's knife as if in slow motion go in and out of Ortiz twice, and Ortiz's eyes rolled upwards. As Nachita stepped back, Ortiz rolled off Dillinger and sank to the ground.
Somewhere Dillinger could hear Juanita crying. Then Chavasse was standing over him, and then a moment later Rose was kneeling beside him. His breath was coming back, and he knew, like a man redeemed, that everything would be all right.