CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
There wasn't much to the village of Boquillas del Carmen, which lay just over the Mexican border where the Rio Grande flowed into Boquillas Canyon. Silver and lead mining had begun there a few years ago. The Consolidated Kansas City Smelting and Refining Company had built a processing plant on the American side of the river, and a cable tramway to bring ore across the border. After processing, it was shipped to the railroad in Marathon.
Sometimes, when the miners got paid, the cantina bustled with activity, and, sometimes, when the gringos working at the processing plant got paid, they crossed the river to partake of cheaper beer, tequila, and Mexican women. But on a night like that one, Boquillas was dead.
The only light Hec Savage saw came from the little adobe church at the edge of town, which consisted of a few scattered homes and businesses, and a ramshackle corral and livery. He eased his horse down the sleet-crusted street, and pulled the one carrying Grace Profit toward the Catholic church.
A door opened, then shut. Savage reined up and aimed the Merwin Hulbert at the peon woman who had stepped out of her jacal. Giving his shadowy figure a moment's glance, she pulled her cloak tightly, and hurried across the street toward the church. Savage followed her, studying the shadows, the buildings, watching the woman as she entered the church, closing the door behind her.
He rode past the well in the center of the street. Stopping in front of the church, he climbed down from the saddle, pulled the heavy bags off the back of his horse, and slung them over his left shoulder. Next, he drew Grace's mount over to the hitching post, wrapped the reins around it, and sliced through the rawhide that held her pale hands to the horn. She was half dead, her breathing ragged, her body cold to the touch, but she was still alive. He draped her over his right shoulder, and moved to the door.
Inside the adobe building, he immediately felt warmâGod's blanket of love, he thought mockingly, or some such nonsenseâand carried Grace and the saddlebags past the peon woman lighting a candle to the pew nearest the potbelly stove at the front of the church. Two priests in their scratchy brown woolen robes, bound at the waist by plain cords, hoods over their heads, watched from the altar.
“Get down here, damn you,” Savage roared at the priests. “This woman's hurt. Sick. Needs some help.
Socorro
.
Socorro
.” Not pleading for help. Demanding it.
Stepping away, he holstered his revolver, and patted the saddlebags as the priests moved off the altar and crossed the flagstone floor. The woman lit her candle and hurried to the pew, kneeling, whispering something in Spanish, brushing Grace's wet bangs off her forehead.
“Her ankles are busted,” Savage said. “Both of them.”
The woman removed her cloak and wrapped it around Grace's body.
Savage wet his lips. He wanted a drink and wondered if he might be able to find some communion wine in that miserable excuse of a church. When he turned back toward the priests, his right hand dashed for the Merwin Hulbert on his right hip.
“No,” the priest saidâonly he wasn't a priest. Or if he were one, he was the first man of God Savage had seen pointing a cocked Starr revolver at his belly. Savage's hand gripped the butt of the .44, but he slowly let go, and raised his hands.
The priest pulled down his hood with his left hand, and said something in Spanish. The other Mexican went to Savage and took both pistols from their holsters, dropping them by Grace Profit's boots on the pew, then shoved Savage toward the altar. The priest with the Starr spoke again in Spanish, and the second man hurried out of the church and into the darkness.
Savage turned.”You
sabe
English?”
The man just stared at him with hard eyes.
“English. You
sabe
English?”
“
Silencio
,” the man said.
“Ah, hell's fire,” Savage said, and he knew. He knew it before the second padre returned, followed by six other Mexicans, including one holding a bottle of tequila.
“âAll's well that ends well.' No?” Juan Lo Grande took a slug of tequila, tossed the bottle to another bean-eater, and strode up the aisle to the altar.
“Allow me, amigo.” He pulled the saddlebags off Savage's shoulder. “Ah, this is heavy. Very heavy.”
He laid the bags on the pulpit, and opened one, stared inside, and raised his dark, smiling eyes at Savage.
“Muy bien.”
He opened the other bag, and frowned. “One bar. That is all?”
“You saw what happened. Damned law dogs rammed our train. I was lucky to make off with that.”
Lo Grande wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He stood, gave Grace Profit and the woman tending her a brief glance, then positioned himself in front of Hec Savage. “How much is one bar worth?”
“If Doc Shaw was right, about eighty-four hundred dollars American.”
He nodded. “That is better than a coffin and a cross, no?”
“How'd you know I'd come to this miserable excuse for a burg?”
Lo Grande shrugged. “When you were in the Big Bend, Juan Lo Grande thought”âhe tapped his templeâ“where would Hec Savage go? The only suitable crossing is at Boquillas Del Carmen. It was also the nearest place with grog. With tequila. So here I came with some of my men. Other men are at Ojinaga and San Pedro. Though I doubted you would be foolish enough to go there. More are riding along the river between the Cibolo and the Maravillas. In such weather, too. What brave men Juan Lo Grande has. We would find you if you dared enter Mexico.”
He stepped closer. “But to be honest, I did not think you would come to Mexico. I thought you would ride west, maybe to El Paso. Or north. Everyone would think you would race to the border, and Hector Savage is too smart a man to do what everyone would think.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “But, no, Capitán Savage is not so smart. He is as dumb as every other
bandido
who is too lazy to work for an honest living. This is what I thought. Or maybe I thought,
los rinches
would kill you in Texas. In which case, poor Juan Lo Grande could never collect his share of the bullion we steal together. We steal together . . .” The words trailed off. “âMen at some time were masters of their fates. . . .'” Lo Grande's smile vanished. “The streets of Murphyville run red with the blood of many of my men, capitán.”
He cuffed Savage across the cheek with his backhand.
Savage spit in Lo Grande's face.
That was the last thing Savage remembered for a while.
The sleet had stopped by the time Dave Chance and Moses Albavera came out of the Sierra del Caballo MuertoâDead Horse Mountainsâon the Texas side of the Rio Grande, but the wind had not relented.
At least it was blowing at their backs as they rode alongside the banks a while, then entered the frigid but shallow water.
“You sure you know what you're doing?” Albavera had to shout over the wind and splashing water to be heard.
Actually, Chance wasn't sure of anything anymore, but it seemed as good a guess as any he had. “Only place Savage could cross is here,” he said with more confidence than he felt.
“Yeah, but there's a town here,” Albavera argued. “Seems to me that your captain would want to avoid any towns.”
Chance snorted. “Boquillas del Carmen isn't much of a town.”
At which point, they were in Mexico.
He ducked underneath an ice-covered tree limb, and let the horse pick its path up the bank, then followed a small trail through rocks and brush until they hit the main road. Side-by-side they reached the outskirts of Boquillas. Long before they saw the faint outlines of the town in the dark, laughter reached them.
“Hey,” Albavera said easily. “Looks like the miners have gotten paid. I'll be in that cantina, dealing stud, relieving those poor souls of their pay while you search this dot on a map for Savage.”
Chance didn't reply. He swung off his horse, and wrapped the reins around the top rail of a corral next to a crumbling adobe building. Light glowed from the windows of the cantina. A barrel-chested Mexican staggered out, yelling something over his shoulder, and carrying what appeared to be a rope in one hand, and a jug in the other. He headed for the church at the west end of town.
There wasn't much to Boquillas. The cantina. A church. A few sod, stone, and adobe structures. The mine headquarters, and the office of the village alcalde. Yet the corral was full of horses, and lying alongside the adobe wall were saddles and tack far too fancy to belong to any miner, especially some hard-rock miner in a dumpy little village like Boquillas.
The wind had stopped, the storm blowing itself southeast. Chance heard the creaking of leather as Albavera dismounted, heard him draw his sawed-off Springfield. Apparently, something about the scene struck the gambler as false, too.
One of their horses whinnied. A stallion in the corral answered, snorting, and stamping its hooves. Chance's horse kicked out, its hooves striking a pile of adobe blocks.
The man with the rope and the jug stopped underneath the awning of the church. He rubbed his beard, and started walking toward the corral.
Crouching, Albavera took off, leaving his horse behind, and rounded the corner of the adobe wall.
“¿Qué es lo que pasa?”
the Mexican called.
Chance knelt, pushed his hat off, fell onto his good hand, and called out weakly, “
Amigo
. . .
me siento enfermo.
”
Hell, I sound as Mexican as Don Melitón or Captain Savage.
Yet the Mexican rounding the corral must have been too drunk to have noticed. After an exaggerated groan, Chance pretended to gag.
“Necesito un médico.”
He heard the Mexican's footsteps, saw his soiled boots.
“¿Bueno, qué le pasa?”
The Mexican reached down, and Chance lifted his face. The Mexican jumped back, dropping his jug, yelling,
“¿Cómo? !Dios mÃo!”
Chance saw the shadow behind the Mexican about the time the Mexican felt the presence. He was turning, reaching for an old cap-and-ball relic in his waistband when the barrel of Albavera's sawed-off rifle clobbered his skull, and he sank into the melting ice and mud with a small groan.
Albavera slid beside the unconscious Mexican, and looked at his jacket. “Rurale.”
“Bandit,” Chance corrected, drawing the Marlin from the scabbard, “in a Rurale uniform.”
“One of Lo Grande's men?”
“That would be my guess.”
A roar of laughter exploded out of the cantina.
Albavera found the bandit's pistol, and heaved it behind the adobe blocks. “Well, if Lo Grande's here, and those boys are celebrating . . .”
Chance tilted his jaw at the church. “I don't think this old boy was going to confession.”
He looked across the town. Light shown from the church's windows. The door opened, and a figure emerged, “Celso!” he yelled. “Celso!” Muttering something, he waved his hand toward the cantina, and returned inside the church.
Chance rubbed the beard stubble on his chin. “I'm going.”
“Butâ”
“I don't care what you do.” Chance crouched, and took off in a low sprint down the street. Albavera stifled a curse, and ran after Chance, keeping his eyes and the barrel of the Springfield trained on the door to the cantina. Once past it, they ducked beside the well in the center of the street, and caught their breath, before continuing until both men were standing flat against the adobe wall, on either side of the door.
Chance's left arm throbbed in the sling.
“We don't know how many men are inside,” Albavera said.
Chance figured most of those men were in the cantina, and pretty well roostered on tequila by now. “Let's find out.” He thumbed back the hammer of the Marlin.
“I've never shot up a Catholic church before,” Albavera said.
“I was raised Baptist. You?”
Albavera shrugged. “Pagan.”
Chance grabbed the pull, pressed the lock, and pushed the door open. Stepping into the church, he moved to his right. Albavera went in, Springfield ready, and dived behind a pew to his left.
The door banged against the corner and slammed shut behind them.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
When Chance was in the church, when he saw Hec Savage standing, on a wobbly chair on the altar, a rope around his neck, the other end secured to a viga, hands tied in front of him, Chance's mind flashed back to Fort Stockton and the Bad Water Saloon.
He had just slapped the handcuffs on an unconscious Dawg Goolsby after buffaloing the murdering son of a bitch with his .45. Later, he figured his mistake in thinking the patrons of a bucket of blood like the Bad Water Saloon would respect the badge on his vest, that they wouldn't come to the aid of a wanted felon. And that he should never holster his revolver or turn his back on armed men in a saloon. But he was a greenhorn lawman back then, and had barely lived to learn a valuable lesson.
He heard the footsteps, but remained focused on getting those bracelets on Dawg Goolsby. As he turned, unsuspecting, a whiskey bottleâempty, naturallyâsmashed across his forehead.
They dumped a spittoon on his face, the tobacco juice burning the cuts on his forehead and over his eye. The juice and water burned his eyes, blurred his vision. He blinked, tried to speak, but something was tightening around his throat, burning, cutting. When his vision cleared at last, he realized he was standing on a rickety chair in the center of the Bad Water Saloon, wearing those iron cuffs he had been putting on Dawg Goolsby. A rope was tight across his neck, looped over a beam in the saloon's ceiling, and secured to a whiskey barrel behind the bar.
“Well, well, well.” Dawg Goolsby threw down a shot of scamper juice, and thumbed back the hammer of a SchofieldâChance's revolverâand laughed. “A new Texas Ranger. Come to Stockton to protect the innocents. Thought he'd deliver June Goolsby to the gallows.”
“June?” One of the patrons laughed.
Goolsby shot his hat off.
The laughter died.
“Well,” he said, blowing smoke from the barrel, and turning back to face Chance, “let's see how you like dancing with a rope 'round your neck as a partner.” Cocking the hammer, Goolsby took a couple steps closer to the chair, extended his arm, aimed, and pulled the trigger.
The bullet splintered one leg, and Chance almost slipped. The rope bit deeper into his neck. His lungs and brain screamed for oxygen.
“Nice shot, Dawg!” one of the patrons cheered.
“Gun pulls a mite to the right,” Goolsby said, earring back the hammer again.
The hell it does,
Chance thought.
You're just too damned drunk to shoot better.
But he knew Goolsby's aim wasn't that far off. The next shot broke the leg, and the chair tilted forward. Chance gagged, almost slipped, somehow maintaining his balance, but it was hopeless. He was about to black out, slip off, and fall into eternity.
The doors to the saloon crashed open, and a shotgun roared as Chance twisted, turned, and felt the chair overturn. The rope pulled on his neck. The world went black.
When he came to, Dawg Goolsby was lying dead, his chest torn apart by buckshot fired by Hec Savage's Parker shotgun. One barrel had caught Goolsby as he turned. The other had cut through the rope above Chance's head and sent him crashing to the floor.
“One Ranger ought to have been enough to take care of Goolsby, young fella,” Savage said. “I don't cotton to Rangers who need someone to back their play. Remember that.”
Chance had.
Chance braced the rifle's stock against his hip. Holding it with his good hand, he swept it across the church, pulling the trigger. A man in the coarse woolen robe of a priest slammed against the wall, dropping a double-action revolver, groaning, sliding down, leaving a trail of blood on the whitewash behind him.
Another man jerked the chair from underneath Savage's feet, and dived behind the pulpit. A second man in a priest's robe staggered from a rear room, dropping basket-wrapped bottles of wine on the floor, reaching for a revolver. A woman kneeling in front of the first pew lifted her head, screamed, ducked, and repeated a rosary.
Chance tried to work the Marlin's lever with one hand, but gave up and drew his Schofield. He aimed it at a man in the back of the church. The bandit's pistol bucked first, the bullet sending splinters from the back of the pew into Chance's cheek. He ducked as another bullet whined off the back wall.
Albavera came up, aimed the Springfield at the “priest” grabbing for his gun.
“Not him!” Chance yelled. “The rope!”
Albavera shot him a quick glance, then turned the Springfield. Hec Savage was swinging, twisting, his legs kicking. Albavera's gun sang out, and the hangman's rope severed. Savage crashed to the floor, rolled, and quickly disappeared.
Laying the Schofield on the floor, Chance grabbed the Marlin, and looked across the aisle at Albavera as he reloaded the Springfield. “Here. Catch.” He flung the rifle across the aisle. The butt landed on the flagstone, and flipped the rifle across the Moor's legs.
From outside came curses, shots, and the pounding of feet. Two more bullets lodged into the door before it was opened.
Chance and Albavera raised their weapons. A figure in a brown robe ran inside, slamming the door behind him. He turned, his face paling. A pewter cross hung around his neck. He was Mexican, but something about his face told them he was truly a man of God. Even the two
bandidos
at the front of the church held their fire.
“If I were you, padre,” Chance said, “I'd bolt that door.”
“And duck,” Albavera added.
Chance wasn't sure if the priest understood English, but he quickly began drawing a long oak bar through the iron brackets, securing the door.
“No, padre, no!” someone yelled from the front of the church.
Albavera moved down the back row toward the wall. Chance picked up the Schofield, and did the same on the other side. When they reached the end of the pews, they turned and looked at each other. Chance held up three fingers. Counting, he mouthed the words.
One . . .
Two...
Then he stood. So did Albavera. He fired first, at the bandit in the robe, off to the side, near the pulpit. The Marlin's slug tore through the Mexican's shoulder, and he crumpled to the floor. Chance took off down the side aisle. Above the ringing in his ears, he heard the priest shout something.
Another figure appeared, and snapped a shot at Chance, blasting a
santero
on a shelf. Chance turned, tried to steady the Schofield, then heard another shot, and saw smoke belch from behind the first pew. The Mexican in the center aisle cried out. He fired, putting a round into the ceiling as another shot tore through his chest, but the man was dead before he fell across the back of a pew. He dropped his pistol, and toppled to the floor
The sounds of gunshots died. The smoke slowly dissipated. The woman in the front of the church prayed in Spanish. Men pounded at the front door, but the oak bar refused to give. Chance and Albavera trained their guns on that first pew. Hec Savage was behind it, and he had a gun. Unconcerned, the priest walked down the center aisle, crossing himself, shooting angry glances at Albavera and Chance. “Have you no decency? Have you no shame? How dare you stain this hallowed place with blood, with violence!”
His English was pretty good.
“Is there a back door to this place?” Chance yelled.
The priest glared.
“Answer me!”
“No.” The priest gestured at the front door, which was shuddering, but not breaking. “This is the only entrance.”
Chance nodded, walking toward the first pew, his gun cocked.
A voice stopped him. Stopped the priest. And Albavera, too.
“Is that you, Sergeant Chance?”
Instinctively, Chance ducked behind a pew, and brought his gun up level, bracing his arm against the back of the wooden seat. “It's me, Captain,” he said at last.
“I thought so. Reckon we're even now. For Fort Stockton.”
Chance tried to think of some reply. Couldn't.
“Grace is up here with me, Dave. So is some greaser woman praying to be delivered.”
Chance tried to swallow, but couldn't work up enough spit. “Thought you didn't hold with harming womenfolk.”
“Times have changed.”
The doors strained. The Mexicans outside shouted. A gun was fired, but the bullet couldn't penetrate the thick door.
“You and him drop your weapons. Or I blow Grace's head off.”
The pounding on the door continued.
“You might need our guns, Captain.”
“I don't think so, Dave. I'll ask that padre for sanctuary. Till Lo Grande's boys decide it ain't worth it. Not with old Juan Lo Grande lying dead.”
So that was Lo Grande in the center aisle.
“You are not worthy of sanctuary.” The priest resumed his walk. “You come into this house of the Lord with guns. You kill.” He stopped by the dead man, Lo Grande, and began blessing the corpse.
“Guns on the floor, boys.” Savage's voice had an edge to it.
Cursing, Chance let the Schofield drop. Across the church, Albavera tossed the Marlin on the seat of a pew, and unbuckled his gunbelt. He laid it and the Springfield on the next pew.
“It's done, Captain,” Chance said.
“How do I know?”
“You've my word on it, Captain. Just let Grace alone.”
His tied hands, holding a Merwin Hulbert revolver, appeared first. Then grunting, Savage pushed himself to his feet, the rope still wrapped around his neck. He tried to smile, staggered back, and sat on the pulpit. He motioned Chance and Albavera to come on up.
The priest finished with Lo Grande, then moved to another corpse.
The pounding on the door continued.
“It's over, Captain,” Chance tried.
Savage grinned. “For you. Not me. Hey, you, woman. Come here. I want you to cut this rope off my hands. Take this rope off my neck. I can't do it. Not without tempting Sergeant Chance”âhis eyes shot across the roomâ“or his Moor.”
The woman lifted her head. Rising, the priest repeated Savage's instructions in Spanish.
“Come on,” Savage ordered. “Take the knife off that dead one there.
Muy pronto, por favor
.”
The woman moved forward, leaned over the dead man, and slipped a knife from its sheath. Seconds later, Savage was standing, flexing his muscles, and the woman was sitting on the front pew, her head bowed, her lips moving in a silent prayer.
The pounding on the door continued.
Chance eased to the front row, and saw Grace Profit lying there, so pale, so haggard. His face tightened. He knelt beside her, and took her hand in his own.
“I could have left her in the Big Bend, Dave,” Savage said. “Could have left her to die. But I'm no monster. I brought her here. To save her life. Damned near cost me mine.”
Eyes still on Grace, Chance whispered. “It still might.”
Savage snorted. “Padre, you go to that door. You tell them boys that their leader is dead. You tell them that I've asked for sanctuary, and you've given it to me. You tell them to ride out of Boquillas for San Pedro, or to hell for all I care, and you tell them to get gone and get gone now. They'll trust you. They believe in God. Believe in a man like you. I seen it with my own eyes in San Pedro. They ride for the devil.” He looked at Lo Grande's body and chuckled. “Rode for the devil, I mean. But they got the faith. Do it.”
The priest stared. Savage cocked the pistol. The priest turned, and walked up the aisle toward the door.
Savage let out a long breath. Reaching into his vest pocket with his left hand, he pulled out a little gold cross, and held it up in the candlelight. “Here, Dave. You might want to kiss this. Make your peace. You and your Moor.” He sent the cross sailing across the altar, and reached again in his pocketâfor the makings of a smoke.
At that moment, the Mexican woman looked up. Screaming something in Spanish, she yelled a pitiful cry of anguish so piercing it caused Chance's skin to crawl. Caused Savage to drop his tobacco pouch. He started to ask . . .
Then saw the other Merwin Hulbert, the one he had left on the pew, in the woman's hand. He saw the muzzle flash, and felt the bullet slam into his chest. Heard another explosion, and felt another bullet strike his sideâlike he'd been struck twice by a sledgehammer. His gun slipped from his hand.
Dave Chance turned, yelling. Moses Albavera dashed across the room. The woman was screaming, crying. Putting the muzzle of the .44 under her chin, she turned toward the priest, begging. She pulled the trigger as Chance launched himself, futilely, toward her, yelling, “Don't!”