“You tell your lies to us because you think we’re stupid. You fuck our women, you buy our leaders, you take our minerals, you lay waste to our villages. You do all these things because Pancho Villa killed a handful of worthless people in New Mexico. I feel very much like killing you, gringo.”
While the soldier spoke, he held Hackberry’s rifle in one hand and gestured in the air with the other, his back to his men, clearly knowing they awaited his command. Hackberry watched them lead the remaining two prisoners to the wall. The American refused the blindfold.
“Don’t do this,” Hackberry said.
“What will you do for me if I stop it?”
“I’m at your orders, señor.”
“Then get down on your knees.”
“Sir, we shouldn’t be discussing activities of a maricón nature here.”
“Kneel down, gringo. You need to learn what it is like to be a Mexican in your country.”
“I run off at the mouth sometimes. I promise Mr. Glick won’t be no more trouble.”
“You can do it, hombre,” the soldier said. He shifted his stance and inserted his thumb inside his belt buckle so his fingers hung down on his fly. “It will improve your humility, your spiritual vision.”
“I’ve got some money. I’ve got a couple of artifacts from a church. I’ve got a rare pistol in my saddlebags. I would like to make a present of them.”
“You have been looting churches? You have been a very bad gringo. It’s time you show humility. What you will do down there will take less than a minute or two. Then everything will be as before. You can take the crazy one out in the hills and the people will call you a saint.”
The soldier was smiling, the forked white scar at the corner of his eye as tiny and thin as a snake’s tongue. He began to unbutton his fly.
“You don’t want me as an enemy,” Hackberry said.
“You are very vain. It is too bad for your friend the crazy man.” Without taking his eyes off Hackberry, the soldier shouted, “¡Fuego!”
The rifles fired in unison just as the soldier butt-stroked Hackberry with the Mauser, knocking him into the dirt. Then h
e raised the butt and drove it into Hackberry’s head. In his mind’s eye, Hackberry saw his horse bolting down the street, stirrups flying, the saddlebags flopping on its rump. A mariachi band began playing in front of the cantina, and a bottle rocket popped high overhead. The festival had resumed.
HACKBERRY WOKE ON a wood pallet in a dank dirt-floor room that smelled of moldy hay and water that had seeped through the walls and candles that were burning in an adjacent room. The priest who had tried to intercede on behalf of the prisoners was sitting on a chair by the pallet. He removed a damp rag from Hackberry’s forehead. “We caught your horse for you, up the trail in the hills,” the priest said.
“You’re American?”
“I’m a Maryknoll missionary. You have to leave.”
“Where’s my rifle?”
“The soldier who struck you took it. His name is Miguel Ordoñez. He’s drunk and in the cantina now. Don’t let him get his hands on you again.”
The priest couldn’t have been over twenty-five. His face was lean and unshaved, his hair over his collar, his breath heavy with the smell of alcohol and cigarettes.
“What about my saddlebags?”
“They’re with your horse. No one has opened them. Miguel has told the villagers you robbed a church. Is that true?”
“No, sir. I’m a Texas Ranger.”
“If Ordoñez finds that out, he’ll shoot you for fun.”
When Hackberry sat up, he thought his head would fall in his lap. “Maybe he ought to be afraid of me.”
“He isn’t. This is Mexico. You’re an outlaw and he’s the government.”
“I’ve been rode hard and put away wet, Padre. Cain’t I hide here’bouts for a while?”