Hunt at the Well of Eternity (9 page)

Anyway, right now there was one thing he
did
know.

The answers to all their questions lay over the mountains, somewhere in the jungles of Guatemala.

He floored the gas.

The highway south of Villahermosa wasn’t as good as the one they’d come in on. It shrank from four lanes to two, with no shoulders, and the pavement was cracked and buckled in places. Traffic was sparse. The Mexican state of Chiapas was one of the most dangerous places in the country. Some farming went on there, but the roving gangs that called themselves rebels filled the region, as Cierra had pointed out. Down here in the southernmost part of Mexico, lawlessness was the main industry.

This was where the rusty old pickup would come in handy, Gabriel thought. As long as they were driving it, they wouldn’t look like they had much worth stealing.

Cierra didn’t say anything more about Mariella Montez, for which Gabriel was grateful. She talked instead about General Fargo.

“According to what Señor Montez told us, the general didn’t come down here simply to find a refuge from the Union troops. He was looking for something specific, something valuable.”

Gabriel nodded. “Any ideas what it might be?”

“Guatemala was the birthplace of the Mayan Empire,” Cierra said. “It spread from there into Chiapas and the Yucatan. Archaeologists have found gold and jeweled artifacts in the abandoned Mayan cities, but nothing fabulously valuable, at least not that I ever heard of.”

Gabriel tugged at his earlobe and then ran a thumbnail down his jawline as he frowned in thought. “Let’s assume there really was some sort of treasure that Fargo was going after. How did he hear about it? He was all the way up there in Florida fighting the Yankees.”

“Could he have visited Guatemala before the war?”

“I suppose it’s possible, but I don’t recall seeing anything about a trip to Guatemala in the biographical sketch of him at the battlefield.”

“There might not have been a mention of it.”

“I got the sense that he was a Georgia boy born and bred; a trip down south for him would’ve meant Tallahasse or Jacksonville.” Gabriel thought about it some more, then said, “I don’t think he’d been here before the war. And I think we can assume he drew the map on the flag before he came down here after the war. He’d have chosen some other place to hide it if he’d drawn it after the war ended. Hiding it on the flag only makes sense if he was still using the flag, if it was a natural thing for him to be carrying around with him.”

“I suppose,” Cierra said.

“And if it was a map of a place he’d never been, he couldn’t have drawn it from life or from memory—he must have copied it from another map. Of course, that raises the question of why he didn’t just take the other map with him.”

“Maybe he preferred a hidden map to one out in the open that someone else could find and steal from him. Maybe he destroyed the other map after copying it onto the flag.”

“Maybe,” Gabriel said. “Or maybe he couldn’t take the other map with him for some reason.”

“Like what?”

Thinking once more of the Mugalik Emperor’s tomb, he said, “It could have been painted on a wall. For instance.”

Cierra nodded. “So at some point during the war he found this other map, and he copied it onto the flag, either because he couldn’t take the original with him or because he didn’t want to. Where does that leave us?”

“In the middle of Chiapas,” Gabriel said, “with a hundred-forty-year-old map to follow and no idea what we’ll find at the end of it.”

As they wound through the mountain passes that afternoon, other vehicles became even more scarce. They saw more mule-drawn wagons and carts than they did other trucks and cars. The road was only intermittently paved, with long stretches of it now being gravel or plain dirt. There were plenty of places where Gabriel could look around and see no signs whatever that they weren’t still in the nineteenth century.

That wasn’t all that unusual to him, though. He had spent much of his life in far-off, out-of-the-way places where modern civilization was a rumor at best. People liked to think that the entire world had been tamed, that modern technology now reached to all four corners of the globe. They didn’t know just how wrong they were.

Bluish gray mountains rose around them as they neared the border crossing from Mexico to Guatemala. Smoke curled from a few of the summits, indicating that those peaks were active volcanoes. They were entering the territory depicted in the map hidden on General Fargo’s flag, Gabriel thought. So far they hadn’t had any trouble.

Naturally, that couldn’t last.

They had just rounded a sharp bend in the road where a steep slope dropped off to the left and another slope rose to the right. Gabriel had to hit the brakes to bring the pickup to an abrupt halt before it ran into an old truck parked across the road. He had time to guess it was a deuce-and-a-half, military surplus, before men came out from behind the rocks at the side of the road and pointed rifles at him and Cierra.

“I knew it!” she said. “I knew we couldn’t make it without—”

“Take it easy,” Gabriel advised in a low voice. “It’s all right to let them see that you’re scared, but don’t panic. Maybe they’ll see that we don’t have anything they want and let us go.”

“They’ll take our supplies, at least.”

“We can get more supplies. What matters is coming through this alive.”

“Out of the truck,
amigo
!
”
one of the men said, gesturing curtly with the barrel of his rifle for emphasis. The weapon was probably military surplus, too, but it wasn’t a modern assault rifle—not unless you considered a World War I–era boltaction Springfield modern.

None of the roughly dressed men were well-armed, Gabriel saw as he opened the driver’s door and slid out with his hands up. Several of them had old rifles, a few brandished revolvers, and a couple seemed to be armed with nothing more than machetes.

He motioned for Cierra to follow him out the driver’s side rather than opening the passenger door. That kept the pickup’s body between them and most of the bandits. The steep slope down was at their backs. They might be able to make their way down it if they had to, Gabriel thought, but they’d have to go slowly and could easily be picked off if they tried.

“Come on around here where we can see you,” the spokesman ordered. “And don’t try anything funny. Keep your hands where we can see them.”

“We don’t want any trouble,” Gabriel said in Spanish as he moved to comply with the command. “My wife and I are going to her family in Guatemala.”

The leader of the bandits shook his head. “She don’t look Guatemalan.” He squinted at Gabriel. “Nor do you. And I don’t think you’re Mexican, either. I think you’re a damn gringo.”

Gabriel bit back a curse. He hadn’t seriously expected to pass for Mexican, but he knew that the bandits would be even less likely to let them go now that they knew he wasn’t. They might think he was a good candidate to hold for ransom, simply because he was American.

“We have food and supplies, and we don’t have any quarrel with you,” he said. “Take what we have and let us go, and there won’t be any trouble.”

“Trouble?” the leader repeated. “We’re not going to have any trouble. And you’re not going anywhere, gringo. Neither is that beautiful wife of yours…if she really is your wife.”

“Do you know Paco Escalante?” Cierra suddenly asked.

That brought frowns of surprise to the faces of the bandits. “What have you to do with Paco Escalante?” the leader said.

Cierra gave a defiant toss of her head. “Bring me to him, and find out for yourself.”

Several of the men crowded around, and they spoke in low, fast tones that Gabriel couldn’t make out. He leaned closer to Cierra and whispered out the side of his mouth, “Who’s Paco Escalante?”

“The man who murdered my parents,” she replied through gritted teeth.

“Oh.” Gabriel nodded. “I was hoping maybe he was a friend of yours.”

The leader of the bandits stepped forward. “Escalante means nothing. He is an old man. These mountains belong to us now, and we take what we want and do what we please.” The rifle barrel centered itself on Gabriel’s forehead. “And what I want is to kill you and take your woman, gringo.”

In his anger, the bandit had come too close. Gabriel’s hand shot out and grabbed the barrel, wrenched it aside before the man could pull the trigger. A shot blasted from the rifle, but it went harmlessly into the ground. Gabriel hauled hard on the weapon, swinging the bandit around when the man refused to let go of the rifle. It wouldn’t fire again until somebody worked the bolt and threw another round into the breech.

“Get down!” Gabriel shouted to Cierra as he gave a hard shove and sent the bandit spilling off the road and down the slope. The man yelled curses as he tumbled over and over, bouncing off rocks along the way.

But the man was able to yell,
“Kill them,”
the words drifting up the slope as he kept falling.

The other bandits had hesitated when they saw him fall, and that second of hesitation gave Gabriel time to pull the Colt from his waistband where the old work shirt had hidden it. He went for the men with rifles first, the old revolver roaring and bucking in his fist. One of the bandits doubled over as a .45 slug punched into his belly, and another spun around with a bullet-shattered shoulder.

Gabriel ducked behind the front of the pickup as bullets panged off of it. From the corner of his eye he saw Cierra pick up the rifle the bandit chief had lost hold of before going over the edge. She worked the bolt, and then, lying prone, she fired underneath the pickup. Gabriel heard one of the men scream and figured that Cierra’s shot had busted his ankle.

He saw her wince at the pain in her shoulder from the Springfield’s kick and roll behind the rear tires to use them for cover. Gabriel popped up and fired over the pickup’s hood. The bandits were scattering now as they realized that their intended victims were capable of putting up a fight. Another of them went down as a slug from Gabriel’s Colt tore through his thigh.

A rattle of rocks behind him warned Gabriel that the stocky, bearded leader had finally stopped his tumble down the mountainside and was climbing back up again. The shooting had drowned out the sounds of his efforts until it was almost too late. As Gabriel spun around he saw the man lunging at him, machete held high. The blade swept down in a killing stroke calculated to cleave Gabriel’s head to the shoulders when it landed.

Gabriel didn’t let it land. He fired twice at almost point blank range, the bullets smashing into the bandit’s chest and knocking him backward. He tumbled down the slope again, but probably didn’t feel the bruising impact this time since Gabriel was pretty sure both rounds had gone into the man’s heart.

“Gabriel!” Cierra cried raggedly. “The others!”

Gabriel spun around again. Only four bandits were left, but that was four too many, considering that his Colt was empty now. The men charged, firing as they came. Bullets smacked into the pickup, shattering glass and punching holes in metal.

“Throw me the rifle!” Gabriel yelled to Cierra over the racket, and she tossed it in his direction. He caught it, knowing that they were going to be overrun before he could get off more than a shot or two. He worked the bolt and came up out of his crouch, ready to fire through the broken windows of the pickup’s cab.

Instead he held his fire when he saw the four bandits twisting in mid air as bullets ripped through them. Flesh exploded and blood sprayed in the air. One after another the men flopped into the road before they could reach the pickup. Gabriel saw their bodies continue to jerk for a moment as more bullets thudded into them.

Then the shooting stopped, and as always after a battle, the silence that settled down possessed an eerie quality, as if you might hear departed souls singing their death songs if you listened hard enough.

Cierra still lay on the ground behind the rear tires, her arms crossed over her head. Slowly, as the silence descended over the mountainside, she lowered her arms and lifted her head to look around.

“Gabriel?” she said, as if amazed that they were both still alive. “What…what happened?”

“Somebody else opened fire on those bastards and finished them off,” Gabriel explained.

“But who?”

“Offhand, I’d say it was those guys,” Gabriel replied as he looked up the slope and saw that half a dozen men had emerged from behind some rocks higher up. They were as roughly dressed as the bandits had been, and if anything, their weapons looked even older and more timeworn.

But however old they might be, those rifles and pistols had worked well enough to shoot holes in the bandits who had been about to kill Gabriel and Cierra. And Gabriel was grateful for that…although he had a sneaking suspicion that their situation hadn’t improved much.

His suspicion was confirmed a second later when Cierra stood up, brushed herself off, and looked at the men coming down the slope. A horrified expression appeared on her face. “
Dios mio,”
she said in a husky whisper.

“You know them?” Gabriel asked.

She nodded. “The big man in the lead…that’s Paco Escalante.”

She swallowed hard and repeated what she had told Gabriel a few minutes earlier, not that he had forgotten.

“The man who murdered my parents.”

Gabriel didn’t know if the bandit camp was still in Mexico or over the border in Guatemala. Not that it mattered one bit in this wild territory. Borders meant little here, and governments were far away. The only power that mattered was the power of the man next to you holding a gun. In this case, that was Paco Escalante, and what mattered was that he hadn’t ordered his men to kill them…yet.

They’d been taken, at gunpoint, to what looked like a semipermanent camp, with crude, thatch-roofed huts instead of tents. Gabriel and Cierra were stashed in one of the huts until Escalante could decide what he wanted to do with them.

“Do you think he knows who you are?” Gabriel asked.

She shook her head. “He hasn’t seen me for many years. I’ve changed enough since then that I don’t think he recognized me. He, on the other hand, hasn’t changed at all.”

Escalante was a tall, gaunt man with a salt-and-pepper beard and a mat of silvery hair. His face was weathered and lined from years of living mostly outdoors, much as Pancho Guzman’s had been. Escalante’s men were cut from similar cloth, all of them older, still plenty tough but with an air of weariness about them, as if they had been fighting the same fight for too long.

Gabriel and Cierra had been forced to climb into the back of the pickup with the supplies and ride there while one of Escalante’s men drove and another sat with them, his gun aimed casually in their direction. They left the highway, such as it was, and followed what appeared to be little more than a goat track deep into the jungle that covered the lower slopes of the mountains. Clearly the bandit knew where he was going, because even though the goat track disappeared, he found a way through the jungle and was able to keep the pickup moving.

When they reached the camp and stopped, Escalante had the two prisoners placed in the hut, with armed guards on either side of the entrance, and they had remained there ever since. The fading light that came through cracks in the rough walls told Gabriel that the day was drawing to a close. It would be night soon.

And who knew what dangers the darkness might hold?

“Can you tell me a bit more about what happened on your parents’ plantation?” Gabriel said. “I know it’s painful for you, but it’s important.” Cierra nodded. “You said you’d seen Escalante before.”

“He worked on the plantation at one time. He and my father always got along well. Escalante was even his assistant foreman for a while. But then his wife grew ill and died, and he became very bitter. Didn’t show up for work, wouldn’t come out of his room. Eventually he just walked off. Word came back that he was living as a bandit. It was difficult for my father—he’d considered Escalante a friend. But he rebuffed every effort my father made to contact him.

“At least he left the plantation alone, though—spared it from his raids. I imagine it was because my father had always treated him fairly. But he was not the only bandit in Chiapas, and my parents decided it was too dangerous for me to stay on the plantation. They sent me away to school…and while I was gone, a group of bandits attacked. They killed my parents and burned the house and all the crops—it was done with exceptional viciousness. The police later found out it was Escalante’s gang that did it. I could never understand why.”

“Maybe to prove to his men that he wasn’t soft,” Gabriel said. “Maybe he was taking heat for leaving your father alone for so long. Or maybe he just snapped, lashed out at anything that reminded him of his wife’s death.”

“Or maybe he is simply the monster people say he is.”

“Then why did you ask those other bandits if they knew him?”

“I was desperate—it was the only idea I had,” Cierra said. “They were going to kill us. And I thought, if they’re part of his band, he might show pity on me because of what he’d done to my parents so long ago. And if they were part of someone else’s band and thought we had a connection to him, maybe they’d be afraid to hurt us…”

“Well, no one’s hurt us so far. Though I don’t know how long he plans to let us live. Or how long until allies of the other band decide to come after him for revenge. That fellow made it sound like Escalante’s not a feared man in these parts anymore.”

Before they could continue the discussion, a step sounded outside the hut and the door swung open. Escalante’s figure loomed in the doorway with the fading light behind it.

“Come out, you two,” he ordered.

Gabriel and Cierra were sitting on the ground. Gabriel got up first, unkinking muscles that had grown stiff, then took Cierra’s hand and helped her to her feet. As they stepped out, Escalante moved back, staying well out of reach with the experience-honed wariness of a feral animal. Two men with rifles flanked him. Two more moved in from either side and prodded the prisoners toward a large cleared area in the center of the huts.

The twilight had a greenish tint to it from the trees and vine-covered brush that surrounded the camp. The scene might have been beautiful in a wild, untamed way if they hadn’t been waiting to find out if they were going to live or die, Gabriel thought.

“First of all,” Escalante said as he faced them in the clearing, “who are you?”

“We had a farm, but we lost it because of the taxes,” Gabriel said. “We were going to stay with my wife’s family in Guatemala—”

Escalante stopped him with a casual wave of the hand. “Don’t waste your breath and my time,
amigo
. You’re an American, and this woman is no farmer’s wife, no matter how she’s dressed.” His eyes narrowed as he stared at Cierra. “In fact, there is something familiar about her—”

“Look, if you let us go, I can make it worth your while,” Gabriel cut in.

The bandit leader looked amused. “Oh, you can, can you,
amigo
? Just how will you do that?”

“I can raise some ransom money. Not a lot, you understand, but enough that it ought to buy our freedom. All I need to do is get in touch with the American embassy in Mexico City—”

“A man who drives a pickup so old and rusty it’s about to fall apart?” Escalante shook his head. “No, I think not. I think you’re some sort of American gangster, come down here to take advantage of my people.”

“Then why did you save us from those bandits?”

Escalante leaned over and spat in the dirt. “Because I have no use for that pig Gomez and his men. They thought they were the most feared band in these mountains, but they learned to their regret that they were wrong. You and the señorita just happened to be there, señor. We weren’t saving you…we were killing them.”

“Well, either way, we appreciate it. And if you let us go, we’ll appreciate it even more.”

Cierra said, “Gabriel, I think I should—”

“Don’t,” he snapped, knowing what she was about to reveal.

“A wise man listens to his woman, my friend,” Escalante said with a smile. “But then if you were a wise man, you wouldn’t be here, now would you?”

“Just tell me what it will take to buy our freedom.”

“Buy?” Escalante shook his head. “One cannot
buy
freedom.” He held up a finger. “One can only
fight
for it.”

“Then let me fight for it,” Gabriel said and Escalante’s eyes narrowed. “You saw us fight Gomez—I killed him, not you. If there’s a fight you need help with…”

“I need no gringo’s help,” Escalante spat. “But if you are so eager to fight, we can oblige you.” He turned and used his outstretched finger to make a crooking motion. “Tomás.”

Gabriel had a bad feeling about this. He turned and saw the group of bandits that had surrounded them parting to allow a man through into the clearing.

The newcomer was several inches shorter than Gabriel but considerably wider as well. His long arms were almost as thick as the trunks of young trees, and his shoulders strained at the olive-drab fabric of the old fatigue shirt he wore. He was mostly bald, with only a fringe of gray hair around his ears. Not a young man by any means, but still tough and dangerous, Gabriel judged. Perhaps even more dangerous than if he had been young, because he’d have the skill and guile of a veteran.

“Let’s see how you fight, gringo. You shall be our evening’s entertainment,” Escalante said. “And if you can defeat Tomás, well…we’ll
talk
about your freedom.”

“Talk?” Gabriel said. “I want your word. If I win, you’ll set us free.”

Escalante laughed. “Where in life do you see guarantees,
amigo
? The only guarantees in this world are of pain and suffering, and death at the end. All else is a gamble.”

Gabriel’s mouth tightened. Even as Cierra’s hand clutched at his arm, he knew he couldn’t turn down the bandit leader’s offer, no matter how tenuous it was.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll take the gamble.”

“Gabriel…” Cierra began.

“It’s okay,” he told her as he turned to her and smiled. “He doesn’t look so tough.”

“Let me—”

He shook his head before she could go on.

“You refuse to let your woman intercede for you?” Escalante said. “I would expect no less of a true man.”

Gabriel turned back to him. “What do we fight with? Pistols? Machetes? Or a good old-fashioned bare knuckles brawl?”

“None of those,” Escalante said with a shake of his head. “Bullwhips.”

Tomás grinned.

“Bullwhips?” Gabriel repeated.

All the bandits were grinning now. One of them went into a hut and brought out a couple of coiled whips of plaited leather.

“Oh, Gabriel!” Cierra threw her arms around his neck and hugged him hard. In his ear, she whispered, “I tried to warn you, you fool! I remember hearing about Tomás when I was a little girl. He can take out a man’s eyes with a whip! He’ll cut you to ribbons!”

Gabriel reached up to stroke her hair as she embraced him. “It’s all right,” he whispered. His mouth was dry, but not too dry for him to add, “I learned to use a bullwhip when I was a boy. An old friend of my father’s taught me.”

“A friend of…? Wasn’t your father some sort of Classics professor?”

“Trust me,” Gabriel said.

He let go of her and stepped back, then reached out to take the whip that was offered to him. His fingers closed around the long handle. It was made of wood with strips of leather wrapped around it. With a flick of his wrist he shook out the whip itself, made of more long strips, braided together. It coiled and writhed at his feet like a snake.

“Oh, ho, Tomás,” Escalante said. “It looks like our American friend has held a whip before.”

Tomás spat, and if ever such a gesture could be eloquent, this one was. His contempt was obvious. He snapped his wrist, and the whip he held leaped into the air like it was alive before jumping back with a sharp crack that sounded like a gunshot.

Gabriel could have cracked his whip, too, but he didn’t see any point in showing off. He had probably done a little too much of that already, just by not feigning awkwardness when he was handed the whip.

“If you survive this,
Gabriel
,” Escalante said, using the name Cierra had called him, “then you deserve to live.”

“Then this is a fight to the death?” Gabriel said.

Tomás spoke for the first time, in a voice like ten miles of gravel road. “For you it is.”

Cierra reached for Gabriel again, but Escalante took hold of her arm and pulled her back before she could get to him. The rest of the men backed off as well, giving Gabriel and Tomás plenty of room in the middle of the clearing.

Once they started swinging those bullwhips, they would need the room.

Tomás struck first, lashing out with the whip. Gabriel had seen the flare of anger in the man’s eyes and the bunching of the muscles in his shoulders, and that was all the warning he needed to leap aside. As he moved he snapped his wrist and sent his whip darting toward Tomás. The stocky bandit was incredibly fast for a man of his bulk, though. Gabriel’s first strike missed just as Tomás’s had.

Tomás drew his whip in and began to circle slowly, forcing Gabriel to circle as well. Then with a grunt he attacked again, this time going for Gabriel’s legs. Gabriel tried to dart out of the way, but the very tip of the bullwhip struck his calf and left behind a line of fiery pain when it snapped back. Gabriel glanced down and saw that the whip had sliced right through his jeans.

Tomás rushed him then, snapping the whip high over-head. If the weighted tip caught him in the eye, it would be over, Gabriel knew. He flung up his left arm, felt the vicious bite of the whip against his flesh as it cut through his sleeve.

Holding his right arm down low, he flicked his wrist and sent his whip leaping out again. It slid in underneath Tomás’s guard and cut the bandit across his belly. Tomás howled in pain and anger but didn’t pause or stop pressing his attack. Gabriel spun to one side and cracked his whip. This time it struck Tomás’s thick left thigh and drew blood.

Gabriel was vaguely aware of the other bandits yelling encouragement to Tomás. From the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of Cierra standing beside Escalante, her face twisted with lines of fear. She was saying something, but he couldn’t take the time to make it out, because Tomás was coming at him again.

Gabriel watched the man’s arm swing back, gauged where his whip was aimed, and then swung his own to meet it, the lengths of braided leather meeting in mid air, twining around one another. Gabriel yanked fiercely, hoping to pull the handle out of Tomás’s hand, but the stocky man held tight, pulling back mightily and almost overbalancing Gabriel, who stumbled forward. He caught himself with his free hand, the fresh cut on his forearm stinging. With his other hand, he swung the whip handle in a tight circle, desperately trying to untangle his whip from Tomás’s. He saw the other man doing the same, and after a second the two whips slid apart. Each man drew his in, eyeing the other warily.

Tomás raised his arm and with a practiced flick shot the leather at him. Gabriel ducked under the slashing whip and suddenly drove forward, burying the top of his head in Tomás’s bleeding gut. He pushed with all the strength in his legs and knocked Tomás backward. The bandit lost his footing and fell, crashing down hard on his back.

Gabriel landed on top of him, planting a knee in Tomás’s belly. Tomás was red-faced and gasping from the fall. Gabriel didn’t give his opponent the chance to catch his breath. He made a loop with his whip and twisted it around Tomás’s neck, then scrambled around behind the bandit to tighten the noose, twisting with the wooden handle to turn it into a makeshift tourniquet. Grunting with the strain, Gabriel rose to his feet, lifting Tomás with him and making the whip sink deeper and deeper into the flesh of the man’s neck.