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‘I am,’ I told him shortly, and pulled on my jacket. ‘Anything else?’
He opened a drawer, took out two envelopes and pushed them across. ‘One of those is a letter to Gomez, the man to whom you’ll deliver the goods in Huila. He has a supply of petrol by the way, so you’ll be all right for the return trip. The other contains an authorization to make the journey signed by Captain Ortiz, in case you are stopped by rurales.’
I put them both in my breast pocket and buttoned my jacket. He selected a long black cigar from a sandalwood box, lit it, then pushed the box across to me. ‘You’ll have a drink with me, sir, for the road?’
‘We have a saying where I come from,’ I told him. ‘Drink with the devil and smile.’
He laughed till the tears squeezed from his eyes, the flesh trembling on the gross body. ‘By God, sir, but you’re a man after my own heart, I can see that.’
He shuffled across to a side cabinet, opened it and produced a bottle and a couple of tumblers. It was brandy, and good brandy at that.
He leaned one elbow on the cabinet and eyed me gravely. ‘If I might be permitted the observation, sir, you don’t seem to care very much about anything. About anything at all. Am I right?’
That strange, rather pedantic English of his had a curious effect. It made one want to respond in kind. I said, ‘Why, it has been my experience that there is little in life worth caring about, sir.’
I could have sworn that for a moment there was genuine concern in his eyes although I considered it unlikely he could ever have afforded such an emotion.
‘If I may say so,’ he observed heavily, ‘I find such sentiments disturbing in one so young.’
But now the conversation had gone too far and we were into entirely the wrong territory. I emptied my glass and placed it carefully on top of the cabinet. ‘I’d better be on my way.’
‘Of course, but you’ll need a little eating money.’ He produced a wallet and counted out a hundred pesos in ten-peso notes. ‘You should be back here by tomorrow evening if everything goes smoothly.’
By now he was looking quite pleased with himself again which simply wouldn’t do. I stuffed the money carelessly into my jacket pocket and said, ‘Life has taught me one thing above all others, Mr Janos, which is that anything can happen and usually does.’
His face sagged in genuine and immediate dismay for, as I discovered later, there was a strongly superstitious streak in him, his one great weakness. I laughed out loud, turned and walked out. A small victory, perhaps, but something.
I was eighteen years of age when I first saw men die. Easter, 1916, and a sizeable section of Dublin town going up in flames as a handful of volunteers decided to have a crack at the British Army.
And I was one of them, Emmet Keogh, hot from my books at the College of Surgeons, still young enough to believe a cause – any cause – could be worth the dying. A Martini carbine gripped tightly in my hands, I sweated in ill-fitting green uniform and crouched at the window of an office in Jacobs’ Biscuit Factory, a romantic place to die in, waiting for the Tommies from the Portobello Barracks to find us which they did soon enough.
During a slight lull in the proceedings a Mills bomb came through the window and rolled to a halt in the very centre of that busy office.
There were six of us who should have died, but for some reason it didn’t go off until I’d thrown it back out of the window at the troops who had chosen that precise moment to make a rush across the yard.
Life, then, or death, was an accident one way or the other. Time and chance and no more than that. Let it be so. Certainly from that day on it conditioned not only my actions but also my thinking. Janos had been closer to the truth about me than he knew.
For the first few miles out of Bonito the road wasn’t too bad, in fact had obviously been metalled at some time in the past, but not for long. Soon it changed into a typical back-country dirt road with a surface so appalling that it was impossible to drive at more than twenty-five miles an hour in any kind of safety.
In the distance, the Sierras undulated in the intense heat of late afternoon and I drove towards them but slightly to the north-west, a great cloud of white dust rising from the loose surface coated everything including me.
A flat brown plain stretched on either hand as far as the eye could see, dotted with thorn bushes and mesquite and acacias. I was alone on a road that led to nowhere through a land squeezed dry by the sun, barren since the beginning of time.
God, but there were times when I ached for my. own country, for the sea and the mountains of Kerry, green grass, soft rain and the fuchsia growing on dusty hedges. The Tears of God we called it.
I passed nothing that lived for the first hour, then a dot in the far distance grew into a herd of goats, an old man and two young boys in charge, barefooted, ragged, so wretchedly poor that even their straw sombreros were falling to pieces. They stood watching me, faces blank, making no sign at all, the sullen despair of those truly without hope.
I stopped a mile or two farther on to get rid of my jacket, being well soaked with sweat by then and drank and sluiced my head and shoulders with lukewarm water from a four-gallon stone jug someone had thoughtfully roped into place in front of the passenger seat.
From there on things became so bad that I had to drive very cautiously indeed, sometimes at not more than ten or fifteen miles an hour and the heat and the dust were unbelievable. I had been on the road for three and a half hours, had seen no one except the goatherds, was beginning to believe I was the only living thing in this sterile world, when I found the priest.
The Mercedes was a little way off the road and had ploughed its way through a clump of organ cactus. The priest stood at the side of the road, his cassock and broad-brimmed hat coated with dust, and waved me down. I braked to a halt and got out.
He recognized me at once and smiled, ‘Ah, my Irish friend.’
His front near-side tyre had burst which explained his sudden departure from the road, but he had come to rest with his rear axle jammed across a sizeable rock and had spent a futile hour trying to push the car free.
The solution was ludicrously simple. I said, ‘If we raise her off the rock with the jack and give her a good push she should roll clear soon enough.’
‘Why damn my eyes,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’
He would have gone down well on the Dublin Docks, but I didn’t say so. Simply opened his boot which was full of five-gallon cans of petrol, got out the jack and started to work.
‘No reason why I shouldn’t do that, it seems to me,’ but he didn’t try too hard to dissuade me, lit one of those long, black cigarillos he favoured and stood watching. I was sweating hard and the shoulder holster was something of a nuisance so I unstrapped it and put it on the rear seat of the Mercedes. Chancing to glance up a moment later, I saw that he was holding the Enfield in his right hand.
‘Careful, father,’ I warned. ‘What’s known in the trade as a hair trigger. She’ll go off at a breath.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better to have the pin fall on an empty chamber for the first pull,’ he suggested. ‘In case of accidents?’
Which was reasonably knowledgeable for a man of the cloth. ‘Fine, if you have the time to waste.’
‘Presumably you don’t.’
‘Not very often.’
He stood there, still holding the Enfield in one hand, the holster in the other. ‘You were out in the Troubles,’ he said. ‘Against the English, I mean?’
It was the kind of language American newspapers had been fond of at the time. I nodded. ‘You could say that.’
‘This Civil War back there is a bad business.’ He shook his head. ‘From what I read in the papers the Irish are killing each other off more savagely these days than the English ever did. Why, didn’t Republican gunmen kill Michael Collins himself only three or four months ago and I always understood he did more to beat the English than any man.’
‘Then settled for half a loaf,’ I said. ‘Not good enough.’
‘A die-hard republican, I see.’ He hefted the Enfield in his hand and said, ‘Not that I know about such things, but it doesn’t feel very comfortable.’
‘It wouldn’t,’ I told him. ‘I’m left-handed. The grip has been altered to fit.’
He examined the gun further, obviously intrigued by the absence of a sight at the end of the blue-black barrel, the way most of the trigger guard had been cut away. I concentrated on the jack lever and as the axle started to clear, he dropped the shoulder holster inside the Mercedes, hitched up his cassock and got to his knees beside me.
‘What do you think?’
‘Put your shoulder to the boot and we’ll find out.’
It took the two of us, and some considerable effort. There was a moment when I thought it wasn’t going to go and then the jack tilted forward and the Mercedes rolled free, scraping the rear bumper on the rock in the process. He lost his balance and fell on his hands and knees and I ran around and got the handbrake on before the Mercedes got clear away from us. When I turned, he was getting to his feet, rubbing dust from his beard and grinning like a schoolboy.
‘A hell of a way to spend an afternoon.’
‘I could think of pleasanter things to do,’ I admitted. ‘In more comfortable places.’ I stretched my aching back and looked out across the wilderness. ‘The last place God made.’
He was about to light another of his cigarillos and paused, the match flaring in his right hand, his face grave and somehow expectant. ‘At least you give him some credence, even for this.’
‘In a place like this it’s difficult to say God doesn’t exist, father.’ I shrugged. ‘Try and he’ll more than likely remind you of his presence rather forcibly.’
‘Something of an Old Testament view of things, I would have thought,’ he said. ‘A God of wrath, not of love.’
‘A view of the Almighty my own experience would tend to support,’ I said flatly.
He nodded, his face grave, ‘Yes, life can be very hard. It’s difficult to live each day as an act of faith. I know, I’ve been trying for forty-nine years, but it’s the only way.’
I picked up the jack, went round to the front of the Mercedes and set to work. He was carrying two spare wheels, a wise precaution in such country and the change over took me no more than five minutes. He didn’t offer to help, didn’t try to carry our conversation any further, but walked some little distance away to a slight rise where he stood looking out at the mountains.
When I called, he didn’t seem to hear me and I went towards him, cleaning my hands on an old rag. As I got closer, he turned and said harshly, ‘Yes, my friend, you’re right. In a place like this it must be difficult to believe in anything.’
But I was no longer interested in that kind of conversation. ‘I think everything’s all right now,’ I said. ‘Drive her back to the road and we’ll see.’
The Mercedes had a self-starter and the engine turned with no trouble at all, a change from most of the vehicles I’d had experience with. I jumped on the running-board and he took her in a wide circle, joining the road a few yards behind the Ford.
I got my shoulder holster and the Enfield from the rear seat and buckled them on. ‘You see, father, everything comes out in the wash if only you live right.’
He laughed harshly, switched off the engine and held out his hand. ‘Young man, I like you, damn me if I don’t. My name is van Horne. Father Oliver van Horne of Altoona, Vermont.’
‘Keogh,’ I said. ‘Emmet Keogh. Catholic priests who’ve been shot in the head must be rather thin on the ground in Vermont.’
His hand went to the scar on his temple instinctively. ‘True enough, but then I was the only one, to my knowledge, who served as chaplain to an infantry brigade on the Western Front.’
‘Aren’t you rather far from home?’
‘I’m on a general fact-finding trip on behalf of my diocesan authorities. We understood that in the back country in Mexico the Church has been in great difficulties since the Revolution. I’m here to see what help is needed.’
‘Look, father,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t joking this morning in Bonito when I told you there were people in these parts who thought it was still open season on priests. I know places where they haven’t seen one in years and don’t want to. Last month in Hermosa a young French priest tried to reopen the church after eight years. They hung him from the veranda of the local hotel. I saw him swinging.’
‘And did nothing?’
‘I’ve seen priests who stood by and did nothing in my own country,’ I said. ‘It’s easy to take the last walk with a prayer book in your hand when someone else is going to do the dying. Damned hard to stand up and fight for what you believe in against odds.’
For some reason I was angry, which was illogical in the circumstances and I think I knew it. In any event, I went round to the front of the Ford and turned the starting handle. As the engine jumped into life, van Horne joined me.
‘I seem to have annoyed you,’ he said. ‘And for that I’m sorry. A shocking tendency to preach on each and every occasion is my besetting sin. I’m hoping to make my way through the Sierras to a place called Guayamas on the west coast. What about you?’
‘Delivering a load of bootleg whisky to a man in Huila,’ I said. ‘You’ll find petrol there if you’re short.’
‘Do you hope to get there tonight?’
I shook my head. ‘There’s a little place called Huerta about twenty miles farther on. Old stage-line way-station.’
‘Perhaps I’ll see you there.’
I smiled and climbed into the cab of the Ford. ‘If you do, for God’s sake keep religion out of it, father.’
‘Almost impossible,’ he said. ‘But I’ll do what I can. God bless you.’
But sentiments like those had long since ceased to have any effect on me and I drove away quickly.
Suddenly, it seemed to be late evening, the sun dropping behind the Sierras taking the heat of the day with it, the great peaks black against gold as the fire died. There was no sign of the Mercedes coming up behind and I wondered what he was doing. A strange one certainly although priests, like anyone else, were entitled to their idiosyncrasies.
I came over the brow of a small hill just before dark and saw the way-station at Huerta lying below me, lights winking palely at the windows. It was a small, flat-roofed building which must have been a hundred and fifty years old at least and was enclosed by an adobe wall, most of which had crumbled away where the place faced the road.
The sky beyond was like molten gold, the great black fingers of the organ cactus like cut-outs pasted in place against a stage set as I coasted down the hill. When I turned in across the courtyard and switched off the engine, I heard laughter and singing and there were half a dozen horses tied to the hitching post. The door opened as I got out and a man appeared, bare-headed, a couple of bandoleers criss-crossing his ornate jacket, a rifle in his hands.
‘Stand and declare yourself,’ he called, and his speech was slurred with the drink.
I could have shot him, been back behind the wheel of the Ford and away before his friends inside knew what was happening, but there was no need for I had already noticed the large silver badge so conspicuously displayed on his right breast, worn only by the rurales, the country police, as fine a body of men who ever cut a throat or raped a woman and got away with it.
‘I’m taking supplies to Gomez in Huila,’ I said. ‘I have a permit from Captain Ortiz, the jefe in Bonito.’
‘Inside,’ he said, ‘where we can see you.’
The place was lit by a single oil lamp hanging from one of the beams in the low ceiling. There were four of them sitting at a long wooden table, two holding pistols at the ready as I went in. They wore the same ornate braided jackets and crossed bandoleers as the man behind me and if it had not been for the silver badges of office, one might well have been pardoned for confusing them with those on the wrong side of the law.
There was a strange uniformity in their general appearance. Heavy moustaches, unshaven chins, brooding suspicious eyes. The only one not wearing his sombrero seemed to be in charge. ‘What have we here?’
‘I’m delivering supplies by truck to Gomez of Huila.’ I produced the jefe’s travel permit and offered it to him. ‘My papers.’
He examined it, then passed it back. ‘Luis Delgado, at your orders, señor.’
‘At yours,’ I gave him politely.
‘You intend to stay here tonight?’
‘If it can be arranged.’
‘No difficulty, eh, Tacho.’ He looked over his shoulder at the old, white-haired man standing behind the small bar. ‘The señor desires accommodation. You will see to it?’
The old man, who was looking distinctly worried, nodded eagerly and Delgado chuckled. ‘They jump these back-country pigs, when I crack the whip. You will drink with me, señor?’
It seemed a reasonably politic thing to do. I downed the glass of tequila he offered, gave him his health and moved to the bar. The old man, Tacho, was frightened – really frightened. There was a mute appeal in his eyes that I was unable to answer because I didn’t know what it was all about, not realizing then that these visits by Delgado and his men were an old story.
Delgado slapped his hand hard down on the table. ‘The food, you miserable worm. You turd, what about our food?’
Tacho moved to the other end of the bar and the door opened and a young woman came out of the kitchen. As I later discovered, she was barely past her seventeenth birthday, but looked a little older as women of mixed blood tend to do. She wore the usual ankle-length skirt, an Indian-work blouse and black hair hung down her back in a single braid.
She was small for I would say I had at least three inches on her and I can barely touch five and a half feet. Dark, dark eyes, high cheekbones, a wide mouth and a skin of palest olive that reminded me of my own mother, God rest her soul. She was not beautiful yet after turning away I felt a compulsion to look at her again. Now why should that be?
Her face showed no emotion of any kind. She put the tray down on the table, turned to go and Delgado caught her wrist. ‘Heh, not so fast, little flower. An appetizer before the main course is the sensible man’s way of eating.’
He grabbed at the neck of the loose blouse, pulled it down and was put out to discover she was wearing a bodice underneath.
He roared with laughter, ‘Playing the lady, eh? We’ll soon fix that.’
