the second time with such force that I thought a rib had gone and then a grip of iron fastened on my collar and brought me to my feet.
Van Horne steadied me with one hand and swung a fist into the rump of the nearest horse with such force that it reared up, almost unseating its rider. Someone struck at him with a plaited leather riding whip. He allowed it to curl around his arm, then pulled the owner from the saddle with no apparent effort, the first hint I’d been given of the man’s enormous strength.
There was considerable confusion for a moment or two after that as the soldiers frantically hauled their mounts out of the way to avoid trampling their unfortunate companion. One or two of them drew sabres and for a moment things looked decidedly nasty and then a single pistol shot sounded and a young officer burst through the outer ring and reined in sharply.
He had a thin, sallow face, a dark smudge of moustache and wore the silver bars of a lieutenant. Unlike most of his men, he was not wearing a rubber poncho and his tailored uniform was soaked with rain.
He smiled coldly, leaned down from the saddle and touched van Horne between the eyes with the barrel of the pistol. ‘Large or small, strong or weak, señor, one bullet is all it takes.’
‘Just call the dogs off, that’s all,’ van Horne told him. ‘We’ll come quietly.’
‘You will indeed. My orders were to apprehend you alive if possible, but I would be happy for you to give me an excuse to act otherwise. I find you an affront to all decency. Take off that cassock.’
Van Horne glared at him, hands on hips. ‘And what if I tell you to go and do the other thing, you pipsqueak.’
The lieutenant dismounted, tossed the reins of his horse to one of his men and faced van Horne squarely, raising his revolver to belt level. He thumbed back the hammer very deliberately.
‘Señor, for reasons of my own which are none of your business, I do not like you or anything about you. I assure you now, on my mother’s grave, that if you do not do exactly as I say, I will give you what you so richly deserve.’
He was no longer smiling and if one looked closely, the gun was shaking a little. Van Horne raised a hand as if to placate him. ‘All right, soldier boy, anything for a quiet life.’
He unbuttoned his cassock at the neck, pulled it over his head and tossed it into the Mercedes. He was wearing a pair of very clerical-looking trousers in black worsted and a white shirt.
The lieutenant said, ‘The collar also, if you please.’
Van Horne removed it and threw it into the Mercedes after the cassock. ‘Satisfied?’ he demanded.
‘Only when I see you hang, señor,’ the lieutenant said. ‘You will now drive this automobile back down the trail under my instructions. The slightest attempt to escape and I shoot. You understand me?’
‘You’ve got a big mouth with that in your hand, that’s all I understand, sonny.’ Van Horne turned and moved back to the Mercedes.
‘You can walk,’ the lieutenant told me and started after van Horne.
‘What about her?’ I nodded towards the girl who was being held unnecessarily by two of his men. ‘Can’t you take her with you?’
He looked towards her and frowned. ‘She’s the one from old Tacho’s place, isn’t she? The one who can’t speak.’
‘That’s right. Have you spoken to him? Did he tell you what happened last night?’
‘No, but I’ve had a reasonably full account from the sole survivor of the rurales you butchered.’
‘Very interesting,’ I said. ‘Did he tell you what they were trying to do with the girl? Did he mention they were about to hang me for trying to intervene? Would have finished me off if my friend there hadn’t arrived when he did?’
He believed me, which was the only important thing, his face turning paler than ever and the expression in his eyes was terrible to see.
‘A dirty world, lieutenant,’ I said softly. ‘And that kid couldn’t even raise a scream to save herself.’
He turned away without a word, grabbed Victoria by the arm and shoved her into the back seat of the Mercedes, then climbed in beside van Horne and told him to get moving. It took van Horne quite a bit of manoeuvring to get the Mercedes pointing the right way but he managed it after a while and we all got out of the way to let him drive past.
We started down the trail, the rest of us, the troopers riding, but the sergeant in charge, a small dark-haired man with a heavy moustache, dismounted and walked beside me, a pistol in his hand.
I produced a packet of Artistas. ‘All right if I smoke?’
‘Sure, I’ll have one with you.’ I gave him a light and he blew out the first lungful of smoke expertly. ‘Had yourselves a ball last night at old Tacho’s, you and your pal, didn’t you? How many rurales was it you saw off – five?’
‘What’s happening now?’ I asked.
‘Oh, the colonel’s waiting to see you down there. Colonel Bonilla. He’s the military governor in this region. He joined us for a routine patrol yesterday morning, just to see how things were going for himself. He’s like that. We were bivouacked for the night at an old rancheria near the main road when this rurale rode up. The one you let slip through your fingers at Tacho’s.’ There was sincere admiration in his voice when he added, ‘You and your pal must be hell on wheels.’
‘What made you come straight out here instead of going to Tacho’s?’
‘That was the colonel.’ He put a finger to his nose. ‘He’s really got it upstairs, that one. He figured you’d make a break for it so he only sent half a dozen guys to Tacho’s with a sergeant in charge, then he had a look at the map with the lieutenant. He said if it was him, he’d make a break for it through the Nonava Pass because it didn’t look possible.’
‘He certainly hit the nail right on the head.’
‘He usually does. He pushed us hard last night. Only stopped when it really started to rain, but he was right again. If we hadn’t been where we were you’d have got through, wouldn’t you?’
Quite a man, this Colonel Bonilla. We reached the place where the trail finally merged with the desert to find the Mercedes standing in the entrance to a narrow ravine. Someone had already started a fire in spite of the rain, no great feat with so many thorn bushes around and the smoke curled lazily on the damp air.
Van Horne was standing beside the Mercedes and I realized that someone, presumably Bonilla, was sitting in the rear seat, the door open. He was a tall, handsome man with sideburns which were prematurely white for I judged him to be no more than forty years of age. He made a rather gallant figure in his caped cavalry greatcoat and he had an intelligent, cynical air to him, the face of a man who has seen it all, everything possible in life and simply doesn’t believe in anything any more.
The sergeant handed me over to the lieutenant who took me the rest of the way. Bonilla looked me over calmly.
‘Your name, señor,’ he asked politely.
‘Emmet Keogh. I’m a British citizen.’
