next photo was of a pulley bolted into a steel hook sunk into an overhead beam. A thick rope was run through the pulley. A young woman with long black hair was about to be strappadoed. Her face was turned to the wall, so she was unrecognizable. Her wrists were tied behind her back and affixed to that rope was the end of the pulley rope. A hooded, black-robed priest had hoisted her up off the ground. A basket was tied to her feet. Next to her was another pile of rocks. Another photo showed the Señorita dropping rocks into the basket.
The major read from Margarite’s transcript:
“‘Our Lady’s favorite trick is to raise the rocks high above her head, then drop them into the poor wretch’s ankle-basket. She described their subsequent screams to us as . . . sublime. After one such act of cruelty, Our Lady rolled her eyes back until only the whites showed. Heaving a stupendous sigh, she raised her head as if toward the heavens and shouted at the ceiling:
“‘ God, I feel good!!!
“‘The victim’s screams merged with the Señorita’s hilarious howls.’”
Last but not least came a photo of the rack. A rectangular wood bench, it resembled a wooden bed frame with a roller at each end. Cranks turned each of the rollers and a ratcheted lever froze the rollers in place. Around each of the rollers wound ropes that were tied to the victim’s wrists and ankles. A man was stretched horizontally on the infernal machine, his face writhed with unspeakable suffering.
The major read from the manuscript again:
“Listen to what the Señorita tells her court ladies about the rack: ‘I love putting my former lovers on the rack, then taking the crank away from the presiding priest and turning it myself until the tendons creak and crack. I love hearing the imbeciles beg for mercy. Imagine someone asking . . . me . . . for mercy.
“‘The Señorita then burst into gales of derisive laughter.’
“She goes through legions of lovers,” Mateo explained, “and, as a parting gift, sentences each of them to the Rack and the Stone. She is sometimes referred to as ‘the Black Widow,’ after the female spider, who notoriously eats her lovers whole after sex. Clearly, the Señorita is the last woman in the world a man should ever want to go to bed with.”
“Even though she is reputed to be genuinely . . . beautiful,” Richard said.
“She most assuredly is,” Major Mateo said.
“Now do you see what we’re up against?” General Ortega asked.
“We’re up against the horde from hell,” Richard said.
“Led by the satanic Señorita,” Mateo said.
“You’re saying defeat for us is not an option?”
“Especially from your point of view,” the major said. “If they destroy us, New Arizona will be next.”
“In other words, Sonora is the Alamo, Thermopylae, and Horatius at the Bridge,” Richard said.
“And we need you and our big guns to stop them,” Mateo agreed.
“They’re throwing everything at us this time,” the general said.
“We don’t stand a chance without that ordnance,” Mateo said.
“The last three battles seriously depleted our ranks,” the general explained.
“And you expect me to make up the difference?” Richard asked.
“Whether you like it or not, you’re in the army now,” Mateo said.
“If Major Mateo is right, you are the army,” General Ortega said.
Richard looked away from both the photos and the two officers.
What have I gotten myself into? he thought with terrible foreboding.
Chapter 19
Their train was in a waterless waste in the middle of nowhere when Eléna heard the whistle blow and the train slow. Not a good sign. She shouted at Antonio:
“Go see what’s happening.”
Climbing the nailed-on ladder, he mounted the adjacent boxcar and jogged along the boxcar roofs to the tender, which was piled high with kindling, to the locomotive. Just around the bend, he could see a big lightning-smitten cottonwood tree lying laterally across the tracks. Its thick, massive trunk branched out into a dozen large dense limbs heavy with countless branches.
The engineer and fireman looked up at him. They both wore gray canvas pants and dark cotton shirts. Their hair was black, their skin and clothes were stained by smoke and soot.
“Does that trunk look like lightning hit it to you?” the engineer, a big man named Carlos, asked.
“You could bore a hole in the tree,” Antonio said, “fill it with blasting powder, and blow the trunk in two. We’d do that in the army when we were too lazy to chop the trees down. You’d achieve the same look.”
“I don’t like it,” the engineer said. “It’s too big a coincidence.”
“And I don’t see signs we had a lightning storm here either.”
“We still got to move that hideputa [son-of-a-whore] log,” Fernando, the fireman, said, “whether we like it or not.”
“You gonna help?” the engineer said. “You’re big enough to move the tree yourself.”
“I got two women to look after, one of them hurt and sick. Anyway, you got a bunch of soldados on the train. They need to come out of their boxcars también—in case we are attacked while we’re moving that tree.”
“That’s why they’re here, ¿verdad?” the engineer said.
Eight rurales soldados were already climbing out of the boxcar nearest to Antonio’s flatcar and were walking down the track toward the fallen tree. They wore gray uniforms, sombreros with broad brims and high crowns with four side-creases, and brown horseman’s boots. They all had big black mustaches and had sidearms strapped to their hips. Canvas bandoliers filled with shiny brass cartridges crisscrossed their chests. Several of them carried slung rifles from their shoulders.
“I didn’t think those soldados would leave that bullion safe alone in the boxcar,” Fernando, the fireman, said.
“I thought they’d stay in it forever,” Carlos said.
Madre de Dios, we’re on a bullion train, Antonio suddenly realized.
“Them lazy bastardos’d rather have you removing that cottonwood for them,” the engineer said.
“I have to get back to the two women,” Antonio said.
“Well, that log ain’t movin’ itself,” the fireman shouted to the soldados.
“Have them scout the nearby arroyos también before they start moving that tree,” Antonio said. “Banditos could be hiding nearby—maybe
