brother on a job, if they ever got out.
And it turned out they needed Alberto. They were short a man, time was running out, the payroll was about to arrive at the bank, and so they’d taken him on. None of which meant they could rely on him. His appearance alone reeked of lifelong failure and bad mistakes: He was missing half his teeth and one eye. There was nothing anyone could do about that, but he was also a drunk, and he stank. They had to force him to wash himself, his clothes, and his long, straggly, stinking hair in the occasional stream. He couldn’t stop his almost insane boasting about how tough he was—how many federales he’d killed, how many banks he’d knocked over, and how many trains he’d robbed. Any man who bragged about such stuff to Outlaw Torn Slater was clearly . . . muy ignorante y muy maníaco.
But they didn’t have time to find anyone else.
“Think Alberto’ll hold up his end?” Slater asked.
“All he has to do is guard those remounts for us up the trail.”
“I wouldn’t trust him to carry a dozen tamales across the street.”
“He’ll do it,” Luis said. “He’ll be there. If he isn’t there, he won’t get his end.”
Slater stared at him, silent.
“If he’s not there, Torn, we’ll hunt him down and kill him.”
Torn Slater was still silent.
“You want me to kill him, amigo? Now. Just say the word.”
“Not yet. Maybe he’ll do his job.”
“Stranger things have happened,” Moreno said, nodding his head.
Slater looked away.
“Ey, compadre,” Moreno said, smiling, hoping to lighten Slater’s mood. “What you want to do with your end?”
Slater shrugged. “Same as always.”
“What’s that?” Moreno said, genuinely curious.
“Hard liquor, fast women, slow horses.”
“And waste the rest?” Moreno said, finishing the rest.
“Verdad.”
“Then what?”
“Rob every bank, fuck every woman, and kill every swingin’-dick, lawin’ sonofabitch that gets in my way.”
“You left out trains,” Moreno said. “We blow them también.”
“Trains too,” Slater said.
Moreno shook his head sadly.
“What’s wrong?” Slater asked.
“Is that all you think about? ¿Pesos, gatito y muerta?” [“Money, pussy, and death?”]
“What else is there?” Slater said. “We rob banks and trains for a living. We don’t live lives of fine distinction.”
“But blood and putas, pesos and death, that ain’t no life for us—not siempre [forever] .”
Slater allowed him a not-unfriendly smile. “We got tequila too.”
Now Moreno looked away, shaking his head, unamused.
“So what you wanna do with all this money?” Slater asked. “Invest it with El Presidente Porfirio or J. Pierpont Morgan? The Señorita? Try that and she’ll put us in one of her prison mines.”
“I got nothing against mines. I got a mine up in the Sierra Madres—very remote. We take that bank money and head on up there. We pick up provisions along the way, and, when we get there, we bury the money nearby. We work the mine, sluice the streams, and when we get bored, we hunt game and we fish. They got deer, antelope, trout, and bass like you ain’t never seen in your life. In the nearby indios villages, they got muchas buenas indias puras if we want chiquitas. And who knows? Maybe we also take a fortune in oro puro [pure gold] out of that mine. Main thing is we don’t come down off that mountain till the federales forget who we are, forget what we did, and forget we’d ever been. Then we get ourselves a real life—one with no more banks to hit, no more trains to rob, and no more lawmen dogging our trail.”
Slater stared at his amigo, silent.
“Verdad? ” Moreno finally asked.
“Verdad, but, amigo, we got one more bank to rob—tomorrow morning.”
“But still, think about that mine, amigo, the hunting and fishing, the chiquitas? How long has it been since you relaxed? You interested?”
“I’m interested in that next bank,” Slater said.
“I know, amigo. We got one more bank to rob. Always one more bank and train to rob. But after that, we back off for a while, no? Promise me you’ll think about it?”
Slater slapped his friend on the shoulder. “Sí, mi amigo, I’ll think about it. Why not? Why the hell not?”
Chapter 4
In the cantina Rachel politely removed the major’s arm from her brother’s shoulder.
“He’s not going with you,” she said to Mateo.
Major Mateo Cardozo did not seem upset. Treating her to an affectionate grin, he said: “Sí, I understand completely.” Mateo picked his military hat up from the bar and placed it over his heart. “But on the other hand, there are some hombres muy malos y muy duros in this benighted land, and when two gringos, such as yourselves, come here so far from home, they have need of amigos such as us, no?”
“We have muchos buenos amigos here already,” Rachel said. “We aren’t alone.”
She and Richard both hesitated to say who their parents were. Their ransom would be worth a fortune.
“I am sure you are not, guapa [beautiful],” Mateo said.
“And you aren’t taking him with you,” Rachel said, standing her ground and holding Richard’s arm.
“I really don’t know much about artillery anyway,” Richard said, still trying to backpedal. “I was only spouting off.”
“Richard,” Rachel said. “Shut up.”
Mateo gave them both another captivating smile. “What can I do to prove I love you, that I am a man of trust? How about un abrazo? All you gringos like the abrazo.”
Mateo was a big man—at least six-two—with broad shoulders, and under his tan army shirt, his biceps bulged. Richard, however, was a good six feet four, and had the muscles of a seasoned rock-climber, which was what he was. He’d also boxed, wrestled, and done high-platform diving at West Point. Still, when Mateo wrapped Richard in his big burly arms, Richard felt as if he’d been embraced by a grizzly bear.
“See,” Mateo said, “I give your brother
