Hunt at the Well of Eternity (10 page)

Tomás flailed with his free hand, swinging behind him, but the blows he landed didn’t reach Gabriel with enough force to do any damage. Not so the bullwhip in Tomás’s other hand, which danced and weaved around Gabriel, snapping and popping and bloodying him in half a dozen places. His thick work shirt was swiftly sliced through and his back would have been as well, had it not been for the extra padding of the regimental flag hidden beneath his shirt. But the whip cut cruelly into his sides and shoulders, landing for an instant, then moving on to strike again somewhere else. Gabriel ignored the pain and hung on, planting one knee in the other man’s back for leverage.

He had held his own in the contest so far, but he knew if he gave Tomás enough chances the man would eventually kill him.

This fight had to end here and now.

As Gabriel gritted his teeth and looked over Tomás’s shoulder, he saw several of the bandits pointing guns at him with angry expressions on their faces. They didn’t like seeing their
compadre
on the brink of defeat, and at the hands of a gringo, at that.

But Paco Escalante motioned for them to lower their weapons, and grudgingly, the bandits did so. After what seemed like an eternity, Tomás stopped fighting. His muscles went limp, and the bullwhip slipped from his nerveless fingers. Gabriel didn’t think the bandit was shamming. Tomás wouldn’t have let go of his bullwhip if he were still conscious. Instantly, Gabriel let off on the pressure he’d been exerting with his whip and allowed Tomás’s ungainly form to slump to the ground at his feet.

If ever the other bandits were going to shoot him, it would be now.

Escalante motioned his men back, though, and came forward, bringing Cierra with him. He gestured toward Tomás, who lay there out cold but still breathing, and said, “You did not kill him. It was supposed to be a fight to death.”

Gabriel was a little out of breath himself. “Didn’t see…any need to,” he said.

Escalante reached to the holster on his hip and drew a revolver from it. “You seek to gain favor with me by sparing one of my men when you could have killed him?” The gun rose to point at Gabriel. “You think I know mercy? That may have been the worst mistake you ever made,
amigo
…and the last.”

Gabriel was ready to make an exhausted desperation leap at the bandit leader, but Cierra got between them.

“Stop it!” she cried as she stood there trembling with anger, her fists clenched at her sides. “You murdering bastard! Do you want
me
to fight for our lives now? I’ll fight! I’ll fight anyone you say, and I promise you I won’t hold back from killing him!”

Gabriel muttered, “Oh, hell.” But then he saw a sudden flare of recognition in Escalante’s eyes. A shadow spread slowly across the bandit leader’s craggy face.

“My God,” Escalante murmured. “Cierra Almanzar.” He lowered his gun. “You know, I believe you would fight, at that.”

Gabriel heard the metallic ratcheting of guns being cocked all around them.

But then Escalante made another gesture, telling his men to hold their fire. He looked at Cierra and said, “Your father’s death, your poor mother…can you ever forgive me?”

Then he put his arms around a shocked Cierra and held her as tenderly as if she were his own daughter as tears ran down his leathery cheeks.

“I’ll never forget, even as a child you had that fiery temper,” Paco Escalante said. It was a short time later and he sat with Gabriel and Cierra on logs next to a campfire. Night had closed down completely over the mountainous jungle, but the flames kept a small part of the darkness at bay. Escalante went on, “That is how I finally knew who you were. I saw that temper on display more than once when I worked on your family’s plantation.”

Despite the primitive setting, Escalante had a modern first-aid kit, and one of his men had crudely disinfected and bandaged the cuts left on Gabriel’s shoulders and legs by Tomás’s bullwhip, after first tending to Tomás’s own wounds.

Escalante had given them food and drink, too, from their own provisions, which the bandits had appropriated from the back of the pickup in the name of the
revolución
.

Gabriel didn’t know if they were still prisoners or not, and he wasn’t going to press the issue just yet. Not having guns pointed at them was already an improvement in their situation.

Escalante went on, “Those were the good days, before everything went wrong.”

“If you want my forgiveness, as you claim,” Cierra said, “you must tell me how my parents died.”

Escalante nodded. “It was not at my hands, Cierra, this I swear. It was not my wish that any harm befall them. In fact, I didn’t even know about the raid on the plantation until it was too late to stop it. There was a member of my band, a lieutenant of mine, who was an ambitious man. He thought he should be
el jefe
, not me. He said that I was too gentle with the landowners, too weak to drive them out. So, while I was away negotiating with a man for some weapons, this lieutenant convinced the other men to go with him and attack the plantation. I returned too late to stop them. By the time I got there, your mother and father were…already dead. The buildings were in flames.”

It was a touching story, Gabriel thought, but there was no way of knowing whether or not it was true.

On the other hand, Escalante
had
spared their lives, and as far as Gabriel could see, the bandit leader had no reason to do that unless he really did want to make amends.

“At first I didn’t believe that you had killed them,” Cierra said. “But then all the reports said that it was your men who attacked the plantation. I came to hate you for what you had done. What I
thought
you had done.”

A pained expression crossed Escalante’s face. “For this, I am sorry,
señorita
. If I could go back and change things, I would. But this is a power granted to no man. The clock winds one way only.” He rested his hands on his knees. “Now, you must tell me why you and this man have come to Guatemala. You risk your lives traveling through this area—it must be a very important matter.”

“We are trying to find out what happened to someone who disappeared in this region many years ago,” Cierra explained. “Many,
many
years ago. More than a hundred and forty.”

“I am old,
señorita
,” Escalante said with a smile, “but I am not
that
old.”

“He was an American,” Cierra went on. “A soldier, a general in the Confederate army during the American Civil War. His name was Fargo.”

Escalante shook his head. “I know nothing of this.”

Cierra explained briefly about the general’s pilgrimage down from Mexico, although she didn’t mention the flags that were once again securely hidden under Gabriel’s shirt. When she was finished, Escalante nodded solemnly and said, “I remember hearing stories about this gringo warlord, but I never knew his name. You seek to find out what happened to him?”

Cierra nodded. “That’s right.”

“And others are trying to stop you?”

“So it appears.” Cierra hesitated. “A man named Esparza, most likely.”

“Vladimir Antonio de la Esparza?”

“You’ve heard of him?” Gabriel said.

“Just because we live in the rain forests and the mountain jungles does not mean we are completely cut off from the outside world, Señor Hunt. We hear news from time to time. Señor Esparza is a rich man, therefore a famous man.” Escalante frowned at Cierra. “He is also said to be a ruthless man.”

“I think that is right, Paco,” she said. “He has tried several times already to have us killed.”

“I would help you fight him,” Escalante declared, “as partial payment of the debt I owe you, but…” He lifted his hands and spread them. “Look around you. My men and I may fight like
tigres
, but we are gray now and there are not many of us left. I fear we would not be much help against a man such as Esparza.”

“That’s all right,” Cierra said. “I’m just glad that I finally found out the truth, after all these years.”

“Sí
. And I can promise you safe passage through the mountains to wherever it is you are going.”

“We haven’t quite figured that out yet,” Cierra admitted.

“When you do, we will accompany you. In the mean-time, you can use the hut where you were kept earlier.”

Gabriel wondered if that was the bandit leader’s way of telling them they were still prisoners.

“You are free to go whenever you wish,” Escalante went on, as if reading Gabriel’s thoughts. “I would advise you not to leave without taking us with you, though. These mountains are full of peril.”

“I remember,” Cierra said. “Thank you for your hospitality, Paco.”

Escalante shook his head. “It is the least I can do, señorita.”

Cierra got up and went to the hut. Gabriel stayed where he was for a moment, to give her some privacy, and he said quietly to Escalante, “What happened to that lieutenant of yours, the one who went against your wishes and led the attack on the plantation?”

A sad smile curved Escalante’s lips. “What do you think happened to him, Señor Hunt?” He drew the machete that was sheathed at his hip and ran the ball of his thumb along the keen edge of the blade.

Gabriel nodded. “I see. In my country, there’s a saying, when a subordinate makes a mistake, about how ‘heads must roll.’ But it’s only a saying.”

“Your country,” Escalante said, “has the luxury of sayings.”

Cierra was waiting for Gabriel when he got back to the hut. She rose from the crude bunk and said, “Get your shirt off.”

“What, no foreplay?” Gabriel said with a grin.

“We’ve got to look at that flag again. The one with the map.”

He stripped his shirt off, wincing as it brushed his cuts, and tossed it on the bunk. Cierra helped him untie the strips of cloth that held the flags in place on either side of his torso. The regimental flag, which had been against his back, had been sliced through in multiple places by Tomás’s whip, but General Fargo’s personal standard had been safe against his chest. They spread it out now and studied it in the light of the hut’s single lantern.

Gabriel’s finger traced the lines that marked the course of the river. “We’ll have to ask Escalante if he can figure out what river this is.”

“I can tell you that already, from the way it’s oriented in relation to the mountains. It has to be the Black River. It flows from the mountains up into the rain forests, then makes its way across to the Caribbean. You just can’t see that on this map.”

“You’re sure?”

“Trust me,” she said.

Gabriel smiled and leaned closer to the flag. “Too bad the old boy didn’t draw a big red X on here to mark the spot where he was going,” he muttered. “That would have been a big help.” He frowned and put a finger on the flag. “Unless he did…”

Cierra studied the small, black-rimmed hole in the fabric that Gabriel was pointing to. “A bullet hole. Hardly surprising considering that this flag went through a battle. There are several holes like that in the other flag.”

“There are holes, but not like this one,” Gabriel said. “Look at that dark ring around it.”

“Some sort of smudge. In all these years, there’s no telling what sort of dirt got on it.”

Gabriel shook his head. “I don’t think that’s dirt. I think that’s a burn. A powder burn. The hole is smaller, too. A ball from a musket didn’t make it. I think somebody held a small caliber weapon, maybe a derringer, right up to the flag and fired a shot through it. That wouldn’t have happened in battle, and it’s not likely it happened by accident, either.”

“Then you’re saying…”

“I’m not saying, I’m asking: What if that hole is our big red X?”

Gabriel saw excitement spark in Cierra’s eyes. “You think General Fargo fired that shot to mark his destination?”

“Who would think twice about a bullet hole in a battle flag? But there it is, right in the middle of that wider space between two of the mountains.”

“A valley,” Cierra whispered.

“That’d be my guess.”

“It could be,” she said. “It could.”

“And since there’s nothing else on the map that could…”

Cierra nodded, convinced. “The question is, how can we get there.” She bent closer, counted markings on the flag with her finger. “It’s one, two, three mountains past the river.” She looked up at Gabriel. “That’s about five days’ travel from here on foot, maybe two on horseback.”

“What about the pickup? I’m not sure Escalante’s going to give it back to us, but…”

Cierra shook her head. “There are no roads fit for such a vehicle.”

“I guess we’ll have to put our hands on some horses, then.”

“Escalante will know where to find some,” Cierra declared. “And he feels he owes me.”

“He does,” Gabriel said, “but don’t overestimate his altruism. If he comes with us, he’s liable to want a cut of what ever it is the general was after, assuming it’s still there.”

“So let him have a cut. Do you begrudge him that, Gabriel? If he helps us?”

“We don’t even know what it’s a cut of. Whatever it is might not even be there anymore.”

“We have to assume it is,” Cierra said. “General Fargo never went back to the States with the treasure he was after. And your mysteriously youthful Mariella Montez wouldn’t have come to New York with that flag and set off all the fireworks if she didn’t think there was something still there to find. And a man like Esparza wouldn’t be so anxious to get his hands on something unless it was pretty valuable.”

Gabriel nodded. “But they might all be wrong.”

“In that case, Escalante will get a cut of nothing. And so will the Hunt Foundation. But if there is something to find, we’ll all get a piece of it. We need all the help we can get, Gabriel. You’re an impressive man, but you can’t do it alone. We have to risk letting Escalante help us.”

Gabriel knew she was right. It was a risk, indeed, trusting a bloodthirsty old bandit like Escalante. But they had come too far and been through too much danger to turn back now. If they were going to find out the secret of the mysterious valley that lay there in the mountains, beyond the Black River, they would have to take the chance.