21
“Madre de Dios!”
Antonio Almanzar exclaimed. He stepped around Frank and pointed a revolver at him. “How did you know?”
“It was a guess of sorts,” Frank said, “but it explained how come those
bandidos
already had a ransom note written out and ready to toss over the wall into the hacienda. They knew you'd come running out, so they could pretend to kidnap you. That bothered me for a while. What I don't know is why you'd do such a thing. Just to get money from your father?”
Antonio wore the sable shirt and trousers of the Black Scorpion, but not the hat or the mask. He said, “It takes a great deal of money to fight a war, Señor Morgan. And that is what we are doing, you know: fighting a war. A revolution.”
Several of the men behind Frank muttered,
“Viva la revolución.”
“What you're saying is that you're not a gang of bandits?”
A small figure appeared near the front of the cave and strode toward Frank. Esteban said, “That is right, Señor Morgan. We are not
bandidos.”
Frank looked at the old man and nodded slowly. “So you were in on it, too. I halfway thought as much, but I wasn't sure.”
Esteban shrugged. “It was perhaps a more elaborate ruse than it really needed to be, but we have learned to take no chances. We wanted you here where you could do no harm to our cause, but at the same time we have no wish to do you any harm, either, Señor Morgan.”
“You could have told me what was going on,” Frank snapped.
Esteban handed him his Stetson, which he had brought into the cave with him. “You have come to consider Don Felipe a friend,” the old man said. “Would you have willingly gone along with our plan?”
“That depends on what it is.”
Antonio said, “My father will pay two million pesos for my safe release. Then the Black Scorpion and his men will use that money to buy guns and supplies so that we may continue fighting against the oppression of Capitán Estancia and the Rurales.”
“So Don Felipe knows nothing of this?” Frank asked, gesturing around him at the cave. The gesture took in Antonio's garb as well.
Antonio shook his head. “No. Nothing.”
“He doesn't wonder where you've gotten off to when you're leading your gang on its raids?”
“My men are not a
gang
,” Antonio said with a scowl. “They are a band of courageous fighters for liberty. And as for my absences... The Almanzar rancho is quite large. My father thinks little or nothing about it when I and some of our vaqueros are gone for several days tending to the stock. Besides, I have quite a capable lieutenant and do not always need to be on hand.” He crooked his hand, calling one of the men forward.
The bearded giant who had grabbed up Antonio during the raid on the ranch strolled around so that Frank could see him. “This is Lupe, my
segundo,”
Antonio went on. “He was once a soldier in El Presidente's army.”
“Until my spineless coward of a commander broke under fire and I was forced to strike him down,” Lupe growled. “For that he would have had me in front of a firing squad, had I not escaped. Bah! The army is no life for a real man, at least not that army.”
“So you became a rebel,” Frank said. “I imagine all the rest of your group has their own stories, their own reasons. That doesn't give you the right to prey on innocent people.”
“Innocent!” Antonio spat on the stone floor. “Never have we preyed on any innocents, Señor Morgan.”
“What about that ranch you raided on the other side of the border, or those two peasants you killed when the Rangers were chasing you?”
“That so-called ranch was the headquarters of smugglers who work with Capitán Estancia and the Rurales.”
Frank's forehead creased. “Wait a minute. The Rurales are supposed to stop smugglers, not work with them.”
Antonio gave a humorless laugh and said, “That shows how little you know about what is really going on along the border, Señor. Gold, guns, cheap opium, Chinese laborers who are little more than slaves ... All of these and more are smuggled regularly across the Rio Grande. The profits go into the pockets of the thrice-damned Domingo Estancia and his American partners.”
“You're saying the Rurales have turned outlaw?”
“That is exactly what I am saying.” Antonio lowered his gun and looked intently at Frank. “El Presidente is bad enough and will someday be overthrown. Now, though, along this stretch of the border, Estancia is the true dictator. Perhaps he shares his ill-gotten gains with Diaz ... but I doubt it. I do not think El Presidente truly knows what is going on here.”
Frank lifted a hand and rubbed his jaw as he thought. What Antonio Almanzar was telling him was fantastic, but it wasn't beyond belief. This part of the country was a long way from Mexico City. Estancia would have pretty much a free hand to operate however he wanted to. If he wanted to ride roughshod over the people and take part in smuggling operations and generally line his own pockets with loot, there was nothing to stop him, no one to oppose him.
No one, perhaps, except for a band of men branded as outlaws themselves, led by the son of a rich rancher ...
Frank wasn't satisfied yet that Antonio was telling the truth. He said, “What about those two men, the brothers . . . I don't remember their name....”
“Hernandez,” Antonio said tautly. “They pretended to be farmers, but their place was really a way station for the smugglers. They acted as informers for Estancia, too.”
“So you murdered them,” Frank said, his voice flat.
Lupe answered this time, his voice rumbling in his barrel chest. “We wanted only to question them, to find out Estancia's plans. But they fought back before we had a chance to ask them anything. When they opened fire on us, we had no choice but to defend ourselves.”
“Then you burned their jacal.”
Esteban wasn't the only one capable of an eloquent Latin shrug. Lupe did it, too, as he said, “Call it a warning to others who would lie down with Estancia and his bloodthirsty dogs.”
“We do not cloak ourselves in robes of purity, Señor Morgan,” Antonio said. “It is bloody work we do, but it is work that must be done if Estancia's grip on our land is ever to be broken.”
“If your cause is so noble, why don't you just ask Don Felipe for the money you need?” Frank wanted to know.
Esteban answered this time. “Don Felipe believes in the rule of law, even when that law is unjust and its purveyors are evil men. His great-grandfather bowed to the king of Spain, and Don Felipe bows to El Presidente, whether he likes it or not. Estancia is the representative of Diaz.”
“I got the feeling Don Felipe doesn't care for Estancia at all,” Frank commented.
“Disliking a man and taking action against the government are two different things,” Antonio pointed out. “Perhaps someday my father will see things in the same light that we do. But in the meantime we need guns and ammunition and supplies, and I will not allow us to descend to the level of actual banditry!”
“Like train robbing?” Frank asked pointedly.
“That train was supposed to be carrying a shipment of rifles. That is the only reason we stopped it. When we saw that there were no rifles, we rode away without molesting or robbing any of the passengers.” Antonio's mouth quirked bitterly. “Estancia tells the story differently in order to justify his pursuit of us. In truth, what he really wants is to see all of us standing in front of a wall with a firing squad aiming at us.”
“You, especially, amigo,” Lupe rumbled.
“Yes, me especially,” Antonio agreed. He smiled wearily. “I have been a great thorn in Capitán Estancia's side. He is tired of being pricked.”
Antonio certainly seemed sincere, Frank thought, and while some of what he said might be a little far-fetched, none of it was impossible. But even if Frank decided to believe what Antonio, Esteban, and Lupe had told him, the question remained: What was he going to do about it?
For that matter, what
could
he do about it? Although he still had his Colt, he was surrounded by rifle-toting revolutionaries.
“What happens next?” he asked.
Antonio holstered his gun. “You remain here with us for a few daysâ”
“As a prisoner?”
“As our guest,” Antonio said with a cold smile. “My father pays the ransom and is reunited with his kidnapped son. And our battle against Estancia and the Rurales continues.”
“What's to stop me from telling him later about your little masquerade?”
Antonio's smile disappeared. “Do not mock me, Señor Morgan! The people need someone to rally them, to give them hope. For now, the Black Scorpion is that figure. Perhaps someday I will be able to lead them openly.” He stopped and took a deep breath. “As for you, it is our hope that after a few days among us, you will see the justice of our cause and will agree not to reveal our secrets.”
“And if I don't agree?”
Lupe smiled and drew a heavy-bladed knife from a sheath at his waist. He began cleaning his fingernails with the tip of the blade as he looked squarely at Frank.
“Stop it,” Antonio snapped at him. “As we have already told Señor Morgan, we are not murderers.” He looked at Frank and went on. “You will have to follow your own conscience, Señor.”
“I'll think about it,” Frank said. “For now, though, it doesn't look like I'm going anywhere.”
“No.” Antonio shook his head. “For now, you will stay right here.”
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Being a revolutionary didn't pay very well, Frank thought, and the food wasn't very good, either. He sat with his back propped against the rock wall of the cave and looked at the single tortilla and the small spoonful of beans that Esteban had brought to him on a battered tin plate.
Esteban had a similar plate. He sat down cross-legged next to Frank and said, “You see now why Antonio needs money for supplies. He will not steal from the people.”
“But he'll steal from his own father,” Frank said. He rolled the tortilla and scooped up some of the beans with it.
Esteban's shoulders lifted and fell. “Don Felipe can afford it.”
“It's
his
money,” Frank argued. “It doesn't matter whether the government takes it away from him in the form of unjust taxes, or if a band of so-called revolutionaries extorts it from him to support their cause. It's not right either way.”
“Perhaps not. Do you believe in the lesser of two evils, Señor Morgan?”
Frank hesitated. “Maybe not in principle, but in real life I reckon it does work out that way sometimes.”
“Then consider us the lesser of the two evils now at large in the border country,” Esteban said.
“I only have your word for that.”
“No,” Esteban said flatly. “You have seen Estancia with your own eyes. You saw what he had done to Pablo. You are a man who recognizes true evil when you see it, Señor Morgan.”
Frank couldn't argue with that. Estancia was a cold-blooded bastard who wouldn't hesitate to destroy anyone who got in his way. Frank also had no trouble believing that he was a criminal as well, just like the Rurales that he led. The only difference was that Estancia had never gotten caught.
Yet.
Frank had already started weighing his options. He knew that Porfirio Diaz, Mexico's El Presidente, was an iron-fisted dictator in his own right. But it was unlikely that Diaz would tolerate one of his Rurale captains setting up an outlaw empire of his own along the Rio Grande. If Diaz knew what Estancia was doing, there was at least a possibility that he would move in with the Mexican army and clean up the situation.
Antonio and his cohorts weren't going to turn to Diaz for help, though. They hated and distrusted Diaz almost as much as they did Estancia. So that wasn't likely to come about. On the other side of the river were the Texas Rangers, but they had no jurisdiction over here. The Rangers were good Texans, which meant that if there was no legal and proper way to do the right thing, they'd just do it illegally and improperly. But even they would balk at crossing the border and going to war against a troop of Rurales, Frank thought. That would cause too big of an international incident even for Texas.
Like it or not, that sort of left Antonio, in his guise of the Black Scorpion, and his men to oppose the true
bandidos.
Frank couldn't see any other way.
“What about Stormy and Dog?” he asked Esteban.
“Your horse is with ours and is being cared for,” the old man replied. “I was the only one he would allow near him.”
That came as no surprise to Frank. Stormy would consider Esteban to be a friend, or at least acceptable, after Frank had ridden with the old man all day.
“The dog, he ran away,” Esteban went on. “But he is nearby. Some of the men have seen him, lurking on the edge of the darkness like a wolf. One man wanted to shoot him, but Antonio forbade it.”
“Good,” Frank grunted. If anybody started taking potshots at Dog, he might have to forget about his promise to behave himself. That pledge was the only reason he still had his gun and Antonio didn't have armed guards surrounding him even now.
The two men ate in silence for a moment, and then Esteban said, “You have thought about everything you were told, Señor Morgan?”
“I've thought about it,” Frank admitted. “I still don't think it's right to put Don Felipe and Señorita Carmen through all the worry they're going through while they think Antonio has been kidnapped. I don't like lying and trickery.”