Wraiths of the Broken Land (13 page)

Humberto looked up the long dark hallway that traversed the entire house. The doors leading off of the passage were shut, excepting the final room—the addition where his younger daughter slept.

“Papa.” The timbre of Estrellita’s solicitation was odd.

Humberto felt an uneasy chill, set his instrument down and walked toward the gun rack to retrieve his rifle. His stomach sank when he saw that the weapon was missing.

Estrellita squealed.

The balladeer yanked his guitarrita from its case, held it by the neck (as if it were an axe) and sped up the hall into the addition.

“Stand still or I’ll kill them.”

Humberto froze.

A lone candle shone upon the black clothing, gleaming gun barrels, glass eyes and rubber head of the tall narrow man who was seated upon the girl’s bed. At the intruder’s feet and facedown upon the floor were Patricia, Anna and Estrellita. They were blindfolded, hog-tied and had plums, secured by wire, filling their mouths.

Humberto was horrorstruck.

The tall shade with the rubber head pointed one gun at Estrellita’s back and the other at Humberto’s left thigh. “Remain calm.”

The balladeer’s hands tightened upon the neck of his instrument. “I will do whatever you want.” A long fingernail cut through an E string, and it twanged.

Patricia, Anna and Estrellita wept through runny noses.

“Set the guitar down.”

Humberto placed the instrument upon the floor.

“Come into the room and shut that door behind you.”

Instantly, the balladeer complied.

The tall shade pointed the barrel of a pistol toward the far corner. “Sit on that wooden pony.”

Hands trembling and guts expanding, Humberto strode toward the oaken quadruped, sat down and faced his captor.

“I have some questions. You will answer them succinctly and honestly. Do you understand?”

“I understand.” Humberto stared at the lenses that covered over the intruder’s eyes, and in them saw only the glaring white reflections of the candle flame.

“If you lie to me or make me repeat myself, I will put a bullet into one of these women.”

Humberto’s vision became blurry.

“Do you understand?”

Horrified, the balladeer nodded his head. “I understand.” His voice was a weak whisper.

“You had a meeting last night with two of my associates. Do you recall this meeting?”

“Yes.”

Prone upon the rug, Patricia turned her head toward her husband. A splinter of cartilage jutted from her smashed nose, and her right eye was purple.

The tall shade asked, “Do any of the women in this room know the identities of my associates?”

“No.”

“Have you told any other person the names of my associates?”

“No,” admitted Humberto.

“You are lying.”

The heel of a black boot landed upon Anna’s curved leg. The fourteen-year-old girl screamed into her plum and writhed.

Humberto vomited wine upon the floor. He shut his eyes, clenched his fists and restrained the violent impulses that he knew would get his entire family killed.

“Look at me!”

Humberto opened his eyes, and tears flooded down cheeks.

The tall shade with the rubber head placed the tip of a revolver into Anna’s right ear.

“¡No!” The balladeer’s heart stopped. ¡”Por favor! ¡Por f—”

“To whom have you given the names of my associates?”

“Nobody! I promise. I swear I have not told anybody.”

“Are there any papers in your possession—or in a vault or in the mail—that contain the names of my employers?”

“No.”

The tall shade pointed a black circle that was the end of a gun barrel at the balladeer’s face.

On the floor, the women wailed into their plums.

At that moment, Humberto knew that he was going to die.

“If I find out that you lied to me,” the tall shade warned, “I will execute your wife and give your daughters over to men who fuck little girls and cripples.” The wraith set the heel of his left boot upon the back of Estrellita’s head. “Did you tell me the truth?”

It took Humberto a ponderous moment to remember how to speak. “I did. I knew better than to involve any innocent people in this.”

“I believe you.”

The black circle flashed twice.

Humberto flew off of the wooden horse, felt the floor slam into his back and saw gore that was part of his head run down the west wall of Estrellita’s room. He said goodbye to his family, who wept and screamed one hundred thousand miles away, and also to Marietta, whom he realized had been sent by the Lord to save his life.

Chapter VI
The Sunken Land

The stagecoach wheels turned across the defile floor, reducing small rocks into pebbles and grinding the latter into grit. Within the vibrating vehicle, Nathaniel Stromler watched crenulate stone walls scroll past the window.

“¡Muchachos,” the driver exhorted, “alto!” The whip snapped twice and was a dozen times reiterated by echoes.

Outside Nathaniel’s window, the rock wall was swallowed by darkness. Two eyes and a blade gleamed within the shadows, and a cold finger of fear poked the gringo’s stomach.

Ubaldo landed in front of the window and said, “Dos Árboles,” which meant Two Trees.

A craggy-faced old native, wearing a black poncho and carrying a bayonet rifle, stepped from the hiding nook and into the defile.

Ubaldo raised a covered basket.

With an oddly accented Spanish, Dos Árboles asked if the vessel contained dried plums and almonds.

Ubaldo confirmed that indeed prunes and almonds laid therein.

The old native asked if the basket contained any animal flesh.

“No carne,” said Ubaldo, shaking his head.

Dos Árboles took the basket by its handle and carried it into his niche. Nathaniel could not tell how deeply the hiding nook receded from the wall of the defile, but he did glean a cubbyhole that housed several clay jugs, an old book and a statue of a divine being with three heads.

Ubaldo landed his buttocks upon the driver’s bench and cracked his whip. The vehicle jerked forward, and the dark niche was replaced by crenulate stone. After Nathaniel had fulfilled his obligations to the Plugfords, he would not attempt to escape along this guarded route.

For ten minutes, the crimson stagecoach rolled along a curved rut that threaded the mountains. The vehicle slowed, and the gringo looked outside. From a dark nook located twelve feet off of the defile floor emerged two dark and knobby hands. Ubaldo gave the bodiless appendages a bundle of comestibles and cracked his whip, and the horses resumed their brisk canter.

The stagecoach emerged from the defile and traveled upon a road that hugged the skirt of a shale mountain, which was adorned with shaggy weeds and pale boulders. Nathaniel removed his pocket watch, pressed the release, turned the face to the moon and saw that the little hand sat halfway between ten and eleven. It had been more than an hour since they had departed Nueva Vida.

“¡Hombres,” the driver called out, “cuidado!”

Inside, the passengers grabbed the dangling straps. The front of the stagecoach tilted down, and Nathaniel and Juan Bonito were pulled forward. Leather tack and wooden poles creaked.

The stagecoach descended.

Gripping his strap tightly, Nathaniel leaned his head outside the window and looked forward. On the western horizon stood three mountains, but between the far-off peaks and the stagecoach laid a vast dry depression.

“Catacumbas is below,” stated Juan Bonito.

Nathaniel withdrew his head from the gaping night.

Toward the depression descended the stagecoach, yielding the altitude that it had gained during its initial climb. Presently, the vehicle rolled onto the level plain, and the passengers leaned back in their seats.

A portly fellow who had shouted the Spanish word for triumph whenever he won a hand of cards at Castillo Elegante asked a handsome Mexican what event the party at Catacumbas commemorated.

Shrugging, the gentleman replied that he did not know the precise reason for the celebration.

The triumphant man looked at the other passengers and asked if anyone could explain the revels.

Nobody responded with factual information, although an older man in a striped suit theorized that Gris had decided to have a party so that he could raise the transportation and liaison fees.

The handsome fellow told the triumphant man that Francesca had returned to Catacumbas.

“¡Triunfo!”

For more than twenty minutes, the stagecoach rolled toward the southwestern rim of the drear sunken plain.

“¡Hombres!” Ubaldo called from outside.

The passengers looked up at the driver’s unseen buttocks.

“¡La buena diversión comenzará pronto!” The man with the wooden nose cracked his whip to emphasize (and perhaps illustrate) the pleasing diversions that they would soon experience.

Soon, the horses slowed and stopped, and a wave of trailed dust enshrouded the stagecoach. Ubaldo dropped to the plain, leaned over, unfolded a short ladder and drew open the west door.

Nathaniel descended the steps and walked onto hard land. Aches, engendered by the percussive journey, bothered his legs, arms, shoulders, back and buttocks.

“That is Catacumbas.” Ubaldo pointed west.

Nathaniel looked in the indicated direction and saw several vast tiers of weathered stones that appeared to be the remains of an ancient step pyramid. He tasted dread in his mouth, but forced a smile to his face.

The Mexican gentlemen filed out of the vehicle, replaced their hats, inserted cigars and struck matches. Each hombre handed the driver one hundred pesos in banknotes, but when the gringo attempted to draw out his wallet, the little mestizo grabbed his wrist with a yellow glove, admonished him and paid his fare.

“Gracias.” (Nathaniel could no longer employ the word ‘friend’ without feeling ashamed.)

Ubaldo placed the bills inside his jacket, scratched an itch beside his wooden nose and motioned with his right arm. The gentlemen followed the driver toward the ancient ruins.

In a corral beside the structure, Nathaniel noted fifty horses and a dozen crimson stagecoaches, and atop the lowermost tier, he saw two riflemen, dangling their legs over the edge of a stone. A thirty-foot drop separated the soles of their moccasins from the ground and conveyed the immense scope of the mostly-absent ziggurat.

“¡Buenas noches!” Ubaldo waved to the armed sentries and announced that he had transported six men of distinction from Nueva Vida to Catacumbas.

One of the riflemen tossed six colored pebbles into a metal bucket.

Ubaldo asked if the bucket was full.

“Si,” said the rifleman.

The man with the wooden nose looked at the gentlemen and remarked, “The fiesta is underway.”

After a few strides, the triumphant man asked what event the party celebrated.

Ubaldo shrugged.

The gentlemen neared a reddish-orange square that did not match the remainder of the ochre-gray ruins, and presently, Nathaniel saw that the discoloration was comprised of modern bricks and mortar that had been employed to seal up the vast original ziggurat entrance. Standing at the center of the refurbished area was a lone iron door.

Girls, games, spirits and tobacco leaves were discussed by all of the gentleman, excepting the gringo, who was unable to do anything but stare at the metal entrance, which ten more strides revealed was covered with rows of outthrust steel spikes. Nathaniel was assailed by very significant doubts as to whether the Plugfords—even with the aid of their skilled native and ruthless gunfighter—had any chance of rescuing their abducted kin from such a place. The Hopi natives and Spanish War prisoners locked away in Alcatraz seemed as easily accessed as a person locked within Catacumbas.

Immediately beside the spike-adorned iron door, Ubaldo halted.

A blunderbuss emerged from a crenellation in the brick wall and trained its black eye upon the gringo and those with whom he had ridden. Nathaniel stopped breathing. He thought of Kathleen and his ruined hotel and his mother, a widow in Michigan with a candy store that nobody ever visited.

To the gun barrel, Ubaldo said, “Buenos hombres. Todos.”

The blunderbuss withdrew, and Nathaniel relaxed.

Beyond the iron door, a stone cracked, and a gear turned.

The gringo told the mestizo that he looked forward to meeting the gringas.

“I take care of those womens,” Ubaldo remarked, “that is why I learn good English.”

“I would like to see them.”

“I bring you.”

Nathaniel stomped upon his fears and steeled himself—he would locate these women, collect the remainder of his stipend and ride away from this awful drama as fast as his tan mare could carry him.

The spikes withdrew, and the iron door opened.

Chapter VII
Catacumbas

Ubaldo escorted Nathaniel Stromler and the hombres into a large anteroom that was illuminated by ensconced torches. The high walls of the enclosure were made of ancient triangular stones that were stacked in alternating inversions, and a quartet of dangling brass censers yielded aromatic cinnamon-and-vanilla bean smoke that obfuscated the aromas of lichens and centuries.

The assemblage walked along a gigantic tapestry that depicted the ancient ziggurat, whole, surrounded by a high tide of bloody bodies, most of which were short at least one appendage. Atop the step pyramid, warrior priests poured glowing hot coals onto the faces and genitals of captives.

“That is pleasant.”

Ubaldo escorted the gentlemen to a stairwell that led into the earth and advised the men to hold onto the banister as they descended.

Resting a white-gloved hand upon the rail, Nathaniel proceeded down the steps, toward the luminous amber portal at the nether end of the declining passage. It would not have surprised him overmuch to see the Devil stride through the opening.

Presently, the gringo emerged from the stairwell and entered a cavernous enclosure, which seemed like it had once been a place of worship or funereal ritual. The far side of the vast room had a dais, and the ceiling was covered with the strange sigils of a lost religion. Occupying the blasphemed temple and warmly illuminated by hundreds of ensconced candles were sixty gentlemen and half as many women.

A beautiful Mexican lady with full hips, long eyelashes and a strong jaw adjusted her rose kimono, approached the newly arrived sextet and greeted several gentlemen by name, including Juan Bonito.

“Buenas noches Pia,” replied the hombres.

Without provocation, Ubaldo and the Mexican gentlemen began to remove their shoes.

The madam looked at the tall gringo and said, “Welcome to Catacumbas, Señor. Please remove your shoes.”

Nathaniel inquired why he needed to discard his loafers.

“Gris wants to preserve the ancient craftsmanship.” Pia pointed to the floor of the funereal temple, and the gringo saw that it was comprised of innumerable clay tiles, every one of which one a perfect nonagon. “It is nice, no?”