‘‘Death or glory!’’ Remorse exclaimed. ‘‘We ride gallantly to our fate, John . . . whatever it may be.’’
‘‘Huzzah!’’ McBride said, the word coming out as flat and lifeless as he could make it.
McBride and Remorse followed a wagon road out of Lincoln that turned south after three miles and headed for Fort Stanton. The fort had been built to protect the Mexican farmers of the Rio Bonito Valley from Apache raids and was manned by buffalo soldiers of the Ninth Cavalry.
An old woman, dressed in black, stood at the side of the road and watched the riders come. Her head was covered by a woolen shawl, her face deeply wrinkled by long hours of toil in the sun. But her black eyes were bright, and though she looked to be in her eighties, she was probably no older than forty.
Remorse drew rein, smiled and doffed his hat. ‘‘Buenos dias, senora. Como esta usted?’’
The woman ignored Remorse, her eyes lifting to McBride. ‘‘It is not seemly or wise to speak with an angel of death. Therefore I will ask you: have you come to visit my son?’’
McBride was taken aback. ‘‘Senora, I don’t think I know your son.’’
‘‘You know him. His name is Alarico Garcia. He saved you from the rope of Harlan the hangman. Alarico told me you were a tall man with wide shoulders and that you wore a strange, round hat. Who else could you be but the man my son described to me?’’
‘‘My name is John McBride, senora. And yes, I remember your son. He saved my life and I would be happy to see him again.’’
‘‘It is not far,’’ the woman said. ‘‘Just down the trail to the fort a ways, then among the cottonwoods growing around a stream that runs off the Rio Bonito. We will find him there.’’
A flurry of rain spattered over McBride, and Remorse’s white hair was streaming across his face in a rising wind. The woman lifted a gnarled brown hand, held her shawl under her chin as her long skirt slapped against her legs. Her eyes were black and intent on Remorse.
She pointed a bony finger at him, and said to McBride, ‘‘He can’t come with us, that one.’’ To the big man’s surprise, the woman bowed her head to Remorse and said quietly, ‘‘Muerte Santo, usted puede visitarme pronto.’’
The reverend pushed the hair from his face with the fingers of his left hand. His face was pale and unsmiling, his good mood of the morning seemingly gone. ‘‘Como usted desea, senora,’’ he said. ‘‘Le vendre.’’
Again the woman bowed, this time from the waist. She reached into the pocket of her skirt and produced a string of black rosary beads. She held them in her hand as she said to McBride: ‘‘We will go now.’’
For his part McBride was baffled. He looked at Remorse and said, ‘‘Now, what was all that jabbering about?’’
Remorse smiled. ‘‘She called me Muerte Santo, Saint Death, and asked me to visit her soon.’’
‘‘And what did you say?’’ McBride’s eyes were wide, like those of a man groping his way through a thick fog.
‘‘I told her I would.’’
McBride shook his head. ‘‘Saul, you are one strange hombre.’’
Remorse grinned faintly. ‘‘Aren’t I, though? Now go with the woman. It is not far. I will wait for you here.’’
McBride, feeling it would be impolite to ride while the woman walked, climbed out of the saddle and fell into step beside her, leading the mustang.
The rain was heavier now, the wind stronger. To the north the Capitan Mountains were shrouded in cloud. On both sides of McBride and the woman a shifting mist coiled around the mesas and drifted into the arroyos like a gray ghost. The rutted wagon road was filmed with mud that spattered the bottom of the woman’s skirt. She neither noticed nor seemed to care as she fingered her beads, her lips moving.
After fifteen minutes the woman left the road and McBride followed. They walked across flat, sandy ground covered with purple prickly pear and cholla; then the land changed gradually into a greener stretch that slanted downward toward a mist-ribboned stand of cottonwoods.
A gray fox nosing around the base of the trees lifted its head as McBride and the woman got closer. It watched them for a few moments, then vanished silently into the grayer mantle of the rain.
‘‘My son lies there,’’ the woman said. She indicated a sunken rectangle covered thinly with small rocks and polished pebbles from the nearby stream in the shape of a cross. There was no marker and the grave of Alarico Garcia lay at a distance from the cottonwoods where the ground was less likely to flood during the spring snowmelt that would happen soon.
McBride took off his hat and stood by the grave. No words of comfort for the woman came to him and he was silent.
‘‘That is where my son sleeps,’’ the woman said. ‘‘He had just reached his eighteenth year when the hangman and the others came for him.’’ She shook her head. ‘‘So young. They killed five other men in our village, but I buried Alarico here. He and his wife used to visit this place often because they said it was so lovely and peaceful.’’
McBride now found himself on firmer ground. War talk came more easily to him. ‘‘Who was with Harlan? Do you know their names?’’
The woman nodded. ‘‘Sí, I know their names. With Harlan came the banker Jared Josephine and his son. I heard him called Lance. There were two others, men I’d never seen before.
‘‘Our village is a couple of miles from here, on the Rio Bonito, and Harlan came and asked for the men who had set you free from his jail. He told us if the guilty men didn’t step forward he would choose ten men from the village and hang them. My son and the men who had been with him at the jail stepped forward, wishing to save others from death. Then the hangman and the rest drew their guns and shot them all down.’’
‘‘Senora,’’ McBride said, ‘‘I don’t have the words to tell you how sorry I am. Alarico was a fine young man. I promise you, I will do my best to avenge his death.’’
‘‘Alarico talked about you often, the big, ugly gringo with the kitten and the funny hat. He made me laugh. That is why I wanted you to visit him. Now you must stand at his grave and tell him what you just told me, that you will avenge his death.’’
‘‘I will tell him that. But, senora, how did you know I would be on the wagon road?’’
‘‘One of the men from the village saw you in Lincoln. He told me you would probably return to Jared Josephine’s town. I walked to the road and I waited. I was willing to wait a long, long time.’’
McBride was oddly touched. ‘‘Senora, is there anything I can do for you?’’
The woman shook her head. ‘‘No, my life is over. But you will get justice for my son, and then I will lie down on my bed and turn my face to the wall. Soon your friend, Muerte Santo, with his white hair and eyes that never show mercy, will come for me.’’