Fargo nodded. “I wanted to get those men to work on our problem. Not necessarily to save all of us, mind you, because I fear it’s too late for that. But for the sake of all the good it could do in the world. And if I could at least save Mariella, well…”
She shook her head. “You old fool,” she said softly. “Do you think I would want to live without you? It was only being with you that made all these years worth-while in the first place.”
Fargo sighed. “No matter. Now it’s too late for us all. Those…those barbarians with their Gatling guns—” He waved a hand. “I know, they’re not Gatling guns. They’re something even worse. I never wanted the artifacts of warfare to pollute this valley.”
“That’s an unusual attitude for a man who was a warrior,” Gabriel pointed out.
“That was a very short period in a very long life, Mr. Hunt. I was a professor first. And when I got here, I discovered more than just this—I discovered that I’d had my fill of war. I couldn’t stomach it anymore. And I came to understand that some of the things I’d fought for…just weren’t worth fighting for.” Fargo held out his hand. “Can I see those flags you brought with you?”
Gabriel untied the strips that held the folded flags to his torso. “I’m afraid they have more blood and sweat on them than they started out with,” he said as he handed them to the general.
“A good man’s blood and sweat are worthy stains, sir,” Fargo said.
A couple of men stepped forward from the crowd of other prisoners. “Gen’ral?” one of them said. “The fellas would sure admire to see those colors again.”
“Of course, Boone,” Fargo replied. He handed the flags to the men, who unfolded them and held them up for the other prisoners to see. The men of the Fifth Georgia looked on them with silent reverence.
“I hate to tell you, General, but a hundred forty years later, those flags aren’t exactly a popular sight where I come from,” Gabriel said.
“They weren’t always popular even back then, Mr. Hunt,” Fargo said. “We lost the war, I’ll remind you. But my men still rode below those colors. Don’t begrudge them a moment of remembrance.”
“They can have all the moments they want,” Gabriel said. “At least till Esparza comes back.”
“I wish,” Fargo said after a moment, and then paused. “I almost wish…” His voice choked, he couldn’t go on. But Gabriel got the gist of what he was trying to say.
“You wish that, if you have to go, you could go out fighting?”
“Now that we have something that really is worth fighting for? More than you know, Mr. Hunt. More than you can know.”
“Well, why can’t you? It’s better than lying down and dying.” Gabriel put an arm around the general’s shoulders. “Let’s see if we can figure something out.”
“Hey!” Gabriel yelled as he put his mouth close to the crack at the edge of the door. “Hey, out there! Open up! I’ve got something your boss wants!”
“By God, sir!” General Fargo bellowed. “Give me back those flags!”
“Stand back,” Gabriel shouted “or I’ll break your damn neck. Those flags are my ticket out of here. Guards! Tell Esparza I have the general’s secret!”
“Damn your eyes,” Fargo yelled, “I’ll never let you do it!”
Gabriel heard the guards talking in low, urgent voices on the other side of the door and gave the general a silent thumbs-up. Fargo looked puzzled by the gesture and by the A-OK gesture Gabriel replaced it with. What gesture had they used back in Civil War days? Gabriel settled for nodding and this, at least, the general seemed to grasp.
“Back off in there!” one of the guards called a moment later. “We’ll cut you all down if you try anything.”
With a low rumble of stone against stone, the door began to swing inward.
Cierra had her ear pressed to the wall near one side of the door. She glanced at Gabriel and nodded, then stepped back away from the wall as the door opened the rest of the way. Gabriel and Fargo had backed away from it as well. Gabriel held both battle flags.
One guard came into the chamber while the other two remained outside, their automatic weapons leveled.
“What the hell do you want?” he demanded. “What was all the yelling about?”
Gabriel showed him the flags. “Take me to Señor Esparza,” he said. “He’ll want these.”
One of the other guards said, “I remember Podnem’vitch saying something about flags. Maybe these are the ones.”
“Give me those,” the first guard snapped, reaching out for the flags.
Gabriel stepped back, but the other two guards pointed their guns at him. He stopped, grimaced, and then finally handed over the flags.
“All right. But you be sure and tell Esparza that I gave them to you. They’re very important.”
The flags meant nothing now, of course. But Esparza’s men didn’t know that.
“And tell him there’s a hidden message on them. I can tell him how to read it.”
“Don’t do it, Hunt,” Fargo growled. “You’ll burn in hell for it.” He was laying it on a bit thick, Gabriel thought, but the guards showed no signs of doubting his sincerity.
Holding the flags in one hand and his gun in the other, the guard backed out of the chamber. As soon as the closing door cut off his view, Cierra darted forward and pressed her ear to the stone again, this time at a spot a bit lower on the wall.
“Well?” Gabriel said, once the door was fully shut.
She hurried over to Gabriel and said in a low voice, “No question, the mechanism is on that side, about four feet up. The stone must be hollow there—I could hear the mechanism working. If we can get to it, we might be able to trip it from in here.”
“And that would cause the door to open.”
“It should, exactly the same as pushing the lever from outside.”
Gabriel nodded. “The question now is whether or not we can loosen one of these blocks of stone enough to move it out.”
He took off his belt and began using the buckle to scrape away at the layer of crude mortar between the blocks. The passing centuries had weakened the mortar and made it crumble easily, but even so this would be a long, tedious job.
At least, it would have been for one man. Several other prisoners gathered around, including Fargo and Boone. They took off their belts and began scraping at the mortar as well.
As they worked, Boone said, “I heard you talkin’ to Miz Fargo, Gen’ral. Is it true what you said, about the water not keepin’ us young anymore?”
“I’m afraid so, Boone,” Fargo said.
“I thought I’d been feelin’ a mite puny lately. And Virginia, she’s got a whole heap more gray in her hair than she did even a week ago. All those years are gonna catch up to us in a hurry, ain’t they?”
“That looks to be the case.”
“Well, hell.” Boone shook his head. “Can’t complain too much, I reckon, after all the years we cheated death outa’. When we rode away after Gen’ral Lee surrendered, I don’t reckon any of us figured on livin’ another hundred and fifty years in the prettiest place on God’s green earth.” The sergeant smiled ruefully. “With some of the prettiest gals, too.”
“It’s been a good sojourn, hasn’t it?” Fargo said.
“It surely has, sir. It surely has.”
They kept working. The beams of light slanting down into the prison chamber moved as the day wore on and finally began to wane. It would be easier to move around Cuchatlán without being spotted after dark, but Gabriel didn’t know if Esparza would allow them that much time. Esparza didn’t really need to keep any of them alive anymore, unless he believed that story about a hidden message on the flags.
By the time the direct sunlight had faded entirely, leaving them in a sepulchral twilight gloom, the men had gouged out enough mortar around the stone that they could get their fingers into the gap all around it. They began heaving on it, trying to work it back and forth. At first the remaining mortar resisted their efforts, but finally, with tiny grating sounds and even tinier movements, the stone began to shift.