The Second Saladin

until at last they passed between the last of the trees and came to a stream, dry now, leaped the bed, and gathered finally at the edge of a moon-flushed meadow.

“Hold up, muchachos,” he called. He could hear them breathing laboriously behind him.

He scurried ahead. Here was the guarantee: a geographic freak in the landscape, where the underlying sandstone had been drained away until the land itself collapsed, forming this depression, this sudden, unexpected, unmapped flat stretch in the heart of otherwise impassable mountains. Accessible only by the lost road, it was a place where a man could walk across, where no fences had yet been built, where no border patrolman had ever set foot. He’d discovered it in 1963 and had been guiding the drug shipments through since then, three, maybe four times a year, during the dark of the moon, and never been caught.

But never before in the moonlight. He glanced at the white thing above him, feeling its cold.

He crossed himself.

He peered ahead. A cool breeze pressed against his face.

He took a flashlight from his coat.

Out there, if the arrangements had worked, were two Americans awaiting his signal.

Holy Mother, let them be there. Let them be efficient, dedicated gringos who follow orders.

He blinked twice.

Come on, damn you. You had plenty of time to get ready. The money is good.

A minute passed.

Come on, damn you.

Two blinks in answer.

He scuttled back.

“Done,” he said. “Another five hundred meters. Then you pay — right, amigos? Then they’ll take you to Arivaca by back roads. And you’ll be in the American Nogales by sunup.”

“Thank you, Virgin,” somebody said.

“Hurry, damn you all. They won’t wait. You too, gringo.”

They filed past him, the norteamericano last, his pack across one shoulder.

Good-bye, strange man. I hope never to see you again.

They picked their way across the flat in the moonlight. In a little while Ramirez lost them, even with the moon. They’d made it, made it easily, and then the searchlight came on and a harsh voice was yelling over the loudspeaker, “Manos arriba! Manos arriba! Hands up, hands up, motherfuckers!”

They froze in the light. Ramirez watched.

Curse my mother, that whore, he thought.

The voice from above: “Don’t move, amigos. Get those hands up. Get ’em up! Manos arriba.”

They stood stiffly, hands high in the glare of the single beam.

Ramirez thought, I ought to get out of here. Jesus Mary.

For Christ Jesus’ sake, run, he told himself. But he watched in sick fascination.

An American officer — in the deep green of the Border Patrol and a baseball cap and carrying a shotgun — came into the light.

“Face down. Down, goddammit. Descendente pronto!”

The men in the light looked at each other in panic. One young boy turned back to Ramirez. The gringo stood erect.

“Down, down,” screamed the policeman.

They went to their knees. The officer walked behind them and with his boot nudged one forward into the sand. The others followed.

“Jimmy, get that chopper on the horn again.”

“It’s coming,” came a voice from back near the light.

Luck. Maniac luck, the true law of God. Ramirez cursed his mother for bearing him and himself for his selfishness to the Virgin. He made a vow to change all that, crossed himself quickly and spat into the dust.

Clearly this was no raid; he had not been betrayed. There would have been hundreds of them, with bullhorns, machine guns. And on his side federales. He’d seen it before, down below, and once had to run half the night with an American.38 in his side. But this was just two stupid gringos with a four-wheel-drive truck. They had been lucky; Ramirez had been unlucky; the stranger with a million dollars in his knapsack had been unlucky. Fate, a whore like his mother with clap and no teeth and ribbons in her filthy hair, laughed at him, spat his way.

The border patroman had walked around in front of them again and stood nervously with the shotgun, shifting his weight from leg to leg.

“Buzz him again, Jimmy.”

“I just did. He’s on his way.”

They would wait for the helicopter, for more men, before searching and cuffing their captives.

Ramirez thought: If the tall man is going to do anything he’d better do it now.

If he’d had the Python, he could have fired for the light, or even the patrolman. But that was bad business, shooting norteamericanos. They were a crazy people; they’d get you for sure. Besides the range was over two hundred yards, a long shot for a pistol, even a big one.

Ramirez looked again. The long figure lay on the stony soil. His pack was inches beyond his fingers.

Gringo, do something, do it now. They’ll put you away for a century if they catch you.

Ramirez rubbed his mouth nervously.

A sound of engines, low and pulsing, rose in the distance and began to build.

“There he is,” yelled the one at the truck.

“Okay,” yelled the one with the shotgun, easing back a step, half twisting. He turned his head toward the sound —

It happened with the speed of a snake’s strike. The patrolman turned, the tall man seemed to elongate upon the earth, and in the same half-second he had in his hands a small gun with a blunt barrel, and a spurt of flash broke from the muzzle and the patrolman fell.

A machine gun! A small machine gun! thought Ramirez, astonished at the treasure.

The others began to flee the light. A hasty shot rang out to kick at the dust near the tall man. He stood, holding his weapon with two hands, the left cupped under the grip for support, and fired carefully into the vehicle on the ridge. Ramirez heard the glass shattering, the metal shuddering as the bullets tore through. The searchlight vanished. The tall man dropped to one knee and swiftly changed magazines in his weapon. He rose and fired again, and the truck detonated in an oily orange flash that filled the night with heat and color.

Ramirez blinked as the dust and gas from the blast pushed across him. He saw purple spinning circles before his eyes from the bright flash. He squinted them away and turned back to the spectacle before him. Rolling flames from the ridge illuminated the valley.

The tall man had moved to the fallen Border Patrol officer. Ramirez watched in astonishment as the tall man bent to the man he’d just slain, and seemed to close his eyes and a hanging jaw. Then with one hand he pushed the flattened body to its side and turned it toward Nogales. Then he grabbed his pack and ran into the darkness.

The roaring of the helicopter became huge. Dust began to whirl and rise and Ramirez could see the dark shape of it, lights blinking, start to settle out of the sky. A searchlight beam sprang from the port to play across the stones.

Ramirez drew back. He knew that inside an hour the federales would arrive, summoned by the Americans. He knew that more Americans would come, and more and more. He knew he’d better get the hell out of there. He prayed that the Americans wouldn’t find his gringo compadres, who’d obviously been spooked by the passing patrol. If they found them and they talked and they told of Ramirez …

Ramirez crossed himself. Holy Virgin, I’ve lied and cheated and stolen and killed, but spare your sinning child. He prayed intently as he scurried through the moonlight up the hill. He saw his van ahead and knew he’d make it.