'What was his sales pitch?' asked the father. He then winked with great pleasure at that group around the truck. 'A dark alley and a loaded gun?'
'You'll die ignorant and broke,' Jack B prophesied again as he walked off.
'But not soon.'
It wasn't long after that gathering broke off into their own private schemes, leaving father and son alone.
'Well, Mr. Lourdes, what did you hear?'
'Someone else's version of the practical application of strategy.'
'Aye. You know what I heard. Cuba ... Manila ... I've lived it. It's called military intervention. It's those bastards back at the Customs House. That's why all the Yankee Doodles at Fort Bliss. This is a shell game, Mr. Lourdes.'
Silently the son assessed and reflected and then agreed. He continued to think and once or twice the father caught him looking back at the passenger car.
'Did you tell her?'
When he'd left, she was sitting on the floor of the passenger car in a profound sadness and could not, or would not, look at him. He went to Sister Alicia to thank her. He called her abuelita, which meant 'grandmother,' and told her she would never find him wanting if a time came and she were in need.
'I told her,' said John Lourdes.
'Mr. Lourdes, in matters such as these, it is best to remain ... indifferent.'
THE FOLLOWING DAY they came upon the first train stopped in the white noon of sand hills. Three campesinos were being held at gunpoint by the guards. Two were young men, the third still a boy. Doctor Stallings and his command officers went from the train and were informed these three had been caught trying to sabotage the tracks. The captured, of course, swore to their innocence.
Along the line of the second train the guards came out from the cars or took up on the landings and roofs to watch. Even the women stood in the sun with their heads covered and eyes hooded, to see. Only Rawbone showed no interest and remained in the truck cab with his legs up on the dash.
After much condemnation and many denials Doctor Stallings issued a series of quick orders. The three were marched to a bare and blackened tree surrounded by ocotillo that stood on a slope near fifty yards from the track. A rope was brought and Jack B flung it over what looked to be the sturdiest, though partly broken-off, branch. Doctor Stallings called to Tuerto.
'It's pictures you want.'
He nodded, of course.
'It's pictures you'll have.'
John Lourdes watched from the forward edge of the flatcar and from time to time he glanced back at the women. The girl Teresa alone had not come forward.
Doctor Stallings proceeded back up the slope followed by the photographer. John Lourdes noted how he went about the business at hand with mechanical clarity. He walked with his hands behind his back in a calm and studious manner, never raising his voice. It surprised John Lourdes when he thought how similar in methodology the Doctor was to justice Knox.
The two older campesinos were ordered to their knees and when they refused Doctor Stallings nodded. Jack B quickly stepped behind both men and a single halo of powder exploded around their heads as a bullet was put into each of their brains. They lay side by side as if they intended to crawl away and the hot sand crackled where their blood threaded and then pooled.
The women were aghast and banded together, while some turned away in disgust. But this was not the last, nor the worst.
The boy had rushed to his compadres but was grabbed by the guards. He was then ordered taken to the tree. He fought the rope circling his neck like something crazed, but a force of pure strength proved too much and they had him leashed and lifted before he could even let out a cry.
The men stood back, for the boy kicked and spun. As his hands were not tied he took hold of the rope above his head and tried to lift himself to keep from strangling as he kicked out with his legs hoping to swing them around the trunk or to reach a branch and somehow save himself from a horrid death. His shoes were nothing more than strips of tire rubber cut and lashed around his feet and ankles and they scored the rotted bark in unending desperation.
It was an Inquisitional scene of madness, with the guards like statues upon a salted plain and the photographer
