Country of the Bad Wolfes

and in desperate attendance to the wounded. The shooting now reducing to sporadic reports. He is yanked along to the plaza fountain where Bruno Tomas sits on the ground, bareheaded and in shirtsleeves, a man with an eye patch standing over him, pistol in hand. Three years older than John Samuel, sixty-year-old Bruno yet has thick hair more black than gray, but his face is now bloody, one eye purple and swollen shut, nose obviously broken.

They jerk John Samuel to a halt in front of a man sitting on the rim of the fountain and eating a mango. He is flanked by two men, one fat and smiling, the other with hideous burn scars on one side of his face. At their feet are three strongboxes. John Samuel recognizes the one from the rear room of the main kitchen and the two that had been locked in the armory, but he does not see the two boxes kept cached under the stone floor of his office, which is at that moment pouring smoke from its windows. The man eating the mango tosses the half-eaten fruit into the fountain and wipes his mouth and fingers with his shirt and stands up. “Yo soy Juan Lobo,” he says. “Mi mama se llamo Katrina Avila. ?Te acuerdas de ella?”

John Samuel sees the madness in the man’s eyes. “Katrina Avila?” he says.

Juan Lobo punches him hard in the mouth, jarring the spectacles off his face and knocking him down. Two men haul him back up to his feet. He tastes blood and feels the sudden bloating of his lips and chokes on a dislodged front tooth and tries to cough it up but swallows it.

Juan Lobo picks up the spectacles and puts them on and looks all about, squinting. Then takes them off and snaps the lenses out of the rims and sets the frame back on his face and grins at his men. Then turns back to John Samuel and says, Your father fucked my mother for his fun, and then when he became my father he sent us away. But. I am now here to say—he spreads his arms wide and grins with great exaggeration—Helllooo, brother!

Certain that he is going to be killed, John Samuel is crying now, gasping, mucus streaming from his nose, blood from his mouth.

Lobo gestures about the plaza and says, These, ah, people tell me somebody gutted your father a long time ago. They tell me the twin ones were killed for something to do with the same thing. Have I been told the truth?

John Samuel stutters, gags on snot, manages to say, Yes, it’s the truth, yes.

Aaaah Christ, Juan Lobo says, shaking his head. I knew it was too much to hope for that the old cocksucker would still be alive, but, goddammit, the twin ones dead too? He smiles at John Samuel in the manner of a commiserative friend and says, I feel soooo cheated, you know what I mean? But what the hell, my brother—and he again makes the open-armed gesture—there’s still you! Then loses his smile and snatches John Samuel by the hair and shoves his head back and draws his knife and puts it to his throat.

John Samuel whimpers and pisses in his pants.

Somebody shouts, Don’t do it! Listen, listen! I know where they are! They’re not dead!

Juan Lobo looks over at Bruno Tomas. He steps back from John Samuel and gestures for the guard to help the mayordomo get up, and then beckons Bruno to him. Bruno comes limping. His only hope to save John Samuel is in giving Juan Lobo what he wants. The twins can look out for themselves.

He stands before Lobo, who says, You’re a very helpful man, Mr Old Mayordomo. It was helpful to show us where the money was, though of course you only did that to save your hide. But nevertheless it was helpful. And now you want to tell me where the twin ones are. That would also be very helpful. He taps the knifepoint on Bruno’s chest and says, But. Everybody else, you see, says the twin ones have been dead as long as their fucking father. Soooo. What can I think except you want to lie to me to try to save this son of a whore? He runs the knife up to Bruno’s throat and the point forms a dimple in the skin. You have fucked yourself out of our deal, Mr Mayordomo.

I’m not lying. They’re at the Rio Bravo. I have letters to prove it. Letters that tell about them. With addresses, with postmarks.

Oh? Where are they, these letters?

I’ll tell you if you won’t kill the patron.

It’s a deal. Where are the letters?

How do I know you won’t kill the patron anyway? Bruno says—and glances at John Samuel, who is squinting at him as if trying to comprehend some alien language.

Very good question, says Juan Lobo. But your bigger worry should be whether I’ll kill you anyway.

Yes. How do I know you won’t do that?

Juan Lobo issues a loud mock sigh and lowers the knife and calls for two saddled mounts. The horses are brought and he has John Samuel—still dazed with fear, confused by the proceedings—helped up onto one. He tells Bruno the other horse is for him. But listen, Lobo says. A man’s word is the only thing in this world worth more than gold, don’t you agree? Well, I give you my word—my word!—that if the letters prove what you say, you and this cocksucker can ride out of here. But if they don’t, I’ll kill you both. You have my word on that too.

Bruno points to his quarters and specifies where the letters are stashed within it. Juan Lobo sends a man to retrieve them—fast, as the fire is by now already consuming the roof of that building.

The man is not long about it, panting on his return. He hands the packet of letters to Juan Lobo, who cannot read and passes them to Dax, he of the half-burned face. Dax scans several of them and says they all mention twins named Blake and James and also their wives and children.

Ah, they have families, how excellent, Juan Lobo says, and smiles wide.

All the letters show the same addresses, Dax tells him. In Brownsville, Texas. Across the Bravo from Matamoros.

“Muy bien,” Lobo says. He gestures toward the ready horse and tells Bruno he can go.

Bruno struggles up onto the horse and takes up the reins. “Let’s go, John,” he says.

Before John Samuel can hup his horse forward Juan Lobo grabs him by the nightshirt and yanks him down and sends him sprawling onto his hands and knees. Bruno yells Noooo! as Lobo takes a machete from one of his men and steps over to John Samuel and with one swing beheads him. A thick jet of blood lays a bright red stripe six feet long on the cobbles as the head tumbles and stops with a wondering stare at nothing at all.

You gave your worrrrd! Bruno screeches.

Juan Lobo turns to Fat Pori and says, Count to five and if he’s still here shoot him.

Bruno heels the horse and gallops away.

Juan Lobo picks up the head and sets it on the rim of the fountain and transfers the lensless spectacles from his own face to the head’s. How’s that, patron? he says. Can you see more clearly how things are, my brother?

He hid in the bush off the hacienda road and waited. And envisioned again and again the wanton slaughter. John Samuel’s severed head. Rogelio Mendez hacked to pieces. He wept. He was there for half an hour before Juan Lobo and three others rode past at a canter. It was another hour more before the others came by, riding at a trot, singing and laughing, most of them drunk. Trailed by three mule-driven wagons creaking under their loads of booty. Bruno would never know it but two days hence the larger band of bandits would encounter a company of Rurales who would kill every man of them and divide the loot among themselves.

When he got back to the charred and smoking compound, corpses were being carted to the Santa Rosalba graveyard. A crowd gathered around him and he was helped down from the horse. They brought him water and tended his wounds and an old woman kissed his hands and murmured a prayer to the Holy Mother. They told him John Samuel had been taken for burial in the village and begged his forgiveness for not waiting until the fire died out and then burying him in the casa grande graveyard. Bruno said it was all right. Then one among them, weeping, told him Lobo took the head with him in a sack. Bruno could think of nothing to say to that, did not know whether to nod or shake his head. They told him Lobo and three companions filled their saddlebags with all the money from one of the strongboxes and left the other two boxes to the gang. There was nothing else to tell him that he had not seen for himself.

Then someone asked, What will we do now, patron?