Country of the Bad Wolfes

No! Today! You’re ready today. And you don’t want fewer people. You want as many as possible to see it. To see what happens to this gringo who spat on your family’s honor!

All right, then. Take the horse over there. You can still mount up fast and get out quick. Goddammit, man, where are your balls?

He leads the horse across the plaza to the church and tethers it to a tree a few yards from the wide breadth of church steps. Then positions himself at the periphery of the crowd assembled outside the doors, hat low over his eyes. And now has only to wait for the end of the mass. Engrossed in his thoughts, he is heedless of late arrivals.

The mass is in progress when the black-suited twins ease through the crowd listening at the open doors. The people grouped at the back of the room make way so that the brothers can stand at the forefront with a clear view of the altar. As those in the rearmost pews become aware of their presence, they make gestures of offering their seats to them, but the twins decline the tenders with their own hand signals.

They see their father in the front pew, his shoulders slumped as never before. To one side of him are John Samuel and Vicki and Juanito Sotero, and next to them Bruno Tomas and his wife Felicia Flor, great with their first child, due in a few weeks. The empty space to the other side of their father is where the twins would be sitting if they had arrived in time. Not until Juan Sotero goes to the altar to receive the communion wafer from the bishop does their father turn to look toward the back of the church and see them. His gaze is tired but reproachful at their lateness. The twins acknowledge him with respectful nods and he nods in turn. Then gives his attention back to Juan Sotero as the boy returns to the pew, hands together in a prayerful attitude contrasting with his wide smile. He sits down and Vicki Clara puts an arm around him and whispers in his ear.

Josefina has told them of their father’s directive to go to his office after the mass. They cannot guess what he wishes to see them about, but have a hunch it will entail John Samuel in some way and that he will be there too, and so the session cannot possibly be anything but unpleasant. As the mass nears its end, Blake says, “Let’s go.”

He freezes at the sight of them emerging from the throng at the doors. They had not been seen in the compound since the business with the horse—almost a year now—and he’d had no reason whatever to think they might be here today. They are walking in his direction and for a petrifying moment he thinks they have already seen him, then realizes they haven’t and he averts his face just as one looks his way. They stride past, almost close enough to touch. He feels a tremor in his fingers and stills it with his fists.

And sees the patron come out of the church, flanked by family.

They are halfway to the casa grande when Blake Cortez stops and looks back toward the church, where the crowd is just beginning to exit. James Sebastian looks back at him. “What?”

“I don’t know. Something.”

James looks toward the church. “Good-looking, huh?”

“Not that. Something else. Just barely saw it. Goddammit, what was it?”

“Harm?”

“Has that feel.”

“See Father?”

“Not in that crowd.”

They head back to the church.

As they surge from the church, people are laughing, speaking in shouts to be heard above the clangor of the bells. Children race off toward the far end of the plaza, toward the music and the tables of food. John Roger begins to descend the steps—John Samuel and his family to one side of him, Bruno Tomas and Felicia Flor to the other— and then, directly before him, two steps below, is Alfredo Espinosa, his expression such that for a second John Roger doesn’t recognize him, and then he does, and he smiles and halts, wondering what he might want. Alfredo now smiles too and steps up and places a hand on John Roger’s arm in unseemly familiarity—then locks his hand on the arm and brings up the knife and stabs him with terrific force three fast times. In the abdomen, the stomach, the chest.

The others have already descended another three steps before they are aware John Roger has halted behind them, and when they turn to look he is on the seat of his pants and falling onto his side, hat tumbling, face clenched and teeth bared, hand splayed against his chest. The people to either side of him are agape with shock. John Samuel says “Oh God” and backs down another step. A woman shrieks. Bruno sees the bloom of blood on his uncle’s white coat and sees Alfredo with knife in hand as he is starting to move away. He lunges and grabs him by the collar and Alfredo twists about and slashes Bruno’s arm and face and Bruno lets go as Felicia Flor pulls him to her and gives her back to Alfredo, who slashes again and the blade opens her sleeve without touching flesh. More screams now as others see what’s happening, but most of the churchgoers are still oblivious or in confusion, and Alfredo vanishes among them.

The twins come shouldering through the crowd and see their fallen father, his head cradled in Vicki Clara’s lap and his coat opened to expose a shirtfront sodden with blood so bright they know he will be dead within the minute. Don’t die, Papa, Vicki Clara pleads, don’t die! John Roger’s eyes are wide and keep moving from one looming twin to the other. He wants to say “Sons” but manages only what sound like gasping exhalations. Then his eyes go still and their light is gone.

James Sebastian takes the shortened Colt from his father’s shoulder holster and Blake Cortez shouts “Pa donde fue?” Hands point and wave in the same direction amid a chorus of strident babblings and the twins charge through the throng, knocking aside men and women and children alike.

In all the turmoil, no one has tried to stop Alfredo before he reaches his mount. He swings up into the saddle, knife still in hand, and heels the horse hard, heading toward the main gate at the other end of the plaza. The twins break through the crowd and spot him. James Sebastian assumes a shooting stance and sights just above the distancing rider to allow for the truncated trajectory of a short-barreled handgun and squeezes off three rounds in measured succession, adjusting his sight after each shot. The first bullet falls short and ricochets up into the horse’s thigh but the animal barely flinches and doesn’t break stride. The people at the far end of the plaza flee for cover. The next round strikes the horse in the hindquarter and it staggers but keeps its feet and Alfredo heels it hard and presses himself low against its neck. The third bullet hits the horse behind the ear and it plunges headfirst and Alfredo hears its neck break like a tree branch as he sails forward and onto the cobbles and goes tumbling to a stop. Blackie would later praise the shot and James would confess he had been trying to hit the rider.

Alfredo scrabbles to his feet, incredulous that he has broken no bone, his heart ramming against his ribs as though trying to make its own getaway. His knife is gone. The twins are coming at a jog and the crowd trotting behind at a distance. He bolts down a narrow alleyway between worker row houses and turns into a wider alley behind the residences, this one lined with animal enclosures—chicken houses and cattle corrals, goat pens and pig sties. He sees another alleyway junction up ahead and runs toward it and then stops short when the twin with the gun comes sprinting out of its shadowed mouth and sees him and turns toward him at a walk. Alfredo whirls around and sees the other twin advancing on him too, Alfredo’s knife in his hand. Onlookers stream out from each of the flanking alleyways but each bunch keeps well back of the twin ahead of it. Alfredo remembers the derringer in his pocket but is too afraid to make a move for it.

It occurs to him that surrender will resolve everything. Surrender, yes! Let them lock him up! What else can they do in the eyes of so many witnesses? He raises his hands high and yells, “Me rendiro! Me rendiro!” He’ll have someone send a telegram to his brother. To General Mauricio Espinosa de la Santa Cruz. Who will speed down here. Then let’s see how long he stays locked up! Then these two sonsofbitches’ll see what’s what!

Look! he yells. All of you, look! He shakes his raised hands. I am surrendering! You see! He keeps shifting his attention from one twin to the other as they approach him from either side. And then they are near enough for him to see their eyes. I surrender! he yells, voice breaking. I surrenderrrrr!

Blake Cortez stabs him just below the ribs and with a lateral yank slices him open. The pain exceeds any Alfredo could have imagined. He clamps his hands over his exposed viscera and his face contorts but the pain constricts his voice to a rasp. The front of his pants darkens with blood and urine. He falls down, knees drawn up,