Hunt at The Well Of Eternity gh-1 Read online

  “First of all,” Escalante said as he faced them in the clearing, “who are you?”

  “We had a farm, but we lost it because of the taxes,” Gabriel said. “We were going to stay with my wife’s family in Guatemala—”

  Escalante stopped him with a casual wave of the hand. “Don’t waste your breath and my time, amigo. You’re an American, and this woman is no farmer’s wife, no matter how she’s dressed.” His eyes narrowed as he stared at Cierra. “In fact, there is something familiar about her—”

  “Look, if you let us go, I can make it worth your while,” Gabriel cut in.

  The bandit leader looked amused. “Oh, you can, can you, amigo? Just how will you do that?”

  “I can raise some ransom money. Not a lot, you understand, but enough that it ought to buy our freedom. All I need to do is get in touch with the American embassy in Mexico City—”

  “A man who drives a pickup so old and rusty it’s about to fall apart?” Escalante shook his head. “No, I think not. I think you’re some sort of American gangster, come down here to take advantage of my people.”

  “Then why did you save us from those bandits?”

  Escalante leaned over and spat in the dirt. “Because I have no use for that pig Gomez and his men. They thought they were the most feared band in these mountains, but they learned to their regret that they were wrong. You and the señorita just happened to be there, señor. We weren’t saving you…we were killing them.”

  “Well, either way, we appreciate it. And if you let us go, we’ll appreciate it even more.”

  Cierra said, “Gabriel, I think I should—”

  “Don’t,” he snapped, knowing what she was about to reveal.

  “A wise man listens to his woman, my friend,” Escalante said with a smile. “But then if you were a wise man, you wouldn’t be here, now would you?”

  “Just tell me what it will take to buy our freedom.”

  “Buy?” Escalante shook his head. “One cannot buy freedom.” He held up a finger. “One can only fight for it.”

  “Then let me fight for it,” Gabriel said and Escalante’s eyes narrowed. “You saw us fight Gomez—I killed him, not you. If there’s a fight you need help with…”

  “I need no gringo’s help,” Escalante spat. “But if you are so eager to fight, we can oblige you.” He turned and used his outstretched finger to make a crooking motion. “Tomás.”

  Gabriel had a bad feeling about this. He turned and saw the group of bandits that had surrounded them parting to allow a man through into the clearing.

  The newcomer was several inches shorter than Gabriel but considerably wider as well. His long arms were almost as thick as the trunks of young trees, and his shoulders strained at the olive-drab fabric of the old fatigue shirt he wore. He was mostly bald, with only a fringe of gray hair around his ears. Not a young man by any means, but still tough and dangerous, Gabriel judged. Perhaps even more dangerous than if he had been young, because he’d have the skill and guile of a veteran.

  “Let’s see how you fight, gringo. You shall be our evening’s entertainment,” Escalante said. “And if you can defeat Tomás, well…we’ll talk about your freedom.”

  “Talk?” Gabriel said. “I want your word. If I win, you’ll set us free.”

  Escalante laughed. “Where in life do you see guarantees, amigo? The only guarantees in this world are of pain and suffering, and death at the end. All else is a gamble.”

  Gabriel’s mouth tightened. Even as Cierra’s hand clutched at his arm, he knew he couldn’t turn down the bandit leader’s offer, no matter how tenuous it was.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll take the gamble.”

  “Gabriel…” Cierra began.

  “It’s okay,” he told her as he turned to her and smiled. “He doesn’t look so tough.”

  “Let me—”

  He shook his head before she could go on.

  “You refuse to let your woman intercede for you?” Escalante said. “I would expect no less of a true man.”

  Gabriel turned back to him. “What do we fight with? Pistols? Machetes? Or a good old-fashioned bare knuckles brawl?”

  “None of those,” Escalante said with a shake of his head. “Bullwhips.”

  Tomás grinned.

  “Bullwhips?” Gabriel repeated.

  All the bandits were grinning now. One of them went into a hut and brought out a couple of coiled whips of plaited leather.

  “Oh, Gabriel!” Cierra threw her arms around his neck and hugged him hard. In his ear, she whispered, “I tried to warn you, you fool! I remember hearing about Tomás when I was a little girl. He can take out a man’s eyes with a whip! He’ll cut you to ribbons!”

  Gabriel reached up to stroke her hair as she embraced him. “It’s all right,” he whispered. His mouth was dry, but not too dry for him to add, “I learned to use a bullwhip when I was a boy. An old friend of my father’s taught me.”

  “A friend of…? Wasn’t your father some sort of Classics professor?”

  “Trust me,” Gabriel said.

  He let go of her and stepped back, then reached out to take the whip that was offered to him. His fingers closed around the long handle. It was made of wood with strips of leather wrapped around it. With a flick of his wrist he shook out the whip itself, made of more long strips, braided together. It coiled and writhed at his feet like a snake.

  “Oh, ho, Tomás,” Escalante said. “It looks like our American friend has held a whip before.”

  Tomás spat, and if ever such a gesture could be eloquent, this one was. His contempt was obvious. He snapped his wrist, and the whip he held leaped into the air like it was alive before jumping back with a sharp crack that sounded like a gunshot.

  Gabriel could have cracked his whip, too, but he didn’t see any point in showing off. He had probably done a little too much of that already, just by not feigning awkwardness when he was handed the whip.

  “If you survive this, Gabriel,” Escalante said, using the name Cierra had called him, “then you deserve to live.”

  “Then this is a fight to the death?” Gabriel said.

  Tomás spoke for the first time, in a voice like ten miles of gravel road. “For you it is.”

  Cierra reached for Gabriel again, but Escalante took hold of her arm and pulled her back before she could get to him. The rest of the men backed off as well, giving Gabriel and Tomás plenty of room in the middle of the clearing.

  Once they started swinging those bullwhips, they would need the room.

  Tomás struck first, lashing out with the whip. Gabriel had seen the flare of anger in the man’s eyes and the bunching of the muscles in his shoulders, and that was all the warning he needed to leap aside. As he moved he snapped his wrist and sent his whip darting toward Tomás. The stocky bandit was incredibly fast for a man of his bulk, though. Gabriel’s first strike missed just as Tomás’s had.

  Tomás drew his whip in and began to circle slowly, forcing Gabriel to circle as well. Then with a grunt he attacked again, this time going for Gabriel’s legs. Gabriel tried to dart out of the way, but the very tip of the bullwhip struck his calf and left behind a line of fiery pain when it snapped back. Gabriel glanced down and saw that the whip had sliced right through his jeans.

  Tomás rushed him then, snapping the whip high over-head. If the weighted tip caught him in the eye, it would be over, Gabriel knew. He flung up his left arm, felt the vicious bite of the whip against his flesh as it cut through his sleeve.

  Holding his right arm down low, he flicked his wrist and sent his whip leaping out again. It slid in underneath Tomás’s guard and cut the bandit across his belly. Tomás howled in pain and anger but didn’t pause or stop pressing his attack. Gabriel spun to one side and cracked his whip. This time it struck Tomás’s thick left thigh and drew blood.

  Gabriel was vaguely aware of the other bandits yelling encouragement to Tomás. From the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of Cierra standing beside Esc
alante, her face twisted with lines of fear. She was saying something, but he couldn’t take the time to make it out, because Tomás was coming at him again.

  Gabriel watched the man’s arm swing back, gauged where his whip was aimed, and then swung his own to meet it, the lengths of braided leather meeting in mid air, twining around one another. Gabriel yanked fiercely, hoping to pull the handle out of Tomás’s hand, but the stocky man held tight, pulling back mightily and almost overbalancing Gabriel, who stumbled forward. He caught himself with his free hand, the fresh cut on his forearm stinging. With his other hand, he swung the whip handle in a tight circle, desperately trying to untangle his whip from Tomás’s. He saw the other man doing the same, and after a second the two whips slid apart. Each man drew his in, eyeing the other warily.

  Tomás raised his arm and with a practiced flick shot the leather at him. Gabriel ducked under the slashing whip and suddenly drove forward, burying the top of his head in Tomás’s bleeding gut. He pushed with all the strength in his legs and knocked Tomás backward. The bandit lost his footing and fell, crashing down hard on his back.

  Gabriel landed on top of him, planting a knee in Tomás’s belly. Tomás was red-faced and gasping from the fall. Gabriel didn’t give his opponent the chance to catch his breath. He made a loop with his whip and twisted it around Tomás’s neck, then scrambled around behind the bandit to tighten the noose, twisting with the wooden handle to turn it into a makeshift tourniquet. Grunting with the strain, Gabriel rose to his feet, lifting Tomás with him and making the whip sink deeper and deeper into the flesh of the man’s neck.

  Tomás flailed with his free hand, swinging behind him, but the blows he landed didn’t reach Gabriel with enough force to do any damage. Not so the bullwhip in Tomás’s other hand, which danced and weaved around Gabriel, snapping and popping and bloodying him in half a dozen places. His thick work shirt was swiftly sliced through and his back would have been as well, had it not been for the extra padding of the regimental flag hidden beneath his shirt. But the whip cut cruelly into his sides and shoulders, landing for an instant, then moving on to strike again somewhere else. Gabriel ignored the pain and hung on, planting one knee in the other man’s back for leverage.

  He had held his own in the contest so far, but he knew if he gave Tomás enough chances the man would eventually kill him.

  This fight had to end here and now.

  As Gabriel gritted his teeth and looked over Tomás’s shoulder, he saw several of the bandits pointing guns at him with angry expressions on their faces. They didn’t like seeing their compadre on the brink of defeat, and at the hands of a gringo, at that.

  But Paco Escalante motioned for them to lower their weapons, and grudgingly, the bandits did so. After what seemed like an eternity, Tomás stopped fighting. His muscles went limp, and the bullwhip slipped from his nerveless fingers. Gabriel didn’t think the bandit was shamming. Tomás wouldn’t have let go of his bullwhip if he were still conscious. Instantly, Gabriel let off on the pressure he’d been exerting with his whip and allowed Tomás’s ungainly form to slump to the ground at his feet.

  If ever the other bandits were going to shoot him, it would be now.

  Escalante motioned his men back, though, and came forward, bringing Cierra with him. He gestured toward Tomás, who lay there out cold but still breathing, and said, “You did not kill him. It was supposed to be a fight to death.”

  Gabriel was a little out of breath himself. “Didn’t see…any need to,” he said.

  Escalante reached to the holster on his hip and drew a revolver from it. “You seek to gain favor with me by sparing one of my men when you could have killed him?” The gun rose to point at Gabriel. “You think I know mercy? That may have been the worst mistake you ever made, amigo…and the last.”

  Gabriel was ready to make an exhausted desperation leap at the bandit leader, but Cierra got between them.

  “Stop it!” she cried as she stood there trembling with anger, her fists clenched at her sides. “You murdering bastard! Do you want me to fight for our lives now? I’ll fight! I’ll fight anyone you say, and I promise you I won’t hold back from killing him!”

  Gabriel muttered, “Oh, hell.” But then he saw a sudden flare of recognition in Escalante’s eyes. A shadow spread slowly across the bandit leader’s craggy face.

  “My God,” Escalante murmured. “Cierra Almanzar.” He lowered his gun. “You know, I believe you would fight, at that.”

  Gabriel heard the metallic ratcheting of guns being cocked all around them.

  But then Escalante made another gesture, telling his men to hold their fire. He looked at Cierra and said, “Your father’s death, your poor mother…can you ever forgive me?”

  Then he put his arms around a shocked Cierra and held her as tenderly as if she were his own daughter as tears ran down his leathery cheeks.

  Chapter 15

  “I’ll never forget, even as a child you had that fiery temper,” Paco Escalante said. It was a short time later and he sat with Gabriel and Cierra on logs next to a campfire. Night had closed down completely over the mountainous jungle, but the flames kept a small part of the darkness at bay. Escalante went on, “That is how I finally knew who you were. I saw that temper on display more than once when I worked on your family’s plantation.”

  Despite the primitive setting, Escalante had a modern first-aid kit, and one of his men had crudely disinfected and bandaged the cuts left on Gabriel’s shoulders and legs by Tomás’s bullwhip, after first tending to Tomás’s own wounds.

  Escalante had given them food and drink, too, from their own provisions, which the bandits had appropriated from the back of the pickup in the name of the revolución.

  Gabriel didn’t know if they were still prisoners or not, and he wasn’t going to press the issue just yet. Not having guns pointed at them was already an improvement in their situation.

  Escalante went on, “Those were the good days, before everything went wrong.”

  “If you want my forgiveness, as you claim,” Cierra said, “you must tell me how my parents died.”

  Escalante nodded. “It was not at my hands, Cierra, this I swear. It was not my wish that any harm befall them. In fact, I didn’t even know about the raid on the plantation until it was too late to stop it. There was a member of my band, a lieutenant of mine, who was an ambitious man. He thought he should be el jefe, not me. He said that I was too gentle with the landowners, too weak to drive them out. So, while I was away negotiating with a man for some weapons, this lieutenant convinced the other men to go with him and attack the plantation. I returned too late to stop them. By the time I got there, your mother and father were…already dead. The buildings were in flames.”

  It was a touching story, Gabriel thought, but there was no way of knowing whether or not it was true.

  On the other hand, Escalante had spared their lives, and as far as Gabriel could see, the bandit leader had no reason to do that unless he really did want to make amends.

  “At first I didn’t believe that you had killed them,” Cierra said. “But then all the reports said that it was your men who attacked the plantation. I came to hate you for what you had done. What I thought you had done.”

  A pained expression crossed Escalante’s face. “For this, I am sorry, señorita. If I could go back and change things, I would. But this is a power granted to no man. The clock winds one way only.” He rested his hands on his knees. “Now, you must tell me why you and this man have come to Guatemala. You risk your lives traveling through this area—it must be a very important matter.”

  “We are trying to find out what happened to someone who disappeared in this region many years ago,” Cierra explained. “Many, many years ago. More than a hundred and forty.”

  “I am old, señorita,” Escalante said with a smile, “but I am not that old.”

  “He was an American,” Cierra went on. “A soldier, a general in the Confederate army during the American Civil War. His name was
Fargo.”

  Escalante shook his head. “I know nothing of this.”

  Cierra explained briefly about the general’s pilgrimage down from Mexico, although she didn’t mention the flags that were once again securely hidden under Gabriel’s shirt. When she was finished, Escalante nodded solemnly and said, “I remember hearing stories about this gringo warlord, but I never knew his name. You seek to find out what happened to him?”

  Cierra nodded. “That’s right.”

  “And others are trying to stop you?”

  “So it appears.” Cierra hesitated. “A man named Esparza, most likely.”

  “Vladimir Antonio de la Esparza?”

  “You’ve heard of him?” Gabriel said.

  “Just because we live in the rain forests and the mountain jungles does not mean we are completely cut off from the outside world, Señor Hunt. We hear news from time to time. Señor Esparza is a rich man, therefore a famous man.” Escalante frowned at Cierra. “He is also said to be a ruthless man.”

  “I think that is right, Paco,” she said. “He has tried several times already to have us killed.”

  “I would help you fight him,” Escalante declared, “as partial payment of the debt I owe you, but…” He lifted his hands and spread them. “Look around you. My men and I may fight like tigres, but we are gray now and there are not many of us left. I fear we would not be much help against a man such as Esparza.”

  “That’s all right,” Cierra said. “I’m just glad that I finally found out the truth, after all these years.”

  “Sí. And I can promise you safe passage through the mountains to wherever it is you are going.”

  “We haven’t quite figured that out yet,” Cierra admitted.

  “When you do, we will accompany you. In the mean-time, you can use the hut where you were kept earlier.”

  Gabriel wondered if that was the bandit leader’s way of telling them they were still prisoners.