And arrived on a warm June morning.
John Samuel wakes to blastings of gunfire, cries of panic and anguish, lunatic howling. He fumbles for his spectacles and goes to the window and opens the shutters to a daybreak vision of apocalypse. Horsemen amok in the plaza, shooting people, hacking them, throwing torches through windows, onto rooftops. Sees more of them in the courtyard below. The bloody bodies of casa grande servants. There are crashings downstairs, gunshots, terrified cries. Hard thumpings of boots in the hallway. His door bangs open and he stands stricken as men of wild aspect rush in, one hollering, Don’t kill the fucker, don’t kill him, the chief said! He is grabbed by each arm and propelled from the room unshod and in his nightshirt, pulled stumbling down the stairs, his thin gray hair disheveled, skinny legs flashing with each flap of his nightshirt. He sees draperies afire, broken furniture burning, white-eyed mounts stamping through the salon and down the hallways. Then out into the burning compound hazed with smoke and strident with the cries of the dying, the maimed. Women wailing over the dead and in desperate attendance to the wounded. The shooting now reducing to sporadic reports. He is yanked along to the plaza fountain where Bruno Tomás 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 mamá se llamó Katrina Ávila. ¿Te acuerdas de ella?”
John Samuel sees the madness in the man’s eyes. “Katrina Ávila?” 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 Tomás. 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 Río 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 patrón.
It’s a deal. Where are the letters?
How do I know you won’t kill the patrón 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.