The driver.
Carter was no language expert, but he knew a little of the local dialect, and Cubanez had taught him more in their short time together.
The driver had definitely spoken Spanish, but it suddenly hit Carter that it was neither the local dialect nor even decent peasant Spanish.
It was Mexican Spanish.
And then he remembered the huaraches… Mexican peasant shoes.
If a Mexican wanted comfortable footwear to do a big job, he might very well wear what he was most accustomed to…
Carter ripped the Velcro all the way and filled his hand with the Luger. At the same time, he lurched to the right, out of the chair, and rolled in the air.
The young driver, a toothy grin spreading his mahogany face, stood in the bar's doorway. His arms were straight out from his body, his hand holding an already barking.357.
The magnum's slugs made kindling out of the chair back Carter had just vacated.
Carter's back hit the porch just as Wilhelmina exploded. It threw his aim off slightly, but it was still a hit.
The slug thudded into the guy's left hip bone, spinning him around. He hit the wall belly first, staining a good chunk of the faded whitewash with his gore before turning again for a second try at the rolling figure.
Carter squeezed off two rounds: one dead center into the guy's gut, the other a head shot.
The magnum flew from his hands as if on invisible strings, and he was flattened against the wall. He was faceless and his belly was belching blood.
Carter rolled to his belly on the porch, the Luger in his outstretched hands.
All hell had busted loose around him.
Three gunmen had erupted from the bed of the pickup. They all held barking semiautomatic rifles. Their fire was witheringly directed at Hubanyo and Mendez, but most of it was doing nothing more than making scrap out of the Ford.
Carter look in all the rest of the dusty scene in a split second.
The eight monks were each on one knee. From beneath their robes they had produced everything from Brownings to.357s.
Hubanyo had wrestled Mendez three-quarters of the way to the buildings, so they were out of the monks' line of fire.
The two deputies and the bodyguard had not been so lucky.
The uniformed man lay next to the Ford, his body cut nearly in half. One of the two deputies had made it back to the speaker's platform, where he now lay throwing a little fire — when he could raise his head — toward the pickup. The other deputy had been hit in the right leg and was under the Ford, partially shielded by the front wheels.
He wouldn't last long. Carter thought.
It had all happened fast. Maybe ten seconds. And it was happening faster.
Cubanez had already opened up on the monks, dropping two of them with fast fire from the Galil. The others were hustling to positions behind the stores and nearby rocks.
The three in the rear of the pickup had been so intent on trying to nail Mendez that they had not noticed that their buddy had failed to waste the Americano on the porch.
Carter dived through the door of the bar and scuttled across the large room. Near the rear he found a window. When it would not open, he kicked it out, frame and all, with his booted foot.
He dived through, headfirst. Hitting the dust with his shoulder, he rolled and came up on his feet like a cat, the Luger ready to blow hell out of whomever its dark, deadly snout could find.
Through the windshield and the rear window of the truck, he could see them. All three were still intent on the square.
Carter was halfway to the truck when one of them rolled over the bed and headed for the cab.
His intent was obvious; he would move the pickup out and make it a rolling tank.
He saw Carter just as he stepped on the running board. He was toting an M-16, but he saw his executioner too late to bring it into play.
In mid-stride Carter pumped two from the Luger into his chest. Cloth ripped, blood spread, and the slugs exited, fanning the air behind with flesh.
He had barely toppled out of sight when Carter leaped up onto the hood. His belly hit, and his legs curled. The heavily ridged soles of his boots caught, and he was lying belly-out across the roof.
He fanned Wilhelmina from left to right, sending 9mm steel jackets into the backs of their skulls.
One quick eyeball gave him the situation.
Fire was still coming from behind the rocks to the side of the stores. The monks there could not fire into the front doors and windows, but they could keep anybody inside from coming out.
Cubanez was doing a good job of keeping them pinned down with his Model 12.
Firing from the rear of the stores told Carter that the rest of the monks were around there, probably massing for an assault on the rear door.
The two men he had just sent to hell had been firing an Enfield and an old Garand.
Leathering the Luger, he jackknifed off the roof and slid into the cab.
The old engine coughed and sputtered a couple of times but finally caught. When Carter was sure it was running — and would stay that way — he floored it and jammed the shift into first.
The alley was narrow. So much so that, deeper in, the fenders scraped the sides of adobe huts. Steel screamed against hard-packed mud, but Carter did not let up.
He shifted, closed his ears to the engine's screams of protest, and burst into the open at the rear of the bar.
Two hard rights brought him to another alley that led him back to the front of the bar and the square.
Again the alley was too narrow. A fender let go with a piercing shriek of metal and flew over the top of the cab.
The nose of the old truck had barely cleared the front of the alley when slugs from behind the rocks stitched the windshield.
Shattered glass sprayed across Carter's chest and shoulders but did little harm. He was already lying prone across the seat, one foot to the floor, one hand driving toward the jeep from memory.
When he was sure he had cleared the other vehicle by at least a few feet, he cranked the truck around, lifted his foot from the accelerator, and stomped the brake with both feet.
Tricky? Yes, but he had walked the ground for hours that morning and figured he could gauge the distance from memory.
The old pickup teetered on its nose and then two wheels. Just as it started to go over, Carter gave it up.
He slithered, belly down, out the passenger side. His right hand partially broke his fall just before he tucked, rolled, and came up in a crouch.
Not perfect, but close.
The truck, now on its side, upper wheels still spinning crazily, blocked all of the jeep except a bit of its rear end.
But he would have to hurry. The monks behind the rocks were zeroing in, obviously reading his plans and trying for the jeep's tires.
Once in the seat, Carter unearthed the Model 12 and fired up the engine.
"Amigo…!"
Cubanez's voice reached him through the sound of gunfire from across the street. He was partially leaning out a side window, away from the slugs coming from behind the rocks.
"Did Hubanyo and Mendez make it?" Carter shouted.
"Affirmative! They are in the hardware store… it is the one in the center!"
Carter nodded. "How many left?"
"Near as I can tell, five. Two behind those rocks, three behind the store."
"Cover me!"
Cubanez gave a thumbs-up sign and disappeared.
Carter roared back down the alley he had just come up with the truck. Once through, he cranked left and gave the little machine all it could take. He went on by the alley where the truck had been originally parked and kept turning.
Soon he was beyond the village shacks and bouncing crazily over open country. When he was a good thousand yards from the village, he banked left and began to climb.
Rocks, ruts, and generally rough terrain gave the jeep hell, but eventually Carter came out on the road that led back into the village.