The Crossings by Jack Ketchum Read Free Book Online

somewhere else and go back and kill them until they kill me or else I will have my sister."
    I don't think any of us knew what to say to that.
    We just thought about it a while and passed the bottle.
    "Out of curiosity, miss," Hart said finally. "How many you going up against?"
    "Twelve, maybe fifteen and the three sisters. Unless there are buyers. There may very well be buyers. They began to clean us up the night before I left. In that case more. I would not know how many."
    "Guards?"
    "Only one. The settlement is in a canyon, hills north, south and west. They do not think they need more than one on the eastern side and a sentry on each hill. Though the guard from the night before last will still have a very bad headache, I think."
    "Who are these buyers, exactly?" Mother asked.
    "Brothel owners mostly. But also private clients, who are worse. The buyers don't matter. The one I kill first is Paddy Ryan."
    "You mentioned that gentleman before, ma'am. Nasty sonovabitch with a letter D branded on his cheek, am I right?"
    She nodded. Mother turned to me.
    "Only thing in this godforsaken territory bigger and meaner than me. Hell, you probably wrote about him, Bell, and don't remember. Ryan was at Churubusco, one of those saintly Irish Catholic bastards from the San Patricio Battalion who went over to the Mex side. Damn near stopped old Scott in his tracks, too. And one of just seven who lived to tell about it. That D is for deserter, ma'am."
    "I do remember him now. 'Course I do. At the court-martial not one soul would speak up against him."
    "Would you? How could you be sure they'd hang him for you?"
    I also remembered being told just a while ago that Hart had lost a brother at Churubusco. As Mother said, the deserters nearly turned the tide there. I wondered how he felt about that. Looking at him you couldn't say.
    "So Ryan's pimping now," he said. "Found his god at last."
    "I think he has many gods now," said Elena. "Not just money."
    "How's that?"
    "The sisters...they worship the Old Ones. Ryan does too, in his way."
    "And who would these Old Ones be?"
    "The old gods of Mexico. Quetzalcoatl , the Plumed Serpent. Tezcatlipoca , god of the moon and of the night. The sun god Huitzilopochtli . Tlazolteotl , Eater of Filth. Xipe , Lord of the Flayed. The old gods teach obedience. They teach resignation to the laws of earth and sky. Blood for bounty, blood for rain. Once the land oppressed us. Now men do. It is the same. For many of my people the Old Ones have never died. Why would they?"
    In the sounds of these names I recognized the language I had heard her use last night by the fire — and felt the same chill at hearing it spoken again here. She'd told us of her father, a simple farmer. But I wondered who her mother had been and what terrible wisdom she'd imparted to her daughter.
    "I told you of Ryan and the child at Garanta del Diablo. But I have seen worse."
    "Like what?" said Hart.
    "I have seen how my sister will die if she resists them. How she may already be dying. Because they will take their time. They always do."
    We waited for more. But it wasn't forthcoming.
    "Will you give me the horse and rifle?" she said.
    We looked at one another across the fire.
    "Mother?" Hart said. "It's your horse."
    "It's your rifle," Mother said.
    They nodded to her and handed her the whiskey and this time she drank.

    At sunrise we watched her saddle up and ride away. Watched until she was no more than a speck on the long empty horizon.
    "You sure she don't remind you of somebody?" Mother said.
    Hart twirled his dice awhile longer and then turned and dumped his coffee onto the fire.
    "Damn you, Mother," he said.

NINE

    We caught up to her as she crested a hill overlooking the Colorado.
    If she was happy to see us you'd not have known it.

    We made our crossing.
    We'd been lucky with the lack of rainfall of late so that there wasn't much current but Suzie and the other horses were pretty nearly swimming through the middle of it, hooves