Fulgencio waited by the pickup with El Chotay, as the judge—his heart sounding the cadence for his march—paraded once more up to the imposing hacienda with his entourage of uniformed soldiers all in green with machine guns poised over their shoulders.
After a short while, Fulgencio Ramirez spied them coming around the bend, marching in step with the judge, who brought up the rear. His heart sank to the salt-ridden dirt as he noticed that the men were carrying something in their midst, something small and limp, something much like the body of his dead godson.
The judge’s silence spoke in volumes, and the evasion in his eyes assured Fulgencio of just how little the law would do to help him now. He gritted his teeth as the somber troop approached, and he delicately slung the boy over his shoulder, noting that the apparent cause of his death had been the swift snapping of his neck.
“And the girl?” Fulgencio forced the words from his bitterly pursed lips.
“The old woman said she is still alive. El Johnny wants to keep her that way for his . . . needs,” the judge timidly replied. All the judge could do was shake his head and face the ground in shame at his impotence as Fulgencio’s pickup vanished into a swirling cloud of dust.
First, Fulgencio stopped by El Dos de Copas to pick up Brother William and have the Virgencita give the departed child her special blessing. La Virgencita told him to assure El Chino that his son was already in Heaven surrounded by angeles and santos. She cried a river of mud from her place on the wall as Fulgencio, Brother William, and El Chotay rode off with the innocent child’s broken body. El Chotay sat in the back while Brother William cradled the boy to protect his remains from the bumpiness of the speedy ride.
Neither spoke, but both understood: This was war. All bets were off. The time for thinking was over. The time for vengeance was at hand. It was not even necessary to vocalize the shared understanding that Elsa Alasan, El Chino’s daughter and Fulgencio’s goddaughter, was also a female descendant of La Bruja.
Twenty-Six
El Chino knew the instant he gazed into the desolate valley of Fulgencio’s eyes, that the time for cleverness and peace was behind them. Without a word, he discarded the empty tequila bottle onto his porch and summoned his men.
At sunset they gathered their horses in the clearing before El Chino’s simple wooden home. Fulgencio sat high in the saddle on Relámpago, while Brother William mounted Trueno. Brother William had donned his preferred fighting uniform, which he only wore when he knew he must do everything possible to inspire his teams with the absolute confidence that God was on their side. His black robes swirled in the blustering winds of night. And though he abstained from wielding a conventional weapon, he instead was proud to carry the banner of their cause, a long and ancient ceremonial cross of wrought silver, gleaming beneath the moonlight. Twenty souls all told, they rode like mad men resurrecting the crusades, Brother William holding the cross on high. Their silhouettes hunched forward over the necks of their steeds as they rushed, manes flowing, toward the looming shadows of El Pedregal. For the sake of silence and the advantage of surprise it held, they didn’t waste their shots on the sentries at the gate—they merely trampled over them with a flurry of merciless hooves. Blood and dust coating their horses, they descended upon the ancient house the Guerrero’s grandfather had first stolen from a dying cousin decades past. Shots rang out from the hacienda, whizzing by like pesky flies as the men reached the soaring walls of the forbidding structure.
Of the three criminal brothers, La Vaca, dumb and slow as the bovine creature for which he was named, was the first to die in the bare hands of a crazed El Chino Alasan. Screams of men and blasts of fire punctuated the night. The battle ensued in darkness, for all the lights had been extinguished in defense.
With the initial offensive surge, El Chino’s forces penetrated the compound, blowing the Guerreros’ henchmen from their frontal positions, scattering bodies left and right, and marching over their bloodied corpses in search of the remaining brothers.
Twisting necks, slashing throats with the bloodied dagger he clenched between his teeth as he fired the pistols in his hands, El Chino’s eyes illuminated his prey in a blinding, golden haze. He left a trail of destruction in his path as he worked his way through the house, calling out his daughter’s name in desperation, “¡Elsa! ¡Hija! ¡Elsa! ¿Donde estas?”
Furniture smashing. Windows shattering. The howls of dying men formed a chorus of dissonant demons lamenting death like pigs being gutted. Brother William sprayed holy water as he floated through the chaos, blessing the perished, praying over those in the final, lurching throes of death. Amidst the chaos, Fulgencio moved not with the frenzied passion of the enraged Chino, nor with the dogged loyalty of his foot soldiers and henchmen. No, no señor. He advanced with the meticulous precision and accuracy of a professional. Clean. Efficient. He risked his own safety to avoid firing his gun, choosing instead to use his fists, his boots, and even the butt of his weapon. He held the memory of Carolina in his mind, hoping it would either protect him or be his final vision before dying.
He also couldn’t help but think of El Chinito, whom he had played with years before on the drugstore floor on a crisp December day. El Chino and his wife had stopped by while doing their Christmas shopping in the downtown shops near La Farmacia Ramirez. Fulgencio had laughed from the counter high above, joking with his godson, delicately tossing a rubber ball from his massive hands into El Chinito’s tiny ones.
“It’s good he has a padrino I can trust to look after him,” El Chino had bellowed sincerely as he pounded Fulgencio on the back that day. “Maybe he’ll follow your example and graduate from college someday. He’d be the first Alasan to do so.”
That had not been El Chinito’s destiny, Fulgencio regretted sourly, plunging through the maelstrom of the firestorm raging around him. He hadn’t made it. But Elsa still had a chance. And now it was her fate that still hung in the balance. It was Elsa whom Fulgencio sought out with every calculated step he took through the cavernous and labyrinthine house. In the utter blackness of the maze, he saw everything in muted shades of green, as if his eyes had suddenly been transformed into sophisticated night vision binoculars.
With the memory of his godson lingering in his mind, he found La Abuela Guerrero, rosary clutched in skeletal hands, kneeling before a giant cross in her monastic cell of a room. One blast, right between her vacant orbs, could have ended her life. But instead, Fulgencio lifted the woman up deliberately. The candles she had ignited all fluttered out in preparation for her soul to flee her corporeal body and rush toward the pending gates of hell.
Fulgencio’s snarling lips curled up against the withered woman’s ear as he whispered menacingly, “Tell me where Elsa Alasan is. And I will let you live.”
“She is with my son, El Johnny,” La Abuela Guerrero answered. “Follow me.”
When he set her back down on the floor, she led him down a shadowy corridor, at the end of which she pointed to a barricaded door.