Читать книгу Dead Men Don't Lie - Jackson Cain - Страница 18

Chapter 8

When Richard came to, he was flat on his back on an iron cot in the Sonoran rurales’ stockade. His head throbbed unbearably, and his pulse was hammering audibly in the high hundreds, as if someone were inside his skull, banging a gong or a bass drum. His cell was small, and the door was open. Security was obviously lax. Outside at a table, three bearded, uniformed guards sat smoking cigars, playing cards, and drinking what looked to be tequila. One of the card-players made eye contact with Richard and shouted:

“Ey, Mateo, Sleeping Beauty just opened his eyes.”

Major Mateo Cardozo entered. He paused to take a swig from the neck of a mezcal bottle.

“Young Ricardo, you took some nap there. You must have been tired.”

“How long was I out?” Richard asked.

“A dozen hours.”

“Feels like you ran my head through a hammer mill.”

“My fault. I gotta be more careful swinging with cuarta’s buttstock.”

“Maybe it’s just your nature to break skulls.”

“Just so!” Mateo roared with laughter. “But here, I got something for your pain, something to put hair on your chest.” He handed Richard the mezcal bottle. “Take a good swig. Muy bueno for the cojones too. Make you mucho hombre [much man] .”

Richard needed something. He took a swig and almost spit it out. It burned both his throat and his stomach; still he kept it down. Within a few minutes, however, his head felt better.

“My young amigo,” Major Mateo said, “we got off to a bad start, and I wanna make it up to you. You will see I am not uno hombre malo [a bad man] . I don’t want you to spend your life in this brig, not even in the rurales. I just want you to join us for a little while. Ey, you can move into the officers’ quarters. You teach me how to make gunpowder for his artillery, then show me how to load, aim, and figure the tra-jec-to-ries of them puta guns. When we no need you, you can leave and go back to Gringo Land.”

“You want help with your howitzers?”

“Those chingo-tu-madre howitzers.”

“What makes them so important?”

“Sonora’s the only state in Mexico left that can stand up to Sinaloa—to Díaz and the Señorita. They stomp all over everyone else.”

“So those two are as bad as everyone says?”

“Those two are demonios del infierno [fiends from hell] . They torture and dismember people for laughs, and so far only we can stop them.”

“It’s not my fight.”

“It’s everybody’s fight, mi amigo. If they get past us, your home—wherever that is—will be next.”

Richard nodded, silently noting that he and his sister—wherever she was—were of the same opinion.

“And if you do help us,” Mateo said, “you will be given mucho dinero, and even more important, you know what?”

“¿Tequila y buenas mujeres?” [“Tequila and beautiful women?”] Richard asked with mocking derision.

“And something much, much better—¡libertad! [freedom!]”

“And if I say no?”

Mateo gave Ricardo his widest, most charming smile. “My young compadre, that is not a possibility you wish to contemplate. All our survivals are at stake, yours too. If we do not make those guns work, we will all suffer the tortures of the damned and die a thousand times.”

“We will suffer a Sinaloan Inquisition?”

“I will, but not you. You, young muchacho? I will see you die a thousand times long before I do. I will see to it personally.” For once Mateo wasn’t smiling.