Salomon 4 by David Xavier

Author:David Xavier
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Bucklebury Books
Published: 2015-08-13T04:00:00+00:00

Vicente Valderez had become a busy scout under Major Esquibel, volunteering for many more patrols than was necessary. With five soldiers, the outpost at San Javier could be nothing more than a surveillance base and a supply station for larger patrols, the second of which had it stocked with gunpowder and musketballs, flour and cornmeal rations, and a few horses standing idle in a small corral. It required a constant guard of three soldiers at all times, which meant only two scouts went on patrol in different directions, unless the depot was empty of supplies, which had happened only twice since Vicente had arrived.

Before each patrol, Vicente rode into San Javier and stood with the law officers and looked over the names and charges of roaming bandits.

“The mind of a bandit is one that never rehabilitates,” the policia officer told Vicente with one arm around his shoulder. “Once a murderer, always a murderer.”

“Even if he was a good man underneath? Even if it was not his fault for the life that happened to him?”

“Then whose fault would it be?”

“If it was not his, I mean.”

“He is still guilty, is he not?” The officer pointed to his temple. “It is up here always. That mindset can flip at any time. At the worst time.”

“Even if you know the person had no choice?”

The officer looked at Vicente. He then pointed to a name on the ledger. “You see this man, here. He murdered a man and his wife and child as they slept. You know why he did it? Neither do we. Neither does anybody. As far as anyone knew the two men were friends and were seen together often. What sort of man has a drink with his friend, then kills him the next night? You are asking me if behavior like this changes because a man says it is so?”

Vicente stayed silent.

“I am not saying there are no second chances in life,” the policia officer said. “But I will say this. I would not let my mother sit at a table with a man who committed murder. Would you?”

Vicente blinked over the names and crimes. “No.”

Nights at the military outpost were too hot for sleep, even for the bugs that crawled the walls and the gnats that clouded the rooms in dozens or buzzed in sleeping ears. Once awake it was impossible to fall asleep again, and staring at his ceiling, an occasional swat the only indication of life, Vicente could hear the men in other rooms swing their legs off their cots and sigh in frustration. Even the animals whinnied against the heat across the yard. It was a battle every night to find a comfortable position where not only the body could relax, but the mind could shut off.

So it was one night where Vicente was laying in his undergarments, his skin glowing blue with starlit sweat, willing himself to sleep, that a sigh from another room, though louder than normal and filled with surprise, did not startle him.

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