the Wrath of God (1990) by Higgins Jack

Author:Higgins, Jack [Higgins, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-03-16T14:28:17+00:00

"Of course." She leaned back in the seat and said, with an abrupt change of course, "Father van Horne is a remarkable man, don't you agree?"

"I'm afraid I don't know him well enough to make that kind ofjudgment. But he looks the kind of man who could survive most things."

"As do you, senor." She touched the silver amulet around my neck briefly. "A strange thing for a man like you to wear. May I ask where you acquired it?"

"A gift," I said. "From a good friend."

Her eyebrows went up, she seemed to withdraw from me if I can put it so, but in this they were all the same, pure blood or mestizo, they despised the Indian. In some way, I suppose, she looked upon me as contaminated.

"Did I detect a sudden frost?" Janos enquired as I took the Mercedes back along the track.

I turned, touching the amulet briefly. "My impression is that I've let the side down."

"I'm afraid so," he said. "In Texas or Arizona they would call you squaw man and ride you out of town on a rail, one of the more civilized contributions that great nation has made to Western culture. Would you enjoy living in the Wind River country, Keogh?"

"I can't say, never having been there."

"I have visited the fringes only when I first came to this country. It is not like your Ireland, I assure you. A savage, sterile place. A nightmare landscape of mesas and buttes, lava beds and twisted forests of stone. Life there would be a struggle most days of the week."

"It sounds interesting," I said, humoring him.

"The Apache are known as the enemy of all men," he said. "Yet they fear the Yaqui. For over four hundred years, since Spain first claimed these lands, they have fought the invader and with considerable success, I might add. For many years the government, in despair, attempted a policy of extermination. A cruel and barbaric people, Keogh. They mutilate the bodies of their enemies."

"I've seen men maimed just as effectively with a Mills bomb." I rammed my foot hard down on the brake as a horseman cantered over a rise to the left and reined in his mount in the middle of the road.

I knew who he was instantly for there was no one else it could be. He sat there, slim and erect in the saddle, black jacket and tight-fitting black trousers, not a silver button in sight to relieve his somber appearance. The face beneath the black sombrero was the face of a ravaged saint, an Anthony burned through to the bone by the heat of the wilderness. The pale blue eyes were quite empty. No love, no cruelty either. Nothing.

He said calmly, "Tomas de la Plata at your orders, gentlemen."

"At yours, senor," Janos gave him back. "My name is . . ."

"I know who you are, just as I know why you are here. This dream of my father's, an old man's foolishness, is this not so?"

On first sight he

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