Chapter 15
Later that night, they left the church on foot.
The three of them moved through the back streets of San Vicente in the dark, Ruiz leading, Will behind him, Isum covering the rear.
Ruiz walked the way he had walked in the cantina, with a deliberate care that made almost no sound on the packed dirt.
Will matched his pace. Isum moved as he always moved at night, which was as close to silent as a man could get.
The road to Ciénega del Norte was empty. The desert around it was very dark and very quiet. The stars overhead were the kind that appeared when there were no lamps to compete with them, and they gave enough light to see the road and the shapes of the brush on either side and not much else.
It was two miles. They walked it in half an hour.
The town was dark. A dog barked once from somewhere on the far side of the square and then went quiet. A lamp burned in one window of the cantina but the cantina itself was closed.
They went around the south side of the block and came up the alley behind the jail.
Ruiz stopped at the back of the jail and pointed at Will's boot.
Will understood. He pulled his boot knife and passed it handle-first to Ruiz, who took it without a word and turned to the door.
The gap at the top was exactly where Ruiz had described it, a dark slot above the warped frame.
Ruiz worked the blade in slowly, angling it upward, feeling for the iron bar.
It took perhaps two minutes. There was a soft scrape of metal and the bar shifted in its bracket.
The door swung open an inch.
Isum put his hand on Will's arm and stepped past him as they'd decided beforehand.
The guardroom was dark except for a candle stub guttering on the table.
Pacheco was in his chair against the left wall, chin on his chest, rifle leaning where Ruiz had said it would lean.
He was breathing in the deep slow rhythm of a man three hours into a hard sleep.
Isum crossed the room in four steps, lifted the rifle from the wall with both hands and carried it back to Will at the door without Pacheco stirring.
Will passed the rifle to Ruiz and went in. He saw the key to the cells on a hook and took it.
The cells were through a second door at the back of the guardroom. Will lifted the latch and pushed it open and went down the short corridor with his hand along the wall. Four cells, two on each side. The far right cell was the last on his left.
A figure was on its feet at the bars before Will reached it. Del Cole had heard the back door, as Ruiz said he would.
He was thinner than Will had ever seen him.
Six weeks of jail food and damp air had taken something from his face, and there was a hollowness around his eyes that would take months of Elena's cooking to undo.
But he was standing, and his grip on the cell bars was steady.
When he recognized Will in the dark his expression did not collapse into relief.
"Took you long enough," Del said quietly.
Will gave a quiet chuckle. "How was I to know you'd get thrown in jail your second week down here?" Will whispered.
Will opened the cell door and Del walked out. He moved slowly but he moved under his own power, which was all Will needed to know.
They went back through the guardroom. Pacheco slept on. Isum was waiting at the back door and handed Del his jacket, his gunbelt and rifle. Del strapped on the gunbelt before slipping on his coat.
They stopped at the back door, and Ruiz used the knife on the closed door to move the bar back into place.
He whispered, "When Pacheco awakes, his prisoner will be gone, and he'll wonder how it ever happened. And Fuentes will be outraged."
"Will he send a message to Vega?"
"No doubt he will," Ruiz said. "But first, he'll mount a search before admitting to the patrón that the prisoner has escaped."
"Okay, that should give us the day before we slip into Hacienda Vega."
Will nodded as Ruiz returned his boot knife, and they all moved down the alley single file, Ruiz again leading, then Del, then Will, then Isum.
The alley ran south to where it opened onto the dry arroyo, just as Morales had described it.
They turned north along the arroyo bed, moving fast now, the gravel loose under their boots.
Ruiz kept the pace steady. Del fell behind a little and they waited for him.
At the north end of the arroyo the road cut west toward the hills. Ruiz stopped there and turned.
"This is where I was paid to bring you," he said.
Isum reached into his coat and produced the second half of Ruiz's money and handed it over. Ruiz pocketed it and looked at Del and then at Will.
"We appreciate all you've done," Will said. "More work tomorrow night."
Ruiz nodded, turned and walked back the way they had come, and the dark took him.
The three marshals walked west along the road toward the hills. After a few minutes Del said, without breaking stride, "Elena and Carlos."
"Hacienda Vega. They're well. Elena knows we're coming."
"How many men?"
"Enough. We have help on the inside."
Del absorbed this. He walked steadily beside Will, breathing with some effort but not stopping.
"Tonight?" he asked.
"Tomorrow night. You need food and a few hours on a real bed. Then we go." Del did not argue.
Isum dropped back a step and walked on Del's other side, and they made the two miles back to San Vicente in the dark without speaking much more, the three of them together the way they had been in three other states and on two other occasions when someone had needed pulling out of a hole.
Morales was awake and had food on the table when they came in through the back.
Del ate three bowls of bean soup and half a loaf of Morales' bread before he slowed down. He ate without apology and without rushing, working through it steadily the way a man eats when the food is good and his body needs it.
Morales refilled his bowl without comment. Isum sat across from him and drank coffee. Will leaned against the door frame and let Del eat.
When Del finally set down the spoon he looked across at Will.
"Tell me about Vega."
"I went out there," Will said, "told him I was a cattle buyer.
Got me in to talk to him. Told him I was a friend of yours and you were not a horse thief.
Said I'd come to escort Elena and Carlos back to the United States.
He wouldn't let them go, wouldn't let me see her.
He's a man used to wielding power, but by himself he's nothing but a plotter.
He's about fifty maybe, about five-seven, something like that.
He looks old and tired." Will then told what Morales had said, and what Lupita had added.
Del listened with his hands flat on the table, not interrupting.
"Eighteen years," he said.
"That's how long he's been holding this torch for your wife."
"Elena never told me about Vega. Not all of it."
"Can't blame her. She thought she'd left it behind her."
Del nodded slowly. "The guard on the east wing staircase. Ortega."
"Lupita is getting to him tomorrow morning. She believes he'll stand down for two hundred. I gave her the money."
"How many vaqueros between the gate and the east wing door?"
"Forty varas of open courtyard. Two men at the gate until midnight, one after. No interior patrol after nine."
"How much is a vara?" Del asked. "I forget."
"A little less than a yard," Will said. "Not enough difference to worry about."
"So we go after midnight."
"Yeah, Lupita said the blue door faces the courtyard, right side of the gate when you come in. Elena said she'd be listening. Oh, and I have a note she sent." Will handed Del the note.
Del read it slowly and was quiet. He picked up the coffee Morales had set beside him and held it in both hands.
"How is she?" he said.
"Composed," Will said. "Lupita said she treats Vega with frigid formality. She never initiates conversation, and when Vega asks a question, he gets an answer of one or two words. She gives him nothing."
"That's my wife."
"Carlos too. Hasn't cried in front of Vega once. Acts just like his mother. When Vega asks a question of him, he looks to Elena who answers for him."
Something moved through Del's face and then was gone. He set down the coffee.
"Carlos is six years old." Del was still for a moment. "He shouldn't be put through this." Then he pushed back from the table and stood up.
"How many guns at the hacienda?"
"I'd estimate ten to twelve armed men on the grounds at any given time, but there are many more who work the rancho. All of them are vaqueros with rifles, not soldiers. Fuentes and his Rurales are in town, not at the hacienda."
"Fuentes," Del said. The word had a particular flatness to it.
"Fuentes is a separate problem. Tonight we focus on your family."
Del looked at Will and then at Isum. "You two walked into that jail in the dark and walked out with me. Now you're going back into a hacienda that has a dozen armed men."
Isum laughed, "Hell, boy, we've done sump'm like that a dozen times or more."
"I'm going with you."
"You're in no condition," Will said.
"I can shoot and I can ride. That's condition enough."
Will looked at him. Del was thin and hollow-eyed and had been in a damp, poorly ventilated cell for six weeks, but Will had known Del Cole long enough to know that this particular argument was over.
"You take the horses," Will said. "You're the one who gets them all out and rides north when we bring them through the gate. You don't come inside the walls."
Del thought about it. "Alright."
"Get some sleep. We leave at just after dark."
Del went to the room Morales had given him, and Will heard the bed creak once and then nothing. He was asleep inside a minute.
Will and Isum sat with Morales at the table and went over the plan three more times until there was nothing left to add or change.
At the end, Will looked at him. "You're different from most priests I know."
Morales smiled, "Maybe, but I value justice, and when I have to work to achieve justice, I'm willing to do it."
"We're glad you are, and we're thankful for your help."