William Johnstone - A Good Day to Die

Sam eyed the fountain longingly. Hot, tired, and thirsty, he wanted nothing so much as to empty a jug of cool, clear water over his head. He resisted the temptation.

Rounding the basin, the trio followed a long, straight, flagged path leading to the entrance of the hacienda. The towering structure loomed over them as they neared it. Lydia followed close on Sam’s heels. Vasquez knocked on the front door. It was opened by a servant woman.

“I’ll leave you here, gringo. Hasta la vista, ” Vasquez said.

“See you,” Sam said. He and Lydia stepped inside. The high front hall with tiled floors was cool. Closing the door, the servant turned and went deeper into the house, gesturing for Sam and Lydia to follow, murmuring, “ Por favor. ”

They went down a long hall with white-painted stuccoed walls showing dark brown wooden rafter beams and beam-ends. The walls were hung with spiky, ornate crucifixes and somber portrait paintings in elaborate gilded frames. The portraits were so dark with age their subjects could barely be made out. An unlit iron chandelier hung on a chain from the ceiling.

Lydia said in a hushed voice, “It’s like a palace.”

“In its way, it is,” Sam agreed.

The servant paused at the entrance of the great hall. “Señor Diego will see you now, señor. There are some refreshments prepared for the señorita. If she would be so good as to accompany me?”

Lydia grabbed Sam’s arm. “I want to stay with you.”

“It’s all right. I won’t be long,” Sam said.

Lydia, unhappy and suspicious, allowed him to persuade her to go with the servant woman. She led Lydia down a side passage toward the rear of the house.

“Try not to shoot anybody,” Sam called after her, only half joking.

A manservant appeared at the threshold of the hall’s rounded archway, motioning for Sam to enter. Sam followed him into the grand hall, a spacious, chamber two stories high. Stone pillars were set at regular intervals along whitewashed walls. Brightly colored woven tapestries and woolen blankets were hung as decorations. The long west wall was pierced by a row of tall, slender windows with peaked tops.

In the grand hall were Diego Castillo and Lorena Castillo Delgado.

Diego was the sole surviving scion of the Castillo bloodline. Age thirty, tall, slim, and elegant, he looked every inch the grandee, imperious and arrogant. He wore custom-tailored clothes with expensive decorative lace at the throat and cuffs, and imported boots of hand-tooled Cordovan leather.

His father, Don Eduardo Castillo, was the patron, the master of Rancho Grande. Thus Diego must remain “Señor Diego,” able to assume the honorific “Don Diego” only upon the death of his father. Don Eduardo enjoyed excellent health; a fact Sam guessed gave little pleasure to his impatient, ambitious son.

Lorena Castillo, born Lorena Delgado, was the childless widow of Don Eduardo’s firstborn son. Originally from Mexico she lived at the ranch. She was dark with bold good looks and a sensational physique.

Masses of black hair fell past her shoulders, framing a wide, sculpted bronze face with wide brown eyes, and a full-lipped red slash of a mouth. She was garbed in a bolero jacket, starched white blouse, and tan riding breeches tucked into knee-high brown leather boots. She was smoking a small, thin black cigarillo and held a pumpkin glass of brandy.

She was a willful, passionate woman. Sam wanted to trust her. He trusted few women and fewer men. Diego he trusted not at all.

The manservant ushered in the newcomer, Diego dismissing him with a few words. Nodding acknowledgment of Sam’s presence, Diego smiled thinly. “Ah, Señor Heller. Once again you grace us with your company.”

He spoke excellent English. His and Lorena’s English was a lot better than Sam’s smattering of Spanish.

“The pleasure is all mine, señor,” said Sam.

“A sublime thrill, Lorena, no?” Diego murmured.

“No.” Lorena shrugged, taking a sip of brandy, content for now to let Diego do the talking.

“You must forgive my father Don Eduardo for not being here to greet you in person. A slight indisposition has confined him to his bedchamber, alas,” Diego said.

“Nothing serious, I hope,” Sam said.

“Not at all, thank you. I am sure he will make a full recovery presently.”

Presently? Most likely as soon as I leave, thought Sam, remembering the Don hated Anglos.

In the assumption that all Anglos were eager to rob him of his vast holdings, Don Eduardo was far from mistaken. His ownership, well documented by deeds, titles and Spanish land grants, was upheld by a small army of well-armed, hard-riding pistoleros. It was a signal mark of favor that an Anglo such as Sam Heller was even allowed under the Castillo roof.

Sam had rendered the family several important services in the past and might again in future, so the patriarch allowed him into the hacienda, while shunning direct contact with him, letting such encounters be carried out by his son and daughter-in-law.

“Señora Castillo,” Sam said, “I regret we’re not meeting under happier circumstances.”

“Always a happiness to host a friend of Rancho Grande,” Lorena said diffidently. “We saw your arrival through the window. The young one who was with you, who is she?”

“A friend, Lydia Fisher. A brave girl.” Sam briefly outlined the circumstances that had thrown them together on the plateau and afterward. Diego smiled politely throughout his narrative. Lorena alternated puffs on her slim dark cigarillo with sips of brandy.

“A most remarkable account,” Diego said when Sam had finished. “Yes, remarkable indeed.”

“And every word of it is true,” Sam said.

“Oh, I don’t doubt that you crossed paths with some Comanche bravos. Since the end of the great war between your North and South, the savages have become emboldened, once more venturing on their old raiding trails. We have heard of packs of them striking out on the Llano. Some band or two may even be in the county, but surely not in the numbers you claim.”

“Looks like the Rancho’s getting ready to fight—and a good thing, too,” Sam commented.

“That is none of my doing, I assure you. My father Don Eduardo has a long memory. The days of his adventurous youth, when the Comanche often tried their strength against the ranchero, is still fresh in his mind. He takes the path of greater caution. It was his order that the ranch be made ready in case of attack.” Diego made a show of smiling tolerantly, as if amused and indulgent of the oldster’s foibles. “In all honesty, I confess I do not share his alarm and in his place I would have done differently.”

“I thought you might feel that way. Seeing is believing.” Sam set the gun case flat on a drum-shaped side table to free his hands and unrolled the dark garment he’d brought with him, holding an end in both hands and letting it fall free in front of him. It smelled of sweat, smoke, and blood. “Take a look.”

Diego’s finely formed nostrils quivered in delicate disgust, expressing repugnance. Fascinated, Lorena moved closer for a better look. “What is it?”

“It belonged to the Comanche known as Black Robe. I took it off his dead body not long ago. He took it off a priest he killed. The story of how he got it is well known throughout the West. I reckon word of it might even have reached inside Rancho Grande,” Sam said dryly.

The macabre trophy, with its elaborate beadwork, fringe, and other trimmings, was a masterpiece of barbaric splendor. His pose of supercilious hauteur temporarily forgotten, Diego stared at it despite himself. Lorena eyed it with awe and unease.

“If you don’t believe me, ask Vasquez or any of the vaqueros—I’m sure they know the story. They’ll tell you that Black Robe is the lieutenant of Red Hand, the fiercest Comanche war chief in the territory. Red Hand, Mano Rojo. I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”