Author's Note: Okay, so I lied. I will post just this one more chapter and then no more until I am done. I didn't expect to be able to finish one so quickly, but I did, so wala, here it is.
One warning—there is a slightly higher level of violence and violent imagery in this chapter, so it is definitely a PG-13 section.
Domingo pulled at the chains binding him to the wall, frowning as they clinked in the darkness.
"Can't anyone make them stop?"
It was one of the newer ones—Benito, he thought. A good man, steady in a fight, but young. Young enough to voice his fear, to put a name on the sound of wood sawing in the dark.
"Don't listen to it." Another voice in the darkness. Pedroso this time.
"I can't. It's so loud. Do they have to make it so loud?"
Pedroso's voice rumbled again, too quiet to make out the words, and Benito fell silent again.
Domingo pulled on his chains again, but no use. They would never stretch far enough for him to look out, not that it would do any good, with little but the blackness of the night filling his window.
It didn't matter. He needed neither reach nor dawn's light to know what it was they were building out there in the square.
Another sound of distress, the urgent sound of half-remembered prayer, broke through the muffling stillness of the prison.
He cursed the alcalde, silently renewing his vow. They were good boys, solid, loyal for their line of work, good in a tight spot or around a pinched bottle of rum. The sound of sawing grew louder. The boys didn't deserve to listen to this, didn't deserve to have to lie here in the dark, knowing what they were doing out there. But his boys were too far away for him to offer comfort, or even the solidarity of his presence.
De Soto had planned well.
"If they do not stop we will lose our chance," said Esteban, the cell's only other occupant.
"No," Domingo said lowly, "they know if they continue long enough it will lose its effectiveness. Left alone in the dark, knowing what's out there, a man can scare up a lot better torture on his own."
Esteban shifted, his own chains clanging slightly.
Domingo listened for a long time to the sounds of nails in wood, of the swing of the trap door as they tested it. It wouldn't be long now.
The moon crept up into view, throwing a long pale finger of light across the cell. Its color was off, a dusty almost-red instead of white. Domingo took it as a sign.
The sounds of building ceased at last, and silence took their place.
A second sound now, this one a furtive scuffling. The footsteps of the patrol thudded in from the square and the sound stopped, starting up again as the patrol faded away.
The turn of the key in the lock rang too loudly in Domingo's over-charged senses, though he knew it was really barely audible.
The door swung open on carefully oiled hinges, and a dark shape blocked the finger of dusty moonlight. Domingo's wrists were quickly freed, and a muffled clang announced that Esteban's soon followed.
Their rescuer approached again and the slash of moonlight bounced off the red and blue of his uniform coat.
The men were stirring now. Though they'd been placed as far away from Domingo as possible, there was no way they could be missing what was going on in the first cell.
"Domingo?" Ciano asked.
Domingo forced himself to ignore the sudden elation in his voice.
"My men?" he asked, quickly rubbing circulation back into his wrists.
"They were not part of the bargain," the soldier hissed. "You know each cell requires a different key."
Domingo knew he could pick the locks. For Esteban it would be the work of only a few moments. But there were many locks to be opened and the patrol would be returning.
He had a vow to keep.
He nodded and the soldier passed him two knives.
"My reward?"
"We'll find it on the fields on the south side of the pueblo."
The man's teeth glinted in the moonlight as he smiled.
"Domingo? Domingo!" More than one man now.
He turned his back and walked out of the cell.
"Domingo!"
"Domingo, you can't just leave us here. Domingo!"
They were shouting now, rattling the cages with the fury of caged beasts. There was no way the patrol would miss the noise. It didn't matter. He'd timed it. The patrol wouldn't return for fifteen minutes. Time enough to get away.
Inacio, Manuel, Paskal . . .
Not time for anything else.
Benito,Pedroso, Rufio . . .
Domingo followed Esteban and the soldier out of the prison and around the side where three horses stood waiting.
Rafel, Vito, Gonsalvo . . .
They swung onto the horses and moved them into the square. He could still hear the men shouting.
There, in the blood tinged moonlight, stood the gallows, ready for their dawn appointment.
One he would be missing.
Lizar, Naldo, Frantzes . . .
He had an altogether different appointment to keep.
They paused in an anonymous meadow on the road going south. The sky to the east was just getting lighter.
"The payment?" the soldier said, eyes lighting.
Domingo realized he still didn't know his name. It was better that way.
It might as well be here.
He swung down from his horse, pulling a shovel from his pack.
Esteban followed in silence.
"We buried our takings here," Domingo said.
The soldier watched them dig for long moments, but, as time passed, he threw increasingly worried glances up the road towards the town.
Finally he grabbed a shovel of his own and bent his back to the work.
"You surely buried it deep," the man said with forced joviality.
Fernan, Havier, Luis, Mario . . .
"We're almost there," Domingo said, eyeing the hole.
Domingo's shovel hit something hard—a rock most likely. It would serve. He swung down again, hard enough so that the shovel gave off a distinctive clang.
"It's here," he said.
The soldier pushed him out of the way and knelt in the mud. His fingers scrambled through the muck frantically.
"Where is it? Where is it?"
"I have it right here," Domingo said, drawing one of the knives from beneath his jacket.
The soldier turned around in confusion, still on his knees in the dirt. His eyes widened as Esteban quickly grabbed him and shoved a cloth down his throat. Domingo moved in and shoved the knife in quick and hard between his ribs. Blood rushed over Domingo's hand, steaming slightly in the growing morning.
Esteban held the soldier as he went through his death throws, keeping the gag shoved firmly down his throat. The man jerked once, twice, again, and then was still.
Ciano.
Esteban dropped the man in the hole he'd helped to dig and they both climbed out. They shoved the dirt back on top of him in silence, piling leaf litter and chunks of grass on top to temporarily disguise the hole.
"We must be going," Esteban said, dashing for his horse. "They will have discovered that we are gone by now."
"I'm not going," Domingo said.
Esteban froze and turned around.
"I have a vow to keep and a debt to pay." A debt paid in blood. Seventeen—now, sixteen—more graves to fill. An eye for an eye.
Plus two more. Those two were for him.
"They will catch you. It will be worse than hanging, now. We could be beyond the alcalde's reach in two days."
He was right, of course he was. The alcalde wouldn't want men who knew so much to be found. Far better they disappear. It was getting light now. The hunt would be on, but there were enough soldiers in the garrison that the gallows could still be manned. The boys would be marching up to it now, one by one. He could see them, so clearly, as if he was there, watching. He wondered if Benito would have to be carried up. Ciano would go on his own feet, angry until the end. Some of them might already be dead, their bodies thrown in a pile waiting to be dumped in some unmarked hole.
Surprising, then, to find himself planted here. He'd thought himself a practical man his entire life.
"I have a debt to pay," he said again.
Esteban stared off towards the town. Domingo could almost imagine he heard horses upon the road.
"It is my debt, also. I will stay."
But Domingo shook his head. He opened his mouth. Shut it again. Unexpectedly difficult, finding the right words. They'd been together for over ten years now. A lifetime, in their kind of work.
"There is no point in both of us being foolish. With the loot we've stashed you could live like a king."
Esteban held up a hand in entreaty. "Domingo, mi amigo. . . "
Domingo pushed his hand away, standing straighter. "You must go. They will be coming by now, and I do not mean to be captured."
Esteban hesitated just one final moment but then flung himself on his horse and kicked it at a fast pace going south. He'd always been the practical one.
Domingo watched him go before finally mounting his own horse and pulling it—and the dead man's—off the road and through the brush. No, he didn't mean to be captured just yet.
Sixteen plus two more. He didn't see the way just yet, but it would come to him. For this, he would take the time.
