The Wolves of El Diablo. Eric Red

and the crowd shuddered.

      “They are coming here to our village?” she asked very softly.

      “No.” Pedro shook his head adamantly. “I don’t think so. It is our pistoleros they are after. The leader of these werewolves is the sister of the jefe of the monstros who took over our town. She is one of the lobos and is very angry our pistoleros killed her brother. De veras, she wants revenge. Por favor, Señora Pilar, if we do not warn Señors Tucker, Fix and Bodie then the she-wolf and her monstruos will catch them soon and kill them very, very badly, I think.”

      Pilar listened, steeling herself with resolve.

      She knew what she had to do.

      Had made preparations in case this day ever came. It had.

      Grabbing Pedro by the shoulders, she looked sharply in his face. “Where are the werewolves now?”

      “They rode off after The Guns of Santa Sangre the last I saw them.”

      “Which way?”

      “Norte.”

      With a nod, Pilar’s face whipped around as she swung her gaze to her small hut in the center of the village. Turning her back on Pedro, she rose, pushed through the crowd and strode across the square to her house with single-minded purpose, feeling all eyes were on her.

      Her home was a small adobe hutch with two windows and a blanket over the doorway, like all the huts in the village. Ducking inside, Pilar drew the blanket shut behind her and stood in the small empty living area. Two bedrooms led off the main room and she checked those first.

      “Mama? Bonita?” Pilar called but knew her mother and little sister were in the fields at this early hour of the workday. The peasant woman sighed heavily. Her familia were in no danger but Pilar regretted she had not a minute to spare to find them and say her goodbyes. What if ...? Pushing any thoughts of not seeing her mother and sister again out of her mind, she simply vowed to herself she would return, and that was that.

      Alone inside her humble casa, Pilar took a deep breath and walked to the boards on the dirt floor covering the small pit she had dug a month before. There she knelt reverently.

      She knew this day would come.

      Lifting off the boards one by one with great purpose, Pilar saw her hands were shaking removing the wood covering the hole in the ground she had dug.

      Inside the hole were two rifles and three pistols ... a Sharps bolt-action rifle, a Winchester repeater rifle, a Colt Navy revolver, a Colt Single Action Army revolver and a two-shot Derringer pistol.

      And fifty-seven silver bullets.

      The silver cartridges were of different calibers: .22, .45, 36, .476. The rounds filled the two bandoleers and gun belt stacked beside the guns. The firearms and leather ammo belts were covered with copious amounts of dried blood, for the boraccho who had owned them and brought them to the village had died very badly. A month ago, Pilar had watched from the hill as the drunk old man had ridden into the village to kill the werewolves occupying the church only to be reduced to a pile of meat. The following night The Guns of Santa Sangre had annihilated the werewolves in a furious battle, and the next day Pilar had secretly gathered the old man’s balas de plata y armas de fuego from his mutilated corpse and buried them in the hole she knelt over now.

      When The Guns of Santa Sangre rode away after killing the wolfmen she kept the silver bullets, even though she knew she they deserved them as payment, thinking one day she might need them.

      Today was that day.

      Pilar picked the gun belt with the silver bullets out of the hole and buckled it around her waist.

      She slung each of the ammo belts crossways across her shoulders and bosom.

      Checking the rifles and pistols were loaded, she holstered two of the handguns and shoved the third in her dress then slung the two rifles over her shoulder.

      Taking a deep breath to steel herself, Pilar walked to the mirror and watched her reflection, soberly regarding the strong fearless woman who stared back at her. It was no longer the young girl she used to see in the looking glass.

      She was ready.

      Crossing herself, Pilar said a quiet prayer, for she was and would always be a woman of faith.

      Then she pushed past the blanket covering the doorway into the hot valley sunlight and stepped outside.

      No words were spoken by Pilar, her carriage erect as she strode through the parting crowd toward the stable. Vaulting the fence, she threw saddle and tack over the strongest horse though it wasn’t hers, belted it sure, stowed her two rifles in the saddlebags, and swung into the saddle. Digging her heels into the flanks of the stallion, the woman galloped straight for the fence and jumped the horse over it. Galloping down the dusty dirt street of the village, Pilar charged swiftly up the steep ridge leading out into the Durango desert badlands and rode away out of town into the desert. Due north.

      The wind felt good in her face.

      The guns felt good in her holsters.

      It was good to be in action again.

      Her friends were in danger. They had saved her people. Now it was her turn to save them.

      And if in the attempt she died, it would be in Tucker’s arms.

      Azul raised her hand.

      The riders pulled up their horses with brutal jerks of the reins and stopped on the dusty hot desert flats, an inhuman vista of scorched desert beneath unrelieved skies. The view was shimmering. The bandits watched their feral leader sitting tall in her saddle, turquoise eyes alert beneath windblown hair, nose raised, nostrils flaring animalistically.

      She sniffed the air.

      Sniffed again, detecting a scent.

      Her head snapped east.

      Digging her spurs savagely into her cowed stallion’s flanks, Azul charged without delay in that direction followed by the galloping horde of hairy bandits on lathered horses. Soon they were completely lost to sight in the desolate wastes. When the curtain of settling dust died down it was as if the werewolves were never there, vanished spirits in the heat distortion rising up in melting waves off the baking tundra.

      Several miles up the trail, the charred embers of the campfire were still warm to the touch when Azul dismounted and touched them with her fingers.

      Her bandits remained on their horses in the ravine beneath the hot crush of the sky watching the bandita hunkering down on powerful lupine haunches. Her trousers stretched taut on her buttocks. Her boots creaked with their tough leather of stripped tanned human hide. Running her tapered fingers through the dirt, Azul picked up a handful of soil, brought it to her nose and sniffed. A satisfied glint of recognition flashed fiercely in her feral gaze from the tang she smelt. Then her brutally beautiful face broke into a ravishingly razor sharp grin as she rose and stood to face the other wolfmen now in human form.

      “Three were here. The three who killed my brother. I smell our blood mingled with the weak stink of their man sweat.” Azul dropped the handful of soil and wiped her hands together coating them with dirt to bring her elementally closer to Father Earth. “One was wounded and his blood tainted but he did not turn in last night’s moon. Three manflesh rode out this morning. They are not far and their sign is fresh. By tonight’s moon we will catch up to them and feast on the marrow of their bones. Ride!”

      With a hideous savage whoop, the bandita sped in a loping stride to the rear of her petrified horse and vaulted over its rump into the saddle. Twisting her hips, wrenching the steed between her powerful legs, she dug both spurs and drove her horse in such a sharp turn the animal toppled and collapsed onto its side. Dust kicked up. Staying in her saddle, Azul forced the injured horse up onto its staggering legs, reared it up on its hind haunches and galloped headlong into the desert. Werewolves took no