The Guns of Santa Sangre. Eric Red

for the taking.

      Tucker rose to his feet and grinned down at the peasant. “Hell, we got nothing better to do today.”

      Without further discussion, the shootists ambled over to the corral for their horses. The peasant fetched his own from behind the barn. They all swung into their saddles.

      The four riders rode out.

      The length of fabric tightly tied around her upper torso, flattening her large breasts, made her bosom itch beneath the canvas shirt. The cloth was coming loose in the up and down motion from the horse. She wished she’d tightened it back by the cantina, worried her bind would come off and concealed tits bounce, giving her away. The girl felt dirty and squalid and yearned for a bath, but the filthier she was the better. Before riding into the outpost, she smeared mud and dirt all over her face to help disguise the womanly contours of her features, and the grit was now caked with crud, but so be it. The three gunfighters did not know she was a girl. She wanted to keep it that way. These hard men must not learn her sex if she was to keep her virtue.

      Her name was Pilar.

      The four riders galloped across the arid Durango desert plain. They slowed the horses every few miles, then spurred them on again, pacing their animals against the brutal heat beginning to bear down. They’d need to make time now, because the horses would be exhausted and slower by the time noon hit, the sun a kiln overhead, and their progress would be impeded. It would take hours to prepare for the battle ahead and they had to reach the village by noon to be ready by nightfall.

      The gunfighters’ horses were big and hers was small. It was a simple, scrawny mustang from the humble stables in her poor town, the best they had. Her small ankles kept rubbing against the ribs sticking out of her pony. The animal had not been properly broken and kept tossing its head against the bit in its mouth, but she held her reins firm in her small soft fists and maintained control of the mount. It must not throw her and run off. Her life and that of her entire village depended on Pilar getting these men there and she must not fail. She had never known such a burden or felt so alone. Again and again, as the girl rode, she prayed quietly to herself that she and her warriors would arrive in time and in one piece. God must not abandon her in their time of need.

      The sound of sixteen hooves thundered across the parched desert and scrub. Pilar kept her horse in the lead, following the tracks of the trail she made riding in a few hours ago. Her ears were good. Behind her back, she heard the men talking to one another, keeping their voices low but not low enough, likely figuring she did not understand them, but she did. The Tennessee missionary who had been their village’s reverend had seen to that, teaching her how to read and speak English from childhood.

      “The Mexican says it’s a three-hour ride to Santa Sangre,” the strong one was saying.

      “It’s mebbe mid-morning.”

      “You buy this Mexican’s story?”

      “Not a word.”

      “Except the silver part.”

      “And we’re going to steal the whole damn thing.”

      What did she expect, wondered Pilar. They were men of the world, susceptible to greed, yet something in her trusted that they would do the right thing when the time came. To come face to face with the monsters would make anyone kill them. Have patience and fortitude, she reminded herself as the saddle slapped her sore thighs; these men could not be any worse that what had come to her village.

      Her only worry was them discovering she was a girl and that they would rape her before they reached town. She was a virgin, and these were dangerous men who would take her virtue if they knew, because men such as these did as such men do. But right now, her secret was safe.

      “Hey, Pablo. Ain’t sangre the Mexican word for blood?” The tall, handsome one she had first observed was speaking to her.

      “Si,” she called back, lowering her voice to a manly timbre.

      “Why the heck you go and name your church something like that?”

      “The name of our church was changed to Santa Sangre because of the terrible thing that has happened there.”

      The same one she first laid eyes on in the town spoke roughly as he rode up beside her, leather chaps squeaking and spurs clinking as his knees clenched the saddle.

      “Okay, Pancho. We want the whole damn story, no bullshit. What the hell is going on in your town?”

      “The werewolves changed the name of our church. It is they who called it Santa Sangre, in honor of their God.”

      “Start from the beginning.”

      They all slowed their horses to a trot so the frothed, lathered animals could catch their breath and the men could hear. The sun now hung at nine o’clock, rising ever higher, burning like a white bullet hole in a slate sky. They had three hours to make Santa Sangre by noon.

      On the long hot ride, the peasant told the gunmen her tale ...

      Remember, Pilar, remember it all.

      Every detail of the horror.

      These men must know so they can be ready.

      Oh Pilar, last month seems like a lifetime ago.

      So many friends gone.

      The way they died.

      The town a shell.

      My home, hell on earth.

      I don’t want to remember, don’t want to think back and weep because only women cry and that would give myself away, but tell the tale I must, so these fearsome men believe what they are up against.

      That long first night, bracing the shutters of our windows closed with both hands to keep out the howling so loud it shakes the boards under my palms, coming from everywhere, everywhere ...

      The village was warm earlier that evening and everyone was on the streets as I ended the lesson and told the children to run home. The little ones are laughing. Small Pablo needs a bath. Tiny Maria is so pretty with the bow in her hair. They gather their books and get up to leave my classroom as I erase the chalkboard. The sky was red. I stepped out the door onto the dirt and smelled the dust and mesquite, straw and dung of the fine evening air. The smell of home. The road passes through the huts and corrals and my farmer neighbors in sombreros and ponchos ride by on burros and horses, their carts full of hay and sheep. I smile at my friends. The church bells ring, and I look up the hill to see the steeple of Santa Tomas watching over us.

      I am almost home and listen to the coyotes yip in the desert, their familiar high-pitched, keening yelps echoing near and far, front and behind. We must bring the dogs in tonight. The coyotes stop their calling, as if frightened. It was then, one month ago today, when our town first heard the baying howls out in the mesas. How I remember the pale near full moon that hung in the skies, so huge, so white, the color of rotten milk. Out in the fields, I see two farmers my age, Manuel and Roja, tending their meager crops. They whirl at a terrible sound and look far out into the hills, eyes wide in fear. The howling was so loud it shook the ground, a cry like wolves, but bigger and much, much worse. Roja dropped his rake and rushed back to the village. Such commotion in the square. Everyone is rushing to their huts, tying off their horses, grabbing their wives and children, and hurrying inside their homes.

      Yes, good, the three dangerous gunmen riding with me are listening closely now, leaning in their saddles to hear, eyes glinting with interest, and I have their attention.

      Mama!

      I flee home and as I run past the other huts I look through the open doors and windows being shuttered and bolted and see throughout the village the families huddled fearfully in their hearths. Over there Gabriel and Maria peer nervously out their window into the