Pins (27)

The landscape blurred before him. Soon he noticed scraps of grass amongst the dry dirt, and eventually they hit brushy country. A spread of large stone buildings shimmered in the distance. They slowed to a canter and navigated a series of overgrown dirt paths, passing a scattering of decrepit hovels. Fields opened up around them, blankets of wheat and corn rippling in the wind. Small villages were dotted around the outskirts of the fields. Small houses. Tiendas. 

The remuda fell into a line and trotted down the path splitting the copper fields. Emmett saw vaqueros and gauchos riding in the fan of the red setting sun. Campesinos, men and women with hampers and baskets, worked the fields. They passed barns and corrals. Cattle and horses milled around inside the pens. Goats and sheep. His vision wavered, and his head dipped forward. The vaquero behind caught him by the chest and spurred the horse on. 

Darkness drew down as they rode towards the hacienda, and peons moved as shadows through the fields around. Emmett lifted his heavy head and thumbed his hat back. He saw what looked like a small castle rising up out of the gloom. Beyond a grove of palms there were a series of limestone buildings with domed roofs. A chapel with a belltower. Water storage tanks. A stone aqueduct system. He saw gun slots in the thick adobe walls. Grilled windows. Studded doors. Armed guards.

The horses at the head of the line passed between two imposing clay pillars, and beneath a crumbling stone arch. The rest of the remuda followed them into a central courtyard decorated with eucalypti and columnar cypress. Emmett saw the Jefé dismount ahead. He noted with a twinge that he was wearing the backpack. The Jefé spoke briefly to a peon with a hunched back, and clipped over a tiled veranda, disappearing into a two-storied stone building with a series of balconies. 

Many of the vaqueros were also dismounting, and leading their horses through another stone arch on the right-hand side of the courtyard. Emmett cast about, but he could not see Abigail amongst the shadows. As he stared, the vaquero behind him slid off, and hauled him down. Emmett's knees buckled as he hit the yard, and he slumped to the ground. The vaquero spat, lifted his hat off, and yanked him up by the hair. 

Emmett cried out, swayed for a moment, and wiped tears from his dirty cheeks. The vaquero released him, dropped his hat back on his head, and pushed him towards a line of cottonwoods. Emmett felt the barrel of a rifle pressed against his back as he lurched over the courtyard. Clay buildings loomed above him. The hacienda was huge and sprawling, but it also looked as if poverty and decline was upon it. The limestone was faded and cracked, and weeds snaked amongst the fissures.

The vaquero led him between two bent jacaranda trees, and Emmett looked up at the strange purple burst overhead. They crossed a small patio to another building. The vaquero spoke to a guard with a rifle slung over his shoulder. The guard looked down at Emmett and laughed. He unclipped a set of chunky keys from his belt and spent a while easing one loose. He passed the  key to the vaquero, and opened the ironshod wooden doors before them.

Emmett stumbled as the vaquero pushed him into a dark corridor. His hands slapped against damp stone walls. The rifle barrel nudged against his back.

'Vámonos,' the vaquero said.

Emmett moved down the corridor. He splashed through shallow puddles. His hands shook, and he broke a sweat. He clung to a steel bar for support, and a wretched groan issued from the darkness beyond it.

Spots danced across his vision. Cells. The corridor was lined with cells. He looked to his left. Through the bars he saw the murky shape of a man hanging upside down within a little stone block room. Strapped to the ceiling. Blood dripped from lacerations on his face and body. It ran into a bucket placed beneath his suspended frame.

Emmett hurled again, but there was nothing left in his stomach, and he dry-heaved and spat strings of bile. The rifle barrel pressed into him. He drew his sleeve over his mouth and staggered on, trying to block out the groans, and the awful drips. The air cooled as he was led down a stairwell and into another corridor. The vaquero stopped beside a cell, jiggled the key into the lock, and opened it. He shoved Emmett in, and locked the door behind him. 

Emmett stood shaking in the dark. He heard the vaquero's boots retreating back up the stairs. He stood for a while trying to control his trembling hands, and then he heard sniffing in the cell. He peered into the shadows. There were two iron bunks. There was an small bucket in the corner. Abigail was sitting on the stone floor, her arms wrapped around her knees. Her cotton dress was torn. Her face was caked with dirt, and her eyes were red and exhausted. She burst into tears as he looked at her.

Emmett tripped across the cell, dropped down to his knees, and held her. Her shoulders shook, and her stomach heaved. He let her get it out, but he had nothing to offer in terms of words. There was nothing he could say. The hopelessness of it all was sickening, and the fear felt like a living thing inside of him. Abigail's heaves relented, and her head lay still against his shoulder. He stroked her greasy hair and lifted her head up, cupping his palms around her face.

'We'll get out of this, Abi,' he said, but his voice cracked, and he could not find the belief to match his words. 

'What're you talking 'bout, Emmett?' she whispered. 'There ain't no gettin' out of anything now. Them people, they cut folk up. They cut them up and hanged them. I seen it. They made me watch. They cut this one man up and... '

Her hands were trembling, and her eyes were wide. Emmett saw the panic setting in. He placed his palm softly over her mouth, and raised his forefinger to his lips. Bubbles of her spittle dribbled over his palm.

'Sshhh,' he said, 'sshh. Please. Please Abi. I know. We cain't talk about this. We cain't do this to ourselves.'

She pulled his hand away from her mouth and grasped it. Her nails dug into his wrist, and her neck jerked. Drool spilled from her lower lip. There was a dull clanking from beyond their cell. Someone screamed, and she spasmed and rolled forward against him. He caught her and pressed a palm against her forehead. She was hot and feverish. He wrapped his arms around her, and tried to lift her toward the nearest iron bunk. 

'No, Emmett,' she whispered. 'Look. Look.'

Emmett felt dizzy as he lowered her down onto the cold floor. He moved towards the bunk and lifted the rag of blanket up. The dirty mattress was crawling with lice. He snapped his hand away and shifted back over to her. She was lying sideways on the damp stone. He lay down next to her and watched the shadows. Tiny needles lanced through his nervous system.

'Mexico,' Abigail whispered. Emmett found her hand and grasped it. His mouth felt parched. 

'I don't know. I don't think that far,' he whispered. 'Maybe New Mexico. It's too hard to tell.'

'We're goin' to die here,' she said. Her mouth was close to his ear. He shuffled on the hard stone. 

'I'm sorry,' he breathed, and tears rolled down his cheeks. His eyes blurred, and everything was absolute darkness.

'Stop sayin' that,' she whispered. 'I've been here the whole darn time. You asked me right at the start what I wanted to do. Everything we've done we've done together. Ain't no point killin' ourselves over this and that.'

Emmett squeezed her hand. An iron door hammered shut above them. 

'I cain't take bein' this scared,' he said. 'I cain't take it.'

They heard boots on the stairwell, and held each other close. Drips fell from the ceiling.

'Looky here,' Abigail whispered. Emmett listened to the footfall on the stairwell, and tried to gauge how close it was. He felt his body trembling again.

'Looky here,' Abigail said, and touched his face. He looked round and saw her big brown eyes glinting in the black. 

'We'll be scared together, bub,' she murmured. They huddled close and listened to the footsteps fading away. Emmett felt Abigail's breath on his face as weariness overcame him, and he passed into a troubled sleep.
 

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