Pancho & Lefty: An Alternate Ending

Note: This short story is based on the song “Pancho & Lefty.” The song was written by Townes Van Zandt and performed by Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard.

1

As I opened the door of my small apartment in Morelia, the night was black as death and filled with angry, slanting, wind-driven rain. The air was heavy with that scent that’s left after lightning has ripped the sky.

Rain splatted on my shoulders and my woven straw hat and the right side of my face. I felt it soaking into the place where a sweatband would be if it had one. In a moment the rain had soaked the right side of my thin cotton tunic and the thin cotton trousers. I was glad I had the thick black leather shoes, and the socks. They were wet too.

In front of the door was a narrow sidewalk of cracked concrete. When the lightning flashed the concrete bits were white, and segmented with dark, jagged lines. Just beyond the sidewalk was the cobblestone road. I knew the cobblestones to be a reddish brown, but when the lightning flashed they were black. Blacker rivulets of water ran in rectangles around them. The noise of the rain splatting on the concrete and the cobblestones and the tin roof behind me was almost too loud to talk over.

A guard waited with his back against the faded whitewashed wall outside my door. A dark green plastic-coated poncho covered his uniform.

He turned his head to look at me. The wind had driven the rain hood had back a few inches on his hat and the front was soaked. He was clean shaven, with a sharp jawline and chin and thin lips. Water ran in rivulets off his face.

The front of his hat leaned slightly forward, a sharp SS emblazoned on it in silver thread. The black leather brim was pulled low on his forehead. I could only see the lower part of his nose.

More water dripped past his face from the brim of his hat.

He didn’t know much English, being a German in Mexico. He gestured toward the street with his left hand and said, “You go now?”

I wasn’t sure why it was a question. The truck had come for me.

I nodded, then looked down and stepped over the threshold into a shallow puddle on the concrete. Rivulets of water cascaded off the front of my hat. My legs were stiff, and it was a memorable first step. Ripples radiated out in the puddle for an instant before they were obliterated by little splashes of more rain.

On the street, the large military truck waited. It had pulled slightly past my rooms and parked in front of the next.

The back of the truck was covered with a heavy canvas tarpaulin. It was stretched up to a foot above the cab over a wooden frame that rose from the sideboards of the truck. From there it reached the back and strained down toward the tailgate. There the canvas was pulled into a long, close oval with a drawstring that whipped violently in the wind. And the truck wasn’t even moving yet.

As I approached, the passenger window ran with rain, and the interior was dark. I couldn’t see the driver.

I reached up to open the door, and it almost closed again in the wind. I put one foot on the running board and reached with my left hand for a dark green vertical rail on the back of the cab to pull myself up. The exhaust pipe was just behind the cab, and the heat off it was warm on the back of my hand.

With my right hand I braced against the inside of the door, I dropped heavily on the slick canvas seat. Driven by the wind, the door slammed shut of its own accord.

The windshield wipers strained across the glass to the left, then slapped back to the right before beginning a return trip.

I glanced out and back through the passenger window.

The guard was already gone.

Without looking around at me, the driver put the truck in gear. He mixed up the clutch and the gas, and the truck lurched into the street.

I grabbed for the dashboard. It was cold thin steel, rolled and pressed and formed into the right dimensions at some factory in Germany. The palms of my hands fit the edge perfectly. Probably it was a dark, dull green when it was new. Now the paint was chipped here, worn slick there. Mottled with grime where it wasn’t chipped or worn.

When the motion of the truck smoothed out, I settled back. My right hand went onto my leg, my left on the seat beside me. Like the covering on the back, the seat was dark, heavy canvas, but shiny and slick from repeated use.

We were driving into the wind. Rain slapped on the windshield and the metal hood and roof. The sound was as crisp and sharp as if the drops were gravel. Lightning flashed every several seconds, and the sound of the rain was underlain by a constant rumble of thunder.

It would be only a short trip—I had heard we would drive some twelve kilometers into the countryside—but it was long enough that I had time to think. To consider the meaning of life and other things as they’re said to be. I decided I’d rather not.

It wouldn’t matter. Nothing seems from a distance how it really is up close. There isn’t really a left or right, an up or down, a right or wrong. It’s all a matter of perspective. A  matter of necessity. There is only here or there. This way or that. Always a decision to be made.

2

I’d made a point not to look at the driver. I wasn’t curious about him, and I didn’t want him to be curious about me. We were partners in a venture of fate. It was nothing either of us wanted or could escape.

As we jostled and swayed along the roadway, the truck occasionally splashed through standing water. It sent a spray like wings to either side.

To keep myself from thinking, I looked around the cab.

In the dashboard was an ashtray. It was a little left of center, nearer the driver. It was one of those designed to disappear when it wasn’t in use. It had a small plastic knob on the front of it.

In front of me, in the right side of the dashboard was a little hinged door that would swing downward when open, revealing a compartment behind. Probably it was for maps, a compass, and like items.

The truck shuddered over a bump and the hinged door dropped as if on cue.

I looked down.

In the dim glow of the dashboard lights I saw the curled corners of what looked like a couple of girlie magazines. Probably laden with nude photographs.

Without looking around, the driver reached across the cab and slapped it shut.

I waited a long moment, then glanced over at the him.

Like most of the soldiers I’d seen here, he was dressed in a blue-green heavy wool uniform. I suspect it would be hot to wear even in Cleveland in January. He wore a barracks hat similar to the one the guard was wearing.

Beyond him, water danced in horizontal rivulets on the window.

He was very young and thin and straight. A heavy shock of reddish blond hair protruded from beneath his hat. Probably there were wispy blond eyebrows beneath the brim. Probably blue eyes beneath those. Even in the dim light, the skin of his neck was white. Almost transparent.

His cheeks were smooth and pink and sunken, and there were no sideburns. His hair stopped in a crisp line at the top of his ear. His nose was a long, narrow slope. His lips were a line. They were the kind that would become a pair of lines when he was talking.

He wore no rank insignia. He was a private, perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old. So only recently arrived in Mexico.

Probably he thought the upswept front of the hat with the SS logo and the slick black brim curving low over his eyes lent him a sinister look. It was all right. He was young enough to want to look sinister.

I watched him for the rest of the short trip. Occasionally I looked away, but his youth was pleasant on my eyes. He had no troubles, really. His only job in our correlation was to provide me with transportation. In a way, I was happy for him.

My job, after we arrived, was to provide identification—or not—as I was able.

That’s how the colonel put it when I was brought before him. “As you are able,” he said, dragging out the S. But he meant, “If you decide this way instead of that.”

Mine was the headier responsibility.

From the dreams that played occasionally on the boy’s face, I could almost read his mind. I’ve been him. So have all soldiers.

He was certain of himself, with a confidence untested by anything but the act of leaving his mother’s side. It was written on his face, interwoven with the dreams. Someday he would be a sergeant, and someday after that a captain. Maybe even a general.

But everyone had to start somewhere. For now, he would wear his hat squarely at all times and keep the brim pulled uncomfortably low on his forehead and drive people to where the commander wanted them driven. He would never reveal that his jacket constricted his breathing and his belt was shutting off circulation to his legs. A complainer would never become a sergeant, much less a captain or a general.

Suddenly the truck swerved right onto a road I hadn’t seen.

In the glow of the dash lights, the boy’s thin, sharp knuckles were white on the oversized steering wheel. Probably he had seen the road only at the last moment. And a moment after that he released a quiet breath. Still he looked straight forward.

A kilometer or so farther, he slowed the truck. He seemed to focus more attentively through the windshield.

Soon the lights revealed a post on the right side of the road. It was painted white, though much of the paint had chipped away. To it was nailed a short, narrow piece of board. The right end had been whittled down to form a point.

Ah. We were to go that way.

The headlights splashed onto a smaller road, a mud strip, really, just past the sign.

The boy slowed the truck and turned again, more gently this time. But the mud on the smaller road was softer. The back of the truck swayed as we went around the corner.

Another hundred meters, then another, and there was a large field sloping down to the left.

The boy pulled into the field. He seemed to be watching something to his left.

Then he turned left and hit the brake.

We were pointed slightly downhill. The truck was stopped. The driver left the headlights on, as he was probably instructed to do.

The rain streaked past, still dense as if carrying a burden, angling right to left. The stones continued to slap the roof and the hood and the window next to me. The gaps between those sharp, short sounds were filled with a softer pattering of rain on the tarpaulin behind us.

I settled back, looking through the windshield.

Before us, some fifteen or twenty meters away at the edge of the headlights, was a heavy mud brick wall. Lightning flashed toward the horizon, and for a moment the wall was two dimensional. For a moment, it was a broad, flat, very depressing painting. 

3

I’d seen the end of the wall in the left-most edge of the headlights as we neared the sloping field. I judged it to be close to a meter thick. That’s how they measure things here and in Germany. In meters.

But then, who were they that I should allow them to dictate?

The edge of the wall was about three feet thick. And it was ten to twelve feet tall by forty or so feet long. Probably it was one wall of an old barn. I have seen similar barns and thick walls here before.

To the right of the wall several yards and toward us was a small mud brick building. It seemed to be in disrepair, but it was difficult to tell in the driving rain. It was not whitewashed even near the bottom.

The boy was looking too. Or maybe gaping. Perhaps it was his first time in this place as well.

Probably he recognized the long mud brick structure as the wall of a barn too, even though he hadn’t been in this country very long. Probably its size reminded him of the barns back home in Germany or France or wherever he was born. Only probably those were wood.

Probably the walls of the barns there were only as thick as the wood used to build them. But then, they don’t have the devil sun that beats down upon this god-forsaken land. And probably they don’t shoot people next to those.

Probably he noticed the thickness of the wall too, as well as the other dimensions. Probably in his youth he strives always to notice things like that. Soldiers who notice such things are often promoted. Those who do not are often left behind.

It is another belief of youth, as useful as the notion that you are bullet proof.

As I watched, he raised his left hand slightly from his lap, let the fingers rest on the bottom of the steering wheel. He didn’t seem to notice I was watching. Or maybe he didn’t care.

His fingers worked continually in the dark, tapping rhythmically one bump each to the left until all his fingers had made the journey, then back to the right. The next time he skipped two bumps, the next three, then four.

He did all of that without looking down. It was a way to pass the time.

Something other than the rain on the windshield—something like the shadow of a snake—moved in my right periphery.

I turned my head and leaned forward slightly.

The leading edge of a line of men had moved into the right edge of the headlight beam. Apparently from the small building. There were ten. Eleven. No, thirteen in all. The first twelve were carrying rifles.

I glanced at the boy’s fingers on the bottom of the steering wheel. They moved in concert with the steps of the men as they marched. The line of men had occupied him as he had occupied me.

I looked through the windshield again.

The last man in the line was walking as smartly as the rest, but the arm toward us, his left arm, was swinging. The other one was cocked at the elbow.

Lightning slashed across the sky.

A sword. He was carrying a sword.

I watched, mesmerized as the men moved to a certain place and halted. They held for a beat, then turned right to face the wall.

Well, I knew this would come, didn’t I? Yes, I knew. These men must be the firing squad.

The boy’s right hand moved, and something rustled. That hand had been pressed down on the seat next to him for most of the time we were here. As the men with the rifles stopped and faced the wall, his left hand stilled.

The boy lifted both hands to grip the top of the steering wheel, then pulled himself straighter as he slid his butt back in the seat. He leaned slightly forward to peer through the angled rivulets on the rain-splotched windshield.

Much of the beam from the headlights was absorbed by the dark wool backs of the men in the line.

I studied their backs.

Twelve men and an officer. Twelve men who had done something to deserve being assigned to this dreary detail in the rain.

Maybe some were volunteers, but I didn’t want to think so. I wouldn’t want to know that some men would volunteer for such a task.

The men were clad in uniforms similar to the driver’s. Well, I could only guess. I can say they were similar because of their shape. But in the darkness, they were only dark fence posts standing out against the lighter mud brick wall in the distance.

A moment later, as if to signal an event, the lightning flashed again. It was a three-prong fork in the distance. In that instant, the soldiers were even more stark against an even lighter wall.

And the event signaled by the lightning occurred.

Twenty feet or so beyond the men in uniform, the headlights reflected appropriately off the beginning of a line of ghosts.

A line of dirty white tunics and torn white trousers seemed to float over the muddy flat. The brown feet and arms and necks and faces would blend into the night, into the mud brick wall.

They too came from the direction of the small building, but the tunics and trousers were sucked up against torsos and legs, giving them form. Probably these men had waited outside, in the rain. Maybe in a corral. I hoped the soldiers who guarded them would contract pneumonia.

That line too proceeded, although not as crisply, into the headlights. Soon they halted to a command we couldn’t hear.

It was then that I noticed they were in a kind of uniform too. I’d never thought of it before. I’ve been here all these months, and I had never noticed. They were dressed in the same clothing I wore. A lightweight cotton tunic. Loose cotton trousers.

Some of the trousers, like mine, were held up with a drawstring. Some were held up with a thin sisal cord or a length of cotton cloth tied in front for a belt.

But they were enough alike. They must have looked like uniforms to these Germans. Men in uniforms are easier to dehumanize. Easier to slaughter without such a load on the conscience.

That is the science of it.

4

I’ve heard the soldiers give the men in white a name. They are called Rabble. It is easier to slaughter rabble than to slaughter men with wives and children like the wives and children back in Germany.

And brothers. Surely some of the soldiers have brothers.

A chill ran through me.

But these men weren’t rabble. And they weren’t soldiers. Most of them weren’t in any sort of resistance. Maybe even none of them. They were only farmers. People who tended the land, scratched out meager crops. People who raised their families and minded their own business.

People who didn’t care about the big politics. They would be only rabble no matter who was in charge. Their most important duty to the state was as an abject lessons in how easy it was to slaughter rabble.

They were only stand-ins.

On this night especially, they were only stand-ins.

The ghosts marched through the endless rain to the space before the mud brick wall.

The third man in the rank slipped in the mud and fell.

When the soldiers with the rifles laughed, their commander—the man to the side with the sword—barked a command in German.

The laughter died.

The officer marched to the fallen peasant and offered his clean white hand to help the man to his feet.

When he was up, the man bowed deeply. He grasped the clean white hand with both his muddy brown hands and began pumping it as he rattled off something in Spanish.

Whatever he said, we couldn’t hear it in the truck because of the pounding rain and the distance. But the little brown man in the white tunic and trousers was smiling broadly. In the headlights we could see that most of his teeth were missing. His eyes shone as he pumped the officer’s clean white hand and chattered.

And the officer roughly jerked his hand away.

Beyond them, the rank had stopped and formed a line. The third spot was empty.

The officer shook his head and pointed, indicating the man should take his place in line again.

The little brown man’s face fell. He paled, even in the lights of the truck. He held his hands, palms together, at his chest. He shook his head and chattered some more, a deep frown on his face. He didn’t understand.

But again the officer moved his head side to side. He pointed, a grim reaper pointing a bony finger at an undeserved fate.

And the little brown man turned away. He moved along the line, a mute illustration of destiny to those already in their places.

The third place in line was open. It awaited him.

He filled it, then turned around to face the line of men whose backs were to us.

I leaned forward, put my hands on the dashboard, studied the ghosts. It was difficult to see the faces in the rain. Difficult to make them out. So I looked at the general body shapes.

They were all too thin. All thin as ropes, except one. And that one was too round. Too short and too round. And they were all brown anyway in the lightning flashes. The kind of brown that comes with working in the sun and living among your own people.

I sat back again. I would not have a decision to make yet.

A few of the ghosts raised their hands to their brows. It was like a mock salute, but there were no other gestures. Perhaps they were only blocking the glare of the headlights.

Or maybe wondering who was in the truck on the hill. And why.

5

The rain seemed to take no notice of the drama unfolding on the ground. Or maybe it did. It continued to thrum, as if trying to drive the truck into the ground. It was loud, angry, insistent. Occasionally the wind became particularly aggressive and caused the truck to list slightly to one side or the other.

The driver turned his head, looked at me, sitting at the other end of the seat in my stained white clothing. Maybe he compared me to the ghosts standing in the rain. Unlike them, I had the wide-brimmed hat of woven yellow straw. It was a great benefit in the sun and the rain. The crown was tall but rounded. It almost reached the ceiling of the cab.

Probably those men had similar hats as well. Probably they had not been allowed to wear them even as they waited in the rain. One more way to dehumanize them, like keeping them in a corral. One more way for the soldiers to show their disgust.

The boy said, “Quite a rain, eh?” His voice sounded younger than I thought it would. It also sounded as if he was smiling.

I wondered whether he knew who I was. Why I was here.

I didn’t say anything or even look at him. I didn’t want to miss what was about to happen. I owed them that much. But I nodded in a way that could easily have gone unnoticed.

And it did.

The boy missed my nod as he turned his head to look at the men in the rain again. Perhaps, in his youth, he owed them something too.

With his right hand he felt around on the seat.

I glanced quickly down, saw him catch up a thin paper packet.

He fished a twisted brown cigarette out of it.

That must have been what rustled before.

I looked through the windshield again.

He didn’t offer me one, but I didn’t want one anyway. I was all through with those, I thought. Men in my position should be required to give up something.

He pinched the end of the cigarette, rolling it a bit to form a kind of filter, then pressed the point between his lips. He slipped his fingers into his right breast pocket and searched until he found a match, then struck it smartly on the dashboard.

Probably there was a striker inside the leading edge of the disappearing ashtray. But he didn’t look. He might not know. That’s how young he was.

As the match flared to life, he turned his head to look at the me again. He watched me over his cigarette as he lit it, then held the match up between us for a moment.

The red glint illuminated the left side of my face. Have you ever noticed that you can feel light? Maybe especially in the darkened cab of a military truck on a windy, rainy night.

I wondered what he thought, not that it mattered. I suspect I looked thirty-five to him, maybe forty, but certainly no older than that. In truth, I was thirty-three.

But I had black and grey stubble on my cheeks. It was three days old, or four. I forget. I developed it only in the last month or so. My hair was still dark, mostly, and bits of it hung from beneath my straw hat. It covered all but the lobe of my left ear and curled down to where the collar would be on my tunic if it had a collar. 

The driver took a deep drag of his little brown cigarette, then exhaled the smoke in a thin stream toward me. It was another attempt at looking sinister, probably. And he said, “I said it’s quite a rain, isn’t it?”

I heard him the first time. And I nodded, but as I thought, he didn’t see me.

So I nodded again, again perhaps imperceptibly though I hoped not. I only wanted him to stop intruding on my thoughts. To be sure he knew I had heard him, in a voice all but devoid of air, I said, “Yes. Yes, it is quite a rain.”

I continued to peer through the window even as I talked. I had no time for this child playing soldier. The child soldier. Yes, that’s appropriate.

As I said, the boy was sixteen, maybe seventeen, but no older than that. Still young enough to harbor dreams of advancement. Still foolish enough to believe in causes firmly rooted in some non-combatant’s ideals.

He should be home with his mama and his papa. Not sitting out here in the rain watching men die. And guarding a coward.

Yes, it was quite a rain.

6

Lightning flashed.

The officer at the right end of the line of soldiers, something about him moved.

Ah. He raised his sword.

My chest grew tight.

How would it be if the lightning chose that moment, as he raised his sword, to flash again? How would it be if it cooked him where he stood? Would that deliver the ghosts? Would that give them a reprieve? Maybe it would happen. Maybe the lightning—

The sword slashed in an arc toward his feet.

The other men in the line jerked slightly, as if a tremor ran through them.

Lightning flashed again. It illuminated a line of white puffs of smoke. The puffs seemed to hang in the air in front of the soldiers. Then as if on command, it whipped away in the wind.

The ghosts fell.

Most dropped to their knees, then fell forward onto their faces in the mud and lay still.

A few rolled as they fell, landing on a shoulder and then their face or back.

The shorter, fat one fell forward but turned on his side and drew his knees up sharply. He spasmed a few times as if wallowing, then lay as still as the others.

“Oh,” the child soldier said and leaned back a few inches. He said it softly, as if he had not anticipated the scene.

Still gaping through the windshield, he forgot himself. He drew on the little brown cigarette and blew a stream of silver smoke through his lips.

It mushroomed against the windshield and curled slowly back around between us.

I stared at him for a moment, but stared is too harsh a word. I wondered at him, at his response. What had he expected?

And this was tame, really, for watching men die in the rain. It was dark. The men were distant. He hadn’t known them. I hadn’t known them.

Then a hint of a smile curled the right corner of his mouth. I wish I hadn’t been watching.

But a smile?

I closed my eyes, opened them again to be sure.

The corner of his mouth was more turned up than before, and he was turning his head to look at me.

I looked away, back through the windshield. Somehow the view there was less troubling.

The dark pickets, the soldiers, they were still there. Still facing the wall. Why hadn’t they turned, gone back inside?

As if on cue, a second line of ghosts began to file into place.

Ah. That was why.

This group followed a soldier, though they lagged a bit behind him.

They all wore the same white peasant clothes. They were as drenched as the first group, and as thin. They moved as resolutely, or as defiantly. Or as hopelessly.

He led them along a path just behind where the first group had stood. He halted them, said something and pointed in our direction.

They turned to face the rifles. And saw the dead at their feet. As one man, they all looked down.

When they turned, the soldier pivoted as well as one can pivot in the mud. He walked along behind them, as if fearful of the rifles himself. He crossed the field in the direction of the small building. He jerked as he walked, as if annoyed. Probably he wanted to get out of the rain.

Meanwhile, the ghosts looked at those on the ground before them, pointed, spoke to each other.

As I had before, I leaned forward, trying to search faces, and eventually settled for body shapes. And leaned back in the seat. There would be no decision to make this time either.

There were twelve men. One for each rifle. None of them were known to me, at least at this distance. They were all sons of this nation, and sons of the land.

I counted them as I’d counted the first line of ghosts as they filed out. Yes, twelve men.

It was the least I could do. And it was the most I could do.

I couldn’t remember them to anyone. I didn’t know them, probably. But at least in counting them, I was noting their passing. So that was something. That their passing wouldn’t go unnoticed.

The night seemed to speed up.

Lightning flashed off and on in the distance before us, to our right and overhead.

The officer with the sword raised it high, held it, let it arc to the ground.

The soldiers trembled with recoil.

The ghosts fell in varying ways, one directly on his back.

This time I didn’t expect the soldiers to move back to the small mud brick building.

They lowered their rifles and remained stationary in headlights and the slanting rain.

7

Another soldier led another line of peasants across the field. He halted them behind the second row of bodies and returned himself quickly to the dry warmth of the mud shack.

The ghosts pointed and talked, but continued to face the line of riflemen.

I panicked for a moment. I, safe and dry in this military truck, panicked on their behalf. My voice caught in my throat. A tiny sound escaped.

The child soldier laughed.

Suddenly angry, I frowned and jerked my head around to look at him.

He grinned broadly and gestured toward the windshield. “Why do they stand there like sheep? Why don’t they run? The night and the rain would afford them at least the opportunity for escape.”

Like sheep? These were brave men. Far braver than I. Probably far braver than he.

If the soldiers had done business as usual, they made a promise to these men when they rounded them up. If the men escaped, their wives, their children, would stand in line in their stead.

But I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything. I only shook my head.

How long would this child stand in the pouring rain so the soldiers wouldn’t round up his mother? His sister?

His brother?

“Or why don’t they fight?” he said. “They are at least twelve to twelve. And it might have been twenty-four to twelve, or thirty-six to twelve. If it were me, I would fight.”

Again I only shook my head. He was young. It is easy in youth to make promises you will never have to keep.

Even if all of these soldiers were killed, more would come. Far too many more.

Like sheep, he said. These men were heroes, at least in the eyes of their families. What greater cause is there than to give one’s life willingly to protect one’s family?

The officer with the sword raised it.

The sword slashed toward the ground.

The heroes fell.

I had done my part. I had watched them die.

I lowered my head in shame.

When I looked up again, the soldiers still hadn’t moved. I had known they wouldn’t.

The one the colonel had brought me here to see hadn’t yet been brought to the fore.

It had been raining before I and the child soldier arrived. It was still raining, though not as hard.

The rain was falling straight down now, pattering lightly on the truck. It was no longer a constant, violent roar

There was less lightning too, and more distant. Perhaps the edge of the storm was at hand.

How long had we been here?

Three hours? Perhaps four? Longer?

The child soldier had started the truck four or five times. Each time the headlights dimmed, he had started the truck. He let the engine run awhile, then turned it off.

We had been here long enough to watch three dozen men die. That’s how long it had been.

A line of ghosts issued forth into the right edge of the headlights.

Another dozen men. I would count them again because it was all I could do. Another dozen thin ghosts in white cotton shirts and trousers. They plodded across the field from the direction of the mud brick hut and—

I sat up. Leaned forward. I strained to see through the drops on the windshield. I heard someone say, “Could you move the wipers, please?” The voice was breathless, and I realized it was mine.

The wipers moved steadily across to the right, then back to the left.

Small spots of rain replaced what had been wiped away, but not so many. I could see now.

The seventh man.

The seventh man in line. He was taller by a head. The others plodded to their destiny. Heroes all. But he swaggered. He held his head up. I thought I saw a sneer on his face, but at this distance it was probably a remembrance.

I loved that about him, and hated it.

We came to this country where we had nothing to gain eight months ago.

“But why?” I’d said.

And that sneer flashed. “Someone has to help,” he said.

“But they can help themselves,” I said.

The sneer remained, but his eyes softened. “Not like we can help them.”

“Then they don’t deserve to be helped,” I said. “Don’t you see?”

He looked at me. The sneer disappeared. The look went blank. “Go home,” he said.

For the second time, panic rose in my throat.

What am I doing here?

I should have gone home. It’s what he said to do. It’s what I should have done. I should have taken my horse to the train, and the train north.

I should have gone home, to a place where the barns are made of wood. To a place where people are not murdered alongside them.

8

The line of ghosts stopped, turned to face the men with the rifles.

As others had done before, some of the men brought their hands to their chins, bowed their heads in prayer. Some gaped at the bodies before them.

The seventh man in line shoved one arm into the air, extended his middle finger.

It was James. My brother. My father nicknamed him Pancho because of his darker skin and his attitude.

The child soldier sat up. “Who is that man?” He pointed. “I would be like him.”

And the colonel stepped up on the running board and tapped on the window.

Where had he come from?

There was a car on the other side of him. I hadn’t heard it pull up.

I looked at him, then turned my head to look back through the windshield as I worked the handle to roll the window down into the door.

“Do you see the man you told me about?”

I only looked at the colonel, then looked back through the windshield.

“I trust he was not in an earlier group. I trust he is in this one.”

I glanced at the colonel. A wisp of a smile played on his face.

“Come, come. You have received your money. The identification must be made.”

And the rifles fired.

They were loud in the heavy air. The sound smashed through the open window.

But I wasn’t ready! I hadn’t identified anyone! Why did they shoot?

I started, jerked my head around to peer through the windshield.

There was a light pall of white smoke just beyond the soldiers.

The headlights filtered through that and reflected off a lone figure and the tan mud brick wall behind him. He stood among several large lumps in the mud. Those, too, had been men only minutes ago.

The man had his chin up. I was not surprised. He seemed to glare at the thirteen men whose backs were to the lights of the truck. His hands were raised to shoulder width at his sides. Both middle fingers were extended. The sneer remained.

Then he seemed to adjust his gaze. He seemed to look at the truck.

He lowered his arms, put his hands on his hips. He rocked his head back, like a wolf about to howl. “Lefty!” he yelled. He drew out the name and laughed.

It was a nickname he’d given me years before. I hung around him too often, he said, like the left hand of the devil.

After that, to my father we were Pancho and Lefty.

The officer with the sword gave a command.

The soldiers worked the bolts on their rifles, chambering another round.

The colonel said, “Well?”

“I— Colonel, I—”

From the flat again came, “Lefty! Tell ‘em to go f-ck themselves!”

I turned my head to look through the windshield.

He had raised both hands again, extended both middle fingers.

I grinned. Without looking around, I said, “That man is my brother, Colonel. You heard him.”

The colonel yelled, “Feuer!” and the rifles spoke.

My brother was slapped onto his back.

I grabbed the pistol from the seat, shoved it through the window and fired.

The colonel fell backward into the mud.

I turned, but the child soldier had exited the truck.

And now—well, now they’re coming up the hill.

*******