Twitch and Die!

Ch.18: We Meet Again

Angelo and Chloe stopped in the middle of the tracks, causing Chancho, who had been eyeing the plumes of smoke, to nearly bump into them.

“Que paso?” He stepped aside far enough to see their mascot standing in the middle of the tracks fifty yards ahead. The boy blocked their path northward through downtown and eventually to the cemetery. He stared at them motionlessly for several seconds before pointing at the back of the firehouse.

Chancho followed the boy’s outstretched arm until he froze in shock at what he saw. The rinche. One hand in the air, the other in a sling, the ex-Ranger leaned against the building almost casually, like he’d been waiting for a train.

Chancho clutched his pistol beneath his serape but still hadn’t reloaded it. The only thing he could imagine more horrible than drawing on the rinche would be using an unloaded weapon. Instead he reached out to still Chloe, who’d already fetched her knife from her boot.

“Whoa there missy. I’m no threat to you or your friends.” The rinche continued to hold his hand up.

Chancho stepped toward him. “It was you at the stone house, and on New York Hill. But why?”

“That’s a short question with a long answer. Right now there ain’t time for it.”

In a blur of motion Angelo drew his pistol and charged the rinche.

“Angel, wait!” Chloe jumped at him, but Chancho and the man in black didn’t break eye contact.

“You kill my brother!”

“It wasn’t your brother.” The rinche shook his head, his hand still in the air. “Not anymore.”

Angelo stood thirty feet away, aiming his .38 straight at the rinche’s head. All the while Chancho hoped the man in black couldn’t see him loading his .38 beneath the dangling scraps of his serape.

“The twitch claimed my father. This thing can be stopped, but trust me or not, there’s no coming back.”

Angelo stamped the ground and shook with rage. “He was my brother!”

Finally, the rinche turned to look the Italian in the eye, a snarl on his face. “He was my father, but the damn twitch and those who’ve unleashed it didn’t give me a choice.” He pointed with his chin. “As I was saying, we don’t have much time. Those plumes of smoke aren’t like last night. Vezzoni’s men have set the town on fire.”

With the mention of Vezzoni, Angelo spat and swore in Italian. “I will kill ‘em.”

“Not if I kill him first.” The man in black took a step forward, his good hand still in the air. “I know you don’t trust me, Villarreal, and you’ve got no reason to.” Slowly, he shifted his hand to scratch his forehead beneath the brim of his hat. The slight movement made Chancho nervous, only one chamber away from fully reloading his pistol. Everything always came back to the rinche, the one man continually standing in the way.

The rinche continued, “But oddly enough, I’ve come to trust you.” Removing his hat, he stared deep into Chancho’s soul. “I’ve seen it up close, like you have. We both want the same thing—to stop it.”

When had they ever wanted the same thing? Chancho wanted to stop the senseless murder of innocent people. Yellow Eyes had given him the journal. With the rinche out of the way he could protect his own, save the children and save the sick. Rinche be damned.

But the ex-Ranger kept talking. “Like you, I know there is a logbook that can help.”

Chancho jerked at the mention of the book, glancing toward Chloe and Angelo.