“They were coyotes, you ignorant peasant!” The fat Federale glared in disgust at the bandit. “Mira! Have you never seen a coyote before?”
Alvarez shook his head vigorously, like a wet dog drying itself. “No, no, no. These things were big and fast, muy grande like coyotes but larger than men and their teeth, señors, such huge fangs! We pushed the stove and table against the door and windows but los bestias smashed and tore at the building with such force we felt the whole place shake. The little girl, she was screaming and her mother held her, but her mother she was hysterical too. I saw one vaquero get his head ripped off as a shutter caved in and a huge paw broke through the wood and those claws peeled the man’s face from his skull like a banana and there was blood everywhere. The other caballero pissed himself when he saw his friend die in this way. You can bet I had my gun out by now and bang, I shot one of the claws off the monster and then I was at the window and fired right into its face, bang bang bang ...”
Alvarez’s eyes suddenly went glassy and unfocused. “I saw its face. It was not wolf and not man. It had jaws like a wolf and ears and fur like el lobo but the eyes, señors, its ojos were those of an hombre. Sus ojos eran come rojos carbones. I shot it in the face five times, not thinking I was wasting my bullets because there were so many bestias. The shots blew pieces off the monster’s head, putting a hole in its skull and I saw the bloody brain.” The thief’s voice fell to a whisper. “And it grinned at me. A mocking grin, ear to ear. The bullets did not hurt it, señors, and in the ten seconds this happened, I saw its face grow back.”
The fat Federale rolled his eyes and groaned as he listened but his partner was riveted, hanging on the bandit’s every word. “What did you do?” He asked breathlessly like a small child. “What happened next?”
The storyteller went on with his tale, emboldened by the attention. “The shutters were being broken to pieces by the blows of the creatures. And their claws sheared through the wood. The ticket man was reloading his repeater when one of the beasts stuck its snout through the window and took the man’s arm in its jaws and with one bite snapped it clean off. Snap! It ate the arm! So much screaming, so much blood. I was out of bullets and was going for the fallen vaquero’s gun belt to get ammo to reload but at the same time keep my head down and duck the bullets his friend was shooting at the monsters, and that’s when the damn kerosene lamp fell and the place caught fire. We had no choice but to flee.”
Alvarez began to weep, recalling the horror that followed. “The rest happened very fast. As soon as we were out the door, one of the monsters grabbed the little girl right from her mother’s arms in his teeth and swallowed the child in a single gulp. Then su pobre madre had her head ripped off. Another monster tore her headless body in half like a rag doll with meat inside. Everywhere, it was fur and claws and blood and arms and legs flying and guts all over the ground. I just ran into the darkness, rápido como mis pies se iría, to get away. Something bit my arm, crushed down on it like a bear trap right to the bone so I shot my last bullet into the red mouth and the jaws released me. I fled into the desert and heard the others’ dying screams behind me and ... this is all I remember, señors. When I awoke I was lying in the desert. And later you found me.”
There was a clap. Then another. The Federale behind him was clapping his hands slowly and deliberately. “That’s quite a story.” The thin man nodded at his partner, impressed.
“Wolfmen.” The fat one fingered one of his chins. “That explains everything.”
“Yes, yes! Gracias a Dios you believe me!”
The cop leaned forward across the table, gaze dripping with contempt. “We did not say we believe you. In fact, we think you are a lying thieving piece of shit trying to bullshit us to save your sorry ass. Do you take us for fools?”
“Do you think we are assholes?”
“I think he’s calling us culos.”
“Insulting an officer is a crime. Muy malo. We can lock you up for a very long time. A very, very long time.”
Alvarez did not like the way the obese cop was fingering the bag of silver. Or the knowing looks being exchanged between both the dirty policia federal. The fat, lazy Federale took a swig of whisky from the bottle. “Maybe I should ride over to the stagecoach junction and see if this hombre’s story checks out.” He scratched his stomach. “There must be bodies all over the place, si?”
“If the vultures haven’t eaten them,” the thief said, worried no evidence might remain.
The thin one yawned, bored. “We’ll go in the morning. My ass hurts and I want to take a nap. Then we’ll get drunk and play cards.”
“But señors, please! Mi brazo!” Alvarez pleaded, the throbbing agony of his mangled arm getting worse. Stabbing pain traveled through his shoulders and chest, like a hideous infection spreading through his bloodstream. “Dijiste que me recibiría un medico.”
The thin Federale clicked his teeth. “Tsk. Tsk. Si, that bite is very bad. It already looks badly infected. I smell the gangrene.” He sniffed like a rat. “You don’t want el doctor, amigo. He will just take the arm. Cut it off.”
“I need a doctor. We had a deal.”
“You are a hard hombre, a bandito, tough it up!” The Federales laughed at each other, gold teeth glinting, and the thief understood there would be no doctor and he would die in jail. The policia federal meant to keep the silver and when he died from gangrene tomorrow or the next day they would bury his corpse in a shallow grave where the body would never be found. This was Mexico and that was how things were done.
“Fuck your mothers.”
“Lock him up.”
The thief was grabbed by the collar. The thin cop hauled him into the next room, a small chamber with two jail cells side by side. There were two occupants. An old sleeping drunk under a weathered brown sombrero and orange poncho was curled on the cot in the far cell. A filthy, muscle-bound laborer stood in the closer pen. The cop pulled out his keys and unlocked that cell, shoving Alvarez inside.
When he hit the floor, the shooting pain in his arm nearly caused him to pass out. When the thief looked up, his cellmate was giving him the stink eye. Alvarez was too wounded to resist as he felt the rough hands rummage through his pockets, stealing his last few pesos.
Alvarez was born poor and knew he would die in a pauper’s grave.
The borracho stirs in his cell.
The drunk old man is eighty-five, dressed in rags, sombrero resting over his face on the hard cot that hurts his brittle bones. But it is not the clang of the next cell door slamming shut that awakens him, although he is a light sleeper.
He knows by his smell the new prisoner is one of them.
The Men Who Walk Like Wolves.
The bum has met them before, long ago, in a life spent in the shitholes of Durango. While the old man’s eyes aren’t good and his hearing is failing, his nose works just fine and the distantly remembered stench comes back to him instantly. Once smelled, the odor of the werewolf is never forgotten.
He tilts the sombrero back from his eyes and studies the newcomer.
The wretch lies on the stained cement floor where the Federale who now locks the cell has brutally pushed him. His wound, a savage raking bite on his arm, festers yellow pus through the bandage the policia have carelessly applied. That explains it. The unfortunate has suffered the bite of the werewolf, and already the curse is in his bloodstream. Hence the smell,