“There are no trials as such, and often those who are sentenced aren’t criminals at all but people whom someone in authority has a grudge against. Such people are often sent to Díaz’s and the Señorita’s stone quarries, slave-labor mines, and ranchos. There is no real parole in those places, and the prisioneros are worked to death in them.”
The major handed Richard a folder filled with photographs of men in huge dust-choked quarries, breaking rocks with sledgehammers. Some of the quarries held thousands of men.
“Many victims, however, never make it to a prison mine, a quarry, or a slave-labor hacienda,” Major Mateo said. “Some people they simply torture and execute.”
He got out a folder filled with pictures of torture chambers. The first picture Mateo showed Richard in the general’s office was of a large dark dungeon, which contained a variety of torture instruments. A black-robed Inquisitor stood beside each one.
“Recently,” Mateo said, “one of the court ladies escaped Sinaloa and made her way here to Sonora. When we debriefed her, she told us how Señorita Dolorosa had given her ladies and a prospective lover a tour of her Inquisitor’s dungeons and her Aztec-style ceremonies atop her pyramid. The Señorita frequently brings the court photographer along to photograph the atrocities. The Señorita keeps boxes of them in her bedroom for late-night viewings. Recently, a young woman smuggled out some of the photographs and gave them to us. She later reconstructed notes on Lady D’s monologues in her torture chambers and atop the pyramid, and the woman gave these notes to us. I have the transcript here.”
The major handed Richard a photograph—a closeup of a thick oak bench. Beside it was a huge pile of heavy stones. The major then showed them the photo of a man on a thick wood rack, groaning under a high pile of stones, his face, a red twisted mask of pain.
The major read to Richard and Mateo from the transcript.
“Margarite, the lady-in-waiting, wrote, ‘Our Lady seemed especially fond of the peine forte et dure, depicted in these photographs. The victim’s body, neck, arms, and legs are lashed to a rack. Boards are placed on top of him, and stones are piled one at a time on them. The person is eventually crushed under a small mountain of rocks. The Inquisitor may want the person to confess to a crime . . . or not, since there’s frequently no crime to confess to.
“‘Our Lady liked the fact that each stone, as it was piled on top of the man, increased his agony. The Señorita laughingly called it agony on the installment plan.’”
The major produced a photo from the folder of another man, who was being waterboarded.
“‘Our Lady lovingly regaled us on the theory and practice of waterboarding, explaining: It’s simulated drowning, which is as horrible a torture as there is. Some survivors say that afterward rainstorms and baths frightened them half to death. The Señorita’s laughter then rang through the chamber like the bells of hell.’”
The next photo was of a pulley bolted into a steel hook sunk into an overhead beam. A thick rope was run through the pulley. A young woman with long black hair was about to be strappadoed. Her face was turned to the wall, so she was unrecognizable. Her wrists were tied behind her back and affixed to that rope was the end of the pulley rope. A hooded, black-robed priest had hoisted her up off the ground. A basket was tied to her feet. Next to her was another pile of rocks. Another photo showed the Señorita dropping rocks into the basket.
The major read from Margarite’s transcript:
“‘Our Lady’s favorite trick is to raise the rocks high above her head, then drop them into the poor wretch’s ankle-basket. She described their subsequent screams to us as . . . sublime. After one such act of cruelty, Our Lady rolled her eyes back until only the whites showed. Heaving a stupendous sigh, she raised her head as if toward the heavens and shouted at the ceiling:
“‘ God, I feel good!!!
“‘The victim’s screams merged with the Señorita’s hilarious howls.’”
Last but not least came a photo of the rack. A rectangular wood bench, it resembled a wooden bed frame with a roller at each end. Cranks turned each of the rollers and a ratcheted lever froze the rollers in place. Around each of the rollers wound ropes that were tied to the victim’s wrists and ankles. A man was stretched horizontally on the infernal machine, his face writhed with unspeakable suffering.
The major read from the manuscript again:
“Listen to what the Señorita tells her court ladies about the rack: ‘I love putting my former lovers on the rack, then taking the crank away from the presiding priest and turning it myself until the tendons creak and crack. I love hearing the imbeciles beg for mercy. Imagine someone asking . . . me . . . for mercy.
“‘The Señorita then burst into gales of derisive laughter.’
“She goes through legions of lovers,” Mateo explained, “and, as a parting gift, sentences each of them to the Rack and the Stone. She is sometimes referred to as ‘the Black Widow,’ after the female spider, who notoriously eats her lovers whole after sex. Clearly, the Señorita is the last woman in the world a man should ever want to go to bed with.”
“Even though she is reputed to be genuinely . . . beautiful,” Richard said.
“She most assuredly is,” Major Mateo said.
“Now do you see what we’re up against?” General Ortega asked.
“We’re up against the horde from hell,” Richard said.
“Led by the satanic Señorita,” Mateo said.
“You’re saying defeat for us is not an option?”
“Especially from your point of view,” the major said. “If they destroy us, New Arizona will be next.”
“In other words, Sonora is the Alamo, Thermopylae, and Horatius at the Bridge,” Richard said.
“And we need you and our big guns to stop them,” Mateo agreed.
“They’re throwing everything at us this time,” the general said.
“We don’t stand a chance without that ordnance,” Mateo said.
“The last three battles seriously depleted our ranks,” the general explained.
“And you expect me to make up the difference?” Richard asked.
“Whether you like it or not, you’re in the army now,” Mateo said.
“If Major Mateo is right, you are the army,” General Ortega said.
Richard looked away from both the photos and the two officers.
What have I gotten myself into? he thought with terrible foreboding.
Chapter 19
Their train was in a waterless waste in the middle of nowhere when Eléna heard the whistle blow and the train slow. Not a good sign. She shouted at Antonio:
“Go see what’s happening.”
Climbing the nailed-on ladder, he mounted the adjacent boxcar and jogged along the boxcar roofs to the tender, which was piled high with kindling, to the locomotive. Just around the bend, he could see a big lightning-smitten cottonwood tree lying laterally across the tracks. Its thick, massive trunk branched out into a dozen large dense limbs heavy with countless branches.
The engineer and fireman looked up at him. They both wore gray canvas pants and dark cotton shirts. Their hair was black, their skin and clothes were stained by smoke and soot.
“Does that trunk look like lightning hit it to you?” the engineer, a big man named Carlos, asked.
“You could bore a hole in the tree,” Antonio said, “fill it with blasting powder, and blow the trunk in two. We’d do that in the army when we were too lazy to chop the trees