Anyone of a romantic turn of mind who has ever encountered Alfred Noyes’ heroic poem “The Highwayman” or enjoyed a caper movie such as “Ocean’s Eleven” can probably appreciate the sympathy that otherwise honest writers sometimes feel for these dashing law-breakers. When a group of writers decided, some years back, to write some fantasy and science fiction stories about these criminals, I claimed the romantic Mexican bandidos that date back to Pancho Villa and before. After all, I once lived in Mexico and currently live less than a hundred miles from the border. But I brought my story into the present day, to face a problem that’s very modern.This story first appeared in the anthology Highwaymen: Robbers and Rogues, edited by Jennifer Roberson and published by DAW Books in June of 1997.

The Bandido of Pozoseco

Kate Daniel

Heat and haze, thirst, so thirsty, Santa Maria, agua, oh please I need water, por favor, I beg of you, Virgen Santisima, Madre de Dios, my son, water for him at least, you were a mother, oh Blessed Virgin...now and in the hour of our deaths...our deaths...

The voice was so distorted, forced through a parched throat from a body that had no moisture to spare for tears, that Rhonda Zimmerman had trouble recognizing it as her own. She clicked the tape recorder off. There was more to the recording, another three minutes of increasingly unintelligible Spanish and dry coughs, but she couldn’t stand to listen to it. Her throat ached from listening even though she couldn’t remember making the tape, and she picked up her cup and drained half the over-sweet mint tea. It helped; the muscles in her neck relaxed. She pressed the rewind button, then hit eject. That tape could gather dust in its case from now on, as far as she was concerned; she wouldn’t listen to it again.

It was no help anyway. No matter what method she used, she hadn’t been able to contact the right spirit. There were plenty of ghosts in the area, which wasn’t surprising; thirty-four years in Arizona had taught her how treacherous the desert could be for those who were unprepared. But she had found no ectoplasmic trace of her target, the one she’d been hired to exorcise after the local Catholic priest had failed. A bigger mystery than the identity of her elusive ghost was why this region of northern Mexico had been settled in the first place, Rhonda thought. Although settled might be the wrong word. Rancho Pozoseco had no close neighbors. It was over sixty kilometers by road to the nearest town, at least on this side of the border. Some villages on the Tohono O’odham reservation to the north were closer, but there was no border crossing there, and no real road in any case.

“Perdoneme, Doña Rhonda.” She hadn’t heard the door behind her open, or the soft knock that must have preceded its opening. Her employer stood framed now in the doorway, one hand still on the knob, the unlit hallway behind him a dark backdrop to his almost theatrical good looks. It was a dramatic pose. Felipe Luis Maldonado Alvarez had a gift for finding dramatic poses.

Now he smiled at her with conscious warmth and advanced into the room. “Forgive me, I did not mean to interrupt your work. Do you make any progress?” Again the smile beneath the heavy mustache. The mustache was flecked with gray, as was the dark hair at his temples, the faintest hint of aging, adding to his apparent sophistication. The surface of his smile was all gallantry and flirtation, self-confident of having the desired effect on her.

One hand flew up to pat her hair automatically. She knew how she appeared: short and ball-shaped, with frizzy gray hair straggling its way out of an untidy bun. Turning back to her notes with an effort, she shook her head. “Mr. Maldonado, I can’t find any trace of your ghost. Every other sort of unhappy spirit you can imagine, and this does seem to be a locus of great power, but there are no ghostly bandits and absolutely no indication of malignant influences. I haven’t even had a nightmare.”

“I did not imagine the attacks, Miss Zimmerman.” The suave manner cracked for a moment, and rage showed through the surface. “A bandit of a century ago has shot me twice now, and even though it did no physical harm...”

“Certainly, certainly! My dear Mr. Maldonado, surely you don’t think I’m questioning your word? Not at all, not at all. And of course there were a great many bandits in this part of Mexico, what with Pancho Villa and the revolution and all, so many poor people, desperate for a chance, for a change — I read all about before I came, of course — but this manifestation is obviously quite focused, as though the unhappy soul felt a particular animosity toward you. Perhaps an ancestor, or an ancient grudge against your family...well, I shall simply have to see what I can discover along those lines. If you have, for example, a family Bible, or some heirloom?” She let the question trail off into suggestive silence.

He ignored the suggestion, as he had several others of similar nature. Instead, he smiled at her again with a resumption of charm. “I suppose I expect too many miracles from my personal ghostbuster.” She kept her face still with an effort; Rhonda had hated that movie from the moment it came out, and every client she’d had since then had referred to it at least once. “You have been here less than a week, and the...haunting...has gone on for several months. But surely you can understand why I’m so impatient. I can’t afford to have business disrupted in this way much longer.” He stepped to the door, and with a fast reversion to his most charming manner, bowed slightly. “Concepción will bring you a tray if you wish, but I hope you will do me the honor of dining with me.”

“Oh...” She shook her head, knowing how fluttery she sounded. “I’m afraid not. I intend to fast tonight, and try another working when the moon sets. Perhaps tomorrow?”

“As you wish, Doña Rhonda. You are the expert, after all.” He bowed once more, this time like an old-fashioned courtier, and withdrew, softly closing the door behind him.

She waited a full minute by her watch, then tiptoed to the door and laid an ear against it. No sound, but it was a solid door. Wincing at every creak, she opened it a crack and looked out. The hall was dark and untenanted.

She closed it and let out the breath she’d been holding. “How the hell I get into these things...disrupting business, is it? Wish I knew what that business of yours was. I’d bet half what you’re paying me it’s something nasty. Bastard.” Muttering to herself, she went over and pulled a large purse out from under the table where she’d shoved it earlier. Good thing she always carried iron rations. A handful of trail mix, and an orange she’d picked up earlier in the day, and two boliols left over from the breakfast she’d been served in bed that morning, and a little jerky...it was an odd meal, but it kept her from having to endure Maldonado’s heavy-handed attempts to charm a stupid gringa getting on toward Social Security. Besides, clients always liked the idea that their medium was fasting. It made them take her more seriously.

She did fast sometimes, of course; she was a true medium and had been all her life. But since moving to Sedona in the sixties, she had discovered that a certain amount of showmanship was necessary for even the most trusting clients. Then she had been pale and thin and intense, with hair dyed to a premature silver. Now she was, by all appearances, a fluffy old lady. There was even a faint trace of an English accent she had no right to in her voice, since it seemed to help people think of cups of tea and cats and Sybil Leek. Showmanship, all of it. Only the power was real, and that wasn’t something she’d ever asked for or planned. It had just happened.

She sorted through her tapes while she ate. Technology was wonderful; tape recorders were much simpler to use than automatic writing. She wasn’t sure why that particular ghost affected her more deeply than the other troubled souls she’d found here, but no doubt she’d find out. The woman (her name was Teresa; Rhonda didn’t know how she knew this but she often didn’t know how she knew things) would be back. But the woman had been modern, not a century old. In fact, she had probably died some time within the past year. There was no logical connection between her ghost and the classic Mexican bandido Maldonado had reported.

Ah, here was the tape she’d made of their original interview. She’d listened to it a dozen times, but perhaps she’d missed some tiny clue, some hint...She pressed the play button, and shut her eyes to concentrate, absently licking her lips where sugar from the dates in the trail mix had frosted them.

...rifle looked like something out of an old Western. But he handled it like he knew what he was doing, so I gave him my money. And then he just faded away. A ghost, dammit. I looked for my money, but I couldn’t find it anywhere... Rhonda hit pause and sat there, replaying the memory of her own reaction to his words, his immediate search for his money. She had sensed something wrong about Maldonado, a smell of something rotten. But he wasn’t in the drug trade; that smell she knew, and she never missed it no matter how surface-respectable a person was. She had convinced herself that hidden evil was not her concern. But the smell had grown stronger since coming to his ranch, and she still had no idea of the source. She hit fast forward, searching for the second incident.

Since I knew it was just a damned ghost, (His English was perfectly idiomatic, she noted, but it was an interesting turn of phrase. Also rather curious the way he dismissed the supernatural so contemptuously.) this time I told it to get back to Hell; I wasn’t going to throw more money away. (What had happened to the money? It was unusual for a ghost to be able to affect the material world so directly.) The thing aimed the rifle at me, but I just laughed. It was a ghost, right? Shouldn’t have been able to touch me. Then it fired. Pain...I couldn’t believe the pain. I thought I was dying! The thing reloaded and aimed again, so I threw my wallet to it. As soon as I did that, it faded away, just like the first time, and the pain went with it. It took me a while before I could stand up, though, I was shaking too hard. No trace of the wallet.

Still concerned about the money, she thought. Perhaps it was just an excess of greed she smelled? But no, she’d been around that smell often enough to recognize it. She started the tape again.

She almost missed it. He described other incidents, how he’d tried to ignore the pain, ignore the ghost, but had always given in, how the ghost appeared once when he had no money and had shot him several times, how he’d always made a point of carrying some after that. No particular place for the haunting, from the sound of it, although he had always been alone when it had appeared. Or had he?

She replayed one bit. ...not just my spare change, it’s been costing me business. Maldonado had said something this evening about his business being disrupted. He had ignored hints about his background, his family, his business. She’d let it slide, but perhaps it was time for her to make an issue of it. He’d never said in so many words that he’d always been alone when the bandit appeared. If the ghost had driven off a customer for this mysterious business...but what sort of business could he have, other than cattle, on a ranch in the middle of Nowhere, Sonora? Rustling? It sounded far-fetched, but no more so than a ghostly bandit who kept robbing the same victim. But it was affecting his business, which might mean his customers. She would ask him in the morning if anyone else had ever seen the ghost.

Decision reached, she put a blank tape in the machine, set to record, then got the rest of her working tools out. Chief among them was a cheap kitchen timer, an unlikely object for psychic work, but over the years she had trained herself to come out of trance at its loud bell. It made working alone safer, if not ideal. Paper and pens of several colors to hand, a candle for focus, and she was ready. She lit the candle, then turned off the lamp, leaving the room shadowed beyond the table. Seating herself in front of the candle, she gazed into its yellow-white heart, slipping easily into the waking sleep of her job.

oOo

Maldonado was the most unsatisfactory client she had ever had. He came in during her belated breakfast to ask about progress, and it took all of her will-power to continue eating. The shady screened porch, with its view north across a wind-swept, grassy wash, was her favorite spot in the ranch house. The tiny triangle of Baboquiviri Peak jutting up from Arizona, visible to the northeast, was a reminder of home. His presence, here in what she had to admit was his own house, jarred badly. Rhonda sipped her excellent coffee, trying to ignore the sudden bitter taste. She could stand his refusal to co-operate, if he didn’t smile so charmingly at her while he said no.

She started with a description of her latest session. “This woman — her name’s Teresa, that came through clearly, a widow with a nine-year old son. Age about twenty-seven, I think — there’s some very strong connection with this location, although she didn’t live here. Possibly she died near here...do you know of a place called Zacatecas? That word did come through — anyway, she manifests quite strongly, and perhaps, I thought, a session with you...a seance, nothing elaborate, just the two of us and perhaps Concepción if she’s willing — is she a regular at Mass? I wouldn’t want to offend — perhaps Teresa is meant as a spirit guide for you, to help us discover why you’re being haunted by this bandit...”

“No.” He cut her off with the first of his repeated No’s, a flat denial followed by the smile. “Dear lady, this ghost, this — Teresa? — she does not sound like anyone I would be interested in, alive or dead. So, it was another dead end? If you will forgive such a tasteless joke.”

She had heard the pun often enough to ignore it, although she wished fleetingly for a client with some originality. A request for a seance aimed at the bandit fared no better. “I want to stop seeing that ghost, not encourage it.” Besides, as he pointed out, there was an excellent change she’d just summon up Teresa. Questions about his business were turned aside with a charming quip about hers, and a pointed request to at least meet some of his customers or associates led to a polite but absolute dead end.

“Mr. Maldonado. It is difficult enough when the spirits refuse to help. I do expect more of the living. Had it occurred to you that the visitation is aimed at your business rather than yourself? You’ve told me several times that your business has been affected, and there’s the focus on money...a bandido, after all...”

She broke off abruptly, overwhelmed by the smell of evil that suddenly filled the porch, replacing the spicy smell of desert flowers wafted in by the breeze. Not the mysterious bandido; it was Maldonado, and this time it was accompanied by the taste of personal jeopardy.

Rhonda forced herself to look at him, physically. Apparently he had noticed nothing unusual in her reaction, but the too-handsome smile had been replaced with an abstracted frown. “Perhaps you are right. I’d hoped to avoid this.” His words carried a stronger sense of danger, and Rhonda instinctively pulled back.

“On the other hand, it may simply be a case of too much power in this locus...an ectoplasmic focal-point, as it were...your own life-energy, so vital, of course you will draw such spirits...more work before I can be quite sure...” She was dithering worse than usual, fogging the question of his business in a cloud of nonsense words, smiling fatuously at Maldonado, trying not to sigh with visible relief as the sense of danger faded before the onslaught of double-talk.

“If you are sure, Señorita...” For a moment, the danger-smell flared again, only to subside at her bright nod. “Then we will postpone all these questions for now, yes? I will be gone for a few days on...business...” — a final sharp pang accompanied the word — ”but Concepción can reach me in an emergency. You will be fine working along, I’m sure.”

Rhonda was ashamed of herself; she positively chirped her assurances to him. Fortunately he was as psychically dead as the adobe pillars holding up the roof, or he would have followed the undercurrents of their conversation and the results would have been painful. The danger came when he thought he’d have to tell her what his business was. Somehow that knowledge was a death sentence.

Inevitably, she was more determined than ever to find it out just what his business was.

oOo

The next two days dragged past, slowed by storms. She couldn’t even invoke Teresa’s spirit. It could well be the weather, Rhonda thought moodily. The main thing she knew about the woman was that she had died of dehydration abandoned somewhere in the desert nearby. The heavy monsoon rains were probably an affront to her thirsty ghost.

By the third day, she was ready for a day off. Maldonado was still away on his mysterious business trip, and she was no closer to figuring out why a ghostly bandit had targeted him. The only thing that kept her from refunding the healthy fee he had paid her and going home was curiosity, and that wasn’t enough to offset the growing awareness of danger. She’d give it one more day after he got back, she decided, and then leave. She could afford the loss. Besides, nothing said she couldn’t continue to work on the puzzle on her own, from a safer position than right under Maldonado’s mustache. Maybe take a hotel room in Nogales...no, that was too far from the scene of the hauntings. Pity this section of the border was so empty.

Although was it completely empty? Rhonda decided that she didn’t know the area well enough to even make plans. Well, this would give her an excuse to get out for the day. She dug through the yarn-decorated straw bag that served as her briefcase and came up with her Triple-A maps of the region. There was a small town shown about thirty kilometers to the east of the ranch, although the distance by road would be closer to a hundred. The guide listed no amenities in Sasabe, but that didn’t mean there were none, merely that there were none up to the minimum standards demanded by the travel organization. She could check, and it would make a nice day’s outing.

When Rhonda told Concepción of her plans, the woman seemed upset, although she could offer no reason beyond, “El Señor regresará mañana.”

“Yes, I know he’s coming back tomorrow,” Rhonda replied in English. Her Spanish, when not in trance state, was so poor as to be unusable, although she could understand it well enough, and Concepción spoke English quite well. “Which means that if I want to take a little drive, today is a better day for it, yes? Don’t worry, I’ll be back before he is.” This assurance did nothing to appease the woman, but Rhonda was cheerfully insistent, and there was really nothing the servant could do to stop her. By ten AM she was in her Trooper, easing over the ruts in the dirt road leading to the distant highway.

By the time she reached her destination, she was ready to admit that Concepción had been right. The rainy season had left a desert transformed, high grasslands that rolled like a carpet to the horizons, but the effect of frequent heavy rains on dirt roads was even worse than she’d expected. The last stretch, into Sasabe, Sonora, itself, left her wondering if even four-wheel drive was enough. She parked near the tiny zócalo, the public square at the heart of every Mexican town. It was freshly-painted, in better repair than most of the town, but her hope of finding lodgings evaporated as she looked around. The map listed a matching town to the north of the border, but she could see nothing beyond an elaborate customs installation, and she didn’t feel like fighting bureaucracy on either side of the border today. She doubted if there was anything remotely resembling a motel there in any case. From the stares she was collecting, tourists were not common here.

She got back in the Trooper, grimacing at the thought of the drive back. There was nothing here worth seeing. She’d had her day away from Pozoseco, but it had been a wasted trip. Still, she was in no hurry to start the long drive back. A faint track climbed one of the hills west of town, barely visible through the long grass, and she decided to follow it and get a glimpse of the surrounding countryside. If anything, it was smoother than the collection of ruts that passed for a main road.

It led over the hill, along a wash, past the end of a barbed wire fence, then climbed again, this time a long smooth slope to the west. Except for the twin tire-paths, there was no sign of human life, no houses, not even any cattle. She shifted down as the grade increased near the top of the next slope, and stopped at the top. The throb of the engine sounded too loud, and she turned the key off and got out. Very faintly in the distance, she could hear a radio playing salsa; the town wasn’t that far away, even though it was easy to imagine she was the only human for a hundred miles in any direction. To the north, she could see the thumb-like volcanic core of Baboquiviri, much closer than it had appeared from the ranch. Rhonda stared at it for several minutes; she hadn’t realized the O’odham’s sacred peak was such a prominent landmark. The ranch couldn’t be that far away. Maybe the road she was on — if two tire tracks through the grass could be dignified with that name — would lead her to Pozoseco. It would certainly be shorter than the way she’d come. It was tempting, but common sense vetoed the idea as soon as it occurred to her. She’d wanted a look beyond the hills, but all she could see was another hill, rising to the west. A hawk circled above it, and someplace a locust buzzed like a dentist’s drill.

With the sound came a tingle along her spine, a tingle that Rhonda had learned over the years never to ignore. Something...she stared at the hilltop with eyes that saw and discounted everything, listened with ears that filtered out the sounds of insect and distant music. Someone...

“Venga acá.”

The whispered words were soundless, a voice she’d never heard but recognized instantly. Teresa. Wanting her to go...to go...Rhonda listened again as the silent whisper repeated. Ahead of her. Up the far slope, along the track.

Despite the persona she assumed for customers, Rhonda had too much sense to go haring off across strange country, without even letting anyone know where she was. Normally, that is. But she had followed the promptings of her guts, of voices no recorder could detect, for almost fifty years, and they’d never led her false. Even so, she checked both her CB-radio and her cell phone. Rather to her surprise, the phone had a signal; she was within range of a relay. That was good enough. She had a five-gallon plastic jug of water, an equal amount of extra gasoline, and her emergency kit, plus years of experience in the Arizona back country. Even if Teresa abandoned her, she’d be able to manage on her own. But she trusted her instinct.

The nameless track justified her faith as she followed it kilometer after kilometer, never quite fading away, never leading her into a spot she couldn’t get out of. A few times the road crossed washes that tested the Trooper’s capabilities, with loose sand or mud or, in one case, a boulder as big as a small car, sitting right on top of the tire tracks that were the only assurance that someone had driven this way before. Rhonda had to swing around that obstacle, picking her way through the jumble of loose rock paving the wash before she could rejoin the somewhat-beaten path on the far side. Forty-five minutes after she started, she came to a fork, with one set of tire tracks leading south and another continuing west. She could see a clump of trees that might hide buildings, a mile or so to the south, and the tracks leading that way were easier to make out, as if that were the more frequented route. She stopped, considering, but the fainter tracks ahead were the ones she was supposed to follow, no question. She drove on, muttering, “Blast Robert Frost.”

She wasn’t sure how much later it was when she spotted fresh tire prints in a patch of mud left by the last rain, turning north. She stopped and got out. Truck, she decided. A big, heavy pickup at least. Now that she looked closely, the tracks to the west looked fresher, as though someone had driven along this route recently, turning north instead of continuing on to the town. If they could get this far, she could follow the tracks back to...Pozoseco? She didn’t know, but it was the right direction. She went back to the Trooper and stopped. It felt wrong.

She scanned the horizon, close here in the depression of the wash. Nothing visible. Once more she reached for the door, but the feeling of wrongness persisted. “All right, who’s here? Teresa?” Eyes closed, she waited to see if her other vision could spot anything. There...her physical eyes snapped open, as a misty form appeared. Not Teresa, not any of the spirits she’d contacted in the past week. The transparent figure in front of her wore the ragged white pants, straw hat, and poncho of the poorest campesinos, but crossed with a bandoleer, and in its hands was a very solid-looking old rifle. The elusive bandit.

“Now why here?” she asked it. There was no reply, but something about the figure tugged at some memory, not anything she’d picked up from her trances, but something...there was something not quite right about that ghost. No question that it was a ghost, as she could see the hillside quite clearly through it, but something...

“Have you brought me here?” she repeated, although there was little question of that. “What do you want, how can I help?” These weren’t ideal working conditions, but if the spirit chose to manifest itself here, she would manage. She repeated the questions in her badly-accented Spanish, although in Rhonda’s experience most ghosts could understand her no matter what language came out of her mouth.

The figure’s mouth didn’t move, but again she heard the voiceless whisper, Venga acá, Come here. The same spirit voice she had heard before. “Teresa?” she said aloud, startled, but knew the answer before the ghost shook its head. This wasn’t Teresa. And yet her voice had led Rhonda here. The two spirits were linked, then.

The ghost raised the rifle — shotgun? Rhonda didn’t know enough about guns to identify the weapon, although it felt old to her — and motioned for her to follow, up the wash along the tracks left by the truck. She started to climb into the Trooper to do so, and was hit by a feeling of wrongness so strong it left her dizzy. Right, then. On foot. “I don’t know what you want, my friend,” she called, “but I am still of the flesh. Just a moment.” She rummaged around in the back until she found the canteen she kept there for emergencies. This entire expedition had been insane, but that was still no excuse for ignoring the basics of survival. Filling it from the water jug, she turned to face the ghost. “All right, I’m ready.”

It was a good thing Rhonda had spent years hiking around Sedona. She figured she would have given up within a kilometer without that training. It could have been worse; the trail followed the wash roughly, and at intervals she could see traces left by the heavy truck. The ghost stayed ahead of her, leading the way, waiting impatiently as she scrambled over rocks it floated over effortlessly. She stopped to catch her breath at one point, and the figure of the bandit hovered near, showing every sign of a most un-ghostlike impatience. “You might try to remember what it was like when you still had a body,” she grumbled, and it backed off a short distance. But beyond the — body language? surely that couldn’t be the right term — of the ghost, Rhonda was aware, with that inexplicable certainty she had felt about the road, of the need for haste. And caution. Caution and silence. By now her breath was coming in rough gasps, but she tried to keep them quiet, breathing only through her mouth. The back of her throat protested with an irritating tickle and an urgent need for liquid. She took a long swig from the canteen and scrambled on.

The figure of the bandido turned aside from the wash and drifted up a small hill alongside the trail. It motioned her to follow and she did, with a growing sense of approaching climax. As she neared the top, the figure flickered like the image on a TV when the power fluctuates. Then, in an ectoplasmic power failure, it thinned and vanished completely.

“If you’ve brought me all this way for nothing...” Rhonda muttered, but her voice was as silent as the one that had led her here. Whatever was beyond the hill, she knew this wasn’t a wild goose. She took five more steps, realizing as she did that she was holding her breath in the proper clichèd fashion. She looked down to where the wash doubled back below her.

She’d been right; a large pickup had left the tracks she’d been following. More specifically, a very familiar, dark blue Dodge half-ton pickup. It was parked beneath a mesquite hanging over the wash. She’d seen it before many times, although not for the last few days. It was Maldonado’s truck, and her client himself was standing about a hundred feet away, his back to her. Beyond him, a man was crawling under a fence across the wash, the last of a group, at least a dozen. The man scrambled to his feet, glanced back toward Maldonado as if in doubt, and received an impatient gesture waving him on. He joined the others and they vanished around a bend, moving quickly. Baboquiviri, looking like a blunted arrowhead from this angle, thrust skyward some miles beyond them. “Coyote,” she thought. “Maldonado’s a coyote. That’s what I smelled.”

Coyote in this case didn’t mean the four-legged kind, an animal that Rhonda rather admired. It was the term used for smugglers of human contraband. That fence over the wash must mark the US-Mexican border. The golden streets of America still lured immigrants, these days often illegal, eager to make money at menial jobs no one else wanted, maids, agricultural workers. She could sympathize with them, but the crooks who took advantage of them, charging a steep fee for services, often abandoning them on the other side of the border, were something else. Scavengers, preying on the weak and desperate.

The last of the men moved out of sight, and Maldonado turned back toward his truck. Belatedly Rhonda realized she was in plain view. The realization was forced on her by the way he swore and pulled out a gun, aiming it right at her.

“Doña Rhonda. You should have stayed at the ranch. How’d you find me, anyway?”

The gun looked enormous. Possible she could turn and run...but he was scrambling up the hillside as easily as a burro, never taking his eyes off her, and she would be at a distinct disadvantage in any sort of chase. She remained where she was, trying to act as if it were completely normal to meet at gunpoint, miles from anyplace.

“I wasn’t looking for you. One of the poor restless souls from this area called to me, a spirit guide in the truest sense of...”

“Save it.” He was at her side now, and shoved the gun under her nose in a way that the fluffiest old fool would have to notice. Obligingly, she chopped off the spiritualism patter. Instead, she pointed beside him.

“I followed them.” It was like watching mist forming over a lake. A thickening in the air, and suddenly figures took shape, some wavering, some so solid it was hard to believe they had been nothing but air a moment before. Many figures, over a dozen. She couldn’t count them precisely, as the less distinct forms drifted and melted into one another when she shifted her eyes. The bandit was in front, closest to Maldonado. The coyote saw the ghost and swore.

“You didn’t tell me there were so many,” Rhonda said.

“What do you mean? There’s just one. I owe you an apology. I’d just about decided you were as phony as that British accent, but you did me a favor. First time I’ve been able to get a group across in a month without him interfering, spooking the herd.” He grinned, an appropriately predatory grin, at the pun. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a fistful of small-denomination bills and threw them at the ghost. They drifted through the silent form like autumn leaves. “There’s your damned payoff, and it’s the last. Get rid of this damned soul for me once and for all, Señorita Zimmerman, and we should be able to work things out. A bonus of some sort. You’ll even get to live long enough to spend it.”

Not bloody likely, she thought, considering what she’d seen. But curiosity outweighed concern for her own fate at the moment. What she saw was an entire group, a veritable swarm, of ghosts surrounding Maldonado, crowding him, hate and fear and rage that reached beyond death made visible. “Can’t you see the others?” she asked. She pointed and started describing what she saw. “That one, his name is Carlos I think, very short, and the one behind him, Roberto — is that it? yes — Muñoz Ramirez, and next to him, right in the middle of that yucca — could you move, do you think? It makes me dizzy, looking at you with that stalk coming out the top of your head. Thanks, dear. Manuel, isn’t it? And next to Manual...”

She rattled on, describing and naming those she could distinguish in the crowd, aware as she did that she was babbling again, sounding like the most feather-headed of New Age Old Ladies. She couldn’t help it; that line of patter had been part of her for so long that it came out automatically. He tried to hide his reactions, but it was obvious Maldonado recognized many of the names, the descriptions. His eyes narrowed as he looked around him, searching for the figures she saw so clearly and clearly seeing none of them.

“And finally, right next to our bandido...why Teresa, so this is what you look like! And your son...” Rhonda turned to the most solid-looking figures of all, and her voice faltered. Teresa was a young woman, just as Rhonda had imagined her, but with a face almost a twin to another spectral image. She looked back to the figure of the bandit, which held its antique rifle aimed steadily at Maldonado. “You...” Rhonda swayed as a double image formed for a moment, coalescing into the same ragged figure. “No wonder I couldn’t summon you! Mr. Maldonado, are you aware of the drawbacks of gendered languages? They shape one’s impressions, and you referred so often to the bandido haunting you, I never thought to look for a bandida.”

“What?” He turned to glare at her for a moment, then looked back at the ghost. He — no, she, and Rhonda suddenly knew that her name was Mariana — smiled and with her left hand pulled the thin fabric of her worn poncho tightly against her body, revealing the slight but unmistakable curve of a breast underneath.

“Like La Carambada,” Rhonda said, aware she was babbling but unable to stop herself. “Back around 1860, around Querétero, a woman bandit who dressed like a man, she use to bare a breast after she’d gotten the money, rubbing her victims’ macho noses in the fact she was a woman...” She stopped speaking abruptly in order to duck the backhanded blow Maldonado aimed at her. “Look, I don’t make these things up, you know!” She waved wildly at Mariana. “She’s a woman! Or, well, she was...can you see the others yet?”

“No.” He made as if to move toward Mariana, but the ghost raised her very unspectral rifle and he stopped. “All right, so it’s a woman, dammit. Just get rid of it.”

“I do not simply get rid of restless spirits. I do try to help them find peace, solve the problems which bind them to this plane and keep them from moving on...” The patter started again, every word of it true this time, as she tried desperately to think of what to do next. Judging by the resemblance between the two ghosts, Teresa and Mariana, she already had a good idea of what was holding them. Teresa had been one of Maldonado’s “customers,” abandoned to wander lost and without water in the desert. Teresa and her son had died somewhere north of here, on American soil, their bodies still undiscovered. A desire for justice against the one responsible for their deaths, and for decent burial, had drawn them back. But why couldn’t Maldonado see them?

“Shut up, damn you! I don’t care about the others, just get rid of that bitch!”

“She is — ” And here the rest of it came, so obvious now that she’d seen both spirits, so heart-breakingly simple. There were times when Rhonda regretted her gift, the knowledge that came into her mind with the familiarity of an old memory. These memories ached like a bad tooth. All of Mariana’s history, the poverty, her husband dead at the hands of the rurales, the Federal police — it was all there in her mind now. None of it mattered, though, except for the part Rhonda had guessed. Teresa and her son had been Mariana’s descendants, the last of her family, and they had died while Mariana watched, unable to help. No wonder she’d come after Maldonado.

Rhonda took a deep breath. “She is the grandmother — great-grandmother? I’m not sure — of Teresa. The ghost I told you about before. She’s right there, not three feet away from you. I can’t banish your bandida as easily as you seem to think.”

“That’s too bad. I hired you to do a job, and I don’t like not getting what I pay for.”

Click. There was a metallic snap as the ghost cocked her rifle, still aimed at Maldonado’s chest. He brought his own gun up smoothly in answer. “I don’t think so. Not if you don’t want to see this one die right now.”

Rhonda didn’t remember until afterwards that Maldonado couldn’t see the other ghosts. Her reaction was foolish anyway, as young Tomas, Teresa’s son, was already dead. But he was a very solid-looking ghost, and for a crucial moment, all she could see was a gun being brought to bear on a young child. She gasped and dove forward, trying to take the boy in her arms, and tumbled down the hillside, somersaulting through the brush as a gun roared over her head.

A tangle of mesquite broke her fall, and for a few breaths she could think of nothing beyond breaking free of the thorns. The earth does spin, she thought hazily; it’s spinning right now. Then another gun went off, this one with a different sound, and she stared back at the hilltop. A curl of smoke came from the barrel of Mariana’s rifle, but she was backing away from Maldonado.

His teeth were bared in a scavenger’s smile as he glared at the ghost. If the non-corporeal blast had harmed him this time, he showed no sign of it. “¡Puta! Ghost or not, I’ve had enough of you and your interfering.” Mariana backed up a few more steps, and the rest of the spirits crowded behind Maldonado, a non-tangible pressure. A detached observer in Rhonda’s mind took note of the fact that Mariana’s feet were firmly planted in thin air. The ghost moved back again, almost as if she were afraid of the man, then turned as if to flee. Maldonado’s triumphant shout as he grabbed for her turned into a scream as he plunged over a drop-off he hadn’t noticed. Rhonda thought the spirits gave one final shove as he went over.

It was a clear drop instead of the steep slope she’d fallen down, but it wasn’t that high. She got ready to run, then realized she couldn’t hear him. No sound. On the hillside, figures were wavering, dissolving like mist on the breeze. She stood up, wincing as the mesquite snagged her once more, and looked around. Maldonado lay in a crumpled heap at the base of the short cliff, his head bent at an impossible angle against a rock. “I wonder if he’ll haunt anyone,” she said aloud. Probably not, she decided. His cares had all been for this plane, for his money and his evil little business, to the point where he could only see the ghost that could hurt him by taking his money.

All of the ghosts had faded now, except for Mariana and her family. This time Rhonda heard no voices, but she answered their question anyhow. “I’ll see you get decent burial, with a priest. I promise.” Teresa smiled and faded like the Cheshire cat. She’d probably see her again when she went hunting for their remains.

Mariana stayed with her until the Trooper was in sight. Then she spoke for the first time, a husky voice that could well have been mistaken for a man’s. “Gracias, Señora. Viva la revolución!” She raised her rifle in salute, and was suddenly gone.

A revolutionary after all. Not surprising; many of the Mexican bandits had been. Well, better honest highwaymen, or highwaywomen, than bloodsuckers like Maldonado. Rhonda got into the Trooper and realized she’d lost her canteen someplace back on the hillside. No matter. She turned the vehicle carefully, having no desire to get stuck at this point, and headed back toward Sasabe. It would be dusk by the time she got there but she thought the border crossing would still be open, and with luck she could be in Tucson by nine. She’d get some proper maps of the area and see if she could find Teresa and Tomas, keep her promise. “Viva la revolución,” she whispered, to the ghost no longer there. “And rest now. Your family’s at peace.”

The End