Chapter 33

Friday the fifteenth of March dawned a bright, clear, chilly, beautiful day. After breakfast, which Tom and I had alone, we took our clothes down to the barbershop. By special arrangement, the barber was waiting for us. We got a shave and a trim before taking a hot bath. When we were done, I dressed in my wedding finery, and donned an overcoat to walk down to the church.

Arriving at the church, Tom and I both removed our gun belts, hanging them on coat hooks before covering them with our overcoats. Moving to the front of the church, I waited for Anna’s arrival, standing in front of the prie-dieu.

As the church was filling up, I couldn’t believe all the people who were attending the wedding on what would have otherwise been a busy Friday morning. Anna was the last to enter with Yolanda carrying the train.

My breath caught at the sight of her. She was absolutely beautiful and, oh lord, the Anna smile she was beaming stunned me with its intensity. I remember almost nothing of the ceremony from the time her hand was placed in mine, until afterwards, when we were walking down the aisle together to the church door. I vaguely remember receiving communion and the vows starting with the phrase, “Do you, Anna Maria Jaramillo,” but that’s about it. Every time I’d start to come back to some semblance of self-awareness, I made the mistake of looking at Anna and the intensity of her super megawatt smile would put me under again.

We stood just inside the church entrance with our big smiles and thanked all the guests for coming. It seemed to take forever, but when we’d finally thanked the last guest and the Padre we turned and giving each other a hug walked over to get our guns and coats or, in Anna’s case, heavy shawl.

As we were strapping on our guns Anna’s beautiful smile turned to a frown.

“What’s wrong, my love?” I asked with concern.

“Mi Pablo, I’m afraid the time you warned us about has come,” she answered unexpectedly. “Yolanda and I saw at least four men we didn’t know as we walked to church this morning. They were all wearing guns.”

I felt the smile leave my face, to be replaced by a frown matching Anna’s as my mind raced to process what she’d said, analyze the implication, and develop a viable plan. A few moments later I was mentally cussing myself for being a fool. In retrospect, it should have been obvious that I, or rather, we, would be attacked today. Whoever this mysterious boss in Santa Fe was, he had already shown he liked to make very public statements with his violence, and what better day to make an example of us than on our wedding day. Our wedding date was public knowledge, and anyone could have learned of it with no trouble at all.

Settling my gun belt, I looked at Anna. “I’m sorry my love I should have realized an attack would come today. I can’t jeopardize everyone at the reception by avoiding this, so I’ve got to face them.”

I started to tell her to go out the back while I went to face the men alone, when Anna interrupted me.

“No, mi Pablo, we can’t run from this, and I won’t leave you to face those men alone. I told you that they would face us both. We’re married now. I am your wife, and we will face this together, side by side,” she said with fire in her eyes. “Besides, we won’t be alone. Yolanda, Tom, and some of the others will be somewhere close by to help us.”

With a deep sigh, I nodded my head and put on my coat. If I’d learned nothing else about her in the last three years it was that it was almost impossible to change her mind when she had that fire in her eyes.

Anna settled her shawl around her shoulders before wrapping her arms around me in a long hug. I bent down giving her a long kiss.

“Whatever happens in the next few minutes, know that I love you with all my heart,” I whispered before standing upright and offering her my right arm.

Reaching out, she intertwined her left arm in my right, while beaming me that brilliant Anna smile I’d so come to love. With smiles on both our faces, we walked out of the church, turned north on Main Street, and began our long slow walk to the wedding reception in the courtyard behind the restaurant.

During the walk, we chatted about the service and the ceremony. The closer we got to the courtyard, the more I thought that perhaps it was a false alarm. Three blocks from the stables, that all changed.

Anna and I were in the middle of the block, when six armed men walked out onto Main Street from the side street in front of us. Spreading out across Main Street they took four steps towards us and stopped. As we walked towards them, I saw a flash of reflected sunlight from the roof of the stable and figured it was Yolanda using her A700. I gave a slight smile at that thought, as Anna and I stopped ten yards away from the line of men.

“Can we help you with something, gentlemen?” I asked addressing no in particular.

All six men were medium height and very similar in physical appearance although two stood out. One man on the end was about forty pounds overweight while one of the men in the middle of the line was wearing much newer and cleaner clothes than the others. It was the clean man in the middle of the line that answered.

“No. We’ve managed to find what we were looking for on our own,” he replied to the snickers of the other men in the line.

“Well, in that case, my wife and I would appreciate it if you’d step aside so we can pass. We have a wedding reception to attend a few blocks down, and we’re a little late,” I said with a smile.

“Oh, we can’t do that. You see the wedding reception is really a wake, and you two are the guests of honor,” he said with a sad shake of his head.

“Why would that be? I don’t think either one of us has ever met you, have we?” I asked, hoping to gain some information.

“We’ve never met that I know of,” the man replied. “But the boss said to kill you both, and that’s what we’re going to do. It’s a shame such a pretty little lady has die though.”

“The boss? You mean the man in Santa Fe? What’s his name?” I asked angrily.

“Only one man has ever met the boss that I know of, and he don’t talk about it. That’ll change though, when I bring back the news that we killed you. Then I’ll get to tell the boss, personally.”

Anna quietly murmured, “You take the talker. I’ll take whoever is fastest. After that it’s pick and choose.”

With a small nod at Anna I continued talking to clean man. “Well what’s the name of the guy you got your orders from?” I asked. “I can at least tell him how you died on our next visit to Santa Fe.”

Clean man gave a start, and took a quick look around trying to figure out why I was so confident. We were unarmed, as far as he knew, and his quick glance told him there was no else on the street to help us.

Suddenly, a shotgun blast sounded from the next street over to our left and everyone was reaching for their guns.

My gun had just cleared my holster when I heard Anna fire two shots and saw the fat man at the end of the line collapse into a heap. My two shots at clean man were immediately followed by the completely unexpected sound of rifle shots from behind us as well as shotgun blasts from both sides of the side street the attackers had come from. Anna fired two more shots as I spun around ready to fire on the attackers behind us.

There was no one behind us! I stood ready but clearly perplexed until Tom walked out from the side street behind us slinging his rifle. With a sigh of relief, I turned back around to face the six men. All six men were lying in the street. Juan walked out of the left side street in front of us, his shotgun still pointed at the downed men. Jorge walked out from the right-side street carrying his shotgun

Holstering my pistol, I quickly turned to make sure Anna was okay. She was standing next to me with her gun still pointed at the line of men. Her shoulders were squared as she calmly holstered her pistol and turned, giving me a weak smile when she saw that I was okay. As far as I could tell Anna hadn’t been hit, either.

“I’m fine, mi Pablo, but that didn’t go at all like I expected. Only two of those men got off a shot, and both of those were fired into the ground at their feet,” she said in a wondering tone.

As we hugged each other tightly I whispered, “We were both faster than they were. They didn’t know we were armed, and that combined with Tom, Juan, and Jorge joining the fight surprised them. Surprising an enemy helps an awful lot at times like this.”

We shared a short kiss before turning to the sound of more people walking up. Giuseppe came out of the side street carrying a shotgun.

He took one look at the dead men as he walked by them and said, “The one holding the horses a block over is dead, too.”