Tequila Sonrisa
Keech Ballard
The firing squad waltzed in, juggling loaded weapons, haunted by persistent rumors of the previous night’s celebratory debauchery.
The battle had been won, barely.
The work of the vultures, had only just begun.
The burly Mexican sergeant, half in, and half out of his tattered uniform, was in sore need of a shave.
“Present arms! Aim! Fire!”
The triple-blindfolded man fell to the earth with a soft thud.
The sergeant turned to the old gringo and smiled, his single exemplary gold tooth catching the early morning sun. “Are you satisfied now?”
Ambrose Bierce trudged slowly around the body and nudged it with one sure foot. “This one needed killing. Trust me on that.”
“The general is waiting for you on the train. You should leave now.”
Ambrose turned and stared into the distance. “Empty his pockets of everything you find, and dump the body in that dry well over there against the broken wall. It wouldn’t do if he were to be identified any time too soon.”
“Sí, señor!”
The train ride to the capital was a bit of a letdown. Huerta followed Porfirio into exile, riding the same boat, only with less gold, silver, and diamonds to tide him over for the rest of his misspent life in beautiful and mysterious Shanghai. Black Friday evaporated both his New York and London credit lines. The Japanese made him disappear shortly thereafter.
The general celebrated his historic victory in Chihuahua by proclaiming Mexico the new Rome with himself at its head. He instituted land reform on a national scale, which brought Zapata on board as his second-in-command and presumptive heir. The old gringo wrote it all down in the leather-tooled notebooks he brought with him from America as his only traveling companions.
The ‘Mexican flu’ broke out in Veracruz, introduced by some American sailors on shore leave, and traveled around the world two or three times before settling down in Gujarat to re-incubate. Mexican flu: 100,000,000, humanity: 0, was the final tally.
The old gringo burned his notebooks before returning incognito to America to enjoy the Great War in obscurity. His daughter cared for him during those last days, after which he filled an unmarked grave previously chosen for its quiet, peaceful
Keech is a hideous scribble monster sequestered deep beneath the ancient smoking ruins of Roswell, Georgia. His allotropic allusions may be sorted at Oddball Magazine, Fantasy Magazine, Utopia SF, Sci-Fi Shorts, and Hungur Chronicles, to name just a few fine cannibal island literary feeding frenzies.