Chapter 6 - The Fire of Justice
Ruiz was shaking so violently that his knees buckled. He fell to his joints, the blade of the machete grazing his throat.
"I'll tell you! I'll tell you everything!" Ruiz squealed, his hands raised in surrender. "Bernardo... your father, Clara... he’s at the old hacienda ruins right now! He’s been working with the new investors. They’re trying to blast open the old gold vein, but they couldn't find the exact entrance. The map... the only map was the one Santiago's father hid!"
"And where is the entrance?" Santiago demanded, nudging the blade closer.
"It's beneath the old bell tower of the chapel!" Ruiz cried. "There’s a stone trapdoor. But Bernardo is desperate. He’s got dynamite, Clara! He’s going to blow the whole structure if he can’t find the key!"
Santiago looked at Clara, a silent agreement passing between them.
"Tie them up," Santiago said.
Using the thick hemp ropes Santiago used for binding agave harvest bundles, they bound Ruiz, Mateo, and the unconscious sheriff tightly to the heavy wooden pillars of the cabin. Mateo wept, begging his sister for mercy, but Clara didn't even look at him. The brother who had wagered her life for a drunkard’s bet no longer existed to her.
"We have to go to the chapel," Clara said, her voice filled with a fierce determination. "If my father blows up the ruins, the truth dies with him. And we will never be free."
"It's dangerous, Clara," Santiago said, his hand gently resting on her shoulder. "Your father is a desperate man. He has nothing left to lose."
"He sold me, Santiago," Clara said, looking into his eyes. "He took my life, and he took your youth. I am ending this tonight."
They took two of the horses left outside. With the moon guiding their path, they rode hard down the steep mountain trails toward the skeletal ruins of the Hacienda de la Cruz.
As they approached, the smell of sulfur and burning torchwood filled the air.
The grand hacienda, once a symbol of opulence and terror, was now a crumbling stone graveyard. The chapel’s ancient bell tower loomed against the dark sky like a broken finger pointing at the heavens.
They dismounted, creeping silently through the overgrown agave plants.
Suddenly, a bright light flared near the base of the chapel.
"Hurry up, you useless old fool!" a harsh voice shouted.
Through the shadows, Clara saw her father, Bernardo. He looked worse than ever—his clothes torn, his eyes wild and bloodshot, clutching a half-empty bottle of tequila in one hand and a bundle of dynamite sticks in the other. He was yelling at two hired thugs who were frantically digging at the stone floor beneath the collapsed bell tower.
"The investors are pulling out tomorrow!" Bernardo screamed, spitting on the ground. "If we don't find the gold tonight, Ruiz and the sheriff are going to string us all up! Dig faster!"
"You're digging in the wrong place, Bernardo."
The voice echoed through the ruins, carrying an eerie, ghostly resonance.
Bernardo froze, his bottle slipping from his hand and shattering on the stone floor. He slowly turned around, his eyes scanning the darkness.
"Who's there?" he yelled, his voice cracking with fear.
From the shadows of the chapel archway, Santiago and Clara stepped into the light of the torches.
Bernardo’s jaw dropped. He stared at Santiago, then at Clara, as if he were looking at two ghosts.
"Clara? And... the mute?" Bernardo stammered, stepping back. "How... how are you speaking? What is this?"
"The demon is gone, Father," Clara said, her voice dripping with venom. "And we know about the murder. We know about the gold. We know everything."
Bernardo’s expression shifted from shock to a twisted, desperate rage. He looked at the dynamite in his hands, then at the hired thugs.
"Kill them!" Bernardo shrieked. "Kill them both! They have the map!"
The two thugs drew their knives and lunged.
But Santiago was no longer the defenseless boy they had silenced decades ago. He stepped in front of Clara, parrying the first thug's strike with his machete. With a swift, powerful kick, he sent the man crashing into a stone pillar, knocking him cold.
The second thug hesitated, but before he could retreat, Clara grabbed a heavy wooden torch from its bracket on the wall and swung it, striking him directly across the chest. The man screamed as his shirt caught fire, scrambling away into the darkness to extinguish the flames.
Bernardo was left alone.
He backed up against the ancient stone altar, his eyes darting frantically. He held the bundle of dynamite, a sputtering match in his shaking hand.
"Stay back!" Bernardo yelled, his voice hysterical. "Stay back or I’ll blow us all to hell! I want that gold! It’s mine! I paid for it with my soul!"
"There is no gold, Bernardo," Santiago said, stepping forward, his machete lowered. "The gold was moved by the government decades ago after Don Alejandro died. The only thing left in that vault... is the evidence of your crimes."
"No... no, you're lying!" Bernardo screamed.
In his madness, he struck the match, lighting the fuse of the dynamite.
The fuse hissed, a bright, sparks-showering spark eating away at the cord.
"Bernardo, don't!" Clara screamed.
But Bernardo didn't listen. With a maniacal laugh, he turned and threw himself into the open hole beneath the bell tower, clutching the burning dynamite to his chest, believing he was diving into a sea of gold.
"Get down!" Santiago yelled, throwing his body over Clara.
BOOM!
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The explosion rocked the earth.
The ancient bell tower groaned, its stone foundation shattered by the blast. With a deafening roar, the massive stone structure collapsed inward, burying Bernardo, the vault, and the dark secrets of the Hacienda de la Cruz under tons of impenetrable rubble.
