Maybe. Maybe not. But, maybe. . .

Flies buzz on an unburied corpse in a murky interior. Johnny retches. Hes white-faced, fevered -- you would have said, a man with the devil pursuing him.

Slowly, shakily, he raises it.

The great wind blows open the doors of the church, sets them creaking on their hinges. Out of the sandstorms, hallucinatory figures emerge and merge, figures of demons or gods not necessarily those of Europe. The unknown continent, the new world, issues forth its banned daemonology.

At the end of the village, gazing across the acres of desert before him, a figure is propped against the wall, a figure so still, so silent as at first to seem part of the landscape. He smiles to see Johnny stumbling towards him.

The Count bursts into a great fit of tears. Roxana kneels by the dead girl, uselessly speaks to her, closes her eyes gently. Crosses herself. Gives the weeping Count, slumped on the whorehouse veranda, a long, dark look.

Almost the desert. White, fantastic rocks, sand, burning sun. Johnny stole one of the Mendozas horses; now it founders beneath him. He shades his eyes; theres a village in the distance. . .

The organ rings out.

"How much?"

Silence. Then, shouting. Then, gunfire. Havoc!

"Oh, no," says Johnny, lost, gone into his vengeance. "You wont be married. I wont let you be married."

"On account," says the Indian and grins. "On account."

But no bullet can touch Johnny; he shoots the bridegroom as the bridegroom leaps forward to attack him; shoots three -- four -- into the crowd of Mendoza desperadoes, two men fall.

Her mother, wailing, rushes from the crowd towards her dead husband.

Johnny aims, shoots Maria. She drops dead on to the body of her husband.

Teresa is spoiled, indulged in everything. But her father likes to tease her; hell drag out her pleading as long as he can. He doesnt often have his daughter pleading with him. He cuts himself a chunk more meat, munches.

"Five left now, for your own use," says the Count. "Use them sparingly. They come at a high price."

Teresa at last wakes up. She rushes through the havoc in the church; she is appalled, the world has come to an end.

Coda

The Count has summoned up more than he bargained for. He and Johnny crouch in the pentacle; Aztec and Toltec gods appear in giant forms. The church seems to have disappeared.

Though the bridegroom has arrived already, a huge brute, the image of Teresas father. He takes his place before the altar. The congregation rustles. The organ plays softly.

Johnny stands behind her, showing her where to put her hands. His long, whi藏书网te hands cover her little, brown paws with the bitten fingernails.

"Im dying, Roxana. Dont leave me."

The Count rummages through a trunk in his and Roxanas bedroom, he gets out old books and curious instruments. The room is full of mysterious shadows. Roxana tries the door, finds that it is locked; she rattles the handle agitatedly. "What are you up to? What secrets do you have from me? Is it the old secret? Is it --"

I wont. I wont!

Incredulous, Johnny takes aim, fires at a movement in the darkness. He rushes towards the scream. His target, Teresas kitten, dead.

Hes carrying the rifle that hangs on the wall of the bar.

"I could almost ask you. . ."

Johnny inspects the Winchester repeater in his hands; it looks perfectly normal. Not used to guns, he handles it clumsily. His disappointment is obvious.

Johnny smiles, shakes his head, whistles a few bars of Chopins "Funeral March".

"Not my son, Roxana."

The Count opens the whorehouse door.

Johnny, startled, halts; so the old mans turned against him, has he? The old mans turned his own magic rifle on the young one, the acolyte!

By the scummy pool, Roxana hears Johnny coming after them. She drags Teresa faster, faster -- the girl stumbles over her white lace hem, now filthy with dust and blood. Faster, faster -- hes coming, the murderers coming, the devil himself is coming!

An eclipse of the moon. In the church, in darkness, at the altar, the Count and Johnny summon the appropriate demon -- the Archer of the Dark Abyss. Such a storm! Out of nowhere, a great wind, whirling the dust into a sandstorm. Roxana, alone in her bedroom full of curious shadows, draws the shutters close and mutters prayers, incantations.

"I dont want to get married."

Traditional gasps as she walks down the aisle -- isnt she lovely! Even if her eyes search round and round the church for her rescuer. Where can he be? What will he do to save me?

Teresa, in her wedding finery, stands speechless, shocked.

She is so relieved that she almost forgets the dark import of what hes saying. Yet she must ask him: "And whats the price?"

"I was waiting for you," says the Indian who sold Johnny the gun. "We have some business to conclude."

"Ill be here again, soon. Im going to be married."

Her lover waits for her by the scummy pond. Take me away. Save me! He strokes her hair with the first sign of tenderness. Perhaps he will take her away, if she can bear to look at him after the holocaust. Perhaps. . .

Theyve put back the rococo, suffering Christ; Johnny crouches beneath him, hiding 九_九_藏_书_网under the skirts of the altar cloth. He tests the weight of the gun in his hand, peers through the sights.

"Where is the weapon?"

Bored, her mother sips tequila and nods off to sleep. . . A Czerny exercise; Teresa hasnt quite mastered it. Making a mess of it, in fact. On purpose? Johnnys presence makes her flutter.

Johnny flings back the altar cloth, leaps on the altar, shoots point-blank the wide-eyed, open-mouthed Mendoza.

Teresa steps out of the flower-decorated carriage in front of the church. Shes really worried, now, looking desperately around for Johnny. Her mother kisses her, again; this time, the girl doesnt respond, shes got too much on her mind. Her mother and the Mendoza women folk enter the church. Her father, a little dressed up, boots polished, offers her his arm.

Mendoza tumbles backwards down the altar steps.

Johnny, at the piano in the whorehouse, plays a few bars of the "Wedding March"; a wedding guest, drunk, flings his glass at the mirror behind the bar, smashing it. The whores superstitiously huddle and mutter. The place is packed out with wedding guests, all notable villains. But there is too much tension to be any joy. Roxana, unsmiling, rings up the price of a replacement mirror on her cash register. The Count, morose, stoops over his drink at the bar. The wedding guests treat him with genial contempt.

Johnny erupts from the church door. Now hes like a mad dog. Blazing, furious, deadly -- carrying a gun.

He takes aim at the Count, fires the seventh bullet.

He fires the seventh bullet and Teresa drops dead by the side of the scummy pool. Her lace train slides down into the water.

He continues to pick his teeth with his knife. She didnt want to learn the piano at the damn convent; why does she want to learn it now? To be a lady, Papa; isnt she going to have a grand wedding, marry a fine man? "Papa, I want to learn the piano."

Its very late, now. Only the Count stays up. Hes gazing at the recumbent form of a wedding guest passed out on the floor, snoring. The whores have stuck a feather hat on the visitors head, taken off his trousers, daubed his face with rouge.

Outside, against the wall, so still hes almost part of the landscape, an Indian sits in the dark, poncho, slouch hat, waiting, impassive.

Roxana, late, troubled, untidily dressed, slips in at the back of the church.

Naked, Teresa wanders down the aisle of the church towards the altar, stands looking up vaguely at the rococo Christ. She pokes out her tongue at her saviour.

Its a store-bought wedding-dress, come on the stagecoach from Mexico City. All white lace. And a veil! In f九九藏书网ront of the clouded mirror in Teresas bedroom, Maria pops the veil on her daughters head; what a picture. But Teresa sulks.

"It will fire seven bullets," says the Count, impassive as any Indian. "And the seventh bullet is the one that he put in it, it belongs to him."

Teresa creeps out of her bedroom window, steals along the street, conceals herself hastily in the shadows when an Indian on a pony comes riding down the street.

Roxana fights free of the crowd and goes running after her. The church is a melee of shots, noise, gunsmoke.

"I got it."

"No. Not Teresa. What harm has she ever done to anyone? Not Teresa."

"The smallpox came. All dead, all dead."

When the ritual is done, all clears; the interior of the church is a shambles, however, the Christ over the altar cast down on its face. Johnny and the Count pick themselves up from the floor, where the wind has left them. The Count is coughing horribly, his face is livid; the rite has nearly killed him.

Wide-eyed, she stares at him.

"Johnny. Johnny at Aunt Roxanas."

But where is the seduction to be accomplished? Not in Teresas bedroom, with her mother dozing in the rocking-chair. Not in Johnnys room at the brothel, either, under Aunt Roxanas watchful eye.

He tips his hat. His pony, in the graveyard, grazes on a grave. The two Europeans watch him walk towards his pony, mount, ride. In the immense stillness of the night, his hoofbeats diminish.

But the Count is sick this morning. He cant crawl out of bed. He coughs, stares at the ominous bloodstains on his handkerchief.

Mendoza twists her wrist; she drops the knife. "Im not having my daughter mixing with whores!"

A creaking wagon delivers a shiny, new, baby grand in the courtyard of the rotting hacienda, among the grunting pigs and flapping chickens.

"Over my dead body will you go to Roxanas to learn the piano, not now you are an engaged girl."

"In church, Johnny; nobody will look for lovers there."

She turns to him. They kiss. Shes eager, willing; hes surprised by her enthusiasm, almost taken aback. Despises her. Its going to be almost too easy!

"And who will teach you piano in his hole, hm?"

When Johnny comes in, the Count silently pours him a drink. He looks at the boy with, almost, love -- certainly with some emotion.

Too bad, Teresa! Tomorrow you must and will get married.

"To a fine bandit gentleman." Makes a face. "Because I have no brothers, I am the heiress. My son will inherit everything, but first I must be married."

But this village seems deserted. A weird, shabby fig藏书网ure in his music-students black jacket, he draws water from the well, drinks. At last, a thin, ragged, filthy child emerges from the derelict house.

A huge, cavernous, almost cathedral, built in expectation of mass conversions among the Indians, now almost in ruins, on a kind of bluff, brooding over the half-ruined village. Empty. And they make love on the floor of the church, the savage child, the vengeance-seeker. Afterwards, triumphant, she buries her face in his breast, shrieking for glee; he is detached, rejoicing in his own coldness, his own wickedness.

You wont wheedle your father out of this one, not this time.

Hes suddenly really angry. You see what an animal he can become.

Hes forgotten its the seventh bullet, forgotten everything except the sudden ease with which he can kill.

Teresa, in her wedding finery, picks out a few notes of the "Wedding March" on her piano; furious, she slams the lid shut.

At the Mendozas dinner-table, her father sits picking his teeth with his knife.

"High, Roxana. Do you love a poor old man, do you love him more than you love your kin?"

Teresa sees him, breaks free of Roxanas hand, dashes back towards her lover -- to try to protect him? Some reason, sufficient to her hysteria.

The Count, leaning heavily on Johnny, greets the Indian with some courtly ceremony. But Johnny barks: "Got the gun?"

The Counts mistress and the beloved little Teresa run towards the whorehouse, where the Count gazes out of the window; run towards him, with the madman hot on their heels.

"Married?"

How Teresas hair tangles in the comb! A great bustle in the Mendoza encampment; theyve got a carriage for her, decked it with exuberant paper flowers. But she herself is nervous, anxious; she chews at her underlip, she lets the women dress her as if she were a doll. Her mother, oddly respectable in black, weeps copiously. Teresa, in her wedding-dress and veil, suddenly turns to her mother and hugs her convulsively. The woman returns the embrace fiercely.

"Then, papa, buy me a piano, let Johnny come here to teach me."

"What? My daughter learn piano in a brothel? Under the eye of that fat whore, Roxana?"

Hes aiming at Johnny.

"Yes, old man, I do believe I do. Its been so long, now, since weve been together. . ."

"But then. . . be good to the little Teresa. The prince of darkness is a gentleman. . . "

Johnny kisses the photographs of his father and mother. Its time. Unhandily carrying the rifle, in his music students black velvet jacket, elegant, deadly, mad, he goes towards the church.

Her mother chaperones her, sitting, 藏书网lolling in a rocking-chair, sipping tequila. Johnny, neat, elegant, a stranger, damned, with a portfolio of music under his arm, has come to give Teresa lessons. First, scales. . . soon, Czerny exercises. Johnny waits, watchful, biding his time.

"But --"

Effortlessly, its installed in Teresas room; entranced, she picks at the notes. "Kitty, kitty, the young man in the black jacket is coming to teach me piano. . ."

Teresa arrives beside her bridegroom. From beneath her veil, she gives him a swift glance of furious dislike. The priest says the first words of the wedding service.

Outside the church, the girl and woman meet. Teresa cant speak. Roxana hugs her, grabs her hand, pulls her down the path, towards the whorehouse.

"I want to learn piano," the spoiled child insists.

"Well be together forever, Roxana."

"He has come. Hes waiting. Hell give it to us."

The Count wont go to the wedding. No, he wont! He wont get out of bed. Please, Roxana, dont you go to the wedding, either! What? Not see my little niece Teresa get married? And you should come, too, you irreligious old man. Arent you fond of Teresa?

The gun changes hands. Johnny grabs it.

The crowd spills out of the church. Johnny drops his gun, turns, runs.

"The seventh bullet is the devils own. He will fire the seventh shot for you, even though you pull the trigger. But the other six cant miss their targets. Though youve never used a gun before."

Outside, all is calm now, a clear, bright night. The moon is back in the heavens again. Johnny, a man in the grip of a mania, stern, firm, helps the shaking Count to his feet.

Teresa wants her kitten. "Kitty! Kitty!" But the kitten doesnt come. "The dogs have eaten it," says Teresas mother. "And hold still, Teresa, youre wriggling like an eel; how can I fit your wedding-dress. . . ?"

"I want to learn the piano, papa."

Maria leaps to her sisters defence, surging down on her husband with the carving knife held high. "Dont you insult my sister!"

So he goes on assembling his occult materials and now she helps him. She has only one reservation. "The little Teresa, nothing must happen to her. . ."

"Your. . . son has come to set you free?"

"Whats so special about it? Could have bought one in the store."

Suspicious, at first. Then. . . "Do you love me?" Exultant, shouting. "So you love me! You must love me! Youll take me away!"

The Count lets her in, takes her into his arms. "Hell take the burden from me, Roxana. He wants to, hes willing, he knows. . ."