He wiped his eyes on the back of his hand. Then his laughter started up again, but weaker, kind of like when your car is switched off but comes to life again for a few moments on its own. Maybe not yours.
“Here’s what I told Clint for nothing, since I’d rather have nothing than feel dirty,” he said. “Rosita Flores had a boyfriend. He’s still alive. This boyfriend worked for many years at Rancho de la Luna—kind of a cowboy legend. Retired now but he still lives out there. Ten miles west on the old Yuma Road.”
“His name?”
“Flaco de Vargas.”
“Did you tell Flaco that Clint was coming?”
“For that answer, I charge fifty dollars.”
“I thought money made you feel dirty.”
“Clint’s. I’ve changed my mind about yours.”
Bernie handed over some money. Hernando tucked it in his pocket.
“I did not tell Flaco,” he said.
“Why not?”
“He has an unpredictable temper.”
“Did you warn Clint about that?”
Hernando shook his head.
“Why not?”
“He’s the kind of man who can look after himself.”
“Yeah?” said Bernie. “How bad is this temper of Flaco’s? Is he capable of murder, for example?”
“Murder?”
“Clint was stabbed to death a few days ago, not far from Fort Kidder.”
Hernando backed away. “I know nothing about that.”
“Does the name Lotty Pilgrim mean anything to you?”
Hernando shook his head.
“Do you like country music?”
“Country music?” Hernando looked puzzled for a moment. “Tejano, yes. American country, no.”
He gave Bernie a long look, then reached into his pocket and gave us back our money. Had that ever happened before? This interview must have gone very well. I scarfed up a dusty Cheeto from under a table on our way out.
* * *
The old Yuma Road turned out to be the kind of road we loved, me and Bernie—no pavement, no traffic, no nothing, except for open country, purple mountains on both sides, the sinking sun in front, a dust cloud in back. For a while we went pretty slow, lost in the beauty of it all, and then, coming onto a smooth stretch of road, hardly rutted at all, Bernie stepped on it. At the exact same moment I would have done the exact same thing!
“Wee-ooo!” Bernie shouted, and waved his hat in the air, even though he had no hat, so just made the hat-waving motion. I would have done that exact same thing, too!
I’ve got this howl I can let loose if the moment is right, and it was. I howled. Bernie went “Wee-oo!” I upped my howl to the next level. Bernie upped his wee-oo. I upped my howl to the max, where no one can follow. But Bernie tried! Had to love Bernie, of course. We howled and wee-ooed, howled and wee-ooed, howled and—
And then up ahead, a figure—or maybe two figures, one small, the other a little bigger—ran across the road and disappeared on a bushy slope. We slowed down, stopped, got out. No one to see up the slope, but I picked up their scents right away, a woman and a girl.
Bernie shaded his eyes. “Hola!” he called. “Hola!” No answer, no movement. The wind rose, weakening the scent right away. “We probably frightened the hell out of them, Chet.”
Us? I couldn’t think how. Bernie took a big plastic bottle of water out from under my seat and left it by the side of the road.
* * *
The ranch gate was open, a solid gate with a yellow metal moon hanging over the drive—not the full, round moon, more the slivery kind.
“Rancho de la Luna,” Bernie said. “Established 1913.” He turned to me. “Guess what we’re going to do.”
Grab a snack? Take off on a hunting trip—one of my oldest and strongest desires? A long hunting trip, possibly lasting forever? Those were my guesses.
“We’re going to book a room, just like any normal guests.”
How disappointing, at least at first. But then I thought: Don’t normal guests love snacks? And what if normal guests hanker for a hunting trip? The guest is always right—isn’t that a saying? I felt much better.
* * *
“Well,” said Bernie, as we checked out our room, “don’t say we never stay anywhere nice.”
Oh, I wouldn’t even have the thought! This room—with its tile floor, some tiles blue, some with yellow flowers, plus the sunset-colored adobe walls, the dark wooden beams and dark wooden furniture, all of it smelling so old but in a lovely way, almost how certain things smell in dreams, at least mine—was the second best place we’d ever stayed. The very best was a cave partway up a stony hillside where we’d been caught in a monsoon, a very small cave with just room for me, really, but I’d squeezed over in the most accommodating way. Deepest sleep of my life, and I’m sure for Bernie, too—he stayed drowsy for days!
“What d’you know?” He was gazing at a framed photo on the wall. “Teddy Roosevelt stayed here. Looks like a hunting trip.”
Wow! Who’s luckier than me? Now it was just a question of how soon this Teddy character would show up so we could get started. I took a good look at him so I wouldn’t forget—a moonfaced dude wearing glasses and laughing his head off, probably so happy about hunting—and sat down by the door.
Teddy still hadn’t come by dinnertime. We ate on a terrace outside, steak for Bernie, kibble topped with bite-size steak pieces for me, not as many as I could have eaten, but no complaints.
“What a hungry boy!” said the waitress. She crouched near me and spoke in a baby voice. “Has nobody been feeding poor widdle oo?”
“I have,” said Bernie. “He had a full bowl this morning and—”
Or something along those lines, my attention wandering a bit on account of the waitress producing a whole handful of more bite-size steak pieces. I knew one thing for sure: Rancho de la Luna was first-class all the way.
A bit later I was lying under the table, licking my muzzle from time to time but mostly just relaxing, while Bernie polished off a bourbon and signed the check.
“Staying long?” the waitress said.
“Don’t know yet,” said Bernie.
“We’ve got great riding trails,” she said, “and fine horses down at the stable.”
“Sounds good.”
Horses were in the picture? I’d had plenty of experience with horses, prima donnas each and every one. I stopped relaxing, sniffed the air. Yes, horses. Horses everywhere. How had I missed that?
“We’ve got some great wranglers, too, if you prefer a guide,” the waitress said.
“Probably best,” Bernie said. “Any chance Flaco de Vargas would be available?”
She blinked. “You mean old Mr. Vargas? He doesn’t ride anymore.”
We went back to our room, and soon Bernie was in bed, snoring in his gentle way, a sort of music, and I was lying by the door. Then came a soft crunch of someone walking on gravel, approaching the door, slowing down, moving on. Teddy Roosevelt, perhaps? If so, he was a hair-gel fan.
* * *
“Done much riding?” said the head wrangler, her mirrored sunglasses blue from the morning sky.
“Some,” said Bernie. “But not recently.”
Bernie had done some riding? On horseback? I wasn’t sure I liked that idea.
The wrangler looked my way. “What’s your dog’s name?”
“Chet.”
“Know his way around horses?”
Totally! For example, if you mosey up behind them and suddenly bark real loud, they rear right up—neighing like crazy, eyes bugging out—and take off, unless they’re tied to something. And that’s just one of the things I know, the first horsey fact that popped into my head.
“Um,” Bernie was saying. “Sure.”
“Then let’s pick one out,” the wrangler said.
She led us into the barn. The smell of horse was so strong it came close to making me dizzy. We went from stall to stall, looking at the horses. They looked back at
us, every single one of them getting nervous just from the sight of me, meaning this wasn’t all bad.
“Here’s Rusty,” the wrangler said. “Very placid.”
“Sounds good,” said Bernie.
But at that moment, another, much bigger horse in the next stall stuck his head around the corner. Rusty shifted away, even though this other customer couldn’t change stalls or even make contact.
“What about him?” Bernie said.
“Mingo?” said the wrangler. “I don’t think Mingo would be right. He can be a mite headstrong with strangers.”
Bernie moved over to Mingo’s stall and—and stroked Mingo’s forehead? If that empty space between those two ridiculously widely spaced eyes—kind of insane-looking eyes in Mingo’s case—was indeed the forehead? This was not a good development, and was followed by several more, starting with the wrangler leading Mingo out to the front of the barn and taking a bridle off the wall.
“How about I handle that?” Bernie said. The wrangler, her sunglasses now perched on her head, gazed at Bernie. I got the feeling she didn’t like him. So why not bag this whole thing, do it some other time, or even better not at all? But before anyone could make that sensible suggestion, Bernie said, “Just so we get to know each other from the start.”
There was a long pause in which nothing happened except for Mingo rolling his crazy eyes. Then without a word, the wrangler handed Bernie the bridle. He took it in one hand, sort of wrapped his other arm around Mingo’s head, made a soft grunt I’d never heard from him before, and the next thing I knew he had the bridle in place and that metal bar—never between my teeth, amigo, no matter who was doing it—in Mingo’s mouth. After that came the saddle pad—which Bernie let Mingo sniff at, why, I didn’t know, since it reeked of horse and nothing but, of no interest to anybody—and then the saddle. In a flash Bernie got the under strap thing all tied up, muttering, “Seven, four, one,” as he did so, a complete puzzlement to me, and in one easy motion he swung himself up top. For a moment Mingo went out of his mind. It happened just like that. I could feel it, and also feel his tremendous strength. He was going to rear up and toss Bernie to the ground. And that rearing up actually started, but it turned immediately into a sort of circling trot that ended with Mingo snorting and coming to a halt. Bernie patted Mingo’s neck, not for a long time you might say, and maybe not putting a whole lot of feeling into it, but still: this day was off to a terrible start.
The wrangler was looking up at Bernie, no longer disliking him so much.
“Not your first time,” she said.
“Been a while, like I said.” He took a deep breath. “Going way back, in more ways than one.”
The wrangler nodded.
“Can you recommend a nice ride?” Bernie said.
“Depends,” she said. “Will Chet here be able to keep up?”
Bernie laughed. “That won’t be the problem.”
Nice to hear, but not nearly enough. What we needed now was more, lots more, about, well, me. I was considering some wild run through the barn just to show the wrangler the kind of speed we were dealing with, when Bernie made a little clicking sound and Mingo walked out of the barn and into the sunshine. They got through the doorway first. I didn’t even make a play for it! Could we move on to some other case? Even divorce work?
Outside, the wrangler started pointing out the different trailheads.
“Which one is Flaco de Vargas’s favorite?” Bernie said.
“You know Mr. Vargas?”
“Know of him,” Bernie said. “A legend.”
The wrangler nodded. “You could say hi if you wanted.”
“Yeah?”
She pointed. “Take that trail there—Hanging Moon—due west for two miles. You’ll see a big one-armed saguaro, and just beyond that to the right is Mr. Vargas’s casita. No Wi-Fi out there, no cell—he could use a visitor.”
“Hanging Moon is the name of the trail?”
The wrangler nodded. “A mistranslation of the old O’odham name, according to an anthropologist we had here a while back. But I like it. Is it about the moon hanging in the sky, or a nice moon for a hanging?”
Bernie made that click-click and Mingo trotted toward the Hanging Moon trailhead. I know a little about trotting myself and was soon in the lead. Mingo snorted once or twice. I barked in no uncertain terms and barked again, just in case he missed the point I was making, namely that—
“Che-et?”
No barking? Was that it? Silence, perhaps? I can be silent, better believe it. I can be silent and do other things at the same time, for example run circles around some object, even if that object happens to be moving, tighter and tighter circles, tightening faster and faster, yet silent all the while, those circles growing smaller and—
“CHET!”
Twenty-two
We halted in front of the one-armed saguaro. Nice friendly buddies out on a nice friendly desert excursion: that’s what you’d have thought if you’d seen us, me, Bernie, and Mingo. Here’s a tip in case you need it someday: horses’ hooves can be dangerous—they wear metal shoes, for some reason—but they’re not good at sideways kicking. I always bear that in mind myself, but do whatever you like. I’m not the type who needs everybody to—
“Chet, for god’s sake. What am I going to do with you?”
Take me to a cookout? That was my first thought, but I was open to suggestions.
Bernie pointed. “There’s the casita.” He did the click-click thing and Mingo went into his lope, lope-loping up a gentle rise toward a small green house, the only house around. I can lope, too, by the way, lope with the best of them. I loped my way into the lead.
A man sat on a bench on the shady side of the house. He turned toward us as we got near: an old shirtless man wearing jeans and cowboy boots, maybe around Hernando’s age, and with the same sun-baked skin, although he had no mustache, no hair on top, either. It was very quiet, except for Mingo’s ridiculously loud heartbeat. The old man looked at us, but in a strange way, more like he was looking near us.
“Hi,” Bernie said, dismounting and walking toward him, one hand on the reins. “Flaco de Vargas?”
The old man nodded. “I don’t see so good.”
“I’m Bernie Little,” Bernie said. “Guest at the ranch.”
The old man—Flaco, if I was following this right—sniffed the air. That caught my attention, big-time. “They sent you out on Mingo?”
“Yup.”
Flaco looked toward Mingo, although actually over Mingo’s head. “Aquí, Mingo,” he said.
Mingo stepped forward, Bernie moving with him, still holding the reins. Flaco held out his hand and Mingo lowered his head and nuzzled it. Then he leaned closer and nuzzled Flaco’s bare chest. Flaco patted his neck. “Poor Mingo. He doesn’t get out much.”
“No?” Bernie said.
“He has his ways, different from the ways of the guests.” Flaco sniffed the air again. “You have a dog.”
“His name’s Chet.”
“The dog is with you?”
“He’s right here.”
From out of nowhere, Flaco got very angry. His voice rose, not in a booming way, but thin and high. “I don’t see so good. Didn’t I tell you?”
Mingo backed away, neighing and tossing his head.
“You did,” Bernie said, his voice low and calm. Mingo—how would you put it? Got a grip? Something like that.
“Well,” said Flaco, maybe getting a grip himself, “remember.”
“I’ll remember,” Bernie said. “In fact, memory is what this visit is all about.”
“Whose memory?” said Flaco.
A hitching post stood outside the front door. I know hitching posts. Leda and Malcolm have one at their place, possibly a sculpture called Hitching Post—I’ve heard several discussions about it, the one where Bernie said, “Are you going to hitch a horse sculpture to it?” freshest in my mind. Now he tied Mingo to Flaco’s hitching post and sat at the end of the bench. I sat d
own myself, a little way off, where I could keep an eye on everybody.
“Your memory,” Bernie said.
Flaco, who’d been sitting at the middle of the bench, shifted toward the other end. “My memory is very bad.”
“I think you’re being modest,” Bernie said. “Do you remember Lotty Pilgrim?”
Flaco shook his head. “I don’t know that name.”
“From way back, Flaco. Lotty was a young woman then, beautiful, with long blond hair.”
“We have many guests like that but the name you said is not familiar.”
“That’s odd,” Bernie said. “Since she was Leticia’s mother.”
“Leticia?” Flaco was gazing over my head. His eyes were strange and milky.
“Leticia—the kid being raised by your girlfriend, Rosita Flores.”
Flaco shook his head. “You’re not making sense, whatever your name is.”
“Bernie Little.”
“Maybe you have me confused with someone else.”
“Who are you afraid of?” Bernie said.
Flaco sat very still. We were all of us still, nothing moving except Mingo’s tail, which swished at a fly, missed, and tried again.
“Stupid people,” Flaco said.
“Name one.”
Flaco turned his milky gaze on Bernie’s face, and said nothing.
Bernie rose and went to a window, just a step or two away. He glanced inside Flaco’s casita.
“What are you doing?” Flaco said.
“Educating myself,” Bernie said. “So I won’t be so stupid.”
That was a funny one, Bernie always being the smartest human in the room, and if we were outside, then … then there was no end to it!
“For example,” Bernie said, “I see you have some framed butterflies on your wall. I’m betting that’s Rosita’s butterfly collection.”
Flaco’s voice rose again. “You have no right to look in my window.”
Heart of Barkness Page 18