by John Nichols
“Where’s José Mondragón?” Bruno Martínez asked.
“I’m supposed to know that?”
Granny Smith lifted a warning finger. “Please. Don’t get smart with us, Mr. Bloom. We asked you a simple question.”
“Could you repeat the question please?”
“Sure, gladly. Where the fuck is Joe Mondragón?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mind if we come in for a minute?” Granny asked.
“Yes, very much,” Bloom said, as Linda appeared at his elbow.
“Huh. Are you absolutely sure we can’t come in?” Granny insisted.
“I have nothing to say to you,” Bloom told them. His heart was beating, almost fluttering, his legs were weak, his palms close to spurting sweat.
“You mean you’re just gonna keep a couple of state policemen standing on your doorstep?” Bruno Martínez asked disbelievingly.
“Yes.”
They looked at each other, shrugged; both faintly smiled. Bruno took out a pad and a pencil. “Okay, Mr. Bloom, when was the last time you saw José Mondragón?”
“I don’t know. Maybe yesterday, maybe a couple days ago. I don’t remember. You know, I might have seen him in Rael’s, or waved when he drove by in his pickup, I don’t know.”
“How about you, Linda?”
“Mrs. Bloom to you,” the lawyer said angrily.
“How about you, Mrs. Bloom?”
“I have nothing to say.”
“I see. Uh … Mr. Bloom, you’ve been writing about Milagro, I read one of your articles, I didn’t like it too much, know what I mean? I mean, you know, it gets a little heavy sometimes when an outsider comes in and writes about my people, because I grew up here,” Bruno said. “But you been writing about things up here, about José and his stupid field over there on the west side, so you must know a lot about this town.”
Bloom shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I know a little … maybe not so much after all.”
“Oh come on, please, don’t be humble now. I mean, I saw you over at that meeting the other day, remember? When you took all those maps into the church to incite those people to riot; let’s not have no false modesty here, okay? I saw you then, and we’ve been thinking that maybe you’re one of the ringleaders of this thing, know what I mean?”
“No, I can’t say that I do.”
“Where’s Joe Mondragón?” Granny Smith suddenly snapped.
“I told you, I don’t know.”
“He was here last night. One of our men saw him.”
“Bullshit.”
Granny Smith cocked his head. “What did you say? What did you say to a police officer?”
“You heard what I said. I’m not going to repeat it. It’s not illegal, you know, according to the Supreme Court—”
Bruno Martínez interrupted: “Did anybody ever tell you, Mr. Bloom, that maybe you’re not too smart?”
Bloom flared. “Did anybody ever tell you—”
“Hush!” Linda gripped his arm.
“Go ahead, Mr. Bloom. Did anybody ever tell me what?”
“Nothing,” he mumbled. “Nothing.”
Granny Smith said, “After Joe shot the poor old man, he ran by here, told you to hide the gun, borrowed a pack, a flashlight, and some food from you two, and headed for the hills.”
“What in hell are you talking about?”
“Listen, Mr. Bloom, watch that language, okay? You’re talking to police officers, understand?”
“Yes. I certainly do understand.”
“He always pop this easy, Linda?” Granny Smith asked.
“Mrs. Bloom to you,” the lawyer said tightly.
“Of course, ma’am, Mrs. Bloom. Excuse me. Now, Mr. Bloom. You better think real careful about when you saw Joe last and where, see, because like I said, we’ve been watching you, and, you know … you’re in the legal profession, you understand these things, it wouldn’t be too smart to lie. All we’re asking for is a little cooperation. Because we’re afraid somebody else’s gonna get hurt bad, like with a bullet in the brain, and, well, you know, that just fucks up our jobs. That fucks up everybody, know what I mean?”
“Look,” Bloom said, reaching back for the door, “we don’t know anything, we have noth—”
“You shut that door in my face, Mr. Bloom,” Bruno Martínez snapped, “and I don’t care if you are a lawyer, I’ll kick it down, understand? Now you listen to me, we don’t have all day to mess around with a stuck-up eastern college person with a legal degree playing hide-and-seek games, right? Now you’re in this thing and you’re in it deep, and let’s quit beating around the bush before there’s some serious trouble here, okay? We want some facts.”
As he said this a mottled-green, 1953 Chevy pickup with a three-legged German shepherd riding atop the cab rattled down the road, coasting to a stop behind the police car. Three members of the Senile Brigade wearing beat-up old cowboy hats sat in the front seat, and another younger man neither Bloom nor Linda recognized squatted in the back, smoking a cigarette. They did nothing, opened no doors, just stayed in the truck staring over at the Bloom front door.
“Who’s that?” Granny asked.
“I don’t know,” Bloom said. “I guess just somebody.”
“That ain’t just somebody, that’s my father’s dog and that’s his truck, too, and what the hell are they doing behind our car?” Bruno muttered darkly.
“I’ll go see,” Granny said.
“Hell you will—” Bruno grabbed at his arm. “I don’t like the looks of that truck. Stay here.”
Bloom said, “We have nothing more to say,” pulled Linda back, shut the door and locked it, and leaned against it, shaking, unable to believe the way in which he had stood up to them.
Granny Smith and Bruno Martínez waited there for a moment, facing Onofre Martínez’s battered green pickup. Granny said, “You think they got guns?”
Bruno scoffed, “Do rabbits have ears?”
“You figure each one has a gun?”
“That’s probably a safe assumption.”
“Would your own father shoot you?” Granny asked incredulously.
“You bet your sweet ass. He hates chotas.”
“Ho-ly shit.”
“Time to go home,” Bruno said bitterly. “Time to get our fannies out of here.”
“This town is going crazy,” Granny moped, unbuttoning the strap that kept his revolver in the holster. “I’m gonna put in for a transfer. Better free your gun.”
“This town has always been crazy,” Bruno said. “Don’t worry, it’s free.”
“Christ Almighty, man, would you shoot your own father?”
“I dunno. It never came up like this before. I guess so, though.”
“You think that asshole or his wife knows anything about Joe Mondragón?”
“Probably not. I dunno. Who am I? Superman with X-ray vision?”
The two cops walked slowly along the muddy walk and through a gate to their car. Granny Smith called Onofre’s license plate number into headquarters, reaffirmed their prior location call, and explained they were going to move out before trouble started. The men in the cab had their hats pulled down low, and between that and clouds of cigarette smoke and the cracked windshield, Bruno couldn’t tell who the others were, except they all looked old enough to be Egyptian mummies. Their guns were probably rifles, he surmised, and they were probably held barrel up, between their knees. The three-legged German shepherd, which had been staring at him through opaque but threatening eyes, suddenly growled.
“Jesus,” Bruno muttered, shooting his father and the rest of those old geezers a finger. “Jesus H. Christ.” And he swung into the passenger seat.
“We need reinforcements,” Granny said. “Do you think we should call down south for reinforcements?”
“What, just because one guy tried to kill another guy for bumping off his pig and the other guy shot him and ran away? As far as they know down there, everything is almost hunky-dory. And anyw
ay, Trucho don’t care if we all get killed.”
Granny Smith pulled onto the road and cruised slowly away from the green Chevy. “Watch behind,” he said. “See if that lawyer comes out and talks to them.”
“Not so far.”
“We should of got a warrant, I guess, and gone in and tipped over a little furniture.”
“Shit, man, they were scared. He was so scared he could hardly talk. But she didn’t seem that scared to me.”
“I was scared,” Granny said. “When your old man’s truck pulled up I thought those bastards were gonna open fire. I’m forty-six years old, Bruno, and I never pulled a gun on anybody in my life.”
“I shot a junkie once,” Bruno said. “Down in the capital. He was running away from an arrest.”
“What happened?”
“I killed him. I didn’t mean to kill him. It was gonna be a warning shot, only I was so pissed-off I hit him in the back of the head. That was—shit—ten, eleven years ago, I guess, before you came into the state.”
“Texas is a tea party compared to around here,” Granny complained. “The Mexicans in Texas are different. These goddam people of yours are weird. They’re crazy.”
“Yeah,” Bruno said. “They’re weird, alright. Should we drop in on José’s wife?”
“I dunno, I don’t really feel like it right now. I heard everybody and his brother, except the lawyer, bought guns the other day—Nick Rael told me. Not to mention the gun robbery at Nick’s Bernabé did such a wonderful investigation on. Nobody ever shot at me before, you know? I wish to Christ we could get out of here before these people jump right out of their pants and start butchering each other. Screw Ladd Devine and all the rest of ’em. Why should I get killed so he can make another fifty million dollars?”
“What’ll happen if they kill José up there, I wonder?” Bruno said.
“They’ll have to call in the National Guard, I shit thee not.”
“I’m getting an ulcer,” Bruno whined. “If I could find another job at the same pay, I’d quit tomorrow.”
* * *
Crouched behind, and hugging tightly to, his rock, Kyril Montana waited for a moment without budging. His rifle was ten yards above him, leaning against the rock up there, useless. The field glasses were on the ground three yards to the right of the gun. His hat was lying on the ground midway between the rifle and his present position. And he dared not move.
Although the agent felt some sharp pains, in his legs, in one hip, and under his ribs, he could not tell immediately if he’d been hit or not. Probably, he figured—as soon as his mind jammed back into gear after the shock of being fired upon had receded slightly—his pain came from the rocks he had bumped against diving out of the way and frantically heading for cover. But now he forced himself, without moving, to turn his mind inward, to trace physical patterns along his limbs and torso, to ascertain what, if any, damage had been done, and within a minute he realized that no bullets had touched him.
After that, Kyril Montana swiveled his head slightly, checking out the immediate terrain to see what cover it offered. There were larger rocks and some scraggly bushes eight or nine yards to one side of him; it was all open on the other side. And the first real cover up the slope was the rock against which he had originally been leaning.
Suddenly his wide-brimmed, khaki-colored hat popped about two feet into the air, and as it came down he heard another gunshot, and he thought: Very funny, you bastard! Several seconds later a piece of the rock against which his gun was leaning exploded inches from the rifle, and then, as he heard the report from that shot, the rifle went haywire, kicking up with a sharp jerk and bouncing sideways off the rock, a useless weapon when it hit the ground; the scope also splintered, and another gunshot echoed across the valley.
“You son of a bitch,” he whispered tightly. “You miserable God damn son of a bitch.” Now he was in more trouble than he had ever been in before.
Kyril Montana needed to get in a position from which he could see. But sure as hell whoever was doing the sharpshooting from over there had sized up his situation and knew which way he would be breaking. So the bastard must just be sitting over there with his telescopic sight trained between the agent’s rock and the larger cluster to the north, waiting for him to make a dash for it.
But the gunman would tire, the agent knew. His eye would blur, he’d have to go off the hold for a minute. His arm would ache; he’d relax it for a few seconds at a time. Hence, the longer the agent sat tight, the better chance he had. He shifted his weight slowly, trying—without exposing any piece of himself beyond the outline of his small rock—to work into a position, into a crouch from which he could spring. Once in position he waited a full two minutes, then suddenly broke, lunging up and forward; legs driving hard, he dived behind the big cluster of rocks, in the process bashing the knuckles on one hand so hard he cried out, but no gunshot carried over to him; the man had not even fired.
He still had the radio. Kyril Montana worked his arms clear of the pack straps, but then, judging from the multiple rips and tears in the pack’s fabric, he knew, even before opening the nylon cover to take it out, that the radio would be in bad shape. And he was right, of course: it was dented, smashed, useless.
Kyril Montana was panting; his heart beat rapidly, almost fibrillating, and he felt queasy, slightly nauseous. It took a strong effort of his will and a dozen steady deep breaths to quiet down his heart, and when it was quiet and his panting had stopped he ventured a look between two rocks and a tangle of dead gray branches toward the opposite valley rim. Squinting against the gray glare and against the cold and by now steady wind that made his eyes water, he searched the opposite timberline for the gunman, but could see nothing. He had good vision but that was a far distance, and it was difficult to pick out a figure among the gray rocks, scraggly pines, and greasy green bushes.
He needed his field glasses.
They were to his left, now, uphill, one lens glinting slightly. If he lunged for them he would be in the open all the way. He would have to snag them on the run and continue maybe ten more feet to the large rock against which he had been standing when the original shot had been fired.
As he was going over the terrain, planning exactly how to run it, memorizing the rocks and rotting logs that could trip him up, his mind abruptly veered away into the absolute and irrefutable realization that he had been caught in a trap. At the same instant this thought hit him, he realized the odds were much better than even that the gunman across the valley was not alone.
In fact—and this was only instinct, he had no way to prove it—there were probably at least four or five men in this vicinity or down in Deerhair Canyon hunting him now, determined to kill him. Kyril Montana shuddered.
Then he rubbed his eyes and refocused on the binoculars. Because of the wind, which would make the shooting much more difficult, he could probably afford to go slowly enough so as to assure snagging the glasses. Counting to five, then, he lunged into the open and ran exactly as he had planned to run, zigzagging slightly, hunched over, avoiding all obstacles, grabbing the glasses as he passed by, and swinging around the large rock. There he crouched, panting, waiting to hear the report of a gunshot for a good minute before deciding he’d better make use of the glasses, locate the gunman if he could, and decide how to get out of there.
The boulder was large, plenty wide, but its silhouette was smooth. There was no place, really, that he could poke his head out and not be conspicuous. In the end, stretched on his belly and inching ahead a little with his elbows, he peered out from behind the bottom upward-starting curve of the rock. The tree line leaped at him from across the way, but there was nobody over there. Slowly, very slowly, he inched the binoculars along the trees, probing among the lower-down rocks, finding nothing. The man must have descended into the forest, heading his way.
Swinging the glasses west, the agent focused on the highest Little Baldy Bear Lake where the two fishermen, about a mile upwind and thus probably dea
f to the firing, were still drifting around on the silver surface, their parka hoods up now, casting lines into the water.
Kyril Montana brought his glasses swiftly down from that lake into the wide meadow directly below and onto a horseman progressing slowly around the eastern shore of the lake beside which the agent had eaten lunch. He thought he recognized the horse, a big dappled gray—had he noticed it in a Milagro field last night? Or on his other visit? The rider could have been any one of a hundred citizens from that town: small and wiry-looking, his face completely shadowed by a straw cowboy hat with the front brim bent down, he wore a faded denim jacket, Levi’s, brown cowboy boots. And a gun belt. There was also a rifle in a saddle scabbard.
As the agent watched, this small man lifted a hand in greeting; swinging his glasses across the water and the meadow grass, he arrived at another figure—the man who’d been firing at him—just as that man emerged from the trees leading a small spotted pony. He waved back, then drew the reins over his animal’s head and mounted up.
The two horsemen came together in the meadow at almost exactly the spot where the helicopter had been parked. They spoke briefly, then the bigger man fixed his binoculars on Kyril Montana’s rock. He seemed to stare directly at the agent for almost a minute, then lowered the glasses, said something to his small partner, and, turning half-around, matter-of-factly removed his rifle from the saddle scabbard. Taking his time he raised the rifle, aiming directly at the agent, who was watching, for some reason mesmerized, who saw the white puff whipped away from the rifle by the wind but couldn’t move. The rock shattered a foot above his head splashing pulverized dust and sharp slivers into his face and arm, and only then—howling with pain—did he jerk back sharply, incredulous at his own stupidity … and he never heard the report, it had been carried north into Deerhair Canyon on the wind.
A slight tear in his jacket’s forearm indicated where the largest sliver had entered, and when he pushed the sleeve up about eight inches from the wrist he discovered a blue and only slightly bloody hole where the sliver had punctured his skin. As there was nothing he could do about it, he pulled the sleeve down again and wiped what he thought was sweat off his forehead. His hand came away bloody. For a second, as he stared at his hand, something in his stomach squeezed in tight making him nauseous again—had the bullet hit him in the head? Was he right now starting to die?