“No,” Chayo said. He raised the rifle higher, slowly, praying it did not split in half. “No. It is too much. It is everything we have.” It sounded like begging, and he was.
Baseball shrugged and made a face, showing his rotten teeth again. He looked toward the invisible river. “It is no matter. A few days ago, we killed five just like you, but there are always more. The river brings them to us and takes them away again.” He sounded tired, a man exhausted by all the things he’d done and all the things he would yet do, but Chayo knew it was useless to ask him why he did such things, if they burdened him so much. He probably didn’t know himself anymore. It was just the way things were, and the way they would always be, on the river.
Baseball turned back to Chayo. “I will shoot you and we will take what we want anyway.”
Then Chayo was all the way back on the bus in Ojinaga . . . with Castel and all the others dying in front of him.
That hot darkness, the breaking glass. Sparks on metal.
The screaming and the blood.
Ojos de los muertos.
Like the sunglasses of the two bajadores.
He and Neva had survived too much, had come too far, to die here, in this place.
Like the halcón, they had flown.
Chayo yelled at the top of his lungs, a scream he’d been holding in since that night, and flew again . . .
. . . right at Baseball.
* * *
—
THE BAJADORES WERE ABOUT TEN FEET from Chayo and Neva, perhaps more. The broken and empty rifle in Chayo’s hand had bought him some time when they’d first appeared, and even now they didn’t know whether it was loaded.
It also gave Chayo a longer reach, so he didn’t have to close the whole distance.
He caught Baseball off guard by his sudden attack, though he stuck his own gun out in front of him to fend Chayo off, to push him away.
He fired one shot, and Chayo felt the bullet tear the air beside him . . . no . . . through him. His body had been set on the fire, and in the still of the desert, the sound of the booming gun was louder than he ever could have imagined, louder than anything he’d ever heard. But still Chayo kept coming, and he brought the rifle around in a long arc, praying again it held together, and caught Baseball in the face with it. It shattered the man’s mirrored glasses and he screamed in surprise and pain, as Chayo’s rifle flew apart in shards of rotted wood and rusted metal.
A long sliver of that metal remained stuck in Baseball’s left eye and it spouted thick blood, high into the air.
Baseball went down and Chayo was on top of him, kicking and still screaming, and drawing the small knife from his belt . . .
* * *
—
THE OTHER, TATUAJE, didn’t reach for the machete at his waist, but instead a gun he had hidden in a holster beneath his long shirt. Neither Chayo nor Neva had seen it, and he went for it now, as Neva ran toward Chayo, putting herself in front of Tatuaje’s gun. His first shot went low, kicking up dirt and rocks at her feet so that she stumbled and fell, rolling in the scrub. But she got up and kept running, throwing a handful of gritty sand in Tatuaje’s direction.
His second went high, lost forever in the sky.
The third wasn’t from him at all . . .
. . . it was from Chayo.
He was kneeling over Baseball’s body with that man’s gun in his hand, and nearly blew Tatuaje’s heart out of the back of his chest.
The impact rocked him back and forth and his sunglasses slipped sideways on his head, but he didn’t fall.
He said something in both English and Spanish and coughed a thick river of blood, as his eyes rolled up white.
Perhaps he was praying, too.
Chayo’s next shot dropped him to his knees, where his gun slipped from his hands into the dirt. He reached down for it but couldn’t see it, couldn’t find it, his empty hands moving on their own, fingers searching.
Chayo’s last shot knocked him backward and put him down.
Still empty-handed.
* * *
—
IT WAS OVER IN SECONDS. When it started, Chayo had never held a gun.
When it was over, he’d killed two men.
Except . . . Baseball was still alive, barely. Dying by the second. There was a splinter of the old rifle deep in his left eye, and Chayo’s knife buried in the thin, weathered flesh hidden by the bandanna below his chin. The knife stuck out awkwardly, quivering with each last breath he took. He made gently whispering sounds, like he was telling secrets, like soft wind blowing through an open window. He was kicking his legs . . . back and forth . . . back and forth . . . slowing like a clock winding down.
He was crying bloody tears from his ruined eye, and Chayo held his hand as he died.
Afterward, Neva pulled Chayo up, helping to keep his own legs from buckling. He realized her arms were stained thick with his blood, and when they both finally understood just how bad he was hurt, she helped lay him back down again.
She stood over him looking back the way they’d come, her thoughts unknowable. Chayo wanted to tell her to go, to keep going. The sky was blue above her, framing her with wisps of clouds working their way north, the direction they had been traveling.
He lay in her shadow, and it was cool there.
Then she got to work.
* * *
—
SHE FIRST WENT TO BASEBALL and stripped him of anything useful, searching his backpack. She did the same for Tatuaje, taking the machete. She checked their shoes and belts, grabbed their canteens. She carefully took their guns and extra ammunition and set them aside. Surprisingly, she found a roll of gauze and dirty tape in Tatuaje’s backpack and a small bag of marijuana and some yellow pills in a plastic bag, and she used what she could to bandage Chayo’s wound and gave him one of the pills with a mouthful of water.
The bullet had passed clean through Chayo’s side, leaving a bloody, weeping hole both front and back. He had lost a lot of blood, and there was no way to put it back in again. Either the lost blood or the pill was making him light-headed, like he was leaving a part of himself behind and floating away into that blue sky. He was rising as high as that halcón he’d seen earlier.
He truly was flying.
He wanted to lie again in Neva’s shadow, but it kept moving, too, racing across the ground too fast for him to catch.
She pulled the bloody rosaries from around Baseball’s neck, and put the wooden one around her own and the metal one on Chayo.
She put Baseball’s hat on Chayo’s head, and tied Tatuaje’s bandanna around her hair, keeping it out of her face.
She put one of the guns in her waistband, and the other in Chayo’s backpack.
Then she got him onto his feet . . . pulled him standing, and the pain was so bad it made him want to scream and scream again, but he couldn’t.
She made him chew another pill.
At the edges of his vision, the world had gone dark and silent and still . . . dormido . . . and he didn’t want to wake it up.
The sky was full of murciélagos showing them the way, or he was dreaming them.
Or instead it was a plane, high above, arrowing to the sort of cities he promised Neva he would take her to. He wondered if the people in that plane were looking down and could see them.
Will they remember them?
He was slowly dying. Tonight, tomorrow.
Will anyone?
What was it Baseball had said? The river brings them to us and takes them away again.
Neva had her arm around Chayo and started them both walking again.
FORTY-NINE
As Danny finally left the Far Six, Melissa and Zita and Rocky the dog were getting into Javy Cruz’s truck. Zita was still wearing Danny’s hat, and the sheriff was hovering close to Melissa, helping her and the baby.
They were their own gravity, constantly pulling him back to them.
Danny knew Chris didn’t want to let them go, even though this was all his idea.
Danny didn’t want to leave either, but he had miles to cover and an old friend to meet. He had to get on the road if he wanted to get back by first light.
The whole time, America and Fox Uno stayed up on the porch, watching them all.
* * *
—
HE GOT INTO VAN HORN just before dinner, before they turned on the twenty-five-foot-high neon sign for the historic Hotel El Capitan.
The hotel had been around since the 1930s. Originally a place for ranchers to gather and wheel and deal, the building was turned into the Van Horn State Bank during the 1970s; it was sold in 2007 and remodeled back into a hotel. During the renovations, secret rooms and passageways were allegedly found, including a Customs and Border Patrol holding cell somewhere in the basement. With its great central fountain in the courtyard, terra-cotta- and blue-tiled lobby, and assortment of animal heads staring down from the walls, the old hotel was a museum in this part of West Texas. It was named after one of the higher peaks in the state, a massive limestone edifice rising starkly out of the Chihuahuan Desert, over eight thousand feet high. El Capitan wasn’t easy to climb, due to the crumbly rock and the sheer nature of its flanks, but it was a popular bike ride out to the peak in the heart of Guadalupe Mountains National Park from the hotel that shared its name.
Beyond the hotel and the peak, there wasn’t much to Van Horn. A few chain restaurants and plenty of liquor stores, a Budget motel and a Presbyterian church and a Greyhound stop next to a Wendy’s. The Hotel El Capitan sat only two blocks off I-10, and when Danny checked into his room, which looked out over the fountain in the courtyard, he could hear the big eighteen-wheelers rolling up and down the freeway.
He lay down on the bed with the French doors open to wait, eyes open, letting all that traffic white out his other thoughts, as the sun worked its way behind Threemile and Fivemile mountains and cast looming shadows over the town . . .
* * *
—
ABOUT AN HOUR LATER, he got the call he was expecting from Staff Sergeant Gary West.
Danny met West down in the Gopher Hole Bar, where West had set them up with two cold bottles of Lone Star. When Danny walked up, West got off his stool and wrapped his arms around him.
“Goddamn good to see you, Danny. I knew you were a cop or something, but I didn’t realize you were working all the way down in the Big Bend. Jesus, brother, that’s way out there.”
Danny laughed and pushed West back into his seat. Last time they’d seen each other in person they’d been kids, razor-thin and feral and dangerous. For a while they’d believed they were immortal, until Afghanistan taught them differently. West had filled out since then, gotten thicker in the face and neck, but the arms he’d crushed Danny with were still strong . . . still dangerous.
West looked closely at the scars around Danny’s left eye. “Jesus, you didn’t get that back in the shit. As I recall, you mustered out healthy and whole.” But the way he said it wasn’t entirely convincing. No one came out of Afghanistan completely healthy or whole.
“Well, Staff Sergeant, I’ve learned that you can get yourself pretty fucked up even when you’re not in a war zone.”
West raised his Lone Star in a toast, and Danny joined him. “Amen to that, brother.”
Danny said, “You shouldn’t have gotten these, everything’s on me tonight. I’m going to owe you plenty before we’re done.”
West laughed and drained half his beer. “Hell, I just ordered ’em. I didn’t say I was paying for them.” He waved at a petite blonde working the bar. “Ma’am, we’re going to need another round over here. Actually, we’re going to need a lot of ’em. It’s going to be an expensive night for my friend.”
* * *
—
THEY SPENT THE NEXT COUPLE OF HOURS catching each other up. Danny talked some about joining DPS, and then coming over to work for Sheriff Cherry. He left out some things, including his time with the Earls, and West didn’t press.
For his part, West had stayed in the army, slowly moving up the ranks. He’d gotten married to a young Hispanic girl and had two sons: Micah and Jonah. They lived off-base in a small house a few miles from Fort Bliss. He had endless complaints about the military life, but didn’t want to do much else with his own. His wife, Letty, was pushing him to get out, take advantage of the GI Bill and get some classes under his belt at UTEP, but he sounded content. He appeared happy.
He was happiest talking about his sons.
Micah was playing peewee football, and West was sure he was the next big college quarterback. Jonah was younger, smaller, but West figured he’d be a hell of a soccer player. West only needed to learn the rules.
“I watch that shit with Letty’s wetback brothers all the time, and I still don’t understand it, not at all. All that fucking running around. I just yell when everyone else does.” And when he said it, Danny caught something in his eye, something sharp and hard, something there and gone again.
I just yell when everyone else does.
He might as well have been talking about Afghanistan.
* * *
—
WEST FILLED HIM IN on how some of the others from their unit had turned out, some better than others.
“Remember Duran? That fucking little guy? He was from Puerto Rico, right, or at least claimed he was? Anyway, he completely lost his shit somewhere in Mississippi. They’re calling it that ‘death by cop’ thing. He goaded those boys in blue into putting him down right in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven. His girlfriend was there, holding their baby. He’d been going to the VA, talking to a counselor, getting meds and all that shit, but nothing was helping. He couldn’t see straight anymore, if you know what I mean.”
And Danny did, more than West would ever know. Danny remembered Duran. He’d been a funny guy, always trying to quit smoking but never quite getting there. The sort of guy who had a joke for everything. They’d been together at both Rumnar and Wanat, and Danny didn’t recall him having any issues on deployment. But then again, Danny hadn’t, either.
Danny wondered if Duran ever quit smoking.
“What about you?” Danny made a small motion toward West’s heart, then his head. “How’s it been, since . . . ?”
“Since we got back? Oh, it’s been okay, I guess.” West was arranging their empty Lone Stars in soldier-straight lines on the table. “It’s hard now and then. My temper. I get angry over shit I don’t even remember getting angry about. I don’t get physical, nothing like that, but it sure drives Letty crazy. She’s threatened once or twice to leave, but we always work it out. One of her brothers stopped me on my way to the base, pulled his piece-of-shit Mustang right in front of my ride, and told me if I raised my voice at her one more time, he’d drive me over the bridge to Juárez and fucking bury my ass there. Said no one would ever find me, and I kinda believed him. I think he’s a straight-up gang member. Barrio Azteca. Got these tattoos all over him, right up to his neck. Scary, scary shit.” West stopped, took a drink of a half-filled beer. “It is what it is.”
“You talk to anyone about it?”
West laughed. “Talk to someone? About a short fuse? Fuck all that, look at what talking did for Duran.”
“No, I’m serious. Maybe you should. Hell, maybe we both should.”
West looked at him closely. “What do you mean? You dealing with some shit, too?”
Danny nodded. “I think we’re all dealing with some shit. All of us. How could we not? The things we saw, the things we did.” He raised his hand for some more beers. Neither of them needed any more, but then again, maybe they did. “For me, it’s these dreams. I’ve started having crazy dreams . . . about Wanat . . . about Newberry . . . about everything that happened after that, in Rumnar . . .
”
West looked away. “Rumnar was some fucked-up shit. We were all on edge after what happened in Wanat, and then Newberry going out like he did. Rumnar shouldn’t have happened, but . . . Jesus . . .” West trailed off. “I haven’t thought of any of that in a long time. I didn’t want to.”
Danny nodded. “I know, me either. But maybe we should. Maybe we’re supposed to.”
* * *
—
THEY TALKED ON INTO THE NIGHT, about things and places they hadn’t talked about in years—about things they had never talked to anyone else about out loud—until the Gopher Hole cleared out and it was just the two of them. It was a hard talk, trying to put into words thoughts and feelings and fears that there weren’t any good words for, but it was also like clearing the air of thick, dark smoke. Like finding a small shaft of sunlight down in all those black holes Danny had been dreaming of. He felt better just for having tried, and promised to talk to a real VA professional about what he was dealing with if West made the same promise, and he did.
The talk alone was worth the drive, and it almost made Danny forget the real reason he’d come.
But now their bartender, the small blonde named Courtney—with her big earrings and her long hair pulled back—was flipping through a magazine waiting for them to finish up, so she could finally turn down the lights and go home.
The bar reminded Danny of Earlys, which also reminded him of Amé. West was nudging his shoulder. “I think our girl Courtney over there likes you. She hasn’t been able to keep her eyes off of you the whole time. I mean, maybe it’s me she’s looking at, but she’s not my type. Too plain Jane, too safe. I evidently like mine Hispanic and crazy and dangerous.”
This Side of Night Page 29