This Side of Night

by J. Todd Scott

  The ways he had conducted these killings were as numerous as the victims themselves: burnings and shootings and beheadings. He had once planned to take down a commercial plane with a suspected informant, like the ’89 Avianca bombing in Colombia, but the man he had hired to prepare the explosives blew himself up in a motel in Sabinas, killing four others, including two small children sleeping in the room next door.

  Fox Uno had paid the families, trying to make things right. He had always tried to make things right . . . after.

  He had even killed a pregnant woman. He strangled her in a bathtub of cool water in front of her husband, and what he remembered most was how the woman had not tried to struggle at all. Instead, she gave herself over to him, gently. She was at peace. She did not scream or beg for her life or the life of her unborn child, and she did not tell her husband to tell Fox Uno what he wanted to know—the names of two men who had arranged for the checkpoint outside Saucillo that had claimed Fox Uno’s woman.

  She did none of those things, floating in the water with one hand pressed against Fox Uno’s heart.

  Instead, she said a small prayer, and whispered: Estamos listos. We are ready.

  And . . .

  Oro por su alma. I pray for your soul.

  The woman closed her eyes and died praying for him.

  As she lay there, he had Gualterio and another man named Miguel Ángel cut the child out of her belly, turning all the water red, and rushed the baby to the nearest hospital. The niña pequeña survived, barely, and Fox Uno then paid for new church and hospital records, listing his woman who had been killed in Saucillo as the birth mother. She had been a beauty pageant winner, one of the many women he had bedded and discarded. He ordered all who knew of it to say that it was she who had given birth to the baby, and that the child was Fox Uno’s.

  The dead woman in Saucillo could say no different.

  He had the real mother’s body burned, along with her husband’s, and their ashes and few remaining bones were buried beneath the pavement of a used-car lot.

  Eventually, he had the doctors and a Catholic priest who might know the truth killed, as well as others who could have whispered otherwise, including Miguel Ángel.

  Even Martino did not know the truth of it. He believed, as did most of Nemesio, that the girl—Zita—was his true half sister.

  Su sangre.

  Fox Uno had chosen the name Zita because it meant “Little Hope.” She had been so small and bloody in his hands, drawing her first breath, struggling to live.

  He could not remember the face of Zita’s mother anymore, and he never knew her name, but he would always remember her praying for him.

  Her hand on his chest, over his heart.

  I pray for your soul.

  Yo estoy de Muerte . . .

  * * *

  —

  HE HAD WATCHED THE ONE they called Danny walk into the house with all his pistolas.

  Fox Uno recognized him as a killer, too, born out of one of the americanos’ many wars. Like Fox Uno, he probably no longer remembered how many men had died by his hand—women and children as well, since that was the way of war. Even this guerra contra las drogas, as the americanos liked to call it. The sheriff was a man who might kill, but he took no joy in it. But this Danny was no different from the legions of sicarios who had murdered on Fox Uno’s orders—killing came easy to him, and he was just as dangerous as those that might now be on their way to them.

  Coming, a second time, for him.

  The ambush had failed at San Carlos, but those who had planned it would plan another, and then another. Was this their next chance, here at this distant americano ranch?

  If it was, it did not matter that he was in Los Estados Unidos—this country of so many laws—or at the home of an oficial de policía.

  It would not have mattered to him.

  He did not know if Gualterio or Martino—or both—had betrayed him, but whoever it was would send as many men as it took to kill him and Zita and anyone else in their way.

  Men like the one called Danny, or worse.

  He watched Sheriff Cherry and America and Danny make their preparations and plans.

  He watched them hesitate when his phone started to ring again. They still did not trust the voice on the other end, and neither did he.

  Not after all these years, and all the things he himself had done.

  He admired them, though, and like Zita’s mother had once done for him, he prayed for them.

  Even if he did not believe it would do any good.

  SIXTY

  Amé answered it, listened, and then looked at both Chris and Danny.

  “It is time,” she said.

  “I guess it is,” Chris said. He hadn’t heard from Bartlett at CBP; he hadn’t heard anything from Till or Dale. He’d wanted to do this during the day, but in so many ways they were still stumbling around in the dark.

  “Ask how many,” he said, “and put it on speaker. I want to hear it, too.”

  He looked over at Fox Uno, who had joined them. “And you, too, in case you recognize anyone.”

  Amé switched on the speaker, and a sudden voice—scratchy and distant on the other end—started talking in rapid Spanish. It sounded like more than one person, but Chris could still generally follow the conversation. Amé held up three fingers for Danny, confirming what Chris imagined he’d heard.

  “Two people, plus her mother,” Chris said for Danny’s benefit.

  “What are they driving?” Danny asked. “How will we know them?”

  After Amé translated Danny’s question, there was a long silence from the mysterious caller. When someone finally spoke, he sounded different from the first. Older, maybe. He didn’t say much, but this time he was perfectly clear.

  “No importa.”

  And . . .

  “Voy a llevar una camisa roja.” I will be wearing a red shirt.

  The voice, firmer now: “Ven a nosotros.” Come to us.

  Chris had talked with Joe Garrison more than once about how the DEA ran their undercover deals, with Garrison explaining the main concern was always control: controlling the situation, controlling the deal. That was how you best protected the undercover agent. Garrison made it clear they always set up cover teams and never let the bad guys dictate the time and place of a meet, which was a lesson Chris had taken to heart, and why he’d moved them all out to the Far Six in the first place. Now this voice—a voice who claimed he’d be wearing a camisa roja, a red shirt, when they finally did meet—wanted to change the plan again, just as he’d tried to change it with the surprise call late last night, moving the times all around. Now he was demanding America and Fox Uno come to him, but that wasn’t going to happen.

  It was never going to happen.

  “Is that Gualterio?” Chris asked Amé, but it was Fox Uno who shook his head. “I do not know that man,” he said.

  “No, se llega a nosotros,” Chris said, taking the phone from Amé before she had a chance to say anything else. He stumbled a bit with the translation, searching for the words, but he thought he had it right.

  He kept it on speaker, repeating himself. Slower, louder. “No, you will come to the place we tell you.” He wanted the voice in the red shirt to understand that if he didn’t come to them, there’d be no meeting at all.

  Fox Uno spoke, too. There was fury in his voice, an angry command. He shouted over Chris, and when he spoke fast, loud, it was too much for Chris to follow, but still clear enough—something to the effect of “Stop fucking around.”

  He thundered. This was the Fox Uno from Garrison’s folder, and Chris knew that voice—it was Sheriff Ross giving a goddamn order.

  Fox Uno finished by telling the voice to do exactly what he was told, and Chris understood that completely.

  There was a long, long silence, before the voice spoke aga
in. “De acuerdo, ¿dónde está?” Where are you?

  It seemed that negotiations were over. Chris looked over at Danny and Amé, and then at Fox Uno. He stared down at the phone in his hand.

  One way or another, it was time.

  * * *

  —

  IF YOU DIDN’T KNOW THE BIG BEND, there was no easy way to describe how to get out to the Far Six. Not all the roads were marked, some of them changed names depending on if you were traveling east or west, and the gravel strip that ran back to the house from the 19 didn’t have a name at all.

  Chris had once tried to find his house on Google Maps, only to discover it was completely lost within digitized blocks of green and tan.

  It was like it didn’t exist at all.

  You could find it with grid coordinates, and maybe orient yourself and make sense out of the paths cut through the scrub from the air. You might find it on a southbound flyover, or pick out some of the decaying fencing of the old cattle ranch this used to be. Damn hard, but not impossible. Duane Dupree had known this land like the back of his own bloody hand and drove Chris out here in the dark of night to watch him die, without any problem at all.

  Chris took the phone off speaker and handed it back to Amé. Despite the Spanish he’d been studying, he’d never be able to guide someone out to the Far Six.

  “Tell him what he needs to know,” he said to Amé. “I want to finish this.”

  But Chris had a gut instinct that the voice on the phone would find them without any trouble at all.

  SIXTY-ONE

  After the call, America followed Danny out to the porch, pulling him back by the arm.

  “I do not want you to do this. You do not have to do this. Please listen to me . . .”

  He looked down at her arm, holding him back. “You know, it’s weird. I haven’t been sleeping well, not for days. But not because of this, not about Fox Uno. It’s been all these bad dreams about my time in Afghanistan. They just started up, out of nowhere. They’ve been getting worse. I don’t why. Why now?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Mostly about this place called Rumnar, a tiny village. We were ordered to conduct a search-and-clear mission there, only one day after one of the guys in our unit stepped on an IED. Blew himself all to pieces. It’s not like that had never happened before, or never happened after, but that one day . . . sometimes it only takes one day, right? Anyway, we were convinced that someone in Rumnar had planted that device. We finally had someone to blame, or thought we did. It was a bad time, a bad place, and the only thing that mattered was making sure that the man next to you got out alive.”

  “Danny . . .”

  He smiled at her, sad. “When this is all over, I think I need to talk to someone about what happened there. About my dreams.”

  “That’s good. We can do that together.”

  His smile broadened, almost real. “Sounds like a date. I’ve really been meaning to ask you out, you know, officially.” He looked past her, back through the open door of the house, the smile now faded, gone. “I hope this all goes fine, and this guy with the red shirt shows up with your mother and Fox Uno gets whatever the hell it is that he wants, and he walks out of your life and the Big Bend forever. But if it doesn’t go that way, then you want me doing exactly what I’m doing right now. Because if I don’t, you and the sheriff will die. I wouldn’t let that happen over there, I’m not going to let it happen here.”

  She searched his face for some different answer. He understood her far better than he even knew, and although there was more she could say, more she wanted to say, there was nothing that would ever change his mind.

  They stood silent together, the air around them hot and still, like the entire world was holding its breath. It drew them together like gravity. Clouds bunched around the distant mountains, cool shadows that might never reach them, because on a day darkened by threats, rain wasn’t one of them.

  He put down his guns and his bags, but not before reaching into one and pulling out her silver gun, the one Fox Uno had sent to her. She didn’t want to take it, touch it, but he pulled her to him, into him, and slipped the gun into the back of her jeans.

  He understood her far better than he even knew.

  “You forgot this. I brought it for you, thought you might want it one last time. No matter what happens, this all ends here.”

  She let him hold her . . . and held him back, just as she had in the dark outside her apartment, when he first said to her: I’m going to do whatever you want me to, whatever I have to do, so you’re never hurt again. I thought you knew that. Goddammit, I’ll do anything. I’ll go all the way to the end of the world.

  This time was different, though, in every way that it could be.

  She tried to ignore the weight of the gun at her back, lost beneath a huge blue sky that went on forever and ever.

  To the end of the world.

  “I—” she started, but just like he had with the sheriff, he finished for her.

  “I know,” he said. And then he kissed her.

  It was quick, fleeting. She wasn’t expecting it, and maybe Danny wasn’t, either. He looked surprised, and when she waited for him to do it again . . . when she wanted him to do it again . . . he didn’t.

  He picked up his guns instead.

  “I’ll see you later,” he said. “Don’t forget our date.”

  Then he walked off the porch and into the desert.

  PART FOUR

  BAJADORES

  SIXTY-TWO

  The problem between Johnnie and Danny Ford had started eight months before, not too long after Danny had been hired on by the Big Bend Sheriff’s Department. Johnnie didn’t know anything then about Danny’s time with Texas DPS—how he’d been some hot-shit undercover detective for them—or about his years in the army. To Johnnie, he was just another wet-behind-the-ears cowpoke deputy, and fuckers like that were a dime a dozen.

  More brawn than brains, and other than the Tejas unit, the sort of guy Johnnie had pushed around for years.

  It happened during Operation Violent Tide, a U.S. Marshals nationwide operation. The marshals staged the big fugitive sweep every year, spending a solid week rounding up pervos and murderers and arsonists and other fine upstanding citizens. They always asked for local support, so it had become a lucrative gig for Johnnie and his crew, who spread out around Terrell County and for a small fee let some of the likely targets know that shit was rolling downhill and they needed to get out of its way (and out of town) for a while. They didn’t extend the early-warning courtesy to everyone, only those who had the means to buy their way out of the misery. In fact, Johnnie needed some of those guys out and walking around, because they made good snitches and fences for the dope he ripped off. But his boys had always made a fine show of it anyway, busting doors and heads for a few days with the federal government’s blessing. It always got them in the paper—trophy pictures—and his daddy liked that.

  This year’s Violent Tide preoperation briefing was at a Texas Army National Guard armory up in Crockett, and that’s where Johnnie ran into Danny Ford. Part of the briefing was given by a young female U.S. marshal, a pretty thing who in the right light reminded Johnnie of Rae, and he made some jokes about that very fact with the other members of the Tejas unit who were there with him—Ortiz and Ringo. Danny, who was sitting behind them, heard it all, and took exception, and said as much in the parking lot afterward as the briefing was breaking up.

  At first, Johnnie figured the guy was just fucking with him and was about ready to crack a few jokes of his own about that fine bitch. But it was soon clear Deputy Danny Ford saw himself as some sort of Boy Scout, a real knight in shining armor, and he was definitely most serious about the issue, leaving Johnnie no choice but to laugh it off and tell him—loudly and right to his face—to go fuck himself. He didn’t need the opinions or approval of some shit-heel dep
uty out of the Big Bend.

  That might have been the end of it, but Ringo somehow did know who Danny Ford was, or at least some of his history. Danny had done all that undercover with DPS on those skinhead gangs popping up all over Texas—real shaved-head, cross-burning, red-bootlace stuff—and Ringo made a crack that Danny’s true beef was that he didn’t like Mex-ee-cans talking about white women. Specifically, he didn’t like Mexicans fucking white women. Ringo said it was a goddamn racial thing . . . racial profiling . . . and then laughed and pushed Danny out of their way.

  If he’d only kept his goddamn hands to himself.

  Things went downhill fast from there, fast enough that Ringo was on his back before anyone could stop it. Danny did some sort of ninja army stuff, and then Ringo was looking straight up at him from the dirty pavement, breathing hard, blinking furiously. Ortiz, that goddamn pussy, took one big step away, not wanting to be a part of any of it, and Johnnie did the only thing he could think of in the moment . . .

  He drew his goddamn gun and pointed it at Deputy Danny Ford.

  It wasn’t the first time Johnnie had aimed a gun at another cop (and honestly, he knew even then, it probably wouldn’t be the last), but never in a public parking lot with dozens of other cops—federal and state—making their way to their cars. He wasn’t back in Terrell, and he wasn’t inside El Diablo Norte or some other shitty bar. Instead, he was standing across the street from a goddamn library, where Johnnie could see himself reflected in the big mirrored windows that ran along the front of it. All he could think of was a dozen people in there with cell phones, open books forgotten in front of them, filming it all. Filming him. It was ridiculous, and he knew how weak he looked, how weak Danny Ford had made him look—scared, drawing down on shadows. Danny knew Johnnie wasn’t going to shoot him right then and there, so he stared down the barrel, not blinking at all, daring Johnnie to do it anyway.